#its a long way to go to die by LP

[aulerean]

more aimless scribbling

[omegaremix]

Academy (Manhattan), 2022.

I’ve never patronized a business so much in six month’s time. That business was Academy Records / LP’s. I had the urge to buy one single record that was on my mind (Boulders’ Rock And Roll Will Never Die) and pulled the trigger on that plus much more. I found more city-centric records and tapes on its’ other Discogs handle and in the turn of the year made two online purchases with them. For the final day of this past Winter, I took an impromptu visit to Academy’s Brooklyn (Greenpoint) location and bought more of that magic in person. Why? City stores have that specific charm that none of the other local stores on the island have. By that, I mean types of artists and sounds easily found there and nowhere else. Last year’s visit to Williamsburg’s Rough Trade made the best example of it and explains why I spent almost $420.00 there.

I read that they had another location on the lower East side of Manhattan (L.E.S.) which I’ve been meaning to go. After my check-up on Lexington Av., I could not miss the opportunity. I’ve already visited six island stores with four to go, so consider Manhattan’s Academy a ‘bonus round’ - one of two to be exact.

It wasn’t far from Lexington Av. taking the crowded ‘6’ line downtown to East 12th Street. It was a leisurely trek under the canopies, scaffolds and tree, walking past the everyday city life and numerous groups of people standing around waiting for the ride to take them to their next event. Across the street from Academy was the playground hopping with urban youth of all colors shooting hoops and getting loud with one another. Another few feet across the street and here I finally am. What I noticed on the front door before entering was a sign that said “masks required”. Luckily, I saved mine from the clinic.

I walk in and Academy’s Manhattan space isn’t as ratty and dingy as its Brooklyn spot. No crusty carpeting but a concrete floor partially painted blue and walls only in slight decay. There’s shelves and white boxes of stock all along the right side up until the cassette racks. More shelves opposite the entrance and over the small island of wooden crates. Walk past the counter on the left and opposite that was a listening station of two of three working turntables. More shelves and white boxes on each side in the back section of the store before reaching their office. Good news: $1.00 and $3.00 hip-hop / rap, rock, soul, synthpop and new-wave records were all for the taking.

I pick a spot, any spot to start digging. That was their small used-industrial section. Right off the bat I find Test Dept.’s “Machine Run (Compulsion)” e.p., a true metal-on-metal attack and one of my all-time favorite industrial works. I was happy to pay $12.00 for that one. Ω+ followers know that I always make my way to the used-jazz section and they didn’t disappoint there. That copy of Hank Crawford’s Tico Rico, the one with his ‘I-could-care-less’ face on it, was a win. Hubert Laws’ Then There Was Light Pt. 1 on CTI featuring Bob James, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, Richard Tee, and brother Ronnie Laws was another must-have because of them. And I got my first Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes record Dancing In The Sun. No Onsaya Joy, but that song which still stayed in my head all these years was enough for me to pull the handle on him.

Though Academy wasn’t Riverhead’s Sunday Records, they had a small but great used-synth-pop / new wave section with many shelves of soul sitting next to them. That lead me to their hip-hop / rap bins and $1.00 records, where was never a shortage of obtainable low-cost 12” singles. I found plenty of golden-era scores from Kool Moe Dee, 3rd Bass’ Prime Minister Pete Nice & Daddy Rich, and Spoonie Gee’s Godfather Of Rap ($5.00). A few flips later and I find Original Concept’s Straight From The Basement Of Cooley High for only $1.00. Featuring Yo! MTV Raps’ T-Money and Dr. Dre, it was an essential piece of Long Island history I had to take. I was floored in finding Antexx’ “Understand Me Vanessa (Vanessa Yo)”, a single I remember hearing once on WBLS during my Brentwood era and which absolutely no one talks about. But for $5.00 for four different versions of the same song, did I really need it? Nah. Give Academy more points for having some real old-school artifacts such as some Z-3 MC’s and T.A.P. records.

I still had a thirst for used 7” records so I had to sift through their four-by-four formation right next to the counter; where marked boxes of punk, rock, soul, reggae, oldies, and even French lyricists were fair game. I took some singles from my Atari childhood (read, Eighties hits) and bought some gambles in punk and d-beat. Get this: the Vagra 2016 demo LP that I bought blindly from Academy’s Discogs mail-order? They had their Refuse 7” e.p. in-store. How funny life fucks with you like that. And without even looking for it: Shizuo’s “Sweat” b/w “Stop It”. It’s one of the very few DHR releases I don’t have since I already had those songs. Well, for old time’s sake…

Then I strayed off the beaten path to find another marked box of punk rock and d-beat 45’s under the bins where I scored some self-titled platters in Soaker (because Wharf Cat), the super-CMYK saturated Strutter, and Glam. That one was my first-ever find from the La Vida Es Un Mus label and I am all the happy for it.

I sifted through more LPs both new and used in all categories. That’s where I scored even more major wins. The Men’s Devil Music, one of the few not released on the Sacred Bones label, was mine. Speaking of fantastic New York City labels, there was Institute’s Readjusting The Locks on clear / bourbon swirl vinyl. Why not? And I had to take the biggest hit for one of my favorite artists: an unwrapped copy of Boy Harsher’s Country Girl (Uncut) for $18.00. I won’t complain.

Academy had plenty of used LPs in other categories. They had a section devoted exclusively to the Numero Group. A little to the right was more classic rock LP’s and even further were their Detroit techno, electronic and jungle / drum-and-bass sections. I had a laugh when I found a copy of Give Up’s self-titled e.p. on the Ambush label; the second Shizuo-based release I came across. I do have it in my library since I bought it from The Port Jefferson Music Den during DHR’s heyday.

CD’s? They barely carried any. They had only two columns of it tucked away deep in a corner before their tape section, and that they didn’t disappoint. Though they carried the usual universal duds, they did have some exciting finds in punk and golden-era hip-hop. It was the first time in ages that I bought a cassingle. That was Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz’ “Deja Vu”. In fact, they did have a few dusty cases of them where they were five for a dollar. For $7.00, Who’s The Man (motion picture soundtrack) was a must-grab.

But the real good stuff was kept behind the counter in a glass case. The girl dressed in black denims noticed I was eye-ing them. Of course I was. There were a few that caught my eye. One which was Ata Kak’s Obaa Sima; a personal Summer jam and the very album that kicked off the Awesome Tapes From Africa label. I asked her to get me the price on that, Subhumans UK’s 29:29 Vision,and Health’s Disco4::Part I.

“That’s fifteen, fifteen, and that’s thirty.”

I really wanted Ata Kak so I took it, but passed up on the Subhumans UK tape. And as much as I like Heath, I sure as fuck on a rainbow-winged pegasus on a golden horn won’t pay $30.00 for a blue cassette. To be fair, Academy had a case: Discogs’ sellers priced it at $35.00. Put that back.

She added up my purchase. It was a great $177.00 and two-and-a-half memorable hours spent in the city. I walked out the door and looked across the street to see an empty playground. All the yelling and camaraderie was over for the day. I turned the corner to catch the next ‘L’ and ‘C/E’ line to Penn Station. No rush, no fuss, no danger. I had just enough time to catch the Central Islip train for what would be another hour-and-five-minute ride east home. Do remind me never to board a peak train ever again. For four dollars more, you can play musical chairs competing for cramped seats and be packed like a twist-can of Iberia sardines with almost no leg room.

Kool Moe Dee: “Death Blow” 12”

Prime Minister Pete Nice & Daddy Rich: “Kick The Bobo” 12”

Professor Griff & The Last Asiatic Disciples: “Pawns In The Game” 12”

Kool Moe Dee: “They Want Money” 12”

Queen Latifah: “Ladies First” 12”

Public Enemy: “Give It Up” 12”

Kool Moe Dee: “Wild Wild West” 12”

Heavy D. & The Boys ft. various artists: “Don’t Curse” 12”

Spoonie Gee: Godfather Of Rap LP

Original Concept: Straight From The Basement Of Cooley High LP

The Men: Devil Music LP

Stepdad SS: Mad About It LP

Vaaska: Ruido Hasta La Muerte LP

Institute: Re-Adjusting The Locks LP

Test Dept.: Compulsion (Machine Run) LP

Boy Harsher: Country Girl (Uncut) LP

Hubert Laws: Then There Was Light LP

Hank Crawford: Tico Rico LP

Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes: Dancing In The Sun LP

Glam: self-titled 7”

Perdition: self-titled 7”

Soaker: self-titled 7”

Strutter: self-titled 7”

Hombrinus Dudes: self-titled 7”

Deformed Conscience: self-titled 7”

25 Rifles: History Of Flags 7”

Funeral Shock: Paint Thinner 7”

Vagra: Refuse 7”

River City Tanlines: “The Devil Made Me Do It” b/w “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore” 7”

Shizuo: “Sweat” b/w “Stop It” 7”

Code-13 b/w DS-13 split 7”

Billy Ocean: “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” 7”

Stacey Q: “Two Of Hearts” 7”

Miami Sound Machine: “Bad Boy” 7”

Cameo: “Word Up” 7”

Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz: “Deja Vu” CS

Who’s The Man: motion picture soundtrack CS

Ata Kak: Obaa Sima CS

[littleprincefan]

my singular issue with The Little Prince 2015

ok now that im posting shit publicly again i Need to talk about my main gripe with the 2015 little prince movie, which is how they stripped the LP of his personality for most of the movie.

since this movie’s main emotional focus is on the older aviator befriending the little girl, the movie wants you to be sad and cry during Their emotional scenes (i.e. when they fight and the aviator goes to the hospital without the girl managing to saying goodbye), so they made the little prince’s part of the story less emotional

in the book’s story (which in this movie is portrayed by the paper stop-motion segments), we get to see the aviator slowly warming up to the little prince, being extremely annoyed by his antics, his mysteriousness and his stubbornness, yet intrigued by what the prince Does tell him, and we get to see a lot of vulnerable moments between them. his death scene, the peak of their relationship and the saddest part of the book, is also barely five minutes long, where in the book it’s like two chapters long and so much more vulnerable and emotional

one example of this is when the aviator snaps at the little prince for asking too many questions about the sheep being dangerous to the rose, and in that scene we see the little prince getting angry, accusing the aviator of not caring about anything other than what grown ups deem important, and most importantly of all, he cries.

the little prince is a very real character, a very real little boy, as strange and inhuman as he is (not being really human and all, with my hc being that hes made of stars), and what’s charming of him is how real he feels, how emotional he is, how he has flaws that any child would have, with his stubbornness being one of his most apparent flaws in my opinion. him crying at certain points of the story (specifically this scene, the garden scene and the wall and death scenes) is crucial for understanding him and how his emotions work.

now, back to the 2015 movie. in that movie, the little prince does not cry ONCE. not when he finds out his rose lied to him about being unique, not when he fights the aviator (which the movie doesnt even show), not even when he’s about to die, even if he knows only his body is going to.

hell, his emotions dont even feel that present at all. in some scenes he’s confused, in others he’s sad, and hes afraid when he first meets the snake, but it doesn’t feel as present as i wanted it to be.

i do really like having him feel like an odd apparition in the aviator’s eyes, that’s really fun, but only in certain scenes, and where that’s what the audience is Supposed to feel, like he’s not really from this earth (because he’s not). but for that, what I (now this part goes to personal opinions of how i would adapt this book. im still traumatised from twitter so i gotta clarify that) would do would be to make it clear that this is the aviators POV, like in the book, and that we as the audience don’t know what’s going on in the LPs head, only what he shows us (which is almost nothing), so his uncanny vibes are purposeful, because let’s be real a child from space that looks human but is probably Not human would be an unsettling thing.

but again, i absolutely adore this movie, i think its a great way of building onto this 80 year old story and continuing it in a way that feels modern, but my deep autistic love for this book and the parts that no one talks about of it make me very sad on how the movie utilised it. like if fucking Mr Prince shows more personality than the title character then somethings wrong.

