#nautical surreal

[htfmetsy]

[moneyisnobject]

"VW Car-Shaped Yachts"

Credit: Design Inspo

[cultofcreatures]

mermay!

tap for better quality

used chappell roan for reference:

[corvidist]

Port of Sheet Harbour - Nova Scotia

[skulliesweet]

Selkie monster is based in part on the Inuit goddess Sedna. Used fan coral as a texture in the hair and as a prop for her to hold c:

[sophiewillardvansistineart]

leg fish. where will he go

[moodymakeshifter]

Manicula, Nautical Scavenger

"I see the gleaming eye first. It appears out of the gloom like a pretty fish, but its motionlessness alarms me. I try to be still, kicking only lightly, and stare hard at the thing. My eyes struggle to make sense of the image, peculiar by nature, warped through my goggles. But those are hands twitching open and closed about its face. Webbed fingers curl against its chest as it hangs suspended just above the ocean floor like a monstrous embryo. And all around it lay wreckage and debris, shells, the bones of fish and people, a collection of odds and ends, strewn like a carpet, heaped like a nest. It never blinks, but, as if by some inexplicable cue, it awakens and launches toward me. It crawls through the water with frantic, thrashing movements, but once it gets its tail properly behind it, it's propelled toward me like an arrow. What an awful embrace. Such sharp nails, perfect for picking and carving."

— Account of One Deceased Scuba Diver

Buy me a coffee~ ♡

[spacenoirdetective]

Peter Ferguson, "Barents"

[zachdrawspoorly]

Grumpy Shark.

[robster2016]

The Navigator

In The Navigator, Rob Medley transports viewers into a realm where mystery and wonder converge on the high seas. The focal point of the painting, a ship named Marie Celeste, recalls the real-life mystery of the Mary Celeste—a vessel famously found abandoned in 1872 with no clear explanation for the disappearance of its crew. Medley’s ship emerges from the canvas with an almost ghostly presence,…

[dunyabariscetin]

("Surreal Sailing Dreams: A Journey Beyond Obsessive Reality" Classic T-Shirt for Sale by DbcShop gönderdi)

[cavegirlpoems]

Hello, new follower here! I saw you mentioned you worked on several RPGs, may I ask what those were? I'm always looking to find new cool RPGs!

OK so, off the top of my head: TTRPGs: -Wolfpacks & Winter Snow (osr weird fantasy paleolithic with too much historical research) -Dungeon Bitches (PbtA dyke-punk dungeon-horror full of sex and body horror) -Esoteric Enterprises (osr modern-day occult gangsters/urban exploration) -Haunt/Hearts (romantic lyric game about a lesbian ghost) -The Yellow Curtain (experimental metafiction King In Yellow/RevStar) -Deep Morphean Transmissions (dreamscape conspiricy noir surrealism in a setting kept secret from the players ooc) Modules/Settings/Adventures: The Gardens Of Ynn (whimsical fantasy in a ruined extradimensional garden, procedurally generated osr) The Stygian Library (whimsical fantasy in a haunted extradimensional library, procedurally generated osr) Dead Girls In Sarkash Forest (feminine horror with tragically undead protagonists, mork borg for riot grrls) Wounded Hungry & Forgotten (a mini bestiary for Dungeon Bitches) Black Lung (Dungeon Bitches in the industrial revolution, again with too much historical resarch: out any day now i promise) Wargames: The Dolorous Stroke (experimental detailed skirmish game based on medieval romances with knights going on quests) Black Death Walking (narrative campaign skirmish game set in the 15th century with zombies and satan) Currently In Progress (in various stages of done, titles subject to change, may or may not actually get finished): Black Death Rising (osr religious horror with zombies, fascists and satan all trying to kill you, same setting as Black Death Walking) The Bleeding Gullet (a body-horror OSR setting in a giant mutant-filled chasm that makes you violently ill if you try to leave it) In The Black Cloister (experimental solo wargame where you explore a ruined nunnery/vinyard full of weird monsters) Sunset Seas (nautical osr adventure where you sail around exploring various increasingly weird islands on the edge of the world)

[joelalorian]

Tides of Desire - Chapter Twelve: Turn the Corner

*mood board by the lovely @janaispunk. divider by the equally lovely @saradika-graphics

Pairing: Yacht Captain!Joel Miller x f!reader

Series Summary: TLOU no outbreak AU. Joel Miller is a luxury yacht captain running charters in the Caribbean. You join the crew as a deckhand and unexpectedly complicate Joel's peaceful existence. Basically the TLOU bunch on a Below Deck yacht.

