#as a Brazilian who's also a punk and listens to their songs. WHY DID NO ONE TELL MEEEEE AAAAAAAA

[nachoaveragejoe234]

Yes! To add to some points:

The Lumity thing. I knew they wanted them to be a couple when they went to grom (prom) together, but when they specifically made their dance a TANGO, a dance that is supposed to be ROMANTIC and SEDUCTIVE, after they hated each other, I was lie "yeah you're trying to make a new ship without actually putting effort into it".

Lagoona was literally described as spicy in her song, like in 3 different ways. And it's sus that when she was Australian she was sweet and gentle, and while she could be more passionate she wasn't violent and she never described herself as spicy or having a temper

Lagoona was also heavily implied to be Aboriginal. Latinos, sorry, but they have representation overall. In most modern media there will be a Latino who isn't just the "Tequila drinking, sombrero wearing mafioso named Carlos or Juan or Diego" or the "sexy attractive bombshell named Maria Teresa Jimena de los Santos" or some dumb thing like that (except Brazilians they only get portrayed as samba girls that American men go to Brazil to gawk at and make kinky remarks towards but that's another story). Name more than two Aboriginal characters in any media if you even KNOW ANY. You can't. You would think that with indigenous issues being big things in both North America and Australia, you wouldn't STRIP AN INDIGENOUS CHARACTER OF THEIR IDENTITY. Right? It wasn't canon but they could have made it canon! Think of the Aboriginal Australians who probably are begging to get roles in movies and TV. I literally have seen Aboriginal fans talk about how she reminded them of their lives and meant a lot to them. They were completely neglected. And worse, one Latina I interacted with on Reddit literally all but admitted she was racist towards Aboriginal people. She basically said "but Latinos don't get a lot of rep and it's not canon! What about us?".

Clankie doesn't work. Cleo was firstly already taken, but ignoring that she and Deuce were paired togther because of the Egyptian-Greek thing.

Nefera being good now... it's not a big deal but I think the sisterly dilemma was a big part of both of their characters. Not all family members get along and showing that is completely ok.

Cleo's voice is the worst. I can see her as an influencer, but why is she a VALLEY GIRL?

Fans call Toralei a punk. She's not. She doesn't wear punk clothing she just has a studded jacket. Her music is pop-rock not PUNK. Listen to her song Cool Cat, it's amazing but not even close to punk. If she was really punk she would look and sing more like the likes of the Clash, the Ramones, Green Day, or even edgier rock bands like the Stones, Nirvana, the Who, or Led Zeppelin. G1 Tora and the twins looked ironically way more punk, and G1 and G2 already had actual punk inspired characters like Venus, Deuce, sometimes Clawdeen and Frankie, and in G2 Silvi and Moanica.

Ghoulia being Canadian for no reason. As a Canadian it hurts. They literally had a concept art with a Canadian flag, she wears a toque (beanie for Americans), and was explicitly stated to be influenced by Scott Pilgrim by one of the designers, and she definitely looks like Ramona Flowers. Despite that they don't even MENTION her being Canadian. Couldn't even get a Canadian VA for her which.... Marieve Herington and Erin Fitzgerald from G1 are Canadians. Get one of them to voice her. Similarly Mr. Foxford has an Icelandic VA but they never acknowledge the fact that he's Icelandic. Even Bunny Earickson, the newest character. Shea basically confirmed she was Welsh. She said that werebunnies had connections to Celtic/Welsh mythology but... did she get a Welsh VA? No, she got a Latina. Why did you explicitly say she was Welsh but couldn't find a Welsh VA? Do Welsh people not deserve representation? Do you know most people know nothing about Wales? That the effects pof British colonization still take a toll on Wales? That one of the earlist British invasions was of Wales where along with Ireland and Scotland they tried HARD to strip them of their culture and language and then made measly apologies in the modern day but still harm the Celtic countries through a lot of crap the Tories do and by keeping their monarchy? Welsh people always get called sheepshaggers and their language is mocked as "smashing a keyboard" (it does look like that but I understand why many Welsh people would be offended and they have the right to be)

Monster high G3 rant

Watching the TV series and I’m kind of disappointed.

This will be my second watch of season 1, I’m rewatching after the current season 2 episodes.

the show feels very flat in my opinion. They’ve given the characters a lot of cool traits, but they’re used for like one episode and then never brought up, or they only use one specific trait 24/7. Like Frankie in this generation, they have the ability to electrocute, extend their body parts, and they get visions from the people they’re made out of. Specifically they get visions from this one recurring doctor/ scientist. The idea is cool, but the vision literally is there to give exposition about something conveniently. Like when they are trying to solve the puzzle of clawdeens mom, Frankie’s vision just conveniently tells them what to do and how to do it.

In that same episode, we see manny taur. A Minotaur character. And right away we are just told that he’s good at puzzle solving, and so is draculaura! They’re rivals! But this is the first time I’ve ever seen or heard about draculaura being into puzzles, let alone her one sided rivalry with manny. And as the episode ends, she’s like “well you can be the rightful puzzle master” but it feels so flat. There has been no build up to this moment.

Another example is lagoona. In her designated episode, she is rooting for torelai to win the fear-leading captain over draculaura (another thing that has no build up as to why it’s important to her) lagoona explains that torelai is holding a secret over her head, and if it gets out she will lose her status as the fiercest monster in school. But this is the first time we have heard this!! In previous episodes there’s no mention of her being scary or fierce. Or even her super fast swimming skills. It’s just brought up and glosses over with a “be who you are, it’s okay to like what you want! We all have secrets 🥹” but there’s no real character development.

My last example will be the way draculaura is presented in this series. From what she tells us, she has high standards to live up to as a vampire. She needs to look good for her day so she studies endlessly and is striving for perfection. But she also has a love for witchcraft, which is banned in monster high due to its connections to humans. This can be a cute premise, but they NEVER show draculaura compared to any other vampire to show how she’s supposed to act. They never give us episodes where she blows off her friend’s shenanigans because it makes her look bad, and they never really show her dad being so overbearing. They don’t show us WHY humans are hated. And even though witchcraft is banned, whenever anyone finds out about it they’re just cool with it? No push back or anything. The only character to challenge draculaura was torelai.

This all may be very nitpicky, but MH is a character driven franchise. Character relationships with each other and their surroundings are very important to me. I want to feel the so called pressure these characters are being put under. It doesn’t have to be ultra serious 24/7, but issues get resolved within one episode and then rehashed a few episodes later with no further development. Especially with characters like Cleo and lagoona. They have been benched as side characters in this show, and side characters get much worse treatment.

‘The general episode progression is like this - introduce an issue, introduce a high stakes situation that involves the school, have all or one of the main 3 engage in a sequence of fights against this issue(or rapid solving of said issue through convince) - issue is resolved and lesson is told to viewers-characters reset for the next episode.

I know this is a children’s show, but that doesn’t mean it needs to have bad writing, not all kids are high off cocomelon. Kids deserve good writing in their media!

My next rant will be about clawdeen and her story this generation

[morangoowada]

The Offspring released a song called Come to Brazil and no one told me.... What a crime

[doomedandstoned]

In Conversation with KOMATSU

~By Willem Verhappen~

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

For the past decade or so, super massive mothersludgers KOMATSU have been crushing eardrums and bulldozing down venues all around the world. While early releases of the Eindhoven, the Netherlands based band, like their 2011 self-titled EP and 'Manu Armata' (2013 - Suburban Records), display a relentless combination of stonerized sludge that lives up to the band's name, Komatsu always kept evolving and expanding their sound.

Their latest record, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021 - Heavy Psych Records), is on the one hand a natural successor to 2018's 'A New Horizon' (Argonauta Records), but surprisingly also introduces the listener to a more rocking side of the band. I had the chance to sit down with vocalist/guitarist Mo Truijens and guitarist Mathijs Bodt and after some chit-chat, we went to talk about the new record, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and much more.

KOMATSU - Rose Of Jericho by HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records

Last year, I was in contact with your bass-player, Martijn Mansvelders, and he told me you were impacted pretty bad by the corona measures.

Mathijs: Indeed. Our entire planning basically went down the drain. It started with the last bits of our recording process. We started recording during Carnaval [the end of February] at the Anker Studio in Eindhoven with Peter van Elderen (TankZilla, formerly of Peter Pan Speedrock). Things went very well and we were just at the point where we could start recording the vocals when COVID hit. Usually, there's always one of us present to oversee the process, but that wasn't allowed. After that you get into the mixing process, where usually the entire band is involved and in the studio. As you can imagine, that didn't go through.

Mo: In this case, it was mostly just me who was there. Also because we still had to do the vocals and the mixing of the vocals.

Mathijs: Right, and we got the mix-downs sent to us after which we had to write down and send in our comments. That took a bit longer than expected, but it worked out nice.But like you said, we had planned to release the record during the summer, do a Brazilian tour in September, followed by a release show, here in Eindhoven at the Effenaar. After that we were going to do a two-week tour through Europe. Initially the release show was planned for October 15th, but that got postponed until January, then early February, then the end of February, then the 12th of June, but thanks to the test events we can finally present our record, which was released in February, on the 25th of April.

