#aural soul torture

[stopmeifyouvealreadyheardthisone]

And Then It Got Weird: “Baby Games, 6 Weeks to 1 Year”

Yes, that’s right, folks, my oldest brother was partially raised by the record player. Possibly me, too. I have no clue what I’m about to listen to. Uh... Album cover looks...

... creepy...

Honestly, this is going to be my first real exposure to anything meant for parents. I’m roughly as terrified about the prospect of listening to this as I am about the prospect of eventually being partially responsible for the creation of a shrieking, poop-drenched nightmare-creature that stole half my DNA. I’ve been putting this off as long as possible while still knowing that when I go to bed, that child’s face is going to be, like, eight feet away from mine. I must write this. Or it will be watching me. Only by listening to the Sound of the Beast can I banish it to the dark cardboard box whence it came. Only then will its grim visage be stricken from my memories. Only then will I finally be safe from its complete lack of a pelvis. 

I wholly anticipate just turning this off. But I’m going to try. I’m going to try to sit through it. 

Oh, good. Whimsical accordion music. 

I can feel my brain starting to melt on the outside and run down the little folds.

They’ve brought in a cheerful clarinet. 

Please, no. Please, no, let’s not do it again, disembodied voice that I immediately picture as being a skinny guy in a blue polo shirt and huge wire rimmed glasses.

“Let’s cheer for the baby team!” 

Please let it stop. There’s a baby cheerleading team. There’s probably some information on whatever the fuck is supposed to be happening in this little booklet. I just can’t bring myself to look inside. 

Now there’s some weird, plonky harp music that’s accompanying a woman who is way too enthusiastic about making babies put their toes in their ears. 

It’s always creeped me out when shit for babies refers to your baby solely as “Baby”. They’re always afraid to use the possessive, as if people are trying to raise other people’s children all the time. Or as if there’s some shadowy cabal of baby-lib activists that have secretly been putting subliminal messages in baby products to make parents give their babies more freedom by not viewing them as something for which to be responsible, and that’s why kids these days all seem to be fucking insane. That’s not their end goal, though. They won’t stop until the cult of childrearing has gained so much sociopolitical power in this country that half the Supreme Court stands in direct opposition to the idea of a marriage that produces no offspr--wait... 

MOTHER OF GOD.

Right as I typed that, there was a huge. ominous synth stab. Do you think I’d get sued if I uploaded some of this? 

My brain is now a big pile of mush lying at the bottom of my skull. 

It must be the weird Casio keyboard demo music. 

That kind of weird, “Eh, that’s close enough to a piano, let’s just keep working on those 76 different variations on the sound of a marimba. That’s where the real money will be. The bedroom marimbaist is an untapped market, Jerry! UNTAPPED!”

“Get ready to meet Mr. Chin! Knock on the door! Who’s there? Why, Mr. Chin! Come right in. And shut the door.” Draw the drapes. Cindy, get the kid out of here. I don’t want him to have to see this. Now what do you want, Chin? I told Guangzhou I’d have his money by Thursday, it’s just taking longer than I expected to--

No. No... Not here. Please not here. 

oh, my god.

(press play for sp00py [unironic cw: actually pretty realistic torture noises])

MAMA PULLS YOUR LEGGIES OFF, LEGGIES OFF, LEGGIES OFF

MAMA PULLS YOUR LEGGIES OFF, JUST LIKE THIS. 

FIRST WE SEVER ONE FOOT, ONE FOOT, ONE FOOT,

FIRST WE SEVER ONE FOOT, JUST LIKE THIS.

Note: One week has passed. My mind has not yet healed, but I think the worst of the nightmares have gone. 

Time again to tread into the mind-shredding horror of the demon’s maw.

“Together we’ll smile

Together we’ll coo

We’re going to play snuggles together

Maybe we’ll dance

Maybe we’ll rock

But whatever we do we’re together.”

UNTIL THE STARS FALL, SCREAMING, FROM THE BLOOD-RED SKY. UNTIL CONTINENTS SINK BENEATH THE ROILING OCEAN. UNTIL THE WORLD FLIES WITHOUT A TRACE INTO THE ETERNAL NIGHT, WE WILL SHINE TOGETHER. OUR COVENANT UNBROKEN, OUR SOULS BOUND WITH THE GLISTENING THREAD OF TIME ITSELF.

I thought I had prepared myself. That week spent mainlining hardcore dissociative drugs and doing noga (nihilist yoga, in which you lie flat on the dirty ground and shriek wordlessly into the yawning void-pit that lies at the center of human existence), if anything, only heightened the psychic agony of listening to such an obviously tainted record. Because if I truly do not exist, and through some horrific accident of chemistry, geometry, and electromagnetism, this record does... 

What is it all here for, anyway? 

The next song is called “Feather Play”. This record just entered a whole new realm of fucked. Why did I volunteer for this? No record collection is worth having to endure this. This is “Don’t Stop Me Now” at the end of Shaun of the Dead, except it’s not a joke. This is some deep web shit wrapped in a pink and yellow package. 

“Legs Up, Boo!” does have some serious potential as an ironic tech-house remix. That is literally the only redeeming quality I’ve found in my journey into the nightmare dimension, where hell is given life. 

But that’s it. It’s over, Sam. 

God damn, that was torturous. The worst part is that at one point, I lost half the project file in Audacity, so I had to listen to half the record all over again. 

I genuinely wonder if there’s a way to attach an audio snippet of any of this. It was truly disturbing. Not in the way that watching someone club a baby seal is disturbing, but disturbing in the way that an old, crumbling statue of a clown is disturbing. All gleaming and polished and horrible, watching you blankly with its huge and sightless eyes. 

Imagine the music that would play while you looked at this fucking nightmare creature, knowing that for the last fifty years, it’s been turning the people in this dying late-Communist mining town into concrete simulacra that goose-step all over the Baltics, pumping jaunty vaudeville music out of their motionless faces. It’s going to take a team of sixteen people four days and twelve lives to figure out how to suppress the infrabass frequency it produces that shears electrons off of the atoms in our body and turns us into silicon. That’s the kind of music that is on this record. All because some kind of mucus-person with access to a keyboard thought it was the sort of thing that the kiddies would enjoy. 

Media: Most likely preserved with dark and forbidden magics/10

Music: Deeply unsettling/10

[tteokdoroki]

THE SINISTER SIX - a kinktober event.

wandering in the woods of questions, i followed the light in the dark.

♱ — about; when the heroes are away…the sinister six come out to play. watch your beloved protagonists trek down the twisted path of evil, transforming into six of your favourite evil-doers for this years event. join us for six fics, six saviours turned supervillains and six kinks — all selected by you.

♱ — warnings; the following pieces contain content of a dark nature with nsfw themes. each fic is tagged with its own warnings. beware of these for your own safety. minors and ageless blogs do not interact. you will be blocked.

♱ — note; join the kinktober taglist here! reblogs, comments and likes are greatly appreciated.

OCTOBER 1ST. VENOM

katsuki bakugou + monsterfucking.

♱ — synopsis; katsuki’s been a bad fiancé recently, he tries to tell himself that it’s all in his head ( literally ) and when his neglectful behaviour nearly ruins your engagement dinner — he has no choice but to make it up to you, with a help of a little symbiotic friend.

♱ — additional warnings; dry humping, pegging, tentacles, overstimulation, oral sex, public sex.

OCTOBER 8TH. HADES

keigo takami + hate sex.

♱ — synopsis; as a naive little girl in love you make a deal that gets you stuck with the unrelenting god of the underworld, and no matter how sweet he may fuck you…you’ll spend all of eternity hating him if you have to.

♱ — additional warnings; possessive sex, branding, thigh riding, marking, impact play.

OCTOBER 15TH. CRUELLA DE VIL

shouto todoroki + fearplay.

♱ — synopsis; cruella de vil cruella de vil… if he doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will. a man of shouto todoroki’s calibre finds amusement in torturing the one thing he might love more than spots… his favourite little hybrid, his most prized possession…you.

♱ — additional warnings; humiliation, edging, hybrids, pictures, stockholm syndrome, orgasm control, power play, spit kink.

OCTOBER 22ND. HARLEY QUINN

satoru gojo + weaponsplay.

♱ — synopsis; she was fearless, crazier than him and god help the poor soul who dared to cross satoru gojo’s harley quinn during her alone time with her beloved puddin’.

♱ — additional warnings; degradation, lingerie, praise, corruption, cockwarming, exhibitionism, blood play, knife play, gun play.

OCTOBER 29TH. THE WINTER SOLDIER

eijirou kirishima + non / dubcon.

♱ — synopsis; he’s not a bad man, he promises you that. it doesn’t matter how many people he’s killed with his bare and metal hands…kirishima will make sure you know how sorry he is by the time he’s done with you.

♱ — additional warnings; manipulation, virginity, phallophilia, drugging, temperature play, strength kink.

OCTOBER 31ST. DEADPOOL FT. SPIDER-MAN

katsuki bakugou ft. izuku midoriya + cucking.

♱ — synopsis; with great power, comes great responsibility— such as one’s duty to pleasure his girlfriend ( though failing ), luckily a certain mercenary is able to swing by and take over such a big responsibility on spidey’s behalf.

♱ — additional warnings; threesome, roleplay, auralism, dacryphilia, voyeurism, cum play, body worship, mask fetish.

[writingonesdreams]

Okay let's dive deeper into this

There were so many decisions to make with this commission, making me feel part of the art piece. From the order, the positions, the clothes and expressions, everything here is deeply representative of the story.

The Silverstone brothers. The older Kyler known for his orderly withdrawn nature. Always proper and perfect in his signature long coat. Pulsor magic is brittle and destructive, lighting pulses are very dangerous and require absolute discipline and control over one's body, responses and feelings. They come from the body itself so any mistake, any blink of careless emotion causes burns along the veins, pain and scars that don't fade.

What this particular picture is hinting at is also the Shadow poisoning Kyler is suffering under - it's not really a secret since it will be revealed in the first few chapters, but no one else knows - Shadow Craft is very new and very loathed and distrusted, since it's the opposite of Aural magic that focuses on channeling positive emotions. Shadow Crafters channel the negative, dark impulses, hatred, jealousy, everything painful and grieving. Terroristic groups of this type are most common, cause it's easy to lose oneself in the intensity of these feelings and the magic is often used to control Phantoms, the beings of magic and negativity. Prior to the story Kyler was captured by such a group and tortured for two weeks - forcing Shadow Craft on him with no training and with his pride and horror in the help of seeking any help for it. If you look closely, there are little dark lines running down Kyler's hand and neck.

