#and semi-good-artist who followed us over from Twitter! :D

[syn4k]

shoutout to the mutuals whom we have NO interests in common with and never talk to directly like, ever. hi

[thetorreediary]

The June 27th Post | A homage to Houston rap culture One Time For The Homie DJ Screw | A brief history of Chopped & Screwed music A pioneer of Houston rap music but also the creator and godfather of Chopped and Screwed music. Robert Earl Davis, Jr. aka DJ Screw started slowing down records in the early 90s. He began the Screwed Up Click (SUC) on the Southside of Houston, TX in 1990. The group consist of but is not limited to Big Moe, Lil Keke, Lil Flip, Big Pokey, Mike D, H.A.W.K., Lil-O, Clay Doe, 3-2 and Trae. The notable rap duo UGK (Underground Kings), formed in 1987 and consisting of Chris “Pimp C” Butler & Bernard “Bun B” Freeman, were SUC Affiliated. The click put out over 100 tapes, all produced by Screw, in 1998 alone.
Purple Drank is a popular substance cocktail, popularized by Houston rappers in the 90s. The drink consists of Promethazine and/or Codeine cough syrup mixed with alcohol and/or soda and/or juice. DJ Screw and SUC were avid users of the fusion drink. Unfortunately, the drink comes with lethal side effects such as rapid weight gain, slowed heart rate, loss of balance and addiction. The effects took a toll on Screws life and resulted in an overdose and ultimately his demise. Subsequently, Kenneth “Big Moe” Moore and Pimp C, died within months of each other due to sipping syrup combined with their own individual pre-existing conditions.
Since Screwed Up Records, DJ Screw’s recording studio and record shop were on the Southside the Northside felt the need to compete. So in 1997, Michael “5000” Watts and Ronald “OG Ron C” Coleman established Swishahouse, a record label. Watts was already picking up the slack right before Screw died because Screw had semi paused production due to his constant use of syrup. So naturally, Watts was up next for the Chopped and Screwed scene. Later, in 2011 OG Ron C & the ChopStars would go on to create Chop Not Slop where they essentially do what their predecessors did, make remixes of popular songs and albums where the tempo is slowed tremendously. Swishahouse consists of but is not limited to Slim Thug, Lil Mario, JDawg, Big Tiger, Big Pic, Lester Roy, Archie Lee, Mike Jones, and Lil Keke. If you notice, Lil Keke repped SUC but officially signed with Swishahouse after DJ Screw died. A very political yet sensible move. Big Moe | City of Syrup & Z-RO | Mo City Don My mom played City of Syrup the Chopped version so much when I was a child that I was under the impression that Big Moe was the only artist who sung in a low tone and occasionally would restart his songs by accident. Thankfully my family corrected me. Thus beginning my interest in Chopped and Screwed.
City of Syrup was Big Moe’s debut album and featured hits like “Barre Baby”, “Maan!” and “Freestyle (June 27)”. It featured many artists from Screwed Up Click such as Big Pokey, H.A.W.K., Lil-O, Tate Eyez, Mike D, DJ Screw and Z-RO.
The distance between Alexandria, LA, where my family is from, and Houston, TX is only a little over 200 miles. Most of Alexandria’s music, even to this day, is heavily influenced by Houston artists. So it’s very plausible that my mom’s music taste is influenced a lot by Houston because of where she grew up.
For the year of 2017, I lived in Houston and in more ways than one it was eye opening. I gained a whole new appreciation for music. I made a lot of forever connections so much so that my good friend Sarah, whom I met at work, ended up asking me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I humbly agreed. Fast forward to the wedding day and the entire wedding party is being transported to the reception via party bus. The groom has the AUX cord and he began to play a familiar tune. The whole bus began to sing in unison the lyrics to “Mo City Don” by Z-RO. I awed in wonder, wishing I too knew the lyrics. And then, just as the song is about to end, he shoutouts Lake Charles, Lafayette then my hometown of Alexandria. I had such a sense of pride in Alex at that moment. Houston Up-and-Coming Artists Spotlight | Megan Thee Stallion | Tobe Nwige | Té Allen | The H Town Hottie | Megan Thee Stallion Megan was born and raised in Houston, TX and she is the hottest female rapper out right now. The self-proclaimed “H Town Hottie” is hitting airwaves with her woman empowerment mantras and sexually liberating rhymes. At only 23 years old Megan is already topping charts all while being enrolled at Texas Southern University. My favorites of hers so far are as follows: “Running Up Freestyle”, “Big Poppa Freestyle”, “Big Ole Freak”, “Sex Talk”, “Shake That”, “Best You Ever Had” and “Stalli Freestyle”. ALL STREAMING SERVICES: Megan Thee Stallion
ALL SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLES | @theestallion #GetTwistedSundays | Tobe Nwigwe Actually hailing from Alief, TX, a subsection of Houston, Tobe Nwigwe is ahead of his time. With songs like “MURDER.”, where he flips Sister Nancy’s “Bam Bam” into a song all his own, and “RĖÂŁITY” where he flips Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” into a song about his reality growing up and present day. Tobe has a series on Youtube called Get Twisted Sunday’s. On the series, every week he recorded himself getting his hair either twisted or braided by his wife whilst premiering a new song. EVERY WEEK for months straight. His sound reminds me of the great Andre 3000, with his futuristic sound and originality. ALL STREAMING SERVICES & SOCIAL MEDIA HANDLE | @TobeNwigwe Birthday Cake | Té Allen Té Allen is an all-around star. Being born and raised in the south, his musical influences can be heard throughout his music. His first mixtape, Smooth Vibes (2015), was his breakthrough into the world of music. Since then, he has released a series of songs and an EP, Birthday Cake (2018). Interesting enough, the promo for Birthday Cake went viral. Té decided to put a rather embarrassing picture of himself as a child as the cover art and offered his audience $100 for the best roast of the picture. Needless to say, the cover was not only shared for laughs but was a genius way to promote his project. He is currently prepping for the release of his next project. The first single off his upcoming project, AIM Blue is accompanied with crisp visuals as per usual for Té. ALL STREAMING SERVICES |Té Allen
Instagram|Twitter| teallen3
Snapchat| lavonteallen3

[parisiansulfur]

How Not To Commit Art Theft

Because this is tumblr and people can’t read, I’m gonna start this entire post by saying this:

I DO NOT BELIEVE PEOPLE WHO COMMIT ART THEFT IN 2K18 ARE DOING SO MALICIOUSLY. I SINCERELY BELIEVE PEOPLE SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG, AND THAT NO ONE IS DOING THESE THINGS TO BE AN JERK OR BECAUSE THEY WANNA STEAL. 

Good? 

Read that again.

Alright, let’s move on.

So, art theft. People get accused of art theft a lot, especially now, especially on tumblr, especially in relationship to anime and manga fandom. Let’s talk about what is and what is not art theft.

In the past, art theft (especially on DeviantArt) was a thing where Person A would post an image, and Person B would trace it or color over it or do some other sort of manipulation to it (or not! people are crazy), then post it as original art. Someone would accuse Person B of art theft, Person B would argue that they changed the art significantly enough that it wasn’t theft (or not, who knows), and then there would be Drama.

