#late night after doubles makes writers loopy

[mistresskayla-blog1]

Descension Upon Jupiter

Lyn's Writing Event Day 11 - Week 2

Characters: Joe Burkett x OC Sephira

May 11th: Week 2: Jupiter                                                

Characters: (AU) Joe Burkett x OC Sephira

Fandom: Richard Armitage – Joe Burkett – Fool Me Once

The character Joe Burkett was created by Harlan Coben and adapted for television by Danny Brocklehurst

Warnings: thriller, character death, terror, science fiction, violence, gun play, knife play, transmorphic reptiles,

Word count: 1.5k

Terror filled her lungs, as she struggled to breathe, she saw him just around the edge of the corner of the terraform medical room. If he saw you, you would be dead. Joe huffed, his side bleeding from the knife Sephira gripped in her scaly hand, “Sephira!” He shouted, panting a little, as he shoved his fist into his side and stumbled out of the medical room.

“I know it was you, (grunt) that reported me” He called coming down the hallway.

Sephira shifted a bit and flattened against the crevice of the wall, her skin blending into the color of the wall. Sephira closed her eyes and held her breath, slits on her neck, gaping a bit for a moment, gaining air.

Joe passed her spot, and kept grunting, shaking his head and pressing harder into his wound, “You can’t hide forever, I will find you”.

He stopped dead about 10 feet from her. Sephira peaked an eye, and saw him shake his head again, “Tsk Tsk, my dear, I can smell you,” he grinned sinisterly. Joe spun and Sephira appeared, and ran down the hallway, scurrying as fast as she could go, gripping the floor with her webbed claws.

Sephira made it to the paddock and punched in the codes. Joe was still approaching. Sephira had just scanned her hand when he clamped his hand on the back of her neck in one clean grab and shoved her into the room as the door opened. The door slid closed and locked behind him. Joe tossed her to the ground with his brute force.

Sephira hissed, and flipped over, putting distance and objects, like a table between them, “What do you want from me Joe?”

“My revenge”, Joe smirked.

“What are you talking about?” Sephira spat back at him, he scales in full form now and shining.

“Ooh, you’re really pretty when your angry” Joe smiled again, “Now tell me what you said, so we can just clear this up, right now”.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I have nothing to do with your work” Sephira explained. She watched him, as he sat down at the table and sighed, removing a gun from his pants and setting it down on the table. It clinked loudly in the airlocked space. Sephira’s eyes grew wider, “Where did you get that?”

Joe smiled, as he spun it with a finger on the table, “Jet had it. He didn’t need it anymore”, Joe sighed and kept watching the gun spin on the table, chuckling slightly, sweat covering his forehead from the shock that set in every moment.

Sephira stood against the cabinet, her hand to her mouth, registering Joe’s explanation, “You.. killed Jet?” her voice climbed a bit at the end, in emphasis of disbelief.

Joe chuckled again, stopping the gun, and resting his hand on it, his eyes snapped up to her sharply, “Yeah, I did. And I don’t have a problem with it. Do you?”  

Sephira shook her head, “I don’t understand, what did Jet do?”

Joe looked at her again, “Well aside from making a pass at you last week, he told corporate that my work was subpar, when I know my data was better than his on the project,” Joe gritted his teeth.  Joe looked down again, and then back up at her, “Well his data won’t be better now, will it?” Joe’s voice was gravely and his breath was a bit labored. Sephira wondered if she had punctured his lung, even slightly.

Joe shook off dizziness again, and pressed his hand into his side, “So, are you going to patch me up, so we can get out of the airlock on time”.

Sephira’s watch beeped at that second, indicating a time count of 1 hour 10 minutes left on shift, She covered with her hand to silence it.

“Right on time, huh. We have to get out soon, or this jetty will be our gravesite, right?” Joe asserted.

Sephira nodded, keeping eye contact with him, “Yeah, yes. We have an hour to get back to the base or we float off into the gaseous infinity”,

Joe cut in, “And how long to get over there, from our distance now?”

Sephira turned slightly to see the base panel to her right. Her eyes scanned the readout, “45 minutes I’d guess”.

“That doesn’t leave us much time to play then” he grinned, and Sephira visibly shuddered in his eye line. “What? You don’t like me now?” a low smirk stroud on his face, as his eyebrows playfully quirked up.

Sephira swallowed and looked at him, shifting her scales a bit down and curving her hips towards his view, she had to play this a certain way, if she wanted to survive the next hour, “I didn’t say that. I just want to know what the plan is”.

Joe shifted on his chair, his face ashen, but the blood not seeping through his jumpsuit as much now. Sephira looked at his wound, “Sorry about that? You scared me”.

“Well, you can make it up to me by fixing it, cant you?” Joe asked, tilting his head at her. Sephira moved to a cabinet and punched in a medic code. Gathered a kit and approached him, kneeling by the chair. Joe watched her closely, reaching out to touch her skin.  

Sephira looked at his wound, pressing into it with her hand, “How does that feel?”

Joe sucked in a breath, “Like it fucking hurts”, he cursed.

