#drew christopherson

[sinceileftyoublog]

Circuit des Yeux, FACS, Kinsella & Pulse, LLC Live Show Review: 4/17, Thalia Hall, Chicago

Circuit des Yeux

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Last Thursday at Thalia Hall served as an unofficial showcase of Chicago's strong art rock music scene. Circuit des Yeux (the project of vocalist, composer, and singer-songwriter Haley Fohr), minimalist post-punk trio FACS, and Kinsella & Pulse, LLC (husband-and-wife duo of Midwest emo legend Tim Kinsella and musician/singer/producer Jenny Pulse) were celebrating great new records, and the coincidences didn't stop there. You could create a Venn diagram among Halo on the Inside (Matador), Wish Defense (Trouble in Mind), and Open ing Night (Kill Rock Stars). The CdY and FACS albums concern internal and external senses of the self. The FACS and Kinsella & Pulse, LLC releases explore how fraying identities can lead to political apathy in 2025. On Halo and Open ing Night, Circuit des Yeux and K&P, LLC respectively imagine parallel universes where the club hosts the ultimate battle between light and dark. At the center of all three is an openness to reinvention.

Persona is an upfront, yet underappreciated aspect of Fohr's artistry. Yes, she releases albums under alternate moniker Jackie Lynn, but her musical and visual aesthetic changes from record to record. The blue-hued world of Reaching for Indigo dived into the reflective depths of experimental folk. The bright red orchestral maximalism of -io represented an attempt to heal raw wounds. On Halo in the Inside, Fohr turned night into day, working alone in her basement, painting from a Pan-inspired canvas on synthesizer and finishing the album with producer Andrew Broder in Minneapolis. The result is a collection of dance and goth tunes, some of her catchiest to date. On Thursday, Fohr's shapeshifting voice, backed by Low's Alan Sparhawk (guitar), Andrew Scott Young (bass), and Drew Christopherson (drums) seamlessly summoned Halo on the Inside. "Canopy of Eden" was an immediate highlight, a pulsating bass and skittering percussion carrying Fohr and her declarations like a queen on a carpet: "I can make a radio break," and, "I am a trumpet and I have arrived." "Skeleton Key", on the other hand, was variable in volume and tempo, quiet and glitchy into titanic and screaming, Fohr exhibiting both extreme ends of her four octaves.

As a longtime Circuit des Yeux fan, I was happy to hear back catalog favorites like -io's "Dogma" and an epic encore performance of Reaching for Indigo classic "Black Fly". But perhaps no song was more affecting than Halo's instrumental closer and Thursday main set closer "It Takes My Pain Away". The mournful, layered drones made me feel like I was in the middle of an ocean, staring at infinite blackness, no choice but to get lost in my own thoughts. As Fohr sings, "Truth is just imagination of the mind," an idea at first terrifying yet eventually, something in which to take solace.

FACS

Brian Case

For FACS, Wish Defense is a return in some ways, a shift in others. Original band member Jonathan Van Herik came back to replace Alianna Kalaba on bass, which also marked a departure from the instrumentation lineup on predecessor Disappears (where Brian Case was on bass and Van Herik guitar). Feeling reinvigorated by the lineup change but wanting to call back at the same time, FACS made a record that both sounds and looks like 2018's Negative Houses (both records' album art seem to invert each other). However, Wish Defense is exemplary of FACS: the guitars clang and chime, the bass creeps, the drums incessantly repeat or build, all that much more. Notably, it's the final album recorded by Steve Albini before his shocking death last year. Yet, as much as Wish Defense benefits from Albini's presence (and John Congleton's commendable finishing job), its true strength lies in its urgency and desperation, which shined on Thursday. The spindly harmonics of "A Room" segued into the distortion of "Ordinary Voices", Noah Leger alternating between a steady thump and a forward-marching chug. The jagged title track and explosive "Desire Path" proved to be live anthems, the crowd identifying with a dissociating Case as he wailed over and over, "I'm not here!" and, "Are you real?"

Noah Leger

FACS

The best songs on Wish Defense are its final two, and FACS smartly saved them for last during their set, albeit in reverse order. On the album, the call-to-action "Sometimes Only" is dulled by "You Future"'s FACS-ian ennui. Live, the set closed on a hopeful note. Don't get me wrong: "You Future" has the finest verse Case has ever put to paper. ("Are you the same as you were? / Erratic / Sentimental / Eyes the size of an American mile / Youth is a thrill / Then it's over.") But "Sometimes Only" is the timely song we need right now. "In a passion era / From a broken state / What shape is the dark? / And what shape is the hate?" Case asks, then answering his own question, "In a passive era / From a broken state / They made you choose / Choose a side." The line is borderline righteous, and watching the sometimes stoic band blast through it, Van Herik bending backwards as he played like he was in a metal band, thrilled the audience looking for any excuse to avoid despondence.

