#hologram ep

[sinceileftyoublog]

A Place To Bury Strangers Interview: Romance Is a Place

Photo by Ebru Yildiz

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Picture Oliver Ackermann in his early 20s, playing Skywave's "Got That Feeling", one fist in the air and the other holding an open note on his bass. Now, picture him today, doing the same thing with "Disgust", the opening track on Synthesizer (Dedstrange), the latest A Place To Bury Strangers album. He specifically wrote "Disgust" on open strings so he could return to the showmanship of decades prior when playing it. Perhaps not as intentional but equally mischievous is that the band starts an album named after an instrument--one that's actually built into the LP's cover--with a different instrument. White hot guitar squalls shriek over propulsive drums, the sound of a seasoned band sounding new again. Indeed, on Synthesizer, A Place To Bury Strangers resemble three musicians feeling their love of playing more than ever, willing to take gnarly risks, yet still the same group that's pierced eardrums since the Aughts.

Well, at least the same group by name. Synthesizer is technically the first full A Place To Bury Strangers album to feature the new lineup of drummer Sandra Fedowitz and bassist John Fedowitz. Though they had joined the band prior to the release of 2022's excellent See Through You, that album was recorded solely by Ackermann after the COVID-19 pandemic. 2021's Hologram EP was the first recorded piece of music with the new lineup and is one that's a truer predecessor to Synthesizer than See Through You. "That EP was really awesome to do and was a stepping stone for the excitement of this record," Ackermann told me over the phone in late October, right before the band was set to go on tour. At the time of our conversation, the Synthesizer LP hadn't yet found its way into record stores, and those who had a copy had likely purchased it at a show. Ackermann didn't quite know how many people had tinkered around with the circuit board that graces the record cover, though one person had gotten it to work. "We'll see what kind of crazy questions people have, and how people are making it happen," he said. "But I hope a bunch of people build this."

For a band known for their abrasive live shows, Synthesizer's entire personality--from the exploratory nature of the record cover to the romance of its songs--exposes a softer side of A Place To Bury Strangers. Take "Join The Crowd", a dance track that takes its time to build into a shuffle. Ackermann sings, "Today was the day we were supposed to spend in love," like Robert Smith at his most crestfallen. On "You Got Me", Ackermann's vocals are obscured, but you can tell he's singing about devotion, a yearning contrast to the crispness of the upfront drums and wiry, harmonic bass. "Have You Ever Been In Love", whose live versions were previously released on the band's Audiotree Live and Live at LEVITATION, finally sees its studio release on Synthesizer, and it doesn't lose any of its urgency, its fast-throbbing drums and primal band vocals illuminating a sense of desperation. While there are certainly tracks on Synthesizer that should satiate longtime fans' taste for harsh noise, like the fuzzed-out, strobe-lit "Bad Idea" or evil protopunk jam "Fear Of Transformation", the band's 7th album stands out for its emotional honesty.

Below, read my conversation with Ackermann, edited for length and clarity. A Place To Bury Strangers plays Friday at ALPHAVILLE in Brooklyn, as part of the venue's series of 10th anniversary celebrations. The show is sold out, but you can join the waitlist for tickets.

Since I Left You: You've said Synthesizer sounds like the band's live sound. Does it reflect the live sound of the new lineup?

Oliver Ackermann: I would say so. At some point, you lose track of what the band sounded like ten years ago. This record, I feel like really captures [the three] of us.

SILY: Were there any newfound aesthetic or lyrical influences on the record?

OA: There have been more and more of these darkwave artists that have been coming out that I've been getting into. It wasn't necessarily intentional, but [people like] Madeline Goldstein...doing this electronic stuff...helped push us over and embrace some of that more. We'll embrace some of that in the future.

SILY: It's definitely a fun sound. You've talked about the lead single and opening track "Disgust" being reminiscent of Skywave's "Got That Feeling", where you'd play the bass with one hand and the other fist in the air. I think the whole album kind of sounds like that.

OA: Sick. Hell yeah.

SILY: I honestly think that "Disgust" is a spiritual sibling to "Got That Feeling".

OA: I think so. You are who you are, and you think about the past, and that's what drives you to keep on going. If you're doing something you don't really like or is kind of miserable, you probably shouldn't continue it. These songs definitely [recall] the inspiration and excitement of years past, and the potential for the future.

SILY: The record is named after an instrument that plays a prominent role on it, not just on the cover but in the songs themselves. At the same time, I love how the guitars, the synths, and the bass sound like they're melting together. Were you trying to create an abstraction where if you're the listener, you're not sure what's making what sound?

