#pop punk overlay

[chloelouygo]

Fuck i miss the shitty pop punk lyric photo edits i used to make when i was 15 and 2edgy4u ima have to make more sometime

[ratchet-ratch]

GLITTER CHANGELING | SUPERNATURAL SAVE

I needed a little break from my decades save, so I decided to return to my supernatural save and post some pics/lookbooks. Glitter Changeling is (everyone's surprised) a fairy (the lack of wings in the lookbook was totally not an accident). Initially she was going to be a lot cuter, but I just gave her a make over since she didn't mesh with the editing style.

Glitter is in a punk pop band with vampire Batsy Bloodcot and franken-creature Abbey Normal. She's in an off/on throuple situation with witch Starla Starlight and Batsy's brother Teethy. Their lookbooks tk (if I feel like it).

Yes, I loved making up their names.

CC Details below the cut (I will add all links later):

Genetics/Hair: overlay | eyes (can't find) | eyelashes | tattoo | eyeshadow | eyeliner | hair + accessory nails

Look 1: dress | gloves | arm band | tights | boots

Look 2: dress | bows | corset | choker | arm band | tights | boots

Look 3: dress (LaLuna F019) | tights | boots

Look 4: dress | gloves | arm band | choker | socks | boots

Look 5: dress | harness | belt | tights | boots

CC Creators: @madlensims, @sentate, @babyetears, @kissyck, @xurbansims, @suzuesims, @starberry-sims, @dissiasims, @regina-raven, @korkassims, @saruin, @nitropanic, @desysimmer, @pralinesims, @imvikai, @jius-sims, @candysims4, @evellsims, @trillyke, @wistfulpoltergeist, @maplesuns, @s-club-tbr, @aladdin-the-simmer, @faez-sims, @dangerouslyfreejellyfish, @yuulace, @serenity-cc, @kijiko-sims

[goombasinastack]

splatoon 3 hot take turned impromptu essay

was stuck offline in splatoon 3 because internet was actin up and i realized how pretty the photomode splatoon 3 filters are compared to the actual game

i was taking photos on brinewater and thought. damn. this game looks fine but i miss how VIBRANT splatoon 1 was! i wish i could play sploon 3 with this photomode filter on all the time. and brinewater is the best map for this because of the sunset lighting! so i went to one of the worst offenders mapwise for general color—undertow spillway. it is a warm gray mess:

for someplace underground, it’s WAY too warm of a tone—even if there are skylights, they aren’t very well defined, as they’re off in the background—they’d be better with some light shafts to pop out more, imo.

so here’s undertow with photomode filter #6 (this would’ve been a video but tumblr limits to 1 video per post):

and i think this looks a lot nicer, colorwise! the icky warm gray is shifted to a soft pink—and while that’s still not in keeping with the lack of obvious skylights, it works better than warm gray.

so then i opened ibis x paint and got to work on a filter that would hopefully help elevate the entire game’s look:

on top is photomode filter #6, in the middle is the original screenshot, and on the bottom is my proposed filter.

i upped the contrast, brightness, and saturation a bit, then added a 5% pure magenta (#FF00FF) overlay layer on top of that. then i added a slight gaussian blur to emulate antialiasing, which nintendo refuses to do for some reason!

and i wanna play splatoon like that! i miss the vibrancy and intricacy of splatoon 1…

incoming splatoon 1 essay‼️

not only were the colors eye-bleachingly bright, but the overall game feel was much more immersive—especially in ink physics. you could paint trees, and the ink would drip down through leaves as if it were rain… ink splatter would respond to the movements of platforms, keeping its intertia as it dripped! you could see the textures of surfaces through the ink, as if it were an actual liquid instead of a layer of thick oil. 3 doesn’t have any of those special touches.

there’s also the music… 1’s ost feels so much more WEIRD and experimental than the later games, and that really helps cement that this is not human society—this is a new thing—which tracks for splatoon 1, as it was so zany nobody had ever seen anything quite like it before! splatoon 2 follows this sheer melting-pot of brashness and creativity with evolving and varied styles—where once was punk and weird samples in Squid Squad is now groovy rock in Wet Floor, jazz in Ink Theory, and also whatever Sashi-Mori was. also i <3 chirpy chips. splatoon 3’s music goes back to that punk, but i feel that it loses some of the charm and creativity of the first two games. C-side is pure metal, and hardly uses any weird instruments. there have sparsely been other splatbands involved with regular battle music—Yoko&tgb call back to the jazz of Ink Theory which i love! Off the Hook’s new tracks delve into a new style in piano rock. but the main band kind of falls flat to me. :(

let’s talk stages. in splatoon 1, stages were wildly different from each other, including skateparks, construction sites, underpasses, malls, sewage plants, and other locals that are culturally underground. the rest of the trilogy moves away from this in a story standpoint, as ink battles evolve from punky, diy competitions into full-fledged championships in 2 and 3, with advancing battle infrastructure as time progresses. that’s fine, and honestly it’s cool to see that kind of worldbuilding! but in 1, each stage was designed about and influenced by the area it represented. Arowana Mall is a straight line with high vantage points on the second/third story because it’s a mall. Pirahna Pit features convenyor belts that shuffle refuse around because it’s a trash plant. Blackbelly Skatepark has so many hills and valleys because it’s a skatepark, for goodness sake. splatoon 3’s original stages have some of this charm, but it feels lost in ambiguity. why doesn’t Mincemeat Metalworks have small moving platforms on cranes or other heavy machinery? Idk, have some grates and one-way drops, and a car on a post. why isn’t there any water incorporated into the stage design of Brinewater Springs? Idk, have 2 paintable walls and a tetris piece. 3’s original stages have little to no connection between their locals and the geometry, which make it feel same-y compared to previous games.