Case

FACS

FACS

Van Herik

Kinsella & Pulse, LLC

Jenny Pulse

Open ing Night, meanwhile, is the most cohesive statement yet from Tim Kinsella & Jenny Pulse, no matter what name they're recording as. They workshopped its songs live and recorded half of it in one take, before rearranging the songs to be performed as a duo and hoping to capture the trademark drum sound of--who else?--Albini, with Bitchin Bajas' Cooper Crain at Electrical Audio. (Crain also plays the cowbell on the scratchy "Watch and See".) Per usual for K&P, the tunes are adventurous and varied, combining elements of R&B, post-hardcore, and pop. Live, they started with dancey Gimme Altamont opener "Blindfold" followed by the shuffling "Immanence", replete with Pulse's soulful coo and Kinsella's sharp licks. It was with the journeying "Love", though, that their set gained momentum. The track began simply enough, with consistent drum samples and a humming synth, creating a drone bed below Kinsella's guitars. Pulse's vocal turn then transformed the song into a plea to "let us love," as she softly repeated the song's title. On the album, the song has a sort of grey skies, Stories from the City-era PJ Harvey vibe, yet live, the duo leaned into the propulsive chaos, as it entered its closing, garbled dance phase.

Kinsella & Pulse, LLC

Kinsella & Pulse, LLC

After Kinsella & Pulse, LLC played the bluesy "Sally", Kinsella, in a rare move, interrupted their set. "We have to be at O'Hare at 9 A.M., and we'll be gone for two months," he set, referring to the band's European tour opening for Karate. "I'm losing my mind pretending everything is normal. I hope you all go to the protest Saturday." He mentioned the words to a slightly cheering, still majority silent crowd, who probably just didn't hear him. "We'll all get the tyranny we allow," he said before the band closed with the gentle, wonderfully chintzy "Cracked Factory Wall". Sure, the comment may have been an ideal introduction to K&P, LLC performing the Pulse-led "Brutal, The Way You Like", delivered from the perspective of an American aristocrat who becomes a refugee. Mostly, I was thinking about how their set--and, as would be clear, all of the bands' sets--emphasized the importance of finding one's purpose, within and as it relates to others, whether during times of peace or times of turmoil. Circuit des Yeux surfaces the human capacity to be "the butterfly and the beast." FACS requests you weigh both. Kinsella & Pulse, LLC choose to "laugh at the fascists," those who embody the beast without any parts of the butterfly. What about you?

[spilladabalia]

Poliça - Wandering Star

Choreography by Yemi D.

[korg-ms20]

Coil in the Studio, 1994.

Absolutely incredible being able to see some of their equipment. Extremely hard to make out but I can see a MiniMoog, a PPG Wave and behind Drew McDowall a Roland Juno-60.

[ofleafstructure]

The Sea Priestess (Prescription Version) - Coil

I was woken three times in the night And asked to watch whales listening for earthquakes at sea I had never seen such a strange sight before Somehow I think that soft verges of insanity And the hard shoulders of reality Point past signs here

[fmp10blaire]

Research Pt15

(Modern) Horror Games

Poppy Playtime

Poppy Playtime is a 2021 Indie Survival/Mascot-Horror Game produced by Mob Entertainment and formerly directed by Isaac Christopherson.

Like many of its predecessors, the game has received backlash for using the common trope of having the 'mascot-horror' element, wherein a game often revolves around a character (typically a mascot of a company or franchise) and uses them as the driving force for horror.

Because of this, the game has also received criticism for appealing to children, despite it being rated a 12-16.

This is used to play on peoples' fears of animatronics, toys etc.

Despite this, the game has spawned a cult following, receiving its fourth chapter in January of 2025.

Chapter 1 of the game centres around the titular character, Poppy and Huggy Wuggy (seen above), however in newer editions, the focus has shifted between characters, from "Mommy Longlegs" to "Catnap and Dogday", my personal favourites.

One main criticism that I can definitely understand is that, often times, mascot-horror seems to be a very easy ploy into simply having a marketable character, as it's one that would be easily recognisable or replicable.

Regardless, I do think the overall aesthetic of the game is interesting, and the character design is pretty cool, though I am biased towards Catnap and Dogday.

Five Nights at Freddy's (2014)

Oh boy here we go.

Five Nights at Freddy's, commonly abbreviated to FNaF (or FNAF) is an Indie Point-and-Click Horror game created by Scottgames (Scott Cawthon) and was the first ever game of the franchise to be introduced.

Spanning an extensive series, ranging from but not limited to: spinoffs, sequels, prequels, DLCs, a musical, movie (soon to be movies), additions and of course, the lore, the game has gained a cult following and pop culture infamy.

Returning to the previous point of mascot-horror and its perceived problems, though it's hard to definitively find the root of it, FNaF has been cited as the earliest instance of mascot-horror [being used in a game setting], as it takes elements of things such as Chuck'e'Cheese and McDonalds.