[cuzikan]

🔴 THE RUSH SONG THAT IS DEDICATED TO GETTING HIGH

Canadian prog legends Rush always had a special connection with marijuana. Coming out of the freewheeling 1960s but largely shunning psychedelic drugs, the band members instead found solace in weed, which they dutifully partook in for most of their initial success. Sometimes it worked, like when Alex Lifeson used the spacey mental atmosphere of a hazy studio to conjure up the solo for ‘Limelight’, and sometimes it didn’t, like on the recording of Caress of Steel. “Do things go better with pot? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t,” Lifeson told High Times in 2012. “I find that you can be very imaginative when stoned, you can be very creative – but implementation is sometimes difficult. In the past, there have been times when I’ve been really inspired in writing and came up with things that I would never otherwise think up. But the actual playing can be obstructed a little bit.” “In the very, very early days, occasionally – well, more than ‘occasionally’ – Neil and I would smoke a joint before going on,” Lifeson continued. “I mean, this is in the mid-70s; I would never, ever do something like that now. I won’t even have a sip of beer before a show, because I need to be extremely clearheaded. Of course, some people can smoke and remain clearheaded – just not me.” It was no secret that Rush had an affinity for the green stuff, something that was reflected by the legions of stoners who became die-hard Rush fanatics. “We have one of the finest, most aromatic audiences you’ll ever find in rock and roll,” Geddy Lee joked during the band’s appearance on the series Classic Albums for their LPs 2112 and Moving Pictures. It was on the former album’s side two opener ‘A Passage to Bangkok’ that showed the band acknowledging their debt to “higher” activities. “That should be self-evident – it’s about a fun little journey to all the good places you could go to have a puff,” Lifeson explained. “We thought it would be kind of fun to write a song about that, and Neil did it in a very eloquent way, I think. That song was probably written in a farmhouse, on an acoustic guitar, in front of a little cassette player of some sort. We would record like that and then go down in the basement and rehearse it.” Chronicling all the best stops to procure some top quality cannabis, ‘A Passage to Bangkok’ not only includes its titular stop, but also gets around to Bogota, where locals “pass along a sample of their yield”, and the “sweet Jamaican pipe dreams” that get paired with “golden Acapulco nights”. Just to make the connection crystal clear, Rush and producer Terry Brown included a long toke after the second chorus, right before Lifeson launches into a psychedelic solo.

[fritextramole]

under the scrutiny of their persistent gaze

part 2 of a Vanessa Abrams playlist - best heard in order

tracklist and quotes under the cut

Mr. Big Stuff ~ Jean Knight

Now because you wear all those fancy clothes And have a big fine car, oh yes, you do now Do you think I can afford to give you my love You think you're higher than every star above

When I Come Around ~ Green Day

Well, don't get lonely now, and dry your whining eyes I'm just roaming for the moment Sleazin' my back yard so don't get So uptight you been thinking about ditching me No time to search the world around 'Cause you know where I'll be found

Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful? ~ The Waitresses

Nice things, nice things Oh oh oh, so many nice things Don't mean nothing, if they're dumping Things that sting on you! Don't take that, honey!

Body Language ~ Helena Deland

Fool to think I'd leave with all I need to know and free to go All I need to know and free to go At last Who do you want to be?

I Second That Emotion ~ Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

And maybe you'll go away and never call And a taste of honey is worse that none at all

Untouchable Face ~ Ani DiFranco

I could make you happy, you know If you weren't already I could do a lot of things And I do

Love Like You And Me ~ Gary Glitter

There's a place for you and me Love can come so easily I'll reach out and take your hand Believe in me, you'll understand

I Believe in a Thing Called Love ~ The Darkness

I believe in a thing called love Just listen to the rhythm of my heart There's a chance we could make it now

Girls Go Wild ~ LP

It's all in the name of the Wild Wild West I really love you You know I really do Whatever happens, I hope you're happy too

Wild Ride ~ MOTHXR

The night was always long I see it We're aching from the fall

Sunlight ~ Hozier

I would shun the light, share in evening's cool and quiet Who would trade that hum of night For sunlight, sunlight, sunlight?

Got to Be Real ~ Cheryl Lynn

You know that your love is my love My love is your love Our love is here to stay

You’ve Got to Go Down and Join the Union ~ Pete Seeger, The Song Swappers

Well though the road be rough and rocky And the hills be steep and high We will sing as we go marching

Santa Monica ~ Everclear

We could live beside the ocean Leave the fire behind Swim out past the breakers Watch the world die

Complicated ~ Olivia O’Brien

Take off all your preppy clothes You know, you're not foolin' Anyone when you become Somebody else 'round everyone else

Say It Again ~ Matt Berry

I'm feeling ashamed but I don't know why Like I've seen myself from a recent life The weather feels hot for this time of year Though suddenly seems so cold

The Trial ~ Dead Can Dance

I stand accused of a thousand and one crimes A witness to events that led to this present time These traditions which bind our hands and keep us tied Will never survive the greatest test of time

High and Dry ~ Radiohead

The best thing you've had has gone away

Changes ~ David Bowie

And these children that you spit on As they try to change their worlds Are immune to your consultations They're quite aware of what they're going through

I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister (All I Want) ~ The Almanac Singers

I don't want your millions, Mister I don't want your diamond ring

Think ~ Aretha Franklin

Let's go way on to way back when I didn't even know you

Hero Takes a Fall ~ The Bangles

Emotion is a virtue For you it is the one fatal flaw Sitting on your throne and drinking Thinking she'll return your call Every story's got an ending Look out, here it comes, here it comes And I won't feel bad at all When the hero takes a fall

I Can’t Wait ~ The White Stripes

First you said I was blind And it's gonna be different this time I thought you made up your mind

Somebody Told Me ~ The Killers

Ready, let's roll onto somethin' new Takin' its toll then I'm leaving without you

I Caught Myself ~ Paramore

Hypnotic, hypnotic You're leaving me breathless I hate this, I hate this You're not the one I believe in

Get Thee Behind Me, Satan ~ The Almanac Singers

Boss comes up to me with a five-dollar bill Says, “Get you some whiskey, boy, and drink your fill” Get thee behind me, Satan, travel on down the line

I Won’t Back Down ~ Tom Petty

Well I know what's right I got just one life In a world that keeps on pushin' me around

[monriatitans]

MonriaTitans

Let's Play Some $#!7!: Cursebane – Part 2 | Let’s finish the demo!

Come join me for another installment of Let's Play Some $#!7 | LPS$, where I play games to provide commentary on the game's development! Provided I don't get too caught up in the game to comment, which, in a sense, is commentary in and of itself.

Today, we finished playing Cursebane's demo! It was, initially, played in Let's Play Some Demos! - Part 7, but I had to cut it short so the video didn't get to 4 hours long. That, and the last game played that day scared the $#!7 out of me...

Now, I didn't call this stream Let's Play Some Demos! | LPSD because I want this game. After I get it, it'll be a regular feature on the show.

If you came here from Twitch, thank you! I don't know why the stream suddenly cut, but I ALWAYS record my streams in case things like that happen!

With all that out of the way, here are my opinions: If competing with Hades is a goal, the developers are headed in the right direction. Provided enough people learn this game exists. With how heavily saturated Steam is, I'm amazed I found it. If they're not trying to compete, it's the inspiration for the game, but their version is excellent on its own. I mentioned, after I played the demo the first time, Cursebane is a 2D, pixelated Hades and, while true, it doesn't do the game justice. I also mentioned the story was forgettable, and it still is, but not in a bad way. ADHD moment(s). Though, after playing through it for another few hours I'm more invested in figuring it out. If I'm piecing things together correctly now, because of a curse, or a bunch of curses, rifts have split the world into pieces. These pieces are stuck in time loops until you break their curse. For this one area the demo provides, you have to save a village from its curse. Because of the time loop, you can choose how you want to save said village. And as you go around exploring/trying to find your way to the village, each death results in you taking a different path, however, if you die enough times, things will start to look familiar as you revisit areas. As you make decisions, you change what bosses you fight, which allows you to figure out how to make the game easier. I'm guessing it being the demo was why I was able to max out my upgrades, but each upgrade was great for balancing. I was eventually able to make it so I was able to die twice before I had to restart the area. And I maxed out my HP. The demo threw me for a loop when I restored the area and it wasn't "Demo Over"; I was able to try again. Was there something else I was supposed to do or were the developers simply letting me play around more with ability combos? Which I haven't mentioned yet; you can enhance your katana, dash-strike, charge attack (which I barely used), and knockback spell with either Ice, Fire, or Lightning, and BOY are they fun! Ice freezes and slows people down, Fire deals extra damage and/or burns, and lightning strikes repeatedly. My FAVORITE combination was the Lightning spell, so melee enemies were constantly being struck, Ice on my attacks and dash-strike so foes slow down and make them easier to hit, and, even though I barely used the charge attack, I preferred it to have Fire. I could have played around with them more, and I was tempted, but the video was getting close to 4 hours... And that's it for this mini-review! Thank you for reading! If this series of videos is something you're interested in, you can watch it on YouTube, Steam, Rumble, Odysee, and The Titans' Discord! Don’t forget to hit the Subscribe and/or Follow buttons to know when there’s more!

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The Sunday, November 17th, and 645th, Artist Shout-Out goes to 7NML! Check them out here!

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TIMESTAMPS 0:00 – Starting Soon 9:57 – Welcome Gamers! 12:05 – Artist Shout-Out 16:32 – OED Word of the Day 16:36 – Cursebane Steam Page 18:10 – Cursebane 1:56:43 – Break 2:12:08 – Cursebane 3:43:26 – Addressing the Stream Cut 3:43:51 – Artist Shout-Out 3:44:52 – Just Chatting/Thank You! 3:47:51 – Rendezvous Point Bookshop Plug 3:49:23 – Farewell

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MORE INFO & TO SUPPORT – MonriaTitans | WGS Summarized – Rendezvous Point Bookshop – Artist Shout-Out Criteria – Throne Wishlist – #SubOffTwitch – YouTube – Rumble– Odysee – Twitch – Steam

Originally published to https://opinionsandtruth.wordpress.com on November 17, 2024.

