#artist: denizens of the emerald city

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

No One Mourns The Wicked • Dear Old Shiz • The Wizard And I • What Is This Feeling? • Something Bad • Dancing Through Life • Popular • I'm Not That Girl • One Short Day • A Sentimental Man • Defying Gravity • Thank Goodness • Wonderful • I'm Not That Girl (Reprise) • As Long As You're Mine • No Good Deed • March Of The Witch Hunters • For Good • Finale

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[ellekhen]

The Dance [WIP]

Mirror, mirror - Chapter 25 - The gift.

Church gets a mischievous glint in his eye before he pulls a protesting Astarion into the fray. “Do you remember how to do this Hearth-style?” the tiefling laughs.

“Absolutely not,” Astarion sputters, fighting back a smile despite himself.

“Mind if I remind you?”

The elf finds himself laughing, dazed, as the tiefling pulls him in close by the waist — nearly nose to nose as he spins him around the floor, tail whipping with each flourish. He imagines they must make for an odd sight — the tiefling with his sharp-fanged, pale companion. He notices that most of Lydia’s regulars seem pleased to see the warlock, but there are a handful of grumbling denizens who take the tiefling’s arrival as their cue to leave for the evening.

Well, they can go fuck themselves; it leaves more room on the floor for the couple to get lost in each other.

Astarion is reminded of that first night he ever saw Church dance, during the tiefling party outside of the Emerald Grove. The warlock had scooped up one of the young Elturians, swinging her around in a tempest of raucous laughter and clumsy feet. It was a distinct contrast to the courtly dances the spawn had known from his time in the city.

No matter how clumsy it seemed, Astarion did envy how freely the tieflings seemed to move together. He didn’t miss how the Elturian batted her eyelashes and pressed her whispering lips up to the warlock’s ear. But the longer he watched, the more Astarion smirked at the Elturian’s best efforts. After all, he knew whose bedroll Church was going to end up in by the end of the night. And by the warlock’s wide, bright eyes and flushing face as he made eye contact with him during the dance, Astarion was confident that Church knew too.

In the present, the elf tightens his hold on the tiefling’s waist, burying his head in his shoulder as their spinning slows along with the music. Part of him wishes they had been bold enough back then for Astarion to pull the tiefling back onto that camp dance floor and show him off with his hands on his shoulder and the small of his back. Maybe it even would have saved Gale and Wyll from embarrassment in their future overtures later down the line…

But he shakes himself from his regret. Astarion is here, now, in front of these strangers savoring these moments of holding his Church close, letting the tiefling lead him in the quaint village dance that lets the elf bask in the heat of his body and his ebullient smiles and laughter.

Read more on Ao3

Author/Artist’s Note: Getting back into drawing, thanks to these two! Feeling pretty rusty but there’s been a ton of comfort in stretching that part of the brain again. Very much a work in progress (Church definitely looks a tad more buff here haha) but I already loved the lineart and wanted to share. :)

[suzylwade]

Inside Tangier “Tangier is indeed a strange, alluring place, one that seduced me from the moment that I first arrived in the sultry height of summer some thirty years ago. I was there to work on an Agatha Christie-themed fashion shoot and we photographed at the Minzah hotel, where the white-turbaned bellhops in their scarlet bloomers darted about bearing glasses of sugar-freighted mint tea, and in Majid’s magical emporium of ancient Moroccan textiles and treasures … before the handsome gateway to the square of the Casbah … and against the ancient doorways of the Medina, painted lapis and malachite and ruby. A beauteous troupe, we were soon swept into the whirlwind of Tangier life, spinning through the courtyards of York Castle for a “White Party” hosted by the gregarious Yves Vidal, and taking tea with the Honourable David Herbert, to the urgent chatter of parrots and cockatoos in the house on the New Mountain that he had painted the colour of raspberry fool. The artist Lawrence Mynott, standing in for Hercule Poirot for our story, liked the city so much that he never left. I discovered a windswept place clotted with memories borne by the eccentric denizens, many of whom had washed up on its sandy shores before Independence in 1956, when Tangier was a still a free port — the real-life model for the city that they called Casablanca in the 1942 movie. Paul Bowles was still very much a part of the city’s fibre, although he had largely retrenched to an ascetic dwelling in a dreary 1950s apartment building, but there were still many people who had cruised with Francis Bacon and Joe Orton and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal, when it was, as Edmund White recalled, the “Sin City of the Western World,” and who had got stoned with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and The Stones — and partied with the dime store heiress Barbara Hutton at Sidi Hosni, her lugubrious palace in the Medina where she strummed her lute draped in spangled saris and crowned in Catherine the Great’s emeralds.” - An excerpt from Hamish Bowles’ introduction to 'Inside Tangier: Houses & Gardens' by Nicolò Castellini Baldissera and Guido Taroni, published by ‘Vendome Press’. #neonurchin (at Tangier, Morocco) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5sDTHNgYG1/?igshid=1mxi73kz0n2zq

