#ransome note

[affairesasuivre]

Lauren Duffus’ music is a lesson in exploding gracefully

Lauren attributes her musical inspiration to two principal sources: American trio Salem, and her old Yamaha keyboard’s classical build-ins.

Listening to her productions, it’s clear that the uncanniness of these inspirations is right on brand. Tangible are the bad-dream atmospherics, chopped ‘n’ screwed beats and irreverent tone which paint the witch house genre (grey); as well as the cinematic drill instrumentals typified by Chicago rapper, Chief Keef. But far from the codeine’d quality of Salem’s quasi-noise productions, the antagonism in Duffus’ music is often appeased with blithe glimmers, sometimes even choral singing. Her music’s equal proclivity for both caustic indignation and moments of tenderness justify previous comparisons to the likes of aya and Loraine James, both of which extend to her fusion of prismatic club beats and soft melodics.

‘From a very young age I was always drawn to sad or scary music’, Lauren reflects. ‘I remember loving the soundtrack for the fairytale, Peter and the Wolf. I love all genres though from black metal to pop but I will almost always only enjoy the songs that have a moving element. That’s why I love Chief Keef, his instrumentals almost always feel really sad to me’.

For Lauren, making music is a form of therapy, and satisfaction only comes with a production process informed by hardship. Her self-proclaimed inflexibility when it comes to making music solely informed by her own selfish inclinations doesn’t stop her hoping that people will share in the emotion she pours into its creation. Nonetheless, she finds less comfort in doing so herself. ‘After making something and putting it out I very rarely listen to it. Either I really don’t enjoy it and it tends to upset me’.

Pain is palpable in Duffus’ music. After boredom led her to download a free trial of Logic in the height of 2020’s lockdown, tracks quietly began to surface on her Soundcloud page, such as ‘Stir Fry’ which would later resemble one third of her debut EP ‘SULK’. The snideness of SULK’s title matches its tone. Unequivocal though it may be – this is an expression of pain – it is resolutely not an attempt at self-indulgence. Despite its melancholy (‘Soho Road’ is subtitled ‘Crying Song’ and is mainly composed of gut-wrenching sobs), Lauren’s music almost seems to laugh at itself, deftly conveying the coexistence of both devastation and self deprecation in depressive episodes.

Whilst Stir Fry’s choral singing, chipmunk vocals and dancehall-indebted rhythms bare stark resemblance to Sinjin Hawke’s symphonic ‘First Opus’ LP, the self-released ‘Anxiety‘ is distinctly cold, with brittle percussion and a playtime 173 seconds, as if not meriting anything more.

‘I’m still on the journey of learning how to deal with my emotions in a way that’s not destructive’, she responds when I ask about the description written underneath her AD 93 release ‘Dubplate 07’. ‘Exploding gracefully just means pouring that energy outwards as opposed to bottling it up and destroying myself’.

She admits the difficulty she’s found in compromising her own release schedules in favour of working with labels. ‘I want to share as soon as I finish a skeleton of a song because there’s so much pent up energy Ive just put into it and I feel like it’s squirming in my laptop needing to be let out’.

Lauren also struggles with attempts to categorise her music, admitting she sometimes gives into labelling tracks such as ‘Permanence‘ as ‘ambient’ given their pulselessness, despite the term not resonating fully. Her dual inspiration of both drill and classical music reaches its most prominent form on her third most listened-to SoundCloud upload: a monasterial remix of ‘Inner City Pressure’ – the experimental grime track by London producer, Cold.

When I asked whether she detected a sense of place in her own music – whether she considered London to be its natural home – she reflected that, despite the dancehall sounds she grew up surrounded by, that actually ‘the fact that I exclusively create in my childhood home which holds a lot of painful memories is more of a factor than the city I’m in. I can be a bit crap socially so I really don’t feel like any immediate community influences my sound’.

When we discuss her fusion of hard-hitting, industrial electronics with ornate choral arrangements, she meditates on classical music’s liberating tendencies. ‘It inspires me to not be rigid and have no rules – that probably sounds stupid because its seen as such a rigid, traditional genre filled with rules – but I like the constant tempo changes, the expression, and the movement within the songs that tell a story. It’s so fluid. I enjoy challenging myself to turn off the metronome and just play stuff expressively’.

Lauren’s penchant for story-telling translates into a desire to take up film scoring, so much so that she recently partook in an online course. ‘I just love the freedom it gives you in terms of structure and the challenge of not sticking to a tempo or traditional structure’, she tells me. ‘It was so much fun writing music with a visual prompt and hit points etc it was the most creative I’ve felt’.

