#i listened to radiohead’s ‘pyramid song’ while i did this

[mindless23]

haven’t done art in a while, but i read All Over Everywhere by @euphorial-docx on ao3 and needed to release something. this is not good. but.

[mackmp3]

amnesiac

YES THIS IS I THINK MY FAVOURITE RADIOHEAD ALBUM HEHEH

best song - Pyramid Song and Knives Out Are Equally as good, like they are both some of the best songs in their respective styles for radiohead does this make sense? like Pyramid Song is one of their best doom-laden haunting piano with strings and soaring vocals and really poetic songs, knives out is one of their best multiple-guitars wow life sucks people are terrible songs.

favourite song - Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box. from the first time i heard this i just loved it - 'after years of waiting nothing came / and you realize you're looking in / looking in the wrong place / i'm a reasonable man get off my case' like DAMN, also i love the way it sounds - i did once hear a car go over a metal drain cover that sounded EXACTKY like the opening metallic noises it was cool, i just love the way it sounds it's super cool it's my favourite yes.

least favourite song - i think this one's pretty common, but pull/pulk revolving doors just doesn't have it, HOWEVER the pull/pulk true love waits version from kid a mnesiac is actually so so cool and i really love that. personally think they should have released it like that, but just my opinion. i didn't like dollars and cents for a while but i do like it now.

overrated song - knives out gets all the hype for amnesiac, and it is really really good i'm just sad it overshadows the rest of the album. also my soul crumples a bit every time i properly consider how it took them to record it.

underrated song - honestly, i think the second half just doesn't get enough love in general, but Like Spinning Plates is actually so cool, and the first time i heard Life in a Glasshouse i had to listen to it like nine times in a row because it's just that good.

banger of all bangers - I Might Be Wrong is kind of a banger, i mean amnesiac sort of doesn't quite have the 'banger' energy to it though. I can play pyramid song badly on piano so imo that's a banger just cos of that, every time i see a piano it's like 'okay guys pyramid song time' hehe.

out of ten - like a nine? it's weird cos even though it has pull pulk (which is one of the few radiohead songs i actually don't like) and dollars and cents which is just kind of mid, the songs i do really like on amnesiac (pyramid song, packt like sardines, i might be wrong, life in a glass house) i Really Really Really Like. who i am kidding i love them so much. like even though it has a not very good one the amazingness of the others outweigh it. it's my favourite radiohead album, probably, such vibes, such atmosphere, fricken love amnesiac

[theogmissg]

Yeah what really makes no sense is why my baby brother is hunting me when like if we were barbarians I should be the one hunting him...

When in nature does a baby pop out and eat its mother? NO MAMMALS WOULD EVER DO THIS

(Only arachnids..)

It's really just a class war at this point because I'm not rich

Also, I would never do that because it just sounds insane

It's like you people have no experience with psychics/mystics it boggles my mind

Everyones hiding in a cave while the outside world evolved past this like 200 years ago

If someone approached me before I knew anything about this asking if i want to smoke human remains i would have thought they were a complete psychopath

How did this become normalized its so disconnected from everything natural and divine

Sooo satanic

You will never become enlightened through murder and drugs like duh

I shouldnt even have to say this lmao

Ok i guess psychadelics are the one exception they do help spiritually

SLIME MOLD / FUNGUS

GOO IS THE FUTURE

and ketamine which is synthisized I think but theres something about it that really helps open your third eye

Non-physically addictive, you can't OD, not harmful to your body, and its proven to help with depression and anxiety better than pharmaceuticals.

All the illegal drugs....

THIS WORLD IS BACKWARDS ON PURPOSE

So we stay like enslaved like dumb dumb pac nuggets

I thought this was common knowledge but I guess I grew up in hippie rave culture

We're a slave race.

Think about it. Aliens see this beautiful primitive planet rich in resources (after destroying their last planet), so they set up shop.

Engineer some hybrids from the most advanced species at the time, apes, to build them an empire.

Who built the pyramids?

Now we're waking up and they dont want that.

Why does it feel like humanity is at such odds with nature? Like we're seperate from it?

We should be in harmony like the indigenous people.

Trismic. We got sapped. Like a Japanese maple.

Geminis are actually 3. It's not a natural configuration. It should be 2 or 4.

Why is there an extra?

Spagetti Os yo

When we are hunting each other, we don't notice them hunting us.

A black market they can skim.

We don't need it. We are connected to source.

They aren't. Because of this exact apocalyptic scenario are leading us into. Their soul star died. They will never be able to connect back, so they feed on organic beings to stay alive. They're practically immortal. Like vampires.

This is what they do. Pillage and destroy. Like orcs. Then move on to the next planet. Like a parasite.

We need to deal with it.

[snazum]

Project: IYKYK bts, Spoilers Beware if you even care lol. Rambles about the general project, if you want specific characters/songs look in the tag

Okay so plans are, an over arching story broken up into little stories. The videos can be viewed independently and still be entertaining, I think I have 2 songs per character, at least you can watch just the character and get their story.

ALSO! Each character has a specific style, art style, style of video to tell the story, and maybe they show up in the other styles as well when there is cross overs :3

As of right now, there are 4 characters (5 if you include myself, but there's not really a story there more just an intro and outro to the series. These vids will probably be confusing and maybe not that interesting but whatever XD Idc)

Each character does in fact tie in with one another!! even if it's in weird round about ways and sometimes won't be shown on screen and is just a tidbit for me to know :P

I pulled all the designs from my old Sonas and Oc's (That are basically self inserts at this point), for reasons. (Look it's basically me telling my life story through fiction to keep it somewhat detached) Though they're getting vague make overs and story revamps. I also pulled these specific characters as representations for specific points in my life, the original creation date and the mental state I was in during those times.

I tried to choose songs that resonated with me and I listen to a lot, but I had to scratch a bunch of songs, and find some new ones I've never listened to. But it worked out and I found new songs I like! Was originally gonna have a lot more Brightside Album songs by the Lumineers and Tame Impala songs but it did not work out. I'm just glad I was able to get 1 brightside song in there. Even if it sounds vaguely out of place. The playlist may change overtime too as I flesh out these stories more.

While I work on the videos, I am planning on making still pieces to go along with the stories. Thumnails, posters, just like scenes in general. Whatever pops into my head. Though thinking about it posters would be cool af. Also I have more experience making still pieces that moving ones. But my brain works in movement so weird balance I have to walk.

The styles I came up with will probably be more bare bone for the video parts, just to save time and my sanity XD

Basically this entire project is for me to strengthen my redesigning and writing muscles. As well as bring a piece of work to completion that is completely my own. AND work through my own problems or i guess, release myself from them. It's my final send off to that chapter of my life. Two birds one stone :) Or should I say mountain cause this really is a huge project (in comparison to what I've done in the past) INTRO/OUTRO: Intro song: Pyramid Song by Radiohead

Introduces moi, starts in reality to a dream state, from here it introduces the main sonas and situations briefly, with hints that these people are in fact representations of myself.

Outro song: Impression from the ICO soundtrack

Concludes the story arc, leaving the fantasy of these events behind to face the reality of these events. To be myself, and not hide behind fiction and convoluted metaphors of my own emotions. Waking up from that dream.

[adz]

kit’s radiohead album ranking

1: Hail to the Thief Easily best opening of any of their albums. Just insanely good. I'd never heard the majority of this album and three songs in I was like "is this their best? This kinda seems like it's their best." Sail To The Moon is heart-stoppingly beautiful and spooky. It's hard for me to point to individual tracks when the whole album really blows me away. There, There is awesome. A Wolf At the Door isn't the greatest ending, just feels like another good song on a good album. But whatever this is definitely the most all-around solid one.

2: OK Computer you've got your long-form radio-friendly bops (Paranoid Android, Karma Police, Lucky) your driving-in-a-rainstorm-whilst-sobbing-soundtrack ones (Let Down, No Surprises, Exit Music), your one musique concrete throwaway for the weirdos (Fitter Happier), an early orchestral experiment (Climbing Up the Walls), and some sweet upbeat slightly heavy guitar hero shit (Electioneering), topped off by an underwhelming opener and a perfectly whelming closer.