[aion-rsa]

Zod Joins [REDACTED], Aquaman is Impeached in DC’s May Solicits Highlights

May promises to be a busy month for DC Comics, which continues to flesh out its Rebirth mystery with a revelation here and a tease there. But there’s a lot more going on outside of the “when are the Watchmen showing up?” mystery.

EXCLUSIVE: Dixon & Nolan Return to Bane for New DC Series

For starters, Batman’s most dangerous enemy, Bane, is poised to headline his own series when Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan present “Bane: Conquest.”

In the 12-part series, the title villain will reunite with Bird, Trogg and Zombie, his henchmen that have been mostly missing in action since their introduction in the 1993-1993 “Batman: Knightfall” arc, but who re-surfaced as part of the “I Am Bane” storyline. According to DC’s official description of the series, Bane will take his criminal ambitious out of Gotham, in search of “new cities to conquer and new enemies to crush.”

Of course, the rest of the DCU has other things to worry about, from new enemies to betrayal by old friends, and yes, some more Rebirth developments. Here are the highlights of DC Comics’ solicitations for MAy 2017.

The Suicide Squad drafts its most powerful member ever, when Amanda Waller convinces General Zod to join her deadly team. The storyline crosses over with the latest “Action Comics” saga, “Revenge,” which sees the Rebirth genesis of the Superman Revenge Squad

Ryan Choi and Caitlin Snow are in love, or at least the early stages of it. “Justice League of America” #11 promises developments in the “budding romance” between Killer Frost and The Atom. But even bigger, the sopy declares we’ll see “a moment fans have been waiting for since DC UNIVERSE: REBIRTH!”

Scott Snyder re-teams with his “American Vampire” partner Rafael ALbuquerque for a new arc of “All Star Batman.” Rather than focusing on the Dark Knight’s classic rogues, “The First Ally” will introduce new bad guys to Batman’s universe, and possible betrayal from “one of his closest allies.”

Aquaman finds himself more or less impeached in the first chapter of “Crown of Atlantis.” When the citizens of his kingdom grow tired of their constant battles with the surface world they attempt to overthrow the king.

“League of Shadows” concludes in “Detective Comics,” which teases the permanent loss of one member of Batman’s team due to the actions of Lady Shiva’s power play on Gotham City.

Stephanie Brown takes the spotlight in the next issue, when “Detective Comics” #957 debuts “The Wrath Of Spoiler.” The description teases a “very unlikely ally” will help Stephanie in her battle, so place your bets as to who will join her.

“Green Lanterns” #23 teases a possible break-up of the partnership between Simon Baz and Jessica Ruiz. The Green Lantern Corps strikes a deal with the Sinestro Corps resulting in one Green and one Yellow Lantern per sector, which means Sector 2814 has an extra Lantern.

Nicola Scott returns to “Wonder Woman,” albeit briefly. Scott joins Greg Rucka, Liam Sharp and a number of other artists for “Wonder Woman Annual” #1. Through several short stories, we’ll see Diana’s first encounter with Batman and Superman and learn how their relationships evolved over time.

The Legion of Super-Heroes Rebirth mystery deepens in “Supergirl” #9. Not only does the issue involve the Phantom Zone (ie: the place where Mon-El spent centuries awaiting a cure for his lead poisoning), it features the Emerald Empress and her attempts to build a team of villains. Chances are good we’re about to see the Fatal Five crash the Rebirth party.