maybe this is because of the inflexible philosophy of the designers—or their corporate oversight, maybe. for stages, you need to make a straight line or tetris piece with few routes to push, in an effort to promote the game’s main premise of Chaos. for music, you need to make punk songs that aren’t too weird so they don’t drive away the parents. maybe the little ink touches could have been missing because development was rushed?

i honestly dont know why it happened out this way—perhaps the splatoon team just needed more time to cook, in order to squeeze out that extra 20% of game feel? or maybe it was that speculated corporate oversight, i dunno. things WERE missing on launch—notable exceptions being X rank, online tableturf lobbies, and no more than three salmon run maps. i know we’ve yet to even get the DLC but for being about 75% of the way through the game’s content lifespan, but splatoon 3 feels incomplete. there have been improvements, yeah! i just wish there could’ve been more. i would rather have waited another year for splatoon 3 if it were polished that much better, y’know?

i honestly feel like splatoon 1 captured that creative, no-holds-barred mantle of Chaos better than 3 does. 3 feels… flanderized, in a way. the curse of trilogies, perhaps? writing about it more, it feels like not only have the in-game sports of turf war been ripped out of its seedy home and thrust into the spotlight, and gone “mainstream” (see: massive squidsport companies investing in multimillion battle lobbies with holograms and lockers [sunken scroll about that!], flying coffee machines that grant you brief invincibility, new rules and techniques that allow squid surges and rolls, etc.), but also the Real Life Physical Video Game Cartridge of Splatoon has been popularized massively with the sequels on the Switch. maybe i’m not missing the “vibrancy” of splatoon 1 when i look at the colors and photomode filters of splatoon 3, but instead the inherent punkiness and counterculture inspiration that i see in the original.

fuck capitalism, i guess!

[whoredmode]

What's Anteros' "song"? You can define what that means.

i’m just gonna change the answer every time it’s brought up cuz tbh he’s a guy who’s got a lot of different sides to him. and i’m working on an official anteros playlist so i can just pick some songs from that. i think Can’t You See by Skylar Spence is such a good song for him during srtt.

my anteros playlist is specifically full these types of electronic/pop tunes bc i like to keep to a theme when i make specific character playlists, but i think there’s this certain era of sleazy electronic/pop/pop-punk from the late 2000s-2010s that i think captures him extremely well? this sense of pride and luxury, overconfident melodies overlayed w these lyrics of utter misery. just this great dichotomy that i think truly expresses the tone of srtt and, by extent, anteros during that time.

[iodotsys]

Music suggestions:

Happy Pills by Weathers

Mos Thoser by Food Hous

Affection by Between Friends

The Wolf by Siames

Joker by Rory Webley

(I have tons more if you want/need them)

Happy Pills by Weathers: This song sounds familiar but I can't put my finger on it. It has a nice swing sound to it. Good beat to it, but kinda boring. I really enjoy the effect done in the verses. Kinda sounds like most alternative music done in the early 2010's which I'm not a fan of. Like a variety of pop punk. So much chorusing/vocal overlay going on during the uh…chorus. Very loud. 5/10, sounds like many other songs I have heard and do not like.

Mos Thoser by Food Hous: This style of music annoys me. Its a single droning note throughout most of the song. Far too poppy for me. Tastes like mechanical cotton candy in a bad way. I really liked the bridge though. Big fan of the descending notes from the vocalist. 3/10 not my style of music, kinda painful. Annoying. I do like the shade he throws Musk though.

Affection by Between Friends Huge fan of the phaser and reverb on this opening guitar. This song made me sleepy. Good beat, but just too plain for my style. 5/10 It didn't hurt to listen to, just a really boring love song.

The Wolf by Siames I have heard this song, this song is okay. I love the way the vocalist delivers the lyrics. This tends to come up on my recommended songs. Love the chorusing he does with it. Still very poppy though which I can't get behind. 7/10 since this does tend to come up on my recommended, but I skip it since I've heard it a lot.

Joker by Rory Webley This had my foot tapping. A great beat to this, though it was sort of plain. Still poppy, but the beat makes up for it. Also its about the Joker which gives it an added bonus. I didn't want to skip this, 7/10.

Thanks for the recs! Keep em coming if you would like.

[thelarisb]

The H in House stands for Hyperfixation

Alright. So everyone knows I have a house hyperfixation. Here it is. A house infodump. Because autism. I love autism so much. Defected Reco

if you take a peek at my Last.FM page you will probably see a lot of house. Where's Will Wood or Lemon Demon you ask? HA I don't listen to those. These are for sta

Who are these people?