Mo: What's nice is that this is certain. We don't know whether we'd be allowed to play on June 12th, but April 25th is certain. We found that we couldn't keep on postponing the date, so we decided that if we couldn't play then, there wouldn't be a release show. You can imagine that we're in a rush now with rehearsals, because we were thinking "soon", but now it's happening "very soon".

Mathijs: You have a point there. You're saying we rehearsed a bit, but we couldn't rehearse in our own rehearsal room. Even with the 1.5 meter distance and a face-mask, we weren't allowed to be in there with four people. I believe we've only had 6 rehearsals.

Mo: The good thing is that we're allowed to rehearse now, because currently we're a performing act. I've checked it with the authorities and it's allowed.

You already mentioned that Peter van Elderen produced the record. What was his influence on the process?

Mo: He has a good view on songs and regarding the vocals, while I had rough ideas, he really helped me improve them. He was a great help.

Mathijs: Of course we also have quite a history with Peter. Mo and Peter used to play in Repomen together and I used to be a roadie for Peter Pan. We know him through things like PopEI, Speedfest, Peter Pan, Repomen.

Mo: The circle is complete, so to say. And Pieter [Kloos] eventually did the mastering. It doesn't get more Eindhoven than that.

Mathijs: We recorded the previous two records with Pieter. That worked out great, but for this one, we wanted to try something different. Not because it didn't work out with Pieter, but we just wanted to try something different this time. Peter was heavily involved from the start and he joined our rehearsals and such. We recorded the record in just over a day and a half. Everything is live, with some guitar overdubs added afterwards.

Mo: We finished those overdubs just before the lock-down started, so all the music was recorded.

Mathijs: I think we spent three, three and a half days on the music, so that was a relatively quick process.

The album title, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021), is a symbol of resurrection. I can imagine that relates directly to your new sound.

Mo: Yes, there is certainly more variation and dynamics on the record.

Mathijs: The rose of Jericho, or resurrection plant, is a plant that can go without water for ten, fifteen years. When it receives water it pops back up as a flower. That concept really spoke to us, and that's why the instrumental title track has a bit of a western feel to it.

Mo: We really went for the desert atmosphere on that one. You can almost see the tumbleweed pass by during the intro. The track was originally meant to be called "Tumbleweed," but then I found out that Candybar Planet already has a song called "Tumbleweed." I still liked the desert idea, and eventually we renamed the track "Rose of Jericho."

Can we expect anything special for the release show?

Mo: We'll be playing all the tracks of the record live. In the past that wasn't always the case. I think a lot of these tracks will remain in our set. Of course we will revise our set when we're playing a real metal festival. We'll probably be playing more of our old stuff then, although the roughness is still there in the new tracks.

Mathijs: At some point you're starting to weigh your choices while writing songs. We want to be able to play them live, because we're still first and foremost a live band. That's where we really shine. This was also a period of reflection and we figured that we had fifty tracks on four records. You start listening to them in a different way and you come to the conclusion that we already have so many hard songs.

Mo: Martijn often says things like "This is a quiet song," but a quiet Komatsu song is still far from a quiet song.

Mathijs: We didn't plan on changing our style. It came together in quite an organic way, as a result of playing live, rehearsing and recording. The COVID period was also quite interesting in that regard, because Mo and I never stopped writing music, and we're currently at the point where we could start arranging songs for the next record.

'Rose of Jericho' is your first record on Heavy Psych Sounds. How did that collaboration come about?

Mo: Gabriele [Fiori] arranged a couple of tours for us, like the ones with Nick Oliveri and Duel.

Mathijs: The first tour after I joined the band was the one with Mondo Generator and he arranged the one with the Freeks, featuring Ruben Romano of Nebula and Fu Manchu. So we were already in contact and at some point we just called him.

Mo: Yeah, that was for the previous record, but for that one we ended up at Argonauta. Now we all just said, let's just do it.

Mathijs: It's really cool to be part of a roster like that, to be part of such a stoner family. Gabriele, one of the two people running HPS, also plays in Black Rainbows and to see how involved in the scene he is and what he does for the scene, to be a part of that is just amazing. We already had the connection through the stages we shared and the tours he arranged for us and this is just the next step. It's not the most logical step, but try and find a label where we perfectly fit in with our distinctive sound.

Mo: When we write music, we don't try to fit in the stoner, the metal, or whatever group. We just make the music we like. We don't have any rules from ourselves, telling us what we can and can't do.

Mathijs: In the end we just make the music the four band members like to make.

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

About that, what are your main influences?

Mo: The Melvins is a favorite of mine, especially their quirkiness. Of course there's a lot of stoner bands, but my roots are within 80's hardcore punk music. Due to the whole COVID thing I started collecting records again. I bought a new record player and now I'm searching Discogs for vinyl of records I used to love and used to have on cassette.

Mathijs: I think that I'm the biggest metalhead in the band. You [Mo] are the punk rocker, Martijn is the new-waver, even though he's also into old school hip-hop, and Jos [Roosen, drums]is a Tool fan and he used to play in Dreadlock Pussy. He and I went to the 25th anniversary show of Machine Head's 'Burn My Eyes' together. He's into that as well. He's also really into metal, but also bands like Helmet. I have quite a broad taste. I'm really into Cannibal Corpse, but I also like the Melvins. I actually met Mo at a Melvins show and a week later I got a call on whether I would like to join his band. The Black Sabbath influence is also clearly present on Rose of Jericho. That first riff is basically a Sabbath riff.

Mo: Sabbath is the mother of all metal bands. I saw Blue Cheer live at Roadburn once. It's slightly different, but from the same period, I think. Absolutely brilliant. They did an interview for the Top-2000 once, where they were still living in a house together, blowing and making music.

Mathijs: I also really like those genre-crossing bands, like High on Fire. They're metal, but also have stoner elements, together with some psych and some rock.

Mo: When I used to play in punk bands, there were set rules, but now I can do whatever I like.

Last question, did you guys discover any new music you're really into?

Mo: Absolutely, they've been around for a while already, but I recently discovered Helms Alee. They're a man and two women and they all sing. When they sing together it's just amazing. Mathijs also got me into Made Out of Babies, featuring Julie Christmas. I'm usually not a fan of female singers, but this is something else.

Mathijs: Yeah, I showed you the record she did with Cult of Luna. That's such an amazing record. Recently I've been listening a lot to a Finnish band called Oranssi Pazuzu, especially their latest record 'Mestarin kynsi'. There are so many different elements in there, it's really cool.

Mo: Recently I bought two Floor records. They've got three records, one that sounds like shit and two that are amazing. I got those on vinyl.

Mathijs: I'm also looking forward to the new Mastodon record. They made a record with the guy who produced the best Tool records and they say it will be far more sludgey, slow and doomy than their previous works.

The curfew is rapidly approaching, so I think it's time to wrap up. Thank you for this interview.

Mo: Thank you and see you later. Maybe later tonight in prison if we don't hurry up.

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[zinecuntroll]

3 decades of Queer Women making Herstory through Music

Written for Pink Washed Zine issue #3

by Raquel Silva aka Raquel Smith-Cave

             I turned 30 this year, more precisely last August and it’s also been 12 years since I had my first girlfriend. When I started thinking about my queerness more seriously back in 2005/2006 I quickly realized how it wasn’t that usual for girls to be fascinated by Linda Perry in boxer shorts and combat boots like I was at 5 years old. My mom says 4 Non Blondes “What’s up” was my favorite song back then and she even bought the CD so I could listen to it on repeat and not just wait for the video to magically appear on the TV. Thanks Ma!

              Through my teenage years I had “Baby Can I Hold You” by Tracy Chapman constantly playing in my head. Mind you, I always have a song in my mind and I burst into singing at the most unexpected times, it’s mostly an unconscious act which can be embarrassing in front of people who don’t know me well. Honestly I  don’t care much, it’s just a part of my nature and if I’m not murmuring or humming some melody it usually means there’s something wrong. So at around 15/16 I remember starting to sing the chorus for “But you can say baby…” out of nowhere in school breaks or while walking home. This happened constantly and exactly why my brain was stuck with this melody was a complete mystery to me. Maybe I heard it in passing or on the radio…? I could never find the answer but I did buy Tracy’s self-titled vinyl this year during Record Store Day and discovered it was released exactly 30 years ago. It’s a precious record, her voice is warm and familiar and her guitar is so soothing to the soul. I think I finally answered my teenage self on all that musical haunting.

             Cássia Eller is a Brazilian artist who made the 90s a really wholesome, magical, golden time for every lesbian in love with husky voices. Her hit song “Malandragem” was part of this series called Malhação but I only found out she was the mystical singer behind that iconic childhood tune years after listening to it on the show. She tragically died in 2001 and even after that she still created major impact in society, when her longtime girlfriend won custody of their son, after battling against Cássia’s father who had never cared about his daughter until money was involved. Cássia was a shy person who became a complete lion on stage. Humble and almost too pure to handle the hype. She just wanted to sing to people and exorcise her demons while making others happy. Which she did and so much more. Her legacy is tremendous, as it still resonates with so many of us today and the world hasn’t really witnessed anyone quite as ingenious as her ever since.

