#folk songs will have like four lines that make you crazy

[cruelsister-moved2]

“and I’ll see egypt too” in the banks of the nile makes me insane because the song is supposed to be like oh the woman can’t bear to see her true love go to war and it’ll destroy the family when he dies etc etc but like......... i want to see egypt too! yes theres the “dont go without me” thing but it’s not just that she doesnt want to be left behind by him, it’s that she wants to see what he will see you knowwwww

[bayofwolves]

Rereading Fire and Ice

We're back again after a short break! Sorry this one took so long to get out, adult life caught up to me. As you might know, these posts are to discuss interesting tidbits and things I hadn't noticed before. Let's get right to it!

Once again, please mind the tags.

In A Revised History of Erdas, Rollan is native and has his long hair in two braids, so this cover messes with me. I really fuck with the colour scheme, though.

Meilin thinks Maya might be crazy. She also jokes about burning Pia's house down in a later chapter, which is a little unsettling! These are definitely just throwaway lines that aren't meant to be thought about again, but I find myself wishing the authors had purposefully written Maya to be a little bit off. It would add something to her character, at least.

Rollan is confirmed to be a person of colour! Yay! "His brown eyes were warm, his brown skin speckled with dirt from the road, his broad face comfortingly familiar." I wasn't a fan of the ambiguous "tan" description he got before.

It seems Abeke may have been physically abused in her home as well as emotionally. She says that if she had ever talked back to her father like Rollan did to Pia, she would be switch-whipped. Pojalo, mark my words, you will answer for everything you've done to hurt this girl.

Abeke being a Rain Dancer becomes relevant! Everybody cheer! Being near water helps her think clearly and make sense of the situation in Samis. Would have been nice to show her actually making it rain at any point like Rain Dancers are supposed to do, but I'll take this, I guess…

Aidana may have had Rollan when she was a teenager. This doesn't have any real merit, but I think it's very possible. And no matter her age at the time, given her circumstances -- living on the streets, mentally unwell and experiencing frequent blackouts -- I doubt her pregnancy was of her own will. Especially considering how she never mentions anything about Rollan's father, and he never asks.

Rollan doesn't seem to remember Wikerus. (Perhaps he only had traumatic memories of him, and his brain covered these up along with the memories of Aidana's sickness.) He probably would have mentioned to the Greencloaks that his mother was Marked if he'd known.

Zerif must have found and cured Aidana while he was in Concorba seeking Rollan and Essix. I doubt he would have visited that city on two separate occasions. He likely came across her after losing Rollan to Olvan. Another element of tragedy to their story: Aidana was possibly just hours or minutes too late to safely reunite with her son.

Aidana talks about the Devourer helping people, seeking out those afflicted by the bonding sickness and curing them with the Bile. It's unclear if she means Gar or Shane by this, but I'm inclined to believe the latter. In that case, it would have been interesting to see some of this -- Shane finding people the Greencloaks passed over and taking their pain away. He would have genuinely thought he was doing something right, even if he was offering them up to Gerathon in the process.

Pia may have been alive in Feliandor's time, as Rollan notices she doesn't seem surprised to learn of the new war. This is entirely possible, as Suka presumably froze herself and stopped visiting Samis soon after the Fall of the Four in the First Devourer War.

The animal that attacks the group's boat on their way to Arctica isn't fully revealed. I hope it was a creature that doesn't exist on Earth. I imagine a hippocampus or something like it, since the noise made when Tarik strikes it is described as sounding like a wet horse's flank.

Tarik's bond with Lumeo gives him the power to control water. Wish we'd seen more of this.

Abeke has never seen hail before their nights in Arctica.

Conor singing has always been one of the most memorable parts of this book for me. I wish there'd been other instances of him singing folk songs for the group.

So as we've seen with Suka, Great Beasts can devolve into a beast-like state -- presumably if they are comatose for a long period of time. Suka had probably been asleep for hundreds of years, so it makes sense that her mind would be delayed.

Jhi calming Suka reminds me of what Meilin's bond token was intended to do. It would have been a neat callback to what happened here if it had stopped Song's murderous rage.

Halawir's identity as the Betrayer has actually been hinted at in a few books prior to the reveal, this one and Tales of the Great Beasts. Here, it's clear that him asking for Suka's talisman meant he was up to something.

Abeke and Maya's little conversation where they hold hands for comfort and call each other magical is the gayest thing these books have given us since... Suka and Jhi, a few chapters ago. It's a really sweet but also sad moment, Maya revealing that she is traumatized and Abeke not knowing how to help. Definitely one of my favourite parts.

The dream Conor has about the group all wearing strange shoes could have actually had some meaning behind it. The laces on Meilin's dumpling shoes that stretch behind them for miles could symbolize her Bile bond leading the Conquerors to them. Abeke falling through the ice with her fire shoes, but Conor being unable to save her, could foreshadow her being captured by the Conquerors in the next book. As you may recall, Conor was not present and could not do anything when this happened.

I don't believe Shane had any intention of cutting Uraza off Abeke's skin. It's this line for me: "Shane is too much of a diplomat, so Zerif made sure we [Ana and Tahlia] came along and enforced the plan. He was especially hurt by Abeke's betrayal." I'm assuming Shane knew of the plan, and may have been okay with threatening Abeke to get what he wanted (similar to how he used Achi to win his fight against Lishay in The Book of Shane: Vendetta), but wasn't going to actually harm her. He knew he could get the talisman another way. Zerif, on the other hand, wanted Abeke to suffer and so sent two of his minions along. Less plausible is the chance Shane wasn't even in on it to begin with, and Zerif (and his minions) deliberately conspired behind his back. (I'm all for the Conquerors defying Shane's authority, given that ARHoE has Drina stage a coup, so I find this possibility particularly intriguing.)

Kind of wish Abeke had ridden on Great Briggan with Conor in the final battle. Would have made for an iconic scene.

Poor Abeke is concussed during the final battle. I never spotted this growing up because I've never had a concussion and didn't know the signs. I thought she was just tripping, to be honest.

Rollan begins to slip into suicidal ideation after his mom tries to kill him. This book has not been kind to our protagonists, not one bit.

On this quest, the team has done two terrible things: destroyed the Ice Palace, a place built by generations of Ardu, and condemned the entire village of Samis to death. And all for a talisman that slips out of their hands, no less.

My final thoughts on Fire and Ice are mixed. There were some inconsistencies and relapses in character development, and while I can chalk it up to being a product of the many different authors working on this series, it still got on my nerves a little. Let's be real, Conor's animosity towards Shane came out of nowhere and is wildly out of character for him. Rollan shouldn't have been grating on Conor for giving away the Iron Boar when they resolved that conflict back in Blood Ties. It's a little messy. But I liked the rest. They introduced some elements in this one that really grabbed me. I absolutely love Aidana and her relationship with Rollan; she's a good example of how the war is not so black and white. I love how our protagonists firmly believe anything they do is justified because it's for the greater good, choosing to ignore the destruction they leave behind. I love the depth Rollan got, though it unfortunately came at the expense of other characters'. I wish they hadn't waited to develop Maya until we were nearing the end; I really enjoyed her when they gave her a bigger role. The focus this author gave Conor and Abeke has always been a highlight of the series for me; their relationship is so sweet and caring, though I see it as more platonic than anything. And of course, I loved the darker elements that this book had. Not only that, but it left me in emotional pain, which is exactly what I need to consider something a good read.

All in all, another solid addition to the series. This journey hurt our protagonists so much, and it hurt me.

This is part of an ongoing series.

Wild Born | Hunted | Blood Ties | Fire and Ice | Against the Tide | Rise and Fall | The Evertree

Immortal Guardians | Broken Ground | The Return | The Burning Tide

Heart of the Land | The Wildcat's Claw | Stormspeaker | The Dragon's Eye

Tales of the Great Beasts | The Book of Shane | Tales of the Fallen Beasts

[musicarenagh]

Family Ties and Punk Vibes: Trueblood’s New Single Shines Hey music lovers! Trueblood dropped a killer new track called "I Like My Life The Way It Is" which is a total bop and you need to check this out - San Diego's own Trueblood! Now this - the band's actually a bunch of four brothers, including 12 year old Mason who actually wrote the song. How cool is that? A father-daughter duo, these guys teamed up with Homescool to make this pop punk gem about loving life now, not being stuck in the past. This super catchy guitar riff at the top of the song will make you think of Blink 182, until it becomes this awesome alt rock anthem. All that is there - Dylan ripping on guitar, Cameron killing it on drums, Ethan belting those vocals, Mason bringing that youthful energy. And trust me, that chorus is an earworm (you will be singing it for days!) What's cool about this track is that it really feels like you are 'live in the moment'. For a young Mason is has nailed what it is to be a kid in today's world. It’s kind of a big middle finger to all those ‘back in my day’ comments from old folks. Trueblood's been killing it on stages across California and it's not hard to figure out why. These brothers have some crazy chemistry and you certainly can hear it every note. It's a combination of technical skills and catchy melodies, a baby if you will, of Polyphia and Paramore. Bottom line? There is more to 'I Like My Life The Way It Is' than a song. In other words, trueblood's basically saying, "Hey, we're here, we're now, and we're loving every minute of it." If you’re into pop-punk or alt rock, you’ve got to hear these guys. Trueblood is going places and this track is just the beginning, trust me. Listen to I Like My Life The Way It Is https://open.spotify.com/track/1bsfx967bb5sAEnNQmnIru?si=X18bL0wsRj2qsrXEUo61hA Follow Trueblood on Facebook Instagram

[kalamity-jayne]

@deep-space-titst agged me to share 5 songs I've been listening to of late and I can never say no to an opportunity to plug my favorite artists. So heeeeerrrrrreeeee we go.

First up is one of my favorite genres of song writing. Let's call the genre Fuck the Police.

I love SAULT, they have such a unique sound blending funk, jazz, soul, punk, and hip hop. They’re an incredibly tight band and the lyrics are always brilliant. ACAB!!!!!

Next up is song from one of my favorite artists, Mykki Blanco, fresh off their latest album.

I've have been listening to Mykki for a long time now and it's been so cool seeing their music and persona evolve over the years. I've always loved her music but I'm absolutely in love with this current era of Mykki Blanco. Can't wait to see what he does next.

My third song is an oldie but goodie.

This is my current go to track for one of my all time favorite activities: Smoking a fat joint and going for a walkabout in the city while listening to music. 'Nuff said.

At number four we've got one the the latest singles from one of my all time favorite punk bands, HIRS COLLECTIVE.

If you're trans and love punk music you've almost certainly listened to G/L/O/S/S (if you haven't heard of them Slap yourself in the face rn and go listen to 'em). G/L/O/S/S disbanded but HIRS Collective is their spiritual successor; in fact Sadie Switchblade herself has collaborated with HIRS more than a few times. This single is from their upcoming album and I can not fucking wait for the whole album to drop. Every song they've realeased so far has been an absolute banger (I especially love XOXOXOXOXOX featuring one of my other favorite bands, MELT BANANA). They collaborate with a lots of other queer and trans artists including Laura Jane Grace and the collaborations are always super interesting. It goes without saying that trans folks don't have it easy, the world is rather unkind to us; whenever I'm at the end of my rope with the transphobia I have to deal with or when my heart breaks at seeing other trans folks, especially those I know and love, suffering I turn to to HIRS COLLECTIVE because sometimes you need the catharsis of a primal scream set to some blast beats so fierce and heavy they'll blow your tits clean off.

And last but certainly not least is a track from an artist very near and dear to my heart, who has not received the accolades she deserves. I'm kinda always listening to Jordana (FKA 187) and it's hard to choose just one song of hers.

Jordana LeSense is, imho, the greatest drum and bass artist of all time and most people have never heard of her. I believe her immense talent has been overlooked because she's a trans woman. She walked so Juliana Huxtable, SOPHIE, Eris Drew, Octa Octa, Jessica Jess, and Tami T (It's my duty to sneak in some plugs for more trans artists) could run. Jordana use to go by the moniker 187, a name she earned for blowing out her friend's speaker making her hard and heavy beats. Jordana is a true trans legend and a personal hero of mine. Her music definitely speaks to the trans experience. When she was only 13 she began her medical transition in total secrecy, an experience that I am certain informed the song Deep Stealth. She announced her tranistion in 1998, around the time she released her second Album, Quality Rolls. With the release of that album she was set to become an icon of the drum and bass scene. Tragically, while on tour in Ohio in 2000, she was victim of a violent hate crime at the hands of two men, who were never convicted because The Pigs never charged them, and she suffered a traumatic brain injury that caused nerve damage to her face. She stopped making music for a very long time after that.

BUT she's back! No longer going by the 187 moniker Jordana is back and making music. Please go check out her bandcamp, show her some love and buy some music.

Here's her soundcloud

Jordana hasn't released any new albums recently, that I know of anyway, but she still does live performances and if you follow her on IG or twitter she lists her performance dates there and you might be able to catch her!

My greatest wish is for people, trans folks especially, to rediscover Jordana’s music and lavish her with the attention she deserves.

OK I tag my wife @bandyriddles, @dissonant-skies, @basicallymsfrizzle, @zephy-n-ky, and @rynejoslyn

[derrick-riches]

The God of Pizza

            “Expect the cold front to move over shortly after sunset. Overnight temps dropping down to near freezing.” The voice on the radio droned on. I paid it little attention. Troy listened with bemusement. “As for snowfall? We’re looking for a light dusting in the valleys with two to four inches accumulation in the mountains.”             “Bullshit!” Troy coughed. He laughed heartily. He always laughed heartily, as if there was simply no other way to laugh. I turned my car off the freeway and towards the canyon entrance.

            “Love it!” Troy continued. “Around midnight, a heavy, wet snow will start. The temp will drop. By dawn, all that fake shit they’ve been spraying on the slopes will be buried, and the powder will fall. It’ll be righteous! By this time tomorrow, eight feet at the tops and six down the runs. Powder as deep as your tits.”

            That godawful George Harrison song they played endlessly in ’88 came on the radio. My box of mixtapes sat on the backseat, blocked by Troy’s skies. They fit snuggly in my Honda hatchback, with the tips resting on my dashboard. Troy’s gloves covered the points so they wouldn’t bang against the windshield.

            “Oh, Man!” Troy boomed. “Stoked! First ski of the season and a righteous storm!” He lightly punched my shoulder. “Best Part?”

            “What?” I asked when the pause implied I was supposed to ask. I took the first bend at the canyon base.

            “No one knows but me. Runs are up, but they’ll have to close the canyon for avalanche control. First on the mountain, man!” Troy howled loud enough to make my ears ring for a minute.

            “How much in the valley?” I asked.

            “What! Um, yeah. Like twelve, maybe sixteen inches on campus.”

            “Good.” I smiled.

            Troy stared out the window, looking to the clear, blue sky and the peaks of the mountains.

            “What time?”

            “Time. Oh. Yeah. ‘Bout midnight when it starts.”

            “Good. I’ll be back at my apartment. This car’s shit in the snow.”

            “Yeah. You should get a four by. With a ski rack.”

            “I don’t ski.”

            “Yeah, but I do. I just can’t get a driver’s license.”

            There was debate about why Troy didn’t drive and had no ID. Of course, he just used charm to get into bars or through the line at the liquor store. Troy got around town without ever being seen on a bus. If he wanted to go someplace, he got a ride. Often from people who didn’t know him and weren’t going in his direction. But if you asked any of them, they would say that it just seemed like the thing to do at the moment.

            “But the roads will be shit tomorrow, right? I can skip out on Thanksgiving at my folks?”

            “Nah, man. The feasts the thing. Crash there tonight. Take it all in. Got to love Turkeyday, man!”

            “It’s not the food. It’s the company.”

            “That right? Yeah. I get you. I got a sister. All about horticulture. These harvest fests make her crazy. Cooks for days and then complains that no one helps.”

            “Thanks again for the ride, Thunder,” Troy delivered another punch to my shoulder. This one, harder than the last. The whole time, he never took his eyes off the sky.

            Troy was the God of Pizza. The off-campus Pie Pizzeria’s best cook. Every slice he pulled from the brick oven was perfect. The crusts, hearty and crisp. Toppings, flawless in quantity and distribution. The pile of cheese melted to the exact moment of pull, right before the oils begin to separate. No other pizza cook could do what he did. A single slice from the God of Pizza cured depression or the stress of finals. First dates became instant successes. Waning relationships would rekindle. For the four years he held court in that graffiti-covered joint, it was the best in the world.

            When his shift ended, Troy could willingly drag a group of complete strangers into a night of drinking, feasting, and festivities. He was known to show up at the apartment of an acquaintance, a tower of pizzas in hand, and spontaneously create a block party. He laughed. He drank. He partied. And he made pizza. Pizza worthy of the gods.

            I never knew if Troy was his real name. In fact, I doubted it. A woman who had spent a summer surfing with him in SoCal claimed she knew his real name and story, but no one actually believed her. Partly because running off with a pizza cook to spend a few months riding the waves was so out of character for someone who was prelaw.

