#detroit diy

[mechanatura]

MECHANATURA UNRELEASED

[foolishfuuck]

got this at the lil diy fest yesterday<3

i love the downriver scene to death

[nepacala]

[rollupfuckup]

dazegxd in detroit last night was fkng lit

[andersonpress]

[jbone-bigdude]

3 Amigos

The Cru is back at it!  Alongside longtime friend and collaborator, Kovax.  The do-it-yourself rappers get it poppin' in Pontiac this spring.  Sharing the stage with a slew of talented artists to celebrate the release of Komplex.  The 6th studio album from Kovax. Live DJ's + hype performances all inside a dope venue.  Tell a friend, come out and catch a night of high-energy Hip-Hop on full display! Saturday April 22, 2023 at The Pike Room - Grab tickets Here Photo by Timothy pAULE Written by Matthew Adams

[ellielatinagf]

Ellie Williams in Covid head cannons

Sooooo this is just a small idea I had because I’ve never seen anyone else do this soooooooo. Our poor girly in yet another epidemic. Love you all!

Warnings: a tiny bit nsfw content, cursing, for the girls only pleaseee, lmk if there’s anything else

Was absolutely thrilled when everyone was advised to stay inside because she’s such an antisocial loser untilllllll she saw how everyone was rapidly spreading the disease. She’s low key a germaphobe.

Totally had a YouTube channel which consisted of her recording herself doing nothing but laying on the couch with you watching tv. Her only subscribers were Jesse, Joel, and Dina and some rando from Tennessee.

She found a new obsession every week and now the garage is filled with boxes of old paintings, crochet chickens, and diy art stuff.

Had ranked every Ramen noodle flavor from best to worst

Absolutely freaked OUT when you got Covid from your job and she ended up sleeping over at Joel’s. She actually refused to come back untill you showed her how you deep cleaned the whole house.

Ellie on FaceTime

Ellie: wait babe lemme see right there on the dresser

You: Ellie I literally wiped it down twice

Ellie: well I didn’t see it

Tried to make cookies one time and thought they were perfect and crispy around the edges. They really tasted like chips and she got mad when you laughed and claimed you never take her seriously.

Okay I’m sorry but she was a horny monster like cmon she was in the house all day with you like how can she not.

Had an obsession with the Big Bang theory and made you watch it with her and explained all the science stuff which she knew for the most part. On the ones she didn’t know she’d yap about it till you looked it up and she’d gaslight you into thinking she was right.

You: “Umm babe google says……”

Ellie: “that’s literally what I was saying”

She was at Joel’s house one time helping him make more guitars. She accidentally cut herself and when you demanded she go to the hospital which she was terrified of because of all the Covid patients getting her sick she went like this

“Hold on babe i watched greys anatomy”

Fell victim to the meme pages all in her camera roll that were like this

Hated zoom meetings but she’d be the type to hold her phone on the screen and watch those Roblox Tik toks.

I know i already said she was a fortnite god but that girl watched every single fortnite concert at the time and made sure you were right there with her and she made sure to clip the whole thing even though when watching the clip back her and Jesse were yelling their asses off. She loved season three of fortnite.

Ellie: “ HURRY UP BABE TRAVIS SCOTT IS GONNA PREFORM OH MY GOD JESSE WHERE ARE YOU!!!”

Ellie hated when people overstocked at the grocery store meanwhile she did the exact same thing because she was paranoid and it came in hand since you guys wouldn’t need to go grocery shopping for at least a week and a half

Ellie also discovered games with an emotional storyline like Detroit becomes human, red dead redemption, resident evil, ect. And had a phase where she’d be all poetic and shit thinking she was Shakespeare, she got tired of talking like she was from the 1800s.

Ellie: “my love, your eyes, they remind me of a thousand sunsets…”

You: “did you take out the trash?”

She had all her favorite YouTubers and would watch them on the tv and she’d make you play among us with her because that was “the game of century” as she proclaimed.

She actually had a small mini breakdown because our poor girl found out Joel had Covid and remember that in the news it said older people were more at risk. The poor girl though Joel was gonna die and you laid in bed with Ellie who was sniffling and crying in your shirt while you rubbed her back. Those always calm her down. Then when Joel was better again she made you pinky promise not to tell anyone anything. But she did end up calling Joel more frequently.