               It’s 2007 and I’m watching a live concert in a Portuguese music festival on TV featuring a wild ass singer with the screaming voice of my wildest grrrl dreams. It’s The Gossip! And Beth Ditto is rolling around the stage, singing her lungs out in front of a pretty chill crowd. I wanted to BE THERE. I probably discovered Gossip’s music through CSS who I was obsessed with at the time or probably from watching The L Word. The truth is: the more intrigued I was by the words of this fat, dyke, goddess the more comfortable I felt about my own identity. I was fat for most of my childhood and got bullied for it on a regular basis, just part of being in an all-girls catholic school life I guess. At 13 someone called me “Fufa” which is basically “Dyke” in Portuguese and it was the most traumatic experience ever. Years later I wish I could have thanked the girl who bullied me out of a closet I wasn’t even aware I was in. I don’t believe I was ever in the closet though. Honestly, falling in love with a girl was just as natural as having crushes on boys. It was just another question I had finally found an answer for. Beth Ditto’s pride in her queerness and blatant attraction to butch people while being a proud femme, fat, dyke made me feel represented in a way I hadn’t seen myself before and ok with my own desires. Ditto!

                The first glance of The L Word I watched I didn’t really enjoyed. The image was dark and the plot seemed so tragic. It was Jenny somewhere in the first season. After one year I finally watched the whole 2 or 3 seasons that were out by then. Tegan and Sara play in one episode and are featured in the soundtrack, which I still go back to sometimes to remember really great tunes. What a blessing to have Tegan and Sara guide you through your first acid trip and “coming out of that closet” am I right Dana? (RIP) My love affair with Canadian people started right there with Tegan’s goofiness and Sara’s witty remarks. By 2007 “The Con” came out and became a staple to the LBGTQ+ community. So much so that the band released a special covers album last year, with many queer artists recreating those magnificent songs. In the records that followed their sound was purposefully re directed to more pop melodies which I couldn’t relate to anymore. They did make good use of their huge platform by launching the Tegan and Sara foundation, which fights for LGBTQ girls and women all over the world with the help of some amazing queer people.

                 The other tiny Canadian who owns my heart is Ellen Page. Ever since Juno, my gaydar was just screaming out loud in every direction possible and I’m so happy that she is now able to be herself freely. Just like Juno, my musical top 3 included Patti Smith and Iggy Pop… but not The Runaways. For me it’s actually Nick Cave. I never gave too much attention to The Runaways, though I knew about Joan Jett and her extremely queer badass persona from being a teenager obsessed with punk rock and riot grrrl herstory. Until Kristen Stewart got cast to play Joan for The Runaways movie and I finally listened to their 70s records. I fell in love with Kristen and Dakota’s version of “Dead End Justice” as well as the original. Gaystew was born to play that part. Just last week I saw Bad Reputation, a documentary about Joan’s life with lots of awesome people speaking about how incredible she is, as both a pioneer for women in rock’n roll and an advocate for human and animal rights. At 60 she’s still rocking the fuck out of leather pants, inspiring kids to start bands, making everyone smitten by her confidence and flipping the finger to the all the hypocritical social definitions of gender, sex and music.

                It’s really difficult to write about Janelle Monáe. Not because I don’t have words but mostly because I have too many. Janelle caught my eye and ears with “Tightrope” where she’s prancing around wearing her uniform, as she proudly used to talk about her suit, an homage to her working class parents and Kansas City upbringing. I saw her live at the end of 2010, at a winter festival, where all my other friends went on to watch Sting’s daughter I Blame Coco and I stood front row waiting for Janelle. It was life changing. She danced, jumped, screamed and even painted something into a blank canvas throughout the whole set. Her band was impeccably orchestrated and the show was extremely cinematic, since many of Janelle’s inspirations are from sci-fi movies. Her music is layered and complex just like her personality. Over the years she has been extremely mysterious, one of the things I appreciated the most about her. This year that changed. After much speculation in the media, she said in an interview she’s pansexual, as someone who has had relationships with men and women, that’s how she identifies more comfortably. Above all she’s an artist with a very specific vision and talent, carving the path for Afrofuturism; to create space for black people but especially queer POC to conquer over the systematic racism, lack of opportunities and prejudice in our society. Her new record “Dirty Computer” is the materialization of that evolution, the most “Janelle” album ever. Covering everything from sexual freedom to political issues while using a pop funky beat. Reminiscing one of her heroes, Prince, who became a friend and mentor before passing away in 2016. And all I want for 2019 is to be in the same room as Janelle and take on another voyage dans la lune with all the other androids.

                 Annie Clark has also played around with the idea of being an alien or a cyborg, especially on her self-titled album from 2014. That’s when I saw her live for the time and I had to give into my friend’s obsession with her music. Last year St. Vincent released “Masseduction”, an almost perfect record, in my opinion. The song with the same title is most definitely an anthem for our generation “I can’t turn off what turns me on…” and after a long relationship with model/actress Cara Delevingne or that summer fling with Kristen Stewart, it was clear, Annie is queer. (Pun so intended) While songs like “New York” or “Los Ageless” can be associated to both of those relationships, Annie’s talent as an exquisite guitar player, fearless innovative sounds and unique live shows, have made her the intergalactic rock Goddess of our queer dreams.

                 Widely inspired by Annie Clark is my next musical Queeroe. Mackenzie Scott aka Torres. There’s something about debut albums that I really love and Torres self-titled LP from 2013 is definitely in my top favorites list. It’s really fucking sad music with raw emotion, as you can hear in “Honey”, “Jealousy and I” or “When Winter’s over”. Her second album “Sprinter” showed a very exciting evolution in her sound but it’s “Three Futures” from 2017 that encapsulates Mackenzie’s desire towards experimenting with her sexuality in a more explicit way. As seen in the video for the first single where she takes on gender roles as both feminine and masculine characters who are living the dreadful “American Dream”. Plus the cover picture for that record is her staring at a semi naked woman on a pole, marking 2017 as very gay year for music.      

                Laura Jane Grace’s voice first made waves through my ears because of the collab Against Me! did with Tegan Quin back in 2007 for the single “Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart”. The song didn’t stick to me that long and although I had heard Against Me! was my kind of band I never took the time to really listen to them. Until 2014, when “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” was released and it rapidly became one of the most important records of my life. I started watching many interviews with Laura Jane about the struggles of coming out as a trans woman in this fucked up world, specifically while being part of the punk scene, where there’s not much space for anything other than toxic masculinity. I related to Laura’s journey and with every single lyrics on “True trans soul rebel” since it felt like the most authentic punk anthem I had heard in a while. I went to their first ever gig in Portugal in 2015 and screamed as much as I could surrounded by my family of misfits, all wearing black and their heart tattoos on their sleeves. I dug into Against Me! discography but other than the single “I was a teenage anarchist” which I already knew, nothing got me hooked as much as “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” did. Laura Jane’s name is very much appropriate, for her Grace is felt through her screams as much as her written words, something I found fascinating while reading her auto biography: “Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout”. I loved every page of it, with original diary pieces, she takes us on a wild precious ride from her childhood and family issues to all the drama in the music industry or the tribulations of managing a band in this time and age. There’s really nothing more punk rock than being yourself and Laura Jane does it with so much effortless coolness and Grace.

            I tried not to listen to Courtney Barnett for months. I had seen the hype around her but didn’t feel quite ready to embark in that journey and my queers did I regret it… She played at Primavera Sound Porto in 2015 and I started listening to her on loop only weeks after that. The heartbreaking part is that I was also at that festival. The good part is that she came back in 2016 to another festival in Lisbon and I was there just for her (and Father John Misty). Which felt like the stars had aligned with my musical desires. She’s unapologetically herself but not in the way that you would say so about Cardi B for example. She’s wickedly smart with her words and unexpectedly brutal with her chords, right before she opens her mouth she looks like the sweetest person you will ever meet and after you are transported to her own island, full of genius puns, sarcastic inputs about daily life or the state of the world. My favorite verse is from “Pedestrian at best” and I almost got it tattooed… “Give me all your money and I’ll make some origami honey”. Which to me roughly translates to: Fuck Capitalism! She’s also very open about her long term relationship with her wife and fellow musician Jen Cloher, making them the ultimate indie rock’s queer power couple.

                 2016 was the darkest year of my life. I stopped listening to music for months, stopped sleeping and my panic attacks would strike me even if I was in the middle of a busy street. It was scary to lose myself in such dark thoughts but then one day I listened to Shura’s song “Too shy” and felt like a little bit of me was alive again. Her debut album “Nothing’s real” came out around that time and her lyrics for the title song were exactly what I felt through my depression. In this song she is writing about her own experience with a panic attack that makes you feel like dying. And they do. “Too Shy” is a beautiful tune about unrequited love because you are simply too fucking shy to ever go for it and ask your crush on a date. Being shy and anxious almost always go hand in hand, as an awkward, quiet, weird introvert myself, discovering Shura’s songs and story gave me hope and made me gather the lost pieces of my own identity, leaving all the pain, shame and constant anxiety behind. Music really is medicine for the soul.