The game overall has a very uncanny, 90s restaurant aesthetic to it, as it takes place within Fazbears Pizzeria (referring to Freddy Fazbear, seen in the centre image above), and the animatronics especially look unkempt and rigid.

However in the newest FNaF Installment, Security Breach, the characters have a more polished and modernised appearance, one that's been criticised for being too 'sanitised for children'.

That being said, Monty's the best character.

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Bendy and the Ink Machine, released by Joey Drew Studios in 2017, with the subsequent chapters released up until 2018, along with Bendy: The Dark Revival releasing in 2022.

Cited by TheMeatly, the idea for the came had came to his desire to create a game wherein the world felt like you'd stepped into a sketch, but during the brainstorming and sketching for this game, he'd decided that it needed a monster to inhibit it.

The name for Bendy had came during a typo for porting the Blender model.

However during development, due to Meatly's lack of coding knowledge, he'd adopted Mike Mood to bring the game to life.

The design of Bendy itself is akin to vintage cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse or Oswald (see Research Pt13) along with the game adapting a very vintage, swingy vibe to it, as seen in the environment and technology of the projectors and ink machine itself.

The game also incorporates other characters comprised of ink, such as Alice Angel, Sammy Lawrence (a devoted follower to The Ink Demon), Buddy Boris and a few opponents.

Amanda the Adventurer

Amanda the Adventurer is a psychological horror* game created by MANGLEDmaw Games and was initially released in 2023.

*The game isn't actually cited as a Psychological Horror but I like to say it is one.

The game takes heavy inspiration from educational children's TV Shows, specifically Dora The Explorer, and it follows the antagonist Amanda and the deuteragonist Wooly.

The game has an interesting method of interaction, in that the protagonist (Riley) must solve a variety of puzzles to unlock new tapes of the Amanda Show, along with answering some of her questions.

There are a few secret answers you can give to Amanda's questions, prompting breaks in dialogue and sometimes unlocking another story path.

The initial demo of the came follows a much more uncanny version, with the models looking rigid and gross, for lack of a better word.

However newer renditions of the game, and the second game (released in 2024) have further polished this issue and have expanded upon the overall lore and gameplay aspects.

[half-a-tiger]

POLIÇA - “Driving”, off the new album ‘When We Stay Alive’, out January 31st, 2020

Directed by Isaac Gale

Production Designers: Channy Leaneagh & Drew Christopherson

[rainingmusic]

POLIÇA - Driving

[avantpanda]

Coil: Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1 (1999), 2020 reissue on translucent purple vinyl, with etching on side D

[yage-bejing]

[893thecurrent]

Poliça are one of the most successful bands to have come out of the Twin Cities this past decade, and they've just started this next one off with their fifth studio album When We Stay Alive, released last Friday, Jan. 31. Before going on a tour which will start in England on Feb. 7, Poliça — comprising frontwoman Channy Leaneagh; Chris Bierden on bass and vocals; Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu on drums; and producer Ryan Olson — stopped by The Current studio for a session hosted by Mark Wheat.

[spilladabalia]

Coil - Egyptian Basses

Video by Derek Jarman.

[shemakesmusic-uk]

After recently sharing their single ‘Rotting’, POLIÇA, the Minneapolis-based project of singer, Channy Leaneagh, producer, Ryan Olson, bassist, Chris Bierden and drummers, Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson have announced their new album Madness is due June 3 via Memphis Industries. The first single from the album ‘Alive’ is streaming online now.

Speaking about the track, Channy said "Bad things happen, the fire goes out; even with the best flammables it stays dark until nothing matters becomes the fire itself."

Recorded mostly from 2020-2021 in Ryan Olson’s Minneapolis studio with lyrics written and recorded by Channy Leaneagh, Madness is an experimental expansion of the 4 piece family band of Chris Bierden (bass), Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu (drums) to include the anthropomorphic production tool  “AllOvers(c)”, designed by Olson and fellow producer & sound-artist Seth Rosetter. Madness continues within the collaborative enclave in which POLIÇA resides and includes co-production by Dustin Zahn Alex Ridha and Alex Nutter. The lyrics and startling artwork  for Madness are summed up by Channy as follows: “I am here for you all and I am never truly myself here. I am her for you all and I am never truly her”.