Sephira tried not to smile, as she palpated his ribs, “Take a breath, Joe” she said her breath warm through his blood-soaked fabric. She unzipped the jumpsuit and examined the cut. Popping open the kit with one hand and grabbing the cauterizer. Sephira flicked the latch and looked up at Joe, “This may sting”, Joe grimaced as the fire hit his wound, and he panted a bit and roared under his breath, “You fuck--- cu ---” he tried to get out, before Sephira sealed the wound and slapped a cool gauze onto it. The curse died beneath his lips as the shock resonated and the burn reintroduced adrenaline to this system. Sephira went to stand and step away, and a sweaty palm gripped her arm, Joe pulled her down into his lap, “How about a kiss, sweetheart?”

Sephira pulled her arm away, “You’ll be fine now. Let’s get back to the station”. Sephira moved away from him and went to replace the kit in the cabinet. Joe’s panting subsided, as he felt his strength renew a little. His smirk grew even more and he looked at her calculatingly.

“Thanks babe, for helping me out. I appreciate it,” he drawled ingratiatingly.

Sephira turned to him, a cocked eyebrow, and then shook her head, “Joe? What is wrong with you?”

---

Before Thursday

Aboard the Galileo 3, the earth year is 2043, The space station had been orbiting for several years now, but Sephira had only been on it for a few months now. The development of transitional sleep travel made it easy to get on and off the station without too much “human” degradation. However, Sephira wasn’t human, they are a reptilian hybrid. They can breathe in high helium conditions and are able to collect samples off the “surface” of Jupiter while on flying expeditions.

              The airlock sealed and a large clock started counting down, 10 hours for Jupiter’s rotational day. Collections keep Sephira busy most of that time. They have two breaks for meals and resets and that is when they will have to interact with the other researchers. But for the most part, Sephira is alone in the jetty. It has to float through the gases like a submersible in the water. It pilots on a program, so Sephira can do their collection by hand.  

               On such an expedition, a new crew member arrived. He was part of the pilot regeneration program. Those who had people died and were very wealthy could elect to freeze their dead, and enroll them in a program for Renewal, as the company called it. The Juno Company mined gases and supplied the world with helium and hydrogen which was infinite on Jupiter. 

              He was tall, dark haired and charming. Joe Burkett had been the son of a drug magnate decades ago and suffered a fatal gunshot wound. His mother, wanting to continue the legacy, had him repaired and placed in the Renewal program. Sephira scoffed when they looked at him. He was instantly attracted to them, and that made Sephira express feminine on the shifts they shared. But as the days and weeks grew, Sephira had a strange feeling about him. He became obsessed with his work and started to get aggressive with the other staff.

Competition was his trigger, and Sephira noticed it more and more. Sometimes some humans are not suited to the decompression and transition of space, and Joe seemed to be unable to distinguish moral behavior. Sephira watched him surreptitiously a few days and nights. Joe became suspicious of Sephira, and now that the elective system they were studying was under review by corporate, there couldn’t be any mistakes. Joe started showing up on Sephira’s shifts when it was not his shift.

(more to come, just too late again for me. goodnight all)

Taglist:

@scariusaquarius @legolasbadass @riepu10 @sweetestgbye @lathalea @evenstaredits @middleearthpixie

Lyn's Writing Event 2024

[mere-mortifer]

Valentine’s Day Exchange  🎈 Masterlist

Thank you to everyone who took part in the exchange! Some works are still being updated, and others will be posted in the next few days, but I didn’t want to post this too long after Valentine’s day itself. 

❧  Ships: 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

Richie Tozier/Mike Hanlon

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

Stanely Uris/Bill Denbrough

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

Beverly Marsh/Stanley Uris/Richie Tozier 

🎈 Ao3 collection 🎈 | Links and summaries after the cut! 

Richie Tozier/Eddie Kaspbrak

❧  by @illwriteyouatragedy

1. cherry cordial | E | 1/1 He’s staring down hard at his phone, scrolling aimlessly through Facebook without reading anything, when someone bumps into him. Whoever it is grabs the pole, their hands brushing against each other’s. Right in his ear, the guy says, “Fucking shit, you’re hot.” Eddie’s head jerks up, startled, and he meets the bright blue eyes of a man at least eight inches taller than him. The guy’s got a pink knit cap tugged down over his head and a spill of curls falling down from it, his glasses fogging up in the warmth of the train car. “What?” Eddie demands.

2. dark chocolate strawberries | T | 1/1 The way Eddie's looking at Stan— Richie’s been on the receiving end of enough of Eddie’s playfully-mad looks to know this isn’t one of them. His heart starts pounding again. He has to be overthinking things. There’s no fucking way he’s not. After all this time, how could he not be, since— Well. Then again, what the fuck does he have to lose? Maybe it’s the boxed wine talking, or the fact that his ability to keep in his own secret is hanging on by a fucking thread, or the way Eddie truly seems pissed that other people are kissing Richie like this, but— Regardless. Regardless, Richie wants to keep testing this theory.

❧ We reconnected by @kaspbrak-tozier-reddie | T | 1/1 Eddie had unexpectedly arranged a date for valentine's day with a guy who he had met online just to get over his nemesis, Richie. Richie owns a tattoo parlour right by Eddie's innocent flower shop but with Richie's loud music, Eddie is at a constant battle to keep his customers in the shop rather them leaving.

No matter how obnoxious and frustrating Richie is, Eddie can't help but wonder if the boy he knew before high school is still in there. Especially when he loses a fight with his store gate and Richie patches him up. If only Eddie could love his online friend as much as he loves Richie.