            But The Pie always had a thing with names. They served beer, and state law said that any employee serving alcohol had to wear a tag with unique identification. The predominately female counter staff wore tags with a name and number. It was the number that identified them according to the law. Not the name. This explained why the staff included people named Ceres, Flora, Minerva, Aurora, and Vesta.

            Regular customers, similarly, would invariably end up with a nickname. On the day I went from random college kid to regular, I was wearing an X-rated Bambi t-shirt. I got the nickname “Thumper.” A few months later, it was misheard by new counter staff and became “Thunder.” After that, when my order would come up, Troy would shout out, “God of Thunder” over the PA. I liked it better than my usual nickname, Nick. As in short for nickname.

            But let’s be serious. I was no thunder god. Yes, streetlights would turn off occasionally when I passed under them. A phenomenon that occurred just enough to be noticed by close friends and served as a bit of a driving hazard. But I couldn’t predict snowfall with the level of precision that Troy could.

            As the car climbed above the s-curve where White and Jenkins had died in a stolen white Jeep on graduation night, Troy rolled down the window. He stuck his head out to smell the air. The sun was dipping towards the horizon and shone straight up the canyon. The air was getting crisp as we climbed above seven thousand feet.

            I thought about whether or not I had any choice, driving Troy fourteen miles up a winding canyon on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I had already done a four-hour shift at the museum, been to both classes held that day, and eaten a slice too many. But as I drove, I wasn’t tired or bored. I thought about Troy. In action at bars, the pizza joint, or on a street corner, he was irresistible. A force of jocularity greater than mere mortals. And yet, he was adamant about consent. He always asked. He always gave space to say no. And he always listened.

            In fact, he was a defender of consent. I had seen him send pitchers of beer to a table of frat boys with unhappy dates to ensure that they, the frat fucks, would be too drunk to fuck. While they puked in the alleyway, Troy would recruit a couple of trusted regulars to get young women home safely. Abusers, the violent, or the simply angry, always seemed to get foiled, sidetracked, or come to trouble around Troy. It was just a thing he did. The party that followed him wherever he went was always happy and safe

            Of course, whether I was coerced into spending my afternoon playing taxi driver for Troy didn’t really matter. After all, there are few things that will improve your college experience like having the God of Pizza in your debt.

[nancypullen]

One Week Later

You’d think that seven days later I’d have something really fun to post about, but you’d be wrong.  We did go to the grandgirl’s preschool graduation and it was utterly delightful, but I’m not allowed to share photos. Booooo!  She was so stinkin’ funny.  As the class walked in to Pomp and Circumstance, wearing caps and gown, she was already waving and winking.  Her winks are hilarious, it’s usually accompanied by a head nod.  There are just nine or ten kids in her class and each one received a superlative award with their diploma. There was a reading award, a math award, a spelling award, and so on.  Know what our little miss was given?  Most Likely to be Famous.   We laughed and laughed.  Is that a nice way of calling a kid a drama queen, or is it just a nod to her wonderfully active imagination?  Her teacher is super sweet, so I’m going with the second.  It was such a lovely program, the kids did several songs showing off how smart they are, and after they were pronounced officially graduated there was a nice little reception.  We left the school and went out for a brunchy lunch.  Our tiny scholar opted for chocolate chip pancakes and I had a delicious smoked salmon and roasted vegetables frittata.  YUM.  We spent part of the afternoon at her house, playing and celebrating a bit more, before heading across the bridge trying to beat the Friday beach traffic.  It was a special day, more of the reason that we moved here. Since then, it’s been just ...life.  I cook, I clean, I garden, I repeat. Monday nights we go crazy and spend at the local auction house.  This week I picked up a little table for the porch for about four bucks.  It’s just what I needed.  Today I pot a tablecloth on it and topped that with a gingham napkin (you know my love for gingham) and now Ma and Pa enjoy their porch sittin’ even more.

I’m tickled with it.

I zoomed in because I’d just watered my plants and it looked like this. Still pretty, just messy.

The top and bottom baskets in that planter are both from orphan tables at garden centers.  They’re so happy now!  Look at ‘em go! That’s it, folks. It’s been so slow around here that I’ve taken to painting rocks. I thought I’d put encouraging messages on them and leave them around town.  I painted a few and then the inspiration well ran dry.  That’s how I ended up with this.

It was fun to do, but then I thought that no one would be thrilled to find a rock with a chicken on it, so I flipped it over and added a message.

I had so much fun doing that bird that I painted one for my owl crazy grandgirl.  I’ll let her find this one in my garden.

I need to erase a couple of those pencil lines, but other than that it’s ready.  I just put her name and and a big, red heart on the back. None of them are perfect, but they were fun to make. I hope the people who find them are exactly the ones who need them.

Speaking of putting that rock in my garden, I found Lazy Susan Vine!.  I’d been looking for it everywhere and finally found some!   It was itty bitty, but I stuck in  the ground near my little porch nook and gave it some twine to climb up to the porch railings.  It’s thriving!  It’s so sweet!

It’s tripled in size in about ten days, I hope that soon it’s blooming all over the porch railings.  I need to direct some of those tendrils, it’s looking a bit jumbled. But I love it! And that’s that.  I’ll be back tomorrow to share a couple of yummy recipes and some products that I like.  Life is slow here on the Eastern Shore, Mickey is busy with his photography, taking pics and teaching a class at Parks and Rec., but there’s not much for me to do - so I’ll just keep feeding us and trying to make things pretty.  This weekend is Father’s Day and the mister’s gift won’t be a surprise.  He asked for a kayak and that’s what he’ll get. I suppose I could make a giant bow for it. I’ll make him something yummy for breakfast, and we’ll reminisce about the decades of boys in the house.  Seems a little silly to celebrate when we’re no longer in the trenches (I feel the same way about Mother’s Day), but  I don’t suppose we should ever pass up an opportunity to celebrate and be happy, right? So that’s what we’ll do. I’m off to soak in the tub and read about murder, then I’ll slide under the covers and call it a day.  I hope that your June is bumping along nicely, that the air is clear and the gardens are lush.  Until tomorrow, stay safe, stay well.

XOXO,

Nancy

[thisaintascenereviews]

Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert, & Jon Randall - The Marfa Tapes Country music is a genre of music that gives people one of two emotions when hearing its name and when it rears its head -- hatred or love. Some people really love it, and some people really hate it. You know what I mean, people say they “listen to everything but country.” Bonus points if they put rap / hip-hop, but the idea is the same -- people seem to brag about how they don’t like county music, and in some respects, I get it. A lot of the modern country music that you hear on the radio is very pop-friendly, generic, boring, and even incorporates a lot of hip-hop instrumentation, along with tons of tired cliches that have been tired for the past decade. Ever since Florida Georgia Line got big with “Cruise” in 2012, country music was never the same, for better or worse. I look at that in a good way, especially in retrospect, because that led to a resurgence of more “raw” styled country and folk music. Guys and gals like Tyler Childers, Colter Wall, Ian Noe, Adeem The Artist, Kacey Musgraves (she’s part of the “establishment,” too, but she always went against the grain), and many more are part of this movement that bring something new to the table, whether it’s a sense of storytelling, perspectives, ideas, or sounds. One artist in the genre that’s been a staple for the last 20 years is someone you could include in that crop of current artists that still bring something unique and interesting to the table that also break away from the cliches and the sounds that are popular. That artist is Miranda Lambert, who has been around since the early 00s, but didn’t release her label debut until 2005. She got big in 2007 with her third album, and second major label album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which showcased her prowess for stellar vocals, a kickass attitude that doesn’t take any shit from anyone (especially men), and songs that were written very strongly. She rose up the ranks in the scene, ultimately becoming one of the most important singers and songwriters of the genre, but one that doesn’t get enough credit. She is mainly known, too, for her marriage and eventual divorce from Blake Shelton, who you may know from making bad country music is exactly what people hate about it (or love, depending on what kind of country music you like). She released the ambitious double album, The Weight Of These Wings, back in 2016 and that served as an album to chronicle and talk about her divorce. I listened to that when it came out, because I was wanting to get more into country music, and that was a good decision. The Weight Of These Wings is a very ambitious and long album, but it was also very rewarding. Fast forward four years, and she released Wildcard, which came out right before the pandemic, unfortunately, so she never got to tour that album. I’ve listened to it in retrospect, and I really enjoy it, despite how long, ambitious, and messy it is in spots, thanks to its sound being all over the place and its tone not being set in stone. What I wanted to talk about, and this is a long way of getting to it, because I wanted a lot of background, since this is a weird album to talk about on its own, is The Marfa Tapes from 2021, featuring Lambert, Jon Randall, and Jack Ingram, who are two other songwriters from Nashville that she’s worked with. She worked with them a lot on her follow-up, 2022′s Palomino, which is a very good album. What is this album exactly? It’s not a studio album, per se, but it’s a collection of songs that the three of them wrote semi-live. This album is an acoustic, lo-fi, and sort of “live” album, because it features single takes of recording. You hear a little bit of studio banter, some background noise, and a few mistakes they make, but it works, where the album is meant to be very loose and easygoing. Personally, I love this record, and I’ve been very apprehensive to check out a lot of mainstream country, because it just hasn’t done anything for me, but this album is very different, so peoples’ mileage with it depends on how much they like Miranda Lambert and what they like from her. This is a very acoustic, lo-fi, and somewhat quiet album, because it just features a single acoustic guitar and the three musicians’ voices. That’s it. This album is bare bones, but it’s great. The harmonies are utterly gorgeous, the songwriting is very strong, and the production is very warm, inviting, and it makes you feel like you’re right there. This record is also a lot of fun, because for every emotional song, such as “Amazing Grace (West Texas),” “Ghost,” or “Breaking A Heart,” it features some very fun moments in the form of “Homegrown Tomatoes,” “Geraldene,” and “Two-Step Down To Texas,” which are all very bouncy and catchy. This album showcases a lot of very strong performances from Lambert especially, because her vocals are so good here. What works, though, are its lyrics and overall mood. I love a lot of the lyrics on this record, such as “Ghost,” “In His Arms,” “Tequila Does,” and “Homegrown Tomatoes.” Sometimes having fun can be all you need, and that song paints a great picture of just having a good time. This album features songs that were on Wildcard, including “Tequila Does,” as well as songs that were eventually on Palomino, albeit re-recorded with a fuller sound, including “In His Arms,” “Waxahachie,” and “Geraldene.” An acoustic version of “Tin Man” also appears from The Weight Of These Wings, which makes the song even more emotional and hardhitting. Overall, this album is fantastic, especially if you want something very personal, laidback, lo-fi, and warm. It’s a very warm sounding album in all the best ways. I absolutely love this record. I do admit that when Randall and Ingram, it’s not quite as good, but I do enjoy their songs, nonetheless, and I like that this isn’t just Miranda Lambert and two other musicians, so it feels more of a collaborative effort, but their voices aren’t quite as good as hers. I’d check this out, though, especially if you want to hear a very authentic and story-driven country album that’s none of that mainstream bullshit that you hear all the time. I’ve been playing it nonstop for the last few weeks, and I won’t be stopping anytime soon, I keep having a blast with it.

[path-of-my-childhood]

CABIN FEVER - Aaron Dessner: Producing folklore and evermore

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Tom Doyle

The pandemic gave Taylor Swift a chance to explore new musical paths, with two lockdown albums co-written and produced by the National's Aaron Dessner.

Few artists during the pandemic have been as prolific as Taylor Swift. In July 2020, she surprise-released folklore, a double-length album recorded entirely remotely and in isolation. It went on to become the biggest global seller of the year, with four million sales and counting. Then, in December, she repeated the trick with the 15-song evermore, which quickly became Swift's eighth consecutive US number one.

In contrast to her country-music roots and the shiny synth-pop that made her a superstar, both folklore and evermore showcased a very different Taylor Swift sound: one veering more towards atmospheric indie and folk. The former album was part-produced by Swift and her regular co-producer Jack Antonoff (St Vincent, Lana Del Rey), while the other half of the tracks were overseen by a new studio collaborator, Aaron Dessner of the National. For evermore, aside from one Antonoff-assisted song, Dessner took full control of production.

Good Timing

Although his band are hugely popular and even won a Grammy for their 2017 album Sleep Well Beast, Aaron Dessner admits that it initially felt strange for an indie-rock guitarist and keyboard player to be pulled into such a mainstream project. Swift had already declared herself a fan of the National, and first met the band back in 2014. Nonetheless, Dessner was still surprised when the singer sent him a text "out of the blue" last spring. "I mean, I didn't think it was a hoax," he laughs. "But it was very exciting and a moment where you think it's like serendipity or something, especially in the middle of the pandemic. When she asked if I would ever consider writing with her, I just happened to have a lot of music that I had worked really hard on. So, the timing was sort of lucky. It opened up this crazy period of collaboration. It was a pretty wild ride."

Since 2016, Aaron Dessner has been based at his self-built rural facility, Long Pond Studio, in the Hudson Valley, upstate New York. The only major change to the studio since SOS last spoke to Dessner in October 2017 has been the addition of a vintage WSW Siemens console built in 1965. "It had been refurbished by someone," he says, "and I think there's only three of them in the United States. I heard it was for sale from our friend [and the National producer/mixer] Peter Katis. That's a huge improvement here."

Although the National made Sleep Well Beast and its 2019 successor I Am Easy To Find at Long Pond, the band members are scattered around the US and Europe, meaning Dessner is no stranger to remote working and file sharing. This proved to be invaluable for his work with Swift. Dessner spent the first six weeks of lockdown writing music that he believed to be for Big Red Machine, his project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Instead, many of these work-in-progress tracks would end up on folklore. Their first collaboration (and the album's first single), 'cardigan', for instance, emerged from an idea Dessner had been working on backstage during the National's European arena tour of Winter 2019.

"I sent her a folder and in the middle of the night she sent me that song," Dessner explains. "So, the next morning I was just listening to it, like, `Woah, OK, this is crazy."

On The Move

As work progressed, it quickly became apparent that Swift and Dessner were very much in tune as a songwriting and producing unit. There was very little Dessner had to do, he says, in terms of chopping vocals around to shape the top lines. "I think it's because I'm so used to structuring things like a song, with verses and choruses and bridges," he reckons. "In most cases, she sort of kept the form. If she had a different idea, she would tell me when she was writing and I would chop it up for her and send it to her. But, mostly, things kind of stayed in the form that we had."

Dessner and Swift were working intensively and at high speed throughout 2020, so much so that on one occasion the producer sent the singer a track and went out for a run in the countryside around Long Pond. By the time he got back, Swift had already written 'the last great american dynasty' and it was waiting for him in his inbox. "That was a crazy moment," he laughs. "One of the astonishing things about Taylor is what a brilliant songwriter she is and the clarity of her ideas and, when she has a story to tell, the way she can tell it. I think she's just been doing it for so long, she has a facility that makes you feel like you could never do what she's capable of. But we were a good pair because I think the music was inspiring to her in such a way that the stories were coming."

Swift's contributions to folklore were recorded in a makeshift studio in her Los Angeles home. Laura Sisk engineered the sessions as the singer recorded her vocals, using a Neumann U47, in a neighbouring bedroom. Live contact between Swift, Sisk, Dessner and Long Pond engineer Jonathan Low was done through real-time online collaboration platform Audiomovers.

"We would listen in remotely and kind of go back and forth," says Dessner. "We used Audiomovers and then we would have Zoom as a backup. But mainly we were just using Audiomovers, so we could actually be in her headphones. It's powerful, it's great. I've used it a lot with people during this time. Then, later on, when we recorded evermore, a lot of the vocals were done here at the studio actually when Taylor was visiting when we did the [Disney+ documentary] Long Pond Sessions. But Taylor's vocals for folklore were all done remotely."

Keeping Secrets

Given the huge international interest in Swift, the team had to work with an elaborate file-sharing arrangement to ensure that the tracks didn't leak online. Understandably, Dessner won't be drawn on the specifics. "Yeah, I mean we had to be very careful, so everything was very secretive," he says. "There were passwords on both ends and we communicated in a specific way when sharing mixes and everything. There was a high level of confidentiality and data encryption. It was sort of a learning curve.

"I'm not used to that," he adds, "'cause usually we're just letting files kind of fly all over the Internet [laughs]. But I think with someone like her, there's just so many people that are paying attention to every move that she makes, which can be a little, I think, oppressive for her. We tried to make it as comfortable as possible and we got used to how to get things to her and back to us. It worked pretty well."

Drums & Guitars

For the generally minimalist beat programming on the records, Dessner would sometimes turn to his more expensive new analogue drum generators - Vermona's DRM1 and Dave Smith's Tempest - but more often used the Synthetic Bits iOS app FunkBox. "There's just a lot of great vintage drum machine sounds in there, and they sound pretty cool, especially if you overdrive it," he says. "Often I send that through an amplifier, or through effects into an amplifier. Then I have a [Roland) TR-8 and a TR-8S that I use a lot. I also use the drum machine in the [Teenage Engineering] OP-1. So, a song like 'willow', that's just me tapping the OP-1."