Chapter warnings: 18+ MDNI. Angst, cursing, some deep conversations, forgiveness, fluff, and a lil bit of smut. Smallish age gap (reader is 32 or so, Joel is 40). No use of y/n, though reader is of British descent and has the nickname Brit (occasionally used). Chapter names are nautical phrases.

a/n: So, I thought there'd be a couple more chapters, but Joel said no. He wanted the tale to end here, so it does. What can I say, that man gets what he wants. There will be an epilogue, though. He's not the total boss of me. Hope you enjoy!

Series masterlist

Days after the fall, you felt a lot better. Physically, at least.

Emotionally? That was an entirely different story. You didn’t know how you felt, torn between two dueling desires – one for self-respect along with the respect you are due from Joel and the other a life with Joel. Was it too much to hope for both at the same time?

You and Joel still hadn’t talked about that morning, each of you dancing in circles around the topic but never coming right out to discuss it. There was no getting around it, you knew that, but still you hesitated. Why was it so hard?

Joel, being a man of action, showed you he was trying every minute after you were hurt. He took exceptional care of you, making sure you wanted for nothing as you recovered. His efforts bordered on too much after a few days, leaving you wanting a bit of space to think. Despite the care he took of you, you couldn’t get past the hurt in your heart once the pain in your head eased.

The anguish in his big, brown eyes when you told him you needed space haunted you, but you stood strong in your convictions. The return to your cabin was surreal after the luxury of Joel’s quarters and spacious bed, but it was necessary to decompress and sort through all the jumbled thoughts bouncing around in your muddled mind.

“Ah, the prodigal bunk mate returns!” Tess teased as you sauntered into the cabin the morning before the next charter started. “Finally gracing us mere peasants with your presence, are you?”

“Oh, shove off, ya muppet,” you snarked, plopping down on your bunk. Holy hell, Joel’s bed was a lot more comfortable that this lumpy pile of cotton and springs, you thought.

“How are you feeling?” Tess jumped down from her bed to perch herself at the end of yours.

You shrugged. “Physically, I’m fine.”

A single eyebrow arced upwards, reading between the lines as always. “And emotionally?”

Again, you shrugged, tears tickling the back of your eyes at the soft, sympathetic look on Tess’s face. The pair of you leant back against opposite bulkheads of your bunk and Tess stretched her legs, softly bumping her knee against yours.

“Let it off your chest, Brit,” Tess encouraged. “Better out than in, as they say.”

A snort escaped before you could stop it. “I think ‘they’ were referring to vomit, Tess.”

“Whatever, the sentiment is still the same. You need to vent and I’m here for it.” Tess smiled, a little mischief glinting in her eyes. “Plus, I’ve known Joel a long time. I’m well aware of what an emotionally constipated fuckwit he can be sometimes.”

That drew a laugh from you, which you realized was her goal. “He really can be, yeah?”

“You have no idea,” Tess agreed with a chuckle. “He’s gotten a lot better with age, but he’s still a man, so of course he’s as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to emotional intelligence and expressing himself properly.”

The two of you spent the morning chatting as you recounted your view of things between you and Joel and Tess shared some insights into Joel’s mindset and how he’s tripping all over himself to make things right again. It was an enjoyable morning, especially once the conversation moved away from Joel and more onto Tess’s life and what she like to do during off season.

As you chatted, you briefly thought back to the initial days on the yacht, how you thought she and Joel were an item, and how much that bummed you out. Knowing the both of them as you now did, the idea of them as a couple was laughable. Tess would run circles around him until inevitably driving him crazy.

Around mid-day, Sarah joined you both, bearing leftover sandwiches that Tess made yesterday. She squeezed in between the two of you, her back against the bulkhead wall. It was a tight fit with three grown women and the low ceiling of the top bunk looming overhead, but you all made it work.

The addition of Sarah raised your spirits further. She was such a spitfire, caring and witty, and always ready and willing to throw her father under the bus for one thing or another.

“My dad’s an idiot,” she blurted around a mouthful of food as you lamented once again on not knowing how to proceed. “But he’s an idiot in love, anyone can see that.”