Wes's stance contrasts Kyler's - relaxed, formality forgotten, wide grin on his face and wind magic held with carefree pride. The while and black of their suites isn't a coincidence either, with Wes being open, adventurous in his green shirt and with his scales freely showing. This is the Wes the story will be working towards - one that doesn't feel ashamed or insecure about switching magics, about his form, about his passion for it, about being who he is. Kyler symbolises the conflict, Wes is the goal, the protected and the brave, the one who has still yet to face the world but believes he will win.

Now Acacia. Finding the perfect dress for her was a challenge but it really worked out. She looks like a water fairy there, unearthly and dreamy. An ombre dress going from dark blue to light blue would have been characteristic of an Water Elemental - Elementals often wear colours and clothes that symbolise their power, the element that speaks to them and guides them. But Acacia is including all the colours around, adding green and yellow and the orange and red. This is tribute for Acacia being a Switcher mage, mastering both water and Aural style on high levels, something very rare and generally looked down upon. Magic is more than family, more than blood and more than life. It's the expression of the soul, the extension of the mage's will, personal by default. Switching the way you think to control a different type of magic is extremely difficult, and if you manage it how can you be trusted, not being loyal to your spirit?

Irene and Darren to the show.

Irene is a wolf and a weapon, a fire mage and an outcast as the biggest kind of Shifter in town. Only smaller Shifters normally reside in big cities, since transforming is needed but should be inconspicuous to other residents. Being true to your other form of existence, giving it free reign is important part of such identity. That's why Shifters of big animals often live in the country side, with open spaces, less crowds and noise and free to turn whever they want. People got so used to it, a common belief is now that big Shifters just don't belong with the population, that they wouldn't be able to control themselves and cause trouble. Now Irene is also a weapon and a driven ambitious mage and won't let such details stop her. Her sword form is light and thin blade, like a katana held in one hand. She is very proud at who she is, both a wolf and steel, dressed in fire.

Darren Rhyes is a talented Scythe Shifer. His control and skill allows him to transform any part of his body without transforming himself whole, making him able to face opponents without needed to be wielded. A mage and weapon bond is a very special thing, with emotions and magic adjusting, resonating and amplifying each other. But Darren is a very special weapon and being wielded by someone with inferior understanding of magic or lesser drive to win is just insulting to him. He hates teamwork and partnerships and doesn't care about praxis points for the magic licence. He breathes completion, seeks challenge and loves the thrill of a good magic match. His high and power are scary on the first glance, but his mastery of Aural magic and his blades is phenomenal.

The colours also indicate the partnerships in the tournament. Kyler is Irene's wielder, the red symbolizing this connection.

The only one with suitable magic for Darren is Acacia, which is why he has the blue tie and stands with her. Winning him over to actually work with her instead if ignoring he will be a challenge. Acacia joins out of intellectual interest, Darren for the win and matches themselves. Their attitudes are very different, not to mention Darren's arrogance isn't a good match with Acacia's shyness.

Wes is a sword shifter of Aural kind, and can't resonate with Pulsors either. His sword form is however very heavy and big, reflective of his raw magic power, which is hard to wield for someone like Acacia, with only basic training and magic focused on mind and imagination instead of physical enhancement.

[deep-dive]

2020 year-end lists

albums: Amnesia Scanner - Tearless Ana Roxanne - Because of a Flower Annie - Dark Hearts Better Person - Something to Lose Bogdan Raczynski - Debt EP Braids - Shadow Offering Brandy - b7 Cecile Believe - Plucking a Cherry From the Void Charli XCX - how i'm feeling now Croatian Amor - All in the Same Breath Dean Blunt - Roaches 2012-2019 default genders - pain mop girl 2020 Diana Gordon - Wasted Youth EP Eartheater - Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin Italians Do It Better - After Dark 3 DV-i - Implementation EP Elysia Crampton - ORCORARA 2010 Elysia Crampton Chuquimia - Selected Demos & DJ Edits [2007-2019] Grimes - Miss Anthropocene Hayley Williams - Petals for Armor Hitoshi Sakimoto - 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim OST Jam City - Pillowland Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? Jessy Lanza - All the Time Joanne Robertson - Painting Stupid Girls EP Julianna Barwick - Healing Is a Miracle Lady Gaga - Chromatica Lorenzo Senni - Scacco Matto Loscil - coast/range/arc// Mechatok - Defective Holiday OST Mica Levi - Ruff Dog Oklou - Galore Oliver Coates - skins n slime Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Oval - Scis 박혜진 Park Hye Jin - How Can I EP Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - Another Flower Róisín Murphy - Róisín Machine SALEM - Fires in Heaven Sam Prekop - Comma Sewerslvt - Draining Love Story Shinichi Atobe - Yes The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? TOPS - I Feel Alive Various Artists - A Little Night Music: Aural Apparitions from the Geographic North William Basinski - Lamentations Windy & Carl - Allegiance and Conviction Why Be - YB MEMORY [2009 - 2019] Yves Tumor - Heaven to a Tortured Mind

songs: A.G. Cook - Silver Amnesia Scanner - AS Tearless (ft. Lalita) Ana Caprix - Prex Anamanaguchi & Planet 1999 - Everyday, Everynight (DV-i ReSYNC Style) Ange Halliwell - Winter Day (ft. Malibu) Annie - Corridors of Time ANOHNI - I Will Survive Arca - Mequetrefe Ariana Grande - Positions Austra - Mountain Baby (ft. Cecile Believe) [Octo Octa's Contemplation Mix] BABYNYMPH, SOPHIE & BAYLI - clown shit (up the wall) [SOPHIE Remix] Bad Bunny - Safaera (ft. Jowell & Randy and Ñengo Flow) Better Person - Hearts on Fire Biosphere - Angel's Flight BLACKPINK - Lovesick Girls Brandy - Bye BiPolar Caribou - Never Come Back Carly Rae Jepsen - Fake Mona Lisa Cecile Believe - Crickets Christine and the Queens - La vita nuova (ft. Caroline Polachek) [A. G. Cook Remix] Croatian Amor - No End to New Moments Dasychira - Jester's Crowfield Dean Blunt - NITRO GIRLS 3 Diana Gordon - Rollin Doss / SOPHIE - New York's Burning Down Dua Lipa - Levitating Dua Lipa & Angèle - Fever (Oklou Remix) Eartheater - Metallic Taste of Patience Ebhoni - MIA Elysia Crampton - Flora (ft. Jeremy Rojas) Elysia Crampton - Grove (ft. Embaci) Farah - Boyz R Bad Fennesz - Fortress Grimes - Delete Forever Halsey - 929 IZ*ONE - Fiesta Joanne Robertson - Am I Grief Johnny Jewel - Surgery (ft. Glüme) Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande - Rain on Me Lil Uzi Vert - Celebration Station Malibu - Isle of Us Mechatok - All the Time Merely - I'm Your Lover (Himera Remix) Oklou - god's chariots Oliver Coates - Honey Oliver Coates - Soaring X (ft. Malibu) Prurient - Help If I May Ask The Radio Dept. - You're Lookin' at My Guy Rico Nasty - IPHONE Rina Sawayama - LUCID Róisín Murphy - Murphy's Law Róisín Murphy - Something More SALEM - Sears Tower sèverine - LOOK HOW HARD I'M INTO YOU Sewerslvt - Ecifircas Shinichi Atobe - Yes Shygirl - FREAK SOPHIE - My Forever (ft. Cecile Believe) 9m26s edit Tohji & Malibu - Oreo (Malibu Seven Seas Mix) TWICE - Do What We Like Weki Meki - The Paradise White Poppy - Broken Why Be - Impossible Drops1 Yves Tumor - Hasdallen Lights Zhala - Holes (Olof Dreijer Remix)

mixes: https://soundcloud.com/alldayfreeself/candlelight-imum-coeli-mix-009 https://soundcloud.com/caprix/trance-party-9-set https://soundcloud.com/corporatebigwig/corporate-mix-2 https://soundcloud.com/doss/doss-paper-magazine-x-lady-gaga-mix https://soundcloud.com/doss/doss-the-sky-upside-down-secret-sky-mix https://soundcloud.com/ff-sound/ff-radio-3-with-toxe-on-nts https://soundcloud.com/danielstettner/butterfly-soundtrack https://soundcloud.com/danielstettner/smile-3 https://soundcloud.com/honeysoundsystem/hnypot-349-exaels-seraphim-vape-mix https://soundcloud.com/s_m_i_le/smile-radio-049-liyo-ssaliva https://soundcloud.com/tank-magazine/my-mix https://soundcloud.com/tank-magazine/tank-mix-rui-ho

games: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Animal Crossing: New Horizons Astro's Playroom Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout Crosscode Demon’s Souls Final Fantasy VII Remake Final Fantasy XIV: Patches 5.2-5.4 Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Hades Nioh 2 Paper Mario: The Origami King Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

movies: August at Akiko's (Christopher Makoto Yogi) Days (Tsai Ming-liang) Gay USA (Arthur J. Bressan, Jr.) How to With John Wilson S1 Lux Æterna (Gaspar Noé) Nomadland (Chlo�� Zhao) Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg) s01e03 (Kurt Walker) Survivor: Winners at War S40 Tenet (Christopher Nolan) Vento Seco (Daniel Nolasco)

[kesslersymbolic]

The Atrocity of Culture: “You Reposted in the Wrong Neighborhood”, a Retrospective

It is a bad time. A veritable hellscape of the phallus. What can be called “culture” at this conjuncture when we are continually presented with a surrealist conspiracy of post-ironic art designed to torment the soul of the hapless uninitiated spectator?

The hapless character ‘Shaggy’ does not inhabit The Uncanny Valley so much as he has been beaten upside the head to death with it. Consider the atrocity of his utter deformity, his tortured visage is a reminder of the basic reversal of the subject that is fundamentally accomplished by this muddled objet d’art as a gesture of its primordial aggressivity. What real being could survive such a transformation? What soul would he have? The answer is none. It is a monstrosity. But what manner of monstrosity? Christ was a monstrosity via his agglutination of the Jewish and Greek mythos, while Shaggy is a turgid reminder of the basic penetrative gesture of phallogoheterocispatriarchalcentric triggeration that undermines any and all world-historical projects.

Once over the shocking visual horror, the spectator is forced to confront the aural. A bastardized, Kafkaesque ‘mash-up’ of Nate Dogg and vaporwave. There is no comfort or reassurance to be found here. So we now know what Shaggy is in this defecating juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane (i.e., Shaggy as Christ, Nate Dogg as St. Paul, Shokk then is an apostle of hate in a deranged new religion) but where does Shaggy take us as we traverse in a rhizomatic manner this musical cavalcade of humiliation and pain? On bas. Straight to hell.