Madness:

01. Alive 02. Violence 03. Away 04. Madness 05. Blood 06. Fountain 07. Sweet Memz

POLIÇA · Alive

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: Insomniac Focus

Drew McDowall’s work extends well before Coil’s 1998 album Time Machines, but his major releases from that work to now is more than enough to explore. Coil fans, I know you’re set. It’s partly you who I had in mind when I welched on my assignment for his latest solo album, The Third Helix. You likely have alerts on this guy, and no amount of critical descriptors (“harrowing,” “cavernous,” “dreamscape,” “hallucinatory,” “bleak,” “trance-inducing,” etc.) are going to make any difference to you. And, as for neophytes, McDowall is not only an easy sell, but one who you likely have to get to ass backwards. And in these diffuse, cherry pick-enabling internet times, that’s something. We tend to keep our paths of discovery close to the vest against the snotty record store clerk in our heads. I say “we,” because I’m a newbie myself at 38. I did meet a classmate in my junior year of college who tried to help me with my post-NIN fan, small town ignorance, but it was to little effect. I don’t wanna admit I got into Blackest Ever Black and PAN artists before McDowall, but it’s true. There is no tomorrow, so allow me to show my ass in this regard. It took time — and a closer friend with a staggering record collection — to show me the way. I won’t blame blowing my assignment on anything but me, but I will offer the assertion that Drew McDowall’s music is alive in ways that language is not. Although McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson collaborated on Time Machines, you could hardly call it a conversation. It feels more like an unstable, massive hum, with the creative instinct of human interference put in restraints. It’s the sound of artists getting out of their own way, carving out a path for something that doesn’t sing so much as surge like blood or water or electricity (it resists analogy, so I’m inclined to reach for more elementary terms). If the intention was to induce the loss of a sense of time, it dissolved critical faculties in the process as well. It is sound happening to you. Whatever a train does to you when you hear it, before you even begin to get to the typical leitmotifs. Whatever a tuning orchestra makes you feel, before you remind yourself not to feel anything about it. There is suspense, sure, but there’s also the flat pulse of pure sensation. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. Of rote and unquestioning self-sacrifice to a sensorily consuming source. The tracks being named after psychotropic drugs and the perhaps unavoidable (there’s always “repeat all”) reality of their finiteness are the only things stopping this machine. It has you without a hello. Time Machines hunkers down and dispels reaction in favor of presence. Of true immersion. It’s curious that this towering, uncompromisingly minimal work is collaborative, while his eventual solo material doesn’t shy from a comparatively genre-friendly, kitchen-sink aesthetic. But more on that in a bit. First, a decade-plus later, some more from the creative alliance dept. Having familiarized myself with Psychic Ills, McDowall’s collaboration with Tres Warren as Compound Eye was on my 2013 radar. Their music intrigued in ways that the sturdy psych rawk of Psychic Ills never did. I liked it enough to save it, but never got too deep. So McDowall’s presence didn’t properly register until researching him this year, even after the aforementioned friend gave me his free download code for 2017’s Unnatural Channel. Having familiarized myself with McDowall, it’s easy to see that the man never quite got triggering-then-getting-out-the-way-of-strong-currents out of his system in the intervening years. It contains that blissful, sci-fi pastoral modular babbling that is really nothing to turn off, but the album is balanced with the (watch me writhe, beset by stultifying magnetic poetry adjectives) vast, impassive coursings of McDowall’s high water mark material. The album title, Journey From Anywhere, reinforces the notion of not ruining vital elements of sonic procession with basic human shit. Both are men, with presumable communication skills, but never does conversation seem like an apt analogy. Their collaboration is a numb sort of cooperative sentience, toiling as a vessel for steady, sluicing flow. Destiny being God and human’s favorite crap joke alike, the void really deserves more credit. Compound Eye’s shimmering, delicate, 69-minute reverie comes across like a humble attempt to give the nothing its due. It simmers in rote bodily function reality, even as it attempts to merge with the least dense, most windless air it can manage to breathe. Another collaborative work, The Ghost of Georges Bataille (released on Bank earlier this year), is less of a curious animal, but enticing nonetheless. Hiro Kone (a.k.a. Nicky Mao) specializes in elegant digital snowdrift downtempo. She, like McDowall, is a friend to contemplative melancholy as a default mode. But similarly to McDowall, she’s careful to augment her traditional rainstreaked Aphex brooding with character-rich textures that teeter on the brink of encroachment. Here, McDowall pushes this bordering that much closer. Each haunted progression is enshrouded with warm yet disorienting clamor. Similarly to the post-Boards re-tooling of Dalhous, Bataille takes away the head-nod in favor of a swirled sort of distance. This blithe obfuscation renders that tradition of pastoral, half-remembered dream progressions that much more affecting. McDowall excels as a bit player