You guys actually had spent a lot of time together and most couples who spent so much time together broke up and got bored and such and such but you two actually enjoyed you time together. You and Ellie would would go to an open park where no one was around and watch the sunset and talk about what your plans were after everything was back to normal. Ellie asked if you two could get a puppy and who can ever say no to those eyes and freckles cheeks?

Another thing you guys liked to do was spent all day in bed and cuddling. Now a lot of people will assume Ellie would be the big spoon and that can be true sometimes but the girl is a hugeeeeeee softie. She loved being the little spoon because she felt safe by feeling your soft breath ok her back or shoulder. And she’s hold a dinosaur plushie. Like always.

She cried when she watched videos of family’s finally being able to reunite or grandparents watching their families through a class. Who didn’t cry?

She loved playing just dance with you and she’d purposely pick a song where you both had to dance together because she never has the balls to ask you to dance to with her.

She had a little camcorder where she recorded almost everything in your lives at that point. You brushing your teeth, both of you eating cereal, having tickle fights, ect. What Ellie doesn’t know is that now you sometimes go to the camcorder and watch the old videos and she’d a tear here and there because you loved the memories.

Some how she was actually a beast at the toilet paper kick up challenge and got a good 14 kick ups.

You cannot tell me she didn’t buy those apple juices that actually founded like apples when you bit into them.

I lowkey just had an idea of what Ellie would be like at this time sooooo lmk what other hcs you guys might want! Also be sure to let me know if you’d like to be in the Taglists! Don’t forget to talk about Palestine guys! Free Palestine 🇵🇸 🇵🇸🇵🇸

Taglists: @vqxen @bready101 @lilylynne11 @Lively-blues @Yurixxiii @vampyangel @gato-chino @a-little-bit-of-everybody @abbysbraids

[missmists]

First bookbinding project a success. I think that my cat approves because he would not stay out of my photos. Five months in the making, but I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

I started with @armoredsuperheavy's amazing fanbinding tutorial to create a typeset of each work in @erisenyo's Burning Bright AU published on Ao3. Then had to reread the works in the new format and edit as I went to make sure everything was formatted correctly, (combined word count somewhere around 1.3 million) that took over a month all by itself.

I picked up a copy of Introduction to Bookbinding & Custom Cases by Tom and Cindy Hollander from my local library, to look at some detailed how to images and get multiple perspectives on construction methods. Excellent book, I do recommend.

My hunt for materials included a trip to Detroit with a side stop at Blick to look at decorative papers in person. Blick and the fine people at Hollander’s ended up having everything I needed to make covers. So between my brother kindly 3d printing me a punch cradle, making a DIY sewing frame of my own invention (courtesy of scrap lumber and a trip to the Lowe's hardware department), and three reams of late night printing, I managed to amass all my supplies.

Folding three reams of paper into signatures (the little bundles you sew together) takes about five days if you don't want to lose your mind or your place, and longer if you discover you need to fix things because that definitely happened. Then you get to unfold them to stab holes in them which is as terrifying at first and therapeutic by the end as it sounds.

Next came weeks of sewing books together, a magical process. I learned three new knots, repeatedly stabbed myself (because all forms of creation forcibly demand blood sacrifice) , and felt like I was roleplaying a monastic librarian from the time of Gutenburg. That's 600 years ago, 24ish generations, over 8million ancestors since then (by geometric progression, which excludes the possibility that any of my peasant ancestry is from small towns which is you know likely but I digress) and here I sat sewing pages together in a basement because story is the most sacred of human arts as it binds communities together and shapes perceptions of the self and our brethren, of outsiders allies and enemies, of the world as we know it and as it may come to be. Did I mention sewing books felt magical.

Then came the glue. So much glue. Multiple types of glue. All sticky. all stuck to me. I smeared glue with my fingers like a child.

At last it was time for the covers. Choosing combinations of the decorative papers and bookcloth and making sure I could get enough out of each material for what I needed. Precise cutting so many thanks to the architecture school professors who showed me how to properly cut chipboard. Then measuring and gluing, and more measuring, and more gluing. At last press a little groove by the spine and repeat eleven times.

Then I get to impress all my people with my latest and possibly coolest maker skill unlock, I am a book binder.