We already knew about the Teen Titans/Titans/Deathstroke crossover, but the solicitation text for the 4-part storyline’s finale, “the consequences of which will be felt for years to come,” and Wally West’s role in the center of the conflict indicate that it will have massive repercussions on the Rebirth timeline.

Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello, Andy Kubert and Klaus Janson’s “Dark Knight III: The Master Race” concludes when issue #9 arrives in May.

“Bug: The Adventures of a Forager” brings Jack Kirby’s New Gods to DC’s Young Animal imprint. The series, by Lee, Mike and Laura Allred, explores Kirby’s Fourth World reality, following the adventures of one of its lowest denizens as Bug attempts to elevate himself to the status of a New God.

The post Zod Joins [REDACTED], Aquaman is Impeached in DC’s May Solicits Highlights appeared first on CBR.com.

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[edibleflowerseu]

SOUNDS

Amnesia Scanner / AS TRUTH (MIXTAPE) (2017) [no label]

“Amnesia Scanner’s violently kinetic club visions deal in the dissonant and the absurd, all the while glimpsing hellish dystopian wastelands and the disorientation of future shock.”

“AS TRUTH’s artwork depicts a lobotomy—what looks like a forced lobotomy, to be specific. The victim appears resigned to his fate, looking confused, dejected, but also angry. In turn, the viewer is forced to share in that terrifying scene, in that discomfort, in that fear. Similarly, AS TRUTH feels like a music that’s flung at you, forced on you—something that not so much asks to be interrupted as reaches out and grabs at your attention, in thrilling, if deeply unnerving, ways.” (—)

…

For the longest time, I viewed Amnesia Scanner’s music through a queer post-colonialist lens: music that took that history of violence, of un-meaning, of power and powerlessness and reworked it into a modern sonic context that works to interrogate the present. A world teetering on the void, a world that wants to violently erase the non-hetero, non-white, non-cis. A world built on the notion thereof.

It’s violent broken-glass apocalyptic vibes, spatially mutated and warped, fit perfectly alongside contemporaries like Lotic, Arca, Angel-Ho and most of the NON or PAN rosters. Since all those musicians are queer POCs who lean on post-colonialism to push the boundaries of club music, it took me by surprise that the dudes in Amnesia Scanner are Finnish white dudes living in Berlin. Lol.

Which is fine and doesn’t take away from their music, in fact it only adds more context and ways to interpret and experience that shit. It’s still the same playbook and probes the same themes, but with more focus on the post-apocalyptic side of things. It’s futuristic, but also seems to have an ancient feel to it, one continuous thread of misery. I’m bout it.

Glochids / Water on Silver (2016) [Lime Lodge]

“The 15 years that Phoenix-born, Oakland-based musician James Roemer has been working as Glochids have been a period of experimentation held together by a few powerful sensibilities and an enduring hostility to comparison.” (—)

“Water on Silver contains a distinct sonic ecology; non-hierarchical layers from contrasting sources, all interdependent … Diversity strengthens; confusion instructs … Not representative of, but consistent with, the inherent dynamics of nature … A model of an idealized radical reorganization of human social power structures … MIDI composition interfaces with field recordings from a central american cloud forest, while the focused electronics at hand nearly align with a filtered kick drum heard outside the club.” (—)

…

Glochids is fucking with some the same stuff I like to fuck with, or would like to fuck with: disparate sonic worlds coming together to form something coherent. I’ve only just heard of the dude, but he’s a rewarding listen: each track has a lot going on but rarely feels overwhelming, instead often peaceful. There’ll be a chugging drum track heard faintly beneath field recordings and New Age spaced-out synth fuckery.

Sorta like stepping into a sealed off world, complete with its own biology, left to develop untouched for millennia.

Bruce Springsteen / The River (1980) [Columbia]

“The River doesn’t flow — it floods. Bruce Springsteen’s fifth album gushes forth with the fury of a burst dam, delivering torrents of despair, inspiration, heartbreak, and joy.” (—)

…

Springsteen can get a little eye-rolly with his slow, on-the-nose songs and his ridiculous love of rock-n-roll-save-the-mortal-soul. But when it works, holy hell, it works. The River is def my fav Springsteen album, something that goes so fucking big it will never go home. Cold beers, screaming out a window of a car going 90 on the interstate. And also sad songs about the dying working class, but those aren’t as fun as the sad songs that have a shit ton of saxophone.