So I got into house back then when I discovered Daft Punk through a sampling video. It turns out that I really liked their music - back then I was only listening to a small playlist full of mainstream pop eurgghgh COLDPLAY eURHgh

turns out I really really resonated with Daft Punk's music--no really I resonated with HOUSE MUSIC in general. my earliest tracks I added to my playlist were 8-minute long house tracks made by a producer named Iceferno (you may know him if you've watched many a Dmitrivalencia video)

Dmitrivalencia also introduced me to many awesome house artists - one of them being a not-so-well-known French act named Hystereo (not to be confused with the Armin van Buuren song of the same name), who released a couple of singles and only one album, Corporate Crimewave, during the 2010s. Oh. And Ross Couch. And Lusine.

But Lusine isn't house, I hear you say. That's correct! Why did I put that there?

So once I got hooked on Daft Punk I began expanding my range. I added a bunch more stuff into my playlist (and removed all the pop songs too), which includes songs from Alan Braxe, Patrick Alavi, Etienne de Crecy, Cassius, Junior Jack, The Bucketheads, and Cheek (NOT THE FINNISH CHEEK)

Nowadays my house playlist has ballooned to over 200 songs. I still regularly discover Frenchy House tracks from all over the internet--HouseOfTheDJJade is an especially great resource!

That's enough about my playlist. It's time to discuss what you were probably looking for all this time--House!

One of the tracks in my playlist comes from a guy from England named Pete Heller. It's called Big Love. Despite the boring album artwork, this song has quite a rich history, as evidenced in an article written by Nick Gordon Brown for Defected's blog.

Pete Heller's Big Love is a 10-minute long (yes, you heard that right) French House track made in the 90s. He sent demos to DJs, which suddenly blew up in popularity.

Unfortunately, Pete didn't make any more Big Love-style tracks after this - he cited the massive oversaturation of French/Filter House which also led to the demise of French House overall as a contributing factor. Pete's tracks on Spotify typically consist of beeps-and-boops acid house/tech house/whatever-the-heck-it's-called house.

He has, however, made just one other song called the Love Mix for Jamiroquai's Supersonic - and just like the track it was named after, it retains many characteristics of French House.

Another French House artist I've always loved is a guy named Patrick Alavi.

Patrick has been posting for years now and saying his music is good is just, really, the tip of the iceberg. He's been in this for decades!

But you know, every artist has a wild side. And Patrick? Oh. It's not just wild. It's conspiracy theory wild.

Patrick owns a Twitter account where he posts...erm, let's just say interesting stuff.

You see, there's this guy called Ingo Swann - he's basically this guy who does wild ass supernatural stuff. Otherwise known as being a psychic! Ingo has envisioned this ✨crazy ✨thing called "remote viewing" which is, basically, in essence, using "extrasensory perception" to view things remotely.

I don't exactly know what remote viewing is, so have this scene from Stranger Things as an example. This is what remote viewing is like...right?

Patrick is hands-down OBSESSED with Ingo Swann. He has even made music based on Ingo Swann and his concepts of remote viewing. He especially cites Ingo as inspo for his track Analytical Overlays.

I don't even know what he's talking about. Original signals? Doppler effects? Matrix sensibility? AOL? Like, America Online? Maybe this is what remote viewing is all about. America Online!

But whatever AOL shit Patrick believes in, you can't deny his music is pretty damn funky. Same goes for our next artist: Todd Edwards!

Todd is this super cool 50-year old who makes WAY too much music. I'm talking hundreds of songs and also hundreds more remixes. Dude runs on a power plant.

Todd has been producing for 30-ish years, first starting with a few tracks on 111 East Records, then eventually moving on to other record labels like Locked On, Bean (yes, beeeeaaaaaannnnnssssss), and especially i! Records. If there's one thing Todd has extremely strong ties with, it's i! Records.

Todd is known for his extremely unique music - you see, instead of playing with instruments like a BORING musician does, he samples extremely short snippets of tracks and plays around with them, arranging it like a musical collage.

Pretty much the entirety of his music is like this - little snippets of beepity boop Carpenters samples overlaid over swung beats and strong basslines. And yes - he does sample real music.

On WhoSampled, "sample hunters" have been discovering hundreds of Todd samples--I'm talking 5 HUNDRED individual samples. Many people have been involved in the search for samples, including sample prodigies like DJPasta and a bunch of other people like Danny Shazam.

For years, Todd's music has really never been available on streaming as i! Records releases were really only on vinyl or CD. Giant house label Defected Records then snapped up those releases and rereleased them on streaming. Which, I think is a gigachad move. Defected Records is very based.

One of the few releases Defected hasn't snapped up yet is Todd's only real album, Odyssey.

Odyssey is a pretty great album--and it has its fair share of sample goodness, too. One of the most notorious samples on Odyssey is a pair of undiscovered samples known as the Jazz Sample and the Interlude Til Infinity sample, both of which have been baffling sample hunters for years. It's that they've found a 40-second long snippet of the Jazz Sample but are nowhere close to finding the sauce.

Both Jazz and Interlude are theorized to be from the same album. Sample hunters have found out that a man named Ludwig Mausberg has a longer snippet of the sample as evidenced in one of his tracks, Interlude til Infinity (hence the name). Ludwig, however, has been gatekeeping the sample's name and/or artist, probably due to legal issues that could arise upon disclosing the information. Ludwig has also declined to answer any questions about the sample, too.