Elsewhere, Dessner's guitar work appears on the tracks, with the intricate melodic layering on 'the last great american dynasty' from folklore having been inspired by Radiohead's In Rainbows. "Almost all of the electric guitar on Taylor's records is played direct through a REDDI DI into the Siemens board," he says. "It's usually just my 1971 Telecaster played direct and it just sounds great. Oftentimes I just put a little spring reverb on it and sometimes I'll overdrive the board like it's an amplifier, 'cause it breaks up really beautifully.

"I have a 1965 [Gibson] Firebird that I play usually through this 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb. So, if I am playing into an amp, that's what it is. But on 'the last great american dynasty', those little pointillistic guitars, that's just played direct with the Telecaster through the board."

Elsewhere, Aaron Dessner took Taylor Swift even further out of her sonic comfort zone. A key track on folklore, the Cocteau Twins-styled 'epiphany', features her voice amid a wash of ambient textures, created by Dessner slowing down and reversing various instrumental parts in Pro Tools. "I created a drone using the Mellotron [MD4000D] and the Prophet and the OP-1 and all kinds of synth pads," he says. "Then I duplicated all the tracks, and some of them I reversed and some of them I dropped an octave. All manner of using varispeed and Polyphonic Elastic Audio and changing where they were sitting. Just to create like this Icelandic glacier of sounds was my idea. Then I wrote the chord progression against that.

"The [Pro Tools] session was not happy," he adds with a chuckle. "It kept crashing. Eventually I had to print the drone but I printed it by myself and there was some crackle in it. It was distorting. And then I couldn't recreate it so Jon Low, who was helping me, was kind of mad at me 'cause he was like, 'You can't do that.' And I was like, 'Well, I was working quickly. I didn't know it'd become a song."

Orchestra Of Nowhere

Meanwhile, the orchestrations that appear on several of the tracks were scored by Aaron's twin brother and National bandmate, Bryce Dessner, who is located in France. "I would just make him chord charts of the songs and send them to him in France," Aaron says. "Then he would orchestrate things in Sibelius and send the parts to me. I would send the parts and the instrumental tracks to different players remotely and they would record them literally in their bedrooms or in their attics. None of it was done as a group, it was all done separately. But that's how we've always worked in the National so it's quite natural."

On folklore standout track 'exile', Justin Vernon of Bon Iver delivered his stirring vocal for the duet remotely from his home in Eaux Claires, Wisconsin. "He's renovating his studio, so he has a little home studio in his garage," says Dessner. "It was Taylor's idea to approach him. I sent him Taylor's voice memo of her singing both parts, and he got really excited and loved the song and then he wrote the extra part in the bridge.

"I do a lot of work remotely with Justin also, so it was easy to send him tracks and he would track to it and send back his vocals. I was sending him stems, so usually it's just a vocal stem of Taylor and an instrumental stem and then if he wants something deeper, I'll give him more stems. But generally, he's just working with the vocal layers and an instrumental."

Vernon also provided the grainy beat that kicks off 'closure', one of two tracks on evermore that started life as a sketch for the second Big Red Machine album. "It was this little loop that Justin had given me in this folder of 'Starters', he calls them. I had heard that and been playing the piano to it. But I was hearing it in 5/4, although it's not in 5/4. 'Closure' really opened everything up further. There were no real limits to where we were gonna try to write songs."

Given the number of remote players, Dessner says there were surprisingly few problems with the file swapping and that it was a fairly painless technical process. "It was pretty smooth, but there were issues," he admits. "Sometimes sample-rate issues, or if I happened to give someone an instrumental that was an MP3, that sometimes lines up differently than if you send them an actual WAV that's bounced on the grid. So, sometimes I'd have to kinda eyeball things.

"If there was trouble it started to be because of track counts. I probably only used 20 percent of what was actually recorded, 'cause we would try a lot of things, y'know. So, eventually the sessions got kinda crazy and you'd have to deactivate a lot of things and print things. But we got used to that."

Soft Piano

Aaron Dessner's characteristic dampened upright piano sound, familiar from the National's albums, is much in evidence throughout both folklore and evermore. "The upright is a Yamaha U1 that I've had for more than a decade. Usually, I play it with the soft pedal down and that's the sound of 'hoax' or 'seven' or 'cardigan', y'know, that felted sound. It kind of almost sounds like an electric piano.

"I always mic it the same way, just with two [AKG] 414s, and they're always the same distance off the wall. I had a studio in Brooklyn for 10 years and then when I moved here, I copied the same [wooden] pattern on the wall. And the reason I did that is 'cause of how much I love how this piano sounds bouncing off that wall. It just does something really special for the harmonics."

When on other folklore songs, such as 'exile' or 'the 1', where the piano was the main sonic feature of the track, Dessner played his Steinway grand. "A lot of times we use a pair of Coles [4038s] on the Steinway, just cause it's darker. But sometimes we'll have the 414s there as well and choose."

Keeping Warm

On both folklore and evermore, Taylor Swift's voice is very much front and center and high in the mix, and generally sounds fairly dry. "I think the main thing was I wanted her vocals to have a more full range than maybe you typically hear," Dessner explains. "'Cause I think a lot of the more pop-oriented records are mixed a certain way and they take some of the warmth out of the vocal, so that it's very bright and it kinda cuts really well on the radio. But she has this wonderful lower warmth frequency in her voice which is particularly important on a song like `seven'. If you carved out that mud, y'know, it wouldn't hit you the same way. Or, like, `cardigan', I think it needs that warmth, the kind of fuller feeling to it. It makes it darker, but to me that's where a lot of emotion is."

Effects-wise, almost all of the treatments were done in the box. "There's no outboard reverbs printed," says Dessner. "The only things that we did print would be like an [Eventide] H3000 or sometimes the [WEM] CopiCat tape delay for just a really subtle slap. But generally, it's just different reverbs in the box that Jon was using. He uses the Valhalla stuff quite a bit and some other UAD reverbs, like the [Capitol] Chambers. I often just use Valhalla VintageVerb and the [Avid] Black Spring and simple things."

In some instances, the final mix ended up being the never-bettered rough mix, while other songs took far more work. "'cardigan' is basically the rough, as is `seven'. So, like the early, early mixes, when we didn't even know we were mixing, we never were able to make it better. Like if you make it sound 'good', it might not be as good 'cause it loses some of its weird magic, y'know. But songs like `the last great american dynasty' or 'mad woman', those songs were a little harder to create the dynamics the way you want them, and the pay-off without going too far, and with also just keeping in the kind of aesthetic that we were in. Those were harder, I would say.

"On evermore, I would say 'willow' was probably the hardest one to finish just because there were so many ways it could've gone. Eventually we settled back almost to the point where it began. So, there's a lot of stuff that was left out of 'willow', just because the simplicity of the idea I think was in a way the strongest."

The subject of this month's Inside Track article, 'willow' was the first song written for evermore, immediately following the release of folklore. "It almost felt like a dare or something," Dessner laughs. "We were writing, recording and mixing all in one kind of work stream and we went from one record to the other almost immediately. We were just sort off to the races. We didn't really ever stop since April."

Rubber & Vinyl

Sometimes, Dessner and Swift drew inspiration from unlikely sources; `no body, no crime', for instance, started when he gave her a 'rubber bridge' guitar made by Reuben Cox of the Old Style Guitar Shop in LA. "He's my very old friend," says Dessner of Cox. "He buys undervalued vintage guitars. Stuff that was made in the '50s and '60s as sort of learner guitars, like old Silvertones and Kays and Harmonys. These kinds of guitars which now are quite special, but they're still not valued the same way that vintage Fenders or Gibsons are valued. Then, he customizes them.

"Recently he started retrofitting these guitars with a rubber bridge and flatwound strings. He'll take, like, an acoustic Silvertone from 1958 and put a bridge on it that's covered in this kind of rubber that deadens the strings, so it really has this kind of dead thrum to it. And he puts two pickups in there, one that's more distorted and one that's cleaner. They're just incredible guitars. I thought Taylor would enjoy having one 'cause she loves the sound. So, I had Reuben make one for her and she used it to write `no body, no crime'."

Another friend of Dessner's, Ryan Olsen, has developed a piece of software called the Allovers Hi-Hat Generator which helped create the unusual harmonic loops that feature on `marjorie'. "It's not available on the market," Dessner says of the software. "It's just something that he uses personally, but I think hopefully eventually it'll come out. I wouldn't say it's artificial intelligence software but there's something very intelligent about it [laughs]. It basically analyses audio information and is able to separate audio into identifiable samples and then put them into a database. You then can design parameters for it to spit out sequences that are incredibly musical.

"When Ryan comes here, he'll just take all kinds of things that I give him and run it through there and then it'll spit out, like, three hours of stuff. Then I go through it and find the layers that I love, then I loop them. You can hear it also on the song 'happiness', the drumming in the background. It's not actually played. That's drums that have been sampled and then re-analyzed and re-sequenced out of this Allovers Hi-Hat Generator."

The song `marjorie' is named after Swift's opera-singer grandmother and so, fittingly, her voice can be heard flitting in and out of the mix at the end of the track. "Taylor's family gave us a bunch of recordings of her grandmother," Dessner explains. "But they were from old, very scratchy, noisy vinyl. So, we had to denoise it all using [iZotope's] RX and then I went in and I found some parts that I thought might work. I pitch-shifted them into the key and then placed them. It took a while to find the right ones, but it's really beautiful to be able to hear her. It's just an incredibly special thing, I think."

Meet At The Pond

Taylor Swift finally managed to get together with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff in September 2020 for the filming of folklore: the long pond studio sessions, featuring the trio live-performing the album. It also provided an opportunity for Swift to add her vocals to some of the evermore tracks.

"It did allow us to have more fun, I think," says Dessner. "Y'know, drink more wine and just kinda be in the same place and have the feeling of blasting the music here and dancing around and just enjoying ourselves. She's really a lovely person to hang out with, so in that sense I'm glad that we had that chance to work together in person.

"We were using a [Telefunken] U47 to record Taylor here," he adds. "Either we were using one of the Siemens preamps on the board, which are amazing. Or I have Neve 1064s [preamps/EQs] and we use a Lisson Grove [AR-i] tube compressor generally."

One entirely new song, `tis the damn season', came out of this face-to-face approach, which Swift wrote in the middle of the night after the team had stayed up late drinking. "We had a bunch of wine actually," Dessner laughs, "and then everybody went to sleep, I thought. But I think she must have had this idea swimming around in her head, 'cause the next morning when she arrived, she sang 'Us the damn season' for me in my kitchen. It's maybe my favourite song we've written together. Then she sang it at dinner for me and my wife Stine and we were all crying. It’s just that kind of a song, so it was quite special.”

National Unity

One key track on evermore, 'coney island', features all of the members of the National and sees Swift duetting with their singer Matt Berninger. "My brother [Bryce] actually originated that song," says Aaron Dessner. "I sent him a reference at one point - I can't remember what it was - and then he was sort of inspired to write that chord progression. Then we worked together to sort of develop it and I wrote a bunch of parts and we structured it.

"Taylor and William Bowery [the songwriting pseudonym of Swift's boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn] wrote 'coney island' and she sang a beautiful version. It felt kind of done, actually. But then I think we all collectively thought, Taylor and myself and Bryce, like this was the closest to a National song."

Dessner then asked the brothers who make up the National's rhythm section, drummer Bryan and bassist Scott Devendorf, to play on 'coney island'. Matt Berninger, as he often does with the band's own tracks, recorded his vocal at home in Los Angeles. "It was never in the same place, it was done remotely," says Dessner, "except Bryan was here at Long Pond when he played. It was great to collaborate as a band with Taylor."

No Compromise

folklore and evermore have been both enormous critical and commercial successes for Taylor Swift. Aaron Dessner reckons that making these anti-pop records has freed the singer up for the future. "I think it was very liberating for her," he says. "I think that's the thing that's been probably the biggest change for her has just been being able to make songs without compromise and then release them without the promotional requirements that she's used to from the past. Obviously, it comes at this time when we're all in lockdown and nobody can tour or go on talk shows or anything. But I think for her probably it will impact what she does in the future.

"But I also think she can shapeshift again," he concludes. "Who knows where she'll go? She's had many celebrated albums from the past, but to release two albums of this quality in such a short time, it really did shine a light on her songwriting talent and her storytelling ability and also just her willingness to experiment and collaborate. Somehow, I ended up in the middle of all that and I'm very grateful."

INSIDE TRACK - Jonathan Low: Secrets of the Mix Engineers

Sound On Sound Magazine // March 2021 issue // By Paul Tingen

From sketches to final mixes, engineer Jonathan Low spent 2020 overseeing Taylor Swift’s hit lockdown albums folklore and evermore.

“I think the theme of a lot of my work nowadays, and especially with these two records, is that everything is getting mixed all the time. I always try to get the songs to sound as finalised as they can be. Obviously that’s hard when you’re not sure yet what all the elements will be. Tracks morph all the time, and yet everything is always moving forwards towards completion in some way. Everything should sound fun and inspiring to listen to all the time.”

Speaking is Jonathan Low, and the two records he refers to are, of course, Taylor Swift’s 2020 albums folklore and evermore, both of which reached number one in the UK and the US. Swift’s main producer and co‑writer on the two albums was the National’s Aaron Dessner, also interviewed in this issue. Low is the engineer, mixer and general right‑hand man at Long Pond Studios in upstate New York, where he and Dessner spent most of 2020 working on folklore and evermore, with Swift in Los Angeles for much of the time.

“In the beginning it did not feel real,” recalls Low. “There was this brand‑new collaboration, and it was amazing how quickly Aaron made these instrumental sketches and Taylor wrote lyrics and melodies to them, which she initially sent to us as iPhone voice memos. During our nightly family dinners in lockdown, Aaron would regularly pull up his phone and say, ‘Listen to this!’ and there would be another voice memo from Taylor with this beautiful song that she had written over a sketch of Aaron’s in a matter of hours. The rate at which it was happening was mind‑blowing. There was constant elevation, inspiration and just wanting to continue the momentum.

“We put her voice memos straight into Pro Tools. They had tons of character, because of the weird phone compression and cutting midrange quality you just would not get when you put someone in front of a pristine recording chain. Plus there was all this bleed. It’s interesting how that dictates the attitude of the vocal and of the song. Even though none of the original voice memos ended up on the albums, they often gave us unexpected hints. These voice memos were such on‑a‑whim things, they were really telling. Taylor had certain phrasings and inflections that we often returned to later on. They became our reference points.”

Pond Life

The making of the National’s 2017 album Sleep Well Beast and the setup at Long Pond were covered in SOS October 2017; today the studio remains pretty much the same, with the exception of a new desk. “The main space is really big, and the console sits in the middle,” says Low. “In 2019, I installed a 1965 WSW/Siemens, which has 24 line‑in and microphone channels and another 24 line channels. WSW is the Austrian branch of Siemens usually built for broadcast. It’s loaded with 811510B channels. The build quality is insane, the switches and pots feel like they were made yesterday. To me it hints at the warm haze of a Class‑A Neve channel but sits further forward in the speakers. The midrange band on the passive EQ is a huge part of its charm, it really does feel like you’re changing the tone of the actual source rather than the recording. Most microphones go through the desk on their way into Pro Tools, though we sometimes use outboard Neve 1064 mic pres. Occasionally I use the Siemens to sum a mix.

“We have a pair of ATC SCM45 monitors, which sound very clear in the large room. The ceiling is very high, and the front wall is about 25 feet behind the monitors. There are diffusers on the sidewalls and the back walls are absorbing, so there are very few reflections. Aaron and I will be listening in tons of different ways. I’ll listen in my home studio with similar ATC SCM20 monitors or on my ‘70s Marantz hi‑fi setup. Aaron is always checking things in his car, and if there’s something that is bugging him, I’ll join him in his car to find out what he hears.”

Low works at Long Pond and with Dessner most of the time, though he does find time to do other projects, among hem this last year the War On Drugs, Waxahatchee and Nap Eyes. When lockdown started in Spring 2020, Low tacked up on supplies and "had a bunch f mixes lined up". Meanwhile, on the Eest Coast, Swift had seen her Lover Fest our cancelled. With help from engineer aura Sisk, she set up a makeshift studio which she dubbed Kitty Committee in bedroom in her Los Angeles home, and began working with long-term producer nd co-writer Jack Antonoff. At the end of April, however, Swift also started working with Dessner, which took the project in different direction. The impressionistic, atmospheric, electro-folk instrumentals Dessner sent her were mostly composed nd recorded by him at Long Pond, assisted by Low.

Sketching Sessions

The instrumental sketches Aaron makes come into being in different ways," elaborates Low. "Sometimes they are more fleshed-out ideas, sometimes they are less formed. But normally Aaron will set himself up in the studio, surrounded by instruments and synths, and he'll construct a track. Once he feels it makes some kind of sense I'll come in and take a listen and then we together develop what's there.

"I don't call his sketches demos, because while many instruments are added and replaced later on, most of the original parts end up in the final version of the song. We end up in the final version of the song. We try to get the sketches to a place where they are already very engaging as instrumental are already very engaging as instrumental tracks. Aaron and I are always obsessively listening, because we constantly want to hear things that feel inspiring and musical, not just a bed of music in the background. It takes longer to create, but in this case also gave Taylor more to latch onto, both emotionally and in terms of musical inspiration. Hearing melodies woven in the music triggered new melodies."