❧ You Don’t Even Like Boys by @tinyangryeddie | E | 1/1 The sign for the event looks significantly different than the invitation. “A Valentine’s dance?” Eddie squeaks at him, grinding his rolly suitcase to a halt. Sure enough, a loopy red cursive “after-auction Valentine’s Day dance” accompanies the ridiculous imagery. Richie wants to laugh - or maybe cry - it’s hard to tell the difference with Eddie staring at him like he personally assigned the theme and bought the tacky heart-shaped balloons to pile into the lobby. “I didn’t… know,” is all Richie can come up with.

❧ One for the money, two for the show by @mere-mortifer-writing | E | 1/3 Richie's not sure if he's about to get punched or something more pleasant, and as he's placing a bet with himself on which option is more likely, the stranger surges up to close the distance between them, and suddenly they're kissing. Or: Richie is a famous actor, and Eddie a college student who has never hear of him before. When they get papped arguing in public about a bad parking job, the media spins to story to make Richie seem like an homophobic asshole-nevermind that Eddie and him were already making out minutes after the photos were taken. There's one obvious way to clear Richie's name: pretend that Eddie and him had been dating all along.

❧ Sweet Like Sugar Venom by @sippingonsouthernrains | M | 1/1 Being Eddie’s sugar baby was nice. Being Richie’s was fun. Being both? Fucking exhausting. Or, the thrilling tale of one Stanley Uris acting as the human-embodiment of an eye roll as Richie and Eddie claim to compete for his affections. Of course, Stan recognizes that they’re only competing for each other’s affections, and it takes about two minutes for him to get completely tired of being in the middle of it.

❧ It’s not gay if you’re practicing to kiss girls! by @space-is-out-there | G | 1/1 Richie gets the losers invited to one of the biggest parties of the year! They’re prepared for booze, music, and lots of spin the bottle. The only issue? Eddie and Richie have never kissed anyone before and wouldn’t know where to start! Haha... unless 😳

❧ little pieces of nothing that fall by @spunknbite | E | 1/1 Eddie shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.” This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot. Or, the one where it's 1998 and Richie sits down at the bar next to an asshole with a Palm Pilot.

❧ He loves me, he loves me not by Sirius_1910 | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming and the Losers getting together to celebrate at the clubhouse, two boys try speaking feelings, but forget how messy they are on a daily basis. 

❧ Red washcloths and Bloody knuckles. by @toziersspaghettihead | T | 3/3 This shit should’ve been easy, y’know? You pretend to date your best friend so everyone else thinks you have found your soulmate. Richie had been praying for years that he would find the person made specifically for him. However at seventeen and he had yet to have his soulmark- It was concerning, He was starting to think that.. Maybe, Well maybe he was just one of the unlucky few that never found their other half. So the plan came along easily, One day- He was sprawled out on his bed, His best friend. It was late August and he was fucking melting in the heat, Eddie had his legs on top of Richie’s just laid out trying to cool off, With a Comic held above his face. Richie wasn’t as easily distracted that day, He was lost in thought, His music blaring- He prefered loud obnoxious songs any day compared to silence. Yet, His thoughts were running rampant. “Eds, Do you think I’ll ever find my soulmate?” The question had Eddie seizing. “Yeah, Obviously..Everyone has them.” He dropped his comic down onto the bed and sat himself up.

❧ simple words by @birightsrichie | T | 1/1 Eddie had spent his entire life dreading meeting his soulmate. Mainly because the first thing said soulmate was going to say to him was, "Do you come here often?" and Eddie did not want to spend his life with the type of person that would say something like that. He figured they would be extremely annoying and cheesy and probably a bit of an asshole, too. 

❧ Bolt by Satanders | T | 1/1 It's their first Valentine's day together and Eddie wants to surprise Richie, but Richie is not easily romanceable... 

❧ Fake It ‘Till You Make It by Jojosugay | G | 1/1 Richie takes Eddie to his managers valentine's day party pretending to be married.

❧  Welcome to the losers club by jack05writes | T | 1/1  Since bill had quit as the bassist of the losers club, he desperately needed replacing... Enter eddie kaspbrak.

❧  the townhouse by uhohcanteen | E | 1/1 richie snaps out of it faster than pennywise had anticipated. now, as richie rolls them both out of the way and start running away, they have got a lot ahead of them, including a night to remember. 

❧  Just Another Coffee Shop AU by @stardust-writer | T | 1/1 “You’re just jealous,” his friend Beverly would say. “You wish your lonely ass had someone to make out with today, but you’re stuck with me, a strictly platonic best friend.” “Correction, I was stuck with you,” Eddie says, holding up a finger. “Now that you’re dating Ben, I am, as you put it, a lonely ass.” Beverly laughs and then pulls him along, trying to appease her friend. And it’s not like she was wrong, Eddie just didn’t like to admit she was right. Because she tended to get smug when she was right and that was almost all the time. He already had to put up with it on a daily basis, he would rather it didn’t double on this godforsaken holiday. Or: It's Valentine's Day and Eddie is single.

❧  Illegal Moves by @northwindscookie | T | 1/1 Pizza plus beer plus our two favorite gay dumbasses equals a recipe for a Reddie's Valentine's Day. 