[bossbutch]

umineko- between ch7 & 8

tw for sexual assault in this one again. long post. let's get Political! i wasn't aware umineko is 55 dollars on steam. i know its a lot of words and they've got music and voice acting and two sets of art but, thats a lot of fucking money for a fiction book. the steam release doesn't even include the side stories.

umineko has a lot of dubiously canon side content released at conventions and promos and such, and of course bundled in japanese Special Edition rereleases. the LP im reading puts all the side stories at the end (all the question arc ones together and all the answer arc ones together) even when they're set and released between episodes. i think they're all fan translated? in the question arcs, the side stories were pretty superfluous but still fun. there was a little interview with gohda, and a silly story about valentines day and white day so i read some of them now and. man.

there's one, "game master battler", set when he's preparing episode 6. the characters react to an out of universe character popularity poll and they're all asking battler to give them a good part in ep 6 so they become more popular. which is a fine premise, its very muppet show, and the same silly tone the valentines day story had. you can guess the conclusion of course, battler asks everyone for ridiculous favors but then he cant possibly make a story that highlights everyone at once. but like. when he asks for favors, he asks All of his aunts for sex acts. (as payment for both them And Their Families getting better parts.) and the seven sisters have to massage him or they wont be included at all. and six of them hold lucifer down while he assaults her. he doesn't explicitly rape her but the metaphor is clear. and like. what the hell!

when he perved on jessica it was one thing. he wasn't God Of The Setting at the time for starters. and yeah the seven sisters murdered him repeatedly in eroticized ways, but they're evil demons that were acting as extensions of beato. the idea that battler Would be a rapist or coerce people into sex if given the power is. not funny obviously, not matching the lighthearted tone they're going for, and most unfortunately, in character??? he's a rich boy who comes from a family where abuse and punching down are the rule, who grabs women's breasts so much it's a move in the fighting game. they make a lot of parallels between kinzo and battler and i guess Rapist is one of them. which is a Real Bummer! he's the protagonist! i think. they might decide in ep 8 that ange is the protagonist. i Want To Like Him and the titty grabbing previously had his Weird Maladjusted Logic that was so ridiculous it kinda softened the blow, and the erotic violence performed On him has the caveat of, in a non fantasy perspective all that happened in his imagination, and in a fantasy perspective its being done by Bad People

you could say "oh its just a side story its not canon" but like. everyone acts roughly in character, in an exaggerated comical way not unlike the valentine's day story. sure this event can be understood to "not really have happened" but it still says something About battler's character. the very next side story expands on ange's motives, it says that bernie made ange promise not to love or trust eva, and their Beef was entirely because of that. that's tragic and realistic (in an understanding where bernie isnt Real, she can represent a part of ange that blames eva using mystery-logic) and goes together with the ep 7 ending in a really nice way. i haven't had a place to talk about the Politics of umineko. kinzo and bici's connections to fascism aren't really remarked on by anyone else, but kinzo isn't really portrayed sympathetically. like he talks about how the main family didn't really believe in him and he went to war to die, but this is shown after six long chapters of him being pathetic and abusing Every Other Character. and he was already married with kids when he met bici... and the adults follow from him, right. like him abusing his kids is echoed throughout the family, yknow cycles of abuse. and someone like rosa is not /excused/ for abusing her kid, but we are still shown the circumstances that allow her to do it. so umineko is "anti family" if you want to be extremely reductive and that's so rare in Popular Media. umineko isn't really anti capitalist, but you could make an anticapitalist reading of it. like kinzo is a shithead and his treatment of workers is presented as Bad but this isn't shown as a systemic thing. well kyrie's family is also kinda awful. but like worlds where kinzo Isn't a shithead are happy healthy places. theres a lot of show of Ranks and Bureaucracy in Magic Land but its mostly like, flavor, nothing really comes of it. at least from my reading. another one of the side stories shows one of diana's minions being a hardass about The Law when she joins the magic cops. and trying to get the other cops to practice Law And Order by not drinking or smoking or going to the halloween party, and never using vernacular, which all goes poorly for her and its funny. its not deep social commentary or anything its kinda dilbert level. all that said... umineko Is, more than anything else, unambiguously pro autism!

[innervoiceart]

SEPTEMBER 1970 (54 YEARS AGO)

Curtis Mayfield: Curtis is released.

Curtis is the debut album by Curtis Mayfield, released in September 1970. Produced by Mayfield, it was released on his own label Curtom Records. It topped the Billboard Top R&B LP's chart, and reached #19 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart.

The musical styles of Curtis moved further away from the pop-soul sounds of Mayfield's previous group The Impressions and featured more of a funk and psychedelia inspired sound. The album's subject matter incorporates political and social concerns of the time.

After leaving the Impressions, Mayfield began to write lyrics that were more politically charged. With the 1970 release of Curtis, he became one of the most important socially conscious artists of his generation. The album's opener, "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" uses racial epithets openly, as Mayfield asserts the shiftlessness of America. Set to a funky groove, with smart horn arrangements and wah-wah guitar, this song is a brazen attack on social mores, racism, the Vietnam War, religious impropriety, and Nixon-era politics.

"We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" is another track that poignantly examines the race and class struggles of urban America. This song is made up of more than just a static groove; its tempos shift midway through and powerful brass figures, timpani punctuations, and harp glissandos soon dominate the mix. Also featuring the powerful "Move On Up," Curtis is a classic soul record, and its relevance is amplified by its quest for racial harmony and its bold anti-establishment stance.

__________

ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW

Here's a Curtis Mayfield (of the Impressions) solo album; so far as I know, the first. Most of the eight cuts are distinctly Impressionistic, and one, "Miss Black America," includes Sam and Fred singing choruses. There are really no surprises in this album. It's just eight more Mayfield tunes, sweet music to Mayfield maybe, but not what I'd call the best demonstration of the man's talents.

For the past year or so, a lot of Mayfield's tunes have seemed die-cast and lacking in character. He appears to be unable to develop either a musical or lyrical theme to fullness these days, and many of his songs are fragmentary, garbled and frustrating to listen to. Lyrically, his songs are a whole lot more rhyme than reason; which isn't so uncommon, except that he tries to deal with some pretty serious and complex subjects by stringing together phrases that end with the same sound—whether they make sense together or not. Sure, it's all subjective, but I can't myself see that what we need is "Respect for the steeple/power to the people."

The arrangements are all pretty uninspired, a little bit halfhearted—maybe largely because there's so little melodic meat to most of the tunes. A few of the songs move well, mainly on the backs of the conga, bass and guitar men; but the long tracks (six to eight minutes) are a mighty long way for three men to try and carry all that weight.

Five of these cuts may get some airplay and popularity, for one or more of three reasons: because they were written by Curtis Mayfield of Impressions' fame; because they have a good dance beat; or because they deal with "social issues" in a nice, bland, inoffensive, inconclusive way. "(Don't Worry) If there's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" is a pretty good example. It's jumpy, it's got words like "nigger" and "cracker," "hell" and "Nixon," and it says no more than the title. "The Other Side of Town" presents a grim view of a black man's life and feelings in the ghetto. "We the People Who Are Darker than Blue" is the only song on the album that does some gear-shifting, rhythm-wise; but it doesn't go anywhere, messagewise. "Move On Up" has some life to it, but not eight minutes and 50 seconds' worth. "Miss Black America" strikes me as a good musical commemorative stamp, complete with an authentic black girlchild saying she wants to be a sex-object when she grows up.

Mayfield has written good material in the past. I'm hoping that he's just in a slump, and that he'll soon be writing tunes with real life in them again. This album, though, is pretty much just disjointed skeletons. (RS 71)

~ Wendill John (November 26, 1970)

TRACKS:

All songs written and composed by Curtis Mayfield.

Side one

1. "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go"

2. "The Other Side of Town" - 4:01

3. "The Makings of You" - 3:43

4. "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" - 6:05

Side two

1. "Move on Up" - 9:00

2. "Miss Black America" - 2:53

3. "Wild and Free" - 3:16

4. "Give It Up" - 3:49

[1001albumsrated]

#4: Louis Prima - The Wildest! (1956)

Genre(s): Jump Blues, Swing, Jazz

Ok so I know some of y'all don't want to hear this, but your grandparents fucked. And they probably drank, and probably smoked, and probably got high, and definitely partied, and *definitely* fucked. Not only did they get into as much trouble as you did as a young person, but probably more of it on account of the general lack of adult oversight, police surveillance, internet, portable recording devices, etc, and on account of the existence of the sort of clubs where you could hear this kind of music at 3am and stay til the sun came up. Louis Prima is a great reminder of the fact that the fine art of wild partying is not new, but is as old as mankind.

The Wildest! is raunchy, sleazy, cheesy, bawdy, rowdy, witty, and, above all, a hell of a lot of fun. It's hard not to find yourself grinning ear to ear by the end of its 32 minute runtime. Now this might be a controversial opinion, but I'll state it here and now since it will come up repeatedly as music formats evolve over the course of this project: more albums should be short. I think the greatest crime of the double LP (followed by the CD, followed by streaming) is that it encourages people to make more music purely for the sake of more. The "Oh, your album will sell better if it has more tracks on the back cover!" mentality can fuck all the way off. I love an album that can get in, say exactly what it needs to say in two sides or less, and leave without overstaying its welcome. That isn't to say that long albums are inherently bad or don't have their place, but I do firmly believe that there's a fine, mostly forgotten art to crafting a tight, coherent tracklist. And this 32 minute slab of hard-partying, fast-swinging jump blues is the perfect example of that idea. The Wildest! hangs out for the exact amount of time I want it in my house; it doesn't drink all my beers or fall asleep on my couch, and I love it for that.

So MUST you hear The Wildest! before you die? Absolutely. Beyond just being a fun and entertaining listen, the jump blues sound encapsulated here is a major precursor to rock n roll, and a huge influence on many artists and sounds to come. There's a lot to learn from here, and a lot to love. Give it a listen, and then get off the goddamn phone and go cause some trouble before you're too old to get away with it.

As a note for the nerds, like most albums I don't yet own (I never see this damn thing) I listened to this in hi-res on Qobuz.

And coming up next time on my foolish quest to listen to and ramble about all 1001 of them albums: This Is Fats Domino!, by, you guessed it, Fats Domino!

[cartoonsarelife11]

Reblogging this again, this time with an essay (sort of) for TDKR because it has now occurred to me that it's losing. So just hear me out on this.

(Warning now that this is somewhat long and without pictures. Although I may add some later.)

Now as much as I love Weblena and Violet's introduction in Friendship is Magic as much as any other person, The Duck Knight Returns is just too powerful of an episode to compare. (Plus there's plenty of other amazing Weblena episodes that aren't as appreciated and you should definitely vote for as well)

Or you may be finding Darkwing in DT2017 fairly annoying as he gets so much screentime that could've been used for the actual show itself, and that I understand. Especially with the fact that Lets Get Dangerous is 40 minutes long and has much more going on; we don't need all the DWD episodes to win the poll, let alone this one.