That stopped you in your tracks.

Eyes wide and unbelieving, you stared at Sarah. “You think he’s in love with me?”

Meeting your gaze head on, Sarah nodded, dark brown eyes speaking volumes. “Oh, I know he’s in love with you. He told me yesterday. It’s why he’s so distraught over everything and why he wouldn’t let you out of his sight until now.”

“Geez, kid, you don’t think he’d want to be the one to tell her something like that?” Tess chimed in with a chuckle, shaking her head at the younger woman.

Still stunned, you just sat there staring between the two of them. Joel was in love with you. He was in love with you.

“I’m in love with him, too.” You didn’t even realize you spoke the words aloud until you noticed Sarah and Tess staring at you with bright, knowing smiles on their faces.

“Duh,” Sarah teased, patting your leg. “We already knew that.”

Nodding, Tess added, “Maybe it’s time for the two of you to sit down and have a very serious conversation. Get it out of the way before this next charter starts.”

An hour and a shower later, you found yourself making your way to the bridge in search of Joel. The girls were right, this would all weigh on your mind until Joel and you sat down and had a serious chat. But what would you say? How do you even start a conversation like the one you needed to have?

You practiced some openers on your way up the decks, mumbling them to yourself with each step. Joel, you great knob head… No, no, that wouldn’t work. Joel, you bloody prat… Why was everything your brain came up with some variation of a British insult? You did not want to sling insults at the man, just let him know how very hurt you were.

Before you knew it – and well before you thought of the right words to say – you found yourself at the door to the bridge. It was now or never. You opened the door with a shaky hand, stepping through only to find Frank manning the helm. Your face dropped before you could stop it, but your lips quickly tilted upwards into a smile, oddly relieved.

“Hey doll, what are you up to?” Frank’s warm smile immediately calmed your frayed nerves. “Looking for Joel?”

You nodded. “Yeah, I thought it due time to talk.”

Frank smiled encouragingly. “Yeah, it’s definitely that. You two have a lot to figure out. He’s in his quarters.” Gesturing around the corner with a supportive nod, he added, “Good luck, not that you need it. Joel might, though.”

Flashing Frank a grateful half smile, you edged towards Joel’s room, knuckles rapping on the door twice after a deep breath. Maybe you should have asked Frank for pointers on how to start the conversation. Too late now. You’d just have to go with whatever came out of your mouth and hope for the best.

The door opened to reveal Joel, dark curls awry and thick glasses framing his red-rimmed eyes. In a word, he was a mess. You wondered if he even left his quarters since you returned to yours. Glancing around, it didn’t look like it. That made you feel better. He was as wrecked about things as you.

“Hey,” he greeted, eyes apprehensive and distressed. “Everythin’ alright? Is your headache back?”

Even a mess, his broad frame taking up the entire doorway was a sight to behold. God, he was too handsome for words. And his obvious worry over you only made him more so. Clearing your throat, you reminded yourself why you were standing in his doorway mere hours after insisting you needed space.

“Can we talk?”

His brows darted up in surprise. “Uh, sure, yeah, of course.” Joel eyed you for a few moments, clearly uncertain about what to do or say, before adding, “Do you, uh, want to talk here or go somewhere less…”

Your lips tilted up as he trailed off, knowing his brain was working a mile a minute to find his words. “Here’s fine. It will give us privacy.” Your response visibly stunned him. He obviously wasn’t expecting that response from you.

Stepping back after another long moment, Joel ushered you into his private space. The bed still unmade from when you left first thing that morning, you opted to sit in the chair at the desk along the bulkhead, leaving Joel to take a seat on a corner of the bed. You stared at each other for a while, neither knowing how to start, until you couldn’t take the silence anymore.

After a few false starts, you were finally able to find your words.

“Joel, I’m in love with you, but you hurt me. Like really hurt me. And I don’t know how to come back from that.” You watched the expression on his face vacillate from awed and hopeful to wounded and regretful.

“Sweetheart –” he started, his dark eyes round and wet and not quite meeting yours, but you cut him off.

“I know that morning was hard for you, that you were hesitant to start anything with me during season to begin with, but you made the conscious choice to take things further. You did that and still you made it out to be my fault the moment something didn’t go right. You made me the fall guy. That… that really hurt. And it wasn’t fair.”