Not long after Dessner and Low sent each sketch to Swift, they would receive her voice memos in return, and they'd load them into the Pro Tools session of the sketch in question. Dessner and Low then continued to develop the songs, in close collaboration with Swift. "Taylor's voice memos often came with suggestions for how to edit the sketches: maybe throw in a bridge somewhere, shorten a section, change the chords or arrangement somewhere, and so on. Aaron would have similar ideas, and he then developed the arrangements, often with his brother Bryce, adding or replacing instruments. This happened fast, and became very interactive between us and Taylor, even though we were working remotely. When we added instruments, we were reacting to the way my rough mixes felt at the very beginning. Of course, it was also dictated by how Taylor wrote and sang to the tracks."

Dessner supplied sketches for nine and produced 10 of folklore's 16 songs, playing many different types of guitars, keyboards and synths as well as percussion and programmed drums. Instruments that were added later include live strings, drums, trombone, accordion, clarinet, harpsichord and more, with his brother Bryce doing many of the orchestrations. Most overdubs by other musicians were done remotely as well. Throughout, Low was keeping an overview of everything that was going on and mixing the material, so it was as presentable and inspiring as possible.

Mixing folklore

Although Dessner has called folklore an "anti-pop album", the world's number-one pop mixer Serban Ghenea was drafted in to mix seven tracks, while Low did the remainder.

"It was exciting to have Serban involved," explains Low, "because he did things I'd never do or be able to do. The way the vocal sits always at the forefront, along with the clarity he gets in his mixes, is remarkable. A great example of this is on the song 'epiphany'. There is so much beautiful space and the vocal feels effortlessly placed. It was really interesting to hear where he took things, because we were so close to the entire process in every way. Hearing a totally new perspective was eye-opening and refreshing.

"Throughout the entire process we were trying to maintain the original feel. Sometimes this was hard, because that initial rawness would get lost in large arrangements and additional layering. With revisions of folklore in particular we sometimes were losing the emotional weight from earlier more casual mixes. Because I was always mixing, there was also always the danger of over-mixing.

"We were trying to get the best of each mix version, and sometimes that meant stepping backwards, and grabbing a piano chain from an earlier mix, or going three versions back to before we added orchestration. There were definitely moments of thinking, 'Is this going to compete sonically? Is this loud enough?' We knew we loved the way the songs sounded as we were building them, so we stuck with what we knew. There were times where I tried to keep pushing a mix forward but it didn't improve the song — 'cardigan' is an example of a song where we ended up choosing a very early mix."

The Low Down

"I'm originally from Philadelphia," says Jonathan Low, "and played piano, alto saxophone and guitar when growing up. My dad is an electrical engineer and audiophile hobbyist, and I learned a lot about circuit design and how to repair things. I then started building guitar pedals and guitar amps, and recorded bands at my high school using a minidisc player and some binaural microphones. After that I did a music industry programme at Drexel University, and spent a lot of time working at the recording facilities there.

"This led to me meeting Brian McTear, a producer and owner of Miner Street Studios, which became my home base from 2009 to 2014. I learned a lot from him, from developing an interest in creating sounds in untraditional ways, to how to see a record through to completion. The studio has a two-inch 16-track Ampex MM1200 tape machine and a beautiful MCI 400 console which very quickly shaped the way I think about routing and signal flow. I'm lucky to have learned this way, because a computer environment is like the Wild West: there are no rules in terms of how to get from point A to point B. This flexibility is incredible, but sometimes there are simply too many options.

"l met Aaron [Dessned] because singer-songwriter Sharon van Etten recorded her second album, Epic [2010] at Miner Street, with Brian producing. Her third album, Tramp [2012] was produced by Aaron. They came to Philly to record drums and I ended up mixing a bunch of that record. After that I would occasionally go to work in Aaron's garage studio in Brooklyn, and this became more and more a regular collaboration. I then moved from Philly up to the Hudson Valley to help Aaron build Long Pond. We first used the studio in the spring of 2016, when beginning to record the National's album Sleep Well Beast."

Onward & Upward

folklore was finished and released in July 2020. In a normal world everyone might have gone on to do other things, but without the option of touring, they simply continued writing songs, with Low holding the fort. In September, many of the musicians who played on the album gathered at Long Pond for the shooting of a making-of documentary, folklore: the long pond studio sessions, which is streamed on Disney+.

The temporary presence of Swift at Long Pond changed the working methods somewhat, as she could work with Dessner in the room, and Low was able record her vocals. After Swift left again, sessions continued until December, when evermore was released, with Dessner producing or co-producing all tracks, apart from 'gold rush' which was co-written and co-produced by Swift and Antonoff. Low recorded many of Swift's vocals for evermore, and mixed the entire album. The lead single 'willow' became the biggest hit from the album, reaching number one in the US and number three in the UK.

"Before Taylor came to Long Pond," remembers Low, "she had always recorded her vocals for folklore remotely in Los Angeles or Nashville. When I recorded, I used a modern Telefunken U47, which is our go-to vocal mic — we record all the National stuff with that — going straight into the Siemens desk, and then into a Lisson Grove AR-1 tube compressor, and via a Burl A-D converter into Pro Tools. Taylor creates and lays down her vocal arrangements very quickly, and it sounds like a finished record in very few takes."

Devils In The Detail

In his mixes, Low wanted listeners to share his own initial response to these vocal performances. "The element that draws me in is always Taylor's vocals. The first time I received files with her properly recorded but premixed vocals I was just floored. They sounded great, even with minimal EQ and compression. They were not the way I'm used to hearing her voice in her pop songs, with the vocal soaring and sitting at the very front edge of the soundscape. In these raw performances, I heard so much more intimacy and interaction with the music. It was wonderful to hear her voice with tons of detail and nuances in place: her phrasing, her tonality, her pitch, all very deliberate. We wanted to maintain that. It's more emotional, and it sounds so much more personal to me. Then there was the music..."

The arrangements on evermore are even more 'chamber pop' than on folklore, with instruments like glockenspiel, crotales, flute, French horn, celeste and harmonium in evidence. "As listeners of the National may know, Aaron's and Bryce's arrangements can be quite dense. They love lush orchestration, all sorts of percussion, synths and other electronic sounds. The challenge was trying to get them to speak, without getting in the way of the vocals. I want a casual listener to be drawn in by the vocal, but sense that something special is happening in the music as well. At the same time, someone who really is digging in can fully immerse themselves and take in all the beauty deeper in the details of the sound and arrangement. Finding the balance between presenting all the musical elements that were happening in the arrangement and this really beautiful, upfront, real-sounding vocal was the ticket."

A particular challenge is that a lot of the detail that Aaron gravitates towards happens in the low mids, which is a very warm part of our hearing spectrum that can quickly become too muddy or too woolly. A lot of the tonal and musical information lives in the low mids, and then the vocal sits more in the midrange and high mids. There's not too much in the higher frequency range, except the top of the guitars, and some elements like a shaker and the higher buzzy parts of the synths. Maintaining clarity and separation in those often complex arrangements was a major challenge."

In & Out The Box

According to Low, the final mix stage for evermore was "very short. There was a moment in the final week or so leading up to the release where the songs were developed far enough for me to sit down and try to make something very cohesive and final, finalising vocal volume, overall volume, and the vibe. There's a point in every mix where the moves get really small. When a volume ride of 0.1dB makes a difference, you're really close to being done. Earlier on, those little adjustments don't really matter.

"I often try to mix at the console, with some outboard on the two-bus, but folklore was mixed all in the box, because we were working so fast, plus initially the plan was for the mixes to be done elsewhere. I ran a couple of mixes for evermore through the console, and `closure' was the only one that stuck. It was summed through the Siemens, with an API 2500 compressor and a Thermionic Culture Phoenix and then back into Pro Tools via the Burl A-D. I will use hardware when mixing in the box, though mainly just two units: the Eventide H3000, because I have not found any plug-ins that do the same thing, and the [Thermionic] Culture Vulture, for its very broad tone shaping and distortion properties.

"The writing and the production happened closely in conjunction with the engineering and mixing, and the arrangements were dense, making many of the sessions super hefty and actually quite messy. Sounds would constantly change roles in the arrangement and sometimes plug-ins would just stack up. So final mixing involved cleaning up the sessions and stemming large groups down."

Across The Rubber Bridge

The Pro Tools mix session of 'willow' has close to 100 tracks, though there's none of the elaborate bussing that's the hallmark of some modern sessions. At the top are six drum machine tracks in green from the Teenage Engineering OP-1, an instrument that was used extensively on the album. Below that are five live percussion tracks (blue), three bass tracks (pink), and an `AUX Drums' programming track. There's a 'rubber bridge' guitar folder and aux, OP-1 synth tracks, piano tracks, 'Dream Machine' (Josh Kaufman's guitar) and E-bow tracks, Yamaha, Sequential Prophet X, Moog and Roland Juno synth tracks, and Strings and Horns aux stem tracks.

"Most of the drum tracks were performed on the OP-1 by Aaron. These are not programmed tracks. Bryan Devendorf, drummer of the National, programmed some beats on a Roland TR-8S. I ran those though the Fender Rumble bass amp, which adds some woofiness, like an acoustic kit room mic. There's an acoustic shaker, and there's an OP-1 backbeat that's subtle in the beginning, and then gets stronger towards the end of the song. I grouped all the drum elements and the bass, and sent those out to a hardware insert with the Culture Vulture, for saturation, so it got louder and more and more harmonically rich. There is this subtle growing and crescendo of intensity of the rhythm section by the end.

"The 'rubber bridge' guitars were the main anchor in the instruments. These guitars have a wooden bridge wrapped in rubber, and sound a bit like a nylon-string guitar, or a light palm mute. They're very percussive and sound best when recorded on our Neumann U47 and a DI. On many of those DI tracks I have a [SPL] Transient Designer to lower the sustain and keep them punchy, especially in the low end. There's a folder with five takes of 'rubber bridge' guitar in this session, creating this wall of unique guitar sound.

"I treated the 'rubber bridge' guitars quite extensively. There's a FabFilter Pro-Q3 cutting some midrange frequencies and some air around 10kHz. These guitars can splash out in the high end and have a boominess that's in the same range as the low end of Taylor's vocal, so I had to keep these things under control. Then I used a SoundToys Tremolator, with a quarter-note tremolo that makes the accents in the playing a bit more apparent. I like to get the acoustic guitars a little bit out of the way for the less important beats, so I have the Massey CT5 compressor side-chained to the kick drum. I also used the UAD Precision K-Stereo to make the guitars a bit wider. The iZotope Ozone Exciter adds some high mids and high-end harmonic saturation sparkly stuff, and the SoundToys EchoBoy delay is automated, with it only coming on in the bridge, where I wanted more ambience."

Growing Pains

"Once we had figured out how to sit the 'rubber bridge' guitars in the mix, the next challenge was to work out the end of the song, after the bridge. Taylor actually goes down an octave with her voice in the last chorus, and at the same time the music continues to push and grow. That meant using a lot of automation and Clip Gain adjustment to make sure the vocal always stayed on top. There also are ambient pianos playing counter-melodies, and balancing the vocals, guitars and pianos was the main focus on this song. We spent a lot of time balancing this, particularly as the track grows towards the end.

"The vocal tracks share many of the same plug-ins and settings. On the main lead vocal track I added the UAD Pultec EQP-1A, with a little bit of a cut in the low end at 30Hz, and a boost at 8kHz, which adds some modern air. The second plug-in is the Oeksound Soothe, which is just touching the vocal, and it helps with any harsh resonance stuff in the high mids, and a little in the lower mids. Next is the UAD 1176AE, and then the FabFilter Pro-Q3, doing some notches at 200Hz, 1kHz, 4kHz and close to 10kHz. I tend to do subtractive EQ on the Q3, and use more analogue-sounding plug-ins, like the Pultec or the Maag, to boost. After that is the FabFilter Pro-DS [de-esser], taking off a couple of decibels, followed by the FabFilter Saturn 2 [saturation processor], on a warm tape setting.

"Below the vocal tracks are three aux effects tracks, for the vocals. 'Long Delay' has a stereo EchoBoy going into an Altiverb with a spring reverb, for effect throws in the choruses. 'Chamber' is the UAD Capitol Chamber, which gives the vocal a nice density and size, without it being a long reverb. The 'Plate' aux is the UAD EMT140, for the longer tail. These two reverbs work in conjunction, with the chamber for the upfront space, determining where the vocal sits in the mix, and the plate more for the depth behind that.

"At the bottom of the session is a two-bus aux, which mimics the way I do the two-bus on the desk. The plug-ins are the UAD Massive Passive EQ, UAD API 2500 compressor, and the UAD Ampex ATR102. Depending on the song, I will choose 15ips or 30ips. In this case it was set to 15ips, half-inch GP9. That has a nice, aggressive, midrange push, and the GP9 bottom end goes that little bit lower. There's also a PSP Vintage Warmer, a Sonnox Oxford Inflator, plus a FabFilter Pro-L2 [limiter]. None of these things are doing very much on their own, but in conjunction give me the interaction I expect from an analogue mix chain."

[hankwritten]

Long Time Listener, First Time Caller

Demoman/Soldier, 2k

Request for @tokyotrain, Music

1. Reveille

There had never, ever, in the history of time or space, an instrument Demo hated more.

The bugle reverberated through the open window that someone had conspicuously left open, just in case the man in bed wouldn’t have been awakened by its bellows piercing through the glass. Not that that would ever happen. Demo was pretty sure he could’ve heard that damn instrument all the way in Hell, and grasped blindly for the pillow he could smother his own face in. It didn’t help. He shouldn’t be able to taste the cacophony the bugle was making, but there was the sting of copper on his tongue, as though his gums were bleeding in revolt.

“I’m going to kill him,” he muttered into the three layers of feathered pillows.

By the time he stumbled down to breakfast, there were bags under his eye, diluted homicidal intent on his face, and his fluffiest robe around his shoulders.

“And he’s finally up,” Mum said, and sipped her tea. Usually she’d be giving him an earful about his lazy behind tarrying in making her morning cup, but since she was smirking at his disheveled state, Soldier must have brewed it for her.

“Grrnn…” her son replied.

Coffee was the only thing that would make this morning better. Thankfully, there was a pot already brewing; Soldier wasn’t that heartless.

“I see you have acquired your morning cup of Joe!” Soldier said when he finally retired from his routine, sweeping into the kitchen on a wave of wholly unwelcome cheer. Beyond him—since the mansion didn’t have a flagpole, he’d found ways to make do—a rake was shoved into the lawn with a Stars ‘n Stripes bandana tied around it. This he erected every day at dawn. “Excellent! Now that you are refreshed and full of energy, you are capable of participating in post flag ceremony drills!”

Demo skipped the not on your life and went straight to, “I’m going to take that bloody thing and re-twist it until you can hang yourself with it.”

Mum laughed, and Soldier grinned jubilantly, confident in the knowledge that he would always win mornings.

2. Taunt

“Whomp whomp whaaaa,” the stupid bloody trombone played at him.

Half delirious from blood loss, Demo bared his teeth at the smug BLU above him who, as soon as he finished taunting, promptly executed his unwilling audience with a shotgun blast to the head.

This was the fifth time this had happened today, and Demo was pissed. Where was Soldier even keeping that thing? Every bloody time there was no sign of the instrument whatsoever, then as soon as victory was assured he reached into hammer space and pulled out five feet of tubing! It was ridiculous to drive a man crazy under the best of circumstances—but having it be your partner was something that garnered a certain degree of necessary revenge.

Demo had had enough. It was about time he did some stooping to Soldier’s level.

The next day, Demo managed to shove Soldier off Upward’s scaffolding with a well-timed shield bash. He couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity, perfectly executed so Soldier hadn’t even gotten a kill on him that day, which might have ruined the ‘surprise’. He stood, one foot on the Soldier-shaped hole in the wood, and leaned on his knee.

“Nice of you to drop in!” he called.

“Eugh,” Soldier grumbled, impaled haphazardly on various bits of wood.

“As long as we’re both taking a breather, mind if get a bit of piping practice in?”

Not waiting for a reply, Demo pulled out the bagpipes that had been eagerly awaiting their time in the sun. Sitting as they had been for the past five years in the attic, derelict ever since he’d purchased them on a lark, he didn’t blame them. When he flexed the bag, dust came out the mouthpiece.

“Oh no,” Soldier said.

“Oh yes!” Demo disagreed, and began to play.

Soldier was in a very unfortunate situation, arm broken the exact wrong way to keep him from covering his own ears. Thus he was forced to listen as Demo played out a belching and eardrum-bleeding anti-tune, rippling the open air above the drop off with painful ineptitude.

“Never played a day in me life,” Demo said cheerfully as he ceased blowing into the bellows.

“And you should never do so again!” Soldier accused. “The only positive thing I can say about your first attempt is that thank God it is over!”

“Over?” Demo smirked. “Nah, there’s another four movements to get through.”

Soldier’s head flopped back in defeat, helmet rolling off into the abyss and eyes pointing at the sky. “Jesus and Thomas Edison, please give me strength.”