Having only been producing for a matter of months when she created ‘Stir Fry’ – now her most notable release – it’s clear that world-building is something innate in Lauren’s musical inclination. It’s rare to find an artist whose music engulfs you in such a way as hers, and warrants comparisons to the enchanting immersion of Björk or the cinematic allure of Enya. At once appearing to bare all yet be fiercely guarded, it’s a deeply complex treatise on life’s hard times.

[martyrbat]

hate when a batman artist isn't committed to bruce's lame bat schtick... give that man a bat insignia on the bottom of his boots rn

[toughbunnyforever]

maybe try writing him a note next time idk

[vexwerewolf]

[abermetta]

a crime of passion, you could say

[mikeybutnotway]

This is a letter, my word is the Beretta, the sound of my vendetta against the ones that planned it!

[aswarmofmoths]

[goatsghost]

i love how, in every universe, no matter how much jason hates bruce or wants to distance himself from the family, he still loves alfred just as much as he always has

[badly-drawn-doflamingo]

SURPRIZE, SHIT HEADS!!1

Redraw for a comic con panel [ for a friend. ]

Also have some fun color options

Aaaand Doffy wanted to be included

[avvail]

ransom note? With whoever u want I'm just a sucker for that setup

The hero’s droopy eyes were always such a fascinating sight. The villain could very well keep them drugged up like this for the rest of their life, if they so pleased, and it would never get old to them.

They would always be able to admire their slurred moans behind the gag, their watery eyes looking at them so delicately, hardly able to grasp onto a single thought in that empty little head of theirs.

The villain smiled softly, their fingers tapping under the chin.

“Hero,” they called, gently stroking their thumb along their chin. The hero’s eyelids sluggishly blinked, looking so out of it. They couldn’t even lift that heavy head of theirs without the villain’s help. It was so pitiful.

“It’s been six days and three hours since I sent out your ransom note,” they sighed, feigning a look of pity as they tilted their limp head to the side, admiring the glint of the dim light in those blank eyes. “They finally got back to us. Want me to read it?”

They fished into their pocket, bringing out the pristine note in the envelope, something the Agency had sent in response to the ransom note the villain had sent out when they first got their hands on the hero.

They let go of the hero’s chin, letting it drop unceremoniously, not missing the disgruntled whine that bubbled against their gag. The villain briefly smiled at that.

They motioned for one of the henchmen to untie the gag from around the hero’s mouth, simultaneously using a small knife to slice open the top of the envelope. The villain gave a languid sigh, their uninterested eyes scanning over the words.

“Absurd amount of money, don’t hurt you, negotiable terms,” the villain listed off under their breath, a small chuckle escaping their lips as they turned to the hero, taking in clipped breaths with the absence of the gag. “You hear that?”

They gripped their jaw, fingers digging into their cheeks as they jerked them forward, the ropes scraping against their already sore flesh. The hero gave a pained whimper.

“No money,” they told them, showing them the note, even though the hero wouldn’t be able to read anything in this state. “They want to negotiate instead. Isn’t that funny? They’re begging me not to hurt you, and yet they’re willing to risk not meeting my demands when I asked them to.”

The villain scrunched the note up in their hand, until it was squashed down tight in the ball of their fist. They stepped directly in front of the hero, digging their thumb into their mouth and prying their jaw open. Watery, pitiful doe eyes could barely stare up at them.

“Maybe it’s for the best, you know,” they cooed, stuffing the ball of paper in their mouth, making the hero moan against it. They tapped their cheek harshly. “They won’t pay the amount I asked for, so I’m going to keep you.”

The villain wiped away a stray tear charging down their bruised cheek, and let go of them. Their head dropped.

“You’re too pretty like this to pass up anyway,” they smiled.

@badthingshappenbingo

[gayturians]

start of "alone" in dragon age 2:

fenris and aveline bickering about her intel

DIALOGUE CHOICE

fenris describes looking into hadriana's info and finding his sister. he sent her money and invited her to kirkwall, and now she's here.

DIALOGUE CHOICE

potentially more info about what he found out

he requests that you be there when he meets her

DIALOGUE CHOICE

start of "alone" if it were in veilguard:

"hawke. i looked into hadriana's claims and it seems she was telling the truth about my sister. if it's not a trap, she's waiting for me at the hanged man. will you join me?"

"sure."

[usualgangofidiots]

June 1977 cover

Artist: Bob Clarke

[martyrbat]

i think duke thomas can look up at the eclipse and be fine actually

[beetledrink]

some furry fashion adopts coming if i ever find the time to finish them… i just like drawing outfits

[vexwerewolf]

It's been too long since I made one of these. Have another!

[swagstar]

dispencer talk