However, I actually find TDKR a stronger episode than LGD. Yes, I know. And before you all murder me for that, let me explain myself on why it's so good and underappreciated

It's not just a Darkwing introduction episode (which by itself is already so so amazing), it shows DuckTales 2017's struggles of being a reboot of an old loved TV show.

There's so much symbolism behind this episode, such as LP and Starling representing the old die-hard fans who can't accept new things, and the "Darkwing: First Darkness" movie producer guy (forgot his name sob) representing the people who are just taking advantage of the old shows popularity to make something out of it only what they want it to be. But I guess Dewey and Scrooge play that role as well.

Then there's Drake, the fan of the old show who's making something new out of it, and mentions, "Look, I know this new movie's not perfect, but I really want to make it better. And maybe someday I'll inspire some other kid like me." He's not trying to ruin the show into what he thinks is best, he is a true fan who genuinely wants to make the best of something he loves. And that represents the DT2017 writers.

So go try and tell me the writers weren't using this episode to call out their experiences while working on DuckTales. This episode was definitely their way of expressing their intentions behind the reboot.

Now onto the second point. Not counting the fact that it is literally showing us what the creators intentions behind creating the show, the episode as a DWD introduction by itself is absolutely so genius.

For example, Jim Starling being NEGADUCK from the 1991 Darkwing TV show caught me so off-guard and is SO PERFECT AND FITTING. I did not see that twist coming. (I should've, though. I'm ashamed to say I didn't expect it despite the chainsaw and the other dead giveaway details). This gives us a whole new look at Negaduck, who in the original show, was merely existing to be an evil clone of Darkwing. Now he gets a more complex backstory and character just how Glomgold did!

Additionally, Drake's attitude of "get back up" was a really cool character motif that I think the original show missed the opportunity to give to their Darkwing. It may be just me, but I love this idea of Drake having this reason to be so willing to fight crime and never give up, its the extra character lore we never knew we needed.

AND HOW CAN I FORGET DRAKEPAD? (Not necessarily as a couple; I do ship them but this is not about that right now) Their dynamic here is just so powerful; no offense to the og DWD, but I prefer that DT2017 Drake and LP have something to bond over rather than the idol-worship dynamic they had in the 1991 show.

In conclusion, this episodes writing is so clever and I could spend so many more hours rambling about how good it is. It deserves to pass at least the second round. Unfortunately, this is already getting really long (also I'm on mobile and its a real pain to type :,D).

So please guys-

Vote for The Duck Knight Returns, one of DuckTales 2017's best episodes.

Do it for its brilliant writing. Do it for Darkwing's introduction into DuckTales 2017. Do it for Drakepad.

Do it for Jim.

ROUND #2

[thebowerypresents]

With a New Album on the Way, the Drums Return to NYC

The Drums – Webster Hall – August 3, 2003

Jonny Pierce isn’t sure how long it’s been since he was here performing in New York City. He’s an artist, he said, and time and dates are not his strong suit. But whatever, it’s been a while, and he is kvelling. The Drums’ first show was at a bakery (Cake Shop) with backup singers, years ago, and NYC just got it, he said. We still do, as was apparent at Webster Hall on Thursday night, when the band took the stage to clear mania that never let up. Pierce and the Drums make special music, maintaining a devoted fan base years on — and after a majority of band members left somewhat soon into the whole project. But it’s deserved: He still sounds terrific. 

Pierce is a showman’s showman. He is, first of all, immaculate, a David among frontmen. And he’s a delicious dancer. Touching his hips ever so come-hither-y, throwing back his head in ecstasy and sauntering with something like grace to his California surf rock–meets–the Smiths. He’s the embodiment of the yearning that drives the Drums. On “Book of Revelation” (Portamento, 2011), he crooned, “And I believe / That when we die, we die / So let me love you tonight.” On “What You Were” (Portamento), he sang, “I knew I was wrong / I knew I would die / But still I cave in.”

But there’s a delightful silliness too. “Let’s Go Surfing,” off their 2010 self-titled debut album, and “Money,” the out-and-out Portamento hit, are cheeky, youthful odes. “I want to buy you something,” he sang in a vaguely Interpol tenor, “but I don’t have any money,” he falsetto-ed, the crowd mimicking it back to him.

Pierce’s latest for the Drums, Jonny, drops in October, and he played a bunch of the newer tunes, like “Plastic Envelope” and “Obvious,” a love song that fits right in with its compatriots, last night. The encore ended with the upcoming LP’s banger, “I Want It All,” of the pining why-why-why genre that gives way to a shimmering chorus: “I want it all, I want it all, I want it.” Watching the Drums made me remember how much I missed bands like them, solidly danceable and eminently singable. The Drums are forever pulling on my heartstrings. —Rachel Brody | @RachelCBrody

Photo courtesy of Avi Kofman

[27-royal-teas]

Ok i know that probably like, none of you listen to arrows in action but they just released their debut LP today so i decided to ramble about them a bit because they deserve it and if no ones gonna create fan content for them i will.

First of all theyre a florida formed pop punk band (in my opinion, it floats more to alternative/pop) and now apparently they are located in tennessee. There are four guys- victor viramontes,  the singer, jesse frimmel, the drummer, and matthew fowler, the guitarist. 

Im gonna talk about the song that got me into them. It’s called All The Ways I Could Die. during science class i mostly just listen to music because my teacher never gives us any useful information and that was the song that came up in my queue. obviously you dont care about this information but i feel as though it needed to be shared. Anyway, the song’s chorus goes like ‘i just can’t wait to go sit in my room/contemplate all the ways i could die/ self sabotage is an old friend of mine/ and self care just inst worth the time’. 

Pretty depressing, right? But the whole thing is that music, it’s a form of connection, and the thing about arrows in action songs is that they feel so personal. Like, they feel like something you can shout in the rain and out the back of a car, scream at the top of your lungs and feel every word, spin-in-the-summer, fall in the grass. Also, im not sure who’s the songwriter (80% sure that it’s victor) (it is, i just checked) but the lyrics are REALLY FUCKING GOOD. like, maybe not pete wentz good, but nobody’s pete wentz, and they are REALLY GOOD for their first LP. since i started listening to them, I havent found a single song i dislike. Like, they really are so good. 

AND!!! I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR HOOKS!!! One thing thats very consistent in their music is the sound and also the hooks. Theyve got this clear, clean sound, and im honestly very surprised that they havent been signed to a label by now since they have such consistently good music (and since they’ve been making music since 2017). And every single hook is good. listen to ‘Entropy’ off the new album. It is CRUNCHY. It is CLEAN. Its what i call tasty, like running your tongue on the flat metal of a refrigerated kitchen knife (not that id ever do that, of course). Like, it feels sharp and cold but slightly jagged. i could talk about it for hours. Also the high note in Put You Through Me literally makes me ascend. 

Also, audience engagement. If you look through the comment sections of their music videos, most of the comments have been liked by the band. Ive sent them art i did for The Credits and Head In The Clouds and Checking in and they’ve replied. They communicate with their audience which really does hammer in the connection aspect- connection with the audience, connection with their art, connection with the music. also theyre just really nice dudes in general like. yeah theyre just cool

Another thing i think is kind of interesting is that their producer is dan swank! I fucking love dan swank! he worked with all time low (one of my favorites) for a really long time, and ive seen him on some of their acoustic music videos from 2021 (hes the guy playing piano and doing backup vocals with alex). Hes good!!! I didnt realize that he produced music, so this was a really cool thing to find out. Worlds collide

So, yeah. Arrows in action, man. They’re great, and you should check them out. They’re like all time low but toned down, but it wouldn’t work to compare them to another band because they’re this new, beautiful thing, and they are so good, and i am going to stop talking about them now. Anyway yes go listen immediately and STREAM BUILT TO LAST 

[doomedandstoned]

Italian Duo LE SCIMMIE Raise Hell on ‘Adriatic Desert’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

It's time to shake off those winter blues. Spring is blooming and the weather is slowly changing. You need some good tunes to go along with the good times. That's where a good stoner rock band comes in. Enter Italian duo LE SCIMMIE. Their name translates into English as "The Monkeys" and when you hear the way they move and groove, you understand why.

The duo phenomenon is something we documented a few years back, and at that time limited our focus to the Latin America scene. Duos of course, a global phenomenon, fueled certainly by the simplicity of the model, not to mention the success of The White Stripes and Black Cobra, whose live performances quell all doubts.

If you're wondering whether Le Scimmie can really bring the volume, you're about to bear witness to their explosive new LP, 'Adriatic Desert' (2023). The beast on its front cover and the band motto sum up this spin: "Guitar, drums, and vital energy."

Opening number "Wild Boar" tosses about between drums and a devilishly downtuned guitar with low-end umph. It revs up hot like a desert rocker and later goes slow-mo for an unexpected turn to doom metal. There was something mesmerizing about this one. I could see it being a great encore.

The album's title track comes at us like a dust storm, with several grindy doom motifs interchanging throughout the piece. A second guitar enters the picture and compliments this mosher with melody. As the song reaches its final minutes, a hypnotizing riff summons a wicked tarantella.

"Acid Lime" begins with a mingling of various stoner motifs dancing about in fiendish fashion. The guitar's pedal effects shine here, coming in at key moments to create a sense of the strange.

"Mammatus" takes us to the half-way mark, setting out on another frenetic trek. Like the great mammatus clouds of the Himalayas, the mood builds ominously and grows ever darker. The song stomps and grinds its way to a murky, doomy midsection, then rains down hail from on high.

"A Giant Summer" kicks off the B-side by strumming a cynical punk riff, totally sucking me into the song, and transforms this into a live fast, die hard stoner-punk-garage number.

If the last song got wild, what can we expect from "Hysteria"? Perhaps a riff that will drive you mad, or a rhythm that will entrance you. This one's got a certain Clouds Taste Satanic ring to it, with melodic guitar imaginatively soaring over the morass.

"2007" is the shortest song on the album, and it feels like a good one to shake out the jitters, giving off a surf punk spirit in the same musical neighborhood of LaGoon. Concluding the album is "Fluorescent Dinosaur." The band seems to conjure the creature with the swagger of guitarist Angelo Mirolli and the pop-pop of Marco D'Aulerio's drums.

Le Scimmie tells us:

'Adriatic Desert' was born in Mirolli's mind during intense walks along the shoreline of Abruzzo's Adriatic coast and took shape with D'Aulerio in long jam sessions in the rehearsal room to the sound of Big Muff and amplifiers pushed to the limit.

Oh, and did I mention that the album is entirely instrumental? You can jam out Le Scimmie's Adriatic Desert on Thursday, April 27th, when the records releases digitally and on compact disc via Frekete! Records (pre-order). Stick it on a playlist with Karama To Burn and BelzebonG. Here's a first listen for Doomed & Stoned readers.

Give ear...