This was not heard over the resuming of what only the foolish and the damned would refer to as ‘music’.

3. Radio

“Do not touch that dial, maggot!”

“I’m shotgun, I get radio privileges.”

“Guh,” Soldier complained as Demo flipped until the NMDX began to flow from the box, polluting the airwaves with its electronic beats. “What even is this hippie garbage?”

“It���s disco, laddie!”

Demo was already grooving in his seat, dead set on enjoying the new wave in direct defiance of his partner’s annoyed twitch. Or, perhaps, maybe because of it.

Soldier grumbled. “Doesn’t make any damn sense! What’s a duck doing at a disco in the first place?”

“He wasn’t a duck when he went there,” Demo scoffed. “It’s like you’re not even listening to the song.”

“I’m trying not too.”

“Fine then! What do you like to listen to in the car?”

Soldier hummed quietly for a second, the fading carols of Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots catching on the notes and escaping into the hum of the highway. After a moment of contemplation, Soldier peeled his eyes from the road and began to rummage about in the center console. This caused him to swerve wildly along the highway, other cars blaring their horns as the blue Camaro glided over the dotted line. Demo watched these events with mild interest.

“Aha!” Soldier exclaimed, emerging with an 8track clasped triumphantly in one hand. “This’ll get us to Springerville without all that play-it-backwards-to-alter-your-brainwaves nonsense!”

He slid the track into the Camaro’s player.

“…Welcome to the audio edition of the Farmer’s Almanac, for the year of our lord, 1972.”

“Oh god…”

“Hah!” Soldier brightened. “Now this is what I am talking about!”

It was going to be a long four hours.

4. Folk

Demo didn’t mind Soldier’s record, to be honest.

It seemed to be about something at least, more than he was used to the things Soldier liked being ‘about’ anything that wasn’t unquestioning patriotism. Sometime he wondered why, of all the folk records in the world, Soldier had decided to settle on Dust Bowl Ballads as his fixation in the realms of music. Americana of all kinds of blended together in Demo’s opinion, but despite the repetitive twang of the banjo and the stifling trite melody, even he could tell there was a story of deep melancholy to be found between the harmless little tunes.

So it wasn’t the fact that Soldier had a record. It was the fact that Soldier had a record, singular.

The idea that a person might purchase multiple albums over the course of their life and play them at different times when the mood struck them never seemed to have been explained to the Soldier. His concept to the record player was this: play the first side. When it was finished, flip it over and play the second side.

Repeat.

For hours.

No matter how sweet Woody Guthrie’s crooning was, having it repeated over and over again day in and day out could give anyone’s otherwise delightful performance all the dulcet notes of prison moonshine. It didn’t bother Soldier one bit it seemed—he would hum to himself merrily as he sat on the chaise, perfectly content to dissemble his shotgun on the coffee table while the same fifteen songs played.

“Y’know love,” Demo tried. “The reason records don’t come glued on to their players is because you can put other ones on. Look.”

He delicately switched out Ballads for something from his own collection, setting the needle so it could fall where it willed.

Soldier eyed the player dubiously as an entirely different style began to fall from the trumpet’s maw, grease rag in hand.

“I don’t get it,” he said as the first refrain came to a close. “You can’t understand a word she’s saying. What’s the point if you don’t know what’s going on?”

“You can’t understand it because it’s in Gaelic, lad.”

Soldier furrowed his brow. “Are you being vulgar at me right now, maggot?”

“Ach, no! I…” Demo sighed. Sometimes why he wondered why he even bothered. “Gaelic’s the language. It’s rare that anyone’ll make records in traditional tongues, but I had a few and I just thought…ah never mind.”

Gently he slid the record back into its sleeve and put Ballads back on.

“…Okay,” was all Soldier said, still frowning as Demo exited the room.

Demo wasn’t so callous to admit he hated the damn thing aloud, not when he could tell it made Soldier honestly, genuinely happy. They’d rib each other for their interests all the time, but not for something this important, and he resigned himself to having Woody as an unwanted houseguest for the rest of time.

That was, until a dreadful cold found him alone in the living room and unwilling to move.

The sickness (and Mum) had demanded he get plenty of bed rest, but he was just so bloody tired of spending all his time between the same four walls and occasionally the bathroom. He’d thought, well, there’s no harm in a quick trip downstairs, only to discover that once he’d gone horizontal on the couch, he lost all motivation to go back up those stairs.

That was how Soldier found him, cocooned in every blanket in the living room, blinking up pitifully as sniffled at his partner. To his credit, Soldier didn’t chastise him for sneaking out of bed; he simply sighed, moved the tissues box closer, and got Demo a cup of tea.

This was all unsurprising, if sweet. What was surprising was—as Demo lay with his back to the majority of the room—the sound of a record sliding into the player. A moment later the room was reendowed with Fear a Bhàta, the song flowing over his senses as he huddled for warmth under his blanket pile. He lifted his head to look at Soldier, who merely shrugged. That was all. Then he sat down on a chair near his Demoman and opened up an issue of Guns & Haircuts.

After that, sometimes Demo would come home to find a piece from his library playing, wafting through the mansion’s halls with no objection from its audience. If Jane had truly changed his mind, or was just doing it for Demo’s benefit, Demo couldn’t tell, but he appreciated the gesture all the same.

5. Piano

“Nothing?” Demo asked as his hands stilled across the keys, the last notes echoing in the music room to the resounding absence of symphony. The only thing left to fill it was the painfully normal sounds of two people simply being alive. “Not a single word of complaint?”

Soldier grinned, and shrugged. “Maybe we found something we can agree on.”

“And that something so happens to involve me doing all the work.” But despite that he grinned, taking Soldier’s hand and rubbing a thumb across the bones along its back, a private concert undergone and concluded. “You should help out. Grab a microphone, lay sultrily across my piano. That’d jazz up the performance.”

“Sounds like a good way to break a piano.”

“Excuses excuses.”

Soldier leaned down, capturing Demo’s mouth in a kiss, knees pressed against the back of the bench, hand still in Demo’s. When he they parted, Demo thought of how he always tasted like gunpowder, no matter how long it’d been.

Soldier smiled against Demo’s lips. “Play us another?”

“So demanding,” Demo smiled, and put fingers back to ivory.

[yelpfic]

2020 Writing (Year in Review)

In 2019, I posted 3K words on AO3.

In 2020, I posted 214K words on AO3.

I have probably written more fic this year than I have in my entire life... and I didn't even start until April.

Since I feel like I'm new to writing all over again (the last time I wrote regularly was probably about a decade ago), this has been a year of experimentation. One obvious change is that I'm writing from this "alt" account, where I've been posting whatever the hell iddy, gratuitous, self-indulgent stories happened to fall out of my brain. (Perhaps as a consequence, I noticed that the ratio of public bookmarks across all my fics clocked in at around 50%. In other words, half the people who bookmarked my works chose to do so privately!)

I also experimented with:

participating in fic exchanges and prompt memes

writing for a variety of fandoms: big and small, new and dead

varying up my writing style: using present and past tenses, ranging from super florid descriptions to conversational prose

self-promotion on Tumblr, which meant attempting to learn how to use it. I'm sure I still don't have all the etiquette down, but no one's complained yet I guess.

My main project this year has been Once a Runner, the fic that got me started writing again, so I owe quite a lot to it. It's also sucked me deep into Eyeshield 21, a fandom that was active 10-15 years ago but still somehow has a few loyal fans. I am deeply grateful to these folks for... well... existing! In addition to OAR, I've written four other ES21 fics this year, each with a different pairing. In all but one fic, I managed to use a different obscure character tag that has never been used before!

This year, I've done a decent job (mostly) working on one big project at a time. I'm starting to get used to the feeling of always having an active writing project again, letting it churn away in my brain in a background process. Sometimes I'm rewarded with a scene or a plot idea that comes out of nowhere, like a plant that produces mysterious fruit - both delightful and worrying at the same time.

I wrap up this year embarking on a new project, Solid as Stone, which, as currently planned, is going to take me even further out of my comfort zone.

AO3 stats and meme responses below the cut.

My AO3 stats at the end of the year:

Meme questions:

Best title: Cloak and Dagger, Cape and Cowl

Worst title: Lightbringer Mine

Longest title: Their offers should not charm us (their evil gifts would harm us) (65 characters)

Shortest title: Talisman (8 characters)

Best first line: "Don't," the witcher's arm shot out, barring his companion mid-step, "touch."

Worst first line: Yeah, in hindsight, Sena shouldn't have answered that doorbell.

Best last line: "It will be done," he agrees, and presses the lilies into her hands. "My promise is solid as stone."

Worst last line: "I can't win or lose until you bring your strain to market. All I ask is that you hurry up and regrow, so we can really compete."

Conclusion: I need to work on endings.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted? I wrote more than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year? Everything. I wasn't into any of these fandoms last year.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest. OAR, for sure. It got me back into writing, and I devoted an enormous amount of mental energy to it. Runners up (pun intended) were any ES21 rarepair fics where I lamented the lack of content for a pairing I loved, tried to explain everything I loved about them in fic form, and basically turned into my ship manifesto/soapbox. In fic form.

Okay, NOW your most popular story. Solid as Stone. OAR comes close by sole virtue of being a long, multichaptered work posted over 8 months, but with a single chapter of under 3K words, and having been up for under two weeks, SAS is already beating OAR in some statistics. I never realized Genshin Impact was such a hot fandom, even for a rarepair like this.

Story most underappreciated by the universe? All my stories got quite a bit more attention than I expected (thank you, everyone, sincerely), but I'd say Cloak and Dagger, Cape and Cowl. It's original, it was written in an exchange, and it has a decent plot (if I do say so myself) and even a bit of smut. Perhaps F/F work is not so popular?

Story that could have been better? I could probably list multiple things I'd want to improve about each story, but let me just limit myself to one. Lightbringer Mine had more story in it that I didn't get around to telling, and the ending felt a little abrupt. I feel a little awkward extending it now, though, as it was a gift fic.

Saddest story? Hmm, I think just about every story I wrote had a happy-ish ending. I suppose I'll go with C&D,C&C.

Most fun? TBH, the same? There are several lighthearted moments and a heist scene. 

Most fucked-up story? Stars and Stripes Forever (lack of link intentional)

Hardest story to write? Once a Runner

Easiest/most fun story to write? Always Knew I'd Fall. I went skeet shooting once, and as soon as I had the idea that Kid and Hiruma might be good at it, the story basically wrote itself. I also thought the song from the title was too perfect of a Kid song to pass up.

Top five scenes you would like to see illustrated: I would die happy to see any scene from OAR illustrated. Off the top of my head, the Hiruma and Sena bathtub scene, haircutting scene, or Hiruma taunting Monta in the car when we first meet Monta. From other fics, Kid walking around the course with Hiruma and making him carrying his gun properly in "Always Thought I'd Fall", and Sara Spectacular blocking the shadow bolts in "Cloak and Dagger, Cape and Cowl".

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I experimented with posting explicit works, and as it turns out, sex sells. I also really put my kinks out there (sexual and otherwise) and was surprised and gratified to find others who appreciated it. Conclusion: it's okay to write the fic that you've always wanted to write. Even if it's embarrassing, or if some will judge you for it, writing for likeminded souls makes more sense than writing to avoid critics.

What are your fic writing goals for next year? I have a lot more ideas for SAS, so I'd like to make that my next big project. I'm also signed up for Five Figure Fic Exchange, so that means I have a 10k fic due by the end of the month that I need to... start... Beyond that, I'd like to write more original works, perhaps something that I can even publish under my real name?? Is that crazy, brain??

Some specific things I've struggled with this year that I'd like to improve: titles and character names, physical descriptions, making my endings less abrupt

[cywscross]

From @lightveils on Twitter (free to use wherever!). I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I definitely have enough fics to fill it lol~

-0-

A Fic You Love Without Knowing The Source Material:

I was born for this by esama (Assassin’s Creed | Altair x Desmond | M)

Juno did her best to lead him to her preferred fate, but the end is coming and Desmond has doubts.

A Fic With A Premise That Shouldn’t Work But Does:

Proposing To Strangers by moonstalker24 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

At the end of a strained relationship, crime novelist Stiles chooses to hide from the world inside a bar with far too many motorcycles outside it for comfort. Here he'll meet the man of his dreams, eat food and propose marriage, all within the first five minutes.

Peter doesn't know who this kid is, but he's cute and looks like he could use a break. So he feeds him. He's not expecting a marriage proposal, but with what comes after, he doesn't really mind.

A Fic You’ve Reread Several Times:

Hooverville by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

Town to town, train to train, tent to tent.

By 1932, the dust had begun to blow and the jobs were gone.

Anonymity was a byproduct of looking for work, which made it both necessary and convenient.

Stiles had enough secrets of his own to know to look the other way when he saw something that shouldn’t be possible.

The ghost of a tail giving enough balance to disembark a moving train.

Near silent Latin whispered on the edge of a tent encampment.

A flash of burning eyes.

He had more than enough to worry about without adding the oddities of others, and besides- having unusually sharp teeth certainly didn’t make a man worse than the ones running from the wife and kids they couldn’t feed.

So Stiles kept his observations to himself. He kept his everything to himself.

Until he met a man. One with eyes so blue they seemed to glow- and then they did.

Stiles tried to look away, but for the first time he was stopped.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart. Aren’t you curious?”

A Fic You Still Remember Many Years Later:

All True-Hearted Souls by mardia (Temeraire | Laurence x Granby | G)

“For God's sake, if someone doesn't talk Laurence out of these constant heroics, I wouldn't bet a farthing on his chances; no, and not ours either.” Four times that John Granby helped save William Laurence's life. Laurence/Granby. Spoilers up to Empire of Ivory.

A Comfort Fic:

Nothing Improper by Bunnywest (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

“How long since someone touched you, sweet boy?” Peter asks, his voice barely a breath in Stiles’ ear. “Days? Weeks? Months?” Stiles nods imperceptibly at that last one.

“After…after everything, after Allison,” is all Stiles manages to get out.

A Cathartic Fic:

Swing by ShippersList (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles wants to fly.

A Fic You’d Print And Put On Your Bookshelf:

Nose to the Wind by Batsutousai (HP | Tom x Harry | M)

While Harry had been content with his second chance, that didn't keep him from thinking what he could have done different, how many people could have survived if he hadn't been set on the very specific path he'd walked. Third time is the charm, though, right?

A Fic You Associate With A Song (x2):

Strange Duet by BelleAmante, thiliart (thilia) (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

The past three years have been a series of shocking, or not so shocking, successes for 2018 Tony award winner and two time Grammy nominee, Stiles Stilinski. You don’t typically find classically trained opera singers singing alternative folk rock to crowds at Coachella. Nor do you find indie singer/songwriters winning best actor awards at the Tony’s for their Broadway debuts. Stilinski has made it his lifetime habit to defy and exceed all expectations.

-or-

A Steter fic loosely based on Phantom of the Opera

~

Full Circle by Nike Femme (FMA | Roy x Ed | T)

Edward Elric returns with amnesia. He has lived the past four years as Auric, a Gatekeeper. But there are some battles that only he can fight. Will his friends be able to awaken Ed, and what happens to Auric if they do?

A Fic That Inspires You:

Off the Line by esama (FFVII | Cloud x Vincent | T)

In which Cloud gets a Virtual Reality Dream Console – ShinRa's latest in virtual reality technology. Aaand everything pretty much goes downhill from there.

A Fic That Brought You On Board A New Ship:

Me and Mine by linndechir (Fast and the Furious | Deckard x Owen | E)

The last time they'd spoken, Deckard had told Owen that he was tired of cleaning up his messes. But the first thing he did after breaking out of prison was to take Owen to the other end of the world so they could lick their wounds and start planning their revenge.

A Fic You Wish Could Be A Movie:

Moving In (To Every Single Aspect of Danny’s Life, Including the Boring Bits like Dry-Cleaning) by westgirl (Hawaii Five-0 | Steve x Danny | T)

It felt wrong for Steve to sound unsure of his place in Danny’s life. His place in Danny’s life was at Danny’s side, driving him slowly insane. Steve should feel secure about that.

A Fic That Led To You Making Friends With The Author:

Begin and End by Rikkamaru (Log Horizon x HP | G)

This is how it begins: a boy rejected by his family, a boy reunited with his brother by his sister-in-law's intervention. A boy who found a family in an online game. But how will it end?

FREE SPACE:

Reverti Ad Praeteritum by Batsutousai (Fullmetal Alchemist | Roy x Edward | M)

Unwillingly forced to serve as a human trial for a crazy alchemist experimenting with time travel, Edward Elric finds himself standing across from Truth in the moment it takes his leg from him. Armed with the knowledge of what's to come and burdened with guilt for the choices he'd made as an adult, Ed sets out to fix every mistake he ever made and save every life they ever lost, no matter what it takes.

A Fic You’ve Gushed About IRL:

Designation: Miracle by umisabaku (Kuroko no Basket | M)

It's been three years since seven human experiments, called "Miracles," escaped Teiko Industries, alerting the world to the presence of super-powered children. Now they're finally integrating into society-- going to normal high schools, playing basketball, falling in love-- and trying to find out if it's possible to truly escape their past.