3: Kid A This is where the vowel synths and abstract lyricism come out in force and it works! It's a harder album to rock out to, but it's interesting and fun and worthy of exploration in a way their earlier stuff sometimes isn't. After their second-best opener, the title track is sort of pointless, but then the album breaks into the propulsive acid-jazzy The National Anthem, an instrumental that is remarkably welcome. It's not even the only instrumental on an 11-track album. Optimistic is great, Idioteque is fun, Motion Picture Soundtrack is a predictably grand and cinematic end with its little ethereal untitled outro.

4: Amnesiac TBH i'd basically only heard Pyramid Song off this album. Starts with a familiar chord progression and beat given intrigue by some freaky synth stuff. Not what I would've opened an album with but it's fine. Then Pyramid Song, which feels like a closer to me. One of their best arrangements. You and Whose Army is like, a dude being sad underwater for two minutes before breaking out into a pretty good song. And right afterward comes I Might Be Wrong, which is basically southern rock. That's just the first half. What a weird album. The middle gets a little aimless and despite correctly predicting the title of a 2019 Rian Johnson film, I'm deducting some points for all the songs where they had whoever play the same bassline for like 5 minutes. This isn't jazz and if it was it would be boring jazz. The last two tracks don't really deviate from this but they're kind of fun. This is like Radiohead's Nightmare Showtunes Album.

5: In Rainbows Inhabits its own world of odd time signatures and gentle funk. Leans closer to the familiar than their last few, but I think it was a good decision at the time. Weird Fishes is remarkably beautiful. Some tracks (like All I Need) don't feel that necessary, and others (like Reckoner) feel close to greatness. That they gave this one away for free makes its presence in my heart all the warmer.

6: A Moon Shaped Pool Daydreaming is one of their best. A lot of stuff I find kind of unremarkable here, though. You'd think I'd love a song called Identikit, but nah. Nothing else really strikes me until Present Tense, which is pretty. I think we deserve more from an album almost entirely made up of >4 minute songs. True Love Waits is a nice closer though. Which while making this list i learned is super rare

7: The Bends This (along with In Rainbows) used to be my favorite and I think that embarrasses me a little now. It's pretty bad. Lotta decent '90s rock that really isn't my style anymore (High and Dry, My Iron Lung although the end is fun) and just sorta weepy We Live In A Society stuff (Fake Plastic Trees, The Bends). Street Spirit is a classic, it's one of the first songs I learned on guitar, but as a whole this album isn't that well written. It feels indulgent, and not in the fun way.

8: The King of Limbs I remember hearing this and thinking "oh, that's where all that freaky jittery energy went after In Rainbows." It's actually less interesting to my ear. Maybe they thought "did we play it too safe on that last one? Let's make something less pleasant" and then they did but they forgot to include enough bloopy ear candy or hidden surfacing little hooks to make it memorable. Lotus Flower is okay but the whole thing is kind of a slog.

9: Pablo Honey ass. You, Creep, and Blow Out are decent. i didnt actually bother to listen to the last third so @ me if i missed something but yeah this album is not good

[jojoreadwhat]

T W E L V E • A Gwilym Lee Story | 4. the one with too many ramen options

Gwilym •

Drougie's was your average bar and club on the outskirts of Brooklyn. Smelling like organic menthols and expensive trendy boozes. Dimly lit with neon lights guiding against exposed bricks and abstracts hanging along side them. Scattered tables, with more space for the people to dance. Ugly stools lining the bar with the traditional mixtures siding new age concoctions on the shelf behind. Fit for the yuppies and balancing out for the ones not so keen on the "hip" crowd tonight.

I stood resting my back against the bar, nursing my lime and tonic. After grinding it with a pretty paralegal that reeked of knock off Oscar de la Renta. Watching the floor as the kids tried grooving to the house grunge sounds Joe had mixed. Chuckling to myself as no one knew how to groove to remixed nirvana.

One person particularly caught my attention across the floor. Sylvia giggling with Lucy, while sipping on rum and coke. Mouthing the words to Radiohead's Creep when the music mellowed down. She looked good tonight. Standing out amongst the crowd. Her dark brown hair hanging down over her shoulder with her face dolled up. Lips dressed in a dark red. With a black dress complimenting her complexion as the neons danced along her skin.

"Why don't you go talk to her again?" Startled by Joe’s presence next to me now. Following my stare upon Sylvia’s hips.

I looked up at my friend, looking dapper, casually in a shirt and jeans. Signaling the bartender for another round. "No, thanks." I replied.

"You're just pissed she hasn't let you take off her knickers yet." My eyes narrowing with disgust at him, "That's beyond. She's not even my type." I spat back, Joe just chuckled bluntly. "She has a pulse, that's enough for you." I sighed, meeting the sweat of my glass with my favorite fingers.

"Touché" I replied to Joe, ignoring my thoughts swarming as I continued to watch the ladies. Seeing that Lucy had spotted us and began walking towards us.

Joe has always had the hots for Lucy. I think she did too. Coming to support his sets and watch him fancy her quite as much. Yet both still blindsided.

"Hey boys!" She greeted once she got to us, "The set was great! All that trippy Nirvana!" Directing to Joe now, pulling him into a big hug as I stood poised next to them. Ignoring their gush while Sylvia stood at a table across the floor, gulping down the last of her drink.

Joe’s honesty earlier was abrasive but the truth. I had no type, I looked at all the women in this place with no standard. Just as long as it walked and breathed, I could make it come. Sylvia wasn't a doozy like the many I've come across. How a simple run of my fingers through my hair had Girls on their knees in front of me.

There was more to her than I assumed. Just by the way she didn't simply take my antics said otherwise. That she was nothing like the story she had rehearsed. And I was a bit crossed about wanting to fuck her or just to simply talk to her.

I walked over with a refreshed drink from the bar as she mindlessly observed. "Are you having a good time?" I greeted, waiting as she turned to me with her brown eyes sparkling from the lights. She mouthed a "Thank you" as she took her drink. Remaining silent while she sipped it, and the liquid glistened her lip.

"You want to hear my story now?" She rehashed, snarkily.

I chuckled at her attitude.  Shrugging as I met the chill of my glass, "I mean" I began, then. Meeting her eyes that were looking for my response. Before looking at the crowd trying to shuffle, "It's probably a lot better than this crowd." Immediately hearing her lips smack along with her beginning to turn away.

"Come on Gwilym, lighten up on her." My mind rambled, and my arm reaching out towards her. I sighed, "I'm sorry, I was only joking." I pressed, "Don't leave on my behalf."

Sylvia’s brows furrowed, I didn't blame her. Sorry wasn't a word that ran through my lips often. "And I should just believe you're being sincere?"

This wasn't going to be easy. 

"Yes." I said again, feeling her relax underneath my grip. Realizing I hadn't let go before it dropped to my side.

Her lips adjusted in the slightest, her expression beginning to change. Before a word could fill in our awkward silence, I seen her trailing behind Lucy to the lit up exit.

Sylvia •

After leaving the club, Lucy and I had to run to the market before settling in with Take Out. I pushed the cart down aisle seven of Pioneer Supermarket. Listening to the cheesy instrumentals of silly pop songs, blaring overhead. As we prepped for the steamy days approaching this week.

Lucy suggested things for the cart, but I wasn't paying much attention. I couldn't stop thinking about earlier on at Drougie's. Aside of Joe’s set and this dress I can’t wait to take off. I couldn't wrap my head around Gwilym. His caught glances across the room. How charming he looked in neon lighting. Most importantly, him wanting me to believe in his sincerity.

It's only been a few short days after my arrival and it was like I was being sat down for a pop quiz. It was easy to confess that Gwilym is very handsome. Has this very, unexplained aura about him. That makes you want to see beyond his chipped shoulder. All those multiple choices were filled in correctly. It was just irritating me how perplex he really was. Honestly I don't think he gets how confusing he can be, and I really wasn't up for the game.