OA: I love that, when there are sounds and you're not sure what they are. There are field recordings [on Synthesizer]. I think that's a little bit more interesting, when you can quite pinpoint it. That's what I love about artists who use [abstraction]. When it's an obvious sample, it can be great when it's a nod to some sort of pop music and it makes you want to dance, but it's not really a goal of A Place to Bury Strangers.

SILY: Do you tend to come up with songs' instrumentation before the lyrics?

OA: Not necessarily. A lot of these songs were written at the same time the instrumentation was happening. "Join The Crowd" was a jam that we did. There's a vocal part and melody along the whole song. I took that and rerecorded over the top of it. You can still hear that original vocal melody of whatever I was making up off the top of my head. The lyrics exactly phonetically go off of that backing track. It's this kind of spiritual or subconscious writing, having that take on the structure. You can hear the background vocals are just a jam of the subconscious.

SILY: "Join The Crowd" calms you down after the first three tracks, and I feel like your vocals took a turn for the forlorn, almost like a Cure song. It made me think about how you do that a lot throughout the album, where you adapt the way you sing to the spirit of the song. Is that, too, a subconscious process, or are you actively experimenting with different singing styles?

OA: It's definitely a subconscious process. You're just trying to make what fits with the music. Sometimes, you'll rerecord totally different vocal lines on top. You're trying to let yourself go and be at the mercy of what the song and music is asking you for. When it comes time to arrange and finish the record, that's totally conscious and planned, almost the way you'd DJ a party. You have to have it make sense within the journey. I guess I'm kind of romantic in the sense that I grew up listening to whole albums, each song written for the song's sake, but when all put together, it's a piece.

SILY: I wrote down the word "romantic" a lot when listening to the record. It imbues you with feeling.

OA: I think [romance is] one of the most desperate and awesome qualities. Even if it's with friends, that connection and those moments where someone does something really kind for you, or romance in the sense of it being broken when you wished and hoped for something better. That's where I'd want to go when listening to music. A lot of times, it's sorrow. I think we all felt that when writing this record.

SILY: I was going to ask you about "Have You Ever Been In Love" which deals with those feelings, but it was a song written by everyone, and everyone contributed vocals.

OA: John wrote most of the lyrics for that. I do backup vocals which change around, but that song was a really awesome connection of the band. Having that magic unfold was awesome. You're starting to write, and you're starting to see how it's going in awesome places.

Photo by Devon Bristol Shaw

SILY: Like "Join The Crowd", the closing track on Synthesizer, "Comfort Never Comes", is an outlier in terms of length. If most of the other tracks are in your face right away, this one takes its time. It starts with silence and builds subtly. Why did you decide you wanted to end the album with something like that?

OA: It just seemed right. There was a full onslaught throughout the record, and this was a way to have almost a healing moment, or some sort of catharsis from what happened. It's like walking around after a long run.

SILY: How do the songs take shape live?

OA: They're great. It was awesome to be playing them and see people get super excited when we started them. It's fun to readapt what you can do, where you can take these songs in that live setting. It makes you do all of those different things you don't think about when recording a record.

SILY: How would you say they change?

OA: In all kinds of different ways. We play every song a little bit differently. Since there's only three of us, they're always a little more stripped down. You always have to figure out a way for the songs to hold their own. That's always the goal we're going for. You just have to readapt it and find a way to make the song work.

SILY: You've been prolific over the past few years. Is there anything else in the pipeline for the band?

OA: Of course! We're recording. There will be a few remixes, too.

SILY: How's Dedstrange been over the past couple years?

OA: The label's been doing great. It's a lot of work, and it's cool to be doing this stuff, but we're just kind of taking our time. All of the bands have been awesome. We came out with the Goblin Daycare album, EAZYHEAD record, Plattenbau record.

SILY: Is there anything you've been listening to, reading, or watching that's caught your attention?

OA: I just heard this band Offermoose, who are frickin' awesome.

[claraoswalds]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CATHERINE TATE (December 5, 1969)

+bonus

[zirconpetals]

Red Dwarf hologram lore is so good. (Honestly maybe I'm so impressed just because I've never seen holograms used quite in this way before, I should expand my horizons)

The whole "you're an ai ghost owned by a corporation" is already a great concept,

I also love how a lot of the other great stuff came about simply because of convenience, like the lightbee (Which I just think is such a cool thing) because they wanted to use Rimmer in the off-ship stories (I think they must have given him an antenna on the hat in sIII for that reason, but then realized that the antenna would also be a hologram & so kind of useless & had to come up with something else). While on the Dwarf, Rimmer's intangibility could be accommodated by Holly or the scutters, but as the show moved on to space exploration/adventure it's probably gotten harder to write around it. (In sV half the episodes introduce some kind of condition that makes him appear relatively tangible)

Also apparently RD came up with the term "Hard Light". I had no idea. (Obviously they didn't come up with the idea of solid light, just specifically calling it "Hard Light" vs "Soft Light") And I feel like I see it being used basically everywhere these days. (Don't have a solid source on that but if it's true, that's so cool!)

[rendellstreet]

[mwolf0epsilon]

My contributions for the CorruptimlesCorner Community Drawpile Stream hosted by @corruptimles, where we all got a little silly to celebrate the server's anniversary (our little session of parallel play/doodling was a lot of fun and I loved every moment of it, even when my hand started to cramp a little bit at the end).

Closer look at the doodles under the cut ---

[crowcryptid]

… did the elites have red blood in the first season

[the-bisexual-bitch]

I live for the song "Making Mischief"

Also The Misfits suck as people, they're totally brats, but I do love them

Also, they crashed a boat!

[prince-strife]

BAAAAHHH I JUST REALIZED I GOTTA FINISH MAWS

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: A Place To Bury Strangers Share an Explosive Ripper

New Video: A Place To Bury Strangers Share an Explosive Ripper @APTBS @dedstrange @pitchperfectpr

Led by Death by Audio founder and Dedstrange Records co-founder Oliver Ackermann, New York-based JOVM mainstays A Place To Bury Strangers — currently Ackermann (vocals, guitar), John Fedowitz (guitar) and Sandra Fedowitz (drums) — have long been fueled by Ackermann’s restless creativity and propensity to be surprising: Over the past close to two decades, A Place To Bury Strangers have delighted,…

[visitbespin]

actually mando s1e5 is not That bad bc it is the origin of bobannec and bobadinnec 🥺

[edgydroned]

i wish i was kidding

me: i need a new promo :/

me two seconds later in photopea: *making a whole new psd for an au im likely never gonna get to write*

[incorrectly-quoting-murderdrones]

Looking back on the entire show after watching the finale makes me realize just the insane amount of detail and foreshadowing present.

Whenever N’s memory gets brought up, it’s usually paired with him being beheaded

Ep 1: Gets his head blasted off by Uzi and loses 2 hours of memory

Ep 3: Brings up his memory to V who slices his head off

Ep 5: The episode is all about N’s memories and we briefly see his worker drone body missing it’s head when they get to the basement

Ep 8: The Solver rips N’s head off, and after regrowing it, he recalls another memory of the Solver tearing him apart as a worker

The constant emphasis on hands in the show

The disassembly drones having swappable hands

Uzi gets stabbed in the hand in episode one

The Solver and eldritch J with the weird human hand tentacles

The fact that characters are constantly losing hands and arms

V’s weird monster arm from the flashback

The handlights indicating whether a drone is possessed

The constant close ups of whenever N and Uzi hold hands

The secret handshake

Uzi’s hand burning in ep4 and her hand burning as she destroys Cyn’s heart in ep8

The Solver using Tessa’s hand and fingerprint to get past a Captcha Test

The solver powers revolving around hand movement

The hands on Uzi’s wings

Doll’s knife going through Uzi’s hand

Alice chopping Uzi’s finger off

N chopping Uzi’s hand off to save her

There’s more here, and it happens in the other Glitch shows too. For example, Pomni’s glitched hand, the Meta Runner arms being the main catalyst for the conflict in MR, and meme guardians holding hands for power in SMG4

The constant foreshadowing for CynTessa and the little details that make so much more sense in hindsight

Episodes 6 and 7 we see N, V, and J’s yellow eyes reflected in Tessa’s helmet

The creepy apparition of CynTessa in Ep4

Cyn and Tessa having the exact same haircut

The whole entire scene with Tessa and the sentinels

Without the context of ep7, that scene plays out like Uzi’s stress at seeing N get attacked by the Sentinels causes her to be briefly possessed by Solver in order to override the controls

Looking back at it, however, the Solver only fully possessed Uzi when Tessa got bitten by the sentinel. It was trying to save itself not N.

It literally saved itself and disguised the attempt as Uzi trying to protect N. If that’s not a perfect metaphor for who and what the Absolute Solver is, idk what is.

And it did it again at the end of the episode where it yet again it possessed Uzi to get the door open right when the sentinel charged at Tessa.

The Sentinel briefly shutting down and getting confused at what it thought was human blood, and then a few scenes later it comes back and guns directly for Tessa, with her blood no longer working to distract it.

Tessa and Cyn’s matching fondness for N in particular.

Tessa outright beheading a drone in her first introduction which contradicts her character in ep5

Then there’s the Solver/Cyn’s almost stalker-like obsession with N

N being the only DD to not feel pain. J and V grunt and yell when they get stabbed or lose a limb, but N gets ripped apart and doesn’t even blink

Cyn calling N “big brother” which the Solver does as well. V and J are never once called “big sister”.

N being the only DD to have lost his memories, possibly so the Solver could control him better. N is a sweetheart by nature and by continuing to override his memories every time he tries to protect the Workers, the Solver can keep him bloodthirsty and feral.

The weird hologram of Maid V that the Solver used to taunt him

The Cyn hologram hugging him

The Solver purposely exploiting N’s feelings for Uzi to keep him from fully attacking her while she’s possessed.

The whole puppy dog eyes thing

“Your backups will forgive me” and the fact that she has backups of N even before the mansion massacre.

The Solver N, V, and J retain their personalities only because it liked N’s in particular

The fact that it sent the nicest, kindest drone in the entire show to slaughter its own kind

The low, annoyed “Hello Uzi” followed by the high pitched, upbeat “Hi N :D”

How the Solver plays around with Tessa’s corpse and her affection for N

Again with how it plays with N’s relationship with Uzi by using Tessa’s voice to tell him that he has to kill Uzi to save the universe

The Solver using a hologram of N to fuck with Uzi twice

The Solver using the hologram of N to fool V into calling out for him so it could lure the real N out

The Solver’s obsession with N technically never going away. With Cyn as the main host it was a sibling bond, but with Uzi now the main host it’ll likely latch onto her romantic love for N

The absolute insane foreshadowing to Uzi becoming the Solver itself

The occasional reflection of N and V’s yellow eyes in Uzi’s visor

Uzi overwriting Cyn’s admin control and replacing it with her own

Uzi possessing the Solver cameras while in N’s memories, and the cameras having purple eyes

The protagonist’s journey graph in presentation in the very first episode alluding to a big fight and monstrous transformation at the end.

Uzi overpowering CynTessa with her own Solver

Uzi breaking through possession via the powers of angst and teenage rebellion, without even needing the patch like Nori and Yeva

Uzi and Tessa having the same fleshy bat wings

Uzi’s core number being 1001 just like Cyn’s

Uzi’s tail chewing on N’s head for some reason in episode 6, likely foreshadowing to Cyn being in her tail

Uzi possessing Braiden just like the Solver would

Other little details

Uzi’s purple being a perfect complement to N’s yellow which also matches their personalities

The background posters having just the stupidest/funniest notes on them

Uzi’s tail looking like a sentinel head

Lizzy having seemingly infinite phones

The drones treating the school bus like it’s an animal with sentience

Braiden’s head literally always being on fire, even in death

The references to Until Dawn and Friday the Thirteenth in episode 4

The soundtracks having just the stupidest fucking titles (affectionate), with some of them even referencing each other.

N going from being J’s doormat in episode 1 to outright beheading Tessa in episode 7 when he realized she lied to him

The Solver making its biggest mistake asking N to choose “the universe over the life of one little drone” because it didn’t account for the “one little drone” being Cyn, not Uzi

The Protagonist’s Journey chart foreshadowing Nori being alive with the “help from an unexpected source” close to the end of the timeline

Khan going from leaving Uzi for dead to rebuilding her rail gun and directly attacking the Solver in the hopes of saving her

Also Khan’s behavior and bad parenting suddenly making a lot more sense once we finally see a full photo of Nori and realize that Uzi is damn near identical to her mother.

Uzi’s teeth aren’t sharp until after her transformation in ep4

In a roundabout way, the humans on Copper-9 were successful is making something that could stop the Solver, as they caused the incidents that would eventually lead to Nori meeting Khan and passing down her genetics to Uzi

[doctorwhommm]

I have no idea if you listened to any of the audios but if you draw norton folgate my soul will be yours forever

the only norton folgate audio ive listened to so far is outbreak which has truly made me want to listen to soho because he is the most nefarious little twink ever anyway here’s hologram norton folgate driving ianto insane thru bitchy asides from outbreak ep 2

ft ianto as that one MSpaint reaction meme

[halfbakedideas]

thoughts had while watching this week’s st: lower decks episode (‘fissure quest’) under the cut [because this ep dropped like 4 hours ago]

since when has ST had a multiverse?? did i miss something?? [EDIT: i’m just unobservant, it seems.]

married garashir? love it.

this bashir is a hologram. huh.

engineer!mariner is so entertaining

there’s so many kims

this episode watches like a fanfiction writer wrote it.

they should’ve made this concept into a movie, or at least introduced it sooner than the second last episode

welp, that’s a shitshow for them to deal with.

overall, i give the episode a solid 9.5/10

[shinakazami1]

Another part or the "What if we could see Handsome Jack in ep 1 during the lines" series!

First time drawing Sasha and a lot of her got covered up cus in a sillay at planning <3 I gotta try getting better at compositions but I'm so glad I'm finally letting myself use textures brushes, they add a lot (and make the pace of making art faster wehehe)

Headcanon I had for this scene is that Rhys reacts so harshly to Jack talking is because Jack let himself go through Rhys' head - so I decided to make like that knocking the back of the head motion. For Jack not to notice it though he's a hologram, he maybe looked somewhere else sueyye

[cityof2morrow]

CDK: City Hall

Published: 9-25-2024 | Updated: N/A SUMMARY Cubic Dynamics by John B. Cube and Marcel Dusims forged the future with furnishings that were minimalist in design and maximalist in erudite pretension. Generations later, the company continues to produce edge-of-cutting-edge designs. Use the Cubic Dynamics Kitbash (Simmons, 2023-2024) collection to set up corporate, exposition, and office environments. Envisioned as an add-on to the Cubic Dynamics set (EA/Maxis, archived at GOS), it features minimalist and retro-futuristic objects. Find more CC on this site under the #co2cdkseries tag. Read the Backstory and ‘Dev Notes’ HERE. How’s that build-a-city-challenge going?...because those courtroom, town hall, and city hall chambers are lookin’ a little bald headed. Why not spruce it up with the CITY HALL set! Place one of the decorative assembly desks, then add chairs and portable assembly desks. Your council members, judges, lawyers, and other sims are ready to go to work!

DETAILS All EPs/SPs. §See Catalog for Pricing | See Buy/Build Mode You need the Company Expo (Mesh Pack) set (Simmons, 2024) for TXTRs to show properly in game. ALL files with “MESH” in their name are REQUIRED. You may need “move objects” and “grid on/off” cheats to place some objects to your liking. When placing partitions/floating shelves and tables/desks/counters on the same tile, place the partition/shelves first. I recommend using this set with Object Freedom 1.02 (Fway, 2023), which includes Numenor’s fix for OFB shelves (2006), for easier use overall. ITEMS Assembly Desks (Small/Large) (1858 poly) – use with portable desk Judge’s Chair (~835 poly) Counselor’s Chair (1377 poly) Counselor’s Desk (402 poly) HoloProjector (2546 poly, HIGH) – place on same tile as hologram Holograms (192 poly) Portable Assembly Desk (733 poly) DOWNLOAD (choose one) from SFS | from MEGA The hologram is functional and comes with 30+ recolors...

COMPATIBILITY AVOID DUPLICATES: The #co2cdkseries includes edited versions – replacements - for items in the following CC sets: 4ESF (office 3, other 1/artroom, other 2/build), All4Sims/MaleorderBride (miskatonic library, office, postmodern office), CycloneSue (never ending/privacy windows), derMarcel (inx office), Katy76/PC-Sims (bank/cash point, court/law school sets, sim cola machine), Marilu (immobilien office), Murano (ador office), Reflex Sims (giacondo office), Retail Sims/HChangeri (simEx, sps store), Simgedoehns/Tolli (focus kitchen, loft office, modus office), ShinySims (modern windows), Shoukeir via Sims2Play(reverie office, step boxes/shelving), Spaik (sintesi study), Stylist Sims (offices 1,2, & 3, Toronto set), Tiggy027 (wall window frames 1-10), Wall Sims (holly architecture, Ibiza). *The goal is link the objects to the recolors/new functions in the #co2cdkseries without re-inventing the wheel! Credit to the original creators. CREDITS Thanks: EarlyPleasantview/EPV, Panda, Soloriya, ChocolateCitySim, HugeLunatic, Klaartje, Ocelotekatl, Whoward69, LoganSimmingWolf, Gayars, Ch4rmsing, Ranabluu, Gummilutt, Crisps&Kerosene, LordCrumps, PineappleForest. Sources: Any Color You Like (CuriousB, 2010), Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik). SEE CREDITS (ALT)