#solo leveling volume 1

[originaljiraiyan]

Solo Leveling Season 1, Episode 9

[comicchannel]

Manga Books Manhwa (Chu-Gong) Solo Leveling - Volume 1

Link para compra BR: https://amzn.to/47meTCB

Buy here: https://amzn.to/4aJRr4V

[sisaloofafump]

Batman Comics Reading Guide

The goal of this post is to provide a bunch of launching off points for people depending on what they're interested in. As such, this is not a checklist. These are just suggestions that hopefully provide some context to navigate different eras and get a proper scope of the Batman comic landscape.

The amount of background behind characters and arcs can make it hard to jump right in (though these recommendations are geared to be more beginner friendly than average), so sites like the dc fandom wiki and comicvine are invaluable resources to catch you up on context. However, you can also learn a lot by just opening up a series and picking up the character cues as you go along.

IF I HAD TO CHOOSE JUST ONE...

Batman: Hush (2002) is amazing at introducing so many important characters at an entry level: Bruce, Dick (Robin I/Nightwing), Tim (Robin III), Alfred, Harley Quinn and the Joker, and Gordon. It also reintroduces Catwoman and starts her relationship with Batman, and explores his friendship with Superman and Lois. It also gets into much more about his upbringing than just the night of his parent's murder. My only hesitation is that it came out right before the resurrection of the second Robin, Jason, and lays the early foundation for it, so it's important to have some backstory regarding that going in. The art and the writing is great and while the story line gets intense, it has plenty of lighter interactions and art. It was originally published as Batman #608-619.

FIRST, SOME CONTEXT

There are always 2 ongoing series about Batman/Bruce Wayne and his teams: Batman, and Detective Comics. Depending on the era, these are either totally independent stories (like they are currently) or meant to be read side-by-side. It can be worth reading collected volumes of arcs rather than one of these streams individually.

There are also a bunch of series dedicated to supporting characters and teams that often have a lot of crossover. There will be info panels in the comics that tell you where a storyline started if a crossover happens, and the wiki/comicvine can help guide you if you get lost.

GOLD/SILVER AGE

If you're interested in his goofy Gold and Silver Age comics-start with a highlight collection! I recommend Batman Annual #5 (1963) from the 1940 "Batman" run. My personal favourite sub-era to read is the early 60s because it is both weird and easy to read. This era was almost entirely anthology comics, so it is very easy to bounce around in read one or two stories at a time.

Prominent Series:

Detective Comics (1937–): It was originally an anthology series but (almost) each issue #27 onwards has Batman in it! There are stories about other characters like the Martian Manhunter, and various non-hero detectives in each issue too.

Batman (1940–): A Batman solo series. Often includes three stories in each issue.

World's Finest Comics (1941–): He has a solo story in the first 70 issues. Issue #71 onwards are team ups with Superman!

Batman Family (1975-78): A short bronze age anthology staring Batman, Batgirl (Barbara), and Robin (Dick), however it really focused on highlighting supporting characters like Vicki Vale, Huntress, and Ace the Bat-Hound. It mostly includes reprints but each issue should have an original story as well. This was later merged with Detective Comics for 15 issues.

Prominent Character Issues:

Detective Comics #27 (1939): Introduces Bruce/Batman

Batman #1 (1940): Introduces Selina/"The Cat"

Detective Comics #38 (1940): Introduces Dick Grayson/Robin

Batman #16 (1943): Introduces Alfred (although his last name is Beagle, not Pennyworth)

Superman #76 (1952): Oh no! There's only one room left on this cruise and we have to share (Batman & Superman's first meeting)

Detective Comics #233 (1956): Introduces Kathy Kane aka the first version of Batwoman

Batman #139 (1961): Introduces Bette Kane aka the first version of a Bat-Girl

Detective Comics #359 (1967): Introduces Barbara Gordon aka current canon's "first" Batgirl

Detective Comics #357 (1983): Introduces Jason Todd. (His backstory is rewritten a few years later however)

DARK AGE

These are a few very important comics to Batman's history and you'll often see them referenced. You don't have to read any of them but it's important to loosely familiarize yourself with the contents.