                 Julien Baker also has one of the best debut albums I’ve ever heard. Personally, it’s very special because it marks the beginning of my current relationship, as my girlfriend surprised me with Julien’s “Sprained Ankle” vinyl just weeks after we started dating. That vinyl did not leave my record player for the last months of 2016 and whenever I listen to it now, I am instantly transported to that moment in time. I was finally getting back on my feet and everything was falling into place, Julien’s gigantic voice echoed my natural melancholy, embracing my demons with a new found strength.  I’ve seen her twice, both times a very out of body experience and had the pleasure to let her know how much her music has helped me. We hugged, talked and she even has the zine I make (CuntRoll) in her living room table because she likes it so much. She is someone I could definitely see myself hanging out in my group of friends and that’s what I love the most about this new generation of artists, who aren’t trying to be something they’re not for the sake of money or exposure. They embrace who they are and let the world decide if they wanna take it or leave it. And that’s exactly what we need right now, to accept and embrace people for who they are and the art they make. So we can all to the same in our own lives.

                 “Yeah I’ve got it I’m a man now…” are the verses that got stuck with me for weeks after listening to Christine and The Queens single “iT”. Yes, the capital T is on purpose as it represents testosterone, the hormone used by many Trans AFAB people to start the process of becoming more themselves. This androgynous handsome French creature original name is Heloise and since her worldwide success with her first record “Chaleur Humaine” she has shredded so many stereotypes through her music, her dancing and her style. I hate comparing artists but some people call her “ the French Michael Jackson” for a reason. My chin dropped while watching her cover for Beyonce’s “Sorry” which she transformed into her own song like it’s nobody’s business (please go watch it asap). This year she blessed as with her second LP just called “Chris” inviting the world to be a little bit closer to her. Chris is her nickname and presents us with a new image for Heloise, embracing her masculine vibe more than ever before, with short hair, loose clothing and talking proudly about queer issues in many interviews. The video for the single “5 dollars” is the epitome of gender fucking and the reason why I am even gayer now tbh.  (You should watch that also!) The future is genderqueer.

                 I stayed away from the hype of “Girls like Girls” back in 2015 because I’m mostly suspicious of pop artists using gay stories to go with the trend of pink washing, ie Katy Perry “I kissed a girl” is a fucking jam but also really fucking problematic, coming from a cis het white female who has no idea the struggles of being queer. Hayley Kiyoko is most definitely not one of those artists though, as she has slowly but certainly become the Lesbian Jesus we’ve all been praying for. With “Curious” she let us know there’s a new fucking boss in town and she’s so fucking gay. What a time to be alive, 20gayteen is real and we are here to witness it all. Hayley’s not the greatest singer in the world, but she uses the best of her skills to give voice to all the kids who struggled with feeling alienated because they couldn’t fit in anywhere. She creates videos which are more like short stories, where she not only acts, but also writes and directs with her own team, never compromising her vision to tell the stories she wants to tell. Stories that resonate with so many queer people and we all know how important representation is, especially coming from an authentic source. To have such a person in the mainstream is what Tegan and Sara were thriving for a few years ago but the result wasn’t very genuine, something that doesn’t happen with Hayley’s songs. Her album “Expectations” doesn’t have big hits, other than “Feelings and “Curious” but it’s the debut album of someone with a huge potential and vision to take up the space for ourselves to tell our own stories and no one else.

                Linn Da Quebrada is the musical Goddess of the moment. Eloquent, inspiring, caustic, no one is left indifferent after listening to her. And that's exactly what she wants, to leave us on our tiptoes waiting to be carried away by words of pleasure, empowerment, trans feminism and especially so much self-love. Each verse is a lyrical genius clapback in the face of this transphobic, sexist and racist society. Prejudices that kill so many queer people of color in Brazil every year. Her existence is transforming, rewriting the HERSTORY of the world and of her country, through the re-appropriation of funk, where SHE finally gets to be the protagonist of her own story and that courage surpasses linguistic or cultural barriers. In 2017 she released her first album “Pajubá” after a very successful crowdfunding campaign and also has her own documentary called “Bixa Travesty” which has gathered accolades through many film festivals around the world. The song “Bixa Preta” is a fucking iconic anthem for 20gayteen and for all of my maricones family out in the world fighting everyday for our existence to be respected.

We will NEVER be erased.

[theteenagetrickster]

'No Fiat five hundred techno!': why electronic popular music in Stopper is putting off|Music|The Guardian

"Messy in the greatest possible technique," mentions Cork developer Uncertainty of the epiphanic knowledge he invited 2015 at a storehouse go crazy in Estate Property, north London. "It was really loosened up feelings. Safety and security-- although I really did not find several-- were actually audio, and also there were massive sausages all night. I 'd never really professional just about anything like that in Ireland."

He was actually in London as a result of English developer NKC, one of the makers of the club sound understood as tough drum, then merely a Soundcloud tag. Doubt (real name Ollie McMorrow) and also nationals Tension (Dylan O'Mahony) and also Syn (Reneé Griffin) put together their own label, Flooding, a year after their challenging drum one night stand in Greater london. After finding out, trying out and dawdling along with close friends in Cork, all it took was actually NKC's rambunctious parties to liquify their aggregate obstacle.

Flooding and also an internet of other producers in their 20s coming from the small Irish south-coast city-- Numbertheory, Lighght, Ellll and Superfície-- are now bring in names on their own in International group songs circles, along with syncopated mutations of percussion-driven digital music. Although they are actually not all conveniently grouped all together, the common measure is a primal drum-laden noise where rhythms roll at breakneck velocity. The songs offers most of these youthful performers a sense of purpose and also identification-- regardless of whether most of all of them are actually leaving behind Ireland for a new beginning, amid the sanitising of young people society as developers desolated different venues, and also a raging housing problems, with increasing being homeless as well as the appearance of Dublin as being one of the globe's most expensive metropolitan areas to live in.

Stopper has broken new ground in Irish music prior to. In the 1980s, it was the extremely unlikely property to a vibrant reggae scene, the cello-brandishing post-punk ensemble Five Decrease to the Sea, and also Microdisney, the county's solution to Fleetwood Mac. Yet it was actually the nightclub Sir Henry's, established in the late 70s, that opened up several in the area to nightclub music, especially property. "Sir Henry's was ground absolutely no," points out Stopper property songs trailblazer Shane Johnson, who co-founded a night there certainly phoned Sweat that brought in global stars including Kerri Chandler, Cajmere and also Derrick May. "Certainly not merely for the club setting, but also for the neighborhood rock scene prior to it."

Structure on its legacy, Jimmy Horgan, that manages nearby report outlet Plugd along with Albert Twomey, has been a cornerstone of nonconforming popular music in Stopper, frequently holding the brand-new kind of producers upstairs in the establishment's real-time space, a site phoned the Roundy. "The man takes a genuine rate of interest in every kind of songs that's created and also played in the metropolitan area," producer James O'Connell, 25, who documents as Numbertheory, distinguishes me. "He's absolutely for the lifestyle."

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Actually coming from Dublin, Horgan is unassuming in his evaluation of the city's vivid percussive popular music setting: to him, it is actually the artists'unrelenting imagination that has created it all achievable."Most likely the first hint I got of this noise was when Superfície-- then going under the title Sexworker-- came by a few trials of his keep tracks of, perhaps back in 2013 or even 2014,"Horgan keeps in mind.

"Me as well as my coworker were actually blown away."Members of these youthful performers, normally in properties or even apartments, are where portion of this Stopper drum act were actually birthed. McMorrow, whose papa and also gramps were each drummers, points out:"Percussion has always been actually a big aspect of my lifestyle."And at 14, O'Mahony happened to love performers like Burial and labels like Warp as well as Hyperdub, as well as decided he might perform it, also, pirating manufacturing program, messing about with the functionalities, and also spending the last 2 years at college trying to make one thing"from another location decent". While participating in the same university course, O'Mahony met Griffin, who had actually been actually capturing as Syn, as well as would hang at her area after class. She presented all of them all, consisting of O'Connell, to a collection of brand new, eardrum-bursting sounds from labels including Her Records, Discolor to Mind, and Sidereal Aircraft. Superfície, a Brazilian-Irish manufacturer now located in Berlin, presented them kuduro, baile funk as well as batucada, while tensions of percussive popular music promoted through labels like Príncipe and Naafi, increased their perspectives even more. Lighght, Also Known As Eamon Ivri, simply discovered Flooding--

"a real inspiration "-- by means of Soundcloud, aimlessly as well as belatedly, prior to he ever before met all of them, despite their proximity as well as similar rate of interests. Flooding's first release, a fun nine-track collection, showed up in 2017, a year after they developed. They determined that they needed a center for "properly talking over tips as well as roaring keep tracks of as loud as feasible"and located a small, secluded storage facility area in a commercial status forgeting Cork's docklands. The duality in their music, between the all natural and also the technical, can partially be traced back to this factor. "There was a bare comparison between the industrial, grey and worn out storage facilities and the lovely scenery out on Stopper port,"mentions Doubt. Ellll, Berlin-based techno sorcerer Ellen Master, claims the internet and nearby hubs may not have actually been actually the

only reasons why Cork became a reproduction ground for unique group music." Stopper has been actually an incredibly house-focused metropolitan area, and also although I have actually never associated with that, percussive music happening out of the city in the final couple of years seems like a reaction to that perspective." Facebook Twitter Pinterest From the 1st seconds you push use a Flooding singular, or even a hypnotic Ellll release, or even a stormlike rave loosie coming from Lighght, you listen to dispute and also tumult. Percussion-wise, they draw coming from sounds from around the world. Listen to the drums as well as you could think about Latin The United States or even Africa. Sometimes local area concepts sneak in: Numbertheory featured an example of sean nós, an Irish tradition of haunting, melismatic vocal; Syn's track Coy featured a sample of the bodhrán, an Irish drum helped make along with goatskin; Lighght's great 2019 cd, Gore-Tex in the Nightclub, Balenciaga Amongst the Bushes, makes usage of the harp. Irishness exists, regardless of whether it is actually simply snooping. Cork is known lovingly as"the rebel area", the outcome of its long record of fierce protection and also obstinate frustration, primarily against British guideline. A caricature of Cork people in Irish society-- perma-vexed and also dangerously parochial, made famous abroad through firebrand footballer Roy Keane as well as popular culture phenomena including the TELEVISION series Youthful Wrongdoers-- apparently contains some honest truth." It is actually a saying, yet the entire revolutionist aesthetic that Cork has actually taken on actually molds the urban area. You observe murals of Che Guevara, recommendations to the Palestinian trigger,"says O'Connell, whose pummelling drums are typically alonged with sludgy heavy-metal themes.

