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sinceileftyoublog · 1 year ago

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Riot Fest 2023 Preview: 4 Reasons to Come Early, 1 to Stay Late

Just Mustard; Photo by Olof Grind

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Is it me, or is this the biggest Riot Fest yet? The independently run festival has managed to book bands that can fill arenas (Foo Fighters, The Cure), in-demand anniversary full album plays (Transatlanticism, Give Up, Last Splash), and previous headliners as sub-headliners (Queens of the Stone Age). As always, though, there are just as many highlights in the fine print as on the first row. Here are our top 5 picks: 4 reasons to show up before sunset, 1 to stay till the very end.

FRIDAY

Quasi; Photo by John Clark

Quasi, 1:25 PM, Roots Stage

A couple years ago, if you had asked me what band I thought would have a post-pandemic reunion, Quasi would have been at the bottom of my list. The duo of Sam Coomes and ex-Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss hadn't released a full-length since 2013, and in 2019, a car crashed into Weiss's car, which broke both of her legs and collarbone. As it turns out, during her recovery and COVID lockdown, Weiss, along with Coomes, used free time to bang out new songs in Quasi's practice space. The result is their Sub Pop debut and first album in 10 years, the awesomely titled Breaking the Balls of History, released earlier this year. The album is certainly of a time and place, riddled with references to pandemic-era isolation and the anti-science Neanderthals that have dominated discourse on the political right. But what stands out more is how revitalized these two sound to play music together, and Weiss in general. If her departure from Sleater-Kinney came after an album that minimized her role as a drummer, her meaty fills absolutely dominate "Last Long Laugh", "Queen of Ears", "Riots & Jokes", and "Nowheresville". In tandem with Coomes' fuzzed-out guitar and warped keyboards, Weiss' timekeeping creates an almost retrofuturist aesthetic, 60's pop harmonies rubbing elbows with distorted keys and drums on tracks like "Shitty Is Pretty". And The one I can't wait to hear most at the festival is "Doomscrollers", a surefire anthem for those crumbling under the weight of the world--or their phones--and even "everyone else just tryna get by / To stay alive or at least not die."

Screaming Females

Screaming Females, 4:50 PM, Rebel Stage

Desire Pathway (Don Giovanni), the first album in 5 years from the New Jersey punk greats, is a an album inspired by and about breakup and heartbreak. Thankfully, it doesn't sound down in the dumps. In fact, it's quite the contrary, the hardest rocking Screaming Females album yet, less snot-nosed punk and more mammoth metal. As much as Marissa Paternoster likens herself to "a freight train in the desert dragging chains," her theatrical vocal performances and limber axe wielding show a musician at the top of her class. The album starts unexpectedly, with feedback-heavy synths on "Brass Bell", but not before Paternoster and drummer Jarrett Dougherty enter with power riffs and snares akin to your favorite sludge band. Even a summertime sadness rave-up like "Ornament" yields the same sneering, anthemic quality as the best Screaming Females songs, Paternoster menacingly chanting, "An ornament / Your head hangs heavy on it." So as much as she offers a sense of humility on "Let Me Into Your Heart" and "Titan", don't get in her way on Friday.

Foo Fighters, 8:00 PM, Riot Stage

You know the story by now. In a short amount of time, Dave Grohl experienced two devastating losses: the passing of his mother Virginia and the tragic, sudden death of Foo Fighters' longtime drummer, Taylor Hawkins. Such periods of shock often cause massive shifts in life perspective, and perhaps, as a silver lining, it caused him to rethink things musically. Songs on recent Foo Fighters albums seemingly followed the tired formula of starting out quiet and melodic and building into an instrumental avalanche and full-throated screams. But Here We Are (Roswell/RCA), on which Grohl plays all the drums, instead recalls earlier Foo Fighters albums with confident and consistent paces and even explores new territory for the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers. It starts immediately raw and in shock on "Rescued", Grohl describing learning about Hawkins' death in clear terms: "It came in a flash / It came out of nowhere." Elsewhere, the wah wah guitars of an umptempo jam like "Under You" recall the talk box thrills of an older tune like "Generator", and the strutting drum and guitar interplay of "Nothing At All" ascends with a clatter like the band's early Aughts records.

As But Here We Are goes on, the band opts for the unexpected. On the self-reflexive "Show Me How", Grohl and his daughter Violet duet over shoegaze electric guitars and dream pop strumming, singing about his mom's passing, realizing the same thing will one day happen for Violet. The penultimate "The Teacher" is like a ten-minute question, Grohl wondering how to deal with grief and anxious about life and death, wincing, "Who's at the door now?" over scraped guitars and strings. The song slows down and rebuilds gradually with a chugging drum beat and chiming, dreamy guitars, ending with static. That sets up "Rest", on which Grohl repeats, "You can rest now." Such a statement seems like it's as much a mantra for himself as it is a directive to Hawkins and his mother. "Life is just a game of luck," he declares, "All this time escaping us, until our time is through." After the biggest explosion of guitar distortion on a major label radio rock record since "Hurt", Grohl ends the song, "In the warm Virginia sun, there I will meet you." That it's the name of the state in which he grew up and of his mother is not a coincidence, as he's using the memory of his mom, Hawkins--heck, even Kurt Cobain--for comfort.

With new drummer Josh Freese in tow, stay late and catch Foo Fighters performing songs from their best album since The Colour and the Shape.

SATURDAY

100 Gecs

100 Gecs, 7:00 PM, Radical Stage

When 100 Gecs released "mememe", the first single from what would be their long-awaited second album 10,000 Gecs (Dog Show/Atlantic), the first thing you noticed was that Laura Les' vocals were notably less pitch-shifted. A trans woman who had experienced voice dysphoria, Les was now taking voice lessons and deciding to reveal her voice unaffected. That, and her experience with gender transition surgeries and HRT treatments, informs some lines on songs on 10,000 Gecs. "I did science on my face," she sings on "Dumbest Girl Alive". "Everybody shuts the fuck up when I'm passing / You can see me on the fuckin' news, and I'm laughing," she sings presciently on "The Most Wanted Person in the United States", as a few days later, the notoriously anti-LGBTQ+ Fox News would go on to play 100 gecs on air due to anchor Greg Gutfield's fandom. This is the world in which 100 gecs thrive, appealing to all by feeling free to be themselves, refreshingly sans irony no matter how bonkers their juxtapositions. Ribbits nestle between guitar strums and harmonies on the ska-infused "Frog On The Floor". "One Million Dollars" creates a dance jam out of TikTok TTS voice, samples from anti-weed government propaganda, and Primus-level wiry breakdowns. "Hollywood Baby" and "Billy Knows Jamie" are respective tributes to pop punk and nu metal. And Les sings about everything from snack foods to her removed tooth like long lost loves. Even if they sound anything but, 100 gecs might just be the most earnest band around.

SUNDAY

Just Mustard, 1:15 PM, Riot Stage

You don't normally associate minimalism and ambiguity with bands playing Riot Fest, those with riffs and messages that hit you over the head and hooks and feelings sky-high. I bet Irish post-punk quintet Just Mustard wins over some festivalgoers looking for respite, whether from the sun or the distant cry of pop punk. Last year, they released their second album Heart Under (Partisan), and the first on which Katie Ball took full-time lead vocals. Their deliberate tempos and masterful control of dynamics should serve as hypnotic as it is beguiling.

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vera-deville · 2 years ago

Note

could you make a reader who loves rock and is also super good at physical activities? with Leona and Azul.

Sure! I remember asking you to clarify some things about your request and now I realize how silly my questions were after rereading the request for the umpteenth time.

08/01/2022 - 08/09/2022

Pairings: Leona Kingscholar; Azul Ashengrotto x Reader (separately)

Word Count: 425 (for Leona); 456 (for Azul)

Warnings: Nothing that I can think of!

Gender: Gender Neutral as it was not specified in the request.

Notes: I'm lowkey super hyped about this request because I've never been requested anything like it. It's very unique, so I'm very excited!

Also, I'm going to do headcanons for this request, simply because I feel like it. If you'd like some other type of fic, you're more than welcome to request again!

Oh, and before I forget, the requester has specified that they'd like the Reader to listen to Metaleiro and for the Azul headcanon, the Reader be taller than him.

In which Leona Kingscholar and Azul Ashengrotto have significant others who love rock music and are very good at physical activities.

Leona Kingscholar:

Leona's probably the more chill amongst the two when it comes to a significant other like this.

After all, Sunset Savannah was filled to the brim with extremely athletic individuals, so it didn't faze Leona in the slightest seeing Y/N be as good at physical activities as they were.

What Leona did find amusing was the way Y/N was. They'd never be found without, at the very least, a black choker. Leona recalled Y/N talking about how the NRC uniform wasn't bad because it was mostly black. On one rare occasion when they were allowed to go shopping by the headmaster, Y/N bought many black ties. And black chokers. And chains. And spiky bracelets. Y/N also was an individual who had...interesting tastes in music.

Specifically, rock music.

Leona didn't really have much of an opinion on music, much less rock, but he did have an issue with it when his significant other decided it'd be a brilliant idea to blast the horrid sounds whilst he slept. There was no doubt that Y/N gained much amusement out of the fact.

Perhaps this herbivore was much more bolder than he'd given them credit for.

It was one of those such incidents when Leona was sunbathing and enjoying the serene habitat he was resting in.

Or at least it was serene until Y/N showed up. :(

Y/N excitedly told Leona about this artist they listened to quite often back in their world and now they've been able to somehow find them in some obscure dimension of Magicam. Metaliro was it?

Y/N continued raving about the artist, Metaleiro, and his songs.

Oh, so it was Metaleiro, not Metaliro-

And then out of nowhere (although Leona should have very well expected it), one of Y/N's favorite rock songs started playing.

For once, it wasn't one of the more "heavy" metal songs they'd have force Leona to listen to. Rather, it seemed much more lowkey.

Leona casually asked Y/N what the song was and they told him that it was called "La Casa de Trap." Humming, he acknowledged the song's existence and continued to rest with his eyes closed, hoping to drift away into slumber.

And for once, Y/N decided that they'd let Leona have his serene habitat and played some more gentle rock songs (and the occasional rock trap song) while running their fingers through Leona's hair.

Ruggie eventually stumbled upon the two lovers and smirked to himself. He took a picture or two for future blackmail as well.

Azul Ashengrotto:

Azul's the more surprised of the two.

His significant other is an individual who seemed to only ever wear the color black and would almost never be seen without wearing a choker and a spiked bracelet or two (and chains if they're really feeling themselves that day).

At first, Azul stayed clear of the Ramshackle Prefect, simply because he didn't see any benefits that he could gain from them.

That was the case until the overblots started occurring. And Azul had no choice but to accept that Y/N was an incredibly strong individual for having to deal with everything they do.

When the two first started dating, Azul had a bit of an inferiority complex. Y/N had a much bigger build than him and practically towered over him (not really, but this is his inferiority complex we're talking about here).

He never admitted it out loud, but Y/N could tell that he felt a bit off about not being the one they could rely on for many things.

So, eventually, one day, Y/N sat him down in his office and the two had a nice long chat about how Y/N is a very strong and independent person who doesn't always rely on others for everything.

But that didn't mean they don't rely on others at all. They assured Azul that when they truly needed it, the first person they'd come to for assistance would be him.

Things got a lot better after that. Azul had come to accept that his significant other and himself were equals and just because they don't rely on one another all the time doesn't mean that they don't appreciate one another.

Of course, the teasing never stopped.

What teasing you ask?

Oh, the teasing that Jade, Floyd, and Y/N subject Azul to, of course~

Azul's well known to not be the most athletic student at NRC, but Floyd and Y/N made it their life's mission to torture Azul with athleticism as much as possible.

Azul also questions Y/N's tastes in music at times (although he does respect it). The songs they listen to are loud, have interesting rhythms, and seem...energetic.

Just about every other day, Y/N would track Azul down with whatever power they have (only the Great Sevens would know the answer to that) and make him listen to another rock song they found, or are listening to on repeat once more in their life.

Azul doesn't really have an affinity for rock music, however, he knows that his significant other loves it, and for that sole reason, he respects the musical genre.

Although that one artist Y/N kept raving about...ah, yes! Metaleiro! His music didn't seem all that bad.

#twisted wonderland #twst wonderland #twisted wonderland headcanons #twst #twst headcanons #headcanons #twisted wonderland fluff #twst fluff #fluff #rock #punk rock #metaleiro #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #leona kingscholar x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #reader #vera deville #the marchioness

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hopeless-deerie-fanfics · 4 years ago

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MUSIC TASTES AND GUILTY PLEASURE SONGS bros + undateables

Lucifer

Jazz, classical music, if he has to choose a modern artist then aurora or Videoclub, he vibes with French music a lot of the time. He also likes Piano and violin covers of more popular songs but cannot stand the originals. Satan and belphie are aware of this and take full advantage, much to his chagrin.

Guilty pleasure: mamamoo, hwasa specifically radiates Lucifer energy and I can 100 percent see him vibing with it. Levi swears he once saw him at a concert but would never say so, he gets a death glare from Lucifer every time he brings up mamamoo in conversation so he knows he saw correct but also he *doesn't want to die*.