A defecating juxtaposition indeed: “I get more ass than a toilet seat.” Nate Dogg’s lines leave little to the imagination. If only there was an imagination left. Sadly, there is no emancipated spectator here, only a paraplegic subject accomplishing a sad psycho-sexual bowel movement of the soul. Towards the end, Eminem makes a sudden appearance; preaching a narcissistic gospel of oral cleanliness. But any hope one may have of being (au)(o)rally cleansed is short lived and his boast is merely a plaintive wail into the night-of-the-world which echoes through the mind like a half-remembered promise.

Our only hope is to deterritorialize this abyssal meme-space in a liberatory project aimed at disentriggerizing via meme-based cultural artifacts. God help us.

I found this on my hard-drive, saved mid 2018, If anybody knows where this is from please please let me know I can't find it through googling? I suspect from a dead comment section or tumblr or some other badly search indexed space, but Why Is There No Other Record Of This.

[giannimaldonado]

When someone asks someone who their favorite singer is, there’s often a relatively predictable group of people that pop up in the minds of the general public. Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, all members of both The Supremes and The Temptations. A lot of soul, jazz, and pop artists that are well established and incredibly revered (for good reason, mind you) often dominate one’s thoughts when asked such a question. 

However, I think I’d like to take a bit of more...shall we say, unconventional, opinion on this topic.

Aside from the amazing voice of the one and only Stella Vander, French avant-garde/jazz singer and performer most associated with the magnifique powerhouse of zeuhl music that is Magma, there is one vocalist that stands out above the rest. One that, when I first heard her voice, instilled a plethora of emotions inside of me that ranged from being disturbed and even a little frightened to unabashedly excited and positively thrilled. 

Ladies, gentleman, and all who lie in between or outside such classifications, let me introduce you to industrial’s greatest woman! She’s worked with everyone from John Paul Jones to John Zorn, so she’s definitely the best of the very damn best. Feast your ears upon... Diamanda Galás.

Diamanda Galás is a Greek-American/Egyptian-American soprano sfogato singer who was born and raised in San Francisco, California. At an early age, Diamanda Galás was already being thrust into the world of music, as her father was a gospel choir director with a soft spot for classical music and New Orleans jazz. At the age of 3, she had already gained a knack for the piano (the instrument she’s most known for, besides her own vocal cords), and at the young age of 13, she was already playing gigs with her father’s band. Around this time, her influences came from the darker and more unsettling varieties of literature, such as that of Neitzsche and Poe. Given her hauntingly poetic works and gloomy, gothic aesthetic, it isn’t too hard to see where the influence is coming from.  By 14, she had made a hell of an orchestral debut with the San Diego Symphony, taking up the role of soloist for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. 

Diamanda Galás’ art is known to be extremely provocative, incredibly eccentric, and highly political, with every piece, every performance...having a meaning behind it. A reason for why it exists. The overtly shocking imagery that she employed shows that this was not your typical brand of “noise for the sake of noise” industrial. AIDS and mental illness are the two most prevalent themes in her vast discography. Not surprising, given her past activism concerning AIDS, as well as gay rights. So-called “moralists”, as well as the apathetic heads of the Christian world, were her enemies, and her music makes this train of thought very clear, with her live album “Plague Mass” being the pinnacle of her bountiful frustration, particularly towards the Catholic church. 

Manic Street Preachers? Fuck out of here! Xiu Xiu? Child’s play! Suicide? Henry Rollins would surely turn into a blubbering mess if he heard a minute of this! SPK and Throbbing Gristle? About as tame as you can get.

Not even the apocalyptic sounds of “Black Earth” by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, “Black One” by Sunn O))), “Stalker” by Lustmord, or “Dog Days Of The Holocaust” by Hollow Earth can compare to the sheer horror you will be met with when throwing in those earphones and pressing play on this...thing.

A fine example of the utterly fearsome records this visionary of a woman produced would be the one being pictured above. “The Litanies Of Satan”, named after a poem by  Charles Baudelaire. It’s only a mere 30 minutes long, and consists of two tracks, one 18 minutes and the other 12 minutes, respectively. But, let me stress this to you: you will FEEL every second of those 30 minutes. This isn’t something you can just listen to. No, no, this is a record you EXPERIENCE. Each and every second will make your spine tingle and tremble as if the air suddenly became as cold as the 9th circle itself. The hairs on your neck stand up straighter than the crosses that this work spits upon. Your soul will burst into flames as Pentecostal-esque energy reduces your essence to ash, and by the end of it, your sanity may very well be a thing of the past. Your mind will be thoroughly fried and you won’t know what to do with yourself afterwards. Where is there to go from here? You’re already neck deep in the pit by now.  This is terrifying stuff that’ll be guaranteed to make any unfortunate passerby to question your mental health, and advice you check yourself into the nearest psychiatric ward. 

Now would be the time to give this borderline schizophrenic construction of sweet, sweet, innovative ingeniousness a listen.

Immediately you are greeted by the wailing sounds of  Diamanda Galás making an array of almost inhuman sounds with her vocal cords that, when I first let this pulsing collection of industrialized chaos enter the gates that are my eardrums, I could not quite believe came from a human’s throat, or, at the very least, without the usage of effects. But no. The sounds you hear her make...all of the wailing, screeching, cackling, howling, shouting, screaming, yelling, groaning, grunting, growling, all with that spiritual feverishness that seems like a perfect parody of the people she mocks and ridicules so much in her work...it’s all totally real. This doesn’t like an impassioned woman who is, at the end of the day, a spawn of man. No, this sounds like the vile creatures depicted in Dante’s infamous Inferno making all manner of ear-shattering vocalizations. Her voice sounds like the entirety of Hell singing out in some sort of unholy, demented, deranged choir. One devoid of melody, reason, and sanity, and instead focused solely on perpetrating a noisy, overstimulating assault that shakes you to your very core. 

We’ve all heard the term “blood-curdling scream” before. It conjures up images of a shrill, shrieking blare that’ll strike dread into even the most stoic individuals. But the...sounds...being made here are probably the best examples I’ve ever heard this phrase be attached to, I would say. Especially in a real world context. If an auditory instance of “blood-curdling scream” was required to be provided in order to further explain the meaning, this whole album would be right by the definition. I’m very sure of it. 

If you’re looking for an album that could scare the absolute shit out of your friends, or even yourself, or you want something that’s REALLY challenging to listen to and completely devoid of any “accessibility”, then this is an album for you. Anyone with a weak, sensitive heart or pair of ears should stay far, far away, for this WILL challenge all of your notions concerning the term “music”. This is aural torture, both for you, the enraptured listener, and  Diamanda Galás, the performer who was tearing apart her throat in a cold, dark basement in the UK for more than 24 hours, hopped up on nothing but potent caffeine, all whilst her equipment (soundboards, mics, etc.) broke down during the recording process, just so this...thing...could achieve her vision. The vision that she had in mind for it.

Talk about dedication, and talk about a hell of a debut album (no pun intended)

This has been the second installment of “Esoteric Warfare”, and remember...

NOISE, NOT MUSIC!

[zarayushas]

Echtra’s BardO is the second installment of the “Passage Cycle,” a tripartite exploration of the transmission of one’s essence between lifetimes; this 2nd Chapter focuses on the interstitial space between death and rebirth. Inspired by the Vajrayana’s experiential identification of this liminal sphere as the place of reckoning, a phantasmagoria facilitative of the full ripening of one’s karmic imprints, Echtra crafts an aural ode to the soul’s journey through the in-between. The unique sonic realm that Echtra has traveled within on recent offerings is recapitulated here: ever-present acoustic guitars lay the foundation for contemplation, with arpeggios droning, facilitating the loosening of rationality. Murky, indistinct electric guitars travel spidery trails, interweaving and diverging to speak an arcane language of grief, confusion, and triumph. Keyboards, electronic drums, and sparsely delivered vocals give texture and depth to the proceedings, whispering the futility of materialistic interpretations for understanding. The familiar terrain of the doom and black metals is traveled again, with the emphasis on the utilization of these sonorous forms for the immersion of consciousness in Truth. A way is opened toward transcendent incursions of otherness into the flow of habitual, reified egoism, crafting a ladder for the soul’s escape from the drudgery of the gray. BardO was written in the long ago of Litha MMVIII. It was given to the dark at a performance within the womb of Orbis Nex on July 19th, 2008, in which Echtra was joined by Heron. The video footage from this performance has been licensed for this release from Adam Collins-Torruella. The audio was mastered by Brad Boatright at AudioSiege near Litha MMXIV. Cover art was created by Tashi Mannox, and other graphic elements designed by Marisa Ware. Temple of Torturous offers it now, over ten years later, for the benefit of all beings: may all be free.

[writer59january13]

Starry eyed cloud of surreal angels

Utmost nadir of despair found this atheist craning his neck skyward

hearing resplendent August orchestra today June 10th, 2022 choral symphony may sound absurd,

but...mine supreme auditory sense

(compensated with poor vision, i.e. extreme myopia) impossible mission

driving after dark

genetically injured acute undoubted gifted courtesy, viz cochlear ability crystal clear also heard kindled melodious Lord

and lady joyously plucked harp strings,

which did lyft uber spirits seared, moored anchored of me, one who demurred

coyly being graced with exquisite hypnosis got lured

into cerulean celestial vault, where I acquiesced and murmured

after a lifetime of hardship inured every cell in my glob bully warmed weatherbeaten body

sought salvation, thus poetic urge averred

this skeptic (nee nihilist), no matter

faith no more,...perhaps soul asylum desperation secured

tenuous linkedin thread of hope barely connecting yours truly, whose word not necessarily claiming to be the gospel truth,

nonetheless sought to nimbly aire

asthma tried and true valued metier, vis a vis thru write of springiness declare

ring nothing sacrilegious, nor decried as Harris say (ad) aware no matter Doubting Thomas's (donned

as trumpeting English muffins)

may suspiciously questioning - dare faux authenticity atop wobbly shaky, and noname spear such antithetical blare

nee as the rhyming ranting of a harmless maniac with mediocre ability to scare

heavenly visualization - secondarily as a zealous Earthlinked aspiring balladeer,

who immediately chucked delusive fastasical notions earning degree as an engineer,

thus setting sights, and virtually figurative crosshair

to cackle like Chanticlear,

which discordant aural debacle tortured ear pier sing decibel threshold of unbear hubble pain for those unfortunately subjected

and forced to endure such screeching

a result of budget cuts - profoundly severe

that perilous, seditious, and viscous tear

into webbed, whirled, and wide statecraft,

hence melodic reverberation mistaken as mock apple pie "FAKE" fakir

begging intercession qua spiritual guardian, wrought mine overactive imagination

conjuring smug cockle doodle fledgling cheer shoring temple mount reverse fortune, whereby by fanciful fatefulness, I fell victim, tomb eye own dim eyes, poppycock did ensnare riotous, roisterous, and ruinous roostering essentially roused, grounded, and distorted nightmare!