A Fic You Associate With A Place (have to self-rec for this one):

Safe Harbour by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles x Chris | T)

Peter didn't think he'd find a home here. He certainly didn't think he'd find a home with two other men.

Chris and Stiles prove him wrong.

A Fic That Made You Gasp Out Loud (kind of? it was suspenseful):

Sanctuary by DiscontentedWinter (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

The Hale Wolf Sanctuary isn’t just for wolves.

It turns out it’s for Stilinskis as well.

A Fic You Found At The Right Time:

slow increments by Areiton (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles)

Peter is enigmatic, egotistical, sometimes barely sane. He's sharp and cutting and takes more time to care for the pack than anyone.And sometimes, John catches him watching Stiles.

A Fic That You Would Read Fic Of:

if you try to break me, you will bleed by Dialux (Game of Thrones | Jon x Sansa | T)

It had been a slash across her chest from a White Walker’s sword that finally ended her life. Sansa’d landed in a puddle of her own blood, and she’d died quickly, quietly.

And then she’d awoken with a gasp, trembling, in a bed that had burned under Theon’s betrayal.

A Fic That Made You Laugh Out Loud:

The Path towards Unwilling Godhood by Sky_King (Bleach | Kisuke x Ichigo | G)

Ichigo has never had the most normal life, and this latest chapter of it is no different.

"I'm not a god!"

A Fic With A Line (Or Two) That You’ve Memorized By Heart:

Atlas by distractedKat (Star Trek | Spock x Jim | T)

Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning.

A Fic That Gave You Butterflies:

The Rest of Our Lives by mia6363 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

“I don’t know, as a kid I watched a lot of movies, you know? And at first I figured like… I’d be on some great adventure that would take me away from it all, you know? Like Indiana Jones comes around and is all, ‘Hey Stiles, buddy, come with me we’ve got to go save the world.’ Then… you and… everything happened… then I just… I figured I’d die before I was eighteen.”

A Fic That Embodies Something You Value In Life:

The Boy Sleuth by Shey (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is eight when he discovers a box of his mom’s old Nancy Drew Mysteries in the back of the guest bedroom closet.

A Favourite AU:

Love What is Behind You by KouriArashi (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

Basically what it says on the label. Hunger Games type fusion. Stiles doing way better than anyone anticipates. Peter finds him intriguing. Ruthless, devious assholes working together to ruin bad guys, as the Steter ship is meant to be.

A Fic You Stayed Up Too Late To Finish Reading:

Of Dwobbits, Dragons and Dwarves by ISeeFire (The Hobbit | Fem!Bilbo x Fili | T)

Bilba has been a slave her entire life. All she knows of the outside world is what she sees from time to time outside the gates of Moria and the stories her mother used to tell her. Stories of a place called the Shire where her mother once lived and a placed called Erebor where, as far as she knows, her father still lives. Stories of dragons a thousand times larger, and more intelligent, than the beasts the orcs rode and of a strange concept called freedom where one was allowed to live as they wished with no one to tell them what they could, or could not do.

The stories meant little to Bilba. The only future she had was to live, and die, as a slave as countless number had before her.

And then the orcs dragged an injured female firedrake through the gates, her rider screaming obscenities behind her as he fought to reach her side...and everything changed.

A Fic That Made You Feel Seen (another self-rec lol):

i am addicted to death (so remind me what it’s like to live) by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is sixteen years old. He has already died seventy-eight times.

[fenheart87]

manikin

Lukanette 2020 Exchange piece For @the-alice-of-hearts, enjoy! 

Marinette was on a mission,step outside of her comfort zone and again echoed by her technical design professor to be more daring and assertive and bold. She needed to round out her styles and portfolio as much as she could to make herself a more attractive candidate for any applications she submitted or even just expanding her online commissions and bulking her portfolio that way if she chose to start out on her own. It was difficult to just be set in one style and make it big when just starting. Mari figured that she would explore as much as she could before committing to one genre or style, it would keep her far from being burnt out like some of her fellow classmates.

“Hey Nathaniel! Have you seen Juleka?” She called out, walking a bit faster to the redhead who waited for her to join him.

“She was around this morning but I haven’t seen her since. Have you tried calling or texting her?”

“Yup, nothing but silence though. I’m out of touch with everyone’s schedules the more time goes by.”

“Is she complaining she can’t be super Mari and be our everyday ladybug again?” Marc teased, sneaking up and poking the shorter girl’s sides resulting in a squeal.

“Marc!” She smacked a red clad shoulder before they disappeared behind their boyfriend. “Stop doing that!”

“Stop making it so easy?” Nathaniel offered, smirking at Mari’s adorable pout.

“I hate you. I really do. Welp, if Juleka is busy and you’re both too shy to play model and dress up and have proof of it, I guess I need to find a model.”

“I’m pretty much free if you need a mannequin, class ends at three for me this week.” Marc offered kindly, green eyes peeping over Nathaniel’s shoulder.

“Oh wonderful! I found another sample fabric I wanted to try for you!” She did her jump and hip shimmy, ignoring the giggles.

“Only exception being Thursday, that’s date night this week.”

“Fine, have your boyfriend Marc on Thursday, I get your girlfriend Michelle the rest of the week. See you later!” Mari dashed away, giggling as the bright red spots on Marc’s cheeks.

After walking around campus and deciding against searching too far as she still had classes, she was no closer to finding her muse model but it did nothing to dampen her good mood. It was a sign that meant she would just have to explore the in and outs further and stay away from her usual haunts. Instead of using her eyes she decided to let her ears guide her, Marinette glanced around a few times and focused on conversations instead of what people were wearing, hearing the emotions in their voices. With the new mindset, carefully the young designer wandered around and sketched some expressions, new emotions to craft into fabric choices and color schemes to make them come alive as clothing to wear the emotion plain as day. There was a ton of laughter and giggles around her until she got closer to the library. The sound of a guitar drew her in like a sirens song.

Marinette needed a break from all the walking and climbing she had done so far and decided to stop by the library for the few books she had on hold. Skirting around the cliques that hugged the stairs more often than naught, the petite designer made her way into the library. Seeing Max working the check out desk, Marinette bee lined for him, smiling wide enough to crinkle eyes just slightly.

“Marinette, how are you today?” Max greeted, shuffling books around to scan them and write the names on the cards for the reserved items.

“I should have a few books on hold, all fashion related of course, there was one that was checked out but if you could see if it’s been returned?”

“Sure thing, book title, author or DEWY code?”

“There’s several, here’s my card.” Marinette held it out for Max to scan, rocking on heels slightly to a rhythm she could hear every time the door opened.

“Ah yes, you have five reserved and it looks like two have not been checked back on yet. Would you like me to check the return bin?” Max asked, finding the appropriate stack of books and setting them on the counter.

“Yes please, even if we can find one more that makes it easier to study and hopefully pass with flying colors.”

“Fashion has always been a huge part of you Marinette, as long as your heart is in it then you’ll pass with flying colors.” Max smiled at the rare blush on the young woman’s face, “I’ll check the returns for you, be right back.

Marinette breathed deeply to calm her sudden nerves, her friend’s unwavering faith in her abilities always managed to take the designer off guard but she wouldn’t change any of them for the world. While waiting, she filled out the cards for the books in the pile to make Max’s job easier but kept getting distracted by the wonderful music that kept sneaking through.

“I managed to find both luckily, if you could fill these out then you free to chase whatever has you so distracted.” The glint from his glasses made Marinette squeak in embarrassment as being caught.

“Thanks Max!” Quickly she stuffed the books in her backpack and marched at a reasonable pace to the door and only let out the breath she was holding once outside.

Students shuffled to and from the library, stopping to chat quietly or bask in the music for a moment before continuing their way. The solo guitarist was the center of attention, playing a mix of old and new songs. The overall genre seemed to be with the intent to soothe stressed students and teachers alike as they passed by, Marinette could feel herself relaxing and her creative block lifting. Deciding to obey her muse, the slim young woman snagged a bench that was being vacated by a couple who had finished their coffees. Unsure how much time had passed, the designer lost herself to the world of inspiration, completing outlines with notes and vague sketches with the knowledgeable experience telling her to be swift and flesh then out later.

The music had become a soft and sweet ballad, just hovering in the background for anyone to notice or ignore if they were passing by. Marinette took a quick glance at her outlines and notes, polishing little things or rewriting fabric choices, her eyes fell to the musician that she could finally see and she froze. This was exactly what she was looking for, his expression spoke of calm but hid the slight anxiety every time he started a new song. When he suddenly changed tunes and a couple stopped fighting because the music took over made his lips quirk in a faint grin. His clothes were made to blend in, ripped jeans and combat boots topped with a plain Jagged tee and lightweight layered Hoodie. That did absolutely nothing to help hide his hair with the blue tips, was that a tongue ring?! Marinette felt the need to sketch and design and she had to see what color his eyes were.

Swiftly but carefully she put away her supplies and made her way to the musician that was quietly packing away his guitar and removing the tips from his case. The designer caught his attention and when the weight of gaze met hers, Marinette just blurted out what came to mind.

“You’re hot, can I undress you?” With a squeak, she smacked her face with her sketchpad and took a few deep lungs full of air. “I’m sorry! I want your clothes- I just, you were playing and sound sexy- GOOD SOUND! I really like you- YOUR  style it’s mysterious but like nice- I really want to undress you- I mean I-!”

“Deep breaths.” His melodic voice cut through her anxiety like a hot knife to butter. “I’m Luka.”

“Ma-ma-Marinette!”

“Nice to meet your Ma-ma-Marinette. You’re an artist too?” He nodded causally to her sketchbook.

“Yes. Fashion designer. Project.” Few more deep breaths. “I need to branch out and try a new style and I usually create women’s clothes. So my professor told me to challenge myself and your music inspired me and when I looked at you, you’re perfect. That is- I mean, if you wouldn’t mind being my model?”

“So do I get to undress myself or is that your job?” Luka teased with a grin, causing Marinette to hide her face again with a squeak. “I have a crazy schedule but I’d love to help.”

“I have time on Tuesdays from two to five, Thursdays from five to seven and Saturdays after the morning rush so more like three or four to eight.” She rattled off, pulling out her planner to his amusement.

“Okay I’ll have to check my schedule, two of my classes are up in the air. How about we exchange phone numbers and then I can text you what’s my schedules going to look like? It changes week to week.”

“Most musicians do it seems, one of my best friends is a DJ and he takes all kinds of gigs so it’s hard to sit down and catch up.” They traded phones and saved their numbers before swapping back. “Some of this we can do via Skype if needed, you have to be comfortable with the design too and just wearing it to help my grade.”

“Seems like you’ve done this before.” Luka stuffed his phone into his pocket and packed away his guitar, shouldering his case.

“Fashion student, too broke for mannequins so I lure in unsuspecting folk with delicious free pastries from the best bakery in town.” She teased with a huge grin.

“Well then, I look forward to those pastries.”

Waving, they went their separate ways and Marinette had a skip in her step that had been missing due to the stress. Texting her other friends that were her usual models but this time with ideas of clothing to compliment the designs she had drafted for Luka. Everyone had a positive response and she had just enough people for a full collection, Marinette was sure to blow this project out of the water.

- - - 

Luka stared down at his phone with a smile. As far as first impressions go, he didn’t think negatively of Marinette. It was easy for the musician to recognize the spark of creativity making her blue bells shine and the dark circles the byproduct of sleepless nights from the muse keeping her awake to do her bidding. Her song was the dead giveaway, it was beautiful but unfinished with the crash of crescendos and decrescendos in spots, showing she was afraid to stay loud and bold.

“That had better not be another cat meme.” Juleka muttered, sliding into the booth across from him.

“Nope, I just got asked to undress for a pretty cute girl.”

“What girl wants to see you naked?”

“Not naked, she wants to dress me up.” Luka corrected, waving the waitress over so they could order. “Caramel cappuccino and one hot fudge vanilla shake.”

“Design student or art student?” Luka had no trouble hearing his sisters mumbles, even over the din of the coffee-shop.

“Design student, I guess she felt a good vibe with the music I was playing and she got bit by the creative bug.”

“Not the only one that got bit.” Juleka smiled innocently as the waitress set down their drink orders. “When’s your first fitting?”

“I don’t know, I told Marinette I would text her my schedule for the week once I figure it out.

"Well them, you had better bring me back an eclair and a chocolatine, try the macaroons.” With that cryptic advice, Juleka took her drink and left her brother confused. A ding from his phone had him opening a picture of a very familiar face forwarded from his sister.

Is this the ‘go get em tiger high-five from you?

You hurt her and you’ll answer to your future sister-in-law.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 2

Bitchin’ Bajas

The whole country is snowed in and Texas is starting to look a lot like the Terrordome, and we can see how people might not be laser focused on music right now, especially if they’re cold or sick or out of food. But music continues to pour in, in great quantities and beguiling diversity, and a fair amount of it is very, very good. So, while we encourage you to take care of your brothers and sisters first (by donating to organizations like Austin Mutual Aid, Community Care — Mutual Aid Houston, Feed the People Dallas or the Austin Disaster Relief Network), we also present another collection of short, mostly positive reviews of new-ish records that have caught our attention. Writers this time around include Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Justin Cober-Lake, Eric McDowell, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Tim Clarke and Mason Jones.  

Babyface Ray — Unfuckwitable (Wavy Gang)

On his new 7 song EP Unfuckwitable, thanks to his technical skills, Babyface Ray grinds through a great variety of trendy topics under a great variety of beats: from “not rap” rap to “bad bitch” rap to “we got it off the mud” rap. It’s all very professionally done, as you expect from a professional rapper, despite Ray’s claims that he’s not one. But midway through it, behind the misty fog of bouncy production and some lines catching the ear, you can clearly see at least two problems, with the EP and Babyface Ray. First, he doesn’t have anything to say (unlike some hip hop artists who ran out of things to say, he never had any in the first place). Second, he either doesn’t rhyme or goes for a lazy rhyming. The standout here is “Like Daisy Lane”, a catchy little song, with absolutely no substance behind it.

Ray Garraty

 Bananagun — The True Story of Bananagun (Full Time Hobby)

The True Story of Bananagun by Bananagun

Ooh look, it’s tropicalia from Australia! The five-piece Bananagun hails geographically from Melbourne, but metaphysically from 1960s Sao Paulo or swinging London. Their first album swaggers like a long-haired hipster in wide-flared hip huggers, fingers snapping, funk bass slapping, keyboards and flutes gamboling in hot melodic pursuit. Multiple band members got their start in similarly 1960s-aligned Frowning Clouds, so the psych garage freakbeat elements are, perhaps, to be expected. But Bananagun runs hotter, wilder and considerably less Anglo. “People Talk Too Much” rattles the foundations with scorching funk percussion, big flares of brass and a vintage Afro-beat call and response chorus. “Mushroom Bomb” likewise heats up psychedelic apocalyptica with seething syncopations of bass and drums. Most of these tracks are a bit overstuffed, with a pawn shop’s worth of instruments enlisted in happy, dippy, everyone-get-in-the-jam exuberance, but am I going to complain about too much joy? I am not. Bring on the Bananagun.

Jennifer Kelly 

 Andrew Barker / Jon Irabagon — Anemone (Radical Documents)

Anemone by Andrew Barker + Jon Irabagon Duo

Some names tell you exactly where you stand, and others raise questions. Take the name of this record, for example; did drummer Andrew Barker (Gold Sparkle Band, Little Huey Orchestra) and tenor saxophonist Jon Irabagon (Mostly Other People Do The Killing, I Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues) have the aquatic or land-lubber variety in mind? To get specific, is this record a buttercup, or a bottom-dwelling, plant-lookalike life form that waits for other aquatic species to come close enough for it to lance them, paralyze them with venom and chow down on their still-living bodies?

“Learnings,” the first of the album’s four tracks, is true to its name, being a distillation of instrumental tones and free jazz attacks that might remind you of moments from various Coltrane and Pharoah records. It feels familiar, but invigorating. The title tune comes next, and it’s a slower, more laconic performance, attractive enough to be either the sea or land variety. Then comes “Book of Knots,” which suspends an intricate percussive construction over slow-bubbling pops and barks. The record closes with “Branded Contempt,” a juxtaposition of pathos-rich blowing and restless brushwork. One can listen most of the way through this record without guessing whether it owes allegiance to Poseidon or Persephone, but the coarse intensity of Irabagon’s playing in the last minutes is the tell; this record packs a sting.

Bill Meyer

BBsitters Club — BBsitters Club & Party (Hausu Mountain)

BBsitters Club & Party by BBsitters Club

Label Hausu Mountain specializes in weird experimental electronics. Its release of a rare rock record might raise a few eyebrows. BBsitters Club, with the label's founders making up half the quartet, pulls off a tricky feat in becoming an arch rock band. BBsitters Club & Party has enough old-fashioned blues and psych-based rock to suggest a group taking itself seriously. Naming the opening track “Crazy Horse” immediately calls attention to its meta status, even if the track sounds more like Pink Floyd than Neil Young's collaborators (and there's a touch of hair metal in there, too). No group with songs called “Joel,” “Joel Reprise,” and “Joel Reprise Reprise” can take itself too seriously, and that kind of playfulness runs throughout the disc. At the same time, BBsitters Club does take its musicianship seriously. They avoid conventional forms, working in complicated structures full of surprising twists. The group can get a little proggy, but then twist it toward an Allman Brothers-style jam. If it starts to settle into the Woodstock era (see the clear nods to Hendrix and Cream), it jumps to the 1980s with an unlikely easiness. The band goes wherever they feel like rocking, with everyone invited to the party.