This isn’t at all what I’m talking about.

Art theft in 2k18 is different than in 1998.

Art theft in 2k18 looks like this:

I’m using this as an example, and while I realize this looks like a callout post, it’s not meant to be a callout. But I need some sort of indication to show. No falsified example is going to show exactly what the problem is as clearly and precisely as something that is exactly the problem. (To point, I have tried, through multiple channels, to get in touch with the person from this blog, to no avail. So on we go.)

Let’s call this a teachable moment. Let’s call this a chance to be better. Let’s call this an example in a fandom that is, frankly, fraught with this kind of stuff. 

Let’s call this an explanation of why art theft is so prevalent and common that it can be hard to recognize.

Moving on.

“How is this Art Theft?” you demand.

Well, chitlins, gather round.

Here’s the source of the screenshot above:

http://grimtwin.tumblr.com/post/177119081910/summer-twins

Let’s look at this image. This is an image, posted on a blog that is not owned by the artist. The blue text underneath is a text, which leads here: 

https://twitter.com/yuyu_hamu86/status/1021016848622481409

If you click on that, you can go to the artist’s twitter page, with the image: 

So how is posting a picture on tumblr art theft? 

First, let’s talk about what was done.

The person who posted this on tumblr went onto this twitter page, downloaded/saved the image, then went back to Tumblr, uploaded it, posted a link with the translated name beneath (the artist’s name is NOT in the link), added some tags (including the artist’s twitter handle as a tag), and posted it.

Now, let’s talk about what this means. As of this posting, the tumblr post has 1310 notes. The artist’s post, on twitter (this particular artist also has a pixiv account, but this image was not posted there) has 563 retweets, and 1643 likes, for a combined total notes of 2206 notes. 

The tumblr page has 1310 notes that the actual artist will never see.

“So what?” you might say. “It’s exposure, and there’s a link to their twitter. What’s the problem?” 

Well, for starters, don’t just decide for someone else what they want and don’t want. Artists who want their art shared are pretty vocal about it, but for the most part, most artists clearly state: Do not reupload onto other sites. Most image sharing sites like Pixiv (a closed service, meaning you need to have an account, agree to the Terms of Service, and be logged in to view images) clearly have it in said Terms of Service to not do exactly what was done above, to the point that Pixiv has it as the second point in a highlighted section at the very top of their Terms of Service that you must not repost an artist’s work without permission:

So even if you willfully ignore both the will of the hosting site and the requests of the artist, even if the art is posted somewhere without a terms of service, and even if the artist doesn’t explicitly say 'please don’t reupload my art elsewhere,’ the best policy is to move in respect for the artists, and understand that if they wanted their art on other sites, they would post them there themselves.

And also, since you really should want to ask permission in the spirit of like, you know, the kind of consent we’re always going on about on this site, you can always ask the artist.

Here’s a really great breakdown on why asking the artist matters.

Please also understand that fandom is not monolith. Just because YOU don’t mind exposure doesn’t mean someone else feels the same way. Just because your friends don’t mind exposure doesn’t mean someone else feels the same way.

Anecdotal: I had a eastern-fandom friend whose family found out she drew BL doujinshi semi-professionally. She was outed, and she was kicked out of her house, lost support from her family and close friends, and basically had her life ruined for a good chunk of years because of it. There are still consequences to this, despite it having happened some fifteen years ago.

Anecdotal: I have several fandom friends have their work shared onto sites like Facebook and Tumblr, where they’re found by people they work with/family, to the point that they’ve left fandom altogether because the risks were too great.

“But Paris, the person above put a source, a link to the twitter where they found the art!!! You’re just splitting hairs!” you say. “The artist is still getting credit! Don’t be a bully!”

Nah, boo. I’m not being a bully. I’m trying to educate you, darling.

What you have to keep in mind is that even by putting a source, you’re still committing art theft, because you are taking away the ability to choose where an artist puts their art.

“But Paris, like, what about unsourced art in like museums?! Are you saying we shouldn’t put anything in museums if we don’t have the artist’s permission?” 

Listen, I can’t believe I’m honoring this absolute garbage with a response, but you and I both know there’s a huge difference between a piece of art from a lost artist, and an artist publicly asking for their art to remain under their control, and people deciding to ignore them.

“But Paris, you big old jerk,” you ask, "how can I have pretty things on my tumblr if I don’t just download art and post it?”

Well, one of two ways:

1) You can contact the artist and ask permission to post. Here’s some cute templates for how to do so. If you don’t like these, there are others, or, you know, you can use Google Translate. It’s not hard, and even if it was hard, that’s not an excuse. You can even reach out to people like me or other multilingual people to help you if you aren’t comfortable trying to contact them in English.

"But what if the artist says no because they’re a giant meanie who doesn’t want free exposure?"

2) The second way you can keep your blog full of pretty shiny things is by linking to the image properly. On tumblr, when you link to things, an image shows up. For example, if I copy the above twitter link and post it as a twitter link here in tumblr, I get the following:

This allows the very cute art to appear on my blog, without having to going out of my way. Anyone who clicks on it will go directly to the twitter page, and it includes the artist’s name as the primary part of the caption.

If the link is from pixiv, it looks like this:

(Please notice how Pixiv has been so fraught with art theft that at this point, they have an automatic filter that appears on the art itself, with a hard link to the image and the artist on the bottom right. This is because art theft is a huge problem.)

We have an obligation to the artists who enrich our fandom lives with their beautiful, beautiful porn art, to treat their works with respect. We can respect the wishes of the artists for the totally selfish reason of wanting to encourage them to make more art, but it should be enough to say we don’t want to be assholes. I mean, it’s simple niceness, people. I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

If someone says, “Please don’t repost my art,” don’t repost their art. If a site says, “Please don’t repost the art found here,” don’t repost the art. Simple mathematics, kids.

“But Paaaaaaaaris!” you wail. “What am I supposed to do when I come upon stolen art on my feed? I wanna reblob it! :C And since I’m not the one who posted it originally, it’s totally okay to just reblob it, right? :D Right?”

Well, darling, you have a choice. You can just hit that big ol’ reblog button and continue to perpetuate the same issues I’ve rather clearly delineated above. OR YOU CAN FOLLOW THE GUIDE ABOVE AND MAKE A NEW POST. For example, let’s say I really like the “Summer Twins” image above. I could just hit reblog and move on with my life, who cares, la-dee-da, or I could go to the source, and post a link from there. 

The choice is yours, fandom. It’s all about the kind of world you want to surround yourself with. If you want to be a person who treats others with respect, you shouldn’t repost or post stolen art. If you want to be a person who is a credit to the fandom, follow the guides above, educate yourself, and make changes to the way you interact with content.

IN CONCLUSION, I WILL RESTATE MY THESIS: NO ONE WHO IS COMMITTING ART THEFT IN THIS WAY IS DOING SO TO BE A JERK. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG. BUT KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, AND WE SHOULD ALL STRIVE TO KNOW BETTER.