You paused, already feeling a heavy weight lifted from your chest at having spoken your peace, giving Joel the opportunity to respond. His beautiful brown eyes were large and glassy, lips in a pout as he searched for words to justify his actions, but there were none, you both knew. He was silent so long, dejectedly staring at you that you opened your mouth to say more when he finally found his words.

“I’m an utter asshole, sweetheart. I told you the other day, I won’t do you the disrespect of giving you poor excuses. I was completely in the wrong. I know it, you know it, everyone on this damn boat knows it – believe me, I’ve heard it from nearly every one of them. And I’m glad they feel comfortable enough in this environment and with me to defend you and put me in my place.”

Your lips quirked at that, causing his own to tilt upwards slightly. “We have great people on this crew,” you admitted fondly. Joel’s smile widened ever so slightly.

“I never meant to hurt you – never intended to treat you like I did. I’m ashamed, plain and simple.” Joel cleared his throat, hands running up and down his thighs in a nervous tick. “I can only promise to do better because I love you, sweetheart, and I never want to be the cause of your pain.”

Your eyes leaked fat droplets of saltwater down your cheeks. “You love me?” Even though Sarah basically told you already, it was completely different hearing those words directly from Joel’s lips, the rough timber in his voice matching the sincerity in his gaze.

He nodded, flashing you a watery smile. “I love you like I’ve never loved anyone before. I don’t even know how it happened so quickly, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Even if you don’t forgive me, I’ll never regret falling in love with you.”

“Joel…” you drew out his name in a long sigh. “I love you, too, but you can’t ever treat me like that again. It’s perfectly fine to be nervous or scared, but we need to communicate rather than snap and push each other away. Okay?”

Joel stood, nodding solemnly as he moved to kneel before you. “I understand. I promise to never treat you like that again. I promise to work on my communication skills. I promise to spend every day proving that I’m worthy of your love.”

His hands clutched your waist by the time he finished speaking. You ran your fingers through his thick curls, mussing them further as you pulled him in for a kiss. The press of his lips against yours soft and sweet, it almost felt like the first time again.

Your heart still hurt, but the pain ebbed away with every soft touch and loving word from Joel. Everything in you told you to forgive him but not let your guard down fully, still wary of getting hurt further. As if he could sense your hesitation, Joel held you close, asking you to stay the night in his quarters. You couldn’t deny him, wanting to connect physically to ease the residual emotional ache.

Joel spread you out on his bed, his mouth tasting every inch of your dewy skin with reverence, as if he needed to sear the taste and feel of you into his memory. He worshiped your body from head to toe, no spot left unexplored. You longed to return each kiss, each tender touch, but Joel insisted this evening was all about you. There would be plenty of time to explore him later.

“I adore you,” he whispered into the soft skin behind your knee.

“I ache for you,” he murmured against your belly.

“I. Love. You,” he said with finality before his lips connected once more with yours.

Shooting stars flashed across your closed eyelids when Joel slipped his cock inside you. Rocking with the gentle flex of his hips, he moved inside you, cock caressing that spongey spot that set you ablaze with each thrust. His mouth alternated between fervent kisses to nibbling on your earlobes and whispering lovely, naughty things in your ears.

It was so different from the other times you had sex together. It was softer, sweeter, and somehow more intimate and meaningful than the other times combined. This… this was making love, you thought. Something you’d never experienced before, and you wondered how you ever lived without it.

You came hard at the realization, giving into every feeling Joel drew from you with his movements and words, the fluttering of your walls around him nearly choking his cock. He came shortly after, stilling as he spilled inside you with a drawn-out cry of your name.

You stayed just as you were, your body beneath Joel’s, his cock still sheathed inside you, staring into each other’s eyes and seeing right into the very essence of each other. This was love. The caring, the forgiving, the open vulnerability… the cracking wide open of your souls to admit that you were hurt or scared and finding the strength to admit flaws and love in spite of them, or because of them.

Life and love were imperfect, and there was beauty in those imperfections.

“I love you, Joel Miller,” you whispered into the night, falling asleep with your head tucked into the curve of his neck, his warm skin blanketing you better than the warmest down comforter ever could.

The echo of your name sounded far away as Joel whispered the words back to you.

This. This was love.