Bill Denbrough/Ben Hanscom

❧  butterflies and storms and ooey-gooey feelings by @lo-v-ers | T | 1/1 Ben Hanscom is the human definition of sunshine weaved into a warm heart and a generous soul and everything good that a person could possibly be. They met in their English 101 class freshman year, and they just clicked, and Bill has never felt as understood as he did when Ben looked him in the eyes and smiled and nodded and spoke with wisdom that an eighteen year old shouldn’t have. (Ben looks at Bill and sees the stars, glimmering and beautiful and breathtaking. He looks when Bill isn’t looking and he smiles and feels his heart flutter with joy and something else, but Bill doesn’t know that.) (At least, he doesn’t know it yet.)

Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier

❧  head in the clouds but my gravity's centered by @queermccoy | G | 1/1 “There’s a situation,” he tells Eddie, who is sitting at his desk surrounded by textbooks and yellow legal pads filled with drawings of complex chemical and Matchbox 20 lyrics. “What is it?” Eddie asks, dropping his pen and turning in his rickety chair. There’s an edge of panic in his tone, like he isn’t there yet but could be in no time at all. “Mike Hanlon asked me to go see a movie!” Richie practically yells, hands in the air. He’s still huffing and puffing from running through campus and up the stairs. “So?” Eddie blinks, “We see movies with Mikey all the time. How is that a situation?” “Because he asked me to go out on Valentine’s Day!” Richie says and falls on his bed dramatically.

Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧ making out is hard to do by winkyjinki | T | 1/1 With Valentine's Day coming up, Stanley Uris faces his biggest challenge since defeating an evil clown: getting his first kiss. 

❧ The Truth Is That I Think I've Had Enough by @reddie4thesinbin | E | 1/1 For the first time since Stan developed feelings for his best friend, Richie was finally single on Valentine’s Day, and Stan was fully planning on taking advantage of it. He invited Richie on a camping trip, just wanting one night where he could pretend, but Richie had different plans. 

❧  Moon Secrets by @the-ben-handsome | T | 1/1 When it gets to be a certain hour of the night is when everything gets all weird; truth or dare reveals secrets shared under the moonlight. 

Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris 

❧  The Bluejay In The Corner by  @adore-affection | T | 1/? He couldn’t keep it in any longer, but he couldn’t just tell someone, it was too dangerous. When he got up to his room he pulled out a thick page of blue stationery and began to write. 

❧ Reasons Why I Want To Fuck My Student's Brother by @aleckisverygay​ | Not rated  | 4/4 When Richie and Stanley find themselves hard-pressed for money, they decide to go job hunting in order to afford their bills and keep from being thrown onto the street in the middle of January. Little does Stanley know, a tutoring job quickly turns to something more when he meets Bill Denbrough, his student’s charming brother. Shenanigans ensue, Stanley has a sexual awakening and Georgie is hell-bent on hooking his brother up with the cute tutor.

Who knew a story about rampant libidos could be so emotionally fulfilling and have, like, meaning?

Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris

❧  Happiness and Love Revolve Around You by CoolestLemon | M | 1/1 A cute little peek into Mike and Stan's relationship, especially as they try to buy their dream home. 

Beverly Marsh/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris

❧  Our Man-At-Arms by SevlinRipley | T | 1/1 Beverly is often the one to pull the trigger. 

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 7

Stars Like Fleas

The summer rolls on in a very peculiar way, with masks and zoom calls and brief, furtive trips to the grocery and the growing realization that normal is months, if not years, away.  Even so, the music remains excellent. Thank god it’s downloadable and accessible even in these strange days we inhabit. Here writers including Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Justin Cober-Lake and Ray Garraty consider improvised drone, precocious alt.country, experimental banjo tunes, rap metal and jazz.  Enjoy.

75 Dollar Bill — Live at Café Oto (75 Dollar Bill’s Social Music series)

Live at Cafe OTO by 75 Dollar Bill

Before 75 Dollar Bill put out those widely revered LPs for Thin Wrist records, Che Chen and Rick Brown made a series of tapes. You could pick them up at shows, packaged in a clamshell case with a business card advertising their services. 2020 is a plague year, so it’s going to be a while before anyone hires them for another party or a parade, but this download-only release fulfills similar functions. It captures the band at a particular moment in time, and it gives you a chance to throw a few bucks their way. Do so and you probably won’t be sorry, because the late 2019 tour documented by Live at Café Oto was unique in 75 Dollar Bill’s history. Chen and Brown did the whole run of shows with double bassist Andrew Lafkas, but they also did nearly all of them without essential gear. It wasn’t until near the end, when they played in England, that Brown was reunited with the big wooden box that is his main percussive instrument. Spread across three sets, this three-hour long album shows how swell they sound when they’ve got a committed agent of swing adding his subtle shift to their Bo Diddley meets Mauritanian wedding music groove. If you know I Was Real, you’ll recognize many of these tunes, and you’ll likely appreciate the differences that 75 Dollar Bill works and reworks upon them.