DON’T STEAL ART.

DON’T REPOST STOLEN ART.

More reading, because I know y’all love to read:

http://raspomme.tumblr.com/post/68028153710 http://raspomme.tumblr.com/post/69226532697 http://chocoleeto.tumblr.com/reposts

And sources that can help you find out where that stolen art is from:

https://saucenao.com/ https://www.tineye.com/

Thanks, and my inbox is open, and ready for hate. 😘

[attract-mode-collective]

Exactly 79 Photos & Videos Concerning The Game Boy (plus other handhelds)

So... hope you’ve all been following me on Twitter, which is more or less the unofficial new home for Attract Mode. Mostly cuz Tumblr’s days are, alas, numbers, plus I haven’t warmed up to Medium as much as I had hoped to. Though I’ve actually spent the past two months republishing every single post that contains mainline Game Culture Snapshots, so it has remained somewhat useful at least.

Now, for a while there, I had been compiling every single thing tweeted. But because I’m now so damn active on that end… plus I’m busier than ever with other projects… I’m way behind with those digest posts, and the very idea of playing catch up legit gives me anxiety. Yet I have been sharing lots of cool things, which all deserve to be in the blog proper… and because a lot of them are specific to the Game Boy, I figure, why not just focus on that?

Like the above, which is a technique for producing full color photographs via the Game Boy Camera, and yet another thing that I can’t believe hasn’t made the rounds!

Sticking with Game Boy photography, here have a pair of mods that will greatly enhance picture quality. The first involves mounting SLR lens onto a Game Boy Camera (via ekeler.com)...

And the second has one shoving a Game Boy Camera into a SLR itself (via @MaxKriegerVG)...

As someone who was into video games as a kid, and also interested in photography, the Game Boy Camera was the first camera I was able to call my own. Am pretty sure this was the case for others as well?

I also remember seeing this ad in Nickelodeon Magazine (which I would eventually writer for, not too long later) and being absolutely gob smacked (via nintendroid.org)…

Though as much I loved Nintendo brand of FUNtography, I would quickly discover… as did everyone else I also assume… that taking pictures is serious business (via @PolandNintendo)…

Not only did I have a Game Boy Color, but I also had the Game Boy Printer (I still own both, for the record). Unfortunately my snapshots from Link’s Awakening have long since faded, but as with many things, you can find copies online (via gameandgraphics.com)…

Speaking of the world of print, coming soon is a handy guide to Nintendo handy game machine (via miki800.com)…

That one magazine ad featuring Princess Peach catch your eye as well? Well here’s a much better look at it (via suppermariobroth)…

I love handheld gadgets of all kinds, yet some of the popular ones confuse me. Like Hudson’s Shooting Watch; it makes no sense to have a gadget that can detect button presses without a game attached. Guess I’m not alone (via instagram.com/kazzycom)…

A realization I made while sifting through Game Boy related content is how popular the color yellow is with many. Cuz Pokemon? Anyhow, the final post from a blog that specializes in gorgeous photographs of gorgeous hardware, which I just brought up again very recently (via hard-aware)…

How your parents used to trade Pokemans online (via melonjaywalk)…

And no, Game Boys weren't the only things that one could connect to keitais ya know. And yes, Game Boys aren’t the only portables I’ll be showcasing (via anthony10000000)…

I own quite a few VMUs and am always looking to expand my collection… but nothing yellow, sorry. Instead, I want the one covered with dolphins (via anthony10000000)…

So my new favorites artist is Eri Kitamura, and not just cuz she makes pretty looking Game Boys…

She also makes pretty looking girls playing Game Boys (well, this one is technically listening to music)…

Was originally going to post the first thing from Eri that caught my eye, which is a Game Boy with a girl on it, but instead here’s a Game Boy with a girl on it playing a Game Boy…

Time for two more videos from the same individual responsible with the process for producing color photographs at the very top. And it’s what everyone has been waiting… specifically the backlit Game Boy Color mod everyone has been waiting for.

The process is detailed in this two-part video, and here’s the first one (it’s about 50 minutes long cuz spoilers: this shit ain’t easy)…

And here’s part two, which is ONLY 40-ish minutes long…

The author of the videos actually has a store, so if the process seems a bit too daunting, you can purchase a pre-modded unit for $250. Actually, this one is $260, cuz of the dual shells. Quite the price tag, yet somehow totally worth it (via instagram.com/esotericmods)…

Now might be a good time to mention how… remember that GBA with the GameCube finish from eBay a few months back? Well, I decided to get the one that resembles a Super Famicom, something I’ve been lusting over for years.

Well, here’s what the aforementioned seller had in his listing…

And this is what I got instead…

Yeah, that green shoulder button is not the right shade. After some complaining, I got the seller to admit that the one in the picture was hand painted; he didn’t know where it get ones that it’s exact color as on a Super Fami controller.

He also had a no refund policy, yet I bitched & moaned enough to warrant an exchange, for another Cube-esque model, one sans the stick. Cuz it’s comparatively boring to look at, here’s a version with the stick…

Again, mine just has the standard d-pad. As for my replacement… the colors of the A & B buttons are not an exact match, once again. But it’s close enough (am mostly just sick of dealing with that guy, aka johnnys_merchandise, whom you should all avoid btw), plus I have started to scour AliExpress for replacements.

BTW, my failure to obtain a modded handheld that channels another form of hardware has me wondering if I should go for something completely different instead (via instagram.com/wakuwakuisland)…

Up in the mountains, flower bloom amongst Game Boys & Game Boy Colors, whereas deep in the forest, you’ll find mushrooms and Game Boy Advances (via pxchinko)…

Some say memories are fuzzy, though for others, they're leafy (via lyosphe)…

I’ve looked all over for tinycartridge's original post, but no luck, so you can all instead have my personal copy of the earthy wallpaper that was shared years ago (and which I still to this very day)...

The Game Boy Micro, DS, and DS Lite are like family, and like siblings, there can the occasional squabble (via benkyo-es)…

@frankcifaldi: When I met this guy in 2003 and he told me he was going to make an extensive fan site about the Supervision, a Taiwanese Game Boy knockoff, I was like "sure dude." 15 years later he actually launched the thing??

Meanwhile, the Game & Watch Perfect Catalogue just came out, with the full low down on all 59 models. BTW, had no idea there were 59 in total until @ionadisco mentioned it…

How Game & Watches were sold in America; I fondly recalls this ad in-between the pages of Amazing/Spectacular/Web of Spider-Man (via suppermariobroth)…

And how Game Boys were sold in Japan, one day one apparently, which would explain this salesperson’s rather perplexed demeanor (via flashbak.com)…

Silly as it sounds, and as silly as he looks, the US version of Firebrand is nonetheless a warm & welcoming face from my childhood (via nintendometro)...