Mammon

90s hip hop jams, queen, classic rock, overall has pretty good taste in music, adores abba

Guilty pleasure: he cries at the shrek soundtrack and he doesn't know why. Just straight up starts bawling to all star. Also romantic songs get him crying. He just can't. He has a playlist named 'MC' that's full of romantic songs he wants to dance with them to, but any time any of the songs plays he starts crying.

Levi

K-pop and jpop, he stans Loona. Listens to a mix of male, female and mixed groups and artists. surprisingly enough he goes to the most concerts out of all of the brothers, even beating Asmo out (since he tends to go clubbing instead). It's the only time he voluntarilly goes into such an enviroment. When he goes to a concert he doesn't mess about, VIP tickets and gets the best merch. He loves anime themes, also see him liking anything 'niche' so is a bit of a hipster and a massive music snob. Likes things like horrible histories songs and asap science elements song where he can study without studying if ya get me. Deffo can name every Pokémon. Pfft you like the original poke rap? Catch this boi listening to BDG's better pokerap and reciting every word, also rocks out to Richie Branson.

Guilty pleasure: Ariana Grande but hates that he likes it cos it's 'normie music'

Satan

Studio Ghibli soundtracks, heavy metal, baby queen, MCR, AKMU, Triple H, Gang of Youths, Paramore, good taste but very varied so his playlists are always jumping between genres.

Guilty pleasure: the front bottoms, esp. the song 'father' for obvious reasons, also likes Videoclub but knows that Lucifer also likes it so adamantly denies he likes it. Catch him alone in the library jamming out to 'En nuit' tho I dare ya

Asmo

Techno and clubbing music, as well as anything on a girls night playlist, you kno he knows all the words and has definitely sung every song while crying at 3am on a karaoke machine, also the Orion experience and anything normally played at a pride parade or rave

Guilty pleasure: babymetal. He knows it's not the vibe he gives off but he finds them adorable, deffo attends every concert but will deny it. Levi saw him at one once and it was the Spiderman meme. He swore him to secrecy.

Beel

Happy upbeat music he can work out to, modern pop works but really anything with a rhythm. Likes African drums because of this, can play the djembe drum. Probably attends a Zumba class and makes all the fellow demons drool, from his abs and the fact hes eating a 30 course meal while he does it

Guilty pleasure: Shakira? I'm gonna say Shakira. Beels hips don't lie but catch him dancing and he'll get embarrased.

Belphie

Green Day and anything anti-authority, MCR, bmth, he is vibing to emo bops and you know it.

Guilty pleasure: country esp. dolly parton cos he's a cow boi.

Diavolo

He loves country music and because of this he plays it on repeat in the castle and Lucifer cannot stand it. If only belphie knew his guilty pleasure songs would drive Lucifer insane, he would play them full blast every day just to piss him off. Yeah maybe it's good he doesn't know.

Guilty pleasure: Explicit rap music. He know it's not good for his royal image to swear but man, he loves it so much. Got a sweet spot for Nicki Minaj but only Barbs knows about it.

Barbatos

I can really see him liking Bollywood dance and music for some reason? I feel like his favourite instrument is the sitar. He definitely watches Bollywood dramas in his offtime and gets very invested. Will do the same with Kdramas, Jdramas, Mdramas, a secret drama hoe. Only a dramatic bish would !!!SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 20!!! ((get the bros watch MC die only to turn around and be like 'well actually' he loves drama he's just *subtle* about it))!!!SPOILERS END!!!

Guilty pleasure: Nicky Minaj, who do you think introduced Dia to her huh? Also weak to kidzbop but don't you dare call him out on it. It's one of the reasons he and Luke get along so well. They vibe to kidzbop while they bake.

Simeon

Hymns I don't know what to tell ya, but also MUSICALS, Boi is a massive musical nerd and knows all the words. Luke once make the mistake of bringing up Hamilton and had to sit through him singing the entire soundtrack. It was good, don't get me wrong, but he was trying to do his human history class hw..

Guilty pleasure: lil naz x and Beyonce, but he blushed bright red the WHOLE TIME and prays for forgiveness after. Has definitely danced drunk to single ladies tho. Probably with mammon or Asmo.

Solomon

SALSA MUSIC this man can DANCE and dance he shall. Bachata all the way. But also shamelessly loves Nickelback. I'm sorry. I know. I can see him liking fall out boy, and purposely playing songs that reference angels and demons to get a rise out of them. He is the one that showed Simeon Lil Naz X.

Guilty pleasure: the spice girls. When Asmo found out they both had a mini concert in his room.

Luke

Kidzbop and hymns, but mostly kidzbop. He also likes studio Ghibli music, he listens to it while cooking, but he hates that satan likes it because *demon prejudice*.

Guilty pleasure: Avril Lavigne, more specifically girlfriend and skaterboi. Also likes Ariana Grande and Cardi B but has only heard their kidzbop versions and not the originals.

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3wisellamas · 3 years ago

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Giant Sweet Cap’n Cakes Headcanon Masterpost!

(Fun fact, I thought most of these up while on one REALLY long hike. ^^; You can tell I fell for these three pretty hard.)

Music:

-I like the idea that, while the three all share a love of hip hop, glitch hop, electronic music in general, and a little lo-fi for chill times, they all have different tastes outside of those. (Meaning if you pass them the aux cord, they WILL argue!)

-Sweet's actually the biggest audiophile of the group, with by far the most eclectic tastes; he will literally put together playlists that go from dubstep to heavy metal to classical to rap to vaporwave to even country. The others don't really get it, but they're cool with whatever he puts on, and learn a lot of new music from him!

-He also owns an electric guitar, which he just plugs into himself to use as an amp and plays early in the morning to wake the others up if needed (he's the early riser and the other two are night owls...)

-Cap'n's definitely got a more narrow focus than the other two; he likes rap and also R&B, jazz, and even a little swing/electro swing. He's also been caught more than once listening to cheesy romantic pop songs, claiming he's just into them for their potential madamoizel-attracting uses but really he's just a sappy romantic.

-He can also rap, very well in fact, and gets Sweet to beatbox while he freestyles.

-Heck, he's just got a good singing voice in general, helped by having a built-in autotune, and dominates at karaoke!

-K_K also has a really broad range, but stays more towards the electronic end of the spectrum -- melodic dubstep, synthpop, disco, trance, chiptune, DnB, even occasionally puts on straight-up ambient spa music to chill out to (the only genre the other two will NOT tolerate.)

-K_K has also, in the past, set up entire mini-raves just by themselves, complete with glowsticks and everything, while Cap'n and Sweet were out doing whatever. They were...not pleased, when they got back, mostly because they weren't invited. All three got to have one together eventually though.

-Physical media is king in their shop; if it's not on a CD, cassette tape, or a vinyl record (or an 8-track, though they have to dig out their old player for it), they will refuse to play it, and might even ask you to leave. "MP3" is an extremely dirty word to them.

-(In fact, they don't get along too well with the MP3 player-headed robots elsewhere in the city.)

-They are indeed always listening to music on physical media as well -- K_K and Cap'n are their own CD players (though Cap'n's one of those models that's also got a built-in FM radio), while Sweet has a straight-up Walkman.

-(He's also the group's cassette champion, claiming his media of choice is superior to CDs because you can record music on BOTH sides of the tape! The other two just don't have the heart to point out that each side only holds half as much music as a CD, and you don't even have to rewind those...)

-Jury's still out on Hit Clips. Cap'n and Sweet think they're just toys, but K_K genuinely collects and appreciates them and treats them like actual music (it helps that they are only around four seconds long!)

-Believe it or not, the headphones are only decoration, all three actually just...listen to their music entirely within their own heads, though they can also switch to playing it externally on their speakers as well. Perks of being robots! Though, sometimes K_K has his internal volume up too high, and misses things that other people say because of it.

-Sweet also has an input port, and connects himself to his turntable to act as the speakers! The other two are WAY too embarrassed to ask if they can use it as well.

-Sweet can play almost any instrument you throw at him, as long as it's not a woodwind (Surprisingly, he can do brass, since those work on vibration rather than air!). He prefers his guitar or violin when he isn't spinning records on his turntable. Where the other two just enjoy music, he's the actual trained musician.

Voice headcanons:

-Sweet: Kind of deep, bass-y, lots of reverb, a slight tinny audio distortion to it like a low-quality recording that becomes much more pronounced when he gets upset or starts shouting. And since he's a speaker, you can literally feel the vibrations he makes when he's speaking!

-Cap'n: Scout from TF2. I am sorry, but I absolutely cannot get that out of my head for him. XD However, he's actually putting that voice on as an "accent" of sorts, his real voice is actually super autotune-y like K_K's, and it comes out whenever he gets flustered, his pitch only getting higher and higher as it gets worse...

-K_K: Pure autotune, he can just do whatever the hell he wants with his voice -- pitch, tone, whatever, and while he tends to keep it a little higher he can and does change it to fit his mood! He often has a completely different voice every day, but the others are used to it. He also just straight-up vocalizes sound effects (like, the kind that make you go "How did you just make that sound with your mouth?!") and can mimic other people perfectly (though the slight mechanical distortion does give it away). There are absolutely no rules when it comes to K_K's voice.

-They harmonize perfectly whenever they sing together!

Sweet:

-I like to think Sweet's actually the brains of the group; like, not SMART, he just holds their one collective braincell most often. He does any technical work when they're building stuff, like soldering circuits or the occasional programming, and even handles a lot of the actual business operations and pays the bills. The other two also like to follow his lead when it comes to rebellion plans, even if he’s not the official leader.

-That said, though? It's balanced out by him being rather hotheaded and having the shortest temper by a lot. There are REASONS why he's not usually out selling bagels with the others -- he's unfortunately prone to some more "extreme" sales tactics, like hurling half their stock at random passersby until they finally agree to buy some. On the plus side, he's always the first to step up to defend the gang from anything that dares to harm them, and is always on guard.

-He can also hold a heck of a grudge -- don't ever get on his bad side! Cap'n and K_K are mostly immune to this though, if he gets upset with them he works through it by the end of the day. It helps that they can all hug it out.

-He's a bit of a perfectionist, often working overtime to try and get everything they build exactly right. He can get really frustrated when things don't work out the way he plans, or when he can't make sense of a problem, or when Cap'n and K_K are goofing off instead of doing their part, and needs to go blast some loud music and blow off steam.

-He does have a really tough time keeping his balance, since his head is a bit heavier than the rest of his body, but he takes tripping over his own feet constantly in stride. The biggest problem he has is with dancing -- while he'll join in with the others on occasion, he can't match their more acrobatic moves and sticks more to actually PLAYING the music they're dancing to.

-He's also really, really unlucky, just in general. He actually considers the other two his good luck charms, since they help him out whenever he trips or gets into a bad spot!

-He's the fashionista of the group, surprisingly. It's difficult for him to find clothes that fit his body, so he tends to get a little creative with it and has a whole closet full of different stuff! And since Cap'n is roughly the same size they'll occasionally swap jackets.

Cap’n:

-Cap'n actually has managed to score a handful of dates with girls in the past! However, NONE of them went well, and only one actually made it to the second date (only to break up right in the middle of it), so he always ends up returning home heartbroken and in tears. Sweet and K_K, by this point just ready for it whenever they hear that he's going out that night, always dry him off before he shorts himself out, take him to bed and cuddle with him (platonically, I don't see them as brothers but I also don't see them as having that conversation until Cap'n's ready, which he clearly is NOT), remind him that it doesn't hurt forever and he isn't unlovable and that he'll find someone eventually, etc.

-They have sat him down multiple times to try and gently suggest to Cap'n that he might just not be into women? And that he’s actually turning them off by trying so hard? To which he's always just like "No, of course not. I'm straight. Love the ladies. Totally. Oh no they didn't catch me checkin' out that one dude earlier did they? Is that what this is about?!"

-(Basically, Cap'n is just a hopeless romantic in love with the idea of being in love, but is absolutely clueless as to how it works or what he actually wants, and his best buds are always there to catch him when he falls. ;v; )

-The glasses are prescription -- he's SUPER nearsighted, a hardware glitch he refuses to fix. Sometimes when he's working on something close up he'll take them off, panicking when he can't find them afterwards, only to have the others point out that they're just on his head. He’s also got non-tinted glasses, but you will not catch him DEAD wearing those unless it’s an absolute emergency.

-This dude is SUPREMELY insecure with himself. Like, his rather questionable fixation on romance aside, he basically runs off of others' validation, the "cool" persona he's spent much of his life building up being how he hides the fact that he isn't really sure who he is, or what he wants to do with his life, or what he's even good for -- the others have learned to check on him now and then whenever he hides away in the back of the shop, since he can slip into some pretty dark places when left alone to sulk. It took a long time for him to open up even to them to share his feelings, and sometimes still has doubts about whether they or anyone else really care about him as more than just The Smooth One...

-He's the only one of the three to actually enjoy the occasional silence, especially when he's trying to think, or whenever he's upset. So, his headphones also serve a dual purpose -- they're noise-cancelling!

-He's the video guy, carrying around a small camcorder and constantly trying to record the group's activities, to put together into music videos! He also just likes to record himself doing stupid stunts for posterity, though K_K just takes these and makes (affectionate) blooper reels.