Adriatic Desert by Le Scimmie

SOME BUZZ

Le Scimmie was born in 2007 in Vasto, in the province of Chieti (Abruzzo), from the guitarist Angelo "Xunah" Mirolli; in December of the same year they released their first self-produced EP, 'L'origine,' with which they started playing live. In 2008 and 2010 the duo reached the final stages of the Abruzzo selections of the nationally known festival Italia Wave, arriving first in the semifinals and two years later in the final. In 2010, the duo released their first official album, 'Dromomania' (self-released).

In September 2012, they left for their first European tour, playing together with bands of the caliber of Stoned Jesus and Samsara Blues Experiment, culminating in the date at the Robust Fest in Kiev; in the same year they participate in the Tube Cult Fest in Pescara, sharing the stage, among others, with Karma to Burn. Also in 2012 the band released the digital single "Habanero."

After a long break in 2016, Mirolli took over the project again and, with a new line-up and a third member on synths, released the album 'Colostrum' (Red Sound Records). In 2017 the band was invited by the Ukrainian label Robust Fellow to represent Italy in the compilation 'Electric Funeral Café.' The unreleased track is titled "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi." 2023 is the year of the third album 'Adriatic Desert' (Frekete! Records): a work that sees the return to the duo lineup. 'Adriatic Desert' is a record of impact; an energetic record. Stoner. In fact, 'Adriatic Stoner.'

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

As for why he continues to fight despite Timpani being right there, recall that the powers of the Void and the Dark Prognosticus by proxy are at their very strongest at that moment, and so the book's hold on him very likely follows suit. The control only weakens when Bleck is beaten so badly in the following fight that he repeatedly states he is dying and the Chaos Heart begins to leave his body, which it would only do for somebody actively about to die. Count Bleck's entire character is a battle between his true self, the will of the Dark Prognosticus, and the immense suffering in his heart that the book amplified and manipulated. Now for Dimentio. I'll be the first to admit he's a giant pile of question marks, but there are a surprising number of ways to pare down who and what he is. He consistently treats the Dark Prognosticus as something older than himself, so he didn't write it, but also as something he's read before Bleck entered the picture. He has Light Prognosticus knowledge about the restoration of the stone Pure Heart before Merlon translates that section. Given he also has dimensional powers and knows the heroes will be important and to save them all from trouble except for Luigi... he's pretty much gotta be Merloo. This has many, many implications, but to keep it at least a bit in scope, let's simplify it. First, he would have outlived all the other Sages. Merloo worked alone, probably for centuries, after the other Sages had retired, decided their jobs were done, settled down, and/or DIED. Second, he could see the future according to the Japanese script, and helped write the Light Prognosticus, so he knew the sheer number of ways things could go wrong. Third, he was more than likely the one of the LP's authors to have read the DP to aid in its creation. So there is little doubt that it in some way would have corrupted his mind as well. Anything beyond that is personal theorizing, so I won't get into it here unless you want to hear more. But what it boils down to is, being the co-writer of a book specifically devised to outline a future compatible with the Dark Prognosticus that would also create the conditions to make its defeat possible, and then working to save all worlds alone for centuries, all while prone to the manipulation and whispers of the dark prophecy he read long ago still snaking around in his head, would explain why he feels so entitled to decide what a perfect world is, why he feels as though he should rule them. Much like Bleck, this also amounts to much more than simply having a tragedy occur and deciding it was time to go blow up reality. and yet, unlike him, he had much more of a choice, and inarguably much less influence from the Dark Prognosticus. He made his choice, he simply fell into his own paranoia and ego, corrupting a once noble goal into an evil so great it nearly tore apart existence itself. That is why the story treats them differently. It's not a failure of writing. In fact, it is one of the greatest, most subtle, and most powerful successes of the story's writing. The two are such perfect foils of each other. A man whose name is light, chained all his life to the prophecy of darkness and those who held it, finds his way to happiness through the power of love. And a man whose name is vision who worked tirelessly toward freedom for time itself through the prophecy of light lost the love that lit his way and nearly destroyed everything with his descent into ego and darkness. There's so much more to this I'm not even BEGINNING to do justice, but I hope this helps as a start.

Blumiere and Dimentio are the same person and I’m tired of the plot trying to pretend theyre not.

Y’all I love this game and all but why were Mimi and Chunks not only still loyal to Blumiere but also said not one bad thing about him after finding out he was going to kill them despite the fact they were trying to help him this whole time and were the only mfs that cared about him- but Dimentio did the exact same thing and they hit him with a car

Like this is a genuine question I’ve been a fan for over a decade and I’m still like huh😭 about their logic. “We won’t let dimentio get away with this!” Or whatever she said- MIMI SWEETHEART BLECK DID THE EXACT SAME THING

Like if Bleck wanted to die whatever but it would’ve done so much for his character if he was like “hey the people who genuinely care for me and are trying to help me destroy everything and think they’re going to be spared? Huh! maybe I should actually spare them and create a new world for them but I still croak” unless he couldn’t create dimensions at all and was lying? But didn’t Dimentio do it with only the power of the chaos heart or am I stupid. So could Bleck have done it too? Idk maybe we could’ve had a scene where like “hey dimentio master of dimensions LOL I was kidding btw I cant do shit. Make a world for y’all whatever but I’m gonna die” and I’m pretty sure dimentio would’ve been like alright (lying, still wants a world just for him) but idk. Anyways Nintendo having Count Bleck still trying to kill his minions after everything they did for him really messed up his character and went against the writers intentions of trying to make Bleck a tragic villain but Dimentio purely evil and accidentally made them the EXACT SAME person and I just wish they could’ve handled it better because his arc could’ve been nearly perfect.

Not ONLYYY that, but he wanted to kill all worlds because he lost Timpani. Yet. There she is. Right there. And he KNOWS THAT. YET. HE KEEPS FIGHTING. KNOWING THAT IF HE WINS THE WOMAN HE WAS TRYING TO END LIFE FOR BECAUSE SHE DIED IS ALIVE AND HES JUST GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL HER. But then after they beat the shit out of him he says “kill me and stop the void- if you’re alive, it gives me peace” WHY DIDNT YOU SAY THAT THE SECOND SHE FLEW INTO THE ROOM. Maybe he was in a state of madness. But idk I’ve never seen anyone else talk about it

“But dappledpaintbrush, at least Bleck had the motivation of his one true love dying and Dimentio was just a bitch” *twitches finger back and forth while going AH, AH, AH, AH, AH* We have the very high possibility of Dimentio’s whole family fucking dying and his sister turning into like a demon according to Carson. So in game canon there is a POSSIBILITY (cause that story can be interpreted a lot of ways) that BOTH of them had tragic backstories that POSSIBLY was BOTH of their motivations to destroy all worlds. Yet Blumiere gets treated like a poor little meow meow by the characters and the clown doesn’t. Then again I don’t think the clown ever talked about it. Maybe it’s just my own experience, but I feel like the writing still tried to push the narrative that Bleck is less terrible than Dimentio.

And hey let’s say Dimentio is only a descendant of the Pixl Creator and he’s doing this for no reason other than for lols. Both of them STILL tried to destroy all worlds and only Bleck had a change of heart after Tippi returned… yet still tried to enable the Void after finding out she’s alive? Both of them lied to, betrayed, and tried to MURDER their ENTIRE TEAM. Earlier, I said “(the writers) trying to make Bleck a tragic villain but Dimentio purely evil and accidentally made them the EXACT SAME person” and this can go two ways- the first option, or making both of them tragic characters. If the writers genuinely thought this through and genuinely wanted us to pry into the lore to conclude Dimentio and Bleck are not that different, sending one to his dream world with his dream girl and the other to actual super mario hell doesn’t help their intention

And Blumiere is such an amazing concept for a character and he STILL IS, but wow the writers could’ve done so much more. Even a cutscene of him deciding the spare the minions could’ve meant SO MUCH and it really sucks nothing ever happened. With or without the “both had a tragic backstory” interpretation, there isn’t much that puts a clear line between Dimentio and Bleck’s characters. The game tries to make us think the line is there, but it really isn’t. At least not in my own interpretation of the writing. Idk lol. End of rant

[seshiiru]

A brief analysis of Drakengard/NieR Repetition mechanic and its role in the neverending cycle of death of the Taroverse.

(This is a personal analysis so it doesn't mean that anything I say in here is true and that it is Yoko Taro's intentions )

After replaying NieR Replicant and a rewatching a Drakengard LP, something actually striked me in the "Play the game again" mechanic so unique to Yoko Taro's games. Where Drakengard is more of Hack&Slah Ace Combat hybrid devided in chapters, NieR games are a bit closer to Action RPGs. Yet, the games follow a similar narrative construction and a way of doing endings, with multiple endings you can unlock by tedious grinds or hidden secrets, with each offering a new reality.

The mechanic is clearly more accentuated in NieR Replicant's/ Gestalt because this repetition serves as a way to make you question your decisions and right to kill the shades, with run B obliterating all of your expectations and beliefs. Where few games do question the meaning behind the killing, the delusional vision of a right or wrong world, none does it as strongly as NieR. By the repetitiveness of the game, reenacting the killing, you, the players are confronted once again to every life you took throughout the game. Which end up much more impactful than knowing you've killed for wrong reasons but aren't facing truly the consequences. And NieR Automata is reusing that mechanic, in an even smarter way than its predecessor.

Then, why, even confronted to our horrendous actions do we keep going? Do we keep on doing that long and tedious farming? Simply because we want more, we want a better ending, we wish that somehow, someway, the game gives us back some companions lost on the way, we wish to see our hero finally end the cycle. And that's the powerful thing about Yoko Taro's game. The player is the one that keeps the cycle of killing ongoing. And it is a cycle that actually started at the very beginning of Yoko Taro's universe and never stopped.

It starts way back at the very beginning, Drakengard 3. Through the character of Zero, we kill countless enemies, without much an explanation than just that she wants to kill her sisters. And then we learn the truth, we understand Zero's character but Mikhail dies. Then we keep going and more people die at each endings. More people die at every grind. We are never satisfied. We hope that the game finally gives everyone a happy ending but it never does. Finally, the event of Drakengard's 3 final ending put you the player, Zero and Mikhail at rest, yet doom another world: Drakengard's.

In the same way as Zero from Drakengard 3, we kill countless enemies through the bloodlusty Caim. Despite the chaotic nature of Caim, the player understands that there's bigger threats to the world so we fight. At the end of this massacre, our sister and dragon dies. We want a better ending. We want more understanding of the world . So we keep killing, replaying to get all the weapons, upgrading them, replaying missions countless times, achieving endings after endings, until finally, this world is free of the cycle. But it's to another world that we brought the cycle : NieR's.

Unlike Zero and Caim, the protagonist of this world seems definitely more righteous. We willingly kill shades because it's necessary, it's for a good cause. But after all this adventure, we understand that he's just as ruthless and selfish as Caim or Zero. Despite saving your sister, the only reason why you slaughtered all the shades, the player keeps on going. Keeps killing shades for a new ending, for Kainé, for Emil. But then you lose Kainé and then the protagonist itself. But then the game gives you a final hope. You replay the first part of the game, back as the innocent boy, hoping that everything you've gone through could be changed. And the game rewards you, it gives you the so hoped-happy ending; not knowing that this happy ending is gained at the loss of the entire humanity.