Bottom to top in the stack or left to right at the bottom are: These Things Written  These Things Unsaid with Without Consent These Things Known with A Third Chance (or a First) Oh, The Way Your Makeup Stains My Pillowcase That Love You've Been Looking For  All I Need Is To Be Struck (By Your Electric Love) To Open Every Door to Night, To Meet Each Rising Sun (my favorite) Love Is In the Hair (fanart of this one originally lead me to read the series, thanks @ash-and-starlight) Lessons in Proper Asset Management Tangled Up With You  To Be Named, To Be Known (To Be Loved)

[187onacop]

Shoe. Game. Bitch. Itz. Nasty. It. B. Like. That. Though. itz all ❤️ Love 🌞

[madhatterbri]

MCMG | A.S.

Summary: The co-leaders of the MCMGs run into some trouble.

Author's Note: Bri makes wrestlers mobsters for no apparent reason again. Lol.

Trigger Warning(s): Gun shot, blood, cursing.

Happy Friday Night Smackdown, babes. 🫶

Alex Shelley Masterlist

WWE Masterlist

Taglist: @smallestsnarkestgirl @cowboywritersworld @magicalbuttertarts

Also starring: DIY.

1920s Detroit

"Jesus, Chris, would you look at all this," Alex chuckled as he placed a cigarette between his lips. He produced a lighter from his jacket and lit the cig. Within seconds, he was happily smoking in celebration. "All this is going to ship out tomorrow through Ontario, Chicago, and all the other major cities. I could kiss that idiot Volstead for helping sign the Prohibition to law,"

Chris looked around the basement. Kegs filled with alcohol stacked from the floor to the basement ceiling. All he could see were dollar signs. Michigan was already prohibiting alcohol before the nationwide ban. Now that all of the United States was participating in it, their business would certainly start booming.

"I gotta hand it to you," he chuckled and patted Alex's back. "Your idea was a good one. Maybe even your best one yet,"

The men were in good spirits with their gang's potential increased cash flow. After a couple of minutes of talking, they decided to head back to their place. They never suspected the danger waiting for them outside.

Two men waited for them in the alleyway with guns drawn. When Alex opened the door, he cursed. Business may have been booming, but so was crime. Gangs left and right were fighting each other over goods and territory. Chris stepped out behind him and closed the door to their bar.

"Come on, gentlemen, just put away your little toys and go, yea?" Alex asked. He was the mouthpiece between him and Chris. Chris was more of the muscle.

Alex's question was answered with the two men leaving their guns drawn.

"Can we do it my way now?" Chris asked while cracking his knuckles. His fists were balled up. The man would always bring his fists to a gun fight.

Alex rolled his eyes and sighed. His head dropped back. He hated pointless violence. These men were just looking to make a name for themselves. The only name they'll be getting is the one on their headstones.

"They are new, Chris. I'm pretty sure that one pissed his pants when you- fuck!" Alex yelled and jumped.

One of the guns shot off, nearly striking him. Chris didn't hold back. He lunged towards one and punched him in the head. The bald man slumped to the ground unconscious. The other thug dropped his weapon and walked backward. With his hands raised, his back pressed against the brick wall. He was trapped.

"Before you meet the same fate as your partner here, mind answering some questions?" Alex asked. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it. His foot twisted to extinguish the flame. The thug shook his head. "Great! Who the fuck are you and who do you work for?"

"J-Johnny Gargano. I- my partner and I just work for ourselves. They call us DIY," the man known as Johnny answered.

Alex heard very little about them. Some up and coming gang that was trying to make a name for themselves. Every time they gained momentum, they fell flat on their face. They were kind of seen as the baby brother in the Detroit gang world.

"Listen, Johnny boy, I don't want my man to hurt you. I just bought this suit, and I don't want blood on it, you know what I mean? Let us go, and I won't unleash him on you,"

Johnny nodded quickly. Alex smiled and patted the man's cheek.

"Smart man, that is a smart man, Chris. I can see you guys making it out there. You use your brain," Alex chuckled and pointed a finger at his own head. He motioned to Chris with his head to get to the car. Alex dusted off Johnny's clothes and walked behind Chris.

"You are right. I use my brain. You don't," Johnny told him. A shot rung out in the alley way.

Alex screamed in pain as he dropped to his knees. He gripped his new wound with his hand. Within seconds, his hand was drenched in blood. A string of curses flew out of his mouth. He turned his head to see Johnny holding his gun. Stupid mistake.

When Johnny's gun jammed before he could shoot Chris, the other man attacked him. Punch after punch of Chris' hand connected to his face. Johnny laid unconscious next to his bald partner. Chris only stopped when Alex told him he needed help.