-Cap'n is not his real name, similar to K_K. However, unlike K_K, he refuses to say what it is, just that it's embarrassing.

K_K:

-K_K has a bad habit of just completely zoning out when he gets into his music, getting completely lost in the groove and needing to be pulled back to reality. It's not a bad thing during jam sessions, but at work, or in the middle of a battle...not so much.

-He kind of needs to have some kind of music going at all times -- silence drives him absolutely CRAZY! Though, because he gets distracted by his own music, he then misses out on entire conversations, only tuning back in towards the end. Sometimes the other two have to repeat or summarize what they just said for him.

-He knows sign language, and taught the others to use it. They're able to communicate reasonably well no matter how loud their shop gets, or on days when K_K isn't able to form words properly (he's just shy, and even when he isn't he gets tongue-tied a LOT).

-He's easily the best dancer of the three, and uses his extendable body to get really creative with his moves! He even knows a little ballroom, somehow, which he'll pull out sometimes to make the others laugh.

-(Seriously, K_K CANNOT stand to see Sweet or Cap'n not smiling. He'll do anything to keep the group's spirits up, usually cracking jokes during a scrap project or doing little favors, and they appreciate all his efforts!)

-K_K has the WORST sleep cycle, ever. If you let him, he will stay up all night working or partying, finally going to bed at 6AM, and will then sleep until 6PM if the others don't wake him up at some point. If they know he was up really late they'll let him sleep in a little, but he's often pretty sleep-deprived and running solely on sugar and caffeine, which doesn't help his natural loopiness.

-He is a VERY physical guy. Seriously, he will just scoop up and hold Sweet or Cap'n like a cat every five minutes; at first they were just like "Oh. Okay. We're hugging now I guess," but after a while they got more used to it and even anticipate when K_K is going to do it. And he also initiates tons of snuggles and gives piggyback rides whenever one of his bandmates (usually Sweet) requests.

-K_K actually scrapbooks, collecting pictures and little mementos of places he and the others have gone and things they've done. After the library fountain is sealed, he pulls them out to show everyone else from Cyber City and reminisce about home.

-It's very hard to make K_K angry, since he tends to stay super chill and brushes off almost everything. But, on those very, very rare occasions when something does get under his metal outer casing, he'll go full-on silent treatment, not speaking to anyone for up to a week as he sulks and stomps around the junk shop, and even refuses to play any music! And no amount of sweets or hugs or cheering up will bring him out of it, either; the other two have learned to just wait him out and let him have his space, letting him come to them when he's finally ready to talk about it.

Misc:

-Though all three love everything sweet, K_K's the only one who really goes overboard with it, making whole meals out of candy. Sweet, ironically enough, actually prefers more salty/savory snacks, while the less is said about Cap'n's hot sauce addiction, the better.

-Okay, actually, I will say more about it. Cap'n loves spicy food in general, and literally drinks tabasco sauce right from the bottle. However, he's got a bad habit of daring himself to eat hotter and hotter stuff, ESPECIALLY if someone is watching, and can easily get in WAY over his head before begging for milk.

-They also all totally drink battery acid like Queen.

-Heck, being both Darkners and robots, they can really eat literally anything. Normal food, milk, oil, batteries, gallons of pure sugar, toothpaste, moss, glitter (NEVER let K_K get hold of any though, he gets lost in the sauce), broken glass, etc, and of course their own deep-fried CDs. Only thing they can't do is water, since, you know, robots.

-With a lot of the aesthetics of Cyber City being close to turn-of-the millennium and early 2000s (CDs and boomboxes, popup ads, wired mice, Queen theorized to be one of those see-through iMacs, EVERYTHING about Spamton), I like the idea that the boys DO NOT have smartphones, and if you handed them one they'd have no clue how to use it or what to do with it. But they do have cell phones: Sweet's got an old flip phone covered in stickers (courtesy of K_K), Cap'n splurged for one of those that slide open and with a camera (he set his background to a tiny, grainy photo of the three of them!), and K_K has one of those indestructible Nokia bricks, that Sweet got him after he kept breaking all his other ones. They can all text, but that's about as high-tech as they get.

-Same with tablets or newer computers in general, they might share one tiny netbook at most. Cap’n never remembers to log out of his Dark World dating profile, so the others will snoop or post embarrassing things to it.

-They're really, really durable, even without milk -- they're made of 90s plastic and electronics, so it takes a LOT to take one of them down! Plus, they regularly repair each other back at the shop (it took a LONG time for them to gain enough trust to physically open and work on each other), so as long as at least one's left to drag the other two to safety they'll be just fine.

-However, if they get splashed with water, caught in the rain, or worse, drowned, they will short out, or shut down on the spot to prevent damage. Once they completely dry out, though, they'll start right back up, no worse for wear. When only one of them gets waterlogged the other two will break out the hair dryers to dry them out faster, or even pop them into the oven in a pan of rice like an iPod that got dropped in the toilet...

Finally, backstory?

-Cap'n and K_K met first -- maybe both as new recruits to another, much less savory gang of music equipment robots, and bonded as a result of being put upon by the more established members (Cap'n probably even had to defend K_K more than once when his inattentiveness got him into trouble!) But, they both had enough one day, and decided to break off and form their own thing, making music and selling CD bagels to support themselves.

-Sweet, meanwhile, has the complete opposite background, coming from a rich and important family of musicians in Cyber City who regularly entertained Queen in her mansion (hence why he always used to get sweets from her!) But, he was kind of the black sheep, preferring his own style of music, and decided to strike out on his own as a street musician instead.

-They met when Cap'n and K_K accidentally set up to sell bagels on Sweet's usual corner, and he battled them to reclaim his turf. But, they were evenly-matched (even two-to-one; Sweet's definitely the strongest of the trio!), and impressed each other with both their fighting and musical skills, so Sweet decided to join their tiny group, and thus Sweet Cap'n Cakes was formed.

-After the whole situation with Queen is resolved, SCC turns their rebellion into an anti-DRM kind of thing? Nobody can hold back the music, man!

#deltarune #sweet cap'n cakes #deltarune sweet #deltarune cap'n #deltarune k_k #sweet #cap'n #k_k #emheadcanons

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voice-of-anarchy · 2 years ago

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These Are The 10 Best ARCH ENEMY Deep Cuts (by Metal Injection)

Starting life as something of an extreme metal supergroup helmed by former-Carcass lead guitarist Michael Amott, Arch Enemy have created their own niche in the heavy-music world with their fusion of melodic death metal and the arena-ready, classic metal sounds of the 70s and 80s.

While their first three records with frontman Johan Liiva gave them a respectable career in Japan and parts of Europe, it wasn't until the addition of vocalist Angela Gossow on 2001's Wages Of Sin that their international career exploded. Today Arch Enemy are arguably as big as they've ever been on the worldwide stage, with Gossow's replacement Alissa White-Gluz amicably stepping into the lead singer role in 2014.

With a 11 studio releases and almost three decades of history to their name, Arch Enemy have a huge amount of modern metal anthems under their collective belts. But what about the less raved about tracks? They've got some killer deep cuts across all eras – so what are they? Read on and find out…

"Despicable Heroes"

A whip-cracking thrasher from 2003's Anthems of Rebellion, "Despicable Heroes" two minute beating is as straight to the point as Arch Enemy gets. No traces of melodicism here; just furious riffs, blitzkrieg drums and possessed vocals. Considering Anthems… is the album introduced a couple of more mainstream friendly tracks – "We Will Rise" for example – "Despicable Heroes" is a great example of how punishing Arch Enemy can be when they want to. Never played live and with low streams, it's a perfect way to kick off our list.

"In This Shallow Grave"

"In This Shallow Grave" is arguably Rise of the Tyrant's most underrated tune; the 2007 release is loaded with so many great tracks that our choice has been overlooked for far too long. Which is damn shame as "In This Shallow Grave" sees the group in full flight – heavy verses, a melodic, guitar-led chorus and that guitar solo section – man! It's the perfect example of the Amott brothers Chris and Michael's penchant for the blisteringly fast and the highly emotive. It's really everything you'd want from an Arch Enemy song, and deserves more appreciation from fans and artist alike.

"Losing Faith"

We're going all the way back to Arch Enemy's 1996 debut Black Earth for "Losing Faith". It's a bobbing and weaving track, moving between two unique, riff-driven feels. One is almost bouncing, whilst the other is prime headbang fodder. Original frontman Johan Liiva puts out a solid – if not a little uninspiring – vocal performance, with the rest of the act carrying the lion's share of the song. A number that has yet – and unlikely to ever – to see the stage, it was also ignored when Arch Enemy re-recorded a bunch of their earlier material for The Root Of All Evil compilation in 2009.

"Matchkampf"

A deep album cut from the excellent Doomsday Machine, "Matchkampf" – translating to "Power Struggle" – is a fist-pumping track that moves at a raging, almost violent pace. It's a powerchord heavy number, with very little of Arch Enemy's usual singing guitar – although the boys can't help themselves when the solo section pops up. It also a packs a nice key change at the tail-end of the song to keep things fresh. The last section of Doomsday Machine is overlooked, with the cracking "Matchkampf" being the most forgotten of the lot.

"My Shadow And I"

A classic sounding Arch Enemy number from their tenth full length – and first with uber-shredder Jeff Loomis – Will To Power's anthemic "My Shadow And I" should have been at the very least released as a single for the LP. It's first half is more in the band's more melodic vein, with the second packing a off-to-races tempo pick up, before a thumping half-time section cranks the heaviness up a notch or two. Rather than being given the film clip treatment, it's instead been tucked away towards the back end of the record, and has yet to feature in an Arch Enemy setlist.

"On and On"

Another latter-day choice, "On and On" is lifted from 2014's War Eternal – a record most notable for the debuting of current Arch Enemy vocalist Alissa White–Gluz. A big tune with a thunderous bridge and instantly memorable chorus, it's actually co-written by another debutant – one-time lead guitarist Nick Cordle. A strong track that seems to have been forgotten about as one of the lowest streamed from War Eternal, "On and On" almost sounds tailor-made for promotional play, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

"Seed Of Hate"

With definitely more than a nod towards Ozzy Osbourne's"Bark At The Moon", "Seed Of Hate" is a hard rocking, early days Arch Enemy classic. Penned solely by Christopher Amott, there's certainly more to the Burning Bridge track's Jake E Lee style main-riff – with a restrained verse passage and real ear grabbing chorus. Like the previously listed "Losing Faith", the uptempo banger was not redone for Arch Enemy's The Root Of All Evil nostalgia trip. Which is a shame, as it's a fun, underrated tune.

"Shadows & Dust"

Lifted from the superb Wages of Sin – Arch Enemy's first album with Angela Gossow – "Shadow & Dust" is tremendous track that has rarely been played by the band. The closer for the record's standard edition, it's such such a great melodic death metal song – basically the perfect example of Arch Enemy's sound. Great riffs, big chorus and singing guitar melodies – what more do you want from them? It's only sin is being on arguably their best full length, and thusly been overlooked for it's more well known brethren.

"Tears Of The Dead"

Taken from Arch Enemy's sophomore release Stigmata, the 1998 record saw them build upon the momentum from their debut Black Earth. Some great material on here, but a song that's been under appreciated for years is the excellent "Tears Of The Dead". It's got an epic feel to it, with loads of powerful riffs and melodies, and is one the high points from the Johan Liiva-era of the group. Perhaps it's only reason for being forgotten is due to the album's huge closer "Bridge of Destiny" having stolen our selection's thunder.

"The Oath"

A deep cut cover of a deep cut original, Arch Enemy's take on Kiss' highly underrated barnstormer "The Oath" is an excellent example of tweaking a song just enough to make it your own. The heavy, fast-paced track makes for a perfect tune for our guys to tackle, and aside from the screamed vocals and lower-key, Arch Enemy keep their take on "The Oath" pretty damn close to the original. Laid down during the aforementioned Rise Of The Tyrant sessions; the huge, modern metal production works perfectly – and frankly, if you didn't know any better, you'd think that it's an Arch Enemy original. That is the sign of a great cover.

#arch enemy #2022 news

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abloodymess · 3 years ago

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I am a music person. One of my earliest memories is listening to Patti Smith's Horses with my Mom as we washed dishes. The Velvet Underground, weird Jazz, Chicago Blues, 70s Soul, along with all the heavy hitters of classic rock (Stones, The Who, Beatles, Kinks, etc) were always coming out the stereo my entire childhood. As a child my Dad took me to see and meet all sorts of old blues guys, he also used me to sneak back stage, it was a good gimmick and I have fond memories of standing just off stage as Bonnie Raitt was about to take the stage, and her taking a shine to the 7 year old roaming around.

Anyways, I thought this was how all kids experienced music. When we moved and I started a new school (big 4th grade) and I tried to communicate my love of music, kids my own age had no idea what I was talking about. My first sense of a disconnect between myself and my peers of this farm town. Reading Thrasher and watching skateboard videos sure planted the seeds of a whole world of modern music I had not experienced yet.