And the cycles continues to Automata. You could have stopped at Ending A, with that lovely ending but you want more. You keep going and you keep losing. First 2B and then 9S sanity. Pascal and the twins. Adam and Eve. But you keep hoping that they'll finally have the ending desired, just like the ones you've got in every games before. And it happens, but this time, the cycle is no more. Because you, the player, who kept going, decided to sacrifice yourself so the characters you cared so much about finally got free of the cycle you've been perpetuating for so long.

You are most likely the god who was in charge of that cycle all along. You can find evidence across all of Yoko Taro's games. "Is this the land of the Gods?" from ending E of Drakengard is the first hint towards that. "You and I are the same, tools in the hands of a master" from Devola to Nier in NieR Replicant/Gestalt. Then comes the Automata introduction quote "We are perpetually trapped in an never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment ? I often think about the God who blessed us this cryptic puzzle and wonder if we'll ever have a chance to kill him". And recently, I ended up with another hint when I pulled for the Replicant characters in Nier Reincarnation :

Yes it echoes to their games but I can't stop but seeing the 4th wall broken in each of these statements and knowing the man, there's a high possibility.

And that's through that last bit of Automata that you see how Yoko Taro's philosophy evolved throughout the games. With each game giving a more hopeful message each time. And Automata ending on your sacrifice for a good ending. You ended that cycle. Because the god of their world made the sacrifice so that they could all be free of the cycle. You lose your data, the meaning through which you kept the cycle ongoing.

The repetitiveness of Yoko Taro's games can be seen as annoying, and tedious (oh lord the grind ). But I can't stop but think it's what makes his games all the more incredible and rich in lessons and meanings.

[happymetalgirl]

Album of the Year: Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready

I knew this was going to be a challenging album to write about (as it’s already a challenging enough album to listen to), and thanks to the additional context of the album’s creation, environment, and inspiration recently provided by Kristen Hayter, that gargantuan challenge has only grown. But as inactive as I have been on this blog, I have known that I wanted to write about this album ever since it came out and immediately grabbed my ears and declared itself the year's best by a mile, so here goes.

I write long pieces. Even when I say I’ll try to keep it short. But I’m not deluding myself on this one; this is going to be long.

As strong as the urge is to “focus on the music”, there is no way to adequately or responsibly address this album without the context surrounding it, and much of that context is extremely harrowing. I will be discussing the things that happened that Hayter divulged in her relationship with Alexis Marshall of the band Daughters, and while I will avoid being intentionally gratuitous, the discussion comes with the same content warnings she provided: sexual assault, rape, suicide, mental and emotional abuse, and sexual abuse.

Lingua Ignota has deservedly garnered tremendous praise throughout the segments of the music world that have become attentive to Hayter's work, and the praise from the metal world is but a fraction of it. I discovered her through her collaboration with The Body on the best tracks from their LP I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer., shortly after the release of Lingua's All Bitches Die. But it was of course with 2019's Caligula that Lingua Ignota's gripping "survivor anthems" really broke through to a larger captive audience, and again, deservedly so. To call "compelling" the 66 minutes of juxtaposition between angelic, soaring classical vocals and shuddering vengeful screams of agony, gorgeous neoclassical arrangements and harsh industrial noise, evocative, liturgical poetry and utterly unrepentant devilish incantations, violent curses, and death wishes that Caligula offers would be a gross understatement. With it, Hayter expanded on an already-solid foundation of uniquely and honestly petrifying lyricism and a similarly unique sonic pallet that set her far apart from even her closest contemporaries (if there even are any). And yet, Sinner Get Ready is even better.

For as much praise as I gave Caligula (and it was honest praise), I felt like I wasn't really connecting to it at the level that I felt like I could or should or that the album deserved, possibly also based on how much I saw it clearly meant to people for whom its messages hit closer to home. As my blog's name implies, I'm a boy, and because of that I've been dealt a luckier hand in terms of being more likely to go through life without facing sexual assault or fearing it, and I have indeed fortunately never found myself in danger or sexual assault (not saying that men don't face sexual assault or that sexual assault against men isn't important, it's just not as much and often not as physically violent). I even wondered on and off how much of the critical acclaim Caligula received might have been based on some writers' feelings of obligation due to the grim honesty of the subject matter. Honestly, I think there probably is some element of obligation to it, but ultimately I don't think it's important, it's unprovable, likely negligible, and ultimately not worth worrying about for an album certainly deserving in significant part because of the harsh truths it so boldly presents. I've never got the sense that Hayter is manipulatively pimping her trauma for a cynical artistic cash grab or anything, even if I didn't connect as deeply to it on Caligula as others.

Sinner Get Ready, on the other hand, clicked immediately. Not only that, I gained a greater appreciation for Caligula through it, and this is after I had expected less of the follow-up to Caligula for some reason(s). The title being taken from a line from the title track of All Bitches Die had me wondering if it was going to be a handful of reworked demos or something, plus Hayter's stating that it would be calmer and not as industrially driven as her past works (which I interpreted as choosing to fight with one hand tied behind the back), and it seeming to come so soon after Caligula had me not expecting as much of Sinner Get Ready. I was so happy to be proven wrong though. "Happy" may not find a place for much else in this review though. Unlike Caligula, the lyrical focus of Sinner Get Ready was much more tangible and close-to-home for me; Hayter's dialogues with and challenging of belief in God and her experience with the sickness of organized religion came after a culmination of my own very long process of walking away from Christianity. While Hayter has a hard time describing her own complex position on faith and God and hasn't fully ruled out belief, her album does not shy away from harsh critique and conversations far more honest and biting than the thoughtless, rehearsed bullshit praise-Jesus prayers of most pastors.

Still astounding to me is how incredible these more “stripped back” instrumentals are. I thought Hayter restricting herself from her harrowing screaming vocals (with the exception of one song) and industrial noise would be her holding herself back; instead, Hayter and her producers take the more traditional sonic palette of Appalachian folk instrumentation and Cathedral-filling pipe organ, choirs, and piano and twist it all into a quite thematically fitting thing to behold. I suppose I should get past the preamble and start getting into the finer details of the album, which I will do song-by-song for the sake of organization. I’ll still have plenty to say afterwards, and not just about the album.

———

"The Order of Spiritual Virgins"

Sinner Get Ready opens with its longest track, and it is an epic indeed deserving of its 9-minute run-time. It’s not an epic in the same way winding 20-minute prog rock songs are, but it captures more vividly and scarily than any other religious music I’ve heard the type of unworldly religious experience it sets up. The song is inspired by a sexually repressive and isolating Christian sect/cult from the 1700’s that resided in the state in which Hayter took residence during this album's creation. The lyrics are few and they become taken over as the song progresses by these seriously eerie, mesmerized, atonal choir mantras of “eternal devotion”, but they are enough within the unnerving swells of strings and freakish explosions of clanging low-register piano and odd old-timey percussion to capture the sinister transfixion of being coaxed into extreme religious devotion. It is indeed not without its unambiguously negative connotations of futile hyper-protectivity and authoritarianism with the lines “Sickness finds a way in” (which ushers in the hypnotized swells of devotion and cinematically foreboding piano chaos) and “I am relentless, I am incessant, I am the ocean” making their way into the chants before “eternal devotion” takes over. Given the inclusion of elements of domestic abandonment and Hayter’s history of writing about her past (and at the time current) abuser, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to interpret/apply these lyrics to malignant devotion to a life-consuming abusive partner. The chaos of the song concludes with a spoken sample of a man talking about finding a more vivid connection to his lost mother's presence in his childhood in silent solitude than to a tangible person in a crowd, solidifying the song's theme of isolation through religious devotion: “that’s what you get out of the silence”. Whether it’s a deceptive religious leader, a controlling partner, or even a desperate devotion to an idea of God, the eerie, Cathedral-filling, soul-strangling monolith of instrumental cacophony of the song is brilliantly fitting. A phenomenal introductory movement to the album, and it's only the beginning.

"I Who Bend the Tall Grasses"

Oh shit, second track in and this album is already more intense than the most try-hard shit out there with this song’s chilling dialogue between Hayter, God, and possibly one other person. I’m sure any who’ve been to church enough or who’ve had to sit through “grace” at the thanksgiving table last month with racist relatives know how the typical performative prayers go and how aggravatingly inauthentic they grow over years of repetition as a supposed communication to the most important power in life. It's hollow bullshit. By contrast, the manic, vengeful performance Hayter gives here through some of the most dynamically and diversely expressive vocals on the album is realer than any prayer I’ve ever heard. While the lines of the song alternate somewhat ambiguously between being spoken by the praying speaker and the divine, the prayer itself is hardly ambiguous. Like she has many times before, Hayter’s speaker is a calling upon the Lord whom she has dutifully served and vociferously demanding divine vengeance upon the man in the lyrics. The way the lyrics progress, it sounds like God is refusing to grant Hayter’s demands despite her many sacrifices, and instead asserts his own power in defense of the man. While the rest of the album does see Hayter focus more on classically styled singing (however layered it gets), here she pulls out the violent, enthralling delivery that made her past works so chilling. Knowing now that this album was created not in the distant aftermath, but in the throes, of an abusive relationship heightens the grimness of this song especially. Like the preceding track, dissonant choral mantras raise the tension of the atmosphere as Hayter proclaims “where does your light not shine?” over grand pipe organ chords and chapel chimes as inverted in their appropriation as the religious imagery Hayter invokes in her vein-bulging, blood-curdling calls for death. It’s the most incantational/liturgical-like song in the album and it’s a brilliantly hellish, nightmarish distortion of it that’s as petrifying as music gets.

"Many Hands"

Reprising the refrain from “All Bitches Die (All Bitches Die Here)” that titles the album, “Many Hands” switches its mode of dialogue with the divine to from distorted Catholic chamber instrumentation to mutated Appalachian folk incantations, with sharply piercing and violent plucks of acoustic guitar or something else that sound as though they’re about the break the damn thing, along with dissonant strums of banjo or dulcimer or some shit backing Hayter’s cold recitations. The repeated lyrics about the Lord both weeping of his sacrifice for the speaker while holding her by the neck shed light on the internal contradictions of the gospel of the omnipotent and supposedly sorrowful God forced to both sacrifice himself and somehow unable to save those whom he loves. There are certainly parallels one could draw between the Lord in these lines and the controlling partner Hayter had at the time as well, and of all the songs on the album that parallel a loveless God and a loveless lover, this one perhaps paints the most candidly sinister picture of the kind of false benevolence of their repeated punishments. And the wholly unsettling instrumentation on the verge of snapping in the background behind Hayter’s operatic wails of really provides the anxiety appropriate for the song and brings out the true malevolence of both subjects in one of the album's most sonically pioneering pieces.