[nebula-starlight]

Corrupt (Part 10 - Dark Twist)

Long jagged scars twisted across her scaled skin as she lay motionless on her belly, the faint pink trails clashing terribly with the ghastly gray. Her core  sparked uselessly within her breastbone, the brief green glow lighting up the small cell before it was plunged back into the shadows once more. Days, weeks, months... torture after torture with the full intent of breaking her until she revealed all her secrets. Dark was a patient demon, Void would admit, but even she was starting to notice the cracks as he seemed more and more likely to lash out at her with the one item she’d seen him carry but never use in this strange realm of his. It was a black cane, beautifully ornate at the top in silver, but always kept behind his back by a single hand. She first took notice of it after he approached her one day with a leather whip in his hand and offered her a choice of either what he held or the small velvet box that was held by one of his shadows not far away. In curiosity she’d asked what it held and he had turned to retrieve it when she saw the glint of polished metal from behind his back.

The shadows around her were comforting, something she never expected she would ever have considered under different circumstances. It had been days since the last visit, something that did bother her but, at the same time, she could barely bring herself to care. An empty numbness had come over her since being imprisoned in this space between worlds... One that, along with her mental instability, had drained all measure of resistance from her scarred form.

Release... She wanted a freedom she knew would never be granted upon her with the current measure of corruption of her soul. Each glitch hurt, becoming yet another reminder of what befell the former healer who dabbled too far into dark magic prior to her death.

Lifting her head, her eyes narrowed, green irises flickering as she felt Dark enter the realm. Why was he back? Had she done something wrong?

“Get up, dear one. You’ll enjoy what I have planned for today.” She shrunk back at first, a low hiss rising from her throat in alarm. His arrival only meant further pain. “You get to see your host again.”

Void froze at the words, eyes wide in fear at the thought of seeing Narssia again. How long had it been since she last saw her? Months... maybe even years at this point. Did she even remember the very glitch who had bound what was left of her soul to an exceptionally long lived mortal?

“What must I do?” Her wingblades quivered as she used both them and her tail to push herself up onto her hind legs. Steadying herself once she got to her feet, she noticed his dual auras as he approached.

“Nothing yet but I may have a use for you. Mark wanted to stage this choose your own adventure story for his Valentine’s Day video and well... I’m bringing you in to crash it. All you need to do is be yourself. Glitch his footage until it’s unusable if you desire, dear. I’ll deal with him if you’d like to see her again.”

The thought was tempting, ideas immediately whirling through her head at what she could say to Naris. She’d been abandoned, left to suffer at the hands of a monster while her host did nothing to save her. Sharp teeth clicked together as Dark stopped in front of her and adjusted his posture with a crack of his neck.

“Well, are you ready?” The green glow of her eyes brightened, visible wisps of aura bleeding out as she hesitated for a moment before nodding and crouching down before him.

“Oh, let’s go crash this project of theirs!”

The first thing Void felt after the darkness around her exploded into a vibrant array of colors was pain. She hissed, shrinking down defensively without thought as instinct drove her to raise her wingblades to shield herself. Seconds passed before she realized her form had changed to eerily reflect Naris’s human state and that the spotlights above were passing through her shadowy body. Stumbling back, her feet seemed heavy and chunky, each step echoing off the wooden stage as she scrambled away into the safe shadows of the wings. Truthfully she’d never been outside of her host’s shell for any period of time and it reminded her all too well of... of drowning in white noise and panic. Taking a breath to steady herself as she clenched her hands, she noticed Dark was already at work, calmly standing on the stage with practiced ease. As she watched though, the air around him begun to warp as the demon stalked predatorily towards Narssia. Her host was trembling in the chair she had been sitting in, nearly curling in on herself in fear as his words echoed with the ever-persistent ringing.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to see you again.” His low hum seemed to amplify as he stopped at the edge of the stage, aura briefly appearing before he gathered his hands behind his back. A hint of a smirk twitched at the corners of his lips as he tilted his head inquisitively to the side. “We weren’t properly introduced last time, were we? And then he had the gail to not invite me on his little adventure with you.”

Void frowned, her form glitching slightly as she cautiously stepped closer. What had he told her? Corrupt the footage? She didn’t see a camera...

Oh, Narssia had one in her lap. Mark finally made use of his uninvited houseguest it seemed. Her eyes immediately lit up at the sight of the object, wispy trails of aura returning as the chaos of her broken mind buzzed louder than any rational thought. She could glitch the device out or, rather, she could join in on the murderous fun.

By the time she realized what she was doing, Void was already several steps out of the non-painful darkness and continuing to move forward. Her ghostlike form was sizzling and practically leaking green mist as the light shone down brightly on her. It was only when Dark had to turn to snap at her that she came back to her senses and the desire for bloodlust faded back into the deep crevices of her mind.

“Finish your task before you burn yourself into oblivion!” The demon snarled, shell cracking as his unexpected outburst caused her to freeze where she stood.

What was she doing? Void shook her head, trying to dispel the fog that had settled over her thoughts and sighed, filling the air with her telltale static. The white noise buzzed on in the background as she set her sights on the camera, reaching out with one hand to direct her next motion.

Green sparks flickered to life in her palm, snapping out hungrily before dissolving into glitchy pixels. She scowled in frustration, subconsciously allowing the wispy aura trails to leak from her eyes again as the light shining down on her body continued to tear away at her form. It had worked in the past when she wanted to get Narssia’s attention so why not now?! What was she doing wrong?

Her eyes narrowed, the green of her irises practically glowing against the black sclera in rage as her body jerked with an unexpected glitch. Barely composing herself, her arm trembled as she tried over and over to produce the aural flare that would likely corrupt the camera’s footage but also alert Narssia to her presence. She could see how her host was trying not to panic, chest heaving as her breaths came in short shallow gasps.

Growling under her breath after yet another failed attempt at summoning her meager magic, Void closed her eyes, body spastically twitching as the roar of static pounded in her ears. She was in control. The bloodlust was gone for the time being. Even so, her aura continued to avoid her to the point of frustration. She needed it to work just this once! Narssia was in danger and she couldn’t oppose Dark on her own.

“V-Void?”

The soft, timid voice immediately caught her attention, forcing the spirit to open her eyes to find that there was no longer a light burning down on her. In fact, the entire theatre had no power, the only things truly visible being Dark with his identifiable aura and herself. Specks of green flickered against her see-through skin, the sight enough to startle her into shrinking back.

“Well, looks like you do have some magic left in you.” Dark’s words echoed as he addressed her, hands rising to clap together unenthusiastically. “Bravo, dearest. You actually turned this whole place dark.”

Void found herself moving towards him before she actively knew what she was doing. All she heard was her own feral snarl as it rumbled up from her torn throat, aura crackling wildly around her.

“Stop acting like you care!” She hissed, curling a hand before she lashed out, trying to punch him.

The attack didn’t land as she intended however. Too focused on actually hitting him, she didn’t realize that Dark blended into the shadows to avoid her first. It was only after he snaked around behind her that she knew she had messed up but it was already too late to pull back. He caught her wrist firmly with one hand before kneeing her in the small of her back. Unable to stop herself, she started to fall as he released his grip and calmly stepped away without a word.

The last thing Void saw before her head collided with the solid wood flooring was the demon stepping off the stage to see to Narssia. Her host was screaming, hands firmly over her ears in utter agony and terror alike as blue and red auras emerged from Dark to engulf the two.

Her vision was going dim, barely able to see the outline of two becoming one. Where was he taking Naris? Furthermore...

What had she done?

Consciousness slowly returned to her.

Void was first aware of the presence of moist fabric in her mouth preventing her from speaking almost immediately upon waking. She was confused, arms held securely behind her back by what felt like sturdy steel chains. The grogginess hadn’t even lifted much when the darkness around her was suddenly ripped away to reveal she was kneeling outside in an empty, open parking lot. The rough concrete under her legs scratched against several already existing wounds she had as she struggled briefly, reopening a few as the blood that oozed free helped to ease her discomfort.

Why was she gagged? And why were they outside? The lights in the theatre had proven her body didn’t react well to illumination. Did Dark want her to burn to death for disobeying him? She wouldn’t put it past him but she... her mind wasn’t right. Surely he had been informed of such knowledge at some point by Mark or even Narssia. As much as it bothered her to consider the thought, he had seemed to recognize her host after all.

The sound of multiple footsteps approaching suddenly graced her hearing and she started to look up, immediately hissing under the gag at just how bright it was outside. She recognized one by the deliberate loud click of each step - Dark no doubt - but the other was softer, shuffling around as though it wasn’t an unaided movement. Soon enough, once her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight, she saw exactly what she had feared. The demon was practically half-dragging Narssia over to her, each attempt by her host to pull away becoming more and more frantic the closer they got. Her eyes flickered, lightening in sympathy as the sheer look of absolute horror on the former she-dragon’s face made her wonder what all had happened while she’d been out.

“No...” The pained whimper nearly broke Void, eyes widening in the realization that Narssia had seen her and knew exactly what Dark had in mind.

Snarling under her gag, her eyes caught the blink of a small red light, indicating the camera was still functioning and also in Naris’s possession. Had it recorded everything? What trauma had her host endured after she blacked out? How she would love to know... not that she could change anything. Still, Void was increasingly more suspicious when Dark stopped, handing the girl a small gun without a word.

When he stepped away, her eyes drifted to the weapon, only to return to the demon once he snapped his fingers. She felt it at once, the rip in dimensions before it sealed just as suddenly and a limp body smacked down against the pavement beside her. The fluffed black hair gave the identity away but she still turned her head to better see Mark as his darker half snapped his fingers once more. Immediately rope bound his arms behind him and an invisible force pulled him to his knees, head hanging limply as she noticed there was no gag to silence the man.

“You have a choice to make. Do you shoot Mark? Or do you turn the gun on your parasitic glitch?”

The options, impossible of a choice as it was, sent a chill down Void’s spine. She could already feel her bound hands burning, green mist swirling around her chest from the sunlight engulfing her body. Maybe she’d fade away if enough time passed? Then again, Dark wanted one of them to die. Perhaps he thought having Naris shoot her would make her snap and lose what was left of her psyche...

“I- I can’t.” Narssia’s hands were shaking, tears flooding her eyes before rolling down her cheeks. Void glared at the demon, silently fuming and hoping more than anything that he’d be the one to get hit.

Of course knowing what little of Dark she did, the demon probably had a plan already in place to avoid that scenario. Naris could always turn the gun on herself but Void suspected her host was too cowardly to do that on purpose. Given how badly her hands were shaking though... it could always happen by accident.