I did not come online as a modern music fan until 91. My cousin noticed I was getting drawn into metal and hard rock; he took me aside and showed me this new band called Nirvana. He had Bleach and showed me it, "you like this?, they are playing in two weeks in Chicago, want to go?" Not sure how we got my mom to say yes, but my first concert without my folks was seeing Nirvana at the 1200 person club The Metro just before the Teen Spirit video broke. I honestly was kind of scared, but the energy and the feel of the electricity in the room changed me. I knew this is something I wanted to be part of. Are there more bands like this?

91-95 felt like it should have been a lifetime, looking back its crazy how small that window really was. How fast the mainstream was able to pounce on underground bands with really progressive ideals and just decimate them. They either died (literally or financially), went back to the underground, or imploded as the machine found copies of copies that could fit in the box but were easier to deal with. If Nirvana was a Pixies rip-off, I am not sure what you would call Days of the New when they showed up in 97. God bless REM for soldiering on. (I am generalizing here because there was A LOT of music that got marketed as “Girl Music” your Tori Amos, Fiona Apples, Natalie Merchants, all of a sudden this was music for girlfriends and should be separated to the Lilith Fair while “real music” was Creed or something? and I am not even touching Hip-Hop here) There was a moment though in the early/mid 90s where it was perfectly normal to see Cibo Motto on the same stage as Soundgarden, then something changed.

“Grunge” or whatever you want to call it was hollowed out and the imitators were fizzling out (some great singles in there but very few career groups), there was a push by radio to somehow hybrid cool DJ/Rave culture with rock culture and you got “Electronica” which was kind of soulless, but the good and pioneering electronic groups got a place in the sun. Rock though, it got hyper masculine (and not that Grunge wasn’t, but there was a sincerity and fragility that was removed) and fucking dethatched from any other feeling but anger, anything else was viewed as a weakness, there was no longer a sense of queerness or the feminine.

By 96 I was out, I wanted nothing to do with what was going on, so I turned inward and got real into early Emo bands and old Goth records, I was a full on punk with metal leanings. Screamy boys and girls who had nothing but “feelings” and sincerity bubbling out of themselves. We formed our bands and locked ourselves in basement across the country with our own shows and did our own thing, ignoring what was going on above ground. A nice deep sub-genre of a sub-genre to keep myself with not having to associate with what I saw as the meatheads taking over. (Again, not that there wasn’t dreadful misogyny, racism, and shitty shit going on where I was).

When I watched the documentary it was incredibly depressing. I can’t say if the documentary itself was good or bad, but the ideas presented, the where we were at that time and how we got there just kept rolling over and over in my head and how fast it happened from 94-99 a complete sea change happened. I don’t really have any insight to that, but its just staggering to go from waiting for a concert to start and having Food Not Bombs handing out flyers and a few short years later it is Girls Gone Wild getting girls to show their boobs (AND IT WAS THE SAME BAND just 2 years later and a really different fan base and energy).

Clearly the promoters of Woodstock 99 were at best evil dummies, who after all this time showed zero reflection and just wanted to blame women and Mtv or the bands or anyone but themselves. I do not think the documentary sides with them, but presents that is what these men believe. Honestly if anyone sides with those dudes, get some help. Corporate rock sucks and even the most well meaning bands get put in horrible positions time and time again. I will never understand how Rage Against the Machine is always at the most corporate shit-shows standing there like a bunch of assholes.

Anyways, sorry, I just needed to vomit out some words about this. I am just glad I wasn’t there, didn’t see myself reflected back, or see any of my friends.

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the413joint · 3 years ago

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A Conversation with DJ Mike Torch

The 413 Joint gets a deeper look at DJ Mike Torch — the man behind ‘Inapproreality’, ‘For The Culture’, and the highly-anticipated ‘Spliffield III’ Event in Western Mass. Read more for conversations on his musical background and how his time serving as a Marine has shaped his music taste.

The 413 Joint: Describe your musical background?

Torch: “I think everyone knows this by now, I’ve said it so many times. My father was a DJ and my grandfather was as well. So, like, music has been around since before I was even here. Before I was even thought of. So, just literally, I remember being five, six, seven years old and running around with my dad. He was putting on a bunch of festivals; every year he had festivals going on for, I don’t know, ten plus years. Called the ‘Get Ill’ Picnic, people’s parents out here might have went to it way back when. Everybody knows my parents, because of events like that. They did a lot. So, I remember being a kid, just watching that and obviously it’s an influence on me. It’s what I’m doing now. It’s what I’m doing today.”

Is there any specific kind of sound you aim for as a DJ?

“No, because you can put me anywhere. It’s, to that point, because I’ve been to so many different people and cultures. And not just been around them but been in-depth with those cultures. Like I wrestled in high school, so not a lot of Black people wrestle. So, I’m around a lot more white kids; now I’m listening to their music. You’re around their culture, I had friends, I had sleepovers and all type of stuff like that. Now you get to put yourself in their shoes. You get to see a different mindset [that] you wouldn’t have had without being there. So, being on the wrestling team and then joining the Marine corp got me comfortable with listening to rock and heavy metal and all types of country. It was just a lot of pastime music, especially when we were in Iraq. People would share whole Zune playlist with everybody and just switch music. That’s how we all understood each other then, that way. So, it’s another way that I got introduced to more music. And then being in California and going to raves and being apart of crazy EDM festivals. I just been around a lot -- a lot of different types of music and different types of cultures. So when it comes to the music, everything I was born into plus all the cultures added on to what I’ve done personally, I just have a very, very, very open-mind and a very, very, very crazy library of music stored in this brain.”

What’s the most unexpected thing you listen to or do you have any guilty pleasures?

“I think it really is that, it really is the rock and the metal. Because it puts me back into certain places in Iraq, like when I mention ‘Seven Dust’ came to perform for us out in Iraq. It was one of the dopest things I’ve ever seen in my life; it was amazing. As I got introduced to them then I started tapping into their catalog. And listening to a lot of ‘Lamb of God’ because they love Marines and they shout-out Marines in their music all the time. So now I’m screaming and going crazy in the gym just listening to ‘Lamb of God’. I wouldn’t have otherwise known that, unless, like I said, being in those different places and being different people. So definitely the rock because even for St. Patrick’s Day, I was playing a bunch of it and [with] Bia Javier, I was like, ‘You don’t know this song? You never heard this before?’ And she’s like, ‘No, no. Like no, what is going on?’”

When I spoke to MacWay yesterday he mentioned that you’re in film school. Obviously that helps with the podcast but talk to us about how that’s going?

“Yeah, it kind of happened on accident. We, as a unit, came through a bunch of different photographers and videographers, that like came on the team and for reasons they either walked away or it just wasn’t working out. So, I got tired of my visuals looking the way that they did. So I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to just take this into my own hands. And not just wing it, but let me learn professionally. I have this G.I. Bill in my pocket, let me go to school and learn something. Let me do this myself.’ And it went from that to as I’m learning, because I went to a film school. I decided to go to a film school. If I learn how to make films I can run a podcast. So I’m, like, ‘Okay fine, now that I’m learning about film, I’m like, man I might want to get into directing or actually being a cinematographer.’ Or anything, anything that has to do with this. Because I’m learning a lot and it’s very interesting and fun. It’s become something that’s absolutely a part of me and I can’t wait to just see where this takes me. Because I have no idea, I had no plan for this. I really don’t, I have no idea where this is going to take me. So it’s very exciting.”

Talk to us a little bit about your plans for the podcast this year?

“This year, I plan on, it’s been like a resume builder really, I’m trying to put as much stuff on our plate as possible. I’m trying to work the hardest so that way, I think people already know this but I want to make sure it’s without a doubt, you know that we are the hardest working people. Me, MacWay, and Karla. Like you have to know this, you have to know this. And we’re gonna put in that work, so we’re everywhere right now putting on all types of events. And we’re just gonna keep working and just keep getting at it. Until it takes us to where we want to go because it’s going to happen.”

And of course, Spliffield III is coming up right around the corner. Talk to us a little about that.

“This is the third one we’ve done. It’s the first of its kind, the first one was actually, it was an accident. I just wanted to have a massive smoke session and that’s what it was. I overdid it, I had thirty plus vendors. It was ridiculous, a lot of people came, damn near like three hundred people showed up in a tight area. People were in and out. It was amazing, I had comedian Rob Santos, who is amazing. He came out, I was supposed to have people perform there but I just felt like the setting wasn’t right for it. So I canceled it on the spot. Shout-out MUDA!, I’m so sorry. He was so mad at me. He was so mad and I’m like, ‘MUDA! MUDA! Look around like, it’s just not the spot for this right now. It’s just not.’ But I definitely gave Rob the mic and he did a good job. But then last year, last year’s was a little bit smaller because I thought I overdid it. So, I was like, alright, it was a little smaller and I had people perform there. This year I feel like I got the perfect medium. It’s a dope space, you guys will get the address soon. And I just want to push New England here and push Springfield out into New England. So I’m bringing artists from all throughout Eastern Mass and Connecticut here. And try to build this community up because I feel people don’t travel enough. So I’m going to bring it to our backyard and see who’s really serious about this or not. Because I’m telling everybody, ‘If you hate me, if you hate my guts, so what? This is an opportunity for you to talk to people. This is an opportunity to talk to managers because they’re going to be in the building. Other photographers, videographers, they’re going to be in the building. People that are not from here, you want your music heard elsewhere? This is an opportunity for it to happen, even if you don’t perform. Just go and talk. Network.’ People don’t do that as well, get out.”

Spliffield III is sponsored by Chico Dusty, who’s been involved in putting on some pretty interesting events. The 413 Joint wants to just give a quick shout-out to Chico Dusty honestly.

“Chico and MacWay and I -- and Ovo Rell, shout-out Ovo Rell. A lot of people, we all went to Duggan together. We all went to the same middle school together. So we’ve all built these relationships, this is the reason why we’re so tight today. Like we’ve known each other for a very, very long time. And Chico is one of those people that I’ve known for a very, very long time. He’s an absolute comedian and another workaholic. You see it, he’s always putting on events. Always thinking of creative, different type of events that people come out to to have a good time. When it comes to entertainment, I think I mean, he might be the G.O.A.T. out here when it comes to entertainment and putting out these type of events no bull. Even the ‘Anything But Cups’ Event like that’s different, people were showing up with all types of things. Just being different and creative. Having radio shows or being a part of radio shows, having high positions at those shows. Like having podcasts and having his own spaces. Putting on I don’t know how many sessions, like it’s nonstop work with that guy. And definitely proud of him no bull.”

Speaking of Facebook comedians, there’s been some comments about you as a stand-up comedian. Will that ever be in the works for DJ Mike Torch?

“I absolutely love stand-up, like it is, I can probably name as much stand-up comedians off top as artists. Like, well maybe not. But close to, but close to. But I’ve always been a fan of stand-up comedy so being a goofball, that’s where the podcast came. That’s how the podcast came about, was my Facebook posts. Like people have always known me as the ‘meme’ guy, always cracking jokes on Facebook. So I realized I had a following just for that and I was like, ‘How the hell can I capitalize off this?’ And then, it was like boom, just have a podcast. This was when I was still living in Florida in 2015, 2016, brewing this idea up. And then, I got inducted into the Hall of Fame for football and wrestling in 2017. And when I came back for the induction, I was like yeah, I’m moving back. And then once I realized I was moving back, that’s when I hit up MacWay. I hit up my original engineer Matt, I hit up my original photographer and cameraman Tom. And we just got it rolling as soon as I came back. That’s how it started in 2018.”

When does the ‘For the Culture’ brand fit into your journey?

“Shout-out Chris Lombardi, if it wasn’t for Chris Lombardi, this wouldn’t happen. That’s an artist out here, he invited me to DJ one of his events that he put on at the Middle East (Bar and Restaurant) out in Boston. And because I knew I was going out there I was like, ‘Dang, this is a good opportunity for me to play peoples’ music out there.’ So I made a post, ‘Hey, I’m going out to Boston. If you want your music played out in Boston, send me your music.’ And my email got flooded. I was like, oh shit, I had no idea this was gonna be like this. Alright so, I go there and I start spinning regular stuff. Regular music, regular hip-hop that everybody knows. And the people that were there, they was just dead. I was just like, ‘Dang, how I am not getting any reaction out of things, that as a DJ, I’m looking at peoples’ reactions. Like aren't I getting a reaction out of everybody? Or anybody at all at this music? So then I switched it up to all local stuff, all independent stuff that I got sent. And then I started getting a reaction out of all these people from music they don’t know. I’m like, oh shit, this is really different. So then boom, I go live. But I have the camera facing me, people don’t really see that it's not really crazy packed. It’s really not, but the illusion of it and people did appreciate that I spun their music out there. And enough people did hear it, enough people did rock to their music to the point where I got a lot of respect for it. And then I was like, ‘Damn how can I capitalize off of this? How can I keep playing peoples’ music?’ It was just perfect timing, boom, COVID happened. So now everyone’s in the house. So that’s why I started the every Friday thing, people are looking for things to do. So now I’m live, it started with the battles. We picked two artists and people sent me their music and people judged in the comments. Shit we were the Verzuz before Verzuz, I swear to God. I swear, it’s documented. I’m lying, I’m lying it was around the same time. But we started doing that, battles going back and forth with artists out here. Then it went to that from just spinning peoples’ music to let’s do live shows with this. We started having people come out, shout-out Green Screen Studios for letting us use their space for the time that we did. And we started doing live shows there and it just kept going. I really didn’t have any plans for that either. I just had an idea. I had a small idea and I just kept working at it. And it grew bigger and bigger to what it is today.”