Mario dropping a knowledge bomb (via suppermariobroth)…

Here’s Peach seemingly kicking Toad’s ass in Super Mario Bros Deluxe, which I’ve been meaning to tweet for a while now, but now seems like the right time & place for obvious reasons (via nintendometro)…

A cute comic about someone finally beating a game after ten years, or at least I believe that's the case (you know, language barrier and all; via @desune593)

Sailor Moon seems to enjoy handheld gaming more so than in the arcades (via uglygreenjacket)…

It saddens me that ravages of time is robbing me of my precious memories, including the names of 90s anime, hence why I had to ask on Twitter who exactly is this (answer was Tenchi Muyo; via shxtfased)...

It’s SethEverman, just playing some pokemon blue…

Speaking of music, it again saddens me that I wasn’t about to make the trip to Japan to catch chiptunes at Square Sounds, and various associated venues. At least @bit_shifter_ took this great snapshot of Glomag at Cyberpunks Osaka…

Meanwhile, here in NYC, we actually still have record stores. And you can grab Josh’s latest release, his first in 12 years(!) at Rough Trade (via bit-shifter)…

Though back to Japan; attended Square Sounds would have also afforded me the chance to check out Tokyo Game Show, where I could have gotten that VMU shaped USB drive that was being sold at the Sega booth (via miki800)…

A few weeks before TGS, there was an earthquake in Japan, in northern island Hokkaido. Many were left without power, but one person was able to keep up with the news, thanks to an old DS peripheral that basically provides bunny ears (via kotaku.com)…

On a semi-related note, here’s someone watching old ECW VHS tapes on their Game Gear (via heavyelectricity)…

Sorry, but the only other thing I have that’s related to Sega’s Master System on the go is this gif from a pizza ranch salad dressing (yikes) commercial, which was cross-promoting Sonic Chaos (via sonicthehedgeblog)...

I have no idea why I'm so amused by this Getty Image of a Neo Geo Pocket that was confiscated at summer camp. Or perhaps no explanation is needed? (via hellomrkearns)…

Speaking of the Great Outdoors, here’s my buddy Steve enjoying some Mario Kart 8 in the middle of a forest (via instagram.com/vitaminsteve)…

And speaking of Mario Kart on the Switch, Bowser seems like a pretty cool dood to have a car trip (via suppermariobroth)…

The Switch is so beloved that people are doing fan art, not for any particular game but the simple the act of playing with it (via annazees)…

Granted, one of the best things about the Switch is all the different ways in which one can play (via kanekoshake)…

If you enjoy your Switch on the go and are looking for a way to store games… and are a diehard Breath of the Wild fan as well… plus if you have access to a 3D printer (via miki800.com)…

It’s a tribute to Star Wars… games… all of them… featuring Princess Leia focused on her DMG (via deviantart.com/robduenas)...

BTW, do you still have your Game Boy? If not, here ya go (via anthony10000000)…

When the realization hits that your Game Boy Color library is incomplete (via @Bootleg_Stuff)…

Back to my buddy Steve, who visited the Primark at the Staten Island mall and took pics of the game related apparel that, sadly, were no longer in stock by the time I was able to swing by. With the one thing I really wanted being this shirt…

This pair of Super Mario Land X Air Jordans is only $1,350.00 (via miki800.com)…

I’m sure you’ve seen him already, but for the sake of completion, here’s that grandpa from who rigged this bike with 11 phones to become a Pokemon Go master (via bbc.com)…

Yet another sign of our times, literally (via fuckdragonballz)…

This image features a PSP and a MacBook, both of which are from the mid-2000s, yet feels very late 1990s/early 2000s. Why? Those USB cables (via jcgraphix)…

And last but not least, here’s Paris Hilton with her DS in 2005 (via @ParisHilton)…

[aion-rsa]

The Year of Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey

https://ift.tt/35jmN0t

Amanda Conner tells us all about the new Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey series coming from DC.

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It is Harley Quinn’s mad, mad, mad, mad world, and now the Birds of Prey are just living in it. Such is the case with Harley Quinn And The Birds of Prey, the four-issue DC miniseries launching in Feb. 2020 from the creative team of writer/artist Amanda Conner and writer Jimmy Palmiotti.

Announced last week at New York Comic Con, the upcoming title is a sequel to Conner/Palmiotti’s four-year bestselling run on the standalone Harley Quinn book, and coincides with the release of the live-action film Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). However, the book is not tied to the movie’s plot. Instead, it is a 32-page DC Black Label book for ages 17 and older, a “mature readers” approach that’s similar to the Harley Quinn animated series on the DC Universe, which debuts next month.

Conner and Palmiotti’s work has made the largest impact on Harley since she was first introduced in 1993’s Batman: The Animated Series (co-created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm). Over the years, she has evolved into an antihero who escaped the abusive relationship and emerged from the character shadow of the Joker.  Set in both Gotham City and Harley’s adopted home of Coney Island, the miniseries sees Harley moving on with her life when she learns her psychotic ex has placed a $10 million bounty on her head -- causing Gotham’s nastiest rogues to hunt her down. Enlisting the help of Black Canary, Cassandra Cain (aka Batgirl), Renee Montoya, and the Huntress, Harley and these Birds of Prey will flock together to find out why the Clown Prince of Crime is out to get Ms. Quinn.

“She's really gotten on the Joker's nerves,” Palmiotti told Den of Geek. “He's not in a place to take her down, and he does a lot of manipulating to get everyone in Arkham pretty much after her.” Although he adds the miniseries, which is still being written, will step “outside the outline.”

Following the NYCC announcement of the new book, Amanda Conner joined Den of Geek for a chat to discuss the joy of returning to the mad world of Harley Quinn.

Den of Geek: How has Harley evolved since you last wrote her?

Amanda Conner: What I'm glad about is that everybody has grasped the theme of Harley going out on her own, being a free girl, not being beholden to the Joker and other people of Gotham or Batman. They're still in her universe, but she's not being bossed around by them or being emotionally whipped by them. And this book is just going to be her discovering a new set of people to torment and torture and vex.

How did these characters that are already established, and independent in their own right, work with Harley? Is Harley the leader of the Birds of Prey now?

She's not so much a leader, but a black hole that pulls people into her gravitational well. People get sucked into her world, whether they like it or not. It is not so much a leader thing; she just sort of sucks you in, and you can't really help it. That's how she's going to be involved with the Birds of Prey.

What character is most interesting for Harley to bounce off of? When I was looking at this lineup, I couldn't decide who I was most excited to see -- probably Montoya, because of law and order versus chaos.

At first, I was thinking it was going to be Montoya, but now I'm starting to think that Cassandra is going to be a little bit more of an interesting foil for Harley. Usually Harley is the one that drives everybody nuts, but Cass is going to drive Harley a little bit nuts, so that'll be a nice shift. It is going to be interesting to see how the two of them work together -- or don't work together.

read more: What Tom King's Final Batman Issues Would Have Been About

Your artwork impacted the look of Harley so much, and introduced now-iconic looks. So have you made additional tweaks to the character designs?

We're going to do more of Harley changing up her costume. That's one of the things that we introduced we didn't realize was going to be so successful: Harley changing it up all the time. You could change her costume, and you can always reckon, "Oh, that's Harley and she's wearing this outfit." She's just instantly recognizable so she can get away with that. And, I always say this at panels, "What girl do you know that has one outfit in their closet?"