Maybe you can help find it, too?

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 9, Number 1

The Beauty Pill

Every January, we grind the gears shifting from records that came out in the previous year to the ones that will come out in the current ones.  It’s a rough transition, and lots of us have leftovers that deserve attention. We manage it, in part, with a late January Dust that clears out the backlog and allows us to focus on the new year. It’s not an iron clad rule.  We will certainly cover a few more 2022s in the weeks to come, and there’s at least one 2023 in this batch (the estimable Dischord-era retrospective from the Beauty Pill, pictured above). But it’s a turning point, and we’re turning. Are you ready to turn with us?

Contributors include Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forrell, Ray Garratty and Patrick Masterson.

1 Mile North — The Sunken Nest (Mutual Skies)

The Sunken Nest by 1 Mile North

Jon Hills discreetly snuck out his latest album as 1 Mile North in mid-December, a notorious no-man’s-land for new releases. However, this is strangely fitting for The Sunken Nest, which possesses an understated majesty and rich melancholy that harks back to the first wave of post-rock artists who emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Hills’ close attention to dynamics and tone extend to the assembly of the track list, where the individual song titles together form a poem: “Plunge forth / Into muted depths / Where light collapses into night / Exhale and sink / Find rest / Amidst the ship / Your sunken nest.” The opening run of songs works especially well. “Into muted depths” nails Labradford’s signature sound of glacial guitar traced out over pulsing electronics. “Where light collapses into night,” the album’s longest and most satisfying piece, builds patiently into a hard-earned crescendo that’s almost anthemic. And the guitars on “Exhale and sink” have a post-metal edge that threatens to build into a cathartic climax, but instead settles for tense slow burn.

Tim Clarke

 Beauty Pill — Blue Period (Ernest Jenning)

Blue Period by Beauty Pill

The Beauty Pill hid its sharp edges in a dream pop sheen, but they were there all the same. In the early aughts, the band recorded a full-length and an EP for Dischord, setting off a thousand hot takes about whether they were or were not a Dischord band (since they didn’t sound very much like Fugazi). But I’d suggest that the Beauty Pill was as fierce and intense and off kilter in its way as Fugazi, and there was more punk in its croon than most people would admit. The sleek, harmonized chill of “the mule on the plane,” for instance, explodes subliminally with rupturing drum energy. “Terrible Things,” bristles with its bass lick’s muted ferocity. “such large portions!” overlays the most beautiful white noise guitar skree over its loping, narcotized vocals. The music itself incorporates both beauty and destruction—and that’s before you even get started on the words, which are sharp and devastating. Take for instance, the couple that introduces “Goodnight for Real” and encapsulates everything you need to know about difficult music and its fans: “There’s a band on stage tonight/every note they play turns its back to you/still you want to add them to the sad list of things/you’ve said yes to.” Or the dual verses from “Terrible Things,” that coolly observe David Chapman and Idi Amin (“And David chapman shakes and hovers in the shadows of the Dakota/ hearing voices one of which will never sing again when this is over”). The Beauty Pill’s output slowed—but didn’t entirely stop—when bandleader Chad Clark suffered a rare viral infection of the heart. They’ve had one more full-length (Beauty Pill Describes Things As They Are) and two EPs since. But if you’re just getting going, this double LP is a reasonable place to start. It collects all the songs from both Dischord releases, the You Are Right to Be Afraid EP from 2003 and The Unsustainable Lifestyle from 2004, along with a smattering of unreleased alternates and demos.

Jennifer Kelly

 Best Fern — Earth Then Air (Backwards/Youngbloods)

Earth Then Air by Best Fern

Nick Schoefield is a Montreal-based ambient artist last observed distilling electronic and synthethic sounds into radiant, crystal-pure abstractions. His 2021 solo album, Glass Gallery, tinted Reichian rhythmic explorations with the glowing prettiness of melody. Best Fern, Schoefield’s collaboration with the singer Alexia Avina, dips even further into pop idioms, draping airy vocal motifs over lattice-work electronics. “On and On,” the single, distills the sounds of stringed instrument and, maybe, banjo, into a blinking bank of luminous tones, then tips Avina’s voice over in cascading waves. It is cerebral yet inviting. “World Spins,” by contrast, is nearly unadulterated indie pop, framed in keyboard chords, but putting wispy vocals up front; it sounds a bit like the earliest iteration of the XX. But “Way Inside,” the other single pits a cyber-storm of tinkling sounds against piano and subtly altered vocals, the organic world abutting the theoretical one in a lovely, arresting way.

Jennifer Kelly

 David Blue — Stories (Eremite)

This 50th anniversary reissue of David Blue’s Stories is undeniably a labor of love. It also represents the acme of craft. The retro, flip back sleeve and dead quiet vinyl have been manufactured with the determination to getting details right that one expects from Eremite Records. But who’d have expected that the label would break a quarter century run of jazz-derived releases with a singer-songwriter LP that was originally issued on Asylum and was made by a guy who ran with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen? Love makes a body do strange things, but that’s how you know that it’s really love. Blue’s writing style is as exacting and precision-oriented as Eremite’s production technique. His lyrical details are stark, his delivery muted, and the production (slide guitar by Ry Cooder, vocals by Rita Coolidge, strings by Jack Niesche, etc.) frames each tale with exquisite understatement. His baritone singing is similarly just-right. There are really no flaws to explain why Stories was a commercial dud back in the day, except that maybe the portraits of losers and love affairs were a little too real for comfort.