I decided to maybe look for a few answers, Lucy was looking at the arrayed packagings of Ramen noodles. Indecisively holding one in her hand, obvious that I just joined her unsolved mystery.

"Red or orange?" She held up the two options, feeling my face adjust in thought. Before deciding red, the shrimp flavor. "I like it." She added, then. Grabbing a few and placing them into the basket.

We began walking to the exit of the aisle, I parted my lips to speak when Lucy beat me to it. "I seen Gwil talking to you earlier." She began, looking back at me deviously.

I shook my head, "It's not what you think." I replied without hesitation, "I don't even know what it is." Speaking again before bagging a pound of oranges.

"What do you mean?" Watching Lucy’s brow raise in question. "Like what did he say?" I sighed then, bringing my hands back to the handle. I shrugged, "He again belittled me." I began, fast forwarding to this morning at the coffee shop. Which I failed to bring Lucy up to speed about yet.

"Then he stopped me from walking away, and apologized." I went on, Lucy had taken over the cart now as we walked down the beverage aisle. Stopping in front of the sparkling waters.

"Get in the basket." She commanded then, "What?" I questioned back, leaving her to gesture to it. I rolled my eyes, "Lucy, we're not in colle–" Resisting but Lucy only insisted.

Lounging back as my feet hung off the front, Lucy topping it off with a bag of Twizzlers. I continued.

"I don't get him. Like is he threatened of me or something?" I began once she started moving the cart. I heard her sigh, "Well Gwilym has never been an open book since I met him." She started off, quite aware I wasn't going to get validation on why Gwilym was being this way.

"–he's a bit of a dog. I've never seen him steady and is very unapologetic about his preference too." She went on, "Maybe he is threatened. You are like the first one that hasn't made a move on him." Immediately I straightened myself out, turning to Lucy now. "You've slept with him?!" I asked, she just laughed out loud.

"Fuck no." She clarified, "We made out once and laughed it off. We practically see each other as siblings." I nodded, understandingly.

"I bet you don't think of Joe that way though." I smirked, watching her cheeks grow red. "What?! Ew no!" She horribly denied the fact. "Don't even mentioned that again or I'll push you into the toilet paper pyramid brat."

I agreed, sticking out my tongue before finishing off the bag of twizzlers.

[catchyouonthebside]

Haunted By Ghosts - How ‘Sister Cities’ Helped Me Come to Terms With Acceptance

Death is, unfortunately, pretty inevitable.

I’m the kind of person who will do whatever I can to deal with it when it happens rather than dwelling on it. I don’t handle it well regardless of what kind of form I’m facing it in; all cinemas in a five mile radius of Cannock can tell you what kind of state I was in by the end of Avengers: Endgame. However, if you’re reading this, more likely than not you understand what it’s like to hit the stage where you wake up and someone you care about just isn’t here any more, and there’s nothing you can do. It’s a stage which I hate being in because I don’t know how to deal with it - should I be sad? Angry? Was there something more I could have done? Was there more I should have said? And so on.

Just over two years ago, I lost someone close to me. I was in the hospital with her with my family when they passed, and being there for that moment is something that will stay with me forever. One moment they were lying in the hospital bed across from me, and by the time I had drawn my next breath they had gone. It was a bizarre experience for all the wrong reasons; I’d encountered death before and I knew it was hard, but I’d never been in the room to witness it happen. This was something we’d know about for about a year, something I’d constantly been telling myself I’d been braced for - but the reality was I was when I thought I was braced, I was merely driving pretending I was wearing a seat belt. I remember some moments unfortunately vividly, like sitting outside the room afterwards trying to process everything that had happened, or climbing onto the roof with my cousin and just sitting there with him. I also remember driving home with my Mom, and I Promise by Radiohead coming on the radio, and the opening line ‘I won’t run away no more, I promise’ felt like a sign from above telling me everything would be okay - even now I look back at that moment and feel like something was guiding me to that song, and I used it to help me through the healing process. Yet for months, I couldn’t shift it all from my head. I felt l was doing the opposite to what Yorke had sang at me those nights ago - I was running away from how I felt and I couldn’t address it because I didn’t know how, and I felt myself sinking lower and lower from a year that in a rain that started in January and left me drenched through December and into the new year.

April 2018 was where for the first time I started addressing it to myself. In the mail arrived my copy of Sister Cities, the new (at the time) album by one of my all time favourite bands, The Wonder Years. Every album I’ve loved of theirs, but there’s major change with every iteration. 

The opening track of each album shows a shift, both lyrically and musically. Their first album, The Upsides, is one big generic pop-punk cluster (and I don’t mean that in a bad way, the album is amazing) - yet from the get go, the lyrical mastery of Dan Campbell is prevalent. The “I’m not sad any more, I’m just tired of this place” opening line of ‘My Last Semester’ carries all the way to the final track of the album, showing the world that by digging through the pop-punk riffs and humorous lyrics about feeling socially awkward at parties, there’s depth to be found at the bottom. 

(For the record, I’m aware that Get Stoked On It! is technically their first album, but considering the band don’t play any of the songs live and have actively said they hate it, for the purpose of this I’m choosing to ignore it.)

‘Came Out Swinging’ opens up second (third?) album Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing with Allen Ginsberg reading an excerpt from one of his poems, before bursting into an outlook onto the band’s life after touring through the first (second? I swear I’ll stop doing this now…) album. I get a sense that in this album, the band seem to have carried the torch of The Upsides on - yet somehow, differently. Change is inevitable, but rather than it seeming like a stranger knocking at your door, the change of style sweeps in like your best friend coming over for a cup of tea. The Greatest Generation indicates it with a genuine sincerity from Dan singing “I’m sorry I don’t laugh at the right times” during opening track ‘There, There’. The openness continues not only through this album but into the next, with ‘Cardinals’ seeming more like a confessional of not helping a friend in need than an opener to No Closer to Heaven. However, their (at this moment in time) most recent album that resonated me most over their five (six? Okay, I’m serious now.) album run that spoke to me intensely personally. This album didn’t just impact me because of the lyrical themes, but because to me it felt like in the time I’d spent listening to the band, I’d grown and evolved as a person alongside the band.

I didn’t know what to expect from this album - I never do when I listen to their music for the first time, but listening to the two songs they’d released before the album dropped, the title track and Pyramids of Salt, gave me indication this wasn’t something I could anticipate like I’d done it a million times before. It’s like they’d shed their pop-punk cocoon and become an atmospheric, alternative rock being unlike what I’d heard from them previously.

Album opener Raining in Kyoto instantly refers to Campbell’s grief of losing a loved one while on tour and about his guilt for not being around for the funeral. The lines “It’s been over a year now, April turns into May/I’ve barely stopped moving, I’ve been so fucking afraid/Too much of a coward to even visit your grave” hit me like a ton of bricks, as much did the rest of the album to come. I even felt deep relation the choruses where he mentions sitting in hospital beside the person in question, as it took me back to the months we’d been visiting where I wished we could just take her home and everything would somehow be okay. Listening through, the way I personally interpreted the album was Campbell running away from grief while going around the world, and by the end of the album coming home and coming to terms with everything - not letting go, but forgiving yourself of blame. Even months, years even, after these events, I still read the lyrics to the songs on this album and find new meaning to them. I remember being so lost I was walking around my neighbourhood at 3am, and ‘We Look Like Lightning’ came on and I just understood - I felt like “the stranger in my bed”, yet all of a sudden it was like everything made sense, and soon after I went home. I felt the weight of ‘The Ghosts of Right Now’ and ‘Pyramids of Salt’ - the lyrics “I wanna take you somewhere safer/Pull your pain out with my teeth” from the former and “I’m helpess/And you’re drowning/And I’m beating at the water here so desperately” from the latter reminded of everything we’d known was coming, everything I wish I could have done but everything I’d chosen to push to the back of my mind about due to fear and denial.