Most of these musicians do not pinpoint with Cork's medical self-mythologising. "I really did not take pleasure in a lot of my young people, and invested a bunch of my opportunity as a teen in local consuming spots," mentions Syn, 25, whose mom has operated as a club DJ. "I always remember begrudging Cork coming from a young age as a result of the shortage of tasks for young people in the area past acquiring fucked up."

& Facebook

Twitter Pinterest DIY rushing was the only method onward in a tourism-oriented nation where, every number of months, an accommodation seems to change a crucial night life hub. The eventual members of Flooding tossed much of their personal events since, as they see it, commercialised locations prioritise step and also double-vodka invoices over the physical adventure. Today, Syn helps run a queer night gotten in touch with CXNT in the Roundy, where throbbing, untrendy types like hardgroove, gabber and also donk masquerade the norm. As O'Connell places it: "The significant clubs merely would like to listen to EDM and mundane, Heineken-sponsored, white-bread, Fiat 500 techno."

Even with their very own inventiveness, as well as the support of Plugd and also various other places, such as Kino and the Community Hall, producers are actually required to look elsewhere for options. The sounds being actually developed in Cork have been actually championed by performers and DJs in the financing, at Dublin Digital Broadcast-- a haven for Ireland's weirdest audios, where McMorrow still holds a month to month program phoned Hush-- as well as fantastic collectives including Nightclub Convenience.

Lots of proficient manufacturers and creatives possess, a minimum of semi-permanently, gone overseas. Certified mathematician O'Connell left just recently for Beijing, while Master and also Superfïcie have actually both relocated to Berlin. As it happens, McMorrow is actually busy prepping themself for a transfer to Glasgow when we communicate, an usual journey for Irish creatives in the last few years. Rental fees are actually lesser there, ailments for nightlife lifestyle are less suffocating, and also youngsters are, in his scenery, managed a lot better in Scotland than in his house nation.

"Unless you're intending on expending over half your standard earnings every month, you most likely won't have the capacity to find a location to stay in Cork," he regrets. "I would certainly really love nothing at all more than to become able to keep in Stopper, as well as perform what I love here, yet straight today it's only certainly not feasible."

Financial barriers have not stopped the energy of these musicians, nevertheless. "Whether it's a storehouse gathering along with 30 intoxicated people crammed into a dark, drab room paying attention to industrial remixes of Princess Superstar, or checking out the Roundy acquire become a topless sweatbox," O'Mahony points out of his long-lasting minds of the community-based micro-scene, "it is actually the important things that were created for, and through, people like our company that stand apart."

This content was originally published here.

[ablogofourown-blog]

last pizza

My first thought was to write a short story that didn’t have a twist ending. I immediately imagined a woman who knew she was going to die going out for pizza. Then I sat on it for a week and my brain started poking holes in the premise which I rushed to try to fill in within about three days of writing. I think the real lesson here is when I have an idea for a story, I need to write it right away, or at least email it. 

Also I thought of at least three twist endings that I could have written for this story and some of them were very difficult to resist, I’m just saying.

...Alex

On the day she died, Thália went out for pizza.

One Eye Pizza Parlor had been at the end of her block for as long as she had lived there.  It was the sort of place she noticed on her walk home when she had already eaten or just wanted Thai take-out for the night or didn’t have any money. The kind of place she always made a note to visit but never did. That was the first reason she went to it now, but it was not the primary reason.

It was 11:00am when she arrived.  She ordered a large chicken alfredo pizza for herself and took a seat at one of the smallest tables in the corner.  While she waited, she took out a notebook, and as she ate, she began to write.  She stayed this way well into the afternoon, scarcely lifting her head above her notebook except to eat or order a refill of lemon lime soda. The three times she got up to go to the restroom, the staff must have thought with relief that she was finally leaving. But she always returned to her table and to her notebook.

At 4:30pm, her server, whose name tag read “Chinonso” made his last round before ending his shift. “Ready for your check yet?” he asked with a polite smile that only slightly wavered with his impatience.

She shook her head. “Actually, can I get a taco calzone and some cheesy bread?”

“Just for you?” She looked around the table and nodded. “You sure you’re not going to explode?” His laugh strained and his face pinched as he realized the awkward and potentially insulting joke he had just made to a customer.

“Anything’s possible.” Thália shrugged. “But it’s my last day alive, so I thought I might as well stuff my face.”

His smile twitched and he stood uncertainly for a moment. “Hah,” he said flatly, as if it might have been some joke that went over his head.  “I’ll get that right in.” He walked away a little more quickly than he had arrived. Thália had always been cautious and private.  She rarely told people about even her normal thoughts.  Now it seemed silly to worry whether a stranger thought she was weird or crazy.

A few minutes later, a new server returned with the food, and Thalia pushed the empty pizza tray that Chinonso had forgotten away to make room.  Before she could start writing again, he was back at her table, now in jeans and a hoodie for some sports team she didn’t recognize.

“Listen,” he said, sounding almost out of breath. “Are you…I don’t know you, but are you…okay?”

“I’m not going to kill myself,” she answered. “If that’s what you were wondering.”

“Oh.” His shoulders relaxed. “So, you’re…”

“Psychic.”

He blinked. “Are you the one that told my mom that a blue car would put her aura back in balance?”

“Maybe,” Thália answered, not because it was true but because it was funny. “You have an interesting name.”

“It’s an Igbo name,” he explained. “What’s yours?”

“Thália. Brazilian, not Greek.”

“Thália. Cool.”  When he didn’t move, she gestured to the seat in front of her, and he sat.  “So, you’re saying that you had a premonition or vision or whatever that you were going to die, and you…decided to go out in a blaze of thick crusts?”

She snorted. “No.  I decided to get pizza because I had a vision of myself eating pizza on the last day I was alive.”

“So wait, you didn’t have a vision of yourself dying?”

She took a bite of the calzone, made a face, and waved it. “This is terrible.”

“You ordered it. After you started off with a pizza that’s meant to be a pasta, I might add.  I don’t think your culinary preferences are very sound.”

“Not the actual event, no,” she explained. “Just a snippet of the pizza.”

“Okay, so how do you know this is your ‘last day alive?’”

She sighed and broke off a piece of cheesy bread.

“Was that insensitive? I don’t know psychic etiquette.”

“What do you care, anyway? You think I’m making this all up.”

“Hey, I never said that.”  He leaned back and scratched his close cropped curls. “Let’s just say I’m invested in the narrative.  And if it’s all some desperate cry for attention, well, someone should actually pay attention, right?”

“Gee, thanks,” Thália retorted with her mouth full. She waited a moment before speaking again.  “I’ve always had these…senses, just this vibe of how things are and what will happen, without any logical explanation. Visions are more rare.  It doesn’t matter how insignificant the vision seems, if I have it, something’s going to happen. And when I had the vision of myself here, at this table, I just knew.”

He waited, considering her story. “So look, this isn’t some elaborate way of getting out of paying, is it?

She reached into her pocket and brought out the wad of cash that she had taken from her bank account that morning.  It wasn’t enough to give bequeath to anyone, but it was more than enough to pay for pizza. She placed it on the table.

“Okay. So if your vision happened here, and it made you think you were going to die…why not go somewhere else? Why not just stay home?”

“Whatever’s going to happen will. Trust me, I’ve had this forever. You try to do something else, and you end up in the same place.  It’s better to just go with it.”

“To go with…untimely death?”

She shrugged, arms crossed.  You didn’t see me yesterday, she thought. Afraid to move, curled up in a ball, then, by turns,  tearing her room apart because it obviously didn’t matter now.  It was good to get it out.  She wasn’t calm today so much as emotionally drained. “You don’t have to believe me. I shouldn’t have told you, but you asked, and I hadn’t really said it out loud before.”

“I didn’t say—wait, not to anyone? Family? Friends?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t talk to family anymore, and I’m not going to start now. My friends are kind of spread out and I didn’t want to bother them.”

“Maybe you should have. I mean, if you really think…”

“Yeah, maybe.” She felt a lump rising in her throat and shook her head as she pushed it down.  A pitying look flashed across Chinonso’s face and it made her feel worse.

“And I take it your accuracy rate…”

“It’s pretty spot-on.” She looked at her notebook and started writing again.

Chinonso was quiet for a moment, and then asked, “What are you writing?”