“Of course you can,” Dark encouraged, sweeping an arm out towards Void to sway the decision. “You hate her after all. She made you miserable for months... Think about it. You lost your job and became nothing more than a paranoid, skittish freak in the eyes of the good townspeople you used to know!”

Void saw the light fade in Naris’s eyes at the mention of her isolation, knowing then, even without looking at the weapon, that Dark had gotten inside her host’s head. The former dragoness hated to be reminded of that dark time when the spirit had just started to take control here or there and she would wake up somewhere else in her house with no idea of what she’d been doing.

Her struggling against her bindings increased, eyes glowing with the same intensity that flowed through her veins. If he even so much as tried to lay a single hand on her host... She’d kill that demon herself!

“Mark wouldn’t even tell you the truth when you asked,” Dark commented, walking around behind Narssia as her grip tightened on the gun. “No mention of my name ever left his lips for months. Perhaps he was afraid you’d find out what happened and blame him for somehow waking the beast you fought so hard to conceal. But that’s just it, isn’t it? You never could control her and wanted that... illusionist to take away all the pain she caused.”

Void tried to scream, no sound coming out no matter how much she raged. Dark knew about Nether! Might not have known his name but knew the spirit’s identifying quality. Just what else did he know about them?

Narssia was still shaking, the tears finally stopping however as her eyes followed Dark. “No- No, you’re wrong. He never messed around in my head. I-I’d know if he did. Geer would have told me.”

“Would he now? If this Geer knew of the glitch coming weeks before and said nothing to you, can you still consider him trustworthy?”

Void was seething now, every inch of her body tense and yet unable to move. The second she did, that gun would go off - a fate she planned to avoid as long as she could. But Dark had to have known he was just making her more furious. Maybe that was his plan?

“Of course I c-can. He and I were like siblings, except we weren’t blood related.” Narssia snapped back, hands shaking briefly before she calmed herself. “I owe him my life.”

Dark stopped, turning to face the former dragoness with a scowl. “Make your choice already. Show me what you’ve got.”

Void tried to speak again, watching the gun move as her host raised it slightly. No matter the outcome, she expected there would be a return to Dark’s domain once the selected target dropped to the ground. Even if he had to carry a lifeless body. Death would finally give her the release she wanted... one Nether had robbed from her.

With a loud bang, the gun fired. Just as soon as the body started to fall, the demon snapped his fingers and it vanished. The only evidence left was a few darker stains on the concrete before Dark turned to Narssia and gently caught her as she started to collapse into a shaking, sobbing mess.

He took the gun from her, pocketing it quickly before brushing her hair back out of her face and gripping her shoulders roughly. Black eyes stared deep into her own as he spoke, each word punctuating deep into her head.

“Go home, Narssia. Forget what you just did. You had a fun, uneventful day with Mark filming the project. He’ll be upstairs editing the footage when you arrive but you crash on the couch.”

[david-gonzo]

2020: Favorite Albums Thereof...

For big chunks of the hellscape that was 2020 I struggled to have much interest in new music.  Much of my listening time was spend in the comfort of old favorites of all sorts.  But there were still several albums that were great and managed to grab my attention. This is my top ten favorite albums of 2020.

  Venom Prison – Primeval

Technically all but 2 of these songs are rerecorded versions of tunes off their first two Eps, but it delivers the definitive versions of these hearty slabs of riffs.  The two new songs giving an exciting glimpse into where they’re heading in the future.  The quality within elevates it from, what on paper would seem a pandemic year stop gap album to something that stands well aside their other two full length albums. In my book one of the leaders in modern death metal.

  Blake Mills – Mutable Set

The singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer’s latest solo record deftly straddles two aspects of his multi-faceted musical personality…that of singer/songwriter and of ambientish experimenter.  Mostly understated tunes covering many genres in the pursuit of honesty and chill.  He’s probably considered a near virtuoso at least on the guitar, but he rarely shows off with flashy licks.  Everything is to support the song.  Sometimes that creates subtly complex lines, sometimes ambient soundscapes.  Always enjoyable.

  Run the Jewels - RTJ4

The beats are all next level bangers.  The rhymes balancing the line between juvenile humor and sharp political statements. This album grabbed me from the first listen and immediately imprinted itself on my brain.  RTJ Forever.

Boris – NO

This has been the first Boris record that I’ve really connected to in quite a while.  I’d have to go back to 2008’s Smile to find a Boris album that I enjoyed more than this one.  Just ripping rage and roars from start to finish on this punk/thrash leaning effort.  

Budos Band – Long in the Tooth

Just funky afro jazz funk tunes like we’ve come to expect from the Budos Band for decades now. This album sticks to that already ripe territory like glue, but in doing so does what it does best.  Firing on all cylinders funk that always elevates the mood and moves my ass to a more joyful state than I started in.

Aesop Rock – Spirit World Field Guide

This album just clicked into my brain like a Tetris piece and has been there ever since.  Several tunes on here feel like I’ve known them for years…something that also happened with his last LP Impossible Kid.  1 hour and 3 minutes of beats and rhymes that just get me. Or rather I just get Aesop Rock.  In my old age it seems like most of the hip hop that speaks to me is by dudes approaching or over 40.  Oh well. I got heavy into hip hop again the latter part of this year and I’d say the big push for that came from this album.

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist – Alfredo

It’s a Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist joint.  How is not making the top ten?  Freddie is the other MC out there that pretty much pushes all the buttons for me (at least the one’s Aesop doesn’t always).  Soulful beats, classic hooks and technical without even trying street story raps from the best in the game.  

Esoctrilihum - Eternity of Shaog

A late intro in the year to this guy, probably the most psychedelic black metal I’ve ever heard. The production on this album is next level shit, with the aural spacing really jumping out at you.  Such a feeling of depth makes listening to this feel like a VR experience with just the audio (good headphones the best way to go…but it slams in the car as well).  A feeling of moving through different spaces, like a Doom in hell sort of first person shooter vibe.  The music itself is amazing, very progressive passages throughout, and featuring perfect usage of violins and orchestral sounds that blends perfectly with the drum blasts, beautiful and riff-tastic guitar work along with keys and everything else.  Just seamless.  Definitely the best metal album of the year for me.

Moses Sumney – grae

Considering Part 1 and 2 as one album (as intended) this is yet another monumental step in the hopefully long on epic career of young Moses Sumney.  He’s stepped into the realm of being his own genre like Bjork, Fiona Apple, and Primus.  The description of soul music always works, in the wide stance of Moses covering jazz, R&B, funk and more with an experimental but comforting spirit.  Not a casual listening album, it demands attention…so despite the fact that I don’t listen to it as much as others, it lives in my subconscious the other times.  

Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

A narrow line if I was picking the best album of the year between this and Moses Sumney.  Fiona is an all time favorite artist for me and this ranks up there with her best albums.  Such a warm intimate sound and feeling she captured in her home recording studio.  The arrangements are simple but so expansive and complete.  Heavy Balloon and Cosmonauts are two of the best songs of the year, but this one is packed with instant classics.  Classic Fiona, she never disappoints.

A lot of honorable mentions and runner ups, a lot of which I didn’t even find until late in the year.  Number one and almost made the top ten was Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi...Awesome krautrock psychedelic metal.  Others include Skeleton - Skeleton, Wormhole - The Weakest Among Us, Raspberry Bulbs - Before the Ago of Mirrors, Feminazgul - No Dawn for Man, Fluisteraars - Bloem, Pallbearer - Forgotten Days, Perfume Genius - Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, Paysage d'Hiver - Im Wald, Yves Tumor  Heaven to a Tortured Mind, REZN - Chaotic Divine, The Deftones - Ohms and Sturgill Simpson’s two bluegrass albums as well.  Got to mention Inter Arma’s great covers album Garbers Days Revisited with their version of Southern Man probably being my #1 favorite song of the year.  There was a few dark months there where I would listen to this song on repeat daily just to get a feeling of happiness.

Fuck off 2020.

[newmusicmonthly]