"Help me up," Alex told him.

"Where are we going to take you? Alex Shelley walking into a hospital? The Detroit Press will have a field day with that one. We can just call the coppers to let them know where to pick you up,"

Alex glared at his partner. "You don't think I know that? If I am going to die it won't be in an alley way,"

Chris helped him up. Alex held his wounded arm close to his body. Every slightest movement felt like pure agony. He had to make it back to base. One of his men had to know what to do with a gunshot wound. A few of their men were veterans from the World War.

"Hey, what about her?"

Alex looked to see Chris pointing at a woman in a nurse's uniform. She wore a blue dress with a white apron to protect the dress from getting dirty from daily work activities. A satchel hung from her shoulder.

"How are you going to get her in the car? You going to ask her if she wants to help a known gang leader? I am going to bleed out for sure," Alex groaned.

"Ask?" Chris questioned. He was never one to ask. By the time Alex could attempt to stop him, Chris was already halfway across the street. The poor woman didn't know who was coming towards her.

"Miss? Excuse me, miss,"

The nurse jumped at the sudden interruption. She had just been daydreaming and didn't expect anyone out this late at night. Everyone would make sure to be in their homes to be safe. The crime activity was bad in these parts.

"Is everything alright?" The nurse asked. The stranger was disheveled, and she wondered if he had been in a fight. When he came closer to her, she noticed some blood on his hands and clothes.

"My friend and I ran into some trouble," the stranger told her. He made sure to keep his face hidden from any source of light. Alex and Chris had their faces plastered all over Detroit at this point. "Really bad men shot him, and I am afraid I am going to lose him. We've been friends since we were just kids and -"

"Oh God, I am so sorry. The police have been working so hard to bring down the crime, but they keep crawling in. Where is your friend?"

Chris couldn't believe how easy this was. He figured he would have to put the nurse over his shoulder and take her while she was kicking and screaming. No wonder Alex was more of a talker than a fighter. He would definitely have to use this tactic more in the future.

"He is just over here," Chris told her. The nurse turned the corner and stopped. She placed her hand over her mouth. Alex thought it was the severity of his injury until he looked in her eyes. A flicker of realization flashed in her eyes. She knew exactly who he was.

"You... You are Alex Shelley of the Motor City Machine Guns," she pointed out. When she turned on her heel, she was able to see the stranger's face. "And you are Chris Sabin,"

"Yeah, and you are getting in our car and fix my friend before you end up like those guys over there," Chris motioned to the unconscious DIY guys. His nice guy act was long gone. The scared woman nodded and slid into the back seat. Alex sat beside her. Chris took the driver's seat and started the car.

The car ride was quiet as Alex removed his black jacket. He tried not to curse from the pain in the presence of a lady. Poor nurse was already scared out of her mind to be in a car with known murderers. He might as well try to act somewhat civilized. Chris was certainly not going to do that.

The nurse opened the flap of her satchel. She grabbed a pair of scissors, a bottle of alcohol, some gauze, and a bandage. Alex watched as she cut the fabric of his long sleeve white shirt. Those DIY guys owed him a new shirt.

"Well?" Chris asked impatiently. "We aren't paying you by the hour,"

"Don't mind him," Alex assured her. "It's past his bedtime. He gets cranky,"

"I swear to God, Alex," the driver muttered.

"It doesn't look serious. I will clean the wound and dress it. I would buy a sling so you don't move it around too much," she advised Alex like he was a patient at the hospital.

After pouring some alcohol on the gauze, she gently started to clean the blood and the wound. Alex clenched his teeth and panted. Apologies fell from her lips as she tried to move quickly yet effectively. The bandages were wrapped around the wound on his shoulder.

Their faces were close together as she inspected her work. He found her to be a pretty little thing. Maybe they could have dated in another life. You know, a different reality where they didn't technically kidnap her. The car was uneasily silent. Alex could tell she wanted to ask if she could leave. He thought of something to break the ice.

"So, do this often?"

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 10, Number 11

Photo of Alan Licht by Stu Lax

One of the oddest, most disturbing developments in recent years is the devaluation of expertise. If a souped up auto complete program can write a screenplay, who needs writers? If scientific guidelines about how to stave off a plague make us angry or confused, who wants them? Anybody can be anything, given enough cash in their pockets, thought, evidence and fact be damned. So, it is somewhat unfashionable that Dusted continues to seek out artists who are good at what they do, whether they are conservatory trained or DIY, steeped in historical tradition or trying something new. Our monthly Dust highlights another batch of them. Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers and Bryon Hayes contributed.