as well. In 2015, he featured on Ben Greenberg’s (Sacred Bones engineer, Men) debut with Michael Berdan (York Factory Complaint) as Uniform. As much as the album is a scorcher par excellence and far superior (and I’m edging on apples/oranges territory here), what “Death Star” is to The Future of War, “Lost Causes” is to Perfect World. McDowall’s hermetic throb steals the show on an album of showstoppers. Then, ably displaying his adaptability to ambient techno, McDowall lent his modular chops to another album highlight on Hiro Kone’s 2017 album, Love is the Capital. “Rukhsana” is a shorter track, but it still bears the unmistakable fingerprints of McDowalls absorptive approach. With these drop ins, McDowall redeems the notion of the guest spot from mere name-dropping and seamlessly applies his methodology rather than his personal stamp. Now, back to 2015 and Drew McDowall’s first official solo release under his own name, Collapse. As I mentioned, McDowall wound up being decidedly less reductive once left to his own devices. Similarly to Prurient’s later output, there is a concerted effort to tacitly merge monophonic direness with monolithic earthen beast-sloughing reverbations, whelmed to the edge of over. Dark monophony has retained a lasting power, even if the grubby fingers of branding-obsessed metal aestheticians have rendered its keenings almost cute. These are the ones who cry “false metal,” which in and of itself is false. It’s no different than complaining about how football has changed or how a comic book adaptation oughta be. True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. By their unwaveringly limitless drive, we are able to imbibe the vast shimmering terror innate to existence. While Collapse may not be the most chilling thing out there, its black satin bug eyes affix you to where you are and evaporate your culture-soaked lunges for contextual asidery. Collapse by Drew McDowall True artisans of inner and outer darkness are not beholden to purist genre fetishism. They survive, thrive, and die by their virtue in this exploration. Things only seemed to get better with 2017’s Unnatural Channel, though it’s of a piece enough that “seem” might be the operative word. There are two tracks featuring words/vocals from Roxy Farman (of superb NYC duo Wetware, also a guest on the Hiro Kone album), but the key adjustment is a Vanity Records-like focus on the embracing of silent rests. Of course, the fidelity is higher, but the unrelenting hesitation of that legendary label’s best material (namely, Tolerance’s 1981 LP, Divin) is a curious early precedent. Even with the presence of a singer, Farman’s recitation of “this is what it’s like, sleep deprived” is just as innately infused as the “I convulsed” sample on the last record. And her whooping and schizo mutterances on closer “Recognition” are essential but unshowy bits of punctuation. All spaciousness aside, the tetanus textured throb of “Unnatural Channel (Part 2)” is a sort of head-nodder, but even this winds up being more of a cautious slink through a confusing party (boring? bad scene? twisted? brilliant?) than a departure. Although the bowstring bouncing on The Third Helix opener echoes Unnatural Channel’s “Tell Me The Name,” “Rhizome” initially feels like a proper departure. Not unlike the airy skittering of Actress’s R.I.P, this tune initially seemed like a wrong turn. It’s lovely, especially when the “Sinking of the Titanic” strings come in, but it feels almost lateral rather than expansive. The touchstones come too easy. It’s a fascinating track, the way it swells and glitches out abruptly, but it’s also strangely on-the-nose for this artist. Things get better and back to the same (“Proximity” sounds cut from the same cloth) from there, but one couldn’t be blamed for mistaking Third Helix for a Helm, Fis, or post-Virgins Tim Hecker album. Of course, he is a sort of godfather to said touchstones, but similarly to the atemporal realm of Time Machines, this sort of sine wave slippage reads more familiar than it actually is. And, for what it’s worth, why shouldn’t masters be genuinely influenced by their descendants (beyond tokenistic exaggerations)? Chances are, they are beholden to a lot of the same technology anyway. Taken another way, McDowall’s newest is a sort of long-distance collaboration with those who’ve been inspired by him and his rarefied peer group. Conscious or not, its blending with the aesthetics of younger, like-minded artists could be seen as a rejection of the notion of hierarchy in musical succession, one way or the other. The Third Helix is an endearingly solid listen, and it deserves a place among the heralded releases of 2018. Similarly to the previous two (all on Dais), the album’s tracks don’t stray too far past the five-minute mark. Despite this, they stretch out in the ears like ancient aural cobwebs, making one feel as lived-in as the planet itself. I’ve tried not to use the word “innovation” here. Too often, the notion of innovation is whittled down to novelty, and reinventing the wheel is not what makes McDowall’s third-act material so worthwhile. More so, it’s the sense of earnest drive. The deep affinity for life’s rich tangent. That it’s darkly fixated is no more material than that the blues are despondent. Actually, the best of that long deracinated-to-pilloried genre has much of the same turning-oneself-inside-out quality. Even if Drew McDowall never tops himself or others in this quietly industrious field of wide-eyed abstraction, he is set to remain a stirring essential to every cerebral wandering ear, regardless of prerequisites or lack thereof. http://j.mp/2RBEqkz