2020

Hello. I hope you and yours are well. As is tradition, below are my selections for albums and songs of the year. As I have yet to receive a reply from you, dear reader, sincerely asking to unsubscribe, you are therefore the proud recipient of the list once more! I’ve altered the format from 5 tracks each month because, as I suspect many of you did, I went into a nostalgic hole for large chunks of this year (for me this consisted of at least two months of nothing but Funkadelic, which does mean my personalised algorithm is now ace), but also when I looked back at when many of these tracks were released it was front heavy for the first half of the year – another body blow to the supposed “monthly” mailer. I even considered not writing my one-liners, but where is the fun in that? Furthermore, trying to keep the long list to 60 tracks in total (equivalent to 5 per month) proved overly frustrating, so I’ve included some extras, especially as this year felt 13 month long. Notwithstanding said excuses, enough preamble, on with the list! Let me know what you think and do send me your own selections. Lots of love xx TOP 10s TOP 10 ALBUMS Baxter Dury – The Night Chancers Mildlife – Automatic SAULT – Untitled (Black Is) Alice Boman – Dream On Kanaan – Odense Sessions Lightning Orchestra – Source And Deliver Yves Tumor – Heaven To A Tortured Mind The Strokes – The New Abnormal Woods – Strange to Explain Erland Cooper – Hether Blether TOP 10 TRACKS Malena Zavala – En la Noche Caribou – You & I Yves Tumor – Kerosene! Puscifer – Apocalyptical Mildlife – Automatic King Hannah – Meal Deal SAULT – Wildfires // Bow [yes, there are two tracks there] Kanaan – Urgent Excursions To the Tundrasphere Frazey Ford – Golden Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? NEW MUSIC ‘MONTHLY’ MAILER Spotify Link Here Holy Fuck – Near Mint What better way to kick off a retrospective look at 2020 than with ‘Holy Fuck’ Alice Boman – It’s OK, It’s Alright Really love this album and this pick is a real downer, spectral and haunting but also touching Smoke Fairies – Out Of The Woods Jessica and Katherine still delivering a decade on, the chorus guitar riff is tops Nicolas Godin – The Border Air’s Nicolas Godin doing his best detached friendly robot, mais bien sur Moses Boyd – BTB Vibrant, propulsive, energetic, gotta move! The Men – Wading In Dirty Water Avid readers will know I’m a fan of these guys and this one rides a familiar Crazy Horse choogle Tame Impala – Breathe Deeper Funky bass, piano flourishes, solid synths, all groove Kanaan – Urgent Excursions To the Tundrasphere Ok, here it is, there’s always going to be at least one – this is the 14 min space rock jam – skip/enjoy! Frazey Ford – Golden This production is right up my street, soulful vocals swoop around tight rhythm section and hammond keys, an analogue dream Caribou – You and I From the analogue to a digital master, man this beat is catchy Pulled By Magnets – Cold Regime People Die File this under terrifying experimental jazz Jonathan Wilson – Riding The Blinds JW doing that 6/8 minor ballad thang Baxter Dury – Say Nothing Another album I loved this year and could have picked any number of tracks, so here’s a quote from Baxter: “My craft and in a sense a certain style has been perfected and it’s easy… I don’t have to do it again basically. I don’t want to hear another man talking over an orchestral background.” Ha! U.S. Girls – 4 American Dollars Slick funky, soulful, classic strings, building into a brilliant outro with great lyrics Deeper – Lake Song Detached vibe ala Joy Division / The Cure done through a Pavement lens with serious downer lyrics Pretty Lightning – Voo Doo Boo Swampy dirge guitar grooves Tamikrest – Anha Achal Wad Namda Another mailer favourite, Touareg guitar wizards Tony Allen, Hugh Masekela – Never (Lagos Never Gonna Be the Same) Master drummer who sadly passed away earlier this year just after this release, and two years after master trumpeter Masekela’s own passing, this track is a buzzing tribute to Fela Myrkur – House Carpenter Danish black metaller does Scandinavian folk: bright and beautiful Sufjan Stevens, Lowell Brams – The Runaround A weird album, even by Sufjan standards, but I found these electronic ambient sounds strangely comforting R.A.P. Ferreira – ABSOLUTES Rhythm & poetry The Weeknd – Blinding Lights What can I add to the smash of 2020? Catchy af Porridge Radio – Long Indie banger, with a decidedly angry, bitter, playful lyrics Cleo Sol – Her Light If online research is to be believed Cleo is part of the collective in SAULT with producer Inflo, but this album is standalone brilliance without knowing that, this is pure vintage soul vibes Malena Zavala – En la Noche I returned to this track more than any other this year, the rhythm, the vocals, the melody, the production, even if I have to use google translate to fully understand the lyrics Tom Misch, Yussef Dayes – Lift Off Molten guitar, groovy arrangements, and plenty of business from Dayes Yves Tumor – Kerosene! An absolute belter, amazing vocals, groove and crescendo perfection Warm Digits, The Orielles – Shake The Wheels Off (feat. The Orielles) Immediate synth pop, indie dancefloor (with some solid cowbell) EOB – Brasil First solo venture for Ed, acoustic folk gives way to rumbling bass banger, would very much like to experience this in a field Other Lives – Hey Hey I Grand rocking orchestral aural assault with hints of Morricone Elephant Tree – Sails Fulfilling the heavy dirge quota, that hit at 2:33 is a proper head in the speakers moment The Strokes – Why Are Sundays So Depressing This album snuck up on me, and then I found myself listening to it non-stop, this track such an ear worm Houses of Heaven – In Soft Confusion I think the right descriptor is darkwave – insistent drum machine, reverb soaked vocals, industrial production, gloomy pop hooks Joel Sarakula – Don’t Give Up on Me Operating in a dangerous space between homage and pastiche, groove and parody, this is smooth easy yacht rock Donny Benét – Second Dinner Following hot on the heels of pastiche, this time with tongue firmly in cheek, The Don and his 80s reverence lolz Perfume Genius – Whole Life Completely arresting, the lyrics an absolute gut punch, yet still gorgeous Jake Blount – Beyond This Wall From the press release, this album “features fourteen carefully chosen tracks drawn from Blount’s extensive research of Black and Indigenous mountain music. The result is an unprecedented testament to the voices paradoxically obscured yet profoundly ingrained into the Appalachian tradition” – this contemporary instrumental is a superb banjo and fiddle tune Holy Hive – Broom Formed by the drummer from the Dap Tones and inspired by being on tour with Lee Fields, this gentle soul, complete with tremolo guitar and horns, really floats Woods – Where Do You Go When You Dream A welcome return to form, this mellotron infused number is beautifully catchy Erland Cooper – Linga Holm Dramatic piano and strings from an altogether wild and wonderful album Mystery Jets – Screwdriver Loud / quiet dynamic, bombastic riffs, seething verses, the Jets turn it up to eleven to fight with love Jehnny Beth – Flower Another track where hushed verses give way to chorus explosions, serious tension and intensity Hinds – Good Bad Times Love that thudding bass drum, big stomping pop Norah Jones – Were You Watching? Smooth but haunting, with added Celtic flavour Braids – Young Buck Bleeps and bloops, melancholic poppy vocals, and the damnedest catchiest chorus Jessie Ware – What’s Your Pleasure? Is it getting hot in here? No further questions LA Priest – What Moves Quirky strutting electro, sleek yet squelchy SAULT – Wildfires + SAULT, Michael Kiwanuka – Bow Double billing because I couldn’t make a choice (plus when I realised the rhythms flow perfectly into one another it’s like it’s one song) Run The Jewels – a few words for the firing squad (radiation) Again, difficult to choose which track on this album; this is pure fire with sax and all GUM – The Thrill Of Doing It Right Turn this feel good banger up! Such a big hit when the horns drop at the start The Vacant Lots - Fracture Catchy, icy, synths (and Desert Sands label mates by the by) A.A. Williams – Melt Enchanting slow-burning, stirring post-rock, with a wonderful, soaring crescendo Lightning Orchestra – For Those Who Are Yet To Be Born A late discovery, but immediately catapulted to the top, self-described “psychedelic booty-shake” Kamaal Williams – Save Me Almost chose ‘Pigalle’ but the tight push drumming on this won out, hard funky jazz stylings of the Herbie variety Victoria Monét – Dive Lavish and groovy, and as Monét puts it: “They say most humans are about 60% water, but I believe women must be 69% so dive in baby." Secret Machines – Talos’ Corpse Genuinely so happy to see Brandon and Josh back and still with the big sounds All Them Witches – Enemy of My Enemy Relentlessly heavy, all the chops and described by one reviewer as the love child of TOOL, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Kyuss; I love this band Fenne Lily – Birthday Beautiful and bruised Mildlife – Automatic Another new discovery, in the pocket cosmic goodness and much as it pains me to quote from NME I can’t think of a better description than ‘Mobius strip funk’ Puscifer – Apocalyptical Maynard in the video for this track is an indelible image; massive swaggering Intruder-esque drums, angular menacing guitars, Carina’s ethereal edgy vocals, Maynard’s gritted teeth whispers, and apposite apocalyptical lyrics Matt Berninger – Loved So Little Confessional moody acoustic conjuring up Western-esque vistas Goldensuns – Denandra Moore Californian sun-drenched lo-fi groove, for fans of Conan Mockasin and Night Moves Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Cavehead F*cking excellent west coast garage psych melange and the B,D,E ascend at 3:10 is nod central King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – The Hungry Wolf Of Fate Genre bending brilliance once again from down under, this cut a heavy, doomy Sabbath assault King Hannah – Meal Deal Ominous drone opens into an acoustic tale of buying a flat with a spider in the bath, Hannah’s sinister smoky sultry vocals draw you in, before some menacing low frequency dirge guitar and drums kick in at 1:30… By this point on first listen I was already hooked, but then comes a great walloping Angel Olsen ‘Sister’ style crescendo, a glorious find at the end of the year (props to Manuel) HONOURABLE MENTIONS Elephant Stone – I See You Sam Lee, Elizabeth Frazer – The Moon Shines Bright Priscilla Ermel – Martim Pescador Rheinzand – Blind Dogleg – Fox The Flaming Lips, Deap Lips – Home Thru Hell The Heliocentrics – Hanging By A Thread Midwife – 2018 Chicano Batman – Color My life Trace Mountains – Rock & Roll Peach Pit – Shampoo Bottles Buscabulla – Vámono Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – Cars In Space Jess Williamson – Wind on Tin Thiago Nassif, Arto Lindsay – Plástico The Vacant Lots – Endless Rain Nubya Garcia – Stand With Each Other (Feat. Ms MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi, & Richie Seivwright) Juanita Stein – L.O.T.F. Carlton Melton – Waylay Paul McCartney – Long Tailed Winter Bird

[misskatdeville-blog]

Confessions Of A Minion

How Goddess Katarina Deville came to own my soul

I stumbled across Goddess Katarina Deville barely a month ago, and, I don't really know how, but She already She owns me and my soul completely.  Before i knew what was happening to me, She had me on on a daily ritual of prayer, obedience, instruction and tasks – all of which I am desperate to complete as soon as possible so that I may receive my next assignment from my Goddess.

If you take even the briefest glance at Her tumblr blog – Her Darkness Consumes You - Her niteflirt pages, and Her twitter account, you may get some inkling as to why I have become so devoted, so addicted, so owned, by Goddess Katarina, so quickly. She is evil perfection incarnate, She has the body of an angel, the smile of a devil, a mind that corrupts, the soul of Satan. Whether you are a poor, unfortunate innocent, or a debauched pervert, she will mesmerise you and capture your soul so easily you won't know what happened – I didn't!  I'm not sure if do, still.

But Her promise of control and seduction is so blissful, Her torture so exquisite, Her pain so pleasurable, that you crave Her at first sight, and very quickly become so addicted that you can't stop! And Goddess Kat feeds your hunger so expertly that you won't stop, She knows how to pull your strings so expertly, to manipulate you, tempt you into taking the next step, and the next step, and the next step … and the next step. You put aside your worries about witches, spells, rituals, and Satanism, and you just fall into the web of oblivion that Goddess Katarina weaves, blissfully overlooking all the warnings along the way, signposting your descent into hell.

I began my journey of oblivion as soon as caught sight of Her image on niteflirt – so beautiful, so tempting – and was quickly caught in Her exquisite web of words and images. Her warnings are clear - She is out for total control, total power exchange and will have no mercy once you take your first step.  She ultimately wants you to willingly hand over your soul.

But despite these warnings, the inviting look and sweet smile are irresistible, and I was buying Her seductive treats as quickly as I could. Goddess calls them spelled pics, and they do what they say on the tin – each one of them bewitched me even more than the first, the images of this oh so beautiful witch, the smiling, wicked lips, the words confusing my brain - and little by little, my need for Goddess Katarina's control grew even stronger, even deeper, each step deeper down the rabbit hole that leads to Goddess Katarina's request for your … soul

Yes, my soul. She isn't joking, it's not just words, bravado, fantasy. Goddess Katarina is no fantasy, She is an all too real witch, who will have your soul before you blink. In what seemed like no time at all, Goddess Katarina required me to willingly sign a contract in blood and to hand over my soul to Her, my Goddess, just as She predicted i would. A full blown blood contract, soul transfer, fire and blood ritual.