John Butcher / Florian Stoffner / Chris Corsano — The Glass Changes Shape (Relative Pitch)

This autumn, English saxophonist John Butcher celebrated his 70th birthday. For the occasion his fellow musicians donned t-shirts proclaiming, “You can only trust yourself and the first ∞ John Butcher albums.” Yes, he puts out quite a few, and no, I’m not up to date. The completist’s task is even more daunting when one considers just how much music is packed into each of the nine improvisations on this concert recording, his second with guitarist Florian Stoffner and percussionist Chris Corsano. Timbres, volumes and modes of attack change from second to second, living up the album’s title; not even the music’s form I fixed. No one’s resting on laurels here. Corsano plays with rare spaciousness, and Butcher often seems to be playing up the contrasts between his horns’ tonal fluidity and the jagged edges of Stoffner’s contribution. Pardon the paradox, but each track is a subdivision of ∞, and there’s no end to the time you could spend getting profitably lost in one.

Bill Meyer

Cybotron — Parallel Shift (Tresor)

in 2019, legendary Detroit producer Juan Atkins rebooted his 1980s electro project Cybotron with Laurens van Oswald (nephew of Basic Channel founder Moritz) and Tameko Williams (Detroit In Effect). Atkins takes the technological matrices of his hometown’s now largely defunct manufacturing plants and Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” and twists them through an afro-futurist wormhole. The trio’s latest 12” single “Parallel Shift” sets Atkins’ robotic vocals and lockstep machine beats against melodic synths and warm bass tones. As Atkins insists on a “parallel shift”, smuggled elements of Clintonesque funk and drifting reverie suggest subversion of strictly linear time. The B-side “Earth” is a more straightforward piece of electro with the emphasis on syncopation. The track flickers with sci-fi synths as Atkins posits human rhythms as a form of cosmic consciousness. Volume up and eyes closed, you will be transported.

Andrew Forell

Dean Drouillard — Mirrors and Ghosts (self-released)

This instrumental solo album by Canadian guitarist Dean Drouillard is a series of hazy noir scenes. At its brightest and most melodic, as in “Portland” and “Gorgasuke,” it’s reminiscent of the vivid, playful miniatures of Opsvik & Jennings’s A Dream I Used to Remember. Elsewhere, the album is decidedly more atmospheric and ambient, akin to the widescreen explorations of Daniel Lanois’s Flesh and Machine. The album’s largely introspective nature is no surprise when you learn Drouillard played and recorded all the instruments himself. His guitar playing in particular is evocative and tastefully restrained. At once intimate and widescreen, Mirrors and Ghosts feels both eerily melancholic and gently uplifting.

Tim Clarke

Fievel Is Glauque — Rong Weicknes (Fat Possum)

Though Fievel Is Glauque are technically a duo — songwriters Zach Phillips (Blanche Blanche Blanche) and Ma Clements on keys and vocals, respectively — for new album Rong Weickes they assembled a crack team of six other players. Musicians on drums, bass, electric guitar, woodwinds and brass flesh out a dizzyingly complex and gratifyingly daft soundworld. Think 1970s prog-folk; think Napoleon Murphy Brock–era Frank Zappa; think Julia Holter spiraling down a jazz-fusion black hole. Rong Weicknes is a LOT. Tellingly, many of the album’s most accessible songs, including singles “As Above So Below” and “Love Weapon,” plus the beautiful and relatively calm “Toute Suite,” arrive early in the track list. Opener “Hover” is perhaps the best example of the band’s bonkers “live in triplicate” working method, in which multiple takes are stacked one on top of another, then chiseled down to reach a final mix. It’s chaotic, like multiple candy-colored Escher staircases spiraling off in different directions at once. In this realm of music-making, too much is never enough, and the line between virtuosic brilliance and over-the-top absurdity bends and blurs. Given the chaos is cumulative, listening to the album from front to back tends to result in ear fatigue during the second half, no matter how many brave attempts it takes to tackle it all in one go.