Can you say anything about those updates?

You know what, I can't because I haven't started drawing it yet! But Jimmy and I were just talking about it in a very, very long taxi ride (it was like the forever-to-go-one-mile taxi ride to the con).

Speaking of Jimmy, even though it hasn’t been that long since you stepped away from Harley in 2018, has it been easy to slip back into that world?

Yeah, it is. Because she's such a fun character. I thought it was going to be hard for me to change gears, but it's like a gear that I could just slip right into very easily. There's two DC characters that they're like comfortable slippers to me, and Harley is one of them.

How prominent of a role will Harley’s girlfriend Ivy be in the book?

We're not sure yet, but yeah, we're going to put her in.

When we have this new Harley limited series coming out, and we have the animated series, and then the live-action movie coming up -- and then we'll have another Suicide Squad movie down the road. How do you think this much Harley is going to impact pop culture as a whole?

It feels like it's going to be the year of Harley. I can't predict, but it certainly feels like it's going to be the year of Harley. People aren't going to not love that cartoon, that cartoon's great. It's really good. I think people are going to love the Birds of Prey movie.

read more: New DC Universe Timeline Revealed

But why does she translate so well across media?

She's a great character. You have movies that have superhero characters in them, and some of them are so iconic that they can't show their imperfections, or you can't take them out of their very strict personalities. But, with Harley, you can do that. You can pretty much do anything with her. I think it's going to free up superhero movies and all sorts of media in a way that it hasn't been done before, and I think it's going to be really good to see female characters. Usually we see them, they're sort of bunched in with a group, the superhero group. But with Harley Quinn now, she's still in a group, but it's with a bunch of female superheroes. Or semi-heroes.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview Aaron Sagers