[pendragonfics]

Down The Rabbit Hole

Paring: Jim Hopper/Reader

Tags: female reader, Stranger Things spoilers, parent Jim Hopper, fluff & hurt and comfort.

Summary: You're a teacher at Hawkins Middle, who's accidental right-place-at-the-wrong-time leads you to be a part of the secret goings-on in Hawkins. Jim Hopper is just a cop, trying to do right by the law, who happens to adopt a psionic pre-teen who's in your history class.

Request: by @seksibaek - hope you like it! 

Word Count: 2,176

Current Date: 2017-12-02

A school teacher’s wage was decent. It had you living in a nice, small house paying rent by the week, living modestly in the small town of Hawkins. You wanted a dog, but didn’t have the yard, or fence for it. You taught history, but inside, wished you could teach English. But your mother, and your mother’s mother were teachers, and all the __________ family name had been teachers since women could be teachers, and there was no greater subject in your lineage than history. It wasn’t that history was terrible, but perhaps, that the greatest things to ever happen had already happened, and life in 1982 would never live up to the epics.

But that was true until you all but fell into the rabbit hole, or rather, the conspiracy of danger that lurked after dark in Hawkins. It had been a Friday night, and unlike those who unwound from the weekly stress by watching Charlies Angels, you took yourself on long walks around the lake, taking time to remove your mind from unruly students and unmarked tests to be completed before Monday.

But it was here you found something truly and utterly horrible. The body of one of your students, the young Will Byers, the body blue and bloated upon the water’s edge. You wasted no time calling 911, and when State Trooper O’Bannen came to the scene, you were frightened out of your wits. You wished you could take a week from work to process the horrible thing you found, but it wasn’t an option. The kids at Hawkins Middle School needed to keep the daily routine, despite the death of a fellow student.

Apart from Mrs. Byers, the only person who stopped long enough to care about what you saw was the Hawkins Chief of police, Jim Hopper. But then again, he was chasing a case too, because not too long after that, another student went missing, from a grade you didn’t teach. Barbara Holland. And then there as something about a little girl, with a shaved head –

You kept your head down, and taught history to the classes you had. No matter how strange the world seemed now, there was one consistent thing that kept your kids writing their essays on time, and that was the fall of Rome.

You even planned to have an in-class event where you would bring in old sheets and had them dress up like senators. Minus the stabbing, of course. But you didn’t, in the end. Instead you put on a VCR of Julius Caesar and fast-forwarded past the murderous parts.

But as much as going back to everyday life went, it just couldn’t. Perhaps it was because every so often, you’d have a knock on your classroom door, a visitor on your home’s doorstep. The one and only Chief Hopper. And further down the rabbit hole you fell – unrequitedly in love with the police chief.

“Do you have ten minutes?” he’d ask, eyes pleading. “I need to hear your statement again for the Byers case.”

You’d agree. Ten minutes would turn to an hour. Talk would stay mostly on topic, until he’d notice your empty ring finger, and you’d notice the tan line on his, empty. Then he’d get radioed in by the station, and off he’d go.

“I need you to come with me, on this,” he’d say, leaning against your front door like the lead man in an early Hollywood movie, all dramatic and gorgeous, “I have to check out a lead, but I need someone.”

“Why don’t you ask one of your officers at the station?” You ask, your hands full of dough from your biweekly bread making, the dough falling off as you talked. “I’m just…me.”

He shook his head. “It’s more than needing back up. I need someone, who can, uh, talk to civilians…who isn’t a part of all of it.” He looks to your hands, and the carpet where the dough is plopping onto it. “Sorry if it isn’t a good time –,”

You shake your head. “It’s a sourdough, so it needs plenty of time to rise by itself. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready to help out.”

When you’re all cleaned up, you notice all the dough has been picked up from the carpet. You don’t say anything, and instead lock the house up, and don’t think twice about getting into his car, and roaring away to nearly out of town.

Down the rabbit hole? Perhaps you were always there. Life seemed to be upside down, back to front, and shaken up for good measure. You fell further behind in your marking for the classes you taught, further away from the required norms required for single, young school teachers spending time around reputable, divorced police chiefs.

If anyone gossiped, you did not hear it.

In the end, Will Byers was fine, alive – back from the dead, as the newspaper reported it. The world went on spinning. The child Jim had been looking for had disappeared, and you were still pining for the man who seemed to not care less for anything in the world that wasn’t coffee or a cigarette. He went back to his life, solving petty feuds between farmers and teenagers, and you went back to telling Heather Gutmann that she couldn’t sleep in class.

Life went on. It was good.

But that was until you had a new student enter your class. It was a new year, after all, and new students came and went like the ebb and the flow of the tides. Last year, you had the young Maxine Mayfield enter your class, and now, the grade where the friends of her had gone to, there was another new face. She had curly hair pulled back with colourful clips, and looked at the class of ninth graders like they had extra teeth in their mouth.

Behind her, was Principle Coleman, and Chief Jim Hopper, of the Hawkins Police Department. She looks to you with wide eyes, silent. “Hello everyone! We have a new student to welcome to the class,” Principle Coleman tells the all-but rowdy class, “This is Jane Hopper, make her fe–,”

“I go by Elle,” she says, voice small, but big enough to interrupt Principle Coleman.

You smile, and approaching your new student, you point out a spare desk behind Dustin Henderson, beside Mike Wheeler. “Go on and take a seat, Elle. I’m sure we’re all going to enjoy having a new face to our cohort. Now, can you all turn to page three of your textbooks and start reading about ancient Egypt while I talk to Chief Hopper and Mr. Coleman…”

You steer the men from the classroom, and closing the door behind you, you turn to them. But Principle Coleman speaks first. “Jane has a sort of…learning problem. I hope you understand what this means as her teacher. She will need extra attention to become up to speed with the other children.” He goes to add something, but upon hearing another teacher paging him from up the hall, excuses himself, and goes to fix the uprising in room 3B.