Very scary. Too scary? It was too late, I was caught in Goddess Kat's spell, Her trap, I was addicted, desperate to lay myself at Her feet, to be owned by Her perfect, evil mind, even if it meant handing over my submisive soul – as She asked so innocently, what was I using it for, anyway?

She had given me a little taste, but of such an addictive drug that I had no choice, I would never get enough of Her to satiate my growing lust for this wicked witch, but I had to keep trying, to feed my desperate hunger, my addiction, my new life. Goddess Katarina was my new life!

So I said yes, I begged for Her to take my soul, I offeered up my soul, I signed the blood contract, I completed the ritual as instructed, set fire to my words, written in blood, and ...

And my life was transformed! On the other side of the soul contract, I found that Goddess Kat really did own me, it wasn't a dream, a fantasy, it was real, it was scary, but I felt reborn. Goddess Kat had possession of my soul, and I felt ecstatic. Goddes Kat could do anything She wished with Her new pet, slave fucktoy – my new life is bliss, and i don't want ever to look back ...

Don't be deceived. Goddess Kat is a witch. Goddess Kat is a Satinist. Goddess Kat is evil. Goddess Kat is cruel. And Goddess Kat is powerful! But Goddess Kat is beautiful, Goddess Kat is so sexy it is painful to look at Her, Goddess Kat's voice burns a hole in your brain as Her silky sweet words trickle like boling hot syrup into your aural passageways, and melts your mind.

She takes me so high, She brings me so low, Her love is evil, Her touch cuts, Her words corrupt, She will make you Her slave, Her minion, Her fucktoy - but I cannot get enough of my Goddess, She owns me, and it is the most blissful experience I have ever encountered.

Goddess Katarina is my life, She owns my soul, and I want this hypnotic dream, this exquisite nightmare, this ecstatic painful existence to never end – and She promises it won't, She owns me, forever.

[not-a-space-alien]

In Sickness, Part 4: A Forcible Invitation

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Series masterpost

On AO3

“Crowley, it’s Aziraphale. I’m inviting you to lunch with me. Call me when you receive this message. We are going to the Ritz today. I’ll come get you.”

Crowley didn’t call back, of course.  Aziraphale would have been surprised if he had, now that they were playing a more vicious version of the set-up-a-wile-thwart-a-wile game they had started out with before they made the Arrangement.

So Aziraphale spent the hours leading up to lunch scanning London to find him again, whatever nefarious deeds he was up to out in the city.  He eventually found him in a dim alley awash in garbage, bent over what looked like a homeless man sitting with his back against the cinderblock wall. Crowley was whispering something in his ear, and the human didn’t appear to be enjoying it.  It wasn’t clear if he was even aware that Crowley was there.

“What are you doing?” said Aziraphale.

Crowley glanced up but didn’t stand.  “I’m tempting someone.”

Aziraphale crossed his arms. “It’s hardly sporting, is it?  Kicking them while they’re down.”

The demon straightened up now.  “You expect me to feel sorry for them?”

“You’ve always felt sorry for them.  Have you forgotten?”

“That’s behind me now. Hardly proper for a demon.  It’s a lot easier to do this job when you don’t feel anything.”

The human drunkenly staggered to his feet, and Crowley hissed in annoyance, grabbed his lapels, and slammed him into the wall.

Aziraphale had been hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but here they were.  His ethereal essence reached out from his corporation, searched, and found the connection to his aural weapon.  He submerged his hand into the aether and withdrew it, leveling it at the demon.  “Let go of him.”

“Or what?  You’ll stab me?”

The sword burst into flames with a whoosh.  “If you’re going to start acting like a ‘proper’ demon, then maybe I should start acting like a proper angel.”

The flames crackled, and Aziraphale could see in Crowley’s eyes that he truly, genuinely believed he was dealing with an absolute enemy now.  The fear of death there was very real, even if it was being hastily covered by anger.

Crowley let go of the man, who slid down, ducked away, and fled.

“Fine,” said Crowley, turning to walk away.

“Ah-ah!” said Aziraphale, raising the sword.  “You’re not going anywhere.”

Crowley’s lip peeled back in a snaggle-toothed sneer.  “Fine, then. What do you want?”

“We’re going to lunch.”

“I’m not having lunch with you.”

“It wasn’t a request.”

“This is childish.”

Aziraphale slid his sword into his jacket and willed it invisible from human eyes, keeping one hand on the hilt.  “I believe I’m calling the shots, here.”

They ended up walking all the way to the restaurant, Aziraphale occasionally poking the tip of the sword into the demon to remind him not to try anything.

“Haven’t seen you two in a while!” said the maître d’ cheerily as she saw Aziraphale.  She fell completely silent when she saw the look on Crowley’s face, and then scuttled off to get them menus and escape that terrible glare.

When she returned to seat them, Aziraphale waved a hand and said, “Don’t mind him.  He’s in an awful mood; don’t take it personally.”

The first thing out of Crowley’s mouth when she left them alone at the table was, “I’m not eating anything.”  Aziraphale bumped his sword into Crowley’s leg under the table, and the demon scowled violently and picked up the menu.

“I’m not drinking this,” said Crowley as red wine was poured into his glass.  It was probably the most out-of-character thing Aziraphale had ever heard him say.

“You certainly will.”

“I’m not going to let you drug me, you brute!”

“You have to drink at least two glasses,” said Aziraphale, with another gentle but pointed poke in his leg.  “That’s what you always drank before.”

“I’m not like I was before!  I’m better now!  I don’t have any use for this!”

Aziraphale took a small sip of his wine.  Crowley huffed angrily and did the same.

“Why are you making me do this?” he said as their first course came.

“Anything starting to come back to you?” said Aziraphale.

“I remember this, Aziraphale, they didn’t erase my memory! I’m telling you, I don’t want this anymore.”

That’s not you talking, thought Aziraphale.  It’s whatever they’ve done to you. “It won’t kill you to humor me.”

“You might,” muttered Crowley.  “I’m not eating this.”

Aziraphale thought that perhaps they had seen that food and wine had been among the things Crowley enjoyed the most, and had made sure that the new version of him would want to stay away from them to prevent his backsliding.  “Crowley, your body needs food.  It’s obvious you haven’t been feeding it properly.”

“I don’t need food.  I can just keep it alive with miracles.”

“That’s not healthy for it. It needs real food.”

“Why?” he snarled. “So I can be a fat fuck like you?”

Aziraphale poked him again, just a little too hard, and realized he had drawn blood on Crowley’s shin. He regretted it, but he refused to let any remorse show on his face.  Crowley’s countenance twisted into bitter defeat, and he began to pick at the food.  

In the end, Aziraphale was able to coerce him into eating most of his pasta and part of a dessert. The demon acted like Aziraphale was torturing him the whole time.

Crowley jammed his hands in his pocket as they came outside.  “Well, that was pointless.  Can I go now?”

“Not yet,” said Aziraphale, shaking the bag of dinner rolls he had snagged.  “We’re going to feed the ducks.”

Crowley was boiling with barely suppressed rage on the walk to St. James’ Park.  Aziraphale forced himself to be pleasant as a foil, commenting on how nicely the flowers were blooming, the other visitors in the park, particularly colourful birds that flitted past, and any little thing that caught his attention. He desperately hoped that this might do something, anything; just a tiny spark of enjoyment or any glimpse of the old Crowley who had always been the one to suggest this activity would be enough.

They reached the pond. The ducks recognized them and clambered over each other to reach the edge of the water, waddling up to them, quacking expectantly.

Aziraphale took out a roll and crumbled it, tossing it to the ducks.  He held another one out to Crowley.  “Your turn.  Come on.”

Crowley took the bread but made no attempt to distribute it.  “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Do it.”

“They’re dirty and noisy and foul and they’ll be dead in a few years.  They haven’t got souls to corrupt or save.  This is a pointless waste of time.”

“Feed the damn ducks, demon.”

Crowley ripped the roll up and took a step forwards.  The ducks took one look at him, sensed there was something different about him, and squawked nervously, jostling to get away from him.

“You stupid animals!” He viciously kicked one, punting it back to the water’s edge.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale gasped, but the demon had already thrown the roll on the ground and begun to stomp away.

“I can’t take this torture anymore.  Kill me or whatever you want, but I’m not staying here one moment longer.”

Then Aziraphale stood alone among the bewildered and angry ducks.  The one Crowley had kicked was quacking weakly and dragging a broken wing on the ground, but Aziraphale was too deep in thought to notice.  He dropped the rest of the bread; the ducks, now confident again in Crowley’s absence, swarmed around his legs.  He stepped over them to leave.  “Okay, then, I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

Aziraphale’s wings were very much similar to an owl’s wings, and owls, as nocturnal predators, can fly completely silently, with hardly a ruffle of their feathers.  Aziraphale carefully navigated himself to Crowley’s flat, slid the window open, and folded his wings so he could squeeze in.

It was completely dark, of course, and while angels didn’t have night vision as good as demons’, he could still see better than a human.  He took his shoes off and, leaving them by the window, he tiptoed through the flat, not entirely sure what he was looking for.  

He peeked into the bedroom. He was surprised to find that not only was it empty, it looked like the bed hadn’t been used in weeks.

Of course.  Old Crowley loved sleep, not this one.

He withdrew and prowled around the interior, finding no sign that the demon was home at all.

So he went to the kitchen and slid all the drawers open, the silverware clattering.  There was nothing but knives.  The cabinets were empty, along with the fridge.  New Crowley apparently actively disliked food.

The living room was bare. Crowley’s CD collection and DVDs were gone, although the TV was still there.  The wire hangers and shelves where the plants had been by the window were all hopelessly empty.  

He stalked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet.

A row of pill bottles stared back at him.

“Gotcha,” he said.  He took one and read the prescription label.  “Oh, dear.”

He feared what might happen if Crowley returned and caught him flushing the pills down the toilet here. So he swept all the bottles off the shelf and carried them in his pockets, the pills rattling as he went back to the window. He put his shoes on, leapt out, and disposed of them in his own home.

Angels can play dirty, too, if something they care about is on the line.

[thesinglesjukebox]

BLACK EYED PEAS FT. OZUNA AND J. REY SOUL - MAMACITA

[3.88]

Visions of them dividends...