The whole album is a journey of grief and acceptance, and although I thank every song as a whole for helping me through the process, closing track ‘The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me’ was my crutch for most of my healing. It was like I’d been looking for someone to blame for a long time, and I used to blame God a lot for not answering any prayers I’d given during the longest night of my life, and it was like Campbell felt the same. Even down to the the little things, like the lyric “I came to numb my lungs in the salt air” reminding me of sitting on the hospital roof with my cousin. I remember crying when I heard the lyrics “I’ll hold you with my left hand and ball up my right/And if the bastards come for the both of us, I’ll be right there by your side/I’m by your side” for the first time (and almost every subsequent time after that) because I felt like when we were there just as the moment came, looking after who we lost. As the song wrapped up and my first of what feels like thousands of listens of the album came to an end, I remember sitting in silence for a moment and absorbing what I’d just heard. I listened constantly for the next few weeks and the album inspired me to come to terms with what had happened almost a year before and to carry the torch for who we’d lost. Now, every time I listen to this album I feel a sense of reflection - that I can feel who I’ve lost looking down and telling me that it’s okay to carry on.

Grief is hard to get through, but having things to keep you going helps you focus on the here and now. I couldn’t ever thank The Wonder Years enough for releasing Sister Cities when they did, and I don’t know what I’d have done without it. I would like to thank my friends and family for helping me through one of the roughest 8 months of my life, even if they didn’t know it. If you made it through this “little” piece (which turned into me basically gushing about the album), then thanks for coming on this journey with me and listening to what I had to say. Finally, I want to say thanks to my Nan, who’s courage and strength I I will forever admire and hopefully one day be able to achieve.

Death may be one hell of a hurdle to overcome, but the memories you make with the people you love keep them alive forever.

[sunshineofyourlove1967]

i was tagged by @flying-overseas to answer these questions, thank you so much!! i love doing this so much lmao 

1. A song you like with a color in the title 

lana del rey - the blackest day (i am o b sessed with this song)

glass animals - black mambo

hippo campus - violet

2. A song you like with a number in the title

lana del rey - 24

one after 909 - the beatles

3. A song that reminds you of summertime

milky chance - flashed junk minds, a lot of their stuff reminds me of summer

basically the entirety of suck it and see by arctic monkeys

from eden - hozier

peach pit - peach pit - they’re such an underrated band, i discovered them before they put out their first album (that is bomb btw), while i was writing an essay one evening and i have loved them ever since!!

4. A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about

imagine dragons - bleeding out i guess lol, and take the night away from me by miles kane, but otherwise none

5. A song that needs to be played LOUD

adam lambert - ghost town

oasis - supersonic and the i am the walrus cover

the stone roses - i am the resurrection

fried my little brains and fuck the people by the kills

6. A song that makes you want to dance

when the sun goes down - arctic monkeys

the beatles - twist and shout, i saw her standing there

the contours - do you love me, such a jam from the 50′s and it’s from dirty dancing ❤️❤️

oscar peterson - mas que nada, we got this on old vinyl and i always dance to it when no one is home lol

7. A song that makes you happy

the doors - people are strange

i feel good (i got you) - james brown

should have known better - sufjan stevens

8. A song that you never get tired of

daft punk ft. julian casablancas - instant crush

the stall - warpaint

9. A song that you would be played at your wedding

hmmmmm i don’t know really, i’ve thought about some suitable songs a few times but absolutely nothing comes to my mind now

10. A song that is a cover by another artist

the white stripes - jolene (originally by dolly parton)

the last shadow puppets - wondrous place (originally by billy fury)

arctic monkeys - red right hand (originally by nick cave & the bad seeds)

11. A song that you would sing a duet with on karaoke

nick cave & the bad seeds, pj harvey - henry lee

used to be my girl - last shadow puppets

12. A song that makes you think about life

a lot of voidz and strokes stuff, 11th dimension too

hard to explain - the strokes and permanent high school - the voidz, especially 

by the wall - tomáš dvořák, it’s a soundtrack to a czech videogame called machinarium, and it’s so peaceful and nostalgic and heartwrecking in such a simple, non-demanding way

13. A favourite song with a person’s name in the title

arctic monkeys - arabella

pj harvey - claudine, the inflatable one

pj harvey - angelene, lol a LOT of songs by pj harvey

14. A song that you think everybody should listen to

the stone roses - i wanna be adored

joy division - decades

basically almost everything by the voidz, escpecially human sadness

the entirety of sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band by the beatles, also revolver and abbey road, strawberry fields forever, how soon is now by the smiths, where did you sleep last night by nirvana

15. A song by a band you wish were still together 

catching the butterfly - the verve

slide away - oasis - god that song is fucking perfect, i cry every time i listen to it

16. A song by an artist no longer living

john lennon - working class hero, how do you sleep (that song is so mean but i love it)

problems - lil peep

17. A song that makes you want to fall

the memory band - demon days

radiohead - pyramid song

daughter - new ways

m83 - wait

18. A song that breaks your heart

warpaint - stars, i discovered a lot of their songs a few days ago and oh boy do they make me cry, they’re amazing

seafret - oceans

daughter - smother, god it hurts to just remember that song lmao

lana del rey - black beauty, god this song used to w r eck me

19. A song that you remember from your childhood

hana hegerová - lásko prokletá, she is an amazing czech artist and we always listened to her songs with my mom when i was a child, that was awesome

james arthur - impossible

a lot of stuff by lenka dusilová, she’s an another czech artist who also sings in polish sometimes and me and my mom absolutely love her

new radicals - you only get what you give

20. A song that reminds you of yourself

noel gallagher’s high flying birds - while the song remains the same

a lot of strokes stuff, especially from is this it

despair in the departure lounge - arctic monkeys, this song hits too close to home

i tag @crimson-stain, @turneresque , @yufkasaur , @whiskyontherocks , @goodnightsocialist, @thebatphone, @antijulian if y’all wanna, and anyone who wants to do this!!

thank you for tagging me!!

[mbvvacationbibleschool]

Cone Man

Dissociatives are such that when you smoke the cone, you become the cone man. I also have other higher self alter egos. I’m here to explore these other ways of feeling. Shout out to Clancy and his spacecast, this is my space blog.

It’s kind of funny when you use drugs there is a tendency to create a drug culture surrounding the experiences, and this tendency persists when you do them alone but it can be entirely navel gazing and self generated- which allows for the ritualization to become even stranger. The meta and ironic feeling of hallucinogens combining with a depersonalization can make it feel like when you’re high, you’re someone else. Don’t do drugs, kids.

Trip Report

FWD: In order to get the most mileage out of visuals, I highly recommend trying this. Experiment with obstructing and limiting light or making something abstract out of a blanket over your head. Experiment with one eye closed or different levels of squinting, or open your eyes all the way. Close your eyes and try to see your hand through pitch darkness, move your hands around, focus on something in the corner of your eye without looking at it. Trying all this will get fantastic visuals even when you’re not geting much at all in the light with open eyes or with your eyes closed.

So I chickened out again with a 90 mg cone, but as always the come-up was intense. I entered the house listening to Radiohead’s Amnesiac, and put on a red light (because the album is red), in the living room.  Pakt Like Sardines in a Crushd tin can. I paced and felt the dizzying effect of feeling several “scenes” a second- like I’m unable to cling to anything external or internal. I forgot that I had the wife in the other room (or anyone else existing, really) I ended up on the couch, I merged to it.  Pyramid Song plays. The song swells like a hillside. I felt it’s sonic connection to other songs on the album, the piano and drums (and I think there is an acoustic guitar). I thought about the apt comparison to coldplay and the departure from Kid A, and the music as an Nth dimensional emotional and sonic whole. The room expanded, and I felt like I was at an extreme corner or wall, merged to the couch. The body fades. I was able to assess my dissociated state. Static. Changing shapes. Existing in an empty space. An incredible quieting and peace. I felt like my senses were all present but they were stripped of partial meaning or had degraded just enough that they could be misinterpreted. I checked for visuals and didn’t get much with eyes closed, so I got up to eat a pear. I had these feelings of having severely reduced control over the movement of my body, my dances were coming from the music, I did things on whims while I thought about something different. Physical Autonomy.