You look to the Chief. “In what ways does Jane need extra attention?” you ask him, curious. “You know, as her teacher.”

He clears his throat, a blush staining those cheeks under the stubble. “She’s just never been to school before. I taught her the time, and how to read chapter books.”

“I see,” you hum, and glance through the glass panel in the door to see the class. Like you instructed, they’re reading from the text, some highlighting the lines, some taking notes, some doodling in the margins. “Are you free this afternoon for coffee?”

Jim’s cheeks darken again, but he coughs into his fist, diffusing the pigment. “Uh, yeah. I’ll organise Elle to go after school with the Wheelers.”

You smile. “Fantastic.”

But instead of taking you to a diner, you decided to make the coffee yourself, in the staff room. Perhaps it was because of your tight money belt, considering that all the things that had happened in Hawkins in the last two years had been troubling to you. Perhaps it was because you wanted to make sure this encounter was as strictly professional as it could. This was not a police investigation where Jim Hopper had you running around Hawkins like Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. This was a teacher, talking to a parent, about their student/child. Professional.

But when Jim entered the staff room, still in his police uniform, hat off, hair tousled, why did it feel anything but? It was just a crush. Damn the rabbit hole. It was just an illusion.

He accepts your coffee, smiling into the cup at how you didn’t add cream or sugar. You both sit at the long table, notepaper, and pen before you, a bowl of nearly-rotting fruit further along. A beat passes between the pair of you, and then, clearing your throat, you begin the parent-teacher talk. “Elle – Jane,” you correct yourself, “She’s the child you were searching for last year, isn’t she?” Your voice is low, even though you’re alone, most of the teacher’s gone home for the night, and cleaners too. “Hopper?”

He nods. “I found her.” He smiles, “She’s been through hell, and she’s a hell of a kid,” he tells you. “Uh, what was she like in class today?”

You smile. “We’re still on the last topic, but from what I can see, she’s interacting well, taking notes along with the other students. Needs to work on raising her hand to talk, and getting a hall pass for the bathroom…” you pass a page of your notes him, and see him nodding along, and add, “I’m excited to see what Elle can achieve this year.”

Jim smiles, but it’s small, sad. “Not many people have been so positive about her,” he says. “I talked with Christopherson, and he wasn’t so thrilled with her. All but said she was a freak.” Jim’s eyebrows rise, and wiping a hand over his face, he adds, “She’s just a kid.”

You nod. “An amazing little girl who has done more for this town than anyone will ever know,” you tell him softly. “I know about what all of it was about,” you confide, “I put all the pieces together, it wasn’t the Russians,” you laugh softly, “It was monsters.”

He drinks the rest of his coffee like a bitter shot, agreeing.

“Elle is going to be fine,” you tell him, “She’s strong. She’s mastered the Demogorgon, and the Mind Flayer. She can defeat Middle School, no problems.” You move your hand across the table to take the notes back, but without noticing, your hands brush, the touch almost electric. A blush mottles your face, and taking your hand away, you go to apologise.

Jim shakes his head. “Don’t,” he says softly, “It’s okay.”

You know this is a parent-teacher talk. You know this is a professional, casual setting. But you’ve got to ask it. It’s been on your mind ever since Jim took you for questioning the third time after you gave your official statement.

“Why me?” you ask, voice low, soft. “You kept coming to me, again and again,” you say. “I know I’m your daughter’s teacher and this is out of line just thinking of it –,”

You don’t finish your sentence. Because he leans across the table, and silences your qualms with a soft kiss, his hand cradling the side of your face, and for a second, it’s all good. The worries and the horrors and the panic and the terrible, terrible shit that you and everyone else has gone through is liquefied, dripping away until it’s noting compared to what is happening, until there is no world, no Hawkins, just Jim, Jim and his stubble, Jim and his soft lips and the smell of coffee, cigarettes and a faint whiff of whiskey or cologne. You melt into his kiss, and by the time that you realise it’s happening, it isn’t, and you’re just two adults sitting at a table once again.

“Jim,” you whisper, “I – I thought I was going mad, I didn’t –,”

A history teacher who lived in a time that was greater than in the books? Maybe it wasn’t that history was terrible, but perhaps, that the greatest things to ever happen had already happened – to you, and to all the people around you in Hawkins. If poor young Alice fell into Wonderland by accident, and saw all the beautiful horrors of the fantasy world, it didn’t mean it wasn’t real, or that it wasn’t for those who hasn’t touched the abstract world of the Upside Down. It just was a secret world, a fantasy that proved that only the select few could see it. You. The children you taught, Jim Hopper. Little Elle.

Maybe life in 1984 would never live up to the epics. For everyone else.