"Pennsylvania Furnace"

This is the one that really gets me. As soon as this was released as the first song from the upcoming album, I knew this “toned down approach” was nothing to worry about except for what it would do to my tear ducts. Damn if this one isn’t a fucking heart-churner. Sticking to minimalist piano and only the subtlest of stringed backing to supplement her beautifully mournful vocals on the track, Hayter pulls out a simply breathtaking classical ballad piece whose every chord change is a perfect twisting of the knife in the soul. The song deals with the earthly hell of isolation and other people’s creating of that isolation but it also ties in this sense of hopelessness in the unconvinced religious invocations it employs. There’s just something so heartbreaking in the somber sarcasm in the earnest softness of Hayter’s delivery of “There is victory in Jesus”. There’s so much expression in it, I can hear the regret and self-chastising of turning for help to a God who never gave any. There are many ways to read into it, but the line “do you want to be in hell with me” to me reads of a defeated self-loathing that rejects what seems like the futility of help and only accepts company in misery. Knowing now how close the the brink of death Hayter’s relationship with Alexis Marshall pushed her, I could certainly see this song’s lyrics being pulled from a suicidal mindset, giving that line an even darker connotation. Goddamn there is so much concentrated heartbroken anguish in this song, and lines like “I know you want to stop, but you can’t stop”, the lines about casting off earthly bonds, the lines about watching the home with the family from a looking-in view while alone, and “I fear your name / above all others” are given so much more deeply tragic context in the wake of Hayter’s story about the relationship this song was borne from. Everything about this song, the somber piano, the swells of vocal vibrato, the tragic lyrics, to me, makes it the best on the album.

"Repent Now Confess Now"

Hayter takes us back to mass for the fifth track of the album with the return of the hall-filling strings and layered choral vocals (and bringing this time a banjo’s subtle strums), and to paint a portrait of self-loathing blame kneeling in desperation before a thankless and spiteful God. The odd references to the surgeon’s blade and the taking of her legs certainly tie into Hayter’s emergency surgery to prevent Cauda equina syndrome. The Lord’s taking of her legs and will to live (also given extra dark meaning in the context of her suicide attempt) as the apparent abundant pardon highlights the sadism mankind has written into God with religion and the lengths of self-hatred that abuse drove Hayter to. It is both angering in its themes and terrifying in how the overwhelming voices and ominous instrumentation plays into the congregational commands of repentance, another excellent fusion of disparate sounds and disfigured religious practice by Kristen Hayter and her collaborators.

"The Sacred Linament of Judgement"

Incorporating some of the most immaculate imagery on this album, Hayter contrasts forgiveness and rejection by God on the arbitrary ground they on which they stand on “The Sacred Linament of Judgement”. Hayter seems more focused on the cruelty of (man through) religion on this song than she is on the cruelty of man himself (through Alexis Marshall elsewhere on the album), but her inclusion of a sample of the confession of infidelity by evangelical pastor Jimmy Swaggart beneath the droning horns and strings and the religion-soaked verbiage she sings ties the song back to the real-world hypocrisy and abuses of power by religious figures and how even in the face of being proven liars, they fall back on and use God to defend themselves and cover themselves with a shield of new lies. And the more minimal and less dynamic droning of the instrumentation, to me, feels like it brings out the plain-facedness of these charlatans’ honey-coated treacheries. This is not to say that the music is dull or uninteresting; it is still filled with subtle percussive accents that give the song a human sort of beat. In the sampled sermon, Swaggart cites his betrayal against his wife Frances and other believers around the world before getting to the point with his proclamation of being washed by the holy blood of the Lord’s forgiveness, and (critically, key word here) forgetfulness. Hayter’s presentation of Swaggart’s being divinely forgiven alongside lyrics of her own forsaking by God shine light on the extremity of the reinforcement of misogynist societal standards by religion, making it a key thematic addition to the album that she builds upon further.

"Perpetual Flame of Centralia"

Before building on the Swaggart material, Lingua Ignota offers up another soft piano number with the album’s second single, “Perpetual Flame of Centralia”. The title referencing and inspired by an abandoned Pennsylvanian town beneath which a coal mine fire’s ceaseless burning made it uninhabitable, “Perpetual Flame of Centralia” finds Lingua Ignota returning to the meditative calmness of minimal piano and doubt-riddled religious odes. Through the album’s most deadly soft soothing vocals, Hayter both covers herself in the blood of Jesus and compares the poison of her life to that of the devil’s, all the while casting off fear for the sake of righteousness. The line “I rest my head in a holy kingdom” seems delivered similarly disingenuously to the victorious lyric in “Pennsylvanian Furnace”, and the choruses reinforce the stronger belief in a destiny in hell. It’s another one of the more open-ended songs on the album, but the quietness of the piano chords also really forces the focus on the contrast Hayter draws between the brief and futile beauty of life with the eternal fires of hell that the aforementioned ghost town so naturally evokes comparisons to and that she feels God had placed her in by putting her in Pennsylvania with no one but a new abusive partner. It’s the softest cut on the album, but the stylistic comfort and the break from dissonance it provides is a misleading comfort, and one that plays into to the themes of religion's misleading comfort and abusers' misleading affection throughout the album. It's not viscerally violent, but it should certainly not be mistaken for peace either.

"Man Is Like a Spring Flower"

After ruminating on hell and Pennsylvania, Lingua Ignota picks back up where “The Sacred Linament of Judgement” left off, opening with an audio sample, now of a mildly adversarial interview of the sex worker who pastor Swaggart visited repeatedly. The interviewer asks if she believes Swaggart’s words of repentance and his tears, and after a brief hesitation during which the interviewer tries to suggest the sincerity of Swaggart’s confession, she responds with disbelief. She says that she thinks he is just doing at the pulpit what he had always done while he continued to come to her for sex and that the real Jimmy Swaggart is the one he showed her he was while hidden from the eyes of the congregation. Hayter then breaks into a acoustic folk-instrumentation-filled lamentation on the futility of love in what is probably her most open condemnation of the romantic infidelity by Alexis Marshall that was recently revealed to have been taking place. This song’s inclusion of the believedly true, infidelitous character of Jimmy Swaggart beneath his Christ-loving exterior and the unambiguous stanza “No one is enough / One is not enough / No one is enough / The heart of man is impossible to hold” make uncanny its inspiration by the insatiable need for sex and other women beneath the countless fake excuses for betrayal of Alexis Marshall. Hayter likens man to a vessel for God’s impulses, mostly violence and punishment, as he refers to the heart of man as a furnace, a fiery pit, the seventh gate of hell, quite frankly as the hand of God itself, and in an odd lyric that makes more morbid sense in hindsight, as a crushed horse’s tail. Anatomists named the bottom part of the human spinal cord that branches out at about the level of the sacrum the “cauda equina”, which means horse’s tail, because that’s what it looks like. Knowing now that her back injury was inflicted by Alexis and led to her having surgery for damage to these nerves makes all clearer that he is most certainly the primary subject of this song, in which Hayter undoubtedly analogizes him to the hellish punishment of God itself. Alexis’ infidelity to a degree possibly far beyond Swaggart’s only cements him further into the song as kin to the disgraced pastor with the repeated stanza of love and of no one being enough. The way the staccato strings, high-register vocals, and wooden percussion swell to a crescendo at the song’s climax make it one of the most dynamic and cinematic pieces of the album, and well deserving of its eclipsing of the 7-minute mark and yet another favorite on an album so difficult to pick favorites from.

"The Solitary Brethren of Ephrata"

With the last sample Hayter provides, probably the most infuriatingly relevant outside the album, the infamous churchgoer interview during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic provides such a concise reminder of the wide reach of the real-world damage that the careless selfishness that lies at the heart of religious lunacy does. Asked about concerns of potentially spreading the sickness to others she interacts with, the interviewee replies only about the safety she herself feels she has as a believer “covered in Jesus’ blood” and that she believes others of her faith have, essentially condemning everyone else to suffer the judgement of God through the pandemic and capturing the malicious focal intent of punishment of outsiders beneath the “love the sinner” window dressing of religion. - And then Hayter launches into possibly the most heart-crushing song behind “Pennsylvania Furnace” to close out the album. The lyrics about belief in the promise of and longing for heavenly paradise read as both unbelieved hope in God’s love and as suicidal ideation with heaven as an escape from all the hells of the songs preceding this one. It’s the tragic morbid truth that suicidal people tell themselves and the solace that the loved ones they leave behind hold onto: that there’s no more pain for them anymore. “All my pains are lifted / Paradise is mine / All my wounds are mended”. The underlying cynicism and soulful brokenness in those words is so incredibly crushing given all that has preceded it, not just on this album, but also on Caligula and All Bitches Die and Hayter’s first work as Lingua Ignota. That Hayter is singing this not in raucous or fearsome dissonance, but rather in the sweetness of the major key of traditional hymns of worship behind some of the most gorgeous instrumentation on the album makes all the more somber and climactic the finality of the song and makes it stand out among the others. But Hayter is of course writing this after surviving her attempted suicide and after escaping her abusive relationship, and the paradise she consigns herself to is under the dominion of loneliness, “ugliness my home”, a heart-wrenching acceptance of isolation and the absence of love as the best it gets. That Kristen Hayter made it out of the hell of Pennsylvania and her relationship with Alexis Marshall while there is indeed a triumph, and perhaps that she has once again survived to make a powerful album is enough to call paradise.

Sinner Get Ready is tainted by not a single wasted sound or word, and for as difficult it is to fully express what this album does to me while listening to (and how difficult it is to fully understand exactly what it's doing), I do know the incredible magnitude of its power, and it is indeed power. The impact this album makes goes beyond it sounding like nothing else with its revolutionary utilization of the sonic elements it pulls from. I am not a spiritual person, but the catharsis that Sinner Get Ready provides is certainly earns its description as a spiritual experience. It is a masterpiece of authenticity and musical vision that truly transcends genre that very few other pieces of music can also be called.

———

Contextual Discussion:

As hard as this album hit on first listens, the different light that Hayter’s revelations about the abuse she lived through in her relationship with Alexis Marshall put this album in made this already-difficult album somehow a hell of a lot more crushing. She’s not singing about the same abuser she cursed on Let the Evil of His Lips Cover Him, or on All Bitches Die, or on Caligula. Tragically, Kristen Hayter is singing of a different man whose name is even alongside Lingua Ignota’s on a few non-album tracks she's released since Caligula. It’s tragic also to think that what I had thought of as such a short time between Caligula and Sinner Get Ready for Lingua Ignota was in fact such an excruciating and probably seemingly eternal hell for Kristen Hayter. For anyone unaware, a few weeks ago, Hayter released a Google document with a statement detailing her relationship with Alexis Marshall and how he abused her. I had time and didn’t take any breaks. and it took me an hour to read it all. And it was a sickening and hate-inducing read for that entire hour which included (and now is the time to really invoke the content warning) damn near every possible color of lying, manipulation, sexual assault, outright and clear-cut rape, emotional and verbal abuse, financial abuse, and disloyalty by Alexis Marshall in service of his malignant sex addiction not just to Kristen Hayter but also other women in his life and his children. This included but was not limited to (and again, major content warning for the rest of the paragraph) penetrating her while she was sleeping (despite her already telling him this was something her past abuser did and that she did not consent to it, =rape), an instance of extremely violent sex in which he refused to stop and nearly paralyzed Hayter by inducing a hernia of one of her spinal disc (for which she needed emergency surgery), abandoning her before that surgery, repeatedly cheating on her, and callously abusive disregard after driving Hayter to attempt suicide in their basement.