Favorite film or top three if you can’t do one?

“Okay, definitely ‘The Wood’, ‘Friday’ is in there, ‘How High’ is in there. Oh man, I could do this all day, like these are movies that I’ve watched constantly. Oh man, ‘Players Club’. Like The Wood like that is my shit. That is my shit and ‘Friday’, I feel like everybody can recite ‘Friday’ from front to back. Like that’s an instant classic. My dog’s name is Silas. If you watch ‘How High’, Method Man’s character is named Silas.”

If you could choose any actor to play you in a biopic who would it be?

“Oh wow. Bow-wow for sure. Absolutely, got to, like that’s a given. That’s the first person I thought of but it’d be hilarious. People have been talking about that guy since forever. It’ll just be funny. It’ll just be another joke, it’d be hilarious. Bow-wow got to do it.”

#the413joint #the413archive #dj mike torch #dj talks #independent blogger #music blog #creative interviews #east coast #east coast music scene #massachusetts music #boston music #a413joint

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dustedmagazine · 3 years ago

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Dust, Volume 7, Number 7

What are Grandbrothers doing to that piano?

Greetings from under the heat dome, where shipments of vinyl are melting mid-journey and even the coolest of cool jazz sounds a little wilted by the time it reaches your ear. We are sitting in the shade. We are drinking lemonade and iced tea. We are looking for the window fans and lugging old air condition units up from the basement. We are, perhaps, headed to the community pool for the first time since our kids were young, though also, perhaps not. In any case, we are still getting through piles of recorded music, even in this heat, and finding some gems. Here are dispatches from the furthest reaches of Japanese psych, European free jazz, self-released indie folk, Irish lockdown angst, Moroccan raging punk and lots of other stuff. Contributors included Mason Jones, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Tim Clarke, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw, Arthur Krumins and Chris Liberato. Stay cool.

Yuko Araki — End of Trilogy (Room40)

End Of Trilogy by Yuko Araki

These 16 tracks whoosh past in just 35 minutes, with most of them clocking in around two minutes in length. Many don't reach a conclusion: they simply end abruptly, and the next one starts. Araki manipulates electronics to create whirling, sizzling atmospheres of confusion, sometimes fast-moving burbles of percussion and synths, at other moments pushing distorted hissing and confrontational tones to the front. The aptly-named "Dazed" begins with a cinematic feel, then its galactic drones give way to static and metallic scrapes. "Positron in Bloom" is like a chorus of machine voices shouting angry curses into space, and "Dreaming Insects" sounds as if the titular creatures are being pulled downstream in fast-moving rapids. Oscillating between menacing and humorous, End of Trilogy's bite-sized pieces of surrealist electronics are never boring.

Mason Jones

Alexander Biggs — Hit or Miss (Native Tongue Music Publishing)

Hit or Miss by Alexander Biggs

Alexander Biggs blunts sharp, stinging lyrics in the sweetest sort of strummy indie-pop, working very much in the Elliott Smith style of sincerity edged with lacerating irony. “All I Can Do Is Hate You” finds a queasy intersection between soft pop and tamped down rage, Biggs murmuring phrases like “I want you to fuck me til I can’t say your name,” but melodically, over cascades of acoustic guitar. “Madeline” is the pick of the litter here, a dawdling jangle of guitar framing knife-sharp lyrics about romantic disillusionment. “Miserable,” sports a bit of lap steel for emotional resonance, demonstrating once more, if you had any doubt, that very sad songs can make you feel better somehow. Biggs is good at both the softness and the sting, and for guy-with-a-guitar albums, that’s what you need.

Jennifer Kelly

Christer Bothén 3 — Omen (Bocian)

Omen by Christer Bothén 3

Dusted’s collective consciousness has spent a lot of time considering Blank Forms’ recent publication, Organic Music Societies, which considers Don and Moki Cherry’s convergence of artistic and familial efforts during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the two archival recordings by Don and associates, which shed light upon his Scandinavian musical activities. All three are worth your attention, but their liveliness is shaded by the awareness that almost every hopeful soul involved is no longer with us. But Christer Bothén, who introduced Don to the donso ngoni and subsequently played in his bands for many years, is not only among the living, he’s got breath to spare. This trio recording doesn’t delve into the African sounds that bonded Bothén and Don. Rather, the Swede’s bass clarinet draws bold and emphatically punctuated melodic lines, driven by a steaming rhythm section that takes its cues from Ornette Coleman’s mid-1960s trio recordings. This music may not sound new, but it’s full of lived-in knowledge and vigor.

Bill Meyer

Briars of North America — Supermoon (Brassland)

Supermoon by Briars of North America

New York-based trio Briars of North America take patient, painterly, occasionally cosmic approach to folk music. With “Sala,” Supermoon sounds like a backwoods Sigur Ros. A falsetto voice intoning a made-up language arcs elegantly over sustained waves of electric piano. Soon after, the album touches down into more grounded guitar-and-cello territory on pieces such as “Island” and “Chirping Birds,” which bring to mind Nick Drake, albeit less contrary or withdrawn. At the album’s midway point, the listener is carried into the aether with the eerie sustained brass and wordless vocals of the eight-minute “The Albatross of Infinite Regress.” A similar space is explored at the album’s end with the 12-minute “Sleepy Not Sleepy,” as strings and warbling synthesizer tones intermingle with the return of the made-up language. Though the band’s more conventional vocal-led songs, such as “Spring Moon,” are decent enough, Briars of North America touch upon something expansive and ineffable when they explore their more experimental side.

Tim Clarke

Bryan Away — Canyons to Sawdust (self-released)

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Chicago-based actor, composer and multi-instrumentalist Elliot Korte releases music under the moniker Bryan Away. His new album, Canyons to Sawdust, begins with what feels like two introductions. “Well Alright Then” is a Grizzly Bear-style scene-setter for wordless voices, strings and woodwinds, while “Within Reach” sounds like a tentative cover of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song” that runs out of steam before it had the chance to build momentum. The first full song, single “The Lake,” gets the album up and running in earnest with its melancholy piano and string arrangement spiked with pizzicato plucks and bright acoustic guitar figures. Half Waif lends her vocal talents to “Dreams and Circumstance,” another highlight featuring some lovely interplay between guitar arpeggios and drum machine. One pitfall of exploring romantic musical territory is the risk of sounding a tad saccharine, and the weakest links in the album, companion tracks “Scenes From a Marriage” and “Scenes From a Wedding,” have the kind of performative tone you’d expect to find on the soundtrack of a mainstream romantic comedy. Elsewhere, though, Korte’s judgment is sound, and there’s plenty of elegant music to be found. Fans of Sufjan Stevens will no doubt find a lot to like, and it’ll be interesting to see where Bryan Away ventures next.

Tim Clarke

Jonas Cambien Trio — Nature Hath Painted Painted The Body (Clean Feed)

Nature Hath Painted the Body by Jonas Cambien Trio

On its third album, the Jonas Cambien Trio has attained such confidence that it’s willing to mess with its signature sound. The Oslo-based combo’s fundamental approach is to stuff the expressive energy and textural adventure of free jazz into compositions that are by turns intricate and rhythmically insistent but always pithy. This time, the Belgian-born pianist Cambien also plays soprano sax and organ. The former, stirred into André Roligheten’s bundle of reed instruments, brings airy respite from the music’s tight structures; the latter, dubbed into locked formation with the piano and jostled by Andreas Wildhagen’s restlessly perambulating percussion, expands the music’s tonal colors. The tunes themselves have grown more catchy, so much so that their twists and turns only become apparent with time and repeat listening.

Bill Meyer

Ferran Fages / Lluïsa Espigolé — From Grey To Blue (Inexhaustible Editions)

From Grey To Blue by Ferran Fages

When discussion turns to a pianist’s touch, it’s tempting to think mainly of what they do with their fingers. But it must be said that Lluïsa Espigolé exhibits some next-level footwork on this realization of Ferran Fages’ From Grey To Blue. Fages is a multi-instrumentalist who functions equally persuasively within the realms of electroacoustic improvisation and heavy jazz-rock, but for this piece, which was devised specifically for Espigolé, he uses written music and an instrument he doesn’t play, the piano, to engage with resonance and melody. The three-part composition advances with extreme deliberation, often one note at a time, turning the tune into a ghostly presence and foregrounding the details of the decay of each sound. This music is so sparse that the shift to chords in the third section feels dramatically dense after a half hour of single sounds and corresponding silences. The elements of this music have been sculpted with such exquisite control that one wonders if Catalonia has looked into insuring Espigolé’s feet; her way with the piano’s pedals is a cultural resource.

Bill Meyer

Grandbrothers — All the Unknown (City Slang)

All the Unknown by Grandbrothers

The duo known as Grandbrothers hooks a grand piano up to an array of electronic interfaces, deriving not just the clear, gorgeous notes you expect, but also a variety of percussive and sustained sounds from the classic keyboard. In this third album from the two—that’s pianist Erol Sarp and electronic engineer Lukas Vogel—construct intricate, joyful collages, working clarion melodies into sharp, pointillist backgrounds. The obvious reference is Hauscka, who also works with prepared piano and electronics, but rather than his moody beauties, these compositions pulse with rave-y, trance-y exhilaration. If you ever wondered what it would sound like if the Fuck Buttons decided to cover Steve Reich, well, maybe like this, precise and complex and shimmering, but also huge and triumphant. Good stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

id m theft able — Well I Fell in Love with the Eye at the Bottom of the Well (Pogus Productions)

Well I Fell in Love With the Eye at the Bottom of the Well by id m theft able

Al Margolis’ Pogus Productions imprint has cast its gaze toward the strange happenings in Maine, netting a mutant form of electroacoustic wizardry in the process. Scott Spear is the one-man maelstrom known as id m theft able, an incredibly prolific and confounding presence in the American northeast. He draws influence from musique concrète and sound poetry, but adds a whimsical spirit, a tinker’s ingenuity and the comedic timing of a master prankster to his compositions. Sometimes this leads to the bemusement of his audience, but he tempers any surface madness with an endless curiosity and a playful sense of the meaning of the word music. Well I Fell in Love with the Eye at the Bottom of the Well ostensibly came to be via Spear’s desire to create a doo-wop tune. Only Spear himself knows whether this is fact or fiction, because it is clear from the opening moments of “Shun, Unshun and Shun” that this disc is full of sonic non-sequiturs, amplified clatter and delightful mouth happenings that are as far removed from doo-wop as possible. The madness is frequently tempered with beautiful moments: a broken music box serenades a flock of chirping birds in the middle of a mall, Spear hypnotically chants at a landscape of crickets, flutes pipe along to the patter of rain on a window. As one gets deeper into the record, the sound poetry aspects become more and more pronounced, such as on “The Curve of the Earth” and the closing piece, “Purple Rain.” Those seeking a humor-filled gateway drug into that somewhat perilous corner of the sonic spectrum would be wise to pop an ear in the direction of this frenetic assemblage of sound.

Bryon Hayes

Mia Joy — Spirit Tamer (Fire Talk)

Spirit Tamer by Mia Joy

Mia Joy turns the temperature way down on gauzy Spirit Tamer, constructing translucent castles in the air out of musical elements that you can see and hear right through. The artist, known in real life as Mia Rocha, opens with a brief statement of intent in a one-minute title track that wraps wisps of vocal melody with indistinct but lovely sustained tones. The whole track feels like looking at clouds. Other cuts are more substantial, with muted rock band instruments like acoustic and electric guitars and drum machines, but even indie-leaning “Freak” and "Ye Old Man,” are quiet epiphanies. Rocha sounds like she is singing to herself softly, inwardly, without any thought of an audience, but also so close that it tickles the hair in your ears. Rocha closes with a cover of Arthur Russell’s “Our Last Night Together,” letting rich swells of piano stand in for cello, but tracing the subtle, undulating lines of his melody in an airy register, an octave or two higher. Like Russell, Rocha sets up an interesting interplay between deep introversion and presentation for the public eye; she’s not doing it for us, but we’re listening anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Know//Suffer — The Great Dying (Silent Pendulum Records)

The Great Dying by KNOW//SUFFER

It’s not inaccurate to describe The Great Dying as a hardcore record. You’ll hear all the burly breakdowns; buzzing, overdriven guitars; and grimly declaimed vocals that characterize the genre, which since the mid-1990s has moved ever closer to metal. But Know//Suffer have consistently infused their music with sonic elements associated with other genres of heavy music. Most of the El Paso band’s 2019 EP bashed and crashed along with grindcore’s psychotic, sprinting energy. The Great Dying is a longer record, and it slows down the proceedings considerably. There are flirtations with sludge, and even with noise rock’s ambivalent gestures toward melody: imagine Tad throwing down with a mostly-sober version of Eyehategod, and you’re more than halfway there. As ever, Toast Williams emotes forcefully, giving word to a very contemporary version existential dread. But there’s frequently a political edge to the lyrics on this new record. On “Thumbnail,” he sings, “I swallow what must be hidden / Hoping assimilation makes me whole / The whole that everyone thinks I am / Smiling under this mask knowing / I’m not hiding my face in public.” “Assimilation” is a loaded word, especially on the Southern Border, and it’s no joke walking around in public as a proud black man anywhere in Texas. Wearing a mask as you walk into Target? P.O.C. stand a chance of getting shot. Know//Suffer still sound really pissed off, but the objects of their anger seem increasing outside of their tortured psyches, located in the lifeworld’s social planes of struggle. That gives their grim music an even harder charge, and makes Williams’s performances of rage even more powerful.