Bill Meyer

  Bandgang Lonnie Bands \ Bandgang Javar – The Scamily (TF Entertainment \ Empire)

After Bandgang broke up, Lonnie Bands made a successful solo career. His only misfortune, apart from a murder rap prosecutors tried to stick him with, was that he picked up a no-talent partner Javar. Here, surrounded by aggressive but undistinguished artists Mascoe and Paid Will, Lonnie hasn’t learned lesson. Thankfully, Javar makes his presence on The Scamily scarce, and the second half is basically Lonnie’s solo effort with some guests. As usual, Lonnie makes himself busy in illegal activities: drugs, scams, pimping, firearms. He neatly sums up his bad deeds on “Me Too”: “You on that bullshit? Me too.” The Scamily is not that focused as last year’s KOD but Lonnie, with his slick rhyming and catchy hooks, always reinvents a bad man’s lexicon.

Ray Garraty

 Sammy Brue — Crash Test Kid (New West)

Sammy Brue is no longer quite the wunderkind he was when he released his first full-length at 15, but he is still quite impressive here on the follow-up, hitching the spit and fire and wordy angst of, say, Ezra Furman, to the downhome pyrotechnics of Bob Log III. “Teenage Mayhem” explodes with teenage aggression, building out a twitchy blues riff into a monumental rock chorus, while “Crash Test Kid,” is softer sonically, but just as unflinching in its narrative. “Skatepark Doomsday Blues” is epic and grandiose but carries it off, infusing an old man’s blues progressions with the eruptive feelings of young manhood. All the signs point towards Brue growing into his art. He’s already channeling raw emotion into sharp song structures and lyrics without sacrificing their force. It’s a drag getting old, but it doesn’t have to be a step back.

Jennifer Kelly

 John Butcher — On Being Observed (Weight of Wax)

On Being Observed by John Butcher

English saxophonist John Butcher has a deep and diverse discography, much of it on CD. Since the standard of his playing is so high, and the settings and accompanists he selects so diverse, they’ve never been merely about documentation; you’d have to look hard to find a dud on the shelves. But as format preferences, economic shifts, and that damned virus turn everything upside down, Butcher has, like everyone else, found himself suddenly with plenty of time to comb through the hard drives and reassess the music stored there. And since CD manufacturing and distribution has been snarled up worldwide, what better time to transfer some of it straight to yours? On Being Observed comprises six solo performances recorded between 2000 and 2006, and you could not ask for a better introduction to what he does on his own. It features him in the studio, at a jazz festival, and in some unusual acoustic environments which afford a number of ways to understand what it means to read the room. Whether he’s playing to an audience or a 20 second delay in a dis-used gas storage facility, acoustically or amplified, using a soprano or tenor sax, Butcher’s tone is unmistakable, and his sense of how long to develop ideas and how to develop them is peerless.

Bill Meyer.

 Carling & Will — Soon Comes Night (self-released)

Carling & Will (banjo player Carling Berkhout and multi-instrumentalist William Seeders Mosheim) have spent the last few years working out new twists on old-time music. Their debut album Soon Comes Night takes another a step forward from their previous, more traditional sound. Much of the album relies on the interplay of banjo and electric guitar. The pair don't go for outre sounds, but Mosheim provides textures for Berkhout's banjo playing. “Lillie's Lullaby” offers a highlight, not only in its prettiness, but in its revelation of Berkhout's idiosyncracies as she shifts in and out of more typical patterns. The album in itself makes for a lovely collection of songs, but it has both the ups and downs of an act starting to find itself. Carling & Will have a distinct voice, and the more they work to develop that (probably by letting Berkhout get odder and Mosheim explore his voicings a little), the more impressive they'll become. If the pair decides to just focus on smaller updates to mountain music, they've already shown a worthy artistry in that.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Cloud Rat — “Faster” (Self-released)

Faster by Cloud Rat

Like a lot of us, the folks in Cloud Rat have been cooped up behind walls, watching the world burn. But that hasn’t stopped them from making some terrific music. This new track, “Faster,” has been posted to Bandcamp as a benefit for Black Lives Matter-aligned organizations. The song is somewhat in the mode of their most recent EP, Do Not Let Me off the Cliff (2019). That record traded in the band’s characteristic grindpunk intensities for some weirdo experiments in dreampop, noise and gauzy gothic nightmare soundtracks. “Faster” isn’t quite as far out there, and longtime listeners of the band will recognize some of the textures of tracks like “Moksha,” “Raccoon” and “Luminescent Cellar.” The song starts and ends with some lovely acoustic finger-picking by guest musician Andy Gibbs of Thou. In between, there are clean vocals by Madison Marshall that border on the ethereal, and electric riffs that build and build toward majestic heights. Good cause, great tune.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Drakeo the Ruler – Thank You for Using GTL (Stinc Team)

Recorded through a phone line from prison, with beats later provided by JoogSZN, Thank You For Using GTL right after its release was named best prison album since Penitentiary Chances, by now classic joint effort by C-Murder (still incarcerated) and Boosie Badazz (now free). It was too strong a claim to be true. On that duo’s album you can hear a sense of doom hanging over them. When all hope is lost, there is only a prayer, and even that can get lost on its way to God. There was no tomorrow. Drakeo the Ruler, on the other hand, raps like there is tomorrow. Even rough sound of voice recording and “This call is being recorded” tags are more like a necessary sound effect and a gimmick rather than an effect of reality (he couldn’t do it any other way). Strip this tape of all these effects, and you end up with an ordinary rap album, exactly like others released by dozens every week. Maybe there is no reason to thank GTL. It did us a disservice.