Jim grins, his eyes meeting yours, “Didn’t you know? In Hawkins, we’re all mad here.”

[isztan]

Visszatalált! #Coil vs #DMT vs kockakövön csúszkáló városi valóságok. És öröm, hogy végre megtaláltam a szanaszét heverő fizikális zenegyűjteményemben a megfoghatatlan Time Machines-t. Alapkép: a cd bookletjében lévő matricák egyike. Copyright: Jhon Balance (R.I.P.), Drew McDowall, Peter Christopherson (R.I.P.) [Eskaton 010/Word Serpent records] A macskakő saját felvétel, egy mai, VII. kerületi séta hányta vissza rám. Képek egyesítése a Snapseed "duplaexpó" funkciójával történt. [We are Children ... Black Sun]

[headlinerportugal]

A beleza do synth-pop pelos Poliça | Reportagem

A Sala 2 da Casa da Música no Porto foi, pela primeira vez, o meu destino na passada noite de quinta-feira, 5 de março. Uma noite de estreias, para mim, para a banda: os Poliça e para a promotora do evento que realizou naquele espaço o seu primeiro evento. Esta entidade é a Suspeitos by Mr November promotora dedicada à organização de concertos com bandas nacionais e internacionais nomeadamente dentro do estilo indie. A sua agenda começou a intensificar-se desde 2018. Existem sob forma de cooperativa sem fins lucrativos.

Ao entrar na sala primeira coisa que acabei por fazer foi tirar o meu casaco. O espaço estava exageradamente quente, a um nível desconfortável. Direi eu: venda de bebidas a quanto obrigas!

O produtor Dustin Zahn fez a primeira parte [Mais fotos aqui] A primeira parte esteve a cargo do produtor Dustin Zahn. Durante 30 minutos apresentou um set com temas seus tendo ocupando um canto do lado esquerdo do palco com a parafernália do costume onde numa pequena mesa habitou um portátil, como não poderia deixar de ser. Uma apresentação bem conseguida.

Em seguida, pouco depois das 22:20 horas entraram os quartro elementos dos Poliça: Channy Leaneagh (voz), Chris Bierden (baixo), Drew Christopherson e Ben Ivascu (ambos na bateria).

O primeiro tema interpretado foi “Sea Without Blue”, a última faixa do álbum mais recente. Seguiu-se “Lime Habit” uma das canções mais reconhecidas da banda oriunda da cidade de Prince no Minneapolis (EUA). A partir da terceira canção o palco ficou invadido de luzinhas verdes e vermelhas por entre outras maiores e redondas de tom branco.

“Driving”, “Stready” e “Be Again” foram encadeadas em seguida ficando o público definitivamente imbuído nesse último trabalho discográfico ‘When We Stay Alive’ cuja interpretação ocorreu quase na sua totalmente com uma exceção, o tema “TATA”.

Channy Leaneagh, a vocalista dos Poliça [Mais fotos aqui] Channy Leaneagh revelou estar muito feliz pela sua primeira vez no nosso país, dizendo igualmente achar Portugal muito bonito. Foi esplendido verificar a boa condição física da vocalista. Em 2018 a vocalista dos Poliça teve um gravoso acidente em sua casa no qual fraturou uma vertebra, tendo também danificado a coluna vertebral deixando-a incapaz de locomoção durante meses. Acidente este que a fez rever a sua perspetiva da vida.

Voltando à música, foi uma noite na qual a beleza do synth-pop sentiu-se a cada batida das percussões de Drew e Ben bem como a cada palavra reverberada de Channy.

Ben Ivascu, um dos bateristas [Mais fotos aqui] Outros temas de outros trabalhos discográficos foram tocados como “I Need $” ou “Warrior Lord” (Shulamith de 2013). “Forget Me Now” uma das mais poderosas bem como “Lay Your Cards Out”, a mais filmada da noite e uma das mais sensuais foram os meus preferidos desta performance.

Regressaram ao palco para um encore, primeiro tema foi “Little Threads” com Dustin Zahn que deu a sua colaboração e finalizaram com “Wandering Star”.

A Sala 2 da Casa da Música esteve praticamente lotada tendo-se verificado a presença de muito público feminino, notou-se em especial que muitas delas sabiam as letras de cor.

A estreia dos Poliça foi coroada de êxito e só posso esperar que retornem em breve pois deu para reparar que a banda já tem alguns seguidores cá pelo nosso país.

     Setlist

Sea Without Blue

Lime Habit

I Need $

Driving

Steady

Be Again

Blood Moon

Dark Star (remix)

Warrior Lord

Smug

Fold Up

Feel Life

Forget Me Now

Lay Your Cards Out

Trash in Bed  Encore

Little Threads with Dustin Zahn

Wandering Star

Vejam toda a foto-reportagem pelo Jorge Nicolau: clicar aqui

Texto: Edgar Silva Fotografia: Jorge Nicolau