Bill Meyer 

 Color As Time — Soma Schema (Adhyâropa)

soma schema by color as time

Color as Time is Joshua Stamper’s jazz-into-classical project, which filters the composer’s bright, lucid melodic aesthetic through the improvisational lens of a six-member ensemble. Soma Schema appears to be the group’s second album, following 2018’s This Light Use to be a Mountain, perhaps incorporating some of that disc’s earlier material—there is a track on this disc called “This Light Used to be a Mountain,” though not on the album by that name. The music here flows effortlessly between fusion-y jazz and pointillist classicism, with individual instruments sometimes taking different sides in the argument. In “close cover gently,” for instance, Paul Arbogast’s unmistakably swinging trombone solo winds through the starry twinkle of abstract electric keyboard; later a saxophone (played by Mike Cemprola) blows blearily, earthily through that same pristine, percussive background. The other long piece “with (con) turning (verse)” lets cool flute and saxophones wander through a radiant, 3 a.m. jazz club space. Sophisticated, fluid and hard to pin down.

Jennifer Kelly

 Fucked Up — One Day (Merge Records)

One Day is yet another high-concept release from Fucked Up. This time around, the band members each spent a maximum of 24 hours (that titular “one day”) on their contributions to recording the music. It’s an interesting idea, folding Fucked Up’s attraction to the Big Idea into its formal processes; it also ends up being a useful corrective measure to some of the more expansive excesses (and, frankly, bloat) that have marked the band’s recent records. This reviewer liked Dose Your Dreams and was charmed by some of the nuttier aspects of Year of the Horse. But it was a lot to process, and all the accumulating bagginess and sagginess left its unhappy mark on Oberon. By contrast, there’s a very appealing zip and straight-to-the-gut punch to some of the tracks on One Day. The title track has the big-hearted, maximum-volume appeal of Fucked Up at their best, and opener “Found” reminds you what it’s like to be in the room when the band is making its violent, joyous sound. Look out, folks. Fucked Up is writing rock songs again.

Jonathan Shaw

 Glassine & Sam Haberman — Radial (Cached)

Radial by Glassine & Sam Haberman

Radial is an intriguing collaboration between Baltimore-based producer Danny Greenwald, who releases music under the moniker Glassine, and Sam Haberman, who plays drums in avant-rock instrumentalists Horse Lords. If you’re expecting a record that sounds anything like Horse Lords, however, you’re out of luck — Radial is a mostly placid, intimate record. Haberman sent field recordings and four-track experiments to Greenwald, which he manipulated into these impressionistic compositions, to which the duo then added textural overdubs. The resulting half-hour of music veers between malfunctioning electronica (“Up, Together, Reach”), throbbing ambient drone (“St. Pete”), clattering percussive workouts (“Brushes in Woodstock”), and what could almost pass as vaporwave (“Behind a Seatbelt”). Together, the eight tracks are pleasingly disorientating, especially on headphones.

Tim Clarke 

 Joy Anonymous — “Joy (God Only Knows)” (self-released)

Right up until the last week of the year, if you’d said 2022’s best dance edit was Ploy’s remix of Khia’s “My Neck, My Back,” you’d have been right — but Christmas came right on time for those hip to London duo Joy Anonymous and you might want to have a rethink yourself after giving this a listen. Henry Counsell and Louis Curran’s accelerated treatment to a 1975 Betty Everett cover of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” was a favorite among those who saw them open for Fred again.. in recent months, and it’s easy to see why: Even twice removed from Brian Wilson’s original vision, “Joy (God Only Knows)” soars with life-affirming positivity and the kind of smile-inducing energy made for outdoor summer dance parties, illegal warehouse raves, your living room, the biggest rooms (as God might have it)… anywhere open arms and hearts seek to groove together, that is to say. If you’re feeling bitter and despondent, tired of an uncaring world and fed up with pretending like there’s any chance of salvaging something from all of this, fine, maybe you’re right — but for at least four minutes, Joy Anonymous will have you reconsidering. I speak, of course, from personal experience.

Patrick Masterson

Kraus — Fire! Water! Air! Kraus! (Soft Abuse)

Fire! Water! Air! Kraus! by Kraus

Kraus is an ultra-productive one-man band from New Zealand, and Fire! Water! Air! Kraus! stands out from his discography in two respects. You can get it on vinyl, unlike 14 other entries in his 19 album catalog. And it’s his first production of completely electronic music. While he doesn’t publish the specs, one suspects that he is working with a combination of analog and digital gear. The drum machine pops, synthetic squelches and fluttering fake flutes on “Gunther’s Button” all bring to mind a world where pushbutton telephones were spanking new technology. The bright resolution of the chimes on “Canal du Midi,” on the other hand, suggests higher-bit sampling rates that might come from the sort of cheap, high-powered contemporary gadgetry. Kraus likes tunes, but he lets them emerge from squirming nests of short loops. And while he likes machine sounds, his music is most attractive when it sounds like a heavy human hand is manually retarding or accelerating the spinning cogs.