The final weeks of the charter season passed in a blur with long days of work and longer nights of pleasure. The two of you could not get enough of each other, not caring about the exhaustion from limited sleep. You never returned to your cabin for sleeping after that night full of confessions and new beginnings with Joel. It was no surprise to any of the crew, really. There were no secrets on the yacht, nor any talk of impropriety or special treatment. Every person on that boat could see the love practically floating in the air between the two of you as if it was a tangible thing you could hold in your hands.

To demonstrate their approval of the two of you together, the crew placed bets on how soon you’d move to Austin, how soon you’d get engaged, how soon you’d get married. Those little buggers bet on everything when it came to you and Joel. They didn’t bother to hide it either, flaunting the board in your faces with Tommy proudly taking the lead as bookmaker. You couldn’t even be mad about it. They were all just so damn happy for you both, it was infectious.

Once the final round of charter guests departed, Joel took the yacht back out to sea for one last day and the crew celebrated with a party on the sundeck. Tommy and Jake emptied the lazarette of all the water toys for the crew to enjoy. Tess cooked up some delicious tapas on the barbecue. Sammy played DJ with the massive collection of songs on his phone And Sarah, sweet Sarah, made sure the sundeck bar was fully stocked with everyone’s favorite alcohol.

After racing around on a jet ski with Joel, the pair of you settled into the hot tub, sharing a bottle of wine as you watched Tommy, Ellie, Tess, and the interior crew dance around the deck in cheap, fake grass skirts they dug up from who knows where. Frank and Bill sat on the loungers sharing their own bottle of wine, Bill scowling away at the raucous behavior of the others. You would miss every single one of these people who became friends who were more like family to you in a few short months.

You marveled at that. Everything moved faster on the yacht, but what was time, really, when you forged such connections that would last a lifetime?

[weirdmageddon]

still thinking about this song and how it’s the exact type of abstract and surreal resistance media alpha dave wouldve come up with against the condesce. itd be EXACTLY like this. “prodigal fuck that nautical teachin bitches how to swim” (against the condesce’s fishy tyranny)

also because the synth in the song sounds awfully similar to one of dave’s themes from the hs ost but i cant remember which one. i think theres probably multiple.

so this is just alpha dave’s anthem to me

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Alright here are ten more albums. These ones are just my personal picks. Some that you prolly don't know and some you definitely do. I think you should listen to all of them because I like them a lot and if you don't like them then I promise I will cry a little.

Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone

Okay so I know that half of you just checked out because this is a 'meme album' and you simply will not take me seriously no matter what but honestly if that's you then go fuck yourself. Anyway Neil Cicierega is an internet fixture. He has brought us animutation, The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny, Mouth Sounds, Potter Puppet Pals, Brodyquest, Ariel Needs Legs, and probably a lot of other things I'm forgetting. So it isn't really a surprise that his first full album under the Lemon Demon moniker in a decade went down as a piece of weird internet errata as well. The thing is, Spirit Phone is a fucking masterpiece.

The subject matter is the occult, conspiracy theories, urban legends, aliens, cryptids, and conservatives. Nothing too weird, but the way he tackles these subjects is. Let's take Cabinet Man for example, it plays on the urban legend of the haunted arcade cabinet Polybius. But Cabinet Man is told from the point of view of the machine itself. It's about a man who turns himself into an arcade cabinet and about his life as an arcade cabinet. The very next track, No Eyed Girl, is a doo wop styled love song written to a lovecraftian horror. And yes this is all very Quirky™ but Cicierega never wink at the camera, he never lets on that this is a joke. Just like unironically here's a song about sexualizing (even if he insists it isn't sexual) eating mummies. Why not? The frenetic pacing always keeps you off balance too so there is no way to get used to the weirdness other than to let yourself be subsumed by it.

"But wait!" I hear you saying "what was that thing about conservatism? What does that have to do with the occult?" I'm glad you asked because I think the funniest thing this album does is deliver three songs in a row that have nothing to do with the rest of the album's main themes. As Your Father I Expressly Forbid It, I Earned My Life, and Reaganomics all satirize American boomer conservatism. I think putting them there after all the conspiracy theory stuff is brilliant. The paranoid, surreal attitudes of the first half of the album contrasted against the equally paranoid and surreal attitudes of conservatives. Finally I just want to mention my number one favorite thing about this album and it's that I Earned My Life is written in the style of Paul Simon's Graceland. That makes me laugh. What an effortless takedown of a legendary artist and album.