Anyway.  I laid on the ground after this and saw the red light as the sun of a solar system, with a little ceiling sprinkler was the planet, I was viewing the planet I was on. I sang a song about the star and planet, and how I came from and become the soil. I thought about Terrence telling me to take the “Third Hit” so I decided to clear the bowl.

I went outside. I smoked the ash. I came back in with a voice in my head saying “you will surely die from this cone.” “Will I? (I asked)”

“Surely this time.” 

The meta narrative of how I feel that I had overdone it for sure this time -every time I smoke- was playing out with an extra cheeky layer of irony.

Back to the couch and amnesiac. I used the blanket to conjure visuals. A feminine something approached me for a second or so, but then the scene changed to a spindly white figure in the center of my vision. The corners of the blanket became cybernetic sea foam. Vaulted rooms opened up. My legs and belt in black became a futuristic city landscape through a tiny opening in the blanket.

Terrence told me I HAD to take the third hit, (he was talking about DMT) because I basically didn’t even have a second bowl as it was ash. I weighed 55 mg to be on the safe side and punched it. My uncle had recently died. I thought fondly of him but also felt like I was him for a second there. He had MS and part of the end for him was he had slipped and fallen outside this winter on his way to have a smoke to presumably calm his symptoms. I wondered if I would fall on the ice. I did, I dropped the bong and it didn’t break. I was never really close to this man, I saw him as a child and a young teen. He was vibrant, friendly, and articulate. He married in to the family. I never saw him after the disease started degrading his body. 

The interior of the apartment building. I saw the stairs through the corner of my eye form a sort of lattice type structure that went above and below me? I realized it happened identically the other times I came in.

The wife was on the couch so I sought affection. I received tenderness and love. I was coming up quite hard and playing it cool. This sort of enveloping static and blackness and awareness that I can’t see behind me or even remember what is around me pervaded. It gives a feeling of extremely reduced awareness and dreamlike quality to cannabis. I was sent away as she had more homework to do, so I went to the bedroom by myself. 

In the inky blackness the visuals weren’t as good, but the headspace was powerful still. I remember pitch dark caves illuminated by a dull blue (from my headphones), grainy jagged geometry formed but not enough to entertain. I opened my eyes and saw a figure creeping past the foot of the bed. Then I closed my eyes because I wanted to see something cool and geometric, but instead my perception of the room persisted behind my eyelids and the room became teeming with dark figures.  I laid with my back on the floor in front of my aquarium. I became as tall as my head, no body. I was inside a vast expanse again, as if the ceiling was the sky and I was in a huge field. I looked around and imagined a heavy DXM experience, or what would happen if I really pushed the dosage. I was able to imagine an incredible trip. Tunneling through . . . incomprehensible wackiness. 

I came back. The ceiling became pink and blue static, I could get colorful geometry with my eyes closed by playing with shading my eyelids or squishing them. The light of the aquarium providing white, yellow, green, pink, to mix in with the deep blues purples and black of shading my eyes. This geometry wasn’t really that impressive, to be honest. It wasn’t fully formed. 

I watched the fish (rosy barbs) through squinted eyes streaking around like gaudy yellow and orange Christmas lights. Their movement is much more coordinated than it seems sober (or it seemed more coordinated). They were swirling around some corner of the tank and I pretended they were “summoning the portal.” So much activity. The plants formed some sort of abstract purple-grey web like a Halloween forest when I squinted. I heard music and voices. I did not have any fear.

At some point I did take a third hit but it just didn’t quite bring back the peak. I didn’t really learn anything from this trip, I was merely observing. Note to self- this was intense, but I believe you can take a heroic dose. 

TLDR;

The cannabis seems to have a delirious cosmic narrative to me, as opposed to the more personal and human based, practical and self improving nature of my last 4-Ho-Met experience (coming soon?). OEVs are best, textures and landscapes emerge in dim light, figures shuffle in and out of awareness silently. White noise becomes music and radio-like voices. I watch my life through a camera mounted on a wall or drifting through ether, not 3rd person because the experience feels solipsistic- but I don’t necessarily feel like a someone.

Cannabis

~~MBVVBS

[weekendwarriorblog]

30 Minute Experiment: 90s Alternative Bands #30ME

I warned very early on that I would eventually throw it out to you, the reader -- all two of you -- to come up with a few topics for me to write about. With that in mind, my music-savvy pal Peter Foy has thrown out the topic of ‘90s Alternative Bands to write about in today’s #30ME. And so, prepare yourself for thirty minutes of me writing about Nickelback and Creed... ready?

Well, no, actually I’d consider Nickelback and Creed the alternative to good ‘90s bands (see what I did there?) but since I have insisted that I can spend 30 minutes writing about anything, and I do have some experience with ‘90s alternative bands, it seems like I can ramble for about 30 minutes (now 28 minutes) about the topic... but of course, I’m gonna make this more about me. 

You have to remember (in case you didn’t know me this long) that I moved to New York City in 1987 mainly for the music and music scene and being able to work in music. I was a pretty big-time anglophile, regularly buying the weekly British music trades -- Sounds, NME, Melody Maker (the latter being my fave) -- and avidly ingesting all of the new bands coming out of England and then eventually Boston, Seattle and even New York. By the advent of the ‘90s, I was working at a pretty cool downtown recording studio called the Magic Shop and started working with a lot of the cool bands and artists that I loved, including They Might Be Giants and Sonic Youth.

So I had a pretty good entry into what was going on in terms of alternative bands by the time the ‘90s came around, and it led to a lot of surprises, such as the time when the really cute blonde background singer came into a session and was telling me about this new band she loved called “Nirvana.” Granted, I had already been into Nirvana since they started off in the ‘80s. I’d even seen them on their tour with fellow Sub Pop band, Tad, at a small club called The Pyramid, and again with Jesus Lizard at Maxwell’s in Hoboken. (I must have still been living in Jersey City at that time since I rarely went out there for bands. Also saw My Bloody Valentine there.)

I didn’t know a ton of people into the bands I liked, including Nirvana, so when this bright, cheery and yes, very cute, woman proclaimed she was into Nirvana, I was pretty shocked, in fact. Obviously, “Smells like Teen Spirit” and “Nevermind” had come out by then, so it should’t have been too big a surprise, but I still saw Nirvana as this grungy alternative band that only former stoners, classic rock and punk enthusiasts like me might get. Mind you, I’d be working with Nevermind producer Butch Vig within a few short months after that, but it was still a pretty major sea change for me (and also for the Magic Shop, as I’d learn from owner Steve Rosenthal many decades later). 

Just a bit of an aside that I left the Magic Shop under not great circumstances that I won’t go into as they are very long in the past, and me and Steve become friends once again. In fact, it was seeing the Magic Shop on David Grohl’s Sonic Highways show that made me reach out to Steve and swing by the Magic Shop to see how it changed. There were still signs of my presence even 20 years later!). 

The point of that aside is that the success of NIrvana and the sudden interest by American labels in signing American bands, including some of the grungy New York City descendants of the ‘80s New York noise scene allowed me to work with some very cool (and very noisy) New York bands in the ‘90s.

Around this same time, and I may have mentioned this in an earlier #30ME, is that as the ‘90s went along, I stopped buying all of the British trades, I stopped buying a stack of import records every week with my hard-earned cast, and I started focusing more on my studio work. By the late ‘90s, I was working at Sam Ash in the computer department and my focus had shifted more towards digital and computer recording as Pro Tools was becoming more available to the masses who couldn’t afford a music system that costs tens of thousands of dollars.

Getting back to the actual topic, it was interesting to see how this change in technology, as well as my own changes in terms of listening to music, led to changes in the bands that I worked with at The Magic Shop who were now making music (quite literally in one case) on their laptops and shifting away to the live recordings that I used to enjoy doing. 