Jonathan Shaw

Heimito Künst — Heimito Künst (Dissipatio)

HEIMITO KÜNST by Heimito Künst

The debut album from Italian experimental instrumentalist Heimito Künst, recorded over several years in his home studio, uses an array of electronic and primitive instrumentation to create an overall woozy, dark atmosphere. From groaning, atonal slabs of organ, like a detuned church service, to murmuring field recordings and scrapings, these seven tracks are less like songs and more like unsettling journeys through sound. Pieces like "Talking to Ulises" blend quiet Farfisa tones and a wordlessly singing voice in the distance. Ironically, although the final track is titled "Smoldering Life", it's unexpectedly brighter, with major-key synth notes over the cloudy sound of a drum being bashed to pieces before ending with an almost gentle, summertime feel.

Mason Jones

Jeanne Lee — Conspiracy (moved-by-sound)

Conspiracy by JEANNE LEE

Lots of 1960s and 1970s jazz reissues offer beautiful music, but few redefine how liberating improvised music can be. Conspiracy, originally recorded in 1974 by Lee on vocals with an ensemble that includes Sam Rivers and Gunter Hampel, falls into the latter category without feeling forced. It combines sound poetry, the conversation of spontaneity, and grooves that don’t stay on repetition but still get ingrained into your brain somehow. Best digested in a contemplative sitting, the album demands you give your whole attention to the direction of the music and words mixed with extended vocal techniques. The sound shifts from a full-on medley of flutes, drums, bass and horns with voice, to more minimal experiments. The recording is clean and uncluttered, even at its busiest. A lushly enjoyable listen.

Arthur Krumins

Sarah Neufeld — Detritus (Paper Bag)

Detritus by Sarah Neufeld

Sarah Neufeld’s third solo album grew out of a collaboration with the Toronto choreographer Peggy Baker, begun before the pandemic but dealing anyway with loss, intimacy and grief. The violinist and composer works, as a consequence with a strong sense of movement, underlining rhythms with repeated, slashing motifs in her own instrument and pounding drums (that’s Jeremy Gara, who, like Neufeld, plays in Arcade Fire). You can imagine movement to nearly all these songs. “With Love and Blindness” rushes forward in a wild swirl of strings, given weight by the buzz of low-toned synthesizer and airiness in the layer of denatured vocals; you see whirling, bending, graceful gestures. “The Top” proceeds in quicker, more playful patterns; agile kicks and jumps and shimmies are implied in its contours. “Tumble Down the Undecided” has a raw, passionate undertow, its play of octave-separated notes frantic and agitated and the drumming, when it comes, fairly gallops. This latter track is perhaps the most enveloping, the notes caroming wildly in all directions, in the thick of the struggle but full of joy.

Jennifer Kelly

Aaron Novik — Grounded (Astral Editions)

Grounded by Aaron Novik

Aaron Novik is a clarinetist with an extensive background in jazz, klezmer, rock and in-between stuff, but you wouldn’t know any of that from listening to this tape. Its ten numbered instrumentals sound more derived from the sound worlds of 1970s PBS documentaries, Residents records of similar vintage, and Pop Corn’s fluke hit, “Pop Corn.” Recorded during the spring of 2020, when Novik’s new neighborhood, Queens, became NYC’s COVID central, it manifests coping strategy that many people learned well last year; when the outside world is fucked and scary, retreat to a room and then head down a rabbit hole. In this case, that meant sampling Novik’s clarinets and arranging them into perky, bobbing instrumentals. The sounds themselves aren’t processed, but it turns out that when recontextualized, long, blown tones and keypad clatter sound a lot like synths and mechanized beats. There’s a hint of subconscious longing in this music. While it was made in a time and place when many people didn’t leave the house, it sounds like just the thing for outdoor constitutionals with a Walkman.

Bill Meyer

Off Peak Arson — S-T (Self-released)

Self Titled by Off Peak Arson

Presumably named after the Truman's Water song — a fairly obscure name check, indeed — Off Peak Arson hail from Memphis, TN. Their debut EP's five songs are less reminiscent of their namesakes than of heavier, noisier bands like Zedek-era Live Skull, Dustdevils and Sonic Youth. Which is not a bad thing at all. The four-piece leverage the dual guitars to nicely intense effect, and with all four members contributing vocals there's a lot going on, at times blending an interesting sing-song pop feel with the twisty-noisy guitar. The band have a way of finding memorable hooks amidst sufficient cacophony to keep things challenging while also somehow catchy. Keep your ears open for more from this quartet.

Mason Jones

Barre Phillips / John Butcher / Ståle Liavik Solberg — We Met – And Then (Relative Pitch)

We met - and then by Phillips, Butcher, Solberg

In 2018, ECM Records issued End To End, a CD by double bassist Barre Phillips which capped a half-century of solo recording. You might expect this act to signal the winding down of the California-born, France-based improviser’s career; after all, he was born in 1934. And yet, in 2018 he played the first, but not the last, concert by this remarkable trio, which is completed by British soprano/tenor saxophonist John Butcher and Norwegian percussionist Ståle Liavik Solberg. Recorded in Germany and Norway during 2018 and 2019, this CD presents an ensemble whose members are strong in their individual concepts, but are also committed to making music that is completed by acts of collective imagination. The music is in constant flux, but purposeful. This intentionality is expressed not only through action, but through the conscious yielding of space, as though each player knows what openings will be best occupied by one of their comrades.

Bill Meyer

Round Eye — Culture Shock Treatment (Paper +Plastick)

“Culture Shock Treatment,” the lead-off track from this unhinged and ecletic album, swings like 1950s rock and roll, a sax frolicking in the spaces between sing-along choruses. And yet, the gleeful skronk goes a little past freewheeling, spinning off into chaos and wheeling back in again. Picture Mark Sultan trying to ride out the existential disorder of early Pere Ubu, add a horn line and step way back, because this is extremely unruly stuff. Round Eye, a band of expatriates now living in Shanghai, slings American heartlands oddball post-punk into unlikely corners. Frantic jackhammer hardcore beats (think Black Flag) assault free-from experimental calls and responses (maybe Curlew?) in “5000 Miles, “ and as a kicker, it’s a commentary on ethno-nationalist repression (“Thank…the country. Thank…the culture”). “I Am the Foreigner” hums and buzzes with exuberance, like a hard-edged B-52s, but it’s about the alienation that these Westerners most likely experience, every day in the Middle Kingdom. This is one busy album, exhausting really, a whac-a-mole entertainment where things keep popping out of holes and getting hammered back, but it is never, ever dull.

Jennifer Kelly

So Cow — Bisignis (Dandy Boy)

Bisignis by So Cow

This new So Cow record is a mood. Specifically, that mood during the third and “least fun” of Ireland’s lockdowns, when you head to your shed and bash out an album about everything that’s been lodged in your craw during a year of isolation — including, of all things, the crowd at a Martha Wainwright show (on “Requests”). And while sole Cow member Brian Kelly might have dubbed the record Bisignis, the Old English word for anxiety, it’s his discontent that takes center stage. “Talking politics with friends/Jesus Christ it never ends” Kelly sings on early highlight “Leave Group” before employing a guitar solo that could pass for some seriously fried bagpipes to help clear the room. This album takes the opposite approach of The Long Con, the project’s 2014 Goner Records one-off where So Cow made more complex moves towards XTC and Futureheads territory but obscured its greatest weapon: Kelly’s deadpan wit. And while a couple of these songs overstay their welcome with their sheer garage punk simplicity, others like “Somewhere Fast” work in the opposite way and win your ears over with repeat listens. “You are the reason I’m getting out of my own way,” Kelly sings, and in doing so has produced the project’s best full-length in a decade. So what? So Cow!

Chris Liberato

Taqbir — Victory Belongs to Those Who Fight for a Right Cause (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Victory Belongs To Those Who Fight For A Right Cause by Taqbir

In our super-saturated musical environment, another eight-minute, 7” record of scorching punk burners isn’t much of an event. But the appearance of Taqbir’s Victory Belongs to Those Who Fight for a Right Cause (the title is almost longer than the record itself) is at the very least a significant occurrence. The band comes from Morocco and features a woman out front, declaiming any number of contemporary socio-political ills. So there’s little wonder that the Internet isn’t bursting with info about Taqbir; you can find a Maximumrocknroll interview, some chatter about the record here and there, and not much else. It must take enormous courage to make music like this in Morocco, and even more to be a woman making music like this. The long reign of King Mohammed IV has edged the country toward marginal increments of cultural openness — if not thoroughgoing political reform — but conservative Islam and economic struggle are still dominant forces, combining to keep women relegated to submissive social roles. And the band is not fucking around: their name is a Moroccan battle cry, synonymous with “Alu Akbar!” Their repurposing of that slogan in support of their anti-traditionalist, anti-religious, anti-capitalist positions likely makes life in a place like Tangier or Casablanca pretty hard. The songs? They’re really good. Check out “Aisha Qandisha” (named for a folkloric phantasm that ambiguously mobilizes the feminine as murderous and rapacious monster): the music slashes and burns with just the right dash of melody, the vocals go from a simmer to a full-on rolling boil. Taqbir! y’all. Stay safe, stay strong and make some more records.

Jonathan Shaw

TOMÁ — Atom (Self-Release)

Atom by TOMÁ

Tomá Ivanov operates in interstices between smooth jazz and soul-infused electronics, splicing bits of torchy world traditions in through the addition of singers. You could certainly draw connections to the funk-leaning IDM of artists like Flying Lotus and Dam-Funk, where pristine instrumental sounds—strings, piano, percussion—meet the pop and glitch of cyber-soul. Guest artists flavor about half the tracks, pushing the music slightly off its center towards rap (“A Different You featuring I Am Tim”), quiet storm soul (“Outsight featuring Vivian Toebich”), falsetto’d art pop (“Catharsis featuring Lou Asril”) or dreaming soul-jazz experiments (“Blind War featuring Ben LaMar Gay”). Thoughout, the Bulgarian composer and guitarist paces expansive ambiences with shuffling, staggering beats, roughing up slick surfaces with just enough friction to keep things interesting.

Jennifer Kelly

The Tubs — Names EP (Trouble In Mind)

Names EP by The Tubs

“I don’t know how it works” declared The Tubs on their debut single, but they’re diving right in anyways on its follow-up, Names, with four songs that explore the self and self-other relationship. Their cover of Felt’s “Crystal Ball” tightens the musical tension of the original in places but still allows enough slack for singer Owen Williams to stretch the lyrical refrain — about the ability of another to see us better than we see ourselves — into a more melancholy shape than Lawrence. Of the EP’s three originals, Felt’s influence is most obvious in George Nicholls’ guitar work on “Illusion,” especially when the change comes and his lead spirals off Deebank-style behind Williams while he questions his connection to his own reflection. “Is it just an illusion staring back at me?” “The Name Song” is the longest one here at over three minutes, and in a similar way to The Feelies, it feels like it could go on forever, which might prove useful if Williams adds more names to his don’t-care-about list. “Two Person Love” is the best track of the bunch, though, with its classic sounding riff that swoops in and out allowing room for the chiming and chugging rhythm section to do the hard work. The relationship in the song might have been “pissed up the wall,” as Williams in his Richard Thompson-esque drawl puts it, but The Tubs certainly seem to have figured out how this music thing works.

Chris Liberato

Venus Furs — S-T (Silk Screaming)

Venus Furs by Venus Furs

Venus Furs sounds like band, but in fact, it’s one guy, Paul Krasner, somehow amassing the squalling roar of psychedelic guitar rock a la Brian Jonestown Massacre or Royal Baths all by himself. These songs have a large-scale swagger and layers and layers of effected guitars, as on the careening “Friendly Fire,” or hailstorm assault of “Paranoia.” A ponderous, swaying bass riff girds “Living in Constant.” Its nodding repetition grounds radiating sprays of surf guitar. You have to wonder how all this would play out in concert, with Krasner running from front mic to bass amp to drum kit as the songs unfold, but on record it sounds pretty good. Long live self-sufficiency.