“Just some memories.”

“For your friends?”

“Maybe. Mostly for me, though.  I just spent so much time focusing on the future, and now all I want to do is think about the past.”

“Makes sense,” he said.  “Like what?”

She flipped back to the beginning.  “One time when I was six, I found a baby bird alone and tried to take it back to its nest, but I dropped it.”

Chinonso pulled back and raised his eyebrow.  “That’s…sad.”

“I didn’t say they were all good memories.” She flipped through a few more.  “My first concert. That’s a good one.  I didn’t actually have tickets, but they played on the waterfront and I sat on the bridge, and at one point, when they played my favorite song, I could have sworn the keyboard player looked up at me. Which was stupid, because I couldn’t see their faces, but that’s how I like to remember it.”

“Who was it?”

She knit her brow. “Some art punk band I used to like.  They broke up and I don’t remember the name.”

She didn’t need to look at the notebook to reference the most recent. “And I ran away when I was twelve.  I was gone for a year before anyone found me.”

“Where did you go?”

“For a while, I just camped out in the woods, but then I met these…they weren’t good people. They usually had me play their daughter and we went around conning people until the police found me and assumed I’d been kidnapped.  And I let them, because no matter what I said, they’d just tell me I didn’t know what I was saying, that I’d been manipulated. Which is probably true.  But it was better than home, you know?” She frowned and closed the notebook. “Or you don’t. I don’t know why I’d assume you just know that.”

“It’s okay. I know.”

Thália looked out the window.  She hadn’t noticed the rain before, but now she saw it coming down so heavily it was hard to make out anything else.  Maybe it’s a storm, she thought, and that made her more calm than she had been all day. “I’ve always liked storms,” she said out loud.

“Me, too,” Chinonso admitted. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips.  “It’s okay to be upset. That’s…I mean, that’s human.”

She leaned back and leveled a narrowed-eye look at him.  “Don’t you have anywhere to be after work?”

He sighed.  “I don’t know. You’re the psychic.  Do I?”

“Please don’t.”

He chuckled.  “My video games and ramen packets can wait. Just for a couple hours, though, because the games get jealous.”

“You’re funny.”

“I really, really try.”

She snorted. When she looked outside again, the rain was already easing.  So much for that.  “I just mean, you don’t have to babysit me or sit with me and hold my hand. You don’t even know me.”

He shrugged. “You had a vision of the place where I work. Maybe I’m supposed to be here, too.”

“I hope not.”

“No offense, but I kind of hope not, too.”

“So, leave then.”

“Hey, no one’s holding a gun to my  head.” He winced. “Was that in poor taste?”

“I didn’t even notice until you said something.”

“Sorry.”

She ran one hand through her hair while the other tapped at the table.  “Well, look, if you’re going to stay, and I’m not asking you to, can you just…talk about something that’s not me? The trials of food service industry? Your childhood? Literally anything?”

“I’m not that interesting of a person.”

“Good. Ramble to me about as many uninteresting things as you can think of.”

So he talked about work (“Customers can be assholes sometimes, but my boss is super chill, so it’s cool,”), his family (a dramatic imitation of his grandmother’s Nigerian accent when she was  drunk, and his favorite dog that died the day after he finally moved out), his favorite games (“Games that are all shooting and combat are too much for me, I actually like the ones that are just a story, you know?”), and what he went to school for (business, but he just didn’t have the connections to get into anything yet, and anyway how is he ever supposed to get experience if people only hire applicants with experience?).  She nodded and laughed and sometimes she stopped tapping against the table as she listened. By the time he ran out of things to say, it was dark outside and Thália was scraping cheese off the empty tray where the bread once rested.

He leaned forward a bit, but he hesitated before he said, “You know they’re going to close eventually.”

“I know.” Her throat was dry and her voice was quiet.  “I thought something would have happened by now.  It be so much easier if I just knew what was going to happen, so I could expect it. Shit.” She fell back against her chair hard enough that it rocked.

“Sorry,” he offered in a mumble. He knew it was insufficient.

She sighed. “It’s just…I know whatever happens happens, but if I leave, then it becomes real.  Probably. Maybe you’re right.  Maybe I got it wrong, and I’m making a big deal about nothing.” She tried to make herself believe it, but her veins were tense with dread.  

“You don’t have to leave yet. We can stay here and talk for as long as they’re open.”

She shook her head. Chinonso waited, but her jaw was tight. She worried that if she said anything, it would just sound even more pathetic.

“Do you have anywhere else you need to go?”

She nodded. At length, she said, “I want to mail this to someone.  Just want someone to have it.”

“I know a late night post office. I can give you a ride.”

She gave him a wary look.  At this point, it seemed silly to wonder whether he was a serial killer, although the thought of dying that way was still terrifying.  He seemed honest enough, but that was not her main concern. “You’re not going to want to see that. Especially if something happens to you, too.”

“Whatever happens happens, right?” He stood up and held out his hand to her. “If you want.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed all the insufficient thanks she could have offered. She placed her hand in his.

[futurelandfillpress]

My Top 33 Songs of 2016

Here are my favorite 33 songs released in 2016 and some anecdotal quips attempting to trick you into giving them a chance. The songs are presented in alphabetical order by artist, because number ones are for toilets. Click play!

Animals As Leaders – The Brain Dance Theoretically instrumental progressive music is right up my alley, but as a whole album this is like trying to read Infinite Jest while also listening to an audiobook of The Three-Body Problem. Point being it’s probably brilliant, but also overwhelming. There are great flourishes and very heavy energetic moments, all interspersed with what sound like Eastern European news show opening themes, far more intricate than what is to follow. The Brain Dance is one of the few songs that I enjoyed all the way through and out of the context of the album gains some genuine emotion.

ANOHNI – Marrow The solo effort from the singer of Antony and the Johnsons which is a band that never really worked for me. In a way this album was a pleasant surprise. Obviously if you don’t like the vocals you won’t like this, the electronic instrumentals on this are by Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never which was what got me to check it out. I think overall the whole album is worth a listen, though I can’t blame anyone for thinking it’s a bit cringy and on the nose. If you enjoy Marrow I suggest trying Why Did You Separate Me from the Earth? which gives you a good range of the sound of the album.

BADBADNOTGOOD - Confessions Pt II (featuring Colin Stetson) & In Your Eyes (feat Charlotte Day Wilson) Not sure how to describe it, perhaps Confessions Pt II is heavy cyclical jazz and In Your Eyes is a soul throwback. From the very first album where BBNG did covers of James Blake electronic/trip hoppy wanderings, I’ve been intrigued. On their third album they almost sounded like a stripped down Tortoise with the track CS60. It’s difficult to explain why they appeal to me, but they continue to use simple materials to produce interesting diverse results. This was also the first time I heard Charlotte Day Wilson, possibly the best vocalist without an album of her own.

case/lang/veirs – Atomic Number Neko Case, K.D. Lang, and Laura Veirs, coming together to make one of my favorite albums of the year and this was the first song I heard and sold me instantly. The album also has great replay value and is something you can put on during a casual dinner with rich friends in your million dollar bungalow by the ocean.

Charlotte Day Wilson – Work She didn’t release a full album, but she did put out a digital EP and collaborated with several other artists, like froyo ma, IGLOOGHOST, and BBNG. This is a fairly simple trip hop track, it basically rests on her voice and melody both of which are superb and invite me to put it on repeat. I will give anything she does a listen.

David Bowie – Girl Loves Me Bowie put out one of my instant favorite albums of the year and then days later died, this song is stuck in my head, because he specifically sings; “ Where the fuck did Monday go?” Monday was the day he died or at least the day I found out he did. It really was a gut punch at the very beginning of the year. I actually wasn’t able to listen to the album for well about a year after that or any of his music. I finally at the very end got my dad the album and then re-listened to it, this song still makes me emotionally compromised. I think it’s that he didn’t put out that sad folk album that many older musicians are expected to produce, he put out an aggressive progressive electronic melodic monster. For those that do enjoy the album, they just put out an EP that has three bonus songs, one of which is maybe heavier than anything on Blackstar.

Devin Townsend – Time Overload (demo) This track appears on the bonus CD of Devin’s album Transcendence, it’s all supposed demos, though his standards are so high that how can you possibly tell. Although the actual album has great tracks on it, this demo stuck out to me as just about the catchiest pop metal track I’ve heard in a long time. There is a kind of almost industrial edge to it, but it’s basically a sing along pop song, that also scares the elderly.

DJ Shadow Feat RunTheJewels – Nobody Speak I’ve heard about RTJ for a while and obviously Killer Mike’s endorsement of Bernie was yet another highlight of the year, but somehow I hadn’t heard their music. This was the first exposure, in this case produced by DJ Shadow in a reworked take of Ol’ Man River by Caterina Valente. The video is glorious and cathartic and the lyrics are pure poetry: “Flame your crew quicker than Trump fucks his youngest” Overall it’s just a fun bouncy rap track.

Flume - Take a Chance (feat. Little Dragon) I’ve made mixes previously of just Little Dragon contributing vocals to other artists. I will give anything Little Dragon does a chance. In this case this is an almost dub stepy electro pop track, it’s a great contrast as she brings the coldness of the instrumental back to melody.