Ween - The Mollusk

Ween are a pretty weird band. And my standards for what counts as weird are pretty high. So the fact that their least weird album is this nautically themed psychedelic hellscape isn't saying much. The Mollusk sounds how low tide smells. The album is like the rhyme of the ancient mariner but the albatross is replaced by hundreds of barnacles. It is a decaying mess, but it's also jaunty and fun. Purely stupid nonsense like Waving My Dick In The Wind and Dancing In The Show Tonight are placed side by side with the intense and horror tinged Golden Eel and Mutilated Lips.

Musically Ween are uncharacteristically cohesive. Sure they run the gamut of genres from intense proggy numbers to punk and alternative rock and some showtunesy stuff, but it's all mastered as wet as possible. By the way y'all know when I say a sound is wet I mean heavily processed as opposed to dry which is raw unprocessed audio right? There is copious reverb, chorus and especially phasing on every song until they all sound like waves crashing against a rock.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about The Mollusk is that it is, I think at least, the only Ween album to contain a straight cover. Cold Blows The Wind is just a folk song that Gener and Deaner just play dead straight. That is very unusual for a band that prefers to vaguely mock artists or styles rather than just do them. Of course that track is immediately followed by a song called Pink Eye On My Leg so don't take these guys seriously for too long.

Atom And His Package - A Society Of People Named Elihu

There is no other album that feels more like an inside joke among high schoolers that you aren't privy to the context for. Adam Goren repeatedly name drops his friends and talks about things very specific to his life. The album is a mess of unfettered id where no concept is dwelt on for very long and no hesitation is given before launching into something completely unrelated. The very first track contemplates a hypothetical Punk Rock Academy before losing track of itself and barreling full throttle into an interpolation of Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight. This kind of thing happens a lot. Me And My Black Metal friends interpolated Dexys Midnight Runners' hit Come On Eileen for no apparent reason other than that is what started going through Goren's head at the time. This album has three different birthday songs on it, the first of which has the refrain "Happy Birthday Ralph, I love you, even though you are fucking disgusting." Who is Ralph? You aren't asking the right questions.

Oh yeah and this album is entirely just a guy singing over a drum machine and keyboard. But it's also kind of a punk rock album. Atom And His Package don't sound super punk at first glance, but he has the ethos. And structurally, well there's a little more punk rock in here than you might expect. I'll stand by A Society Of People Named Elihu as a punk rock album because it's funny and I think that is what Adam Goren would want.

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

There's a lot of art rock out there that I'm totally in love with. But TV On The Radio are on a different level. They are extremely catchy, but also different than anything else around them. They exist somewhere in between 00s post punk revival and, uh honestly I don't know. I thought something would come to me as I was typing this. There is nothing to compare the unique use of drums and percussion to create both rhythmic and textural elements while the bass guitar makes up the majority of the melody. The members of the band all harmonize beautifully on vocals and when you break the songs down you find just a few instruments being layered into a looping, spiraling current of sound. A Method and Dirtywhirl especially sound like they are physically spiralling. They use looped percussion and bass, repetitive singsong vocals, and thrumming rhythms to create a completely unique sonic landscape that is both overwhelming and extremely addictive. It is too easy for me to finish this album and then put it back on again because there is nothing else that scratches the itch this album gives me.

Between The Buried And Me - Colors

I don't usually like to be this absolute, but Colors is my favorite metal album. Between The Buried And Me are consistently amazing but Colors is the best showcase of their range and fluidity with which they traverse various styles. At a base level Colors is a progressive metalcore album, a genre which has probably just turned a few people off of listening. But if you aren't usually into metalcore don't fear there is a lot more going on here than bad screaming and bad chugging. No BTBAM weave together intense thrash like riffing, high speed guitar solos, intense screaming, melodic jazzy solos, chromatic breakdowns, catchy clean vocal segments and frequent tempo changes with an artistry and ease that makes it hard to notice when the style does an abrupt change. Every linking segment is so natural that the tech death screams in Sun Of Nothing will transition to the melodic refrain without any sense of tonal dissonance. Even when you hit the end of Ants Of The Sky and hear them go into a full bluegrass hoedown it is just completely natural. No other album makes 10+ minute songs go by so fast. There are so many hour long metal albums out there that drag on for the sake of length alone and Colors just shits in their faces and proves that you can go on for an hour and keep an audience completely engaged the whole time.