Tim Clarke

Helena Hauff — Multiplying My Absurdities (Tresor)

Hamburg DJ and producer Helena Hauff’s debut EP for Tresor is three tracks of full-on throwback acid trance. Expertly structured over 22 minutes of build, crescendo and release, Hauff combines thumping beats and bass tones with a detached darkwave cool and a healthy smear of analogue soot. Think Roland drum machines & 303 bass, squelching synths, arpeggio runs and all nature of odd grimy ghosts grumbling in the machines. Hauff reaches her apotheosis on “Punks in the Gym”, named for an Australian rock climb known as the hardest in the world (and now closed as an Indigenous Heritage site). It starts hard, with the bass in the red zone and the drums not far behind, and arpeggiated synths screaming like a drill sergeant. The plateaus, when they come, are mere toeholds for the next ascent. It’s a relentless, punishing piece. And when, near the end, Hauff drops everything but the kickdrum, it’s like watching the sun rise at an outdoor rave to, hearing nothing but your beating heart.

Andrew Forell

Rafael Anton Irisarri — Façadisms

Rafael Anton Irisarri creates music with the grandeur of a vast, wasted landscape. He brings his experience as a mastering engineer to bear on all his recordings, rendering them dense and immersive, stacked high with thick waves of guitar and synthesizer tone. Façadisms is no exception and features two highlights. “Control Your Soul’s Desire For Freedom” features searing cello from Julia Kent and angelic vocals by Hannah Elizabeth Cox, and “Forever Ago is Now” features string arrangements from T.R. Jordan, which carry the album’s most anthemic chord progression. Façadisms’ blasted textures are never less than compelling, but these tracks are twin peaks within the record’s glowering sonic geography.

Tim Clarke

Charlotte Jacobs — Atlas (New Amsterdam)

Charlotte Jacobs’s songs are a little shy. They lurk in corners and grow up from cracks. They venture fluidly out of empty space, eddying and cascading through echoing caverns, with just a little glitch beat or a surge of synth tones to ground them. Jacobs is a conservatory Belgian composer and singer here making her first solo album. Her voice comes in breathy flutters, a little like Mirah at her most acoustic and spare, but she hedges that fragile bloom in masses of digital sound. A devotee of Ableton, she makes the synth sound like all kinds of instruments, a quacking oboe in “Celeste,” a ghostly choir in CYTMH.” Records seldom sound simultaneously this bare and this layered. There are many elements in play, but all scrubbed clean and hemmed in by silence.

Jennifer Kelly

Alan Licht — Havens (VDSQ)

With Havens, Alan Licht flips the attack-decay-sustain-release envelope of the guitar on its head, folding notes and chords over each other in waves. He does this with a heft to his tone, so that chord progressions become waterfalls and melodies emerge like vine-like shoots, growing in many directions simultaneously. Licht’s songs mesmerize with repetition, but the tones resonate such that they fold back on themselves, creating entirely new patterns for us to discern. The cover art reflects his steel string sorcery, as a dull-colored house surrounded by twilit swirling clouds emits beams of red, yellow, and orange light from its many orifices. A variety of energy levels and frequencies are represented here, and they reveal themselves in surprising ways. Throughout his career, Licht has straddled the worlds of indie rock and the avant-garde, and Havens tugs at both sides, creating a new universe entirely: one where resonance rules over everything else.

Bryon Hayes

Longobardi + Cecchitelli — Maloviento (LINE)

Italian sound artists Ernesto Longobardi and Demetrio Cecchitelli create minimalist environmental works built from droning sub-oscillations that emerge from a haze of white noise. The four pieces on Maloviento, titled by duration, are arctic. Slow, evocative of shifting ice and wind swirling across bleak landscapes.. 14’24” is frigid amalgam of staticky cracks and sheets of white noise that rise and fall with increasing intensity. The duo intersperses these with sounds of dripping stalactites and pings of some distant beacon signaling into the abyss. It immerses the listener in an alien and alienating environment in which you find yourself clinging to these noises as the only way to get your bearing. 21’18” is slightly kinder. More recognizably human sounds emerge. Breath labored by cold, a trudge of footsteps and a muttering voice culminating in the introduction of a flute. Tentative at first, it gathers strength and warmth before being absorbed into the ice. Riveting stuff.