Goblin Cock – Bothered Rob Crow came back with an vengeance in 2016, he dropped a Goblin Cock album plus EP that I have yet to hear and then two Anal Trump releases with 40 songs totaling 3:36min. I just wish I’d gotten the chance to see them live, maybe next year I will be less destitute. They also get the award for the best album title, Necronomidonkeykongimicon. EDIT I totally forgot that Rob Crow also released You’re Doomed. Be Nice. as Rob Crow's Gloomy Place. That bastard is a prolific monster that makes the rest of us look like lazy sods. 

hyphyskazerbox - Not As Punk Rock Electronic wonderment, I really don’t know anything else about the artist here, just that the album is sometimes difficult and sometimes engaging and worth a listen if you like electronic wizardry.

James Blake - I Need A Forest Fire (feat. Bon Iver) I really wanted to like the album, but it just felt unfocused and often too brittle even for me. There were however some very strong highlights. There is a great EP in this album, that’s what I would say. Overgrown was a way more satisfying listening experience overall, so if you’re new to James, I’d start there.

Kaada/Patton – Papillon Mike Patton puts out so much material it’s impossible to listen to all of it, but when I get a chance there is always something worth my time. This collaboration with Kaada produced a track that belongs on a soundtrack if it isn’t already.

Kaytranada - WEIGHT OFF (feat. BADBADNOTGOOD) Yes BBNG is back again, this time in a collaboration with a producer, who also on the same album collaborates with Little Dragon. It’s a short and simple groove with textures, that’s all it is just a catchy bit of analog drum n bass, but it got a whole lotta play in 2016.

M83 – Time Wind (featuring Beck) This song got me looking deeper into Becks catalog, I don’t know how I even came across this song. It’s basically 80’s electro pop, which isn’t a search I’ve ever done.

Maggie Rogers – Alaska I’m guessing I wasn’t the only person that saw her play this track for Pharrell Williams while she was still in music school. I was just as intrigued or perhaps it’s the hope that the next crop of pop artists will be more interesting and not insipid marketing hype.

Melt Yourself Down – Jump the Fire Kushal Gaya’s vocals are mesmerizing, whether it’s in Melt Yourself Down or in Zun Zun Egui, there is an energy that I highly appreciate. Whatever the style and the styles are varied, there is a frenetic force always keeping me interested. There is also a kind of punk sensibility to what they do, if you see a live performance, they basically seem like super energetic street musicians.

Metá Metá - Toque Certeiro Ever since I did a deep dive into the Jorge Ben discography I’ve been coming across more Brazilian musicians that speak to me, even if I don’t understand what they are saying. In this case when I heard this track I realized I already knew the singer Juçara Marçal, having fallen hard for her track Candombe, where she collaborates with Cadu Tenório. Also I’d already heard some of her solo album Encarnado, which has a distinct punky math rocky edge, but without drums, instead other instruments and her voice doing interesting noodly gymnastics. Metá Metá however is a heavier Brazilian jazz fusion band at least on their third album. Mick Jenkins ft. BADBADNOTGOOD – Drowning Yes BBNG is my MVP of the year. They did the music to this eerie song that I can’t listen to without seeing the police kill Eric Garner. I’m not sure if the song is directly referencing that, but that’s what I get from it and on top of that it’s a good song.

Moniker – Ricky Runs I will find music wherever I can, in this case I saw the movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople in a tiny theater in Montgomery, AL and found my self captivated by the soundtrack. This song reminds me of the post rock band 35007 or at least the drumming does. The movie is also very good, Rhys Darby cosplays about the most convincing bush I’ve ever seen.

Opeth - Will O The Wisp I think Mikael has been listening to lots of Jethro Tull. I’ve tried to enjoy the whole album, but I continue to fail, it’s actually similar in some ways to the James Blake album, in that I think there is a great EP here. I’m sure I will be excited and look out for whatever he does next, but this just didn’t hit me the way I wished, it may just take some time to grow on me as a whole. Also very oddly one of my favorite tracks called The Ward ended up as a bonus track, why Mikael, why?

Oranssi Pazuzu - Vasemman Käden Hierarkia This might be my favorite black metal album in a long time, I’m not sure I can even call it black metal, but unlike others that tread that line it’s not folk either. I would say this album is more progressive and possibly doomy at times. This track is actually the most traditionally black metal, with a really sexy repeating riff grooving along. As a bonus it comes back near the end slower and heavier and it’s highly satisfying, like taking a journey. Just in general it’s less trebly and more crushing in a warm bassy way.

Radiohead - Burn The Witch Well the bastards did it again, put out an excellent album, and this one is very approachable while still pushing sound combinations and bringing it all together in a satisfying way. This album also feels more organic than some recent things they have been playing with.

Reza Safinia - The Train Another soundtrack song, this one from a movie called The Trust about a caper of sorts, bonus being that Nic Cage screams in Frodos face. Actually a good soundtrack, that isn’t just a variation on John Williams or Harry Gregson-Williams or Hans Zimmer or whoever we’re supposed to pretend is oh so very good.

Run The Jewels - A Report To The Shareholders : Kill Your Masters Just before the year ended RTJ pushed out their third album and it’s a monster. The second half starting at Don't Get Captured really takes off into some political and deeper thoughts that speak to me. This particular track ends the album and really it’s two tracks, oh and then at the very end Zack shows up and brings the anger. I highly appreciate the sentiments and I’m glad there is a band with this much exposure that is stepping into these subjects.

Swans - When Will I Return? I didn’t even hear the rest of the album, but I have a feeling this was probably the most upbeat, poppy of the lot. I will get to it eventually, but for now this enough to remind me of that mood that SGM & Art Bears would deliver.

Sylvan Esso – Radio They were on the radar already, I’d heard some tracks from their eponymous album. There was an interesting track called Dress that stuck with me, possibly because it reminded me a bit of Harriet Ohlsson of Oh, Harry And Hellsongs. Anyhow the point is that Radio is another example of what Pop music could be if only there were some discerning brave purveyors of popular consumable media.

Tor – Myth Pretty sure the intro guitar bit is taken from the Motorcycle Diaries soundtrack. It’s just chill relaxing groovy stuff that will no doubt end up on Coffee Shop Grooves Vol 34. I’m not trying to dismiss it, I dig music that isn’t assaulting me at every turn just as much as I like music that challenges me. This fits neatly somewhere with Bonobo or Tycho.

Tortoise - Shake Hands With Danger Another case of me thinking it would be a brilliant album, but it kind of didn’t materialize. Again this may be me not getting it at the moment, maybe five years from now I will love it. Until then though, there are some strong stand out tracks, this one being probably my favorite just for how unrelenting and heavy the beat is. Having seen them live and knowing just how heavy they are, this would no doubt punch a hole in my chest. Other tracks on this album that tickled my fancy Gesceap and Ox Duke.

A Tribe Called Quest - The Space Program An enjoyable track and album, like RTJ highly respected musicians speaking up and addressing things that somehow sound less authentic coming from Makelmore.

Tycho – Division Possibly the heaviest Tycho song, which should give you an idea of how not heavy the band generally tends to be. I’ve liked them for a while, their songs have this spacey driving quality, make me feel like driving through the Arizona canyons.

Woods - Can't See At All They get the award for having the worst album cover of the year. I also don’t think I could handle a whole album worth of his voice, but this track has a nice retro groove.

[sinceileftyoublog]

tētēma Interview: Reforming Raw Materials

Photo by Sabina Maselli

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Earlier this month, the project of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Dead Cross) and composer Anthony Pateras returned. tētēma’s new Necroscape follows 2014′s Geocidal and is even more aesthetically all over the place than that one. With violinist Erkki Veltheim and drummer Will Guthrie, the now-quartet combines Patton’s solemn-to-chaotic vocal arrangements (the title track, “Cutlass Eye”, “Dead Still”) with Pateras’ synth-heavy ambiance (“Wailt Till Mornin’”). But equally impressive are Guthrie’s percussive blasts (“Haunted On The Uptake”, buchla jam “Soliloquy”, the clattering “Flatliner’s Owl”), while Veltheim’s strings are ever present and all-encompassing.

Writing over email in lockdown, Pateras answered some questions about Necroscape; read his responses below.

Since I Left You: How have you been holding up?

Anthony Pateras: OK. I’ve been gardening and woodshedding on the piano to weather the lockdown.

SILY: What do you feel is the main difference between Necroscape and Geocidal?

AP: I feel Necroscape is much more concise and focused. Geocidal was a sprawling, chaotic affair that snapped into focus all of a sudden. Also, Necroscape is more or less a 4-piece band record, whereas Geocidal was more about creating a miniature orchestra around the voice with some of my favorite musicians.

SILY: Many of the tracks on Necroscape, like "Cutlass Eye", are 'heavier' than anything on Geocidal. They've got screaming, blast beats, and other things associated with punk or metal-adjacent genres and sub-genres. What contributed to this aesthetic shift?

AP: Wow, I guess I don’t hear any blast beats on there, nor punk or metal. Mike did mention at one point early on he’d just done the Dead Cross record and thought that had influenced “Cutlass Eye”. To me, this is one big musique concrète piece.

SILY: A track like "Haunted On The Uptake" combines very localized sounds with global pop structures. Is that a balance you consciously try to achieve when writing/recording the band's music?