Jennifer Kelly

Witch Vomit — Abhorrent Rapture (20 Buck Spin)

Abhorrent Rapture by Witch Vomit

Witch Vomit has one of the best names in contemporary death metal (along with Casket Huffer, Wharflurch and Snorlax — perversely inspired handles, all), and the Portland-based band has been earning increasing accolades for its records, as well. They are deserved. Witch Vomit plays fast, dense and dissonant songs, bearing the impress of Incantation’s groundbreaking (gravedigging?) records. Does that mean it’s “old school”? Song titles from the band’s previous LP Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave (2019) certainly played to traditionalists’ tastes: “From Rotten Guts,” “Dripping Tombs,” “Fumes of Dying Bodies.” And so on. This new EP doesn’t indicate any significant changes in trajectory or tone, but the songwriting makes the occasional move toward melody. See especially the second half of “Necrometamorphosis,” which has a riff or two that one could almost call “pleasant.” If that seems paradoxical, check out the EP’s title. Is that an event, a gruesome skewing of Christianity’s big prize for the faithful? Or is it an affective state, in which abject disgust somehow builds to ecstatic transport? Who knows. For the band’s part, Witch Vomit keeps chugging, thumping and squelching along, doling out doleful songs like “Purulent Burial Mound.” Yuck. Sounds about right, dudes.

Jonathan Shaw

yes/and — s-t (Driftless Recordings)

yes/and by yes/and

This collaboration between guitarist Meg Duffy (Hand Habits) and producer Joel Ford (Oneohtrix Point Never) is an elusive collection of shape-shifting instrumentals. Each piece is built around Duffy’s guitar, yet the timbre and mood tends to switch dramatically between tracks. The album’s run-time is fairly evenly split between dark, atmospheric pieces, such as “More Than Love” and “Making A Monument,” and hopeful, glimmering miniatures, such as “Centered Shell” and the wonderfully titled “In My Heaven All Faucets Are Fountains.” “Learning About Who You Are” looms large at the album’s heart, as nearly eight minutes of hazy, wind-tunnel drone pulses and reverberates across the stereo space. Despite the variation in tone, each track stakes out its own territory in the tracklist, and it’s only “Tumble” that comes across as an unrealized idea. While it’s only half an hour, yes/and feels longer, its circuitous routes opening up all kinds of possibilities.

Tim Clarke

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shadyb00ts · 4 years ago

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A Chromatica Review

So I never really use Tumblr, but when I do go on here, it’s pretty much to review something long-form. As you can tell from my profile picture here, and from my glowing review of ARTPOP from 7 years ago, I am and have always been a Gaga stan. Just read the melodramatic first paragraph of my ARTPOP review and you’ll get the gist of how much I idolize this woman. Well, idolized. Past tense.

That’s not to say I suddenly hate Gaga–I’m still going to follow her career and listen to whatever she puts out. There have just been several factors this past year that have changed my perspective on how I view her, this album being one of those factors. But I’ll get to those later. First I just need to lay out all my issues with this album.

Yes, this is going to be that type of review, so if you’re a fellow Gaga stan that isn’t able to criticize her work, this probably isn’t for you. Otherwise please read to the end if you can, because this is honestly about more than just the album.

Issue #1: The Mismatch Between Music & Aesthetic

When the cover of the album came out, I was so gagged. Like, just look at it! It’s striking, and Gaga has rarely ever disappointed me when it came to visuals. Actually, I can’t even think of any visual choices she made in previous eras that disappointed me. Even in the Joanne era, the pink cowboy hat became iconic and all of her aesthetic choices fit with the overall vibe of that album cycle.

So naturally, when she revealed to us the new visual direction she was taking for Chromatica, I assumed it would give us some insight into how the music would sound. The aesthetic of this era always gave me grungy cyberpunk and heavy machinery tease. When I look at the album cover for example, I can hear a song produced by SOPHIE in my head, the clink-clank queen herself. (There were rumors that Gaga was going to or did work with SOPHIE but that was never confirmed, unfortunately for us.)

For those unfamiliar with SOPHIE, here’s Ponyboy, which was most recently used in the ad campaign for Beyoncé’s Ivy Park clothing line.

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That was the kind of production I was more or less expecting when taking the visuals into account; dark, metallic, basically similar to ARTPOP’s production (to be honest ARTPOP sonically fits better with the Chromatica aesthetic; think about it).

But what did we get? Light, garden variety dance pop, a stark contrast to what the album cover and the promo images teased us with.

In the album, we get these orchestral interludes that are beautiful but don't really mesh that well with the actual tracks. The songs don't have any orchestral elements by themselves, so the interludes felt a bit misplaced to me. I wish they'd incorporated more of that into the individual songs, so that there could be an orchestral through-line to give more cohesion, like what Ariana did in her album positions by using strings. However I will say, the transition from Chromatica II into 911 remains unmatched.

I get that the album is supposed to sound happy, that it was her returning to her “dance pop roots” and singing about serious topics like mental health over happy-sounding beats, because it’s supposed to reflect her current mental state. I get all that. But if that was the case, I think she should’ve gone with a different visual direction to match. Personally I wish she went a different direction musically instead, but even if it was just the other way around and she changed the aesthetic of this era, my opinion of the album would probably improve slightly, cause at least there would be cohesion between the visuals and the sonics.

I look at that album cover, and promo images like the one below, and then I listen to songs like Fun Tonight or Plastic Doll for example, and there’s a noticeable dissonance there.

You might be thinking “why are you so hard on her for this?” and I guess it’s because I’ve always held Gaga to a high standard when it comes to how she links those two elements. Think of every era she’s had in the past, and you remember how the visuals always just worked with their respective albums.

And that’s before I’ve even talked about the videos. Oh lord, the videos.

Issue #2: The Videos Are Lackluster (Except For 911)

It started with Stupid Love, the lead single. I had mixed feelings about that song in the beginning, but because I was so thirsty for new music from Gaga at the time, I played that song like hell when it leaked and it was on rotation for a good while. But when Gaga premiered the Stupid Love video, I’m not going to lie; I really didn’t like it.

The whole “shot entirely on iPhone” schtick really did the video a disservice. I’m sorry but it had to be said. If I imagined the video with a higher budget and more of a plotline as opposed to just being a dance video, I think it could’ve worked a lot better and been a decent introduction to not only Chromatica the album, but this fictional world/planet that she’s created. Which by the way, she didn’t really deliver in that regard either.

The concept of Chromatica being a fictional world could have been expanded on further; she could’ve showcased all of the different factions (I know they were called “tribes” at first but that’s appropriative so I’ll call them factions) and perhaps had an overarching storyline about how these factions are at war, and it’s Gaga’s job as one of the “Kindness Punks”, as she calls it, to bring everyone together for a rave.

This is why I will always say it: Chromatica needed to be a visual album. Just imagine the storyline I mentioned just now being turned into a full-length feature, and now imagine the album’s orchestral intro playing as they’re essentially opening the gates to Chromatica and Gaga discovers this world for the first time, and then it goes into the first song Alice where she’s meeting all the factions and getting acclimated to her surroundings.

Honestly I could go on and on cause I have thought about this for SO LONG now and I’ll never shut up about it. It’s just such a missed opportunity cause the concept was just begging for a visual album. Anyway sorry for my tangent: back to the Stupid Love video.

The whole “shot on iPhone” gimmick really was unfortunate. Like she really ruined the quality of a music video because she wanted that Apple check??? Come on, Gaga, there could’ve been some other way to secure that check.

And then there was the Rain On Me video, which definitely have visuals that are a massive improvement from Stupid Love because it was professionally shot and cinematic. But even that was another purely dance video with not much in the way of storyline. Not that storyline is always required for music videos, but I think specifically when it comes to Chromatica, not having storylines in the M/Vs does a disservice to the overall concept.

I guess my issue with these two music videos, but mostly Stupid Love, is that Gaga isn't fully utilizing her COIN. Like she's successful enough to the point where she has budgets for these videos and can go all out, but doesn't. She has the capacity for extremely high production value, but up until 911, the last video she did that had that level of extraness was G.U.Y. I miss the days when her music videos were an event. I still remember where I was and what I was doing the exact moment the Telephone video came out. That's impact.

Taylor Swift I think is somebody who really knows how to blow her budget on a video. Look What You Made Me Do may have been a terrible song, but I always thought the video was sickening.

Anyway, I have no notes on 911. She's a masterpiece. If there was a music video category at the Oscars, I'd be campaigning for it right now.

Issue #3: Any Other Girly Can Do This

The thing I always loved the most about Gaga's music was that nobody was doing it like her. Everything she put out always felt like it was distinctly hers and hers alone, it's unmistakable. Even in Joanne, despite that album being a major departure from what she normally did.

I know Joanne is a very polarizing album, even for Little Monsters, but personally I've always loved it. Joanne was an album that I always knew she would make and I thought was essential to her career and body of work. Despite her straying away from pop for a more earthy, grass roots sound, it still sounded very much like her music. Even from the first track, Diamond Heart, her DNA is all over that.

It's difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say there's a certain signature "Gaga-ness" or that she has a very specific DNA injected into her songs. If you've been a fan of hers for a long time or followed her career, you probably understand what I'm referring to. It's the way she laughs maniacally in the beginning of ARTPOP on Aura, how she says "I don't speak German but I can if you like, OW!" and proceeds to recite broken German on Scheiße, how she invented the phrase "disco stick", literally the ENTIRETY of The Fame Monster.

These examples probably give you the gist of what I'm trying to convey. Gaga is fucking weird. She has always been fucking weird and I love that so much about her. And her brand of weirdness was so specific that if any of the other pop girls tried to do what she did, it would have been cringey as hell. To me, the most disappointing thing of all with this album was that this weirdness that was so uniquely hers was missing.

It's there in brief moments, in tracks like Sour Candy, 911 and Babylon, but most of the album doesn't really sound like her music. It sounds like songs that she wrote for other people, like her old unreleased stuff. OG Little Monsters probably remember songs like Second Time Around and No Way. These were leaked unreleased songs that Gaga had written for other artists, and even though they were absolute bops, they didn't sound like her. They weren't supposed to.

A similar feeling I had was when her song The Cure came out a few years ago. I genuinely thought that was something she wrote for someone else, cause even though it was a solid pop song, it absolutely had zero Gaga-ness and any current pop girl could sing it. This pretty much encapsulates how I feel about the majority of Chromatica.

I was gonna say it sounded like songs that were written for Ally, her Star is Born character, but I think even those pop songs from the soundtrack sounded more Gaga than Chromatica does. 💀 I can easily imagine Hair Body Face being on The Fame.

Final Thoughts

It's funny that the last review I had posted on here before this was my review of Kingdom Hearts III. The Kingdom Hearts game series is something that's very near and dear to my heart, and I waited a wholeass decade for the third game to come out. And then it did, and I was so disappointed.

So you know what happened after that? What helped me deal with my disappointment of that game was my anticipation for Chromatica, or at the time it was still called LG6. I had no idea I would feel the same exact way about this album the way I do about KH3. Now when I think of both of these things, I'm mostly frustrated by all of the potential and the missed opportunities, but I also look at them with a certain fondness. I had fun playing KH3, and I also had fun listening to Chromatica, despite both of them disappointing me overall.

In the beginning of this review I said that there were certain factors that have stopped me from idealizing Gaga too much. Firstly it's because I'm much older now, and secondly it's due to the sheer state of the world this past year. The pandemic really precipitated the fall of celebrity culture, and all of that made me really examine how putting someone on such a high pedestal can be damaging in the long run.

Gaga is a human being and I haven't agreed with everything she's done, particularly how she handled the whole R. Kelly situation back in 2013. And also the simple fact that she's a white woman, we know how a lot of the time they can't help but show their asses and are bound to disappoint us in some way. I'm forever grateful for her artistry and how she saved my life when I was a suicidal little eighth grader, but I'm also going to hold her accountable for any of her mistakes, and I'd be ready to stop supporting her entirely if anything she does ever goes too far.

Now I stan artists for fun. It's not healthy to idolize them to the point of revering them. I mean, I like to make jokes like that about Beyoncé, like "no way on Beyoncé's green earth", etc. But even she is just a person that we shouldn't deify for real.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Chromatica being a lackluster album and era ended up being a good thing, because it helped me grow out of idolizing celebrities too intensely. Chromatica was pretty much the best disappointment I've ever listened to.

If you've read all the way to the end, thank you! Writing this was very therapeutic but also stressful; this is a second draft cause Tumblr fucked up my first post. 😭

Anyway, SAWAYAMA & Ungodly Hour are albums of the year. Argue with the wall.

#album review #gaga #lady gaga #chromatica #pop music #review #music

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make-it-mavis · 4 years ago

Text

Homesick (Entry #37)

(cw: alcohol mention, fire) ----------

01/25/88 11:53 PM

Hey.

I wish I could say that I walked away from that heated encounter at therapy with little to no after effects. That I marched on back to my game, got some sleep, and continued on my road to recovery without missing a beat. I wish I could say that.

But that would just be unrealistic.

When I went back to my game after the whole thing with Worluk, I told my cousin what happened. He reacted just about the same as I’d expected him to. Horrified, relieved I was safe, glad justice was served before she could hurt anyone else. He also told me how proud he was of me for not using violence to solve my problem. The praise felt a little misplaced, given how much I did actually fantasize about ripping her to shreds, and I told him that. But that just made him all the prouder, he said. It was the fact that, unlike so many past instances, I didn’t act on those impulses.

It was a pretty big deal for me. But I still didn’t quite know how to accept his pride. That much hadn’t changed.

I felt pretty sick, so I turned in kind of early, but I didn’t sleep well. Some of the old confusing flashbacks were eating at me again. I’d be nearly asleep, just dipping into dreamspace when phantom memories of fire and explosions and echoing screams would jolt me awake. I hadn’t had visions like those in a while, but I also hadn’t been quite that sober in a while.

The next morning carried on like any other at first, apart from me being quieter than I’d normally be. Fix-it had his breakfast and morning coffee. He yammered at me for a little bit. Some Nicelanders showed up, and then he yammered at them for a little bit. Then, after wishing me a good day, he left with the others, and the arcade opened.

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But since painting had been so soothing before, I figured I’d try that. It certainly couldn’t hurt. I hauled out the tarp and Fix-it’s paints and papers. I sat cross-legged by the blank sheet for a while, feeling dry of creativity. But I forced myself to start anyway, trying to let my thoughts and feelings fall freely and paint along to them.

What was I feeling, anyway?

I took a deep breath and tried to meditate on that question as I painted.

Grey. Unsure. Numb. Lukewarm. I wanted to be happy about Worluk being arrested. It should have been closure on her traumatic chapter of my life. But I just wasn’t satisfied. What she had said about her sister’s ‘burning body’ just opened up too much mystery for me to put her out of my mind and move on. It wasn’t really the idea of me jumping over a burning sprite to get to you that was so disturbing. It was just the fact that I couldn’t remember it. I kept trying to brush it off and say that Worluk was just some raving lunatic spouting nonsense. But what if she wasn’t?

White. Blank. Cold. Lost. I couldn’t stand not remembering that day. Not remembering how you died. Not knowing your whole story. Out of anyone, I should have been the one to know. No one was closer to you than me. I was your friend. Best friend. Or something else entirely.

Yellow. Confused. Nauseous. Anxious.

I paused. Three colors splotched the canvas in aimless, abstract shapes. Part of me almost laughed, but in a really joyless way. This palette I’d been subconsciously putting together out of distress reminded me of something that used to make me happy. It was just missing one color.

Red. Demanding. Arrogant. Bold.

You.

I’d almost painted you by accident. Not in the right shapes, but the right colors were there. Some of them, anyway. Just the surface colors, the ones I could see on your pixels. Just seeing all of them together was enough to put a pang of what I could only describe as ‘miserable affection’ in my chest. It suddenly felt like it had been so long since I even took the time to think about you. I’d been so occupied with counselling, I guess I just didn’t want to give myself the chance to miss you too much and derail things.

But I was taking a break from counselling. I was alone. I had nothing but time to spend remembering you. And whether I thought it was a good idea or not, it was happening. You poured down on my mind like heavy rain.

So, without really thinking about what I was doing, I kept painting with every color you inspired in me.

Black for your smoky, metallic scent. Red-Violet for your overheated body. Sienna for your voice. Salmon for your genuine, high-pitched laugh. It did not take long for me to run out of space. I didn’t care. I kept painting. I smeared heaping gobs of color until the paper was slathered with glistening, muddy slime that was likely too thick to dry.

Eventually, I stopped. I could have just gotten another sheet of paper, but I felt too heavy to stand. I just sat there, staring at my gloves that were speckled with tiny flecks of paint. My heart, I finally noticed, had been pounding. I’d been running for so long from how I felt when I remembered you. The hurt. The betrayal. The moments of resentment. Worst of all were the moments when I simply, truly missed you.

This was one of those moments.

I wish that I could say that by that point, I’d learned to stop running away. That I didn’t have it in me anymore. I’d like to say that I just went limp and sank into the feeling until it inevitably either drowned me or I learned to breathe through it. But I wasn’t ready to believe I could do that. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust reality to remain sound. But you were raining on me whether I chose it or not. I was neck-deep, floundering.

And then the desperation, as it has so often done, turned me a little strange.

The first thing I did was remove my gloves, and then my smock. It felt like all else in the world went quiet as I wet my fingers with a rainbow of paint. Keep it together, I told myself. Deep breaths. It was just color. All feelings, all memories, are just color. And color is choice. I could choose not to hurt over you if I just redirected. If I took every color that you were not, and wore them like armor to protect myself from all thoughts of you.

So I just… painted myself.

There were too many shades to rightly recall. Teal, bronze, vermillion, lavender, aqua, magenta, seafoam, you name it. But they didn’t keep you out. They just invited you in. For every color, there was some emotion, or some memory, that reminded me of my time with you. I fought to keep it together, but I couldn’t. I spiraled, and I spiraled hard. I grabbed onto my hair, and it clumped together in the paint between my fingers. I told myself that I’d done enough. I had taken a moment to mourn you, but I wouldn’t let it get to me. Not like it had done in the past. I was beyond that. I’d grown past it. I kept repeating: Don’t let it get to you. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him right now.

Don’t think about his smarmy smile. Don’t think about his pointy ears. Don’t think about the lisp he worked so hard to hide. Don’t think about how he constantly bit his tongue. Don’t think about that time he rode an Excitebike and broke his nose. Don’t think about how his hands were rough from mechanic work. Don’t think about the times we spent sending Don’s sailboat models down the Frogger river in flames. Don’t think about the time he fell in an open grave in Ghosts n’ Goblins. Don’t think about pranking him for the first time. Don’t think about your bar fight at Tapper’s after. Don’t think about the trashy music he always played in his garage. Don’t think about how terrible he was at dancing. Don’t think about how tightly he’d hold you when he thought you were asleep. Don’t think about his stupid hair that always had to be a perfect mess. Don’t think about his actually really cool abstract contour line drawings. Don’t think about the time we microwaved six eggs just to watch them explode. Don’t think about the first time he brought you takeout without being asked. Don’t think about the first time you let him touch you. Don’t think about how it sometimes felt like you were the only two sprites in the arcade. Don’t think about how he made you feel like you belonged somewhere.

Don’t think about how you’ve forever lost your chance to tell him that.

That was it.

That did me in.

The good ol’ unreality came crashing back -- it couldn’t be true. You couldn’t be gone. It wasn’t real. By extension, nothing was real. Niceland was just a popsicle stick model that would collapse on top of me at any moment. Everyone I’d spoken to for weeks were just holograms. Even I didn’t feel real. I didn’t understand how I could be so numb and still be in so much pain. It was a nightmare. I needed to get away. I needed intervention, some kind of release, anything to chase the horror away.

I stood, feeling like I was in a trance. I had just the faintest control over my body. Everything I’d learned in counselling flashed in my head, but it did not take. I was driven by almost life-or-death urgency, as if I’d ingested poison and desperately needed the antidote. I shambled into the kitchen, marking cabinets with rainbow fingerprints as I looked for absolutely anything alcoholic. But Fix-it’s not a drinker, unsurprisingly. I wish that alone had been enough to stop me, but I carried my search into the bathroom. And there, on the spotless porcelain sink, sat a bottle of blue mouthwash.

Technically alcoholic.

I grabbed it. It seemed like the paint itself was trying to dissuade me, making the bottle so hard to grip. As I struggled to twist the cap off, I was screaming at myself internally to make the right choice. Make any other choice at all. But I needed it, I thought. I was in so much pain and I needed a drink or I’d…

I paused, shaking, the uncapped bottle almost to my lips. I finally saw myself in the mirror, smeared with a rainbow of garish war paint that covered almost all of my exposed skin and stained bits of my clothes. I looked beautiful, honestly. But the bottle of mouthwash in my hand, about to be my one last pathetic attempt at drowning my sorrows? It spoiled the beauty. It was below me. No matter how badly I was hurting, I knew better.

Pain explains, but it does not justify.

Yeah. Damn it. Damn it all.

That was enough time for the bottle to slip from my fingers and hit the floor with a sloshing thud, spewing its bright blue contents over the floor, and along with it, my last chance to run from the pain. My back hit the wall as I stumbled, a sticky hand clapped over my face. I sank to the floor. It was there that I cried harder and longer than I have in my entire life.

There was just no escape from how much I missed you.

My best friend.

I stayed there for hours in Fix-it’s bathroom after my crying breakdown, crumpled in the corner. I might have fallen asleep a little bit, because I remember sort of waking up as the arcade closed. I heard the rumbling of Wreck-it pounding the building stop for good, and then the parade of little footsteps overhead as Nicelanders descended the stairs and returned to their homes. Which meant Fix-it would not be far behind.

And he’d see me. In my… state.

That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t deal with that, not after such an atrociously messy breakdown. I knew it wasn’t the right move, and I knew he would have only wanted to help, but I sprang to my feet and locked his front door anyway. When that didn’t satisfy me, I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and propped it under the door handle.

There was something awful driving me. Some deep panic. It felt avoidant, like I just couldn’t face whatever was coming. But it wasn’t just Fix-it, I noticed as I feverishly paced. I couldn’t carry on with things the way they were. I was done. I was sick of it. I was sick of you being gone and me just having to live with that, with no memory of you passing. I couldn’t stand that I had to carry on just convincing myself our story had ended, while it seemed like everyone else had witnessed it first-hand. It wasn’t right. I had no closure. I just had nightmares of explosions, screaming, and fire.

Fire, fire, fire.

It was always fire. It seemed like no matter what happened, fire would not leave my head. Even the yellow, orange, and red colors of my brush were all fiery, and I knew that wasn’t a coincidence. I’d been so hung up on this stupid mysterious fire for so long. Then there was my odd fear of the fireworks. And the sea of gasoline in that dream, when you told me, “Come find me in the fire…”

I froze. ‘Find me in the fire.’

The front door handle jiggled and the door struggled against the chair. I heard Fix-it’s confused grunt. “Mavy?” he called. “Mavy, are you in there?”

I didn’t answer. He was nearly drowned out by the pounding in my ears.

Whatever happened on August 7th had fallen out of my mind. Well, sort of. It’s not that the memories were gone completely, they were just virtually inaccessible. Bits and pieces had been haunting me since you left. Fire brought vague, horrifying flashbacks of painful memories I didn’t recognize. But what if I wanted to recognize them? What if I didn’t run away when things got painful? Could I bring back the entire memory if I walked up to my fear and stepped inside it?

‘Find me in the fire,’ you had said. ‘Find me in the fire.’

Listen. You know me. By now, you’d probably be able to guess what I was about to do. But in the heat of the moment, even I wasn’t sure. I was going full autopilot, possessed by some stupid idea that probably wasn’t going to work. I think my destructive instincts were relapsing after being peaceful and constructive for too long. In any case, I searched the apartment like a bloodhound for the means to bring my impulsive plan to fruition, and fast.

It didn’t take long. In Fix-it’s utility closet, I found paint thinner. The irony of which sailed clear over my head at the time. The little flame symbol on the label was all I cared about.

I felt completely outside of my body as I poured the foul-smelling stuff all over everything. The floor, the furniture, the walls, even the bathroom. Fix-it was pounding and yelling at the door by then, demanding to know if I was alright.

“I’m fine,” I told him as I shook out the last drops.

I heard him sigh. “Mav-- Why is the door locked? Wait--” he paused, and then he spoke with the urgency of a man who has dealt with me his whole life, “-- what’s that smell? What are you doing in there?!”

I stood in the middle of the living room, right next to my muddy painting. All the fumes were starting to give me a headache by that point, so I opted to hurry it up. I took my brush -- my coded, faulty brush -- in my hand, and with the color red, I painted into my palm a fist-sized cherry bomb. Then, painting an orange spark, I lit it.

“Art project,” I called out to him. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, I took just long enough to mentally hold my own hand and tell myself that no matter what I saw or didn’t see, I was gonna be okay.

You may not have been fireproof. But I am.

I rolled the bomb in the direction of the bathroom.

“Mavy?!”

Closing my eyes, steeling myself to the imminent blast, I said, “I’ll be out in a minute.”

BANG.

The bomb went off, and I was staggered by a wall of suffocating heat as the apartment roared with flame. I caught myself on the coffee table and, trembling, opened my eyes. They stung immediately, and I blinked hard against the vicious light. The very air seemed stained a dry, sick red. It was just as terrifying as I had hoped, watching arms of hellfire claw across the floor, over the furniture, up the walls, quickly filling the ceiling with a black sea of smog. Squinting through it towards the door, I could see that the blast had knocked a bookshelf onto its side, only barricading the door further. It seemed to shake as Fix-it presumably rammed against it from the other side. If he was still calling out to me, I couldn’t hear him over the ringing in my ears.

So, what did I do?

I just stood up straight and… stayed there. I didn’t crouch beneath the smoke. I just let the flames crawl up to my feet and creep up my clothes, threatening to melt all my pixels together. The pain was quickly becoming too much to bear, but I focused on that. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel the fire eat all the confusing layers away, until I could finally see the truth.

So many horribly familiar sensations snuck up on me. The sickening smell of the burn. The hot ash reaching down my throat and choking me. The painful dryness in my eyes. Reality felt unsteady. I quickly became very dizzy from the suffocating fumes, and I could no longer hold up my own weight. I remember stumbling backwards, and my darkening vision fell on the kitchen just in time to see the oven split apart, erupting in an explosion exponentially bigger than the first.

I was forced back, I lost my footing, and fell into memories so vivid, I may as well have been living them again.

I’m just… going to need a minute before I tell you about it. But you can wait.

Wherever you are, I’m sure you remember the day you died.

#fanfiction #fanfic #wreck it ralph #fix it felix #turbo #make it mavis #original character #homesick

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