Andrew Forell

Man/Woman/Chainsaw — Eazy Peazy (Fat Possum)

Young London sextet Man/Woman/Chainsaw emerged from the scene that includes bands like Black Midi and Black Country, New Road with whom they share a similar omnivorous musical DNA. Vocalists, bassist Vera Leppanen and guitarist Billy Ward have been playing together since they were 14. Now approaching 20, and joined by contemporaries Emmie-Mae Avery on keys, violinist, Clio Harwood violin, Ben Holmes on guitar and drummer Lola Waterworth, M/W/C play punk infused theatrical rock, not quite as knotty as their near contemporaries, but fully embracing the chaotic energy of musicians pushing themselves to fit all their ideas into songs that dance delicate and furious. The acutely observed kitchen sink dramas of “The Boss” and “Sports Day” burst from the speakers, withering in word, and balanced by Harwood’s sawing violin and Avery’s delicate keys. Leppanen a powerhouse on the former, Ward all snarling self-deprecation on the latter. In contrast “Grow A Tongue In Time” is almost dainty with its curlicue of violin, bass, and keys tempered by Leppanen’s rasp that speaks of a desperate frustration echoed in the washes of cymbals that swarm towards the end. A band with space to grow and one to watch out for.

Andrew Forell

The Modern Folk — Primitive Future III (Practice)

This expansive collection spans 20 songs and nearly as many years for the folk centric but ambi-curious guitarist Joshua Moss (who, full disclosure, recently started writing for Dusted). His music here takes many forms, from the blues rock chug of “Shiver Shaker,” which could pass for an alternate universe outtake from Jon Spencer’s Heavy Trash to the cosmic twang of “Hippy Sandwich,” running closer to Ripley Johnson’s Rose City Band or the Heavy Lidders or whatever Matt Valentine is doing this week. There’s room, too, for lucid, radiant blues-folk picking, twined with bowing in “Braided Channels” or abetted in shimmery gossamer by Jen Powers on dulcimer on “You’ll Have That,” or left to strike out unadorned on luminous (and aptly titled) “Subdued.” Some artists try something different to prove they can. Moss lets the change grow out of old roots, supple, green and lovely. One other item of note: all proceeds are earmarked for hurricane relief.

Jennifer Kelly

Paprika — S/T (Iron Lung)

Paprika had already released the excellent, caustic Let’s Kill Punk LP this year, so this new EP is an unexpected November surprise. Are you thankful? It’s pungent and nasty stuff — Paprika sounds like the grittiest elements of NYC punk rawk, c 1976, partying with the hepped-up hardcore of Government Issue or Dirty Rotten EP-period DRI. If that sounds like fun, it sort of is, if you can listen past the nihilistic sentiments expressed in tunes like “Catatonic Pisser” and “Wasting Time.” This reviewer especially likes the self-lacerating qualities of “Supply Chain Wallet,” which explores the ways in which even filthy, greasy punks have a variety of fashion sense, implicating them in capital’s machinery. The band is more direct: “I’m chained to my wallet / Don’t you fuckers know? / Money is dirt.” Word.

Jonathan Shaw

Rock Candy — Swimming In (Carbon)

Rock Candy is Krysi Battalene (Mountain Movers, Headroom) and Emily Robb. Both are guitarists of just renown who, if they decided to open up an optical shop, would specialize in third-eyewear. Together, they refrain from six-string calisthenics in order to focus on nuanced expressions of motion. “Swimming In” is all about drift, albeit with enough surface tension for a stuttering guitar figure to loom over the undulating organ-scape. “Across A Mirage” sets slide vs. reverb, each fighting for footage on a mechanical Clydesdale beat. The cost of vinyl being what it is, some folks might question the point of picking up singles. This year, Rock Candy is the angle that dispels such faithless notions.

Bill Meyer

Sif — Aegis of the Hollowed King (self released)

If you were going to make solo instrumental doom metal about video games, Dark Souls is certainly one of the few that feels like it actually fits. What makes the second LP from New Orleans-based Sif work as well as it does, though, is how much Aegis of the Hollowed King engages with what’s actually compelling about the FromSoftware series beyond any surface level trappings of swords, monsters and boss fights. Here focusing on what even they admit is an “understandably maligned masterpiece,” Dark Souls II, these four tracks don’t try to overwrite the game’s fantastic actual soundtrack (by Motoi Sakuraba and Yuka Kitamura). Instead they invoke how much of the experience of painstakingly making your way across Drangleic is suffused with melancholy horror (yes, occasionally leavened with moments of brutally-won success). That atmosphere has been translated into a doom metal idiom, but that just means even the most elegiac elements here continue to crush.