Bill Meyer

 Memoriam — Rise to Power (Reaper Entertaiment)

It may be indicative of where metal finds itself that the first song on Memoriam’s Rise to Power is titled “Never Forget, Never Again (6 Million Dead).” Memoriam is not a war metal band, in subgeneric terms, but like singer Karl Willets’ old band Bolt Thrower, Memoriam expends a good deal of creative energy making war-themed death metal. And in our current cultural environment, if you’re going to record anthemic metal tunes titled “Total War” and “Annihilation’s Dawn,” it makes sense to lay down a marker indicating just where you stand on the Holocaust. That said — and done — Rise to Power is a satisfying record of sometimes doomy melo-death, written and played by a crew of dudes with serious heavy-music chops: bassist Frank Healy put in nearly two decades with Benediction and briefly played with Napalm Death; drummer Spikey Smith has seemingly played with everyone, from Killing Joke to the English Dogs to Conflict to (say what?) Morrissey. For anyone familiar with Bolt Thrower’s early records, Willets will have the most recognizable presence, and his gravelly growl suffuses these sometimes by-the-books songs with some gravitas and drama. The opening 12 minutes of the record are its best, most ruthlessly grand passage, sometimes recalling the tougher sounds of Planks or invoking a meatier version of At the Gates.

Jonathan Shaw

 E Millar & Christof Kurzmann — Rare Entertainment (Mystery & Wonder)

rare entertainment by e millar and christof kurzmann

Entertainment and improvisation certainly coexist on a frequent basis, but when it comes to improvised music, the pairing is not a given. So, the title of the CDR, which contains a performance by Canadian clarinetist Elizabeth Millar and Austrian singer/electronician Christof Kurzmann may raise questions. If you’re wondering if this is a slice of Bennink/Breuker/Zorn action, the answer is no. Over the course of not quite 50 minutes on a June night in Montreal, they judiciously added layers of hum, rattle, hiss, chime and whine, only occasional letting themselves sound like they were actually playing anything. Every once in a while, Kurzmann gently croons in English, Spanish or German; hearing Tall Dwarfs’ “Think Small” bob in the slow-moving swirl is not exactly entertaining, but it’s definitely an emotional inflection point . So, gestures of overt entertainment are rare, but if you’re ready to indulge some existential pondering whilst settling into a state of uneasy immersion, this duo has your sound bath ready.

Bill Meyer 

 Ivan Nahem + ex->tension — Crawling Through Glass (Arguably) 

Crawling Through Grass by Ivan Nahem + ex->tension

Ivan Nahem came up through NYC’s no wave/post-punk underground, playing a role in such bands as The Situations, Carnival Crash, Swans and, most recently, Ritual Tension with his brother Andrew. This new project is far more reserved and atmospheric than anything in his history and reflects, in part, his experiences with the meditative aspects of yoga. “The Exhaltation of Nothing,” a track which he wrote with his brother, stretches the dissonance and clangor of punk guitar into infinity, turning the sounds that these instruments make into drones that melt in glowing, serene pools. “51st St Savasana” floats lighter, airier tones over skittering vibrations, buried spoken word and isolated pings of acoustic guitar. This latter cut brings in collaborators from prior, more heated projects, Norman Westberg of Swans and Carnival Crash on guitar and Mark C. from Live Skull on keyboards and synths. The music remains unruffled, though not without drama, big swells of organ tone promising revelation but delivering mostly calm.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sneeze Awfull — Exercise #1 (We Be Friends)

Exercise #1 by Sneeze Awfull

Pittsburgh trio Sneeze Awfull are collagists whose outsider DIY background belies the sophistication of their music. Beneath the spoken word samples, twitchy beats and electronic effects lies a collection of art pop songs that evoke the work of Arthur Russell and These New Puritans. Vocalist Hunter, cellist Ricki and JF on beats, samples and synthesizers use all the busyness of their overlays to enhance rather than disguise the poignancy at the heart of Exercise #1. On “qlip qlop” Hunter’s vocal floats above the beat of marching feet as Ricki plucks jazz inflected riffs on their cello, CF drops a sample of what sounds like a grey flannelled mansplainer “I can really tell you’ve lost a lot of weight/That’s good, I said”, a polyphony of voices follows, more in conversation than competition. Such juxtapositions are a feature of their work, moments of intense beauty rising above the thrum of the world, the tracks constructed like intricate nested boxes, that reveal new secrets with every listen.

Andrew Forell 

 Torben Snekkestad / Søren Kjærgaard — Another Way of the Heart (Trost)

Another Way of the Heart by Torben Snekkestad / Søren Kjærgaard

In the 1970s, ECM Records’ penchant for packaging audiophile instrumental performances within strikingly colored album sleeves earned the label an association as a purveyor of soundtracks for imaginary fjord vistas. Not only does Another Way of the Heart sound about a three o’clock twist of the reverb knob away from being a vintage ECM release, it was actually recorded on the Western Norwegian island of Giske, which is one ferry ride away from some cruise-worthy fjord views, with the express intent of evoking the regional vibe. Both pianist Kjærgaard and reeds/trumpet player Snekkestad rein in their more extroverted tendencies in order to favor long, breathy tones, reverberant keyboard gestures, and creeping tempos. Each track draws its title from the poetry of Torben Ulrich (yep, Lars’ dad), and the music lives up to names like “Wind and Floating Lines” and “Into Particles of Light.” This is not an album for all occasions, but if you’re ready to reflect, it may be the one you need.