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln

They Might Be Giants are a never ending supply of witty turns of phrase. Some are seemingly nonsequiturs like "tour the world in a heavy metal band / but they run out of gas the plane can never land" others are clever "which one of us is the one we can't trust / you say that I think it's you but I don't agree with that" and others seem like nonsense but probably mean something deeper if you just stop and think about it "how sleepless is the egg knowing that which throws the stone foresees the bone, the bone, our only home is bone". They will get at some wild themes lyrically while still maintaining an upbeat sound. That weird tonal gap is what makes songs like I've Got A Match and They'll Need A Crane into more than just songs about bad relationships. It helps obfuscate the actually bleakness of Lie Still Little Bottle, a song about being addicted to uppers. And it leaves you wondering about the seemingly pure goofy songs like Shoehorn With Teeth and Cowtown. Also you might be interested to know that Where Your Eyes Don't Go is a favorite song of local Tumblr Celebrity™ Neil Gaiman. So there's your seal of approval if you needed one.

Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe

Vaporwave is such a beautiful genre. It is a musical consomme where other songs are melted down until there is nothing left but the essence of the original piece. A distinctly recognizable flavor, but rendered into broth. The idea of taking a song and picking out very specific bits and then slowing them down repeating them over and over until you have turned the ten second sample into a five minute song is incredible.

Floral Shoppe is not the first, and maybe not even the best vaporwave record, but it is the blueprint that a lot of artists would seek to imitate. The track リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Lisa Frank 420 / modern computing) made some waves for having a very overt and recognizable sample and leading to people joking that the genre was just "Diana Ross slowed down". And derogatory as that sounds it is also true. The song is seven minutes of just the chorus of Diana Ross' It's Your Move looped, slowed down, and otherwise abused until it just isn't the same song anymore. What Floral Shoppe did was bring the idea of the transformative property of context to a wider audience. The question of authorship is essential to vaporwave. Most vaporwave artists will use one off monikers for albums. In fact Macintosh Plus is a one off project under the larger Vektroid umbrella. Vektroid herself is one of the most prolific and significant vaporwave artists out there and honestly I don't even think Floral Shoppe is her best work, but it is the most important.

But is it good? That's the real question. The philosophical implications of art are nice and all but is it good to listen to? Yeah it's extremely enjoyable. Listening to Floral Shoppe is like living in a slightly fucked up betamac tape that is playing commercials for new shopping malls. It captures a sense of nostalgia, but also warps it into a surreal dreamscape. Parts stutter, they loop just before the part of the song you know plays, they are repeated over and over until you feel like something is wrong. The nostalgia is recontextualized as something artificial. Like it is reminding you that the way you feel about the past is manufactured. Your memories are already corrupted by capitalism and if you could see through the matrix you would hear the broken mechanisms underneath.

The Field - From Here We Go Sublime

The Field is hard to pin down. While basically a tech-house project it is also quite a bit unlike other tech-house/minimal/ambient techno projects. I was enthralled the first time I ever put on this record. There's something ethereal about the heavily altered vocal samples. Every sound rendered distant and breathy. This is the sound of the sun glaring off of fresh snow in the winter. This is the sound that plays when you transcend your human body to become a being of pure energy. If the obelisk from 2001 A Space Odyssey was a DJ this is what it would play. It is impossible to not feel subsumed by this music, to want to just close your eyes and imagine you are floating. From Here We Go Sublime is one of the prettiest albums I have ever heard and I think even people who aren't into techno might be able to appreciate it.

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Look me in the eye. I'm serious look at me. Mike Skinner is a good rapper. No I'm not joking. No I don't like this album "ironically". A Grand Don't Come For Free is one of my top ten hip hop albums of all time. Right up there with Nas and J-Dilla and Kanye and shit. Skinner's flow is unconventional and, at first glance, very bad. But what he is doing is incorporating a very casual conversational style into his rapping to help communicate the personalities and moods of the characters in the story.