What I just mentioned really is just the tip of that vile iceberg, yet for as heartbreaking as every paragraph of that massive text was, I would be lying if I said Hayter did not make me chuckle just once when she detailed how before her surgery, Alexis had himself a childish little pity party in which Hayter had to hand feed him nutrition bars while he was sitting on their hotel bed (again, before her life-threatening surgery), of which she simply said afterwards, “It was fucking ridiculous.” Again, there is so much that I simply do not have the space or desire to recount fully here that I do think is important for those with the stomach to handle it to be aware of. I think it is important to understand on as empathetic or sympathetic of a level (and not just intellectually) just how horrific abusive relationships manifest, what they can look like, and how what is a painful hour of reading for us is, for survivors, years of unbelievable torment and lasting trauma. “Life is cruel, and time heals nothing.” Far more important is that it is wholly inadequate to just gasp at another’s suffering and move on.

Hayter expressed that her reasoning for coming forward with these details was not just to shed light on truth but also to prevent what happened to her from happening to another woman. Those who followed Daughters more closely and for longer than me have pointed out that Alexis had earned himself a small but sour reputation for his rampant sex addiction beforehand and that it played no small role in the band's long break-up before You Won't Get What You Want. Yet his abuse of others for his sexual satisfaction has not yet earned him a wide or strong enough reputation to hinder his behavior. Hopefully Hayter's coming forward can be enough spotlight to illuminate his behavior to any potential future victims, because the sense I got from my reading of it all was that Alexis is pretty unrepentant about it all (minimizing the hurt he did at best) and has no intention of doing anything seriously about the sex addiction that's consumed his life and others' . It's so frustrating how clear some things are in hindsight, such as is the case here, or with Marilyn Manson, or Mark Kozelek, or Chris Brown where there were so many signs, but they were maybe just harder to see through the fog of the rest of their generally edgy and controversial personas. We can't even get started here about older rock stars like Ted Nugent and Steve Tyler who out in the open sang about and performed predatory behavior in real life, which included involving minors. It's not just the obvious suspects either. Sometimes it's the people who only offer sparse or non-specific signs only visible in hindsight with the context of more knowledge or people who are very good at maintaining a quiet, if not wholesome, public image. People you wouldn't expect. Like that guy from the now-defunct band, False, whose feminism was a significant part of their presentation.

This is not a suggestion of paranoia or baseless suspicion. It's a suggestion of attentiveness, and it's certainly not one that I'm trying to make from any kind of imagined high horse or enlightened moral high ground. I was more blindsided than I maybe should have been for Manson, and maybe Alexis Marshall as well. I saw Mark Kozelek coming though, the guy pretty much can't help himself from broadcasting that he's a miserable misogynistic asshole who's desperate to keep pretend-living his rock-star youth with young, vulnerable female fans.

-

I guess here is the place to put a concise version of my thoughts on problematic artists and such, everyone's favorite topic. You know the problematic artist discourse is complicated, I get it; I don't have a golden bullet answer to it. But somehow in all the discourse I've seen about being responsible and not supporting problematic artists and not enabling shitty behavior, I haven't seen anyone acknowledge the obvious elephant in the room: fans don't want to feel punished for something they didn't do.

As listeners, watchers, readers, viewers, enjoyers of art, we all (should) go into enjoying any piece of art with the understanding that, no matter how authentic they may come off in their music or their public appearance, we never fully know the artist. We can't know with complete certainty who of them might be up to some unsavory shit behind closed doors, even the edgy ones, some of whom genuinely do keep their antics on the stage and in the studio. And often the art we enjoy does indeed stand so far away from the artist that we don't think about the artist at all (think: lo-fi hip hop beats to study/relax to). And then there are some (think: asshole Mark Kozelek and his dumb boomer podcast ramblings that he calls "songs") who really put themselves as a person into their art. A little harder to dissociate that kind of shit.

I agree with minimizing support for artists doing bad shit on the basis of it possibly discouraging such behavior from others and it consequentially pressuring them to change, but that can be surprisingly hard to go absolute zero on. Does it stop at the band? Does it stop at the label? Does it stop at side projects? Does it stop at collaborators who haven't come out and said anything? Just because there's no agreed-upon line does not mean that we should just shrug our shoulders and say "well what can you do?" Ultimately, as an individual, the answer to that is pretty much nothing, but somehow you add up enough individuals and you can start to get some good change if you all know that better things are possible and expectable. Maybe you don't all agree exactly how much more you deserve but you sure as hell know it's more than that shit boss is paying you all. Maybe we don't know exactly where we draw that "problematic artist" line, but we know the behavior Hayter described of Alexis Marshall is far beyond wherever we draw it. Being attentive as a listener, however casual or invested, is not about being a paranoid hyperreactive sentinel around artists and trying to have a power trip on people you have little individual power over, and it's certainly not about policing individual fans into not listening to their Antichrist Superstar CD or whatever. Again, I get that vile behavior makes some artists immediately more repulsive and easy to let go of at the drop of a hat, and it's easier for some to drop band they've listened to forever than others. And then I think of my favorite band, Meshuggah.

I listen to Meshuggah more than anything else probably. And to my knowledge they don't have any accusers or hold any racist beliefs or anything of the like, but they could. And as much as I imagine it would very likely taint my listening to their music if everything I hypothetically proposed was in fact true for them, I have a hard time imagining not listening to them. How I listen to music has been so irreversibly shaped by Meshuggah, I tap the iconic rhythm of "Bleed" with my fingers on every surface around me without even thinking about it, and I hear Meshuggah in the thousands of bands they've influenced. I snuck Meshuggah into my wedding playlist. It's honestly hard to think about what my music-loving life would look like without Meshuggah, and in some ways it feels impossible, and for me (and probably most Meshuggah fans) it has never been about Jens or Fredrick or Martin or Tomas or Dick. And it doesn't seem like it's ever been about them to themselves either. So I get it for fans who feel torn between their love for the music and their feeling betrayed or that it's been tainted by the very artist that made it.

"But one thing I've learned is everything burns."

Hayter herself said that her coming forward was not about cancelling Daughters or telling people that they couldn't listen to Daughters. She came forward to help survivors and to protect other women from having to either also be survivors or not be so fortunate. I'm sure this still does ruin Daughters for a lot of people, possibly myself included. There is no "neutral" position in any of this, however much we might sometimes wish our love for music could be a little oasis to escape to from the shit of this world, that music is not detached from this world and everything we do with that music has some kind of impact on the world and that is power. Wow, we have power. [insert Spiderman uncle Ben quote]. Even if it's just a little bit, there's no such thing as just being a listener, we are all participants in music culture, whatever sub-culture feeds into it, and the broader cultures at large that music culture feeds into. None of it is on an island or in a vacuum, and that is well worth being mindful about.

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At the end of the day, being attentive and being a responsible participant in music as a fan or maybe even as a worker or artist means applying what power you have to produce the most positive impact you can (original and not cliché at all, I know). But really, where we have the most impact is with the people we know and can directly affect: friends, family, relatives, even asshole coworkers or people in our lives we kinda don't like. It certainly doesn't have to be just one or the other (artists or people we know), but if there's one thing everything around Sinner Get Ready has emphasized to me, it is to support survivors and to stop abusers, by being educated on and alert to the ways they manipulate people and knowing when and how to use the power at your disposal to protect people. This isn't scan the room constantly to make sure no jocks are dropping roofies in drinks at the party ocular pat-down vigilante bullshit (although, yes, do be smart in vulnerable situations and such). This means saying something that's confrontational or that's not easy to say to a best friend who's constantly belittling his girlfriend, or to a close family member who might be in denial about the abuse they're facing from another family member, or even just making it awkward for some rando dude at a party who's making the girl whose boundaries he's pushing clearly uneasy and making it easier for her to get away from it. Maybe you look like a dweeb for a minute, maybe that was enough to prevent a rape from happening even if no one ever thanks you for it. Maybe it's straight-up calling police. Sometimes (perhaps often) it seems like it's in vain, but your individual actions can be a seed or a catalyst for better outcomes. And sometimes better outcomes just don't happen despite you doing everything right. Pop music fans in adjacent circles and far-away circles have been rightfully standing up to Chris Brown for over a decade and he has responded repeatedly by saying, "fuck you, I'm gonna keep being a piece of shit to women." And he somehow manages to find fans and collaborators willing to support his career and look the other way on his behavior. Some games you're the better team and you still lose, shit's weird like that sometimes. By all means, continue to put pressure on artists directly, producers, collaborators, labels, and, yes, even fan bases that continue to enable shit like Chris Brown. Yours may just be a drop in the bucket that just has to keep getting fuller and heavier before it snaps.

The common (and probably also intentional) misconception about rape culture is that it's people saying "yes, that's rape, and that's okay." or "rapists know they're raping and they do it anyway; they're just terrible people.” In reality, what rape culture says is: "I know him, he wouldn't do that", or "that doesn't constitute abuse", or "she's just trying to ruin his career or get attention", or "why isn't there any evidence for this accusation from this highly private moment from which it would be incredibly hard to procure adequate evidence for legal action in an unpredicted and adrenaline-filled situation during which the objective in the moment for any survivor would clearly be to survive it?" (maybe that one was a bit tongue-in-cheek), or all the victim-blaming classics we've all heard like Christmas songs once black Friday starts every time a survivor brings their story public. With Alexis Marshall, the excuse was always, "how dare you compare me to your past abuser, I have never hit you." Up close it rarely looks the the same way it does when it becomes visible from a distance, and it's rarely cookie-cutter bad-guy shit or quote-straight-from-the-textbook shit, but it's worth being aware of as much of what points in that direction as possible.

Hell, if all you got from this was to point the finger outward, fucking think again. We've all internalized a lot of this shit as natural to our world or even just normal as parts of relationships, as so many of these stories point out, the people doing the abuse usually don't think what they're doing is wrong or what they've been doing is abusive. And goddamnit, as a stereotypical guy from a rom-com I've always got that simplistic knee-jerk urge to try to fix shit, but the hell if some blog post is gonna make a dent in rape culture. Maybe one person sees this and takes it to heart, worth the hours it took writing this. But it's not just about fixing and preventing abuse, survivors need support too, and sometimes time really does heal nothing. Some traumas do leave scars that never fully heal, and sometimes things don't get better. And that might be the hardest part of it all. But survivors need support regardless because no one deserves to have to be one and carry on alone.

"Me and the dog we die together"