Ray Garraty

 Holy Hive — Float Back to You (Big Crown)

These super laid back funk soul cuts stay well inside the pocket, except when they veer unexpectedly into indie-folk. The funk parts come from one-time Dap King Homer Steinweiss, whose loose but transcendent way with a groove can be best heard on “Hypnosis.” Paul Spring, the singer, brings in the psychedelic falsetto, more Justin Vernon than Curtis Mayfield, but still radiant and chilling. The title track plays like a lost 78 soul classic, Spring’s mournful melody wafting skyward as big loopy bass notes and splayed jazz guitar chords drop into a slink and strut of snare drum. That’s maybe what you’d expect from Steinweiss’ Brooklyn soul revivalist resume, but elsewhere, there are surprises. “Red Is the Rose” sounds like Tunng, all space-bopped folk magic and electro-pinging drums, and “Be Thou By My Side” is lattice-picked folk without the slightest hint of syncopation. Both sides of Holy Hive have their sweetness, but only the funk stuff buries a stinger.

Jennifer Kelly    

 Dustin Laurenzi’s Snaketime — Behold (Astral Spirits)

Behold by Dustin Laurenzi

Here’s an irony for you. Composer Louis Hardin, whose habit of dressing up like a Viking and hawking his wares on the streets of mid-20th century NYC turned him into a bona fide attraction, may have conversed with jazz musicians, and shared a record label or two with them. But he didn’t really like jazz. Nonetheless, jazz musicians liked his music back, and they still do. The melodies are graceful, but malleable, and the Bach-meets-powwow rhythms have plenty of productive implications for a percussionist willing to work between the lines. After years of study Chicago-based tenor saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi formed Snaketime, a project named after one of the composer’s rhythmic notions, that turned seven of his compatriots loose upon the Moondog book. Maybe loose isn’t quite the right word, since Laurenzi’s arrangements show deep respect for the original melodies and their exotic vibe. But there’s not a lot of music that can’t be made a bit better when you ask bass clarinetist Jason Stein to improvise from its foundations. This half-hour long tape adds four tunes to the seven on last year’s excellent LP Snaketime: The Music of Moondog, and any one of them could have made the cut if Laurenzi had been given enough rope to make a it a double album in the first place.

Bill Meyer  

 MachineGum — Conduit (Frenchkiss)

Like its Pepto-Bismol-pink cover, these songs seem a bit over-sweet and undernourishing at first, but damned if their synth and disco and art-rock grooves didn’t start to catch on after a few listens. The project, launched in New York City with the mysterious appearance of pink gum machines, is not what you’d expect from a Strokes offshoot, but give Fabrizio Moretti credit for branching out. Here tight, “O Please”’s sleek, wah-wah’d guitars and fat-fingered bass throws off a funk shimmy, but soft, dream-y choruses add an element of electro-pop introspection. “Act of Contrition,” by contrast, swells and swirls with gothy new wave drama, but also vibrates with indie earnestness; it’s like the National playing a New Order cover. If you’d told me a month ago, that I’d be enjoying a super clean, super precise synth-dance album by a member of the Strokes, I’d have laughed, but here we are.

Jennifer Kelly

 Phosphene — Lotus Eaters (Self-Release)

Lotus Eaters by Phosphene

Portland’s Phosphene drifts and drones in a satisfying vintage 4AD-ish way, the serene vocals of Rachel Frankel wafting out over intricate tangles of shoe-gazey guitars as Matthew Hemmerich pounds out motorik rhythms on the kit. This album, the band’s second, was written in the turbulent aftermath of the 2016 election, but it exudes a murky calm. In “Carousel,” for example, Frankel sings about how “everyone gets lost in their own power,” but the temperature remains cool, dream-like, lit by arcs of guitar sound and undergirded by a thudding mantra of bass (Kevin Kaw). The two singles run closest to pop. Bright, upbeat “Cocoon” is spiked with Spoon-ish piano chords, while “The Wave” damn near bubbles with girl pop exuberance. I can see why they’re leaning on those cuts, but I like the cloudy radiance of “Seven Ways,” the morose moods of “The Body” better.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sara Schoenbeck / Wayne Horvitz — Cell Walk (Songlines)

Cell Walk by Wayne Horvitz/Sara Schoenbeck

Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck and pianist Wayne Horvitz built to their first duo release slowly. They've been playing together since the previous decade in Horvitz's Gravitas Quartet, working together in various styles. The bassoon doesn't necessarily lend itself to jazz, but Schoenbeck's experience with artists like Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton — as well as in various orchestras and symphonies — has revealed her fluency in different languages. Horvitz and Schoenbeck develop that approach on Cell Walk, mixing composed and improvised tracks, moving from jazz to classical and back again, happily residing in a new music space. The pair's chamber background comes to the fore more than anything else, but the artists' experimental ideas and Horvitz's occasional electronics keep the duo moving forward. The album mostly stays cool, although a few tempo shifts and Schoenbeck's varied tone create unexpected energy any time the disc starts to settle. Schoenbeck and Horvitz fill an unlikely niche, but they also make a good case for expanding it.