Bill Meyer 

 Valee — VACABULAREE (Shell Company)

A proper original and maybe even a creator of its own genre, Chicago MC Valee now makes properly boring and unoriginal music, the kind AI could make if all Valee’s lyrics were fed into it. White audiences who likes their rap chilly and not daring will love it. Last year, MC Valee made an album titled The TrAppiEst Elevator Music Ever!, but VACABULAREE elevator music in the worst sense.

Ray Garraty

Zaliva-D — Misbegotten Ballads (SVBKVLT Records)

孽儿谣 Misbegotten Ballads by Zaliva-D

The haunted soundscapes of Beijing based duo Li Chao and Aisin-Gioro Yuanjin speak to entrapment in tradition and the harsh lockdowns from which China only recently emerged. Mixing eastern and western music into a disquieting hybrid, Zaliva-D, offer no easy entry into their world. The tracks on Misbegotten Ballads fall somewhere between the blasted bastardized blues of Beefheart or Waits and traditional music injected with off-kilter beats, discordant machine music and the wordless wheedling lamentations of ancestral spirits. Built on distinctly Chinese rhythmic cadences and played at a uniformly deliberate pace, the duo’s music is at once aloof and strangely engaging. Club music at the end of a labyrinth of alleys for which no map exists. Arm yourself with a large ball of string and venture forth.

Andrew Forell

 Tucker Zimmerman & Joshua Burkett — Tunnel Visions (Idea/Mystra)

Tunnel Visions is a collaboration between poet Tucker Zimmerman and acoustic guitarist Joshua Burkett. The former is a Californian long transplanted to Europe who has been making records you never heard of since the 1970s, the latter has pursued a similarly obscure course for a quarter century whilst running Mystery Train Records in Massachusetts. Neither is too concerned with getting things perfect, which makes them perfectly suited to each other. As Zimmerman raspingly rhymes about seasons, long-gone musicians and radios saying things you know they’d never really say, Burkett and a few of his old freak folk friends trace meandering string tracks with just the right amount of bounce and melancholy to keep you listening past the words into the darkness of a very late night. This one might take some looking to track down; at press time, the only sources were Midheaven Mailorder or Burkett’s shop.

Bill Meyer

[angeliqueshelleyartist]

Major Study

Production Post #12

Art Book: Graphic Design

I had a look at some art books for graphic design inspiration, the one I was particularly drawn to was Horizon: Zero Dawn as the layout of the characters and presentation was something I felt would elevate my work.

I began by downloading a template from the printing company I plan to use and overlaying that over appropriate canvas size (30cm x 30cm, 300 dpi). My choice of text, layered and overblown type style hearkens back to the design choices I made for my pre-production document as I felt these were slick and matched the aesthetics I want for this solar punk world.

I wanted to retain the punchy, neon colours that I used in my art book planning and first thought I could use them in the ground elements & as the shadow tones in the art. I later decided to add another colour pop in an aurora layered below the title of the page in the top left corner, this adds a level of continuity between pages where the ground may vary depending on the content. I tried some different methods for the aurora effect, and I the end I created an aurora brush in Photoshop to achieve the current look.

I kept my colour choices fairly dual-tone for my vehicle page, and the silhouettes are arranged tidily with room to breathe. I went with a small font size for text bodies as it keeps it trendy as well as providing ample room for descriptions and annotated call-outs.

My first character page I designed called for some colour and style variations which were fun to design and adds a hint of player customisability and game-play styles.

The companion page for the Dark Solar Nomad gave me a chance to show the creature in greater detail as well as showcase a colour option less complimentary to the solar nomad.

The colours I chose for the Frontier Engineer's page is also mostly dual-tone neon colours but with a little more variation in detail for the ground.

I have yet to design the environment pages, but I think these character and prop pages are a great start which I may have to make only minor tweaks for the final print.

References:

Davies, P. (2017). The Art of Horizon Zero Dawn. London: Titan Books.

[marymerchandice]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Converse One Star Black Two Layer Top.

[ratchet-ratch]

Batsy Bloodclot | Supernatural Save

Can you guess who inspired the middle look?

Batsy is the lead of the pop punk band Super Natural (go away). They have an insatiable bloodlust and prefers performing in their vampiric form (depicted) and brooding in their more gothic "human" form (to come).

CC Details below the cut (I will add all links later):

Genetics/Hair: overlay | eyes | eyebrows | eyelashes | lips | lipstick | blood | blush | eyeshadow | eyeliner | hair

Look 1: top | gloves | pants | boots

Look 2: top | fishnet top/gloves | pants | leg band | boots

Look 3: top | pants | gloves | leg band | boots

Look 4: top | fishnets | boots

Look 5: top | fishnet undershirt | pants | boots

CC Creators: @lunar-daisiess, @kijiko-sims, @isjao, @dangerouslyfreejellyfish, @unstablesims, @pralinesims, @bluecravingcc, @trillyke, @purrsephonesims, @sentate, @aladdin-the-simmer, @sugarowl, @demondare-sims, @bellassims, @aharris00britney, @dissiasims, @eunosims, @dansimsfantasy, @goppolsme, @plbsims, @dallasgirl79, @ms-marysims, @helgatisha, @aveirasims, @obscurus-sims

[mollytatlisu]

White Shirt Shoot 1

In todays lecture we were given a task in order to kickstart us to produce content for our magazines. The task was to style a white shirt in a way that communicates our narrative taking the form of an informal photoshoot. The only rule was a white shirt had to be included; aside from that we could use any props, backgrounds and make up we wanted.