But Bruce ain’t bout pretentious turn of phrases, he’s bout the plainspoken, straightforward grace of heartland vernacular. His lyrics are simple because they’re for people who want simple, who don’t want misery to be wrapped up in deep ideas and artsy fartsy shenanigans. To the heart, not the mind.

Tho I imagine there are only so many songs bout empty marriages and girls wearing blue jeans that one man can take, so I can see the Boss being a divisive figure.

Drexciya / Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller I-IV (1995/2012) [Clone]

“The music was appropriately liquid, with hi-hats like raindrops, bass like the belch of some fanged denizen of the fathomless dark, and blippy melodies bobbing like bioluminescent lures.”

“It’s easy to remember Drexciya primarily for their shtick. Academics love them for their applicability to concepts like Afrofuturism and the Black Atlantic … Detroit true-schoolers hold them up as examples of Motor City militancy and analog purism. These are all valid positions, but [the compilation] also reminds us of Drexciya’s influence in other contexts, as well. The opening “Welcome to Drexciya” is a beatless burble that wouldn’t sound out of place on a record from Emeralds or Oneohtrix Point Never, artists more commonly associated with the “cosmic” traditions of 1970s synthesizer music. Space is a place, sure. But to immerse yourself in Drexciya’s underwater world is to be reminded that there are other dimensions just as worthy of exploration.” (—)

…

Drexciya’s music was centered on their self-made mythology: this was the music produced by the citizens of the underwater metropolis of Drexciya, a country inhabited by the aquatic humanoid descendents of the pregnant slave women thrown overboard during the Great Passage across the Atlantic. Their unborn fetuses, still accustomed to life within liquid, grew gills and fins and adapted to their new ocean environment. They now seek to punish / terrorize / educate humans for their greed.

It’s very good gym music.

Other shit:

Mount Eerie Cough Orthodonix / GODDESS Migos / Culture DJ Coquelin / Operation Cheapstyle mix

[suzylwade]

Inside Tangier “Tangier is indeed a strange, alluring place, one that seduced me from the moment that I first arrived in the sultry height of summer some thirty years ago. I was there to work on an Agatha Christie-themed fashion shoot and we photographed at the Minzah hotel, where the white-turbaned bellhops in their scarlet bloomers darted about bearing glasses of sugar-freighted mint tea, and in Majid’s magical emporium of ancient Moroccan textiles and treasures … before the handsome gateway to the square of the Casbah … and against the ancient doorways of the Medina, painted lapis and malachite and ruby. A beauteous troupe, we were soon swept into the whirlwind of Tangier life, spinning through the courtyards of York Castle for a “White Party” hosted by the gregarious Yves Vidal, and taking tea with the Honourable David Herbert, to the urgent chatter of parrots and cockatoos in the house on the New Mountain that he had painted the colour of raspberry fool. The artist Lawrence Mynott, standing in for Hercule Poirot for our story, liked the city so much that he never left. I discovered a windswept place clotted with memories borne by the eccentric denizens, many of whom had washed up on its sandy shores before Independence in 1956, when Tangier was a still a free port — the real-life model for the city that they called Casablanca in the 1942 movie. Paul Bowles was still very much a part of the city’s fibre, although he had largely retrenched to an ascetic dwelling in a dreary 1950s apartment building, but there were still many people who had cruised with Francis Bacon and Joe Orton and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal, when it was, as Edmund White recalled, the “Sin City of the Western World,” and who had got stoned with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and The Stones — and partied with the dime store heiress Barbara Hutton at Sidi Hosni, her lugubrious palace in the Medina where she strummed her lute draped in spangled saris and crowned in Catherine the Great’s emeralds.” - An excerpt from Hamish Bowles’ introduction to 'Inside Tangier: Houses & Gardens' by Nicolò Castellini Baldissera and Guido Taroni, published by ‘Vendome Press’. #neonurchin (at Tangier, Morocco) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5sDTHNgYG1/?igshid=z5li0y07rwc2