Ian Mathers

Sulida — Utos (Clean Feed)

The phrase “good old-fashioned free jazz” could be applied to this Norwegian trio’s album, no disrespect intended and none dealt. Marthe Lea’s gruff tenor sax balances the unbridled emotion and considered poise of Ayler and Tchicai, and Jon Rune Strøm and Dag Erik Knedal Anderson negotiate points of structure vs. flow in ways that would do Hopkins and McCall proud. There are also moments that bring to mind Don Cherry if he had given full allegiance to the Swedish woods instead of the world. And yet, the character of each musician shines through, so that this music feels alive rather than merely reanimated. Ready to rumble by unfailingly lyrical, Utos is a friend in unfriendly times.

Bill Meyer

[acheronist]

HIIII my darlings and angels. if you've been following me for a while u might remember when i was busy as all fuck last year illustrating this comic book about detroit's first pride parade. it was available for free during the 50th anniversary in 2022, wherein I was handing them out at nearly every pride event in the entire state, but i only JUST NOW found a spare box with around 100 copies leftover? so in the spirit of the ancestral DIY gay bitches from michigan, i've listed them for as cheaply as I can get away with, so anyone who DOESN'T live here or DIDN'T get their hands on a copy can snag one now. :-) <3

keeping the history and stories free and accessible was and still is really important to me, so they're listed for $0.25 + my normal shipping rates, and all the collective money from comic orders will just get put back towards shipping costs for other comic books, so I can mail em out as cheaply as possible!!! FOR THE SAKE OF HISTORY!!!!! AND LOVE!!!!!!!!!! AND COMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

🌈the comic books available here (+ my other art lol) 🌈

and here's some extra info about the comic book itself, if you want to see our media coverage, sponsorship from michigan humanities and other groups, or the works cited for the actual sources and interviews with local michigan / detroit queer elders. that sort of thing.

ok i just wanted to let everyone know about this, tho. thanks. mwah. i love u.

[iloveamberfreeman]

JAIME REYES HEADCANONS

made these whole watching scream lmao >_<

‹𝟹 As a kid he was a messy colorer (still sorta is)

‹𝟹 bad driver (I think it's cannon too lmao)

‹𝟹 Rewatches his childhood movies when he's bored

‹𝟹 he's probably had like 20 different part time jobs

‹𝟹 Lowkey more of a coca cola guy

‹𝟹 he would enjoy video games with more story line and adventuring eg. Zelda, last of us, Detroit becomes human ect (all great games you should play [coming from a person who's played all >.<])

‹𝟹 I KNOW DAMN WELL HIS PHONE HAS A LOT OF CRACKS

‹𝟹 he's such a mamas boy dkdfksoaabdensal

‹𝟹 I would love to share a playlist with him

‹𝟹 he lovesssss Christmas I SENSE IT

‹𝟹 he makes diy Halloween costumes

‹𝟹 he's the type of person that when you first walk into the hotel room he would pass out on the bed (I CANT WORD IT PROPERLY IM SORRY YALL GET WHAT I MEAN)

‹𝟹 he loves trying different types of food

SBDJSKSSKSKS HERES THE HEADCANNONS GANG 🙏 LOVE U ALL

[kziecyrius]

yooo

i mostly just rant or vent but i could share some stuff about me and a few of my interests

im turning 17 this year, i go by he/him but they/them works fine

im queer, also neurodivergent (double combo ahaha)

music: i mostly listen to bands like Get scared, mcr, MSI (im aware theyre problematic so i dont support) will wood and the tapeworms, sleeping with sirens, hollywood undead, mostly movie or game soundtracks and a buncha others, my little pony music also rocks hard

games: sally face, little nightmares, fran bow, fnaf, danganronpa, detroit become human, plants vs zombies, among the sleep, unravel 2, human fall flat

movies/series: maze runner, hunger games, spiderverse, arcane, ghibli movies, all jurassic park and godzilla movies, a series of unfortunate events, any laika movie, miss peregrine's home for peculiar children, lord of the rings, stranger things, creeped out, death note, attack on titan and way more

general: i love hearing other people talk about their ocs, i like digital art, poetry, diy stuff, pjo, really interested in mental disorders/illnesses, clowns and jesters

please dont hesitate to message me if you got similar interests 🙏 i may be awkward in text but id love to make friends with mutual interests

dni zionists, homophobe/transphobes, terfs, creeps