Oh yeah by the way this is a concept album. It's about Mike, his two friends Dan and Scott, and his new girlfriend Simone. Mike loses 1000 pounds, gets really paranoid that one of his friends stole it, and then let's that paranoia ruin all of his interpersonal relationships. The album starts by setting up the list money and various aspects of Mike's life like his new romance and gambling addiction to set up the very everyman vibes. As Mike rambles through awkward small talk, bad decisions, bad relationships, and the slow burn out of his empathy he becomes actually really relatable. Every time Mike does something that is frustrating and stupid it just kinda endears him to me. I want to see this idiot do better. Even on Get Out Of My House where he is trying to explain to Simone that he wasn't at her place while she was hungover because he was picking up his epilepsy medication and is, by any reasonable account in the right, he sucks so hard at making his point that he still comes off as the asshole. This is punctuated by guest rapper C-Mone actually rapping much better than Mike on her verses. In fact how well a character is rapping is very much tied to how confident they are at the moment with Mike being more noticeably on beat on Not Addicted and Such A Twat and sounding really off on Get Out Of My House and It Was Supposed To Be So Easy.

The beats are not just straightforward things for Skinner to rap weird style over though. The beats often contain weird syncopation and odd rhythms that make it feel like rather than not being able to stay on beat the vocals and the beat are just circling around each other. Always in sync but never knowing each other's exact location. The way these two elements come together creates the backbone for A Grand Don't Come For Free's atmosphere of disorientation and lack of control. Mike's story is ultimately about him trying to latch onto any part of his life that he thinks he can control and constantly having those things slip away from him. He finds the £1000 in the back of his broken TV by the way.

The Mountain Goats - Beat The Champ

I got into The Mountain Goats way back when Moral Orel was airing it's infamous third season back in 08. I listened to John Darnielle's entire discography even the very rough first couple of tapes. And after all that I was pretty sure that this was my new favorite band and that no album anyone released were ever gonna top All Hail West Texas, Tallahassee, or The Sunset Tree. Fast forward seven years and I see he's working on a new album. It's gonna be about wrestling. I figure it will be pretty good, because Mountain Goats albums basically bottom out at pretty good. So the album releases, I listen to it, and instantly I know that I have forever been changed. I don't know how many times one man can keep doing this to me, but by God was I changed. I'm kinda into wrestling now as a direct result of this album.

The beauty of Darnielle's writing is that he can tease the meaning out of literally anything. Mountain Goats song don't have grand concepts. Beat The Champ's songs can be summed up easily. "Retired wrestler drives to the next show" "a biography of a wrestler that Darnielle liked as a kid" "a biography of a different wrestler that Darnielle liked as a kid" "a guy who takes his gimmick too seriously". But this isn't what the songs are about. They are about feeling tired of routine and being resigned to the fact that this will be the rest of your life. They are about how the world looks through the eyes of a child. They are about finding fulfillment in life even once you have passed your prime. They are about shutting out your emotions until you become a toxic person. These songs aren't about wrestling, but also they are. Beat The Champ made me think about how difficult pro wrestling is. You need a hyperapecific skill set that includes acting, athletics, acrobatic, and improv. And then if you are the absolute best at all those things hing and end up being the best wrestler ever? Well no one really respects pro wrestling so you get fuck all for it. The strange place these people occupy and the emotions that come with it are the perfect vessel for analyzing human experience at large. Wrestling, John Darnielle posits, is a microcosm for all life. We all play parts, we do heel turns now and then, we all fear being unmasked. Wrestlers deal with literal manifestations of human fear and Beat The Champ taps into that to create an album that both comments on human anxieties in a very real way and to humanize the people behind the kayfabe.

[udoai]

In an extraordinary fusion of steampunk artistry and surrealism, Pitbulls are transformed into iconic figures that might have sprung from the mind of Salvador Dali. Adorned with brass gears, timepieces, and nautical elements, these canine portraits embody a whimsical yet profound dialogue between the mechanical and the surreal. Set against the backdrop of distant sails and the vastness of the sea, the images blur the boundaries of time and reality, inviting the viewer into a fantastical world where the familiar form of a dog becomes a canvas for exploring the depths of imagination and human ingenuity. This artistic amalgamation not only challenges our perceptions but also enriches our understanding of the possibilities that emerge when different worlds collide in the realm of creative expression. --chaos 15 --ar 9:16 --style raw --personalize clvakln --stylize 200 --v 6.1