Justin Cober-Lake

  R.E. Seraphin — Tiny Shapes (Paisley Shirt)

Tiny Shapes by R.E. Seraphin

Ray Seraphin makes sweet, sharp songs out of guitar jangle and whispers that seem to nestle right in your ear. His first cassette under his own name after a stint in the slightly more abrasive Talkies kicks up a power pop dust and haze a la Luna or, more recently, Plates of Cake. Like these bands, however, he envelops smart, coiling melodies and wild spiralling guitar hijinks in daydreaming inchoate jangles. In “Streetlight,” Seraphin vamps and caroms in spike-y mid-temperature anthemry, crooning “And I won’t feel a thing,” and indeed there’s a misty, nostalgic remove around most of this album’s emotional content. Yet there’s also a classic pop shape that can’t quite be obscured by muttered, offhand delivery. “Fortuna” is the best bit, to my ears, a summer radio megahit heard from several rooms away, bittersweet and slipping away even as it plays.

Jennifer Kelly

 Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) (self released)

DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO (Amsterdam) by Stars Like Fleas

New York collective Stars Like Fleas are still gone, but the tracers and streamers left in the air by their passing continue to be entrancing. Whatever collapsed in the wake of their work on the follow up to their epochal LP The Ken Burns Effect can perhaps be glimpsed a little in the bulk of this first (and hopefully not last) release from what they describe as “a huge archive of live and session material.” As the title indicates, six of the 11 tracks here come from a radio session they did during their final tour (coming apart and leaving the final album unfinished upon their return to America). Along with a couple of Ken Burns highlights that session is all new material and it is as rich as anything they released during their lifetime. The collection is rounded out with some brief improvisations and another track intended for the final album, the 7” single “End Times”, and a wonderful performance of “Falstaff” from a Toronto show. Perversely and beautifully enough, the result is not only a must listen for fans of the group, it makes an excellent introduction for anyone who missed them the first time. Bring on the archives!  

Ian Mathers  

 Thecodontion — Supercontinent (I, Voidhanger)

Supercontinent by Thecodontion

 A death metal band entirely devoted to songs about ancient, paleolithic lifeforms and geological history? It’s not the most harebrained musical concept you may have heard — it even makes a sort of sense. What better musical genre to address such massive, atavistic and lumbering forms? Supercontinent is the Italian duo’s first LP, following 2019’s Jurassic EP. As its title suggests, this new Thecodontion record goes way, way back, to primal landforms, before continental drift assembled the earthball’s map into its current shape. Appropriately, the longest track on Supercontinent is “Pangaea,” named for the unimaginably huge late Paleozoic landmass. Thecodontion’s featured instrument is Giuseppe D’Adiutorio’s bass, which he variously thrums, hammers and shreds. He gets some pretty amazing sounds out of it, sometimes producing the soaring, moaning, keening sounds that Greg Lake coaxed out of his bass on the early King Crimson recordings. The proggy reference is pointed; Thecodontion’s high concept project smacks of prog’s grandiosity. But where prog shoots for the heavens, Thecodontion goes bone hunting. It’s interesting work.  

Jonathan Shaw

 Various Artists — Building A Better Reality: A Benefit Compilation (JMY)

Building A Better Reality : A Benefit Compilation by Various Artists

As Bandcamp’s choice to waive its portion of transaction proceeds in favor or certain needs and causes has evolved from an occasional to a monthly event, releases have started to appear which take advantage of both the event and the rapidity of production when no physical objects are being produced. George Floyd died under a policeman’s knee on May 25; this compilation was released just 24 days later, on Juneteenth. Brent Gutzeit of TV Pow secured 106 contributions from friends, friends of friends, and customers of friends — and that’s just the parties that this writer recognizes. They range in length from Kendraplex’s 58 seconds of metallic shredding to Joshua Abrams’ half hour of mournful clarinet and cathartic double bass. You’ll find acoustic protest music, swinging jazz, harsh noise, hip-hop, and a sound collage that includes sounds of protest and mourning. The participants include Simon Joyner, Jsun Borne, I Kong Kult, Jesse Goin, Chris Brokaw, AZITA, Keith Fullerton Whitman, and the Jeb Bishop Trio, along with many, many more. Have I listened to them all yet? Of course not! But the thing with a set like this is that you don’t need to. Put it into your shuffle play and it’ll yield surprises for years to come. Income goes to Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense Fund. and the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

Bill Meyer

 Michael Vincent Waller — A Song (Longform Editions)

A Song by Michael Vincent Waller

At first listen, you might not guess that composer Michael Vincent Waller’s new EP/song A Song is an improvised piece, and as the surrounding material on Bandcamp makes clear, that’s kind of part of the point. Composition vs. improvisation is the kind of duality where both sides are never really distinct, and Waller is both interested in the history of composers improvising and (possibly naturally) improvises in a way that’s not a million miles away from his compositions. Which also means that just on that first listen the 21 minutes of solo piano found here are frequently beautiful, whether patiently probing a set of arpeggios or momentarily going somewhere a bit darker and deeper near the end. Whether considered as work done around or between more composed ones or in its own right, A Song makes for both a fine follow up to Waller’s 2019 collection Moments and a brief thesis on the always permeable boundary between two methods of creation.  

Ian Mathers

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Bellator NYC: A Night of Prospects and Promise

Bellator's New York City pay-per-view promised a lot. There was nostalgia for the lapsed fan, new prospects for the hardcore fan, and title fights for those enjoying the blossoming of Bellator's welterweight and light heavyweight divisions. Of course, it is hard to please everyone and Bellator's ambitious card had a lot to live up to. What followed was one of the strangest nights in the company's history.