Andy Hutchins: I strongly believe that no one without a financial interest in the Peas asked for Translation, and three months of the droning "Ritmo" on the radio has made me pine for the bizarro Jaden Smith verse from the remix to break up the tedium. Say this for "Mamacita": Will's verse is mostly unobjectionable, Taboo and apl are placed where their forgettability is a good thing, and Ozuna is more engaged than J. Balvin was. Toss in a passable Fergie impression from the band member who replaced Fergie but is getting her own credit here for some reason, and this is a step up. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Ozuna puts in a decent effort. If you overlook some gratuitous lyrical choices, J. Rey Soul provides a strong enough hook. Unfortunately though, there are no words in English or Spanish that can adequately describe the aural torture that is will.i.am. Taboo and apl.de.ap continue to exist. [1]

Olivia Rafferty: The title hook just gives me this great image of will.i.am in the studio holding a mic to his face and drilling out the "MAMACITA, MAMACITA, QUÉ BONITA" lyric in one take and then sitting down with a self-accomplished "nice." Classic Black Eyed Peas were always adept at infuriating hooks which feel stupidly simple (gotta get that boom boom booooom) but stick like burst bubblegum to the face. New member J. Rey Soul has a timbre that serves eerie moments of "is that Fergie?" but before that thought fully forms, she sweeps in and stamps her own sound on the track. Combine it all with a healthy feature for Ozuna, and you've got a solid blend. [6]

Michael Hong: A track built to appeal to the Latin audience, where every option was chosen for convenience: the occasional substitution of one lyric for a Spanish word, the Madonna sample in lieu of their own generic Latin-trap beat, and the use of one of the most distinct Latino voices to offset the loss of the only member with personality. [3]

Leah Isobel: Black Eyed Peas' trend-hopping is as shameless as ever, and there is a part of me that will always find their gleefully decadent capitalist anthems endearing. Still, this is pretty nothingy, and the "La Isla Bonita" melody and "One Dance" piano make it feel like a copy of other artists' copies of non-American musical styles. [4]

Alex Clifton: It's catchy and like... fine? I didn't really want a Black Eyed Peas comeback in 2020, but it is thankfully better than "Dirty Bit" (a low bar, but one worth mentioning). It's so nondescript though, something that plays in the club in the background but you don't pay any attention to it because you're too busy trying to talk to other people over the beat. (This is, of course, assuming a world post-quarantine where clubbing still happens.) [4]

Scott Mildenhall: It's an enduring curiosity that will.i.am displays weird instincts more often than they actually congeal into something impressive. Even here you get the unspoken comedy of him awkwardly repeating the title, but as is most often the case, his primary instinct is to pander, with transparent desperation. "Mamacita" is functionally fine, but no more than that. It's aiming to be an international big mega radio smasher, when if only it were aiming for INTERNATIONAL BIG MEGA RADIO SMASHER. [5]

Katherine St Asaph: From that future boom boom boom to yesterday, quite far away. [4]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[worldlee1]

#Repost @mikemettler with @get_repost ・・・ MM's Top 31 Albums of 2018 – #26: @judithowenmusic : redisCOVERed. (Twanky). This generation’s current top song interpreter does it once again, this time infusing 12 covers with a knowing world-weariness crossed with a compelling joie de vivre that ultimately acts as a sonic soul-cleansing in the process. Witness the Welsh-bred songstress’ ace transformation of Donna Summer’s sultry “Hot Stuff” into a melancholy come-on, Drake’s “Hotline Bling” into more of a slow-burn sneer, and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” into a jaunty, sped-up jazz number. “You’re constantly torturing yourself with your need to know about why things fell apart, but you can’t show weakness or be too emotional about them in real life,” Judith told me back in May. “What I’ve found with the songs I’ve chosen for this record is that they’re quite universal, and that they could very much be about my own autobiographical experiences. In covering them, I’ve not only discovered new things about the songs themselves, but also about certain things in my own life that I long ago shelved in the back of my head because they were so painful.” Discover now for yourself how a career artist expertly channels abject pain into aural pleasure. https://www.instagram.com/p/BrNDpwzAYIS/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=xzsid27d34ca

[projectsuminda]

World Building June 2017 - Day 28: Major Figures & Important Players

Solevaille

As I already have most of the first draft of Porcelain Wonderland written, I might as well describe the main characters of the story, as well as a few other important ones.  Well, all but two of them, whose very existence is kind of a spoiler.  But as for the others...

Giuseppe Geppetto: Appropriate last name, eh?  Often called Gigi by his initials, this toymaker runs a shop called Gigi's Dolls and Toys, which I briefly mentioned in the Economy prompt.  But unlike his namesake from Pinocchio, Gigi specializes in porcelain dolls... which, according to many a customer, look like they may come to life at any moment.  (To which he said that there was no way that could happen.)  When not in the shop, he lives at home with his wife Vivi and his twin daughters, who he named Dextrina and Sinistrina because he liked to cradle the former in his right arm and the latter in his left.  (The words dexter and sinister mean "right" and "left", respectively.)

Lucina Geppetto: Born as Dextrina and changed her name when she became Queen of Solevaille.  She rose to fame when she presented her living toys before the mayor on Christmas, and word about them spread that year, culminating into a grand celebration of them at Ludinberg Castle during the following Gallery Festival (see Day 26, Art).  At the festival, she turned the mayor into a Marionette and then persuaded him to let her be Solevaille's first queen.  Indeed, Lucina is quite an ambitious and charismatic young lady, with a seemingly endless amount of energy, cheer, and drama (of the good kind).  However, while she is excellent at coming up with ideas, she is not so good at planning, and even worse at empathizing with people.  Those two flaws would lead her to resort to more and more drastic measures to maintain order over the kingdom.

Sinistrina Geppetto: Lucina's twin sister.  She has quite a shady reputation in town because of her skill with black magic, with a talent for raising the dead and extracting the souls out of living beings (which kills them).  Although she is also responsible for teaching Lucina about magic so that she could bring the dolls to life, she is not in her court, instead being known as "countess" or "town witch".  She is also responsible for the Deathly Glade's existence, and would eventually become its own queen.  But despite all this, she is much more level-headed than Lucina, and tries not to use her magic to cause harm to people... a tall order given its inherently harmful nature.  One notable example of this backfiring horribly is when she “accidentally” places a curse on the Deathly Manor (see, I told you it would be important) that traps all who enter in an intense nightmare.  Not a very good end for people who have been banished to the Deathly Glade.

Euler "Winky" van Winkle: The mayor of Solevaille at the time of the story - well, before he is stripped of his power, that is.  A refined yet jolly old fellow never seen without a monocle, he considers his own position to be less important than its purpose, that being the well-being of the people of Solevaille and the thriving of its artistic culture.

Emille Laroux: The princess of Solevaille, and the first porcelain doll in history to hold a leading position over a country.  Although Lucina oversees most of the work in the kingdom, Emille is notable for carrying out executions (for those who are not banished to the Deathly Glade) and acting as an overall foil for Lucina.  Where Lucina will shower the court dolls with affection, Emille will look down on them.  Where Lucina leaps before she looks, Emille does the opposite.  ...You get the idea.

Krampus: As was mentioned in the History prompt, this evil sorcerer ravaged Ludin, Solevaille's predecessor town, with a zombie apocalypse.  Let's hope Sinistrina does not follow in his footsteps, especially since he has been all but forgotten about.

Peter Pedersen: The owner of the Peter Pan Pub, and a very old friend of the Geppetto family.  Shows up as part of a small resistance force of human "refugees" aiming to escape the dolls' rule over the kingdom (yet somehow stay in Solevaille while doing so).

Cloud Candyfloss: The Ceramic owner of Cloud's Cuckoo Land, Solevaille's local clock shop.  Notable for giving quirky yet meaningful nicknames to the other characters - for example, Lucina is the Queen of Ham (for her hammy demeanor as queen), Sinistrina is Necromantress, Emille is the Hammer Lady (because misbehaving dolls are smashed with a hammer), and Winky is Mr. I Say (after his catchphrase).

Jack "Chrono" Chronopoulos: Cloud's adoptive father.  He invented a time machine about a decade before the story begins, and uses it to travel forward several decades in time, bypassing the entire story.  In said story, he functions as a narrator.

Orenya

I have a collection of short stories planned collectively called the Tales of the Magic Lands, which all take place on Orenya.  Each of these stories focuses on one character (or group of characters) whose existence over the course of history is like an abnormally bright star in the night sky.  Some of those characters are as follows:

Durnem: The first fylin to become involved in one of Orenya's major branches of government - in her case, the Oradamin.  (Not surprising, considering howstereotypically aggressive fylin women are.  Later on a fylin man would become the first of his kind to join the Danramin.)  Like other fylin who would follow in her footsteps, she was motivated to do so by being an outcast from her clan.

Nemaforte: A sunestre herbalist from Theani, living in the Modern Era.  Her name means "poisoned blood", and for good reason: she specializes in peddling poisonous or (especially) psychotropic herbs.  In last year's Flora prompt, I mentioned the extremely-poisonous-but-not-deadly drakima root which causes permanent and destructive psychological damage, and also mentioned an herbalist who ingested it and came out (mostly) sane.  Nemaforte is that herbalist, and she is the only person ever known to have not developed such problems despite experiencing the full effect (involving a long and torturous nightmare).

Drima: A hypnotist whose specialty is luring people into the Void and temporarily enslaving them while draining away their aural energies.  He is notable for seeking to harness the power of Moredriva (who, as was mentioned in last year's Religion/Cosmology prompt, is rumored to make those who gaze upon her too long go mad) to enhance his hypnotic abilities... which is quite a daunting feat considering he's a sunestre, and thus sensitive to sunlight.

Kinenda: A sune of the Ancient Era, who was envious of the sumi for their ability to fly.  Thus, she pioneered the art of psychokinesis, which allowed her to fly just like the sumi could.

Kyomin Sorunor: His name means "dragon master", and he turned out to exceed the name's expectations.  A sumiri from the early Trading Era growing up in Kyonin (not surprisingly), he pioneered telepathic communication with dragons, with whom he was particularly talented at empathizing with.

The Four Bardic Sisters: A quartet of sumiri musicians who witnessed the start of the Day-Night War and strove to utilize their performances to stop it before it got worse.  A difficult task, of course, which drove each sister to a vision quest of sorts to find their purpose in the war.  Even as late as the Modern Era, the story of their quests is widely told, as each sister learns a moral lesson from their quest.  Especially notable from other such fables in that the lessons are less kid-friendly and lean toward the cynical side.  (They're bards - they deserve it.)  Even the origin of their family, the Baoshra family, goes way back, originating with four priestesses who sought to channel the power of the four moons.  According to legend, they enchanted the bloodline so that they would have a single daughter, all with the same man (remember that polygamy is common among sumiri, as was mentioned in the Gender/Sexuality prompt).

Melody Clementine: She is especially unique, as she is an astronaut from Earth.  She and her crew found their way to Orenya, and began conducting scientific research there.  Her presence is especially notable in that A) the natives learned much about things such as the geography of the moons and the stars that are all around, and B) while her crew returned to Earth, she opted to stay on Orenya.