Before I begin to discuss each images qualities and disadvantages I am going to explain the stylistic choices I made regarding my models appearances. On my first model chloe, I styled the white shirt underneath a translucent boob tube with it half tucked into a leather mini skirt, underneath the skirt on one leg she wore a pair of pinstripe trousers, with floral pattered tights covering the other leg. I accessorised with a grommet belt around her right leg and a studded one around her waist, and two silver necklaces around her neck. Starting with the clothing, I went for the overlaying of the skirt on the trousers to mimic the DIY aesthetic that goth inherited from punk, as well the unique gender expression engrained in goth culture that I attempted to communicate by combining the skirt with the trousers; merging typical femininity and masculinity and dipping into their inherent gender blurring. The boob tube also stemmed from the DIY element, with the safety pins around the nipple acting as an expression of an average goths outward openness regarding sexuality, which is similar to why I incorporated the extra chains; I think they have loose kink connotations. Not only is the cross necklace made using a bike chain which perfectly demonstrates DIY, it indicates the respectfulness goths exhibit towards other cultures, religions and beliefs; which I first stumbled across in my research around the Visigoth’s sack of Rome; and their “politeness” towards Christian’s at that time. Aswell as this I also felt as though the cross’ unusually large size compared to typical religious crosses contributed to the extravagant, over the top style goth fashion possesses. I opted for the floral tights as one of my predictions based on my research thus far is that goth will take a much more feminine turn for all people that identity with the goth subculture; in short because of the increased awareness of the LGBTQ+ community and the development of pop culture influences such as Wednesday Addams. As for her hair and makeup, I attempted to emulate a trad goth look with heavy eyeliner, black lips and a pale complexion aswell as the exaggerated hair that I achieved through the use of back combing and hair spray. When exploring gothic rock I learnt the significance of Siouxsie Sioux and her band, so for the hair and makeup I took inspiration from her iconic look.

I think although this wasn’t my initial intention, my second model Sadie’s look is much more muted. I styled the white shirt underneath a band tee, paired with flared leather trousers, Jadon dr martens and accessories such as the grommet belt strung like a bag across her shoulder. Although the look has unusual elements such as the fingerless glove on one hand, in general it appears more put together and more resemblant of the modern goth; which I think is quite apparent when the two are stood together. I included the band t shirt to emphasis the importance of music in the development of goth, with the band “Divorce” actually being an indie / rock band from the early 2000s. I went with the dr martens because I feel as though they are a timeless staple within the goth wardrobe as well as that of many other subcultures. I feel as though the leather trousers contribute to the cleaner aesthetic this look has, and may be a material I consider to be involved in the future of goth.

Moving onto locations, I used various spots around and under the subway near my flat. Although I would’ve preferred to go further and take some photos in the oasis market to encorporate a musical background or around pigeon park to include its gothic style cathedral; the shoot was last minute and it was raining, so going to those locations would’ve comprised the hair and makeup etc. I think the most effective backgrounds are probably the overly textured walls with the graffiti on them, as the images they’re in exude almost a rebellious attitude; perfect for reflecting the anti establishment stance of goths dating back to the defeat of the Roman Empire.

[thegirlwiththecrimsonhair]

Every inch of me desires to be loved by you and if that’s how I spend my time, it’ll be time we’ll spent.

[eli-riteawn-blog]

[stephen-bliss-blog]

#testprints #screenprints #experiment @meshsilkscreen #overlays #layers #accidents #abstract #art #figurative #prints #color #colour #blondie #debbieharry @debbieharry_blondie @debbieharrynow #punk #pop (at Brooklyn, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Ch0JbiOJA/?igshid=162tfyy5v0jnp

[davidmann95]

Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

[d-stabilize]

Piers: in terms of music I make i tend to stick with punk and punk adjacent genres with the occasional rock influence since that's what i enjoy writing and producing the most plus thats what my fans expect. I'll put electric beats in the background and overlay different aspects of my songs when I want something fancier and when I'm in a silly mood ill open up my audio editing programs and edit the fuck out of my voice and music. Its fun and kinda relaxing but most importantly it reset my music pallet and helps me with artist block lol. As for stuff I like to listen to i tend to enjoy majority of genres but when it comes to pop i usually just listen to what marnie recommends because she knows what i like. I have a playlist of electrofunk and 8bit gaming music i listen to when I need to concentrate on paperwork tho marnie has been adding electric swing to my playlists lol and ill indulge in the occasional country tho that genre can be hit or miss for me but I find that if I stick to only woman country singers ill get more hits then misses. Also I like rap and hip hop when im in the mood for it

Piers: so what kind of music do you like?

N: I listen to the sounds of nature and palpitoad singing

Piers:

N:

Piers:

N: what genre is the band "talking heads"