The Old Timers

The main event and the co-main event were the least compelling match ups for most heading into this pay-per-view. But as has been Bellator's motto since Tito Ortiz versus Stephan Bonnar proved a surprising success: the old men put asses in seats. Fedor Emelianenko was matched against the first top heavyweight he had fought since 2011 and it ended in a quick and ugly fashion, with The Last Emperor stiff on the mat. It did, however, provide a double knockdown. Extremely rare in boxing, they are far less rare in MMA when both fights lunge in to hit each other, each with their guarding hand down by their waist.

Chael Sonnen easily took a decision over Wanderlei Silva in the main event by way of takedowns. The first round was vintage Sonnen in his best days as he came out with an awkward kick to the lead leg, timed his shot perfectly under Silva's windmilling, and drove through to complete the takedown.

Stacking Silva's guard up against the fence, Sonnen brought the pace that he so famously demonstrated against Nate Marquardt and Anderson Silva, pounding Wanderlei Silva relentlessly. The second and third rounds were equally lopsided but consisted mainly of top control, with none of the effective hitting of the first round.

Wanderlei Silva's takedown defence looked startlingly bad, and in the second round consisted of grabbing an arm in guillotine, pulling Sonnen into closed guard, and holding it for about half the round.

In the aftermath, many fans questioned whether Silva's wrestling was always 'this bad'. This links back to a popular criticism of PRIDE FC's handling of Silva. To many fans it appeared that if you held Wanderlei Silva down you would be stood up for stalling and given a yellow card. Silva did stop the takedowns of Kazushi Sakuraba over three fights, and fought both Quinton Jackson and Dan Henderson twice, but his striking style has always been that of going forward swinging. He never learned to limit his opponent's chances with distance management and footwork as Anderson Silva and later effective strikers did. Walking straight at Sonnen in his squared stance, straight legged and making wide swings, he just in a position where he could stuff the takedowns of a wrestler of Sonnen's ability who matched up with him in size.

The Up and Comers

The real winners of the Bellator NYC and Bellator 180 cards were the up and coming talent. While Aaron Pico got off to a rough start in his MMA career, notching just twenty seconds of cage experience during his MMA debut, the card's other prospects turned heads. Accomplished professional boxer, Heather Hardy, made her MMA debut against an experienced opponent and looked good doing it. Hardy is not a slick boxer, but a scrappy one with a few good counters, which she used to take a stoppage late in the third round after two previous periods of one-way traffic. The story of the fight was Hardy's well-timed right hand. Using her head as bait she drew out jabs and utilized that king of knockout punches, the classical cross counter, arcing a right hand across the top of the jab.

Hardy mixed this in with some awkward kicks and the odd wide right to the body.

And throughout the fight side stepped to the left and right, with her hands low, attempting to draw punches from her opponent in order to wing that right hand across the top again.

Hardy didn't look like a world-beater, but she fought an experienced opponent and controlled the fight well, applying her existing expertise in a new arena.

The welterweight title fight between former UFC contender Lorenz Larkin and incumbent Bellator champion, Douglas Lima was not quite the firefight most had hoped for, but a thoughtful, technical showing from both with Lima coming out with the victory. Lima, a long serving Bellator fighter, proved himself the equal of Larkin, a world class welterweight in the UFC's division, and with the addition of Rory MacDonald to the Bellator welterweight division the holder of that belt is going to start looking like a legitimate alter rex.

One interesting look that Larkin showed throughout the fight was using his left hand to reach across and check Lima's own left hand. Lima is famous for his crisp left hook, with which he beat Paul Daley to the punch. Larkin seemed to stifle it a good amount—encouraging Lima to throw his less dexterous and often loopy right hand. Bernard Hopkins used this method from time to time in his later career, using the lead hand, wrist and forearm to check his opponent's lead, while his lead shoulder protected him from the right hand. Wlad Klitschko also showed a similar cross handed check against Anthony Joshua.

It was when Larkin opened up with strikes that he left Lima's left hand unobstructed and the best shot of the fight landed.

But the stand out performer of the night, in this writer's opinion, was Straight Blast Gym's James Gallagher. In a compelling match up of up-and-comers, Gallagher—the grappling savant with much room for improvement in his striking—met Chinzo Machida. Machida is a fighter we have covered numerous times and whose striking arsenal is one of the most interesting in MMA, despite his lacking in other areas of the game. If Gallagher had come out throwing naked right low kicks as he normally does, he probably would have eaten that famous reverse punch counter. But Gallagher used feints, pressure, and the fence to keep Chinzo from throwing anything meaningful. With his back to the cage, Machida could not commit to his kicks, and the usual exaggerated distance he prefers to work in was reduced as Gallagher calmly feinted in towards him.

When Machida first lashed out with a punch, Gallagher countered with a right straight of his own. When Machida threw his favourite front snap kick, Gallagher parried it across the karateka and shot in on him in his disadvantaged position.

From there it was all Gallagher as he effortlessly moved to his man's back and secured the choke.

Overall Bellator NYC was an entertaining night of fights which provided a few surprises and some names to keep an eye on. Whether this event will prove the watershed that many fans hoped for, marking Bellator's entrance to the main stage of MMA and into the UFC's limelight, remains to be seen.

Bellator NYC: A Night of Prospects and Promise published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv