#maya christian
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unwrittenemmy · 1 year ago
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Day two hundred and twenty-two of posting every six queen
Maya Christian as Anna of Cleves
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six-costume-refs · 2 years ago
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Since you answered that dream cast question (which A+ I love it except I also propose Eva as Cleves alt which would be very wild and good), I thought I might mention another fun casting game I like to play from time to time- have you ever considered a cast where the queens were played by women who are the same age as the queens were in the rhyme? So like Aragon played by an actress who is the age Aragon was when Henry divorced her, etc. it makes for some fun options.
Hey! Really like this one! We have some contradictory historical records on how old the queens were, so I’m going with Aragon 50, Boleyn 29/35, Seymour 28/29, Cleves 24/25, Howard 16-21, and Parr 30/31.
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Aragon: Maia Nkenge Wilson (48) Boleyn: Loren Lott (30). Also really liked Courtnee Carter who should be about 29, but couldn’t confirm. Seymour: Vanessa Magula (28) Cleves: Veronica Otim (24/25) Howard: Samantha Rios (21). I also really liked Israeljah Reign and Kendyl Sayuri Yokoyama, who both should be about 21/22, but I couldn’t confirm their ages. Parr: Ari Afsar (31)
Aragon/Parr: Krysta Rodriguez (38)
Boleyn/Seymour: Julia Harriman (30)
Cleves/Howard: Brianna Stoute (24)
And just for fun....I also ran some numbers on which Six actors would be closest to the real life age of each queen. I prioritized actors who are currently in the show and currently principals. If there were multiple who fit that, I generally went for the actor who was the right age both currently and at debut. (Quick note: this was written a bit ago in advance of a few more recent cast announcements)
Aragon: No queens are anywhere near the age Aragon would have been, so I went with the closest, Chloe Hart (35).  Boleyn: Leandra Ellis-Gaston (29). Also could be Storm Lever (29 currently, but 28 at debut) Seymour: Kathryn Kilger (28) Cleves: Maya Christian: (24) Howard: Aubrey Matalon (21). Also could be Chelsea Dawson (22 currently, but 21 at debut) Parr: Taylor Iman Jones (30)  Alternates: Aragon/Boleyn: Jennifer Caldwell (35) Seymour/Parr: Multiple options here! Shannen Quan (29), Kelsee Kimmel (28) OR Kristina Leopold (28). All current and fit the criteria well so I didn’t narrow it down beyond that. Cleves/Howard: Harriet Caplan-Dean (23)
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sixcostumerefs · 2 years ago
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I remember Maya Christian talking about having auditioned for a few roles during a Q and A. Does anyone remember where that was or know if it’s in highlights somewhere?
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tinyfireperson · 2 months ago
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I am Randa from Gaza, I am 21 years old, my family and I consist of 6 people, I was studying accounting at my university and my brother Zidane and I lost our university, and I was happy with my life until October 7, we moved to the south with difficulty, me and my family, walking on foot, it is impossible to forget this day, it is engraved in my memory, the bombing was over our heads and we were just people, we just wanted safety, and when we arrived in the south, unfortunately our life was very difficult, we lived the winter and summer in the south, the two seasons are more difficult than each other, in the winter we do not sleep from the bitter cold, and in the summer we do not sleep from the heat of the tents and the difficulty of transportation and obtaining water, no safety, no cleanliness, I lost my home, I lost my university, I lost my friends, I am very tired, I want help and to have a safe and clean life, please help me, my family and I are in danger, we want safety, I am tired of this life, bombing, destruction, starvation, high cost of living, I want a safe life, all of you are able to help me towards a better life and complete my educational path, please do not leave us alone, we love life, I want peace
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lagraisselesbienne · 8 months ago
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via instagram
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kchayes54 · 5 months ago
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I am ordained in my church but I do not work in the church. I work as a healthcare chaplain providing spiritual support to people of all faiths and no faiths. However, I do volunteer preaching/helping with services at my church.
We are doing a gender affirming pride month service on Saturday and we were invited to wear rainbow stoles. However, I do not have a rainbow stole. So, despite never having hand sewed an entire project in my life, I decided to make a rainbow stole by hand sewing because I do not own a sewing machine.
I love so much how it turned out! And it's reversible. 🤩😍🤩😍🤩😍
I'm Ace so I added an @mayakern ace butterfly pin to each side. 💜
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smalltownrobin · 2 months ago
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The amount of Robin set pics we got today... holy shit
First of all ROBIN AND LUCAS??? PLATONIC BUCKLAIR??? IS REAL???
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Then we have the finest woman in the universe
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Crying my eyes out at the giant fucking bruise on her face who gave her that I want names
Finally Maya took her bf and her dog to set and I'm feeling sensitive cos they're so sweet
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There's literally more pics like we've been BLESSED the Robin Buckley stans keep on winning
Oh and we have yet another video of her in that hospital corridor except we can actually see her this time (and no Vickie... if Vickie was there the first time)
So yeah... busy day
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tinyfireperson · 2 months ago
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I am Randa from Gaza, I am 21 years old, my family and I consist of 6 people, I was studying accounting at my university and my brother Zidane and I lost our university, and I was happy with my life until October 7, we moved to the south with difficulty, me and my family, walking on foot, it is impossible to forget this day, it is engraved in my memory, the bombing was over our heads and we were just people, we just wanted safety, and when we arrived in the south, unfortunately our life was very difficult, we lived the winter and summer in the south, the two seasons are more difficult than each other, in the winter we do not sleep from the bitter cold, and in the summer we do not sleep from the heat of the tents and the difficulty of transportation and obtaining water, no safety, no cleanliness, I lost my home, I lost my university, I lost my friends, I am very tired, I want help and to have a safe and clean life, please help me, my family and I are in danger, we want safety, I am tired of this life, bombing, destruction, starvation, high cost of living, I want a safe life, all of you are able to help me towards a better life and complete my educational path, please do not leave us alone, we love
#https://gofund.me/725d8fe3
#Please help 🙏
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surra-de-bunda · 1 year ago
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Dior Dance for Life to Benefit the Aaliyah Memorial Fund, a Program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation photographed by Donato Sardella (August 2003).
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smalltownrobin · 2 months ago
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We got so much Robin set content today but this one of Maya holding her dog while the production staff covers her bf more than her is sending me
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Two pixels but that's my family
orig.
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jamming24 · 9 months ago
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We need a leverage x Mr and mrs smith crossover now that they’re both on Amazon
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New Christian/Satine Moulin Rouge! fic alert!
if you saw the scars and heard all the ugly parts, would you still want me? (how it haunts me)
The Duke destroys something very important to Satine, something she thought she’d be able to keep safe forever. It takes Satine’s friends and Christian to help her pick up the pieces and put herself back together again.
Read it now on AO3!
HAPPY (now late) BIRTHDAY, @ashleyslorens !!!!!!!!!! I wrote you a longer thing in the fic dedication but I hope you had a great day and you enjoy your gift fic!!! Thank you for the idea (hopefully you have as much fun reading it as I am writing it) and there are more chapters to come :)
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dustedmagazine · 2 months ago
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Dust, Volume 10, Number 8
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Orcas (not Oasis)
Welcome to our all-Oasis edition of Dust!
Just kidding. We slog through August bemused by the excitement over big ticket tours, though we will, if pressed, admit to a fondness for “Wonderwall,” a song often sung jubiliantly by someone we love on the way to track meets and XC ski practice and theater rehearsal years ago (though not as many years ago as it first emerged).
Anyway, we once again trawl the slush pile for the good stuff, opine briefly on its merits and share it with you. We’re sure you’ll find out what the Gallagher brothers are up to from other sources.
This month’s contributors included Bryon Hayes, Ian Mathers, Jonathan Shaw, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Mason Jones and Christian Carey.
Ark Zead — Niptaktuk (Glacial Movements)
The Italian label Glacial Movements specializes in music that’s chilled, immense and slow, just like its namesake. Niptaktuk continues this icy throughline, offering a series of highly resonant, frost-tinged drone passages. The creator, of which no information is known, sourced these textures from gongs and singing bowls, stretching the frequencies into lengthy, subtly shifting tone clouds. They cleverly balance lighter shades against darker hues, layering pre-dawn shimmer over sub-sonic bass pulses. The delicate patter of scraped and stroked metal adds a sense of the real to these otherwise uncanny soundscapes. Ark Zead drew influence from the cold northern Canadian winter when they created these sounds, yet the experience of listening doesn’t evoke frostbite or blinding blizzards. Instead Niptaktuk, which is an Inuit word that implies oncoming clear skies, is a remedy against frostiness, a kernel of warmth that seeks to melt the winter ice. 
Bryon Hayes
The Body & Dis Fig — Orchards of a Futile Heaven (Thrill Jockey)
At this point, at least going by actual releases, surely there are no greater collaborators in heavy music (in all its forms) than The Body. In addition to their stellar work as “just” a duo, Chip King and Lee Buford have at this point collaborated with a real murderers’ row of bands and artists, and those albums absolutely refuse to stick to any particular formula. That they’d work with Dis Fig (aka Felicia Chen), who’s made an excellent, emotionally/sonically challenging record called Purge and sang on a full length by The Bug, makes perfect sense. The result, as with many “The Body &” LPs, is so seamlessly satisfying you’d think this was everyone involved’s main gig. The thunderous drums, harsh noise, and King’s peerless shrieks are all present, and Chen gives a hell of a lead vocal performance to centre it all. The closing one-two punch of “Coils of Kaa”/“Back to the Water” is one of the best endings any 2024 is going to get, Chen wailing in rage and despair as the music collapses buildings around her.
Ian Mathers
Demiser — Slave to the Scythe (Blacklight Media/Metal Blade)
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Retrograde throwback thrash isn’t exactly a growth area in metal, or a particularly enlightened undertaking, culturally speaking. But dudes in denim and bullet-lined bandoliers don’t make records like Slave to the Scythe because they foresee mass-market opportunity or stadiums full of fans in the immediate future. Mostly they don’t see much future at all. Demiser seems to share those perspectives — live fast, die faster, have as much fun as possible in the brief and weird interregnum. Is Slave to the Scythe fun? Depends on your sense of humor, and your tolerance for metal’s more reductive shenanigans. The fellows in the band have given themselves stage names like Gravepisser (he plays guitar) and Infestor (he drums), and they have supplied us with the sublime song title “Hell Is Full of Fire”; no points for innovation, but maximum points for unconquerably up-for-it idiocy. Motörhead seems as significant to Demiser as early Exodus and Kreator (especially the genius of Pleasure to Kill). Sort of nice to hear a thrash record that’s more interested in the riffs than the solos. Sort of fun to play this record really, really loud. Sort of certain that doing so results in becoming materially stupider. That’s okay — it makes that aforementioned lack of a viable future a little less awful to contemplate.
Jonathan Shaw
Dummy — Free Energy (Trouble In Mind)
Dummy’s debut, Mandatory Enjoyment, lived up to its title; it was a record difficult not to appreciate. In her Dusted review, Jennifer Kelly praised it as “a listening experience that simultaneously braces and soothes, agitates and lulls.” Dummy’s second album, Free Energy,has a similar appeal, but knocks this listener off balance with its bizarre fixation on dated drum machines and backwards sounds that bring to mind the baggy indie-dance of the 1990s. You know the stuff: Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, Jesus Jones, Pop Will Eat Itself. There are some great songs here, such as “Nine Clean Nails,” but you have dig around amongst the misfires to find them. Dummy still have an ear for a good tune, so you can forgive their more questionable aesthetic decision-making.
Tim Clarke
“Father” John Misty — Greatish Hits: I Followed My Dreams and My Dreams Said to Crawl (Sub Pop)
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With streaming supplying abundant amounts of playlists, one might reasonably ask why a greatest hits compilation would be useful. Curation instead of algorithms. “Father” John Misty’s Greatish Hits presents the high points in his catalog, beginning with early songs“Real Love Baby” (2016) and “Nancy from Now On” (2012). It is by no means a chronological survey, nor is it front-loaded like so many collections and playlists. The popular “I Love You Honeybear” (2015) is saved for the penultimate track. The finale, “I Guess Time Just Makes Fools of Us All,”  is new. At eight and a half minutes long, it stretches out with saxophone, bongo, and electric piano solos interspersing bluesy pop vocals. Worth the wait - don’t skip ahead!
Christian Carey
Ben Felton A Lot (Island House)
Ben Felton lets the drones linger, layering sounds on top of sounds, like primary-toned transparencies on an overhead projector. You can spend this album watching the colors these tones make when the light shines through them, hitting one, two, three or more guitar/synth textures before getting to the other side. Complex yes, but peaceful, drowsy almost. One track called “A Foghorn or a Loudspeaker,” sounds like just that, an uneasy truce between natural serenity and amplified buzz and hiss. The space it lives in is large and echoey, a cathedral or, more likely, a vast underground cavern with water lapping at the walls. Occasionally, the electronic mode predominates as in the airy percolation of “What You Need.” Yet though the blippy motif is bright and uncorroded, it sits atop a woozy soup of tone; guitar notes crash in sporadically intimating a rustier, more industrial territory nearby. Felton comes from New York but now resides in more bucolic Carrboro, North Carolina. His soundscapes find a meeting place between folk-adjacent ambience and rougher, noisier music. The album gets more propulsive as it goes. Shaken-not-stirred “The Fifth Day,” turns a three-note upward lilting motif into something approaching rock anthemry. You can’t blame the sustained notes for hanging around. It’s nice here, and you want to stay.
Jennifer Kelly
Margarida Garcia And Manuel Mota—Domestic Scene (Feeding Tube) 
Upright electric bassist Margarida Garcia and electric guitarist Manuel Mota are part of Lisbon, Portugal’s experimental/improvisational music scene and have worked together with and without the participation of others on seven records besides Domestic Scene over the past decade. It is their first LP to be released in the USA, and there’s something poetic about that fact, because it feels like an echo of the work of one American musician — Loren Connors, and more specifically, 21st century Connors in solo mode. It shares his sparseness, boiled-down lyricism and willingness to disappear into a haze of noise. Since Garcia has associated with him at times, there’s definitely a shared aesthetic. However, these are not young copycats. Mota’s spare progressions proceed according to a different logic, purged of blues and baroque elements, guided by a north star of sequential consonance that adds up to quiet dissonance. And Garcia’s subdued, bow-born cries have an ability to compound, making the music thick with atmosphere, but still stingy with note counts. Play it late. 
Bill Meyer
Geneva Jacuzzi — Triple Fire (Dais)
Geneva has been making bedroom synth pop for years. On Triple Fire (named after her astrological sign), the production values tick upward, and several of the songs are club ready. “Laps of Luxury” is a case in point, with Geneva’s dulcet singing abetted by backing vocals, early digital synth sonics, and mechanized beats. “Scena Ballerina” recalls her early bedroom pop, with a taut riff and harmonic swerves. Trebly synths and out of the box percussion underscore an emotive vocal on “Take it or Leave it.” Geneva’s speechsong in “Art is Dangerous” and “Speed of Light” recalls Laurie Anderson’s 1980s work, while “Heart of Poison” has an art rock ambience that incorporates tenor saxophone and is rife with shimmering synths. “Rock and a Hard Place” is an aggressive example of dark wave electronica. The closer, “Yo-yo Boy” is an anthemic piece of minimal synth-pop that reminds listeners of Geneva’s roots while presenting memorable tunefulness. 
Christian Carey
Katatonic Silentio — Axis Of Light (Midnight Shift)
Axis Of Light by Katatonic Silentio
Italy-based Mariachiara Troianiello is a long-time DJ, and independent audio and ethnomusicology researcher at the University of San Marino. She also creates electronic music under the name Katatonic Silentio, and on Axis of Light explores a spatial dub, filled with palpating beats and flickering synthesizer sounds. The five tracks on this EP are all based on rhythmic frameworks that skitter and thud with a dark, night-time vibe for the most part. As the title indicates, opener “Drip in the Cave” is indeed subterranean in nature, with rubbery pads and liquid drums reverberating in tactile space. “Bridging the Gap” is lighter and bouncier, bubbling at a fast tempo and filled with electronic hoots and blips. The other pieces mix slow with fast, and machine-like rhythms with heartbeat-like pulses, all swirling in a warehouse ambience populated by ghostly static, quiet bells, or spooky, whistling tones. It’s all a neat combination of machine world and organic atmosphere, like a science-fiction world populated by real, messy people.
Mason Jones
Nicole Marxen — Thorns (Self-Release)
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Nicole Marxen puts an eerie shimmer over rough crescendos of metallic noise, keening in the ghostliest, most disembodied way amidst vibrating slabs of guitar sound. “Thorns,” the album’s spiritual center, floats a chilly line of vocal melody—think Beth Gibbons or Chelsea Wolfe—over a machine-like industrial beat. Fragility blooms in an apocalyptic afterworld. “The Executioner” is heavier, more ominous, slithering to life out of the flickering buzz of downed powerlines. A stolid march emerges soon, swaggering with drums, swelling with amp-frying volume. Marxen presides like a high priestess, unperturbed amid flares, fills and violence. Like Jarboe astride a Justin Broadrick wall of noise, she stakes her claim, with operatic trills and whispered confidences. Dramatic, large-scale stuff.
Jennifer Kelly
Magda Mayas’ Filamental — Ritual Mechanics (Relative Pitch)
Keyboardist Magda Mayas’ music has often evidenced expansive thinking, but it took the resources of a festival to first bring her large group Filamental together. Once convened, she took full advantage of her octet’s assembled potentialities for imagination and sound. Having had one such experience, Mayas wasn’t going to wait for a festival to marshal such a breadth of mindpower and material again, nor was she going to let the impediments to travel and gathering imposed by a world pandemic get in the way. So, she sent out an invitation to an invitation to Filamental’s members and turned their gathered input into two pieces that run a bout 20 minutes in length. Each sets small, contrasting gestures dancing atop a consonant surface of elongated, layered sonorities. Ritual Mechanics is not so much a drone piece as an expression of continuous, focused action, richly detailed and consistently focused.
Bill Meyer
Rob Mazurek — Milan (Clean Feed)
Rob Mazurek has been recording for nearly three decades and performing much longer. His methods encompass composition and improvisation using brass, electronics, voice, and other instruments. In any body of work so broad, there are themes, some more dominant than others. Milan is a successor to Rome, which together comprise a smaller trend that involves recording solo performances in Italian radio studios with nice pianos. Recorded nine years apart, they offer a measure of how Mazurek’s work has changed in that time. Instead of cornet, he plays concert and piccolo trumpets; sternly ceremonial vocalizing and fistfuls of percussion dropped purposefully into the piano assert a more explicitly ritual intent. And, perhaps reflecting the amount of work that Mazurek has done with Damon Locks of late, the electronics now include playback options, so that vocal and instrumental samples (Is that Sun Ra I hear in there? And maybe some Ocora ethnic recordings?) as well as beat patterns muscle their way through the sizzle and smash of the prepared piano. Explicitly conceived as a journey, it’s quite a trip. Mazurek’s ensemble work can be pretty widescreen, but Milan reminds us that he can be epic on his own.
Bill Meyer
Nadja — Jumper (momentarily records)
Out of the many, many records put out by ambient and/or doom metal duo Nadja, it’s truly rare to find one that doesn’t feature Aidan Baker’s guitar in one form or another. But on Jumper, originally released as a bit of an art object on cassette (the online cover art is a look at the contraption that the tape comes in), he restricts himself not just to their drum machine but to layering and processing one particular pattern from it. Leah Buckereff provides bass, a more typical entry in the credits of their release, but here the way the slowly accreting digital noise plays over and around its pulses and feedback gives the whole album a very distinct feeling. Despite the use of drum machine there’s almost no rhythm to the whole hour here (until a surprise right at the end that catches me off guard every time), instead the effect is one of meditative harshness. The result is absolutely industrial, like a factory that’s weirdly compelling to listen to.
Ian Mathers
Orcas — How to Color a Thousand Mistakes (Morr Music)
Orcas — Rafael Anton Irisarri and Benoît Pioulard — haven’t recorded together in a decade, but they have been abundantly busy with their own projects. How to Color a Thousand Mistakes is consistent with past Orcas recordings and also reflects the music they have made in the interim. “Wrong Way to Fall” stands out in both regards, with Pioulard’s husky vocals over shimmering electric guitar solos, synth riffs and minimally complicated, but driving, drums. “Riptide” is populated by a number of different synth parts against a terse countermelody in the guitar. “Swells” has a strong vocal performance, while vibrato and pitch bends in the synths and economical guitar parts make for a memorable arrangement. “Fare” covers all the bases, with Pioulard’s voice double-tracked in a soaring chorus alongside mellifluous electronics, emphatic guitars, and plenty of drum fills. The recording’s closer, “Umbra,” has an extended introduction with a bass melody and warm synths. Then tangy dissonance and glissandos abound in both voice and instruments. It epitomizes the atmospheric textures that Orcas seem able to summon at will.
Christian Carey
Oxygen Destroyer — Guardian of the Universe (Redefining Darkness)
Guardian of the Universe by Oxygen Destroyer
Guardian of the Universe is another slab of monster-movie-themed, death-metal-inflected thrash from Oxygen Destroyer. The Seattle-based band’s previous LP, Sinister Monstrosities Spawned by the Unfathomable Ignorance of Mankind (2021), expanded their long-standing kaiju theme to include colossal beasts from outside the canon of the Tojo Studios Godzilla movies. The new record shifts tactics, focusing exclusively on Gamera and the giant turtle’s films for one of Tojo’s competitors, Daiei Films. It’s hard to know how much the record will appeal to listeners for whom those inside-baseball kaiju references mean little to nothing. But if you’re down for songs that attempt to replicate the absurd pleasures of Gamera in flight — head and limbs retracted into its massive shell, which then spins and shoots sheets of sparks from the holes, natch — this may be the record for you. Guardian of the Universe is non-stop fireworks: crazy, thrashy riffs; maniacal flat-out sprints; dive-bombing guitar solos. Should we take any of it seriously? This reviewer won’t hold forth (again) on the cultural stakes of post-war kaiju films. If you know, you know. And mostly what matters here is the band’s complete conviction and the joys of the music’s excesses. In these dog days of summer, it’s exactly what some of us need.
Jonathan Shaw
Peel Dream Magazine — Rose Main Reading Room (Topshelf)
Rose Main Reading Room by Peel Dream Magazine
It’s been four years since I’ve checked in on Peel Dream Magazine, whose second album Agitpop Alterna I described in my Dust review as “just like early Stereolab, with occasional blasts of shoe-gazey guitar thrown in for good measure.” I missed PDM’s third album Pad, so this brings us to album number four, Rose Main Reading Room. There’s still plenty of Stereolab in the mix, especially in the Mary Hansen-style backing vocals, the Farfisa, and the squelchy synth sounds (see “Oblast”). But here there’s more of a lean towards the baroque pop of Sufjan Stevens circa Illinois, mainly thanks to the chunky glimmer of vibraphone and the spiraling flute lines, which really brighten up proceedings. This balance between droning indie-rock and tuneful pop is very pretty, with sufficient musical complexity to invite rewarding repeat listens.
Tim Clarke
Plastic Bubble — Circular Breathing EP (Garden Gate/Moon Control)
The Circular Breathing EP by Plastic Bubble
Here’s a slab of happy, giddy, psychedelic garage rock which, except for the 2024 release date, wouldn’t be out of place in the Elephant Six universe. Lexington, KY’s Matt Taylor and Elisa McCabe are the chief blowers of bubbles, spinning out rough but iridescent songs like “Recontextualize,” where a guitar vamp grinds but vocals drift in pop ideality, “ah, ah, ah,” indeed. A classic indie boy-girl vibe permeates these five songs, with McCabe especially fetching in “Bright Morning.” “Forever” pulls back on the guitar roar to uncover a jaunty, girl-group bounce, with sweet counterparts and harmonies weaving in and around McCabe’s part. The set closes with a banger, part Who, part Fountains of Wayne, and all the way infectious, “Anything and Everything.”
Jennifer Kelly
SUUNS — The Breaks (Joyful Noise)
The Breaks by SUUNS
Elusiveness characterized SUUNS’ last album, 2021’s The Witness. As I noted in my Dusted review, “There’s no denying that its elusive character is part of its charm, but there are stretches where it feels more evasive than elusive, stubbornly refusing to engage more directly.” On their new album, The Breaks, the Montreal band are more direct in terms of the sounds they’re employing, but more evasive when it comes to songwriting. The majority of contemporary pop music is based around heavily effected vocal melodies and beats, which The Breaks seems to take as a cue towards similar immediacy. However, aside from the title track, the nagging piano of “Road Signs and Meanings,” and the loping stomp of opener “Vanishing Point,” this record is a tough nut to crack.
Tim Clarke
Tatsongs — Bushcraft (Self-Release)
Bushcraft by tat songs
Tatsongs are neither tat, nor really songs. The former implies fussy decoration, and these long, glacially evolving pieces seem as raw and elemental as rock formations. You can almost hear an icy wind blowing through their sheered off contours. The latter argues for a Pavlov’s buzzer of pleasing tone arrangements, and Tatsongs’ Tom Sadler is really not concerned whether you can guess then next 10 seconds of his compositions from the preceding 20. But even so, there’s something to be said for looming, sheeny layers of guitar and synth sounds that carve space and time into epic, barren landscapes. Tones vibrate in and out of true, zooming close and fading back, twitching in rhythm and coalescing in static fuzzed drones. Not a song in the bunch, nor much embroidery, but powerful stuff nonetheless.
Jennifer Kelly
TELESTIALVISIONS — Taurus in a Field (Island House)
Taurus in a Field by TELESTIALVISION
As Dittocrush, Pittsburgh resident Trevor D. Crush assembles tape loops into ambient symphonies. He often adds layers of live instrumentation from other musicians, such as Island House associate Chaz Prymek (Lake Mary, Fuubutsushi) and guitarist Ryan Fedor. TELESTIALVISIONS is his latest project, a tag team with New York guitarist Brinton Jones. The pair offer up a frothy brew that tastes rich and complex. Their debut Taurus in a Field is a pair of woozy collages that, while undeniably loose, are sharp in focus when compared to Dittocrush’s ghostly soundscapes. Crush’s tapes construct tangible shapes that intersect in a variety of patterns, while Jones unveils angelic melodies with his guitar. These two are telling a story that’s more Borges than Burroughs, a fantastical tale that defies conventional logic but manages to meander toward a graspable conclusion.
Bryon Hayes
Tycho — Infinite Health (Ninja Tune)
Infinite Health by Tycho
Tycho is Scott Hansen, and Scott Hansen is a designer. You can hear Hansen’s day job in Tycho’s music: the clean lines, the smart use of space, the sheer digestibility of it all. But should music go down quite this easy? Listening to Infinite Health feels a little bit like you’re at a trendy gym, playing a bit-part in an advert, or hitting up a bar packed with influencers. The common denominator is wanting to feel seen; everything plays a part in attracting attention. The synths sound like Boards of Canada, some of the funkier electro-pop moments sound like Daft Punk, and there’s an expensive sheen over everything. It’s hard to deny it’s appealing, but it also feels like experiencing capitalist obsolescence in real time.
Tim Clarke
White Collar—S/T (Static Shock)
White Collar by White Collar
Listeners with a long memory for North American hardcore might flash on those mid-1980s records by White Flag when listening to this new release from White Collar. Like that earlier Inland Empire band, White Collar frequently turns its critical gaze and its caustic smart-assery on the contemporary cultural climate of punk and politics as lifestyle (and your reviewer uses that odious term advisedly here). Songs like “Compassion Fatigue” and “Petition Signer” snarl at and spit on liberalism’s excesses of self-righteous smugness, to often hilarious effect. There’s a puritanical element to Gen Z’s dispositions and discourse that White Collar finds deeply irritating — not that the band is against strong ethico-political speech; check out “Meat Market” and “Equal Wrongs.” This is not the space for sustained analysis of Gen Z punk, and the extent to which we may want some sort of political purity from punk in the first place. But certainly, it’s an intrinsic good for punk to have snotty, disputatious and nasty voices in the mix. White Collar’s songs are short and sharp, and vocalist Loosey C’s performance is memorably unpleasant. Snarl on, punks.
Jonathan Shaw
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myspilledguts-n-stuff · 3 months ago
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toasted-valentine · 5 months ago
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HOLY SHIT I JUST NOTICED SOMETHING.
The reason we only see Maya three times in act two is because, us as an audience, are playing the role of the observant court members that’re constantly watching and judging the royals. Maya isn’t in the castle, we would have no reason to see her, we only do when the townspeople are gossiping about the new girl, with her letters to Maddox (Rowan makes note that the servants gossip about the letters), and during the final number when Maddox goes to find her.
During Your Day in Court the characters are introducing us to the court, and effectively making us members of the court observing the proceedings. When Maya leaves the castle, she leaves the scope of the story, and leaves the watchful eye of gossip and judgment. We don’t get to see most of what she gets up to because the people in court don’t get to see them, and we only get to see what people would be talking about actively.
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the-mercy-workers · 1 year ago
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That day, I learned that I could be a giver by simply bringing a smile to another person. The ensuing years have taught me that a kind word, a vote of support is a charitable gift. I can move over and make another place for someone. I can turn my music up if it pleases, or down if it is annoying. I may never be known as a philanthropist, but I certainly am a lover of mankind, and I will give freely of my resources.
Maya Angelou, "A Letter to My Daughter"
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