I could tell you tons of stories about the records I worked on as an engineer and eventually producer, but the ones I liked most were the bands that I could just set up in a live room with baffles between the drums and amps, and I could get a pretty decent recording to tape. I could also tell you about the famous two-day session I did with Chan Marshall, better known as Cat Power, recording and mixing two records in Sonic Youth’s rehearsal space with Steve Shelley and Tim Foljahn (from Two Dollar Guitar and many other bands from that time). It was a pretty amazing experience knowing that two records came out of those sessions but in my defense, I was mixing the songs (from 8 track) while a very loud rock band played in the rehearsal space above us.

Anyway, my thoughts on alternative bands of the ‘90s definitely shifted as the years went on, and I ended up missing a lot of bands like Suede and Pulp and even Supergrass (who would later become faves of mine) because I wasn’t paying as much attention to what was going on in England. I also wasn’t watching as much MTV whereas I was an avid viewer of “120 Minutes” for most of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. 

It’s hard to really get into new bands without having those things keeping me up to date on what was coming from other places than New York, but sometime around the late ‘90s or early ‘00s, I got my first iPod and started putting a lot more music in there as I ran around New York to gigs, so I’d have something to listen to on the subway. I was doing more computer tech work than recording/mixing in those days but still not really doing any writing about movies as of yet. 

The ‘00s was a bit more of a transitional phase as I moved away from music and studio work into movies and writing about them, but that also kept me listening to music and I was still regularly going to concerts and discovering new bands.

But for me, the ‘90s was almost as much as seeing the bands I was getting into in the ‘80s going through changes, seeing them playing bigger concerts and festivals like Lollapalooza, more than really getting into some of the new bands that I would sometimes discover later.

The cool part about trying to stay on top of music during the early ‘90s is that it meant that I got to see bands like My Bloody Valentine and Blur and Radiohead VERY early in their careers, as well as having first prints of many of their earlier records, on vinyl no less. I gotta find them and see if they’re in good enough shape to sell and get some money once record shops reopen. I honestly wouldn’t even know where to find what those records are worth but I sure as shit am not going to make the mistake I made with my comic collection and sell them for way below what they’re worth. (I probably haven’t gotten into it too much but spending 40 years collecting comics and then getting WAY less than I’d hope for my collection due to my circumstances, it was definitely the worst moment of 2019. What is going on right now will probably be my low point of 2020.)

So yeah, you can ask me about ‘90s music that I was into, and I can easily go off on a 30-minute or longer ramble about the bands and music I loved and listened to but I still feel (and this is more recently) that I missed out on quite a bit, maybe because I was already starting to get pretty picky and choosy about what I liked and didn’t like and didn’t even want to bother to listen to. Nickelback and Creed definitely fall into the latter category but there were plenty of other bands that I know found quite a huge fanbase during those years (Better Than Ezra? Kings of Leon?) who I honestly couldn’t name a single song. 

Another part of this that I should have mentioned before is that by the ‘90s I was listening to a lot less radio. WLIR slowly went away and it wasn’t that easy to get its signal in New York City, but I also listened to the radio more when I was driving around, something that I stopped quite soon after moving to NYC. My last driver’s license expired in 1992.

But driving is probably a story for another day and another #30ME. I hope others will throw out a few topics to use as the basis for a #30ME, cause while I’m finding these 30 minutes to be quite cathartic every day, I’m also running around of things that I want to talk about without getting into some dicier political topics. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

And with that, my time is up...

[thebandcampdiaries]

D. Grei - Introducing brand new Radiohead Remix for “Pyramid Song”

April 2020 - D. Grei is an artist and performer with a focus on creating edgy and intriguing electronic music. With a name inspired by the infamous tale of Dorian Gray, his music resonates with that ideal of eternal youth and darker mystique that name evokes. D. Grei recently released a stunning remix of one of Radiohead’s most beautiful songs, “Pyramid Song.”  What I love about this remix is that D. Grei stayed true to the original spirit of the song, but he actually managed to add a brightness to it, giving it a lush sonic soundscape and redefining the mood of the track. I am a big fan of artists who put their own spin on music, and this is definitely something special. While the original song is mainly a piano ballad, this version goes way deeper in terms of exploring various sound landscapes and creative possibilities, taking the listeners down on a deeper sonic journey.

Find out more about D. Grei and do not miss out on his remix of “Pyramid Song,” as well as other releases from the artist:

https://soundcloud.com/d-grei/pyramid-song/s-0qO6lk429iE

We also had the chance to chat with the artist and ask a few questions for an interview!

I love how you manage to render your tracks so personal and organic. Does the melody come first, or do you focus on the beat the most?

Answer: Most of the time I start by the Melody because for me it’s the backbone of a track.

Do you perform live? If so, do you feel more comfortable on a stage or within the walls of the recording studio?

Answer: I’m definitely more comfortable in my home studio. But the comfort zone is boring, doesn’t it? I wish to be able to do live as soon as possible. But I need a touring producer 😊

If you could only pick one song to make a “first impression” on a new listener, which song would you pick and why?

Answer: Depend on the person. I did almost every mood of the music. So I think you can pick the track you feel. And maybe try another one. Just in case. Don’t forget it’s homemade :D

What does it take to be “innovative” in music?

Answer: I don’t know… because I think it’s not my purpose to answer that. I mean, I do music to enjoy myself. Because it's funny for me to try to put this FX in this BUS with this sample. Its like be a crazy professor in his lab. But I don’t if the thing I try now, someone didn’t try it 40 years ago… We never now. So, I just try to be innovative for me 😊

Any upcoming release or tour your way?

Answer: Because of the lockdown, yes, I hope. I have an old and lazy computer so everything takes time. But yes new release 100% homemade (no remix I mean) before the end of April. Stay tuned

Anywhere online where curious fans can listen to your music and find out more about you?

Answer: I think the best is to go on my website http://d-grei.com there you can find the link for my Facebook page, my Soundcloud (if you want to listen), my youtube channel and of course I’m on Instagram: @d.grei

[swords-of-truth-blog]

Another Man - TNP interview 2017

Up there with the best interviews with TNPS I’ve read, some real insight into their process and mentality, espcially the stuff about them slowing down Aphex Twin songs as kids. (Typed up from the Another Man article earlier in the year...)