Justin Cober-Lake 

 Bitchin Bajas — live ateliers claus (les albums claus)

Bitchin Bajas - live ateliers claus by Bitchin Bajas

If we can all agree the pandemic has dealt musicians some dizzying blows, that’s hardly to say they had it easy before. Squeezed between tech platforms and spurned by a hostile federal government (speaking for the US, anyway), even on tour they had to contend with iffy financials, physical neglect and — because why not say it louder for those in the back? — literal theft. So Cooper Crain, Rob Frye and Dan Quinlivan found themselves over 4,000 miles from home in May 2018, playing Brussels’s les ateliers claus on borrowed equipment after having their gear stolen (twice) on a European tour in support of Bajas Fresh. “Um, we’re, ah, Bitchin Bajas, from Chicago ... Illinois,” one of the trio says over the set’s first tentative tones. “And thanks ... for coming. This is gonna be great, I think. Or, we’ll see.”

Perhaps it’s not a question of either/or but both/and, the cosmic “we’ll see” of COVID-19 only amplifying how truly great it is to receive this music in the unimaginable future of three years later. As ever with the Bitchin Bajas, there is pleasure in the subtleties, whether that’s an excited concert-goer whooping as “Jammu” picks up momentum or the way each turn of the musical kaleidoscope seems to bring out new hues. That the recording doesn’t represent any dramatic departure from what we hear on the studio album or during other sets on other tours is part of its appeal and part of its power as a balm. We don’t need any more startling revelations right now. In this sense, the whole live ateliers claus series is a reminder that this venue and these artists — from Michael Chapman (vol. 1) up through Will Guthrie (vol. 12) — are still here today. If we can help repay what’s been stolen from them, they’ll be here tomorrow, too.

Eric McDowell  

 Loren Connors & Oren Ambarchi — Leone (Family Vineyard) 

Leone by Loren Connors & Oren Ambarchi

This is the first time that Loren Connors and Oren Ambarchi have collaborated, despite the myriad ties that bind the two guitarists across the global exploratory music scene. Leone offers a trio of pieces arranged like overlapping globs of paint on a painter’s palette: the two artists each perform solo with a collaborative piece in between. “Lorn” is a side-long Connors piece with the guitarist in an experimental mood, hammering the reverb-drenched strings to create a glorious cacophony. Ambarchi’s “Nor” recasts the guitar first as a church organ and then as a subaquatic communications device. When the two pair up for “Ronnel,” it is a symbiotic meeting. Connors picks out notes around which Ambarchi weaves contrails of tone. It is a mesmerizing piece, and, we hope, just the first of many joint efforts from these two.    

Bryon Hayes

Buck Curran — WFMU 'The Frow Show' Live Session (Feat. Jodi Pedrali) (Obsolete Recordings)

Buck Curran: WFMU 'The Frow Show' Live Session (Feat. Jodi Pedrali) by Obsolete Recordings

When we last caught up with Buck Curran, he was hunkered down at then ground zero for the COVID epidemic, socially isolating in Bergamo, Italy while recording the lovely acoustic-guitar-and-voice album, No Love Is Sorrow. Half a year later, still deep in the grip of a worldwide pandemic, he made this record, a duet with Italian keyboard player Jodi Pederali, revisiting one song from the previous album and adding three others. The tracks with Pederali fuse Curran’s electric blues with the bright, meditative melodies of Pederali’s piano. The two players interact and overlap in intoxicating dialogue. “Deep in the Lovin’ Arms of My Babe,” reprises the finger-picked folk of Curran’s earlier album, adding a glittering sprinkle of piano to its mournful, wistful melody. The set was recorded for Jess Jarnow’s show on WFMU and released on Bandcamp, and while not as long or as weighty as No Love Is Sorrow, it’s well worth hearing.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Jürg Frey — l’air, l’instant - deux pianos (Elsewhere)

l'air, l'instant - deux pianos by Jürg Frey

When you put two pianos together, there must surely be a temptation to see how much sound you can get out of them.  Swiss composer Jürg Frey does the opposite on the two compositions that make up this CD. Each is so sparse that an inattentive listener might think they are hearing one patient pianist, when in fact they are hearing a pair of deeply skilled interpreters.  The task assigned to Reinier van Houdt and Dante Boon is to place their notes in such precise relation to each other that they can influence each other’s pitches without interfering with them. Each musician is, as the title “toucher l’air (deux pianos)” (2019) suggests, inducing a slight disturbance in the atmosphere, lightly pressing transitory shapes into the silence that absorbs each note. “Entre les deux l’instant” (2017/2018) allows the two pianists to decide how closely they will match paces as they trade the roles of melodist and accentuator. Immune to gauche temptation, Frey seems drawn instead to see how much attention and how little sound it takes to accentuate the beauty of silence.

Bill Meyer

 Chris Garneau — The Kind (The Orchard)

THE KIND by Chris Garneau

Chris Garneau’s lush, stunning art-pop swoops and whirls and flutters in wild arcs of drama. In this fifth album, the New York City songwriter works in a restrained palette of guitar, piano, electronics and drums, but colors way outside the box with his vibrant, emotional-laden voice, which flies up into a falsetto register with an ease not heard since Jeff Buckley passed. “I know you loved me truly, but we don’t love one way, do we?” he croons on the gorgeous “Telephone,” lofting up into whistle range without losing the purity or the trueness of his tone. Cuts like the title song and “Now On” are prayerfully simple, just framing piano chords and Garneau’s highly charged delivery. But others like “Not the Child” are more intricately constructed with a lattice of picked strings, an antic syncopated beat and staccato vocal counterpoints that dance around the main line. The Kind’s songs are deeply personal and rooted in Garneau’s experiences as gay man, but they’ll resonate with anyone who’s ever loved or longed or regretted.

Jennifer Kelly

Gaunt Emperor — Femur (Self-released)

Femur by Gaunt Emperor

Some would-be emperors may no longer have clothes (looking at you, Trump), but Gaunt Emperor is unabashed about wearing its influences on its sleeve. Femur is the first LP by this California project, and Sunn 0))) and the first few records released by Earth are large presences, looming hugely just behind the sounds Gaunt Emperor generates. If you’re familiar with those other bands, you get the essential idea: deep (really deep) notes and long (really long) sustain from loud (really loud) guitars, and not much else. That said, Gaunt Emperor has an aesthetic vision that seems to be attempting to survey its own territory. While compositions like “Slow Submersion” and “The Birth of Obsidian” work from the playbook established by O’Malley and Anderson, the textures of Gaunt Emperor’s guitar tone have their own sort-of-subtle qualities. They’re pretty good. “Conception,” the second track on Femur, expresses a similar inclination towards melody that Earth began to demonstrate on The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull (2008), but Gaunt Emperor retains an unrestrained relation to volume; you can feel the heat inexorably building in the overdriven amplifier stack. In any case, this is suitable music for pondering massive, ongoing phenomena, like the calving of icebergs off Antarctica’s coast or the steady disappearance of the Amazonian rainforest — not that Femur will make you feel any better about that stuff.

Jonathan Shaw

 Luka Kuplowsky — Stardust (Mama Bird)

Stardust by Luka Kuplowsky

Soft jazzy reveries coalesce around this Toronto songwriter’s offhand, semi-spoken melodies. Little accents of acoustic bass, slide guitar, hushed harmonies dart in and out of focus, but the songs themselves come up on you obliquely, filtering in from the vents in evocatively scented clouds. Rhythms sway in undulant, bossa nova syncopations, while chords slide into resolution from slightly off center. A half-remembered jazz flute lick lick lofts through the window. At the center of it all is Luka himself, posing, but not insisting on koan-like observations. “Perfection is a noose,” he confides amid the muted wreck and roll of massed jazz sounds in “City by the Window,” but he seems unbothered by it. Perfection is an accident, and if you look at it too hard, it disappears.

Jennifer Kelly

 José Lencastre / Hernâni Faustino / Vasco Furtado — Vento (Phonogram Unit)

Vento by José Lencastre / Hernâni Faustino / Vasco Furtado

Vento is the Portuguese word for wind, and the name conveys that combination of purposeful and chance operations that converged to make this record happen. The trio of alto saxophonist José Lencastre, double bassist Hernâni Faustino and drummer Vasco Furtado didn’t book a studio with the intent to record; they just wanted a place to play for a couple hours. But the engineers had just obtained some microphones and wanted to try out their new toys. Likewise, this improvisational trio did not bring an tunes to the session, but they play with a purposefulness born of shared aesthetic values. Whether are sailing a brisk clip, as on the title track, or gradually unwinding the music at low volume and velocity, as on “Ruínas,” they operate as a real time compositional cooperative, developing their music in linear fashion. While they share a direction, they also value contrast. For example, Lencastre’s breathy tone during the latter tune’s early moments balances Faustino’s pointed twang. Since remorseless microoganisms and anti-cultural politicians are each doing their best to keep live music down, records like this serve a necessary function in reminding us of the life force that motivates improvised music.

Bill Meyer

Lilys — A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (Frontier)

A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns by Lilys

Kurt Heasley’s Lilys made some of the most ebullient and inventive guitar music of the 1990s. The best Lilys songs sound as though they’re flying apart and being put back together as they hurtle along, killer hooks tossed aside as quickly as they start to drag you in. Though they’re perhaps best known for their Kinks-indebted breakthrough Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, this was actually a sharp turn away from the dense shoegazey atmospherics of their first couple of records. Thus far, Frontier Records has reissued their first two albums, In the Presence of Nothing and Eccsame the Photon Band, both of which are superb. The A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns EP was originally released in 1994, a transitional period when Heasley was still exploring the textural joys of distorted guitars while starting to throw down pop hooks with aplomb. Opener “Ginger” hits similar pleasure centers as Weezer’s debut, released the same year, while on “Dandy,” Heasley’s vocal sounds uncannily like Stephen Malkmus. The previously unreleased “G. Cobalt Franklin” foregrounds searing guitar tones and bulbous bass, the bulk of the melodic layers sounding like they’re bleeding through from the next room, peppered with swirling flange and voice recordings. The second half of this expanded edition comprises songs originally demoed for Eccsame the Photon Band, and later released in 2000 on a split EP with Aspera Ad Astra. They’re decent enough, though feel like they’re missing the spark of the best Lilys creations. So, while this amounts to a far-from-essential Lilys release, it’s fascinating to hear Heasley in transition, working out how to reconcile his love for melody with his immersion in guitar noise.

Tim Clarke

 Fred Lonberg-Holm — Lisbon Solo (Notice)

Lisbon Solo by Fred Lonberg-Holm

As befits a guy who has also recorded a “solo” record in the company of a Florida swamp full of frogs, Fred Lonberg-Holm picks his recording locations strategically, and location has a lot to do with how this album turned out. It was done at an old and well-appointed studio in Lisbon, Portugal, where he could be sure that the microphones would catch every creak, groan and polyphonic wail he might draw out of his main instrument. But he also knew, from prior visits, that he would have access to some seriously over-the-hill pianos. While most of the album is devoted to savagely bowed attacks, the odd digressions into detuned, radiant chimes deliver just enough respite to keep you off balance and on the edge of your seat.

Bill Meyer 

 Dan Melchior — Odes (Cudighi Records)  

'Odes' by Dan Melchior

Dan Melchior is likely a recognizable name to Dusted readers; he has made quite a string of releases over the years. This cassette/digital release, recorded in 2016, is a subdued affair, nine songs for the most part following the same blueprint: a track of strummed or lightly picked acoustic guitar with a fuzzy electric lead layered on top. The foundational guitar tracks establish a calm, repetitive cycle, giving some of these songs an almost raga-like feel, in some cases through a hazy reverb: "Tybee" feels like you're sitting in the next room listening to him play through a closed door.  

Calling the overdubs "guitar leads" implies the wrong feel. While played through fuzz or distortion, the mood is a woozy one, more opiated than energetic, but in a drifting, pleasant way. There's an over-arching melancholy throughout these songs, one person alone playing to satisfy a need. Knowing Melchior was facing the recent loss of his wife Letha certainly colors it, but even a listener ignorant of that back-story would feel the emotional resonance.  

These nine ramshackle, loose instrumental pieces are personal, incomplete, and like having someone entrust you with private stories in song form.  

Mason Jones

Mint Field — Sentimiento Mundial (Felte)

Sentimiento Mundial by Mint Field

Mint Field, from Mexico City, filters the feedback and noise of shoegaze guitars through a pensive screen, finding an aura of nostalgia in between and among blinding walls of scree. Estrella del Sol Sánchez contributes two of the band’s signature sounds, the dreamy, delicate vocals and the swirling masses of altered guitar. She is supported by Sebastian Neyra on bass and Callum Brown on drums. The volume level varies song to song, but it’s all mesmerizing and good. “Delicadeza” breezes in on the tenderest sort of sigh, the softest, most lyrical strummed accompaniment, but “Contingencia” digs in and pounds, drums cranking, bass thudding and guitars winging out in wild arabesques of distorted sound. The easiest comparison might be the similarly hauntingly voiced Lush, but there’s something special here in the soft, keening soprano calm at the center of even the most agitated cuts.  

Jennifer Kelly

 Roy Montgomery — Island of Lost Souls (Grapefruit)

Roy Montgomery 40th Anniversary 2021 LP Series by Roy Montgomery

In 2021, guitarist Roy Montgomery celebrates 40 years of music-making with the release of four new LPs, beginning with Island of Lost Souls. Though 2018’s fantastic Suffuse included vocals from artists such as Haley Fohr (Circuit Des Yeux), Julianna Barwick and Liz Harris (Grouper), Island of Lost Souls is entirely instrumental, comprising four pieces, each dedicated to a late artist (actor Sam Shepard, and musicians Adrian Borland, Peter Principle and Florian Fricke). Though wordless, Montgomery’s guitar speaks volumes, flickering and flowing with the liquid grace of a player intimately familiar with both his fretboard and the effects pedals at his feet, sending waves of tone cascading with delay and reverb. Plus, on the side-long, climactic “The Electric Children of Hildegard von Bingen,” Montgomery pitch-shifts his guitar so it really ascends to the heavens, where it takes up residence for 22 minutes. Fans of Windy & Carl, Flying Saucer Attack and The Durutti Column, take note.

Tim Clarke

 Jon Mueller — Family Secret (American Dreams)

Family Secret by Jon Mueller

A family secret is usually a multigenerational skeleton in the closet that is either sorrowful or sinister. For percussionist and Volcano Choir member Jon Mueller, it is the former: a series of familial rifts that became the unlikely muse for this collection of reverberating drones. Mueller employs instruments that produce multiple resonant tones, such as singing bowls and gongs, to create rich pools of complex sound. Metallic hues brighten subterranean rumblings while enigmatic dapples of condensed steam coalesce into liquid shapes. The drummer conjures ghastly creatures through extending the vocabulary of his drum kit. Cymbal scrapes become banshee wails and scoured skins emanate uncanny whispers. With Family Secret, Mueller manifests his personal demons as phantom signals. He transmogrifies emotional strife into physical actions which then become ethereal. Ironically, the resulting sounds are actually soothing. Pain has never sounded so sweet.  

Bryon Hayes 

 Primitive Motion — Descendants of Air (Kindling)

Primitive Motion is the Brisbane-based duo of Sandra Selig and Leighton Craig, and Descendants of Air is their seventh album, previously only available as a CD given away at live shows. You can immediately imagine what the album sounds like based on the artist name and album title alone: rustic yet cosmic, full of space and open to spontaneity. Recorded on the banks of the Enoggera Reservoir, these eight meandering pieces prominently feature the sounds of wind and leaves, plus the calls of raucous Australian birds, while Selig and Craig insinuate suggestions of melodies and chords on nylon-string guitar, woodwinds, and battery-powered keyboards, and gently massage the air with percussive patters. Though part of the appeal of the recording is its deliberate vagueness, the most affecting piece, and the shortest, is “True Orbit,” where a strident theme built around melodica, keyboard and voice seems to emerge fully formed from the aether.

Tim Clarke

 Socioclast — S/T (Carbonized Records)

Socioclast by Socioclast

In heavy music’s current moment of endless genre-hopping and hybridization, it’s nice to hear a record that understands exactly what it wants to be. Socioclast is a grindcore record. Like Assück’s grindcore’s records. A lot like Assück’s grindcore records. You get all the high-velocity chugging crunch and guttural grunting — vocals so deep in the gullet that it’s pretty hard to pick up any lyrics. The song titles, however, suggest the ideological dispositions you might expect: “Surveillance, Normalization, Examination,” “Specter Signal,” “Psychodrone,” “Propaganda Algorithm.” There can be a fine line between paying tribute and being derivative, but Socioclast creates an homage rather than an outright imitation. This is 21st-century music. It sounds a lot clearer and slicker than anything Assück or the early Slap A Ham bands committed to vinyl. Like Slap A Ham, Socioclast is a California-based musical phenomenon, featuring dudes who have played in bands like Deadpressure and Mortuous; Colin Tarvin’s death-metal grooves are especially prominent on some of the record’s best tracks, including “Eden’s Tongue” and “Omega.” But this is assertively a grindcore record. Given that version of traditionalism (and yes, events have come to such a pass that grindcore has a tradition), it turns out that Socioclast isn’t all that socioclastic. So goes the strangeness of semantics. But the music is good.

Jonathan Shaw

 Space Quartet — Under the Sun (Noise Precision Library)

Under the Sun by Space Quartet

Space is a persistent and multi-faceted theme in the music of the Portuguese electronic musician, Rafael Toral. And while his name is not appended to the Space Quartet’s, make no mistake, this is his band, playing his music. But it is a music derived from ideas that can’t be realized without the right people. So, while Toral has delved repeatedly into the sounds that people imagine they might make and that they actually find in outer space, and he has explored empty and variously filled spaces as starting points for his music, the point of the Space Quartet is to find the right people, and give them enough space to realize a new kind of jazz. Under the Sun is the combo’s second recording, made with a substantially different line-up than the iteration that recorded the self-titled debut for Clean Feed Records. Toral has sacrificed the all-electronic front line and switched drummers, but in doing so he may have found the right crew to take him where he needs to go. Across the album’s two 21-minute-long tracks, there are usually several ongoing dialogues taking place between the players, which manifest intriguing degrees of mutual challenge and support. But the way that Toral’s elongated feedback lines and Nuno Torres’ stuttering alto saxophone phrases flow around Hugo Antunes’ stark, elastic double bass figures and percussionist Nuno Morão’s lightly deployed, carefully modulated streams of textures and beats that extends a lineage anchored in the language that Cecil Taylor’s trio first released into the air at the Café Montmartre back in 1962.

Bill Meyer 

 Stinkhole — Mold Encrusted Egg (Mangel Records)

MOLD ENCRUSTED EGG by STINKHOLE

The name sort of says it all, but to clarify anyways: Stinkhole languishes in a slimy musical ditch, bottoming out somewhere between the No Wave skronk of Mars and the transgressive caterwauling of Suckdog. As was the case with both of those acts, the dissonance and the gross-out antics can obscure some interesting ideas. Clawing your way through the dense layers of yuck (or, depending on how you’re wired, enjoying it) is integral to the challenge posed by the experience. All the gagging vocalizations, primitivist drumming and semi-tuned bass whomps on Mold Encrusted Egg occupy prominent positions on the surface of songs like “Orange Juice.” But listen to Mold Encrusted Egg a little more closely: there are some rabid grooves, feral guitar breaks and a lot of impenetrably weird environments of sampled sounds, tape manipulations and unidentifiable scree. Is it fun? Does it sound good? Fuck no. The band’s name is Stinkhole. They write songs with titles like “Slippin’ on Slug Slime” and “Emancipated by Hair.” They roll with the whacko punk and noise bands that have congregated around the Berlin-based Flennen digital music zine and its accompanying label. Dig the stink. Rock has rarely been so richly rotten.

Jonathan Shaw

 Styrofoam Winos — S-T (Sophomore Lounge)

STYROFOAM WINOS "S/T" by Styrofoam Winos

Stryofoam Winos brings together three old friends to swap songs in Nashville. You might recognize Lou Turner from her solo album, Songs for John Venn, a sly and subversion of the songwriter’s wholesome alt-country charm. Joe Kenkel is a kindred spirit, a folk rock singer with respect but not reverence for the certitudes of Southern life. Says Nashville Scene of his solo Dream Creator, “Kenkel, a sophisticated folk-rock songwriter, documents Music City’s idiosyncrasies on his debut LP, with acutely observant lyrics.”  And Trevor Nikrant completes this anonymous all-star line-up; his 2017 debut caught the ear of Aquarium Drunkard’s J. Steel who called it “Oddball baroque psychedelia broadcasted from a basement on the east side.” The three kicked things off with a lo-fi and charming debut, Winos at Home, in 2017, but this self-titled LP takes things up a notch with songs that balance craft with eccentricity. “Stuck in a Museum” jangles and rambles in an antic, neurotically intelligent way, as the narrator finds himself entrapped amid the exhibits, staring fixedly at a teapot from the Tang Dynasty. “Roy G. Biv” turns contemplative—and twangy—as Turner sings plaintively about rainbows and colors, the way things change and how hard it can be to keep up. “Maybe More” glints with mandolin, but remains pared back, as a down-trodden singer (one of the guys, not sure which) sings about a life stuck in neutral, same book, same coat, same jokes, but beautiful. The disc has the feel of a warm, casual gathering, with friends jumping in on harmonies or picking up the bass. The songs are sharp and lovely without a lot of fuss.

Jennifer Kelly

[janellion]

“Man!” Bo tosses himself onto the bed, quickly rolling to pin you down in the sheets. “Too bad I didn’t get to race tonight; I was really looking forward to some zoom-zooms.” He nuzzles the nape of your neck. “Can’t have some random trying to steal my girl right? Maybe I should start hanging by the shop more?”

BIRB tysm for sending this in and for proofreading and talking a bunch of ideas out with me. you inspire me every day and i’m so happy to know you 🖤✨

glow in the dark stars

pairing(s): akaashi keiji x f!reader | bokuto koutarou x f!reader

genre: angst, pining

wc: ~1.3k

song recommendations: all i want - dawn golden x | i loved you first - joan x

a/n: this is a drabble written in first person POV. i’m thinking of making it into a series written in normal reader insert. i’d love any thoughts or comments or criticism on it!!

summary: can you love two people at once?

+++

“Man!” Bo tosses himself onto the bed, quickly rolling to pin you down in the sheets. “Too bad I didn’t get to race tonight; I was really looking forward to some zoom-zooms.” He nuzzles the nape of your neck. “Can’t have some random trying to steal my girl right? Maybe I should start hanging by the shop more?”

My breath hitches in my throat and I feel my chest tighten and ache at his words. His face hovers above mine, having pulled away to shoot me a cheeky grin to round off his question. Our breaths mix between us, time stopped as this moment carries on for just a few seconds longer than it should, his golden eyes searching my face and showing, for the briefest second, that maybe there’s something more to his question.

Just as I’m about to respond, I feel a buzz at the small of my back, pressed into the blankets beneath me. I give Bo’s chest a shove with my knee trying to push his larger figure off me, “I’m not your anything. And besides, wouldn’t your girlfriend hate it if you started hanging out around the shop more?”

At my words, his eyes darken for a moment as he yields to my shoving and rolls onto his back next to me on the bed. “We broke up, actually,” he says after a moment of silence. “It was mutual and everything. It just,” he trails off, “wasn’t meant to be.”

Even though he’s trying to hide it, the sadness in his voice is unmistakable. My face softens and I roll onto my stomach, pressing the side of my arm against his as I take in the way his goldenrod eyes are trained on the ceiling and the clenched muscles in his jaw. “I’m sorry, Bo. She was a really nice girl. I always liked her,” I say gently, sitting up and peering into his face, trying to get him to open up and talk about it.

But, the darkness in his eyes fades with a small shake of his head as he swings his gaze from the ceiling to me. “You just liked her because she’s just like you,” he replies with a grin, his smile only widening as he sees my eyes widen and face flush.

“I— that’s not— she—,“ I splutter out, suddenly uneasy under his piercing golden gaze. Luckily, another buzz from underneath the blankets on the bed saves me from embarrassing myself further. I reach for my phone, flipping it over to see a message from Akaashi.

“I’m going to call Keiji,” I say to Bo, slipping my phone in my pocket as I climb off the bed. I feel Bo’s eyes following my every move and try not to think about the length of my shorts or the low cut of my shirt. It’s just Bo, I think to myself, you’ve been over him for years. It doesn’t mean anything that he’s single now. You’re not.

Making my way into the hallway, I hit #1 on my speed dial. It only takes two rings before a familiar voice, deep and measured and calm, rings through the speaker. “[Name], how are you? I wanted to call and say goodnight. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it over there tonight, things have been crazy at work.”

The sound of his voice sends a wave of relief through my body. “Keiji, babe, it’s OK, I promise. I’m excited to see you tomorrow,” I say, unable to keep the smile from creeping onto my face.

Akaashi chuckles softly over the phone. “I love you,” he says softly, the words so simple but loaded with emotion and weight from the years we’ve spent together.

“I love you too,” I reply, trying to convey the same level of depth and feeling that he does, but somehow feeling like I come up short.

“Is Bo there?,” he asks, after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, he just told me he and his girlfriend broke up. Did you know that?”

I hear Akaashi sigh on the other end of the line. “He told me this morning,” he finally says, voice heavy and laden with something I can’t distinguish. “Just —“ he hesitates, and I swear I can see his jaw clenching and his eyes squeezing shut through the silence, “Do you remember what I said when I first asked you out?”

My breath hitches in my throat, and I find myself nodding even though I know he can’t see me. He must be able to visualize me as well as I can picture him, because he continues after a brief pause, “My feelings haven’t changed,” he says, his voice soft but firm. “But I’ve been dreading this moment since that first day.”

My stomach drops, remembering his words from that day four long years ago: “I know you like Bo, but give me a chance to change your mind. I’ll put in the work that he never has.”

“Keiji,” I start, eyes squeezing shut as I try to shake the the sight of that piercing golden gaze from my mind, thinking instead of blue eyes, steady and deep, “I promise you’re enough.”

A deep sigh of relief rings through the receiver as Akaashi speaks again. “I trust you, [Name]. And I’ve always loved you. Be there for him if he needs it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With a soft, “Goodnight, Keiji” I bring my phone down to my side, gripping it tightly in my hand before relaxing, and letting my head lean back to hit the wall behind me. After a couple deep breaths to slow the pounding of my heart in my chest, I open the door to my room again, finding Bo curled up in the blankets, reading the book I’d left on the bed.

“How’s Akaashi?,” he asks, eyes lifting from the pages to find mine.

“He’s good, he says hi and hopes you feel better soon,” I say, perching on the edge of the bed before raising my eyes up to meet his, “Do you want to stay over? Like when we were kids? We can make another blanket fort, you always loved those,” I grin at him, the heavy ache in my chest that I hadn’t noticed until now starting to feel just a little lighter.

“That sounds perfect, [Name],” Bo grins back.

+++

After a night of blanket forts and hot chocolate, we find ourselves laying shoulder to shoulder on the bed staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars shining from my ceiling, the only light besides the moon in the soft darkness covering us.

“You brought those to uni, too?” Bo asks, softly, hand reaching up as though he was going to touch one, fingers lingering outstretched for a moment before he tightens his fist and brings it back to the space between us.

“Yeah, it was Keiji’s idea, actually,” I say softly to the quiet darkness of the room.

Bo doesn’t respond, only hums quietly in response as he goes to tuck his hands under his head.

The silence stretches on between us, and I want to say something, the urge coming from somewhere deep in my chest, but I’m not sure what. So I bite back the words that feel like they’re on the tip of my tongue, and it seems like Bo is doing the same.

Just as I start to think that he’s fallen asleep, his steady breathing is interrupted by a pause and a long slightly shaky exhale.

“I’m happy for you guys,” hangs in the air, the words seeming to echo off the walls and into the imitation night sky above us.

“Thanks, Bo,” I say, unable to turn to face him but wanting more than anything to see the gold of his eyes and the slope of his smile. “He’s really good to me. He makes me really happy,” I whisper softly into the space between us.

Bo lets out a deep sigh, rubbing his hands over his face for a moment before bringing his arms to his side, one hand reaching across the expanse between us to grip mine.

I feel the dry callused skin of his palm as he intertwines our fingers together, squeezing my hand before relaxing.

“That’s all that matters.”

☽

some folks who might be interested in this: @strawbirb @kuronekomama @sakusakxyoomi @anianimol @oyakags

i have so many ideas (ty birb!!) for this au, so it will likely become a series of drabbles/one shots. this is a bit of a sneak peak into what i’m imagining is the 3rd or 4th drabble in the series.

[plungermusic]

Sapristi! The Road To Liberty’s a load of Balzacs ...

Mark Harrison’s latest release is a bit of a magnum opus, casting a jeweller’s glass over the human condition in two parts comprising twenty one tracks in all: from victims to the venal, the desperate to the defiant, the quotidian to the exceptional, from the personal to the political (and the personal as political) … it’s a condensed Comédie Humaine with better tunes.

Part 1 sees a thread of celebration of old school working class virtues in Same Roads’ message that the everyday routine (epitomised by the hypnotic 2-chord setting) isn’t necessarily such a terrible thing, and Wheels Going Round’s revivalist cakewalk tale of an ordinary heads down do-the-right-thing life. Toolmaker’s Blues threnody to dying trades shows an unaccustomed angry edge to Mark’s vocal, and the airy folk vibe of the vox-and-guitar-only Better Day conveys the most overtly political lines in a quietly strong and determined hope for a brighter, more equitable, future. Perhaps countering those latter tracks are the polite protest of Tribulation Time (acknowledging not everyone wants to hear you banging on about your troubles when they have their own) and the life-isn’t-fair-and-you-can’t-legislate-for-that homily Everybody Knows.

Temple block and bouncy bass backing lend a slightly comic Laurel & Hardy dancing in the street vibe to I’m Damned (described by Mark as “a jolly tune with a less than jolly message, which is characteristic of what I do”) and that description fits Club Of Lost Souls too, an upbeat backporch shuffle with only the bittersweet ‘blue’ notes hinting at its subject of loss. The one instrumental, Last Bus Home, inspired by the babble of optimism and booze (not necessarily in that order) of youthful journeys in Coventry is a wholly joyous mix of intricately picked 12-string, washboard and rackety cymbal for an urban Camberwick Green anthem.

Stepping a little outside the usual Harrison sonic envelope, Skip’s Song deploys a supple Hendrixy hook and catch-you-off-guard timing in an examination of how others imagine your life to be (often wildly romanticised) and Passing Through (the brief, unconnected, vignettes seen while making your way on the road… or through your life) has equally quirky rhythm to highlight the fragmented images, the feel of dreamlike detachment heightened by wine-glass harmonics.

Part 2 leans more to the abstract: the bottle-party-dance-with-a-moral of Go Nice is inspired by Reverend Gary Davis’s ‘be kind’ mantra; Restless Mind points out the benefits and pitfalls of being an independent thinker over a louche slide-led NOLA slink, and the jug-band Shortnin’ Bread-lope of Hard Life takes a wry look at exactly how hard some hard lives (that everyone protests they have) really are. A similarly critical take on the traditional up-before-the-beak song All Rise uses rolling saloon piano and a nice multi-voice call of the title in its examination of how we all excuse our misdemeanours to ‘the judge’ (whoever he may be and however justified our protestations of innocence). The equally traditional prison song Doin’ Time maybe proves the inadequacy of those pleas, propelled by rock-hammer percussion with added grunts of work gang exertion.

Low Life Avenue’s salutary warning of where ‘going for it’ might lead still encourages following your dream, to a suitably positive four-to-the-floor drum and bass backbeat, before fully unleashing his inner rock’n’roller (yes, including a rarely heard Mark-on-electric-guitar moment) in the urgent Chuck Berryish Don’t Let The Crazy Out The Bag (Too Soon), a fairly self-explanatory admonition to control those self destructive impulses that ruin relationships… The most out-of-left-field track of Part 2 is Curl Your Toes: its philosophical examination of life’s humiliations and dilemmas and how you choose to react to them, is lent an almost hallucinatory sheen by a mesmeric vox-and-guitar unison melody, relaxed rhythm and bowed bass culminating in an almost baroque filigree of guitar and strings.

The album closes out back in more familiar Harrison territory, with Foxchase (if you feel life is a fox chase remember the fox does get away some times!) a Dustbowl two-step with muscular bass and rimshot-and-templeblock backing, although the closing gospel-sermon-flavoured By The Side Of The Road (a self-avowed “upbeat message of self doubt”) features another smoky TYAesque riff rendered on both electric and resonator, and slightly spacey tribal toms.

Like all Mark’s albums you do miss the laconic wit of his from-the-stage interactions, but the studio setting has been utilised to the full: sympathetic production and multi-tracking gives a lush, full sound but still every word and note is clear; despite restricted by circumstances to the three band members - Mark, Ben Welburn drums/percussion, and Charles Benfield bass (who also produced) - their additional contributions more than compensate for the lack of any ‘guests’ and as ever the playing is crisp and precise throughout.

As Plunger have said before, Mark is a rare artist that can make you smile, think, and dance simultaneously… good old Honoré de Balzac could only manage two of those at best.

The Road To Liberty is released on 30th June (physical album: digital releases Pt 1 30th June, Pt 2 30th September) and is available to preorder here: http://www.markharrisonrootsmusic.com/rtl-album.php