Oct 9, 2019

DC Entertainment

Harley Quinn

Birds Of Prey

NYCC

NYCC 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/2AWF6e1

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Inkbox.$275k Kickstarter Launch.$14.1m Total Raised.Semi-Permanent Tattoos.For thousands of years tribes across South America have used a special fruit to dye their skin. Tyler Handley and his brother Braden Handley brought the fruit further north and created Inkbox. Their technology makes the ink easy to apply and the brothers work with top artists to create their designs. After launching on kickstarter and raising $275k, they managed to lose money. It didn't matter however as they proved the business idea was more than just a "Temporary Bad Decision" - NathanPrior to Inkbox had you started any companies and then what led you to create Inkbox?Yeah, I started a company before Inkbox called Blurbi, a social contact marketplace. We saw this gap in the market where brands that had multiple sub-brands who wanted to be on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram didn't really have the resources internally to create content. So we matched them with a network of freelance copywriters, graphic designers and general content creators that they could work with.It was my first business and I think we got the model wrong. It was on a pay per use model, and it turned into more of an agency, which is not something I wanted. So while was doing that I had the idea for Inkbox.So once you had the idea, how did you make it reality? Did you immediately go for funding? Did you look for partnerships? Did you create a founding team? What was step one?So step one with any business is that you obviously do a bunch of research first and then you just start testing the waters. You ask a bunch of people that you trust whose opinion you trust and see if they think it's a good idea as well. Fortunately, by that time I had met some pretty smart people through the tech ecosystem here in Toronto. They gave me some good feedback and thought it was actually a great idea. Then I started asking people who would actually use it if they thought it was a good idea and they liked it too. So you want to confirm your own intuition and then I think once you confirm it to some extent you actually think about starting.Inkbox founders - Tyler Handley and Braden HandleySo my brother and I went in together. We've always wanted to work together on something which made it a pretty easy decision to start out together. We didn't even have product yet, the first thing we did was actually just start getting the word out there about what we were doing. We started an Instagram account and started posting a bunch of content and I think we had 3,000 or 4,000 followers by the time we launched the product and that helped us drive a little revenue. Then we realized that the product we had wasn't good enough and that we needed to develop a more scalable consumer product. So we commissioned some chemists to work with us and they ended up ideating this new version of the product that allowed us to create consumer friendly product at scale.At that time we had no access to capital. We didn't know any investors, we had no family money, none of our friends had money, we were all poor. So we did a bunch of research and realized that our only approach could be Kickstarter. So we created a Kickstarter campaign and we wanted to raise $20,000 and we ended up raising to $275,000 which gave us the early capital to at least figure out how to manufacture the product at scale. We then leveraged that to raise financing. The beauty of Kickstarter for us was that we had like 7,000 backers, it wasn't just the fact that we be that we've got pledged $275,000. It was that we validated that there was demand for this product. That validation allowed us to go to investors or traditional institutional investors and be like, "hey, people are obviously interested in this, we just need more capital. We need to go and get this off the ground and start getting in front of more people."Was the Kickstarter profitable for you?Yeah, we lost a little bit on Kickstarter. I think it's pretty common for a first time Kickstarter campaign creators to lose a bit of money. We didn't know what we're doing. We didn't know that there'd be really high tooling costs for the machinery we'd need. The investment in minimum order quantities was a lot higher than we were looking to spend we didn't charge enough for shipping. It was the combination of all those things together that actually had us losing money. We didn't lose too much but it was definitely a little deflating to put all that work in and then to see it not actually drive any profits for you.So you found the dye from a South American fruit? How did you go from finding this fruit that dies skin to being able to put that on people's skin in the United States? Were there regulatory challenges?I mean, there's not a lot of regulations in the space. It's kind of a blessing and a curse for the general public that you can get products quick-to-market because the FDA, for example, doesn't regulate cosmetic products. It's all about lawsuits. So you have to protect yourself legally and make sure that you're abiding by cosmetic industry standard testing and of course we did that. Beyond that, no, there's really no regulation.So the process was getting chemists involved, figuring out how to extract the active molecule and then figuring out how to integrate that into some sort of applicator. And that was really the tricky part, you're not just creating a new product that people know how to use, it's a completely different method of applying a product and then looking after it.The Inkbox TeamWe didn't do this enough at the start but we’re now doing user testing with consumers at every step of the R&D journey to make sure that all our variables are in check for application and success.We’re building a new product at the moment and this one took us a lot longer. It's a lot more sophisticated and we learned from our previous mistakes. This time around the content and design thinking have been user tested. In addition, the way those two are applied together has been so critical in the development of this product. Because again, the application method is changing a bit and how do we tell consumers that? Is it through texts? How many images do you use? Do you link them to the video up front? Are people going to use the video? What do they want to see in the video? Are they concerned about the packaging? How it's being presented to them? When it's a new product there's all these considerations that a more typical product, like a cosmetic eyeliner or something has gone through iterations for decades from many different countries to come up with the optimal usage and packaging, things like that. For us it's about having to do it from scratch every time.I see you have a patent for the applicator.  Did it help you raise capital and how has it protected you from competition?It's a question that investors always ask. It's always one of the first question. Revenue matters, but so does defensibility and investors will always ask in the first meeting, how is this defensible and obviously we have patents on the product.Patents, are defensible to an extent. I think now we're focused on defensibility beyond just patents. Creating moats that are more about community and network. I think those will be stronger over longer periods of time. But yeah, it definitely helps you raise money when you have patents. It just looks more professional too. The fact that you can come with something that's been approved by the US government. There’s something about having that seal of approval definitely lends some sort of credibility to what you're working on. You do have to work to get one. If you want to actually write a good patent, you have to work with a good patent lawyer. So that definitely helps.But a patent can only protect you so far. There's always ways around patents I think, but they definitely, just in our opinion and in our experience, dissuade less sophisticated competitors in the market. If you're like a first time or second time entrepreneur and you don't really know what you're doing but you think there's a market here and you want to get in on it, but you see we have patents. You're just like, "F**k, I don't want to deal with that." If we didn't have a patent, they might be like, "Okay, there's an opportunity here - I can go and nibble away at the edges of what they're doing or something."So I think it's definitely dissuaded the less sophisticated entrepreneurs. But I imagine that if a larger conglomerate or a larger company or a super sophisticated team came along and worked on it, they might be able to find some way around some part of the patents. Of course we'd go after them and see what happens. But it's always risky to create a business when you have a lawsuit hanging over your head immediately from the get go. So I think it definitely dissuades people.You've worked with a lot of celebrities for endorsements and also worked with or partnered with people like the NBA and there's been various other partnerships. Do you see sales spikes on these or are they more about awareness?More about awareness. The NBA collection was a bit more of a sales driver, but again, I think more about awareness. The NBA was our first licensed deal, so we treated it as a test run for future ones, we didn't really put too much weight behind it to be honest. It was pretty convenient for us to do. The Stranger Things and the TV shows and movies that used Inkbox, there's no partnership there. It's literally just the makeup department using Inkbox because it makes sense for the production, but it's just cool national exposure for us.To be frank I think the coolest part is just for the team here at the company to be able to see something that they put their blood, sweat and tears into on a TV show that they would be naturally watching anyways. That's always rewarding.You recently rebranded or changed your brand colors from black to yellow. What effect has that had, if any?Brand is tough. We weren't expecting any sort of change immediately, we call it a brand elevation and it wasn't just a cosmetic, it was actually very deep. So our messaging changed, our positioning has changed slightly. We really went back to the drawing board and talked to a bunch of consumers about what Inkbox means to them, how it fits into their lives and built the new brand off of that. You can see what it is, it's now yellow, it's quite bold and distinct and there's a lot of emotion and fluidity to it.When we launched the new website with the new branding, we ran it first, to a segment of about 10% of visitors to make sure that it wasn't affecting conversions at all.I mean, it would be nice if it positively affected conversions but then we saw no difference. So after about a week of doing that, we flipped the switch, put it live and it didn't really have much of an impact, but weren't expecting it to immediately. I think brand takes time because you have to understand and feel what it is. A lot of those changes for the deeper pieces are coming later at the same time as we’re launching our new product - in a few months.So when that's out in the market then the brand will start to feel very real, very different and we’re expecting to see some impact. The way we measure that is by taking baselines from now and a year ago - we have to make sure that we have a really representative baseline to compare the rebranded site experience to.Are the real life shops you have profitable more for branding?It's profitable, but the aim of it is not to drive significant amounts of revenue yet. That first one is exploratory but it's going well and I'm looking to expand more markets now and those would be revenue drivers and so when we're thinking about retail, we're not thinking about just a store. No, it's an experience and it's integrated across everything else we do.We're not just looking at this in terms store sales, we're looking at the indirect sales locally in that market too. So our first stores here in Toronto and we're looking at the traffic that the store is driving. The storefront itself is like bold and yellow. It's pretty easy to spot. For us, especially in our hometown, a lot of people have heard of Inkbox and they've seen our Instagram ads a couple of times maybe so they had like a passing awareness of it, but not a real strong brand affinity or brand awareness.A store makes things feel real. You pass by it in person, it's like, “Oh this is legitimate! This is real, I can trust this.” I might go in and check it out, and then they come in and it's just completely branded experience and environment that brings so much more to the table than just a website visit can. It's a lot more personal and I think that's where a lot of power of retail comes in and why a lot of Gen Z consumers are increasingly shopping in real life rather than online, which is always a surprising thing to me.In the shop, how does the experience differ to the online one? Are there certain lines that you push? Do you have artists in there doing freehand and what are the costs associated? Are they the same or are they more expensive to get someone to apply it for you?Yeah. The costs are very similar. The experience is quite a bit different because you're not browsing 4,000 designs like you would on our website. We have a curated selection of around 300 designs in store. When you’re looking at a phone, you have a limited screen size. But when everything's just laid out in front of you, it's a lot easier to find what you're looking for, so it's a nicer browsing experience in that respect.Then we have Instagram moments in there so you can go in and take some cool photos and really feel the brand in a way that you wouldn't online because it can’t surround you in the same way a physical space can.So I see that you’re ranking well on keywords for temporary tattoos and things like that. How did you achieve those top spots there? And then what, what are the other significant drivers? Do you use Facebook, Instagram etc... What channel is working best?Yeah. So for us, the primary drivers of growth have typically been performance marketing and the associated word of mouth and the organic and return off that. So Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snap and we're experimenting with TicToc right now. Those all drive traffic and conversion to different extents and they all have different types of traffic that convert differently.We've done that holistically by putting people into the top of the funnel and then converting them somewhere later down the line through maybe email or a retargeting campaign, something like that. So that's been our primary driver of growth.In the future, retail will play a larger part of that and the associated indirect revenue from retail in local markets as well.In terms of SEO, for us it's never been a large driver of growth. I mean it's there and obviously contributes some revenue, but now we're searched more than temporary tattoos. It was pretty funny, three years into the company,( we're at almost four and a half now,) we looked at Google trends and then compared it to temporary tattoos and we're like, "Oh, okay way more people search for Inkbox now than they do temporary tattoos.” So we quickly surpassed the ability to drive a lot of traffic through search because we ended up outpacing it.For the Instagram and Facebook ads, are you making those in-house or are you working with agencies? How do you create the videos?Yeah, for our performance marketing on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, we do it all in house. We've only got in-house, we do work with representatives at some companies, but our creative team, performance marketing team and product team integrates with them as well.I saw you’re also selling on Amazon. Does that perform well for you or just bumbles over?Yeah it bumbles over. It's the same as the SEO thing. Just this week we surpassed the search volume on Amazon.What products are you working on at the moment? You mentioned a few minutes ago that there are product releases coming out soon. Are you able to share information on them?Yeah at a high level. We've been hard at work the past year on a next version of our product that’s  just effortless to apply. It enables an artist's artwork to be replicated exactly as drawn on the skin. We can't really be true to the artist's artwork to the extent that we want to be. The new product enables us to do that. It's really easy to apply as well. So that's the core development.We have some other products in the pipeline to. We're looking at things like color, always making it easier to apply, Making the tattoos last longer as well.I think a lot of the products improvement would be around education too because it is a new product and our challenge has always been that everybody and every body is unique. They're so unique and their skin is so unique. So creating a product that works great on everyone's skin is actually really challenging to do because no one's ever developed a technology that perfectly translates artwork into the skin.There’s tattoo machines, but that's an artist handling a needle and putting it in the skin which is very different from a consumer product that you just slap on. The absorbed ink has different effects and colours on everyone because everyone's skin maybe different thickness, different density and produce different amounts of sweat. Even the places they put the tattoos matter due to things like hydration of the skin. There's all these factors that play into how the tattoo will appear so it's been a challenge to develop one that can work for everyone. Part of that will be educating consumers on knowing that if you are a sweaty person that your application might differ slightly from someone who doesn't sweat a lot.On the point you were saying about color, that almost felt like a natural step quite early on. Are there patents or other things holding it up?No, those patents are pretty junk actually. They're just people who had an idea to put it out there. We've actually experimented with it. It doesn't work the way they say those patents claimed they would.70% of tattoos are black and the next most popular color is red. So it's not of paramount importance to develop colours at this point in time. The colors we will develop, they're not going to be all types of shapes and colors. It's going to be like one or two different reds, one or two different blues, one or two different greens.The big challenge is that you're not putting ink into their skin that you can physically see and will then appear as you will see it. You actually have to find molecules that react with the skin to create a new color. And then that's challenging because there's lots of them out there that are toxic too. So you've got to do a lot of pre-testing before you even understand whether it could work on the skin. And we don't test on animals, we don't test on human cadavers or anything like that. But I can say that we test on founders. So I'm not going to put anything on my skin that is going mess me up. It's been challenging, but we do have a team on it and we have a couple of colors in the works right now.Back to the retail kits, so you may create more stores, but would you ever create a kit that could be sold in someone else's store? Would you sell an Inkbox kit in Walmart, for example?Yeah. There's the potential there. I think what's really unique about Inkbox is that it's like I said before, every body is unique. Well everybody is unique as well. If you're putting something on your skin that's going to the last more than two weeks, it should probably say something about you. So when they have like 10 designs in the store, we're not confident that it would sell as much. I think we're more interested in the analog experience that we then transform into retail converts. Having artists there creating an experience for the consumer. That's really cool.In terms of the investment you've taken on, is there anything that you would've done differently in terms of taking your money and what recommendations do you have to other founders who are looking for investment?I mean, I would've given less the company away. Every founder would like to say that. I think frankly one early mistake (perhaps not necessarily a mistage) we made was just a consequence of the circumstances because we were first time founders. We took money from a lot of unsophisticated people in our market, investors who didn't really know what they were talking about for our market. They would try to give us advice and it wasn't right for us and for a time it felt like we were being gaslit because they're telling us one thing and then we actually test it and find it's not working. We thought, “why aren't the things that they're telling us working?” And we realize because they don't have the expertise.So my advice would be make sure that investors actually know something about your market if they're going to be involved. You could take money from people who don't know as long as they're keeping their distance - we have those investors too and they're fine.Another suggestion I would make is to not value yourself too high. I think you always want to give away less of the company, of course. But I see far too many companies who take on way, way too much capital with a way too high evaluation and you have to grow so fast into that evaluation. It's f*****g hard to build a business, a big business, without getting really lucky and there's going to be ups and downs. If you have a really high evaluation, you have to grow into it fast.And if you can't grow into it fast you're going to have to do a down round and that’s a really bad signal. Then you're going to be up s**t's creek and then you might have to fold. Way too many companies fold because they just value themselves way too high and they're not in it for the long run.The advice I would give would be to build for long term stability and sustainability and make sure that you're valuing yourself in a fair regard that you can actually grow into by the end of the runway you have with that finance.And then take on investors that actually add value rather than, and have expertise in the area as well?Yeah, I mean it depends who you are. If you're experienced enough in that market, if you worked in an industry for a decade or five years or something you're like, I know this can work. I know this industry inside and out. It doesn't matter who I take the money from, that's fine.But if you're taking money in a vertical that you don't have a lot of experience in then you probably want investors who can help you navigate the waters. I think that the biggest value I've received from investors is more on the business side. Things like just team culture, leadership, but basically any kind of internal business objective we would have, has been really valuable to have investors giving us advice on because they've seen so much. I think that's the true value of a really good value-add investors, they’ve just seen so many things that any problem you have or question you have, they probably have some kind of answer or context they can give you.In terms of global expansion, you're predominantly in the US and Canada at the moment I think. Are you looking to have distribution centers in other big markets for your brand, say like the UK, Australia, those kind of places?Yeah, yeah for sure. What's unique about us is we have no natural competitors. So we don't really have competitors in other markets and we don't really have to position the product too differently in other markets as well. So it is a matter of setting up local operations and local teams to work in those markets. We're planning that for the near future.What apps are you using to streamline your business? Are there any that people might not have heard of that you find particularly useful?Yeah, I mean Google Suites are awesome. We use Google Drive for sharing, we tried a third party but ended up going back to Google Drive. Google Drive just works. For analytics and stuff, just Google analytics is honestly really good. Eventually you need to move up to GA 360 when you have too much data. So we did that. Slack obviously, Trello, Asana, we’re using a project management platform called Wrike. I think we moved off it but our team really liked Mondays as well. If you're a smaller team especially, Mondays was a really good app for a task management and project planning. Just a really nice piece of software - user friendly.With a product that seems like it could go wrong, have you had any funny stories of from customer support?Oh, so many! One thing about the product is if you fall asleep, your body heat can actually transfer the tattoo to different areas of your body. There's a ton of stories where people got a tattoo on their wrist and then fell asleep that night. They sleep with their wrist on their face and then have a face tattoo. That happens pretty often. You get people out at parties with freehand ink and basically you can draw anything. Everyone's drinking, you're getting a little loose, the ink starts flowing and the designs never look great. People wake up the next day, with a hangover are like, "Oh shit what did I do?"If you enjoyed this interview, the original is here.

[monkeyandelf]

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2017 End-of-Year Edition / In Depth // Drowned In Sound

Articulate Silences, Ambient Sounds is back. It’s a whole year since the last edition of this column, for which I can only apologise. I’ve been writing about music for around a decade now, usually for little or no monetary reward, and 2017 was the year in which I briefly gave up (almost unconsciously) in the midst of other stresses and strains. Leaving the mind-numbing time and energy black hole that is London in favour of the best city in the UK beginning with the letter “L” (that’s Leeds, obviously; sorry Leicester and Liverpool, I love you both too) in August was a turning point, providing me with a renewed enthusiasm for listening to – and writing about – new music. I fully intend the column to get back to being (semi-) regular again from this point on. If you make or release records that might be suitable for inclusion then email me at avantbland@gmail.com. I simply do not have time to reply to all my emails, but if you send me something clearly labelled as being for this column I will listen to it and – if I like it – I will write about it. You can also get in touch with me on Twitter, which I check more regularly, at @benjamin__bland. For now, have a round-up of some of this year’s highlights. This is nowhere near definitive, but it’s an insight into my favourite ambient releases from the last twelve months or so. I hope it provides you with some suitably contemplative listening material as 2017 bleeds into 2018. See you on the other side.

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If I had to identify an ambient MVP of 2017 then it would – undoubtedly – have to be the folks at Eilean Records. Eilean has been going for four years now, and almost everything they release is extremely high quality (both musically and in terms of the presentation). 2017 might have been Eilean’s best year yet: sixteen releases, sixteen gems. Listen to them all. The newer releases have not received enough listens from me yet to identify which are my favourites, so I’ll make my life a little easier for now by highlighting the label’s first four releases of 2017. The first of those, Daniel W. J. Mackenzie’s Every Time Feels Like The Last Time, is a work of haunting modern composition, which culminates in the particularly heavenly ‘Smokey Quartz and Our Skin’.

Every Time Feels Like the Last Time by Daniel W J Mackenzie

Equally haunting, like a half-remembered dream brought back to life through stuttering tape recordings, is On The Brink, a collaboration between Josh Mason & Nathan McLaughlin, two masters of texture who both deserve to be far better known than they are.

On The Brink by Josh Mason & Nathan McLaughlin

Old Articulate Silences favourite Monolyth & Cobalt (aka. Matthias van Eecloo, who also runs Eilean) is bowing out (from this project at least) with the brilliant The Dunen Diaries. This is effectively a two-part release, with the second half being a selection of collaborations that build perfectly upon the beautifully elegiac foundations of the record’s first half. Essential.

The Dunen Diaries by Monolyth & Cobalt

9T Antiope’s Isthmus has been something of a revelation for me. This Iranian duo – composed of Nima Aghiani and Sara Bigdeli Shamloo – arrive with a sound that’s somewhere between Grouper’s hazy atmospherics and Jenny Hval’s deliciously unhinged feminist agitprop. The swooping violin loops of closer ‘Telophase’ – which might also tide over those who, like me, spend most of their lives waiting for a new Portishead LP – bring the record to a genuinely soul-stirring conclusion.

Isthmus by 9T Antiope

As long-term column readers will know, two of the most consistent ambient musicians operating today are also from Iran: Siavash Amini and Porya Hatami. Siavash’s latest release, TAR (Hallow Ground) is a storming follow-up to 2015’s Subsiding, which – if you missed it – is one of the best releases of the last decade or so. This new effort is pretty much on a par, reaching a coruscating high point on colossal second track ‘Rivers of Tar’.

SIAVASH AMINI – TAR by Siavash Amini

Porya’s new album, Monads (LINE), might be his most hypnotic effort to date, despite seeing him leave behind his previous focus on melodic ambient composition in favour of a work fitting the microsound focus of the LINE imprint. I’m often fairly ambivalent about work that fits in this category – “ambient glitch” for want of a better term – but this definitely resides in the upper tier of the style.

Monads by PORYA HATAMI

Sarah Davachi’s All My Circles Run (Students of Decay) might just be my favourite LP – of any genre – released in 2017. This is a step in a new direction from Davachi, who has previously impressed largely through her mastery of analogue synths. Here the attention is on electroacoustic composition, but the result is still recognisably Davachi’s. There’s a tonal warmth here that is unmistakably reminiscent of last year’s brilliant Vergers whilst still offering new textures.

All My Circles Run by Sarah Davachi

All My Circles Run’s focus on acoustically-generated sounds rather than on synths may mark something of a departure for Davachi, but thankfully there have been plenty of other places to get a dose of analogue goodness in the last twelve months. In fact, one need look no further than the debut full-length from Téléplasmiste, the duo of Strange Attractor Press head Mark O. Pilkington and Coil/Cyclobe collaborator Michael J. York. Frequency Is The New Ecstasy (House of Mythology) is a truly delightful synth-fuelled trip to a higher plain.

Frequency is the New Ecstasy by Teleplasmiste

The late-arriving trump card, in terms of synth-tastic outings, however, turned out to be Gardener’s sublime A Place Where Nothing Was, the first release from sometime Gnod member Alex Macarte’s new Golden Ratio Frequencies cassette label. An utterly captivating mix of synths with tape loops and field recordings from former Make Noise Synthesizers employee Dashiell Lewis, this certainly marks out Golden Ratio Frequencies as a label to follow closely in 2018, and Lewis one to look out for in the future.

A Place Where Nothing Was by Gardener

Another unmissable late release, Timo Kaukolampi’s I (SVART) is – at least in part – a tribute to former Pan Sonic/Ø legend Mika Vainio, who – as I’m sure most readers will know – sadly died earlier this year. This is a really remarkable first release, with Kaukolampi establishing himself as a gifted creator of widescreen spectral soundscapes. It’s a shame it turned up so close to the end of the year, thus running the risk of slipping through the net.

1 by Kaukolampi

Paris-based Japanese sound artist Tomoko Sauvage has been working with water for a decade now, exploring its sonic properties through the use of hydrophones, which transform the water’s various ripples and drops into music. Musique Hydromantique (Shelter Press) does feel genuinely musical, with Sauvage exploring her subject’s responses in various acoustic environments, each of which generates beautiful minimal soundscapes.

Musique Hydromantique by Tomoko Sauvage

Mary Lattimore, of course, works not with water but with the harp. In some ways, however, the effect is much the same. Lattimore’s is adept at creating pieces that manage to transcend their minimalist focus on a sound source, blossoming into captivatingly evocative multi-level compositions. Collected Pieces is technically a compilation of offcuts from recent years, but that certainly doesn’t make it uneven. In fact, for those unfamiliar, this is an essential introduction to an essential contemporary artist.

Collected Pieces by Mary Lattimore

Leyland Kirby’s The Caretaker project is winding towards its conclusion, and 2017 saw the release of the second and third stages of the mammoth closing statement, Everywhere At The End Of Time. Kirby’s sonic exploration of the progress of dementia, Everywhere At The End Of Time is already a work of enormous significance, only set to become more and more heartbreakingly effective in 2018. You can subscribe to the work for a mere five pounds via Kirby’s own History Always Favours the Winners imprint on Bandcamp.

Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker

Followers of Kirby may also have noticed that he slipped something else out this year, the astonishing (free!) gift that is We, So Tired Of All the Darkness In Our Lives. The title sums it up.

We, so tired of all the darkness in our lives by Leyland Kirby

For a more comprehensive (seventy-five track) round-up, including bigger names – not least the predictably fantastic new records from 12k guru Taylor Deupree and from Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS – I’ve created a (ten and a half hour!) Spotify playlist of other highlights from the year. I hope it leads you to many more discoveries.

I must, alas, finish the column on a sombre note. Not only did we lose the legendary Mika Vainio this year, but we must also recognise the passing of the enormously talented young Swedish composer Marcus Fjellström, who sadly died in September, just a few months after the release of his last record, Skelektikon. RIP Marcus and Mika. You will both be missed.

Skelektikon by Marcus Fjellström

Onko by Mika Vainio

Articulate Silences, Ambient Sounds will return in 2018.


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