AP: By localized sounds, I guess you mean close-miked? With this record, loosely speaking, I wanted to create song structures out of sounds that perhaps normally weren’t used in songs so often. So using specialized sounds is all part of that objective.

SILY: Are the vocals in "Dead Still" higher in the mix because the song has a more concrete message you felt needed to be heard?

AP: There is no message in that song. Making a record entails incorporating all kinds of flavors and perspectives. If each track has exactly the same sound stage and relationship between the parts, the ear gets fatigued very quickly and I wind up a very bored listener.

SILY: What about the title track made you want to name the album after it? Why did it make for a good opener?

AP: The album title came before the track title; then, when it came to lyrics we agreed that title somehow suited that track. As far as openers go, I wanted to do something quite understated and mysterious, not have this thing of the soft track or interlude in the middle of the record. I was trying to be a bit more structurally bold this time around, not come out with all guns blazing.

SILY: Why did you want to close the album with a track in Italian [ “Funerale Di Un Contadino”]?

AP: That was a last minute call. It’s a live recording from our show at MOFO [MONA FOMA/Museum of Old and New Art: Festival Of Music and Art] in 2017, which was a cover we worked up for that occasion. It’s from an amazing album from 1970 called Per un Pugno di Samba, a collaboration between Ennio Morricone and Chico Buraque, who is Brazilian but sings in Italian here. Freaking mind blowing album.

SILY: What's the inspiration behind the sequencing of the album?

AP: Nothing specific, sequencing for me comes down to how the album functions as a whole and how it can be used to enhance a universal structure between songs. I personally think it’s a great shame that people don’t do ‘albums’ so much anymore as listeners, whereas I’m a big fan of that. A long-range landscape or idea to get stuck into can be very nourishing. A group of disconnected tracks [can], too, but everything feels so fragmented now I like to try and hold attention for longer.

SILY: Many of your key track descriptions almost read like music reviews, combining disparate references to describe and aesthetic. Do you think taking in Necroscape requires this type of context?

AP: No, I don’t. I wrote those because the label asked me to and because it was a fun contextual exercise. The references to me don’t feel disparate, and I feel the music is pretty straightforward and can be absorbed as such.

SILY: What's the inspiration behind the album art?

AP: The album art is from a couple of exhibitions by an amazing Australian artist called Talitha Kennedy. I met her in Sydney when I started work on this album. One night we were drinking wine at her place surrounded by all of these striking leather sculptures and they stayed with me until 4 years later when it was time to sort out the artwork.

SILY: Are there or were there any plans to perform these new tracks live?

AP: Maybe! Now with the pandemic, it's hard to plan anything involving live music. All of my touring has been cancelled for 6 months, for example.

SILY: What's next for you?

AP: I’m composing a bunch of abstract electro-acoustic concert works which specifically interrogate direct compositional relationships between rhythm, timbre, and space.

SILY: Is there anything you've been listening to, reading, or watching that's caught your attention, inspired you, comforted you, or moved you, either before or during social distancing?

AP: I’ve been revisiting the composer Conlon Nancarrow’s Player Piano Studies, music which I studied many years ago. To put it mildly, it’s some of the most brilliant and astonishing music ever conceived for any instrument. He wrote them in complete isolation in Mexico after relocating there from the US. I guess my feeling is, if Nancarrow can sit completely isolated for over 40 years and make incredible music that no one else could possibly do, the best use of my time right now is to go deep and try to follow his example, at least for a couple of months! The last thing I want to be doing is making internet broadcasts; I feel a positive side to all of this could be artists taking the time to deepen their practice and come out the other end with something really special to share.

necroscape by tetema

[sariddomi]

q-&~a* <3

gEt to knowmE

//when you were born?

i was born on may 6 :) and im 15 right now so u do the math ok tehe

//what’s your full name and are you proud of it?

wait i feel like i shouldnt say my full name on here but its sara domingues, and im proud of it because it looks pretty i guess

//are you named after someone, if yes then after whom?

my first name isn’t really named after anyone actually!! but my middle name is named after my aunts middle name

//where are you from and are you proud of it?

omg im from new jersey; however, i live in canada 🇨🇦 i grew up here, so thats fun

and my folks are from brazil and portugal ~

//do you love playing any sports, or just watching it?

i used to play sports a lot ! i only really watch it now though - stuff like soccer, figure skating, hockey, dance, rhymthic gymnastics n volleyball

i dont watch it religiously tho its always on the tv tho

//which one is better, basketball or baseball?

basketball because tyler joseph likes it yes

//who is your favorite person in modern history?

I HAVE A LIST

my fav people ever:

claudia

tyler joseph

josh dun

chris hadfield

elon musk

sasha velour

brendon urie

neil armstrong

dan and phil

eugenia cooney

sikowitz from victorious

tom holland

boyinaband

blaire white

quackity

pewdiepie

demi lovato

i cant pick tehe cause all these people have either impacted my life or set an example for me or inspire me

//who is your favorite writer in modern history?

uhhh tyler joseph since he writes music but most of the books i read are from before the 2000s i think! i read stuff like the chronicals of narnia, the hobbit n the lord of the rings and i LOVE to kill a mockingbird

//who is your favorite musician from 20th century?

i wish i knew :-(

//which one you prefer, Daft punk or Gorillaz?

GORILLAZ

i love the visuals in their music videos and ive heard a handful of songs and its always a bop

//do you love animals, if yes then which one you love most?

i love animals !!!!!!! my favourites come down to pigs, turtles and polar bears

i want a dog too :p

//do you have children? and how many?

yes totally i have 10 kids all called ned

//if you have children, what’s their name?

they are ned

//how many children do you want to have?

uhhh i don’t think i want children in the future but i have an open mind i guess im only 15 tho so like

//are you married or single, and why?

im single because im not really interested in dating right now :-) i prefer hanging out with a group of friends and focusing on myself and hobbies

//if you are not married, when are you going to get married?

bro when someone asks me hehe

//what is your favorite drink of all?

gUARANA its the best brazilian drink and i love coconut bubble tea too

//do you have favorite basketball player?

not really except tyler joseph

//what is your greatest achievement in high school?

im only a sophomore now but i got a 95 on my science exam and a 91 on my french so yay me

i may come across as not the brightest, but im a scholar guys !!!! :)

//are you proud of your points in high school?

wait a second there’s points in high school?

//DO you want to have a business?

idk do you

//which business you want to have and why?

i probably would want to sell little knick knacks or cute clothes or books looool

//what is your most favorite scene from movies?

i feel like when a character is finally at peace with themselves or when those scenes where characters join together for the greater good

(i love marvel so i also love the fight scenes with cool music)

//if you love snakes, which one is your favorite?

i dont kno any snakes sadly

//do you love music? Which genre is your favorite?

i love music ! my favourite genre is probably rock and alternative but i do listen to pop a lot too. i have a spotify i’ll shoutout later but im really into twenty one pilots ~

//which one is your favorite: old school rap or today’s new age rappers?

uhh i don’t really listen to rap but i think both are equally good

i think i probably listen to old school more though since i listen to the old radio stations my dad has on in the car

//how tall are you? have you dreamed being ever taller?

i believe im around 5’5, my class measured me though and said im 5’3.7 or smth so i dont kno but guys i promise you im 7’1 so now my dream of becoming a basketball player is coming true

//what is your favorite number and please tell us, why?

i like the number 6. its my birthday and its cool

//have you ever been on any bridge? do you like bridges?

i dont actually think ive been on a bridge besides in a car. bridges sound cool though i like the ones with the water below them, its nice to see the people in their boats and stuff. also the architec for bridges are sick. engineers and architects and artists really outdo them selves with those structures man.

//do you have fear of anything?

im scared of butterflies, those things r hairy.

im also scared of being judged cause i feel not good enough at certain things that people judge me lol

//where are you working right now?

no where im unemployed but i want a job :(

//have you ever dreamed of being successful lawyer?

not really, im too open minded to do it. so i’d probably end up defending the wrong person. i think id want to be a psychiatrist !

//where do you want to travel?

definetly the uk and new zealand and japan

//have you ever been in Europe? where?

i’ve been to europe !! i’ve visited portugal, spain and france :-) i have family around there so like

//do you love history? did you have high grades in history classes?

history is super interesting! i find it fascinating to learn about our past but it’s also kind of sad

i did have high grades looool i loved my history teacher

//how do you describe yourself?

In case you haven’t noticed, I'm weird. I’m a weirdo. I don't fit in. And I don't want to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That's weird.

//can you describe yourself in just 3 words?

empathetic, funny, a good friend?

//what are the most powerful 3 words that changed your life?

ill give you 2

stay alive

//who you admire the most, mother or father?

both! they’re super cool and have interesting stories

//do you have siblings? How many?

i have 2 sisters and 1 half sister teehee

//how many books do you read during summer vacations?

i read a few. i did online school so i didn’t have much time this year.

//how many books you have read in 2017?

wait its not 2017

//who is your favorite male Youtuber?

pewds, quackityhq, dan n phil and mr beast

//who is your favorite female YouTuber?

i think jenna marbles or my sister

//who is your favorite comedy movies actor?

danny devito

//what was the reason you cried the last time?

i forgot but i think its cause i wanted a salad

//what is your favorite moment from childhood?

when i got lost at walmart and they had to announce my name and my mother and fathers name on the PA