WITH A FOURTH THESE NEW PURITANS ALBUM NEARING COMPLETION, THE Barnett TWINS ARE AS UNCOMPROMISING AS EVER

TEXY Paul Moody

These New Puritans would like to get a few things off their chest. First, despite being perennially pegged as part of pop’s privately-educated elite, they are in fact proud sons of Essex whose family tree boats more colourful characters than an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? Secondly, despite internet rumours to the contrary, their debut album Beat Pyramid  was not inspired by a Belgian techno outfit in thrall to the mysterious Father Abraham.    “Our Wikipedia page says that the biggest influence on our first record was The Smurfs,” Jack Barnett sighs, nursing nothing stronger than a glass of water in an East End bar. “Because of that, 75 per cent of all the interviews we do mention it. I did have that album, and it is good, but y’know…”  Barnett’s exasperation at the limitations imposed on his imaginative scope are understandable. Over the last decade, his band – now reduced to a core of Jack Barnett and twin brother George – have blazed, like Halley’s Comet, across the skies of the British music scene.    Brilliant and bonkers in equal measure, their three studio albums – 2008’s Beat Pyramid, 2010’s Hidden and 2012’s Field of Reeds – have established These New Puritans as genuine eccentrics whose next move cannot be predicted (Barnett told interviewers at the time of Field of Reeds that the follow up would be “Disney Pop”, sung by an East European vocalist. While this is unlikely, you still wouldn’t bet against it.)    Incorporating seemingly random elements ranging from children’s voices to factory noise; Jamaican dance hall to the deepest voice in Britain; a harrier hawk taking flight to the sound of a human skull being smashed (achieved using a Foley technique involving striking a hammer against a melon covered in cream crackers), their ever-changing collision of art rock, electronica, classical and sound collage has seen them move at breath-taking speed. It’s little wonder that some less enlightened observers have been left simply gazing in awe.    Signed to Infectious (and Domino outside the UK), they have built a loyal global fan base with an influence far beyond the quick-fix of chart success. In 2007 fashion designer Hedi Slimane commissioned the 15-minute piece Navigate, Navigate for a Dior show in Paris, while celebrity admirers include Suede, who asked them to support at the Royal Albert Hall in 2010, and Elton John, who praised the lush arrangements of Field of Reeds. In April 2014 they inverted the hoary notion of the ‘live album’ by performing songs from their entire back catalogue at the Barbican with the aid of a 35-piece orchestra (captured on the 2015 album Expanded).    “I never liked the idea of there being two paths,” says Jack, looking back over their career to date. “There’s one where you can be successful, and the other where you can be experimental. The art is combining the two. The irony is that, in my head, I always think we’re making pop music. It’s only when I look at the reality of pop that I see it’s really banal.”    Barnett’s own reputation as a composer has also grown exponentially. In 2015 he was musical director of a stage production of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World. Set in the modern day, this involved writing short pieces to mirror – among other things – the sound of someone perusing their Facebook wall. “Jack’s music always has extraordinary range: there is so much in the way of colour, texture and variety to it,” says Jame Dacre, the show’s artistic director. “As a composer he combines an innate and passionate understanding of storytelling with an astonishing musical range and technical rigour.”    For Barnett, it was exactly the kind of challenge he thrives on: both cerebral and sonically challenging. To create the effect of Soma – the euphoric narcotic on which Huxley’s population is hooked – he used an obscure digital technique called Harmor resynthesis; for the slogans used by the World State, a barrage of hyper-oscillating noise. “At that time a lot of people were writing about dystopias, but they imagined violence and repression being the thing that oppressed people rather than banal pleasures,” he says, still fascinated by the subject. “It’s exactly those psychological weaknesses that oppress people now. We’re constantly presented with mediocre luxury – like being in business class in a plane rather than economy. In real terms, there’s almost no difference – an Amazonian tribesman wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. It makes you think, is that really all people aspire to?”    If These New Puritans are unlike any other band, they are also completely unlike each other. Pale and intense, Jack chooses his words with the care of a Scrabble grandmaster. Resident in Berlin since 2014, he’s a committed Europhile, citing 19th-century Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol and Lithuanian filmmaker Sarunas Bartas as current inspirations. George – the older twin by a minute – is positively cavalier in comparison. A highly successful model who has fronted campaigns for Burberry, Valentino and Lanvin among others, you sense that, as well as playing drums and contributing lyrics, he acts as a vital sounding board for his brother’s more extravagant flights of fancy.    “We just pursue the music,” he says, explaining that his regular EasyJet trips to Berlin from his London home are as much about mapping TNP’s direction as their sound. “We have similar beliefs about things. It’s been like that since we were kids.”    For These New Puritans, home is where the art is. Brough up by their mum (an art teacher) and dad (a builder) in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex, their maverick approach mirrors that of the town itself – local alumni include musician Vivian Stanshall, Helen Mirren and novelist John Fowles.    Growing up, music was never far away. “Our mum was good friends with Wilko Johnson and (Dr Feelgood vocalist) Lee Brilleaux, so we would knock about with his kids,” Jack explains. “And our dad was a huge reggae fan,” George adds dryly. “He was into Steel Pulse, smoking weed, and being the only white guy there.” Their musical awakening came seeing Sparks and Captain Beefheart on re-runs of The Old Grey Whistle Test. By eight, the twins were already writing songs, with their roles clearly defined – Jack on guitar and George on drums. “I used to listen to The Velvet Underground when I was ten,” Jack says of their advanced progress. “But I never once thought about the words or what they meant. They weren’t important to me – it was all about the sound.”    As teenagers the pair would hole up in the loft, slowing down Aphex Twin tracks to quarter speed to figure out how they were created. However, drawn towards the thriving post-punk scene centred around Southend’s Junk Club, they were soon playing gigs of their own, confusing audiences around the country with their ever-evolving sound. “Our music was changing so quickly,” Jack says with a grin. “A promoter would book us three months in advance to play at some indie club. By the time we turned up we wouldn’t be playing any of the songs they wanted to hear. Instead it would be the noisiest music you can imagine.”    “People have this idea we’re from an indie background because we used guitars on (debut album) Beat Pyramid,” George adds. “If anything, that’s the exception. We’ve always been into electronic music.”    The band’s eureka moment came in 2010’s Hidden. A complete volte-face, it combined a glacial sonic assault with word-salad couplets such as Three Thousand’s “Wear fun death-suit / Tropical design / Blade grammar to the death / Everybody run.” Voted NME’s Album of the Year, it cast them as sonic adventurers in the mould of Sigur Rós and Radiohead, a reputation bolstered by 2013’s stunning Field of Reeds. A combination of lush symphonics and woozy electronica, it nodded to everyone from (fellow Essex natives) Talk Talk to conductors André de Ridder and Hans Ek *, positioning them firmly as a neo-classical outfit.    So where will these shape-shifting pop chameleons go next? After two years in Jack’s Berlin studio, their new album is, he says, “7t per cent finished”. While they admit to absorbing ideas from everyone from Stockhausen to electronic label Tri Angle Records – notably Rabit – they’re deliberately vague on details. One thing is for certain, however: it won’t be their ‘Berlin album’. “I hate that idea,” Jack says, recoiling at the thought. “The new album sounds like us. I can’t think of any other way of describing it.”    I can, however, say that the drumming is brilliant,” George adds. He explains that the music they’re working on is both “brutal and beautiful”, with a central theme of “transcendence”. “We’ve got this phrase: don’t dream backwards, dream forwards,” he says. “I think that sums up the way we’re thinking. Look to the future, not the past.”    They both stress that this aim is only achievable without the digital trickery of compression, reverb and distortion. “In the 60s and 70s they were trying to get as hi-fidelity as they could,” says Jack with an air of exasperation. “Why hang on to something that is pre-existing? It’s much more interesting to go forwards and make something clear and pristine.” **    This seems as good a place as any to leave them. In a world increasingly dominated by brazen self-promotion, These New Puritans’ refusal to talk themselves up is a breath of fresh air. At 27, you get the sense that the remarkable Barnett brothers are only getting started on their journeys through sound.    “I have always seen the role of the artist as transporting the listener away from grim reality,” says Jack in conclusion. “There are ways out. That’s music to me. We don’t want to change to have success. If anything, I like the idea of the world changing around us.”

* = André de Ridder was conductor on Field of Reeds but Hans Ek is in fact an arranger ** = The author has perhaps misconstrued something Jack and George have said in many earlier interviews, that in the 1950’s producers aimed for sonic perfection, but by the 1960’s and 1970’s they wanted distortion, which TNP don’t like.

[shownus-biceps]

How did you become a rh fan? I'm kind of new here

Well firstly, welcome! I hope you enjoy my blog!!So now story time. I got introduced to Radiohead by my brother who has a great impact on my music taste. My family and I went out to see him for my birthday in 2015 and I was so into alt-J and he said it reminded him of Radiohead and I was like “oh Thom [the drummer] likes that band!” And so he showed me some songs on a mixtape he gave me. The songs were Packt Like Sardines, Pyramid Song, and There, There as Amnesiac is his fave album and There, There is his fave song so it made sense. I remember listening to them religiously but I never dug further but I kind of watched them from afar. My brother although really likes to slag off Thom for unknown reasons so I always had ingrained in my mind that he was just this depressed (and ugly) guy and I didn’t need that kind of dude in my life. (He’s so wrong obviously). I remember when Spectre dropped and I got really excited about it. It really wasn’t until they deleted themselves from the internet where I kind of got intrigued by them. When Burn The Witch dropped I knew that was it that this band was gonna have my soul to keep. Of course it did take a while to fully dwell in their music but now I’m here and I love them with my whole heart.

[jessicakmatt]

Music Modes: How to Enrich Your Songs with Modal Color

Music Modes: How to Enrich Your Songs with Modal Color: via LANDR Blog

Why should you learn music modes?

Good question. Even if you know it’ll pay off, the idea of sitting down and memorizing scales isn’t anyone’s idea of a creative flow.

Music theory is one of the most common roadblocks for self-taught musicians and producers.

But the truth is, all you need to expand your tonal palette is a little practical understanding of music modes.

If you need to break out of a creative rut, modes are the easiest alternative to your same old major scale.

This article will show you how to build—and remember—each mode, what they sound like and ways to explore them further.

What are music modes?

Music modes are a type of scale with distinct melodic characteristics. The 7 modes, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian, come from the earliest forms of western music.

Before we figured out the math for dividing the octave into 12 equal tones, we had to make do with an imperfect system. Modes were the solution.

Instead of one all-purpose scale that could be transposed into different keys, there were 7 modes that each had their own structure.

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In early music, the modes were used similar to how we use keys now.

Today, modal music refers to pieces of music where modes are used structurally and harmonically in place of traditional functional harmony.

How modes help with songwriting

If you’ve been writing a lot using the vanilla major and minor scales, your next song can benefit from some modal flavour!

Each mode has its own unique colour and mood. Their melodic signatures can bring a lot of drama and freshness to your sound.

They’re not hard to learn either. Once you start experimenting with modes, you’ll recognize a lot of the sounds and colour they have to offer.

How to build the modes

The sound of the modes come from their unique constructions. So what are they and ow can you remember them?

If you’ve been writing a lot using the vanilla major and minor scales, your next song can benefit from some modal flavour!

The modes have an order. Ironically, you can use the mnemonic I Don’t Particularly Like Modes A Lot to remember it!

The order of musical modes is:

1. Ionian 2. Dorian 3. Phrygian 4. Lydian 5. Mixolydian 6. Aeolian 7. Locrian

I’ll go through and build each mode from the C major scale and provide an example from music history to help you understand the potential of each mode in your own songwriting.

Ionian Mode

Let’s start with the major scale. It’s equivalent to the first mode: Ionian.

Since your “key signature” won’t change as we go through the modes, you’ll be able to play each mode using the C major scale formula.

If you need a quick refresher on key signatures, use our circle of fifths guide as a quick reminder.

As you can see C major has no sharps or flats, just the white keys on the keyboard. So: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C

Since all the notes are essentially the same, we’ll have to play each mode over the corresponding diatonic chord to hear its quality.

Dorian Mode

For Dorian, write the C major scale but instead of stopping at the octave ©, write the next scale degree as if you were continuing up the octave (D).

If we erase the C we started with, we now have an 8 note scale from D1-D2. This is the 2nd mode: D Dorian.

Notice how it’s pretty close to the D minor scale.

It’s similar—but with some very important differences. The 6th degree is natural, but the 7th degree is flatted.

This is what makes the Dorian mode distinct from other minor scales and gives it that special quality.

Here’s a song built around the Dorian mode. Listen for the sound of the natural 6th in the opening guitar figures and vocal melody:

Phrygian Mode

Now write the next note in the scale. If you delete the D you’ll have another 8-note scale from E1-E2. This is the third mode: E Phrygian.

It’s a similar to minor, but the flatted 2nd scale degree immediately sets it apart.

The characteristic minor 2nd interval has a recognizable sound. The second chord in the opening progression of “Pyramid Song” by Radiohead is built on the Phrygian flatted 2nd:

Lydian Mode

Lydian is the fourth mode. If you write the next note in the scale you’ll get F Lydian.

We like this mode so much we did an entire piece on Lydian.

“Bull in the Heather” by Sonic Youth features Lydian’s raised 4th scale degree prominently in the verse guitar melody:

Mixolydian Mode

Mixolydian is the 5th mode. If you continue the method of writing the next scale degree and deleting the first you’ll get G Mixolydian.

Mixolydian has some characteristics of the “blues scale” because of the flatted 7th.

Listen for it in the sitar/vocal melody of “Norwegian Wood” by the Beatles:

Aeolian Mode

Aeolian is the sixth mode. Continuing up the scale, you’ll get A Aeolian.

It’s also called natural minor, because it’s a minor scale without the raised 6th degree or 7th degree of melodic or harmonic minor.

Aeolian is the default minor sound in pop music, so it can be found all over music history.

“Losing my Religion” by R.E.M. uses the Aeolian mode.

Since we’re so used to natural minor, it can be can harder to pick out the characteristic modal intervals. In this case, listen for the quality of the V chord.

When it’s minor we’re in Aeolian.

Locrian Mode

Locrian is the 7th mode. It’s used far less often than the other modes, so there’s not many examples out there.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth exploring on your own with the methods you’ve already gone through in the rest of this article.

The parent scale: How to find any mode

You just learned the parent scale method of building the modes. Now you can build any mode as long as you know its number in the order.

Simply count backwards to the major parent scale to determine the structure of the mode.

Simply count backwards to the major parent scale to determine the structure of the mode.

For example, E Aeolian? Aeolian is the 6th mode. What major scale is E the 6th degree of?

Correct, it’s G. So E Aeolian is simply the 8-note scale beginning and ending on E with the same formula as G-Major.

Again, staying sharp with your key signatures is a must for working with modes. The circle of fifths is a great partner tool for writing modally.

Once you understand the parent scale method for getting the modes, you’ll start to see patterns.

This is where the other method for remembering the modes comes into play…

Scale formulas

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the modes share a lot of similarities with either the major or minor scale.

If you know whether a mode is generally major or minor, you can simply remember which tones are altered from the template.

This is the “scale formula” method for remembering the modes.

Here are the formulas for the church modes.

Ionian – Major (no altered notes)

Dorian – minor + natural 6th, flatted 7th

Phrygian – minor + flatted 2nd, flatted 7th

Lydian – Major + sharp 4th

Mixolydian – Major + flatted 7th

Aeolian – minor + flatted 6th, flatted 7th

For example, say we want to play A Lydian. We remember that Lydian is a “major” mode so we start with the scale formula for A Major: F#, C#, G#.

We know that Lydian contains the raised 4th scale degree, so we can simply add D# to our “key signature” to create the mode.

Now that you know the scale formula method, trying transposing each mode into C and playing them over the corresponding C major or minor chord.

This will help you understand what makes each mode distinct.

Of these two methods, you may think that the scale formula method is much faster and easier. But the parent scale method will come in handy later on when you’re digging into more advanced modes.

How to use the music modes

If you’ve played through the modes, you’re probably starting to get a feel for what they sound like.

In practice, think of the modes like colours on a spectrum from dark to light.

In practice, think of the modes like colours on a spectrum from dark to light.

To generalize:

Modes with more “lowered” or flatted scale degrees are darker.

Modes with more raised scale degrees can be considered brighter.

It’s an easy shorthand for finding where the modes fit in to your songwriting. Need a sound that’s even darker than minor? Phrygian might come in handy.

Looking for something especially bright and augmented? Lydian could be your best choice.

You may find your own synesthetic connections to the modes as you learn them, there’s no right or wrong answers here!

Hot tip: If you’ve been following along extra close and listening carefully to the examples, you may have noticed that some of the songs you’ve heard contain the characteristic intervals of the modes in the melody, while others use them in the harmony.

Need a sound that’s even darker than minor? Phrygian might come in handy.

You can build chords with the modes like we’ve done before with the major and minor scales…but that’s a story for another day! Stay tuned…

Mode Selector

Modes can be a game changer for your songwriting.

The modes of the major scale are everywhere in music history. As soon as you can recognize their sounds, you’ll start hearing them all over your favourite tracks.

They’re also a gateway to other methods. Once you master the church modes, your ears will be itching for new colours and moods.

If you know these methods for building and remembering modes, go ahead and try them all! Because no songwriting toolbox is ever too big.

The post Music Modes: How to Enrich Your Songs with Modal Color appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/music-modes/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/175616844424