Batman: Year One (1987): When they reset all of DC's continuity, this was the Batman origin they created. It set a new gritty vibe that some people loved, some people hated, but needless to say it is one of the most influential comics DC has ever put out. Features Bruce, Gordon, Selina, Alfred, and Harvey.

Batman: The Killing Joke (1988): This is a majorly influential Joker story and quite dark. It solidified the Joker's modern characterization and parallels to Batman. Barbara Gordon/Batgirl is assaulted and permanently(ish) paralyzed in it.

Batman: A Death in the Family (1988): Robin 2/Jason's death arc. The readers had voted on whether he would live or die. This was the result. Also published as Batman #426-429

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (1989): Dave McKean illustrated this!!. That's all I should need to tell you. It is a very interesting abstract exploration of Batman and Gotham's rogues and leans heavily on the horror aspect. I'll warn up front that there is a lot of demonization of mental health issues. It established Arkham Asylum as a major part of Gotham lore.

also the very famous but non-canonical:

The Dark Knight Returns (1986): A hypothetical future story where Bruce comes out of retirement. Carrie Kelley is the the new (and female!) Robin and helps him fight the Joker, Two-Face, and Superman. This is the first (and the best) of a trilogy.

MODERN AGE

A lot of new characters were introduced in the mid/late 90s and early 2000s. These include Tim Drake (Robin 3), Cassandra Cain (Batgirl 4/Orphan), Stephanie Brown (Robin 4/Batgirl 5/Spoiler), Kate Kane (Batwoman), Damian Wayne (Robin 5), as well as a focus on Helena Bertinelli (Batgirl 3/Huntress). It also started a third continuous series called Batman: Shadow of the Bat which ran from 1992–2000.

It would probably be illegal for me to not mention the series Batgirl (2000) here for the writing is incredible. However, the hyper-stylized art may make it better as a series to read later on.

There are many prominent story arcs, and you can find collected versions of them as the individual issues were split accross various character's series. Some important ones are:

Knightfall (1993): The villain Bane breaks Batman's back, and a religious zealot vigilante Azreal takes over for Bruce.

No Man's Land (1999): An earthquake destroys Gotham and the vigilantes work to restore order to the quarantined city. Introduces Cassandra Cain and highlights Barbara, Tim, Helena, and Bruce.

Under the Hood (2005): The bloody return of Jason Todd/Robin 2, very often referenced in fandom

Batman and Son (2006): The introduction of Damian Wayne/Robin 5.

Batman R.I.P. and following (2008–9): During this era, Batman is presumed to have died during a major crossover event The Final Crisis. Dick Grayson (the now grown-up Robin 1) takes over as Batman, Stephanie Brown becomes Batgirl, Damian Wayne is Robin, and everyone else is doing weird stuff. A major sub arc is Battle for the Cowl where the former Robins fight for the right to take over as Batman.

There is also a lot of fun crossovers with the justice league if you'd rather not stay in Gotham, here are some good ones:

World's Finest (1990): This is a wonderful Superman & Batman team up from the early 90s and has really great interactions between everyone's various personas. Steve Rude's art is so much fun and his versions of Lois and Bruce Wayne make me want to cry with how beautiful they are.

Kingdom Come (1996): a hypothetical story about the Justice League dealing with a new generation of morally careless heroes. Deeply influential and famous but more importantly, absolutely gorgeous. Do yourself a favour and just go stare and Alex Ross' art for a while (including in 2005's series Justice)

Trinity (2008): A great look at Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League. The first half focuses on the Trinity's similarities and differences in what they symbolize. It has a very interesting integration of Tarot too. However, they're absent for the vast majority of the second half—focusing on what the rest of the JL does in their absence. You don't need to read all of it.

Superman/Batman (2003–2011): A team up book of the title characters. The first arc is an all time favourite, and it has little crossover with their solo series, making for a read with little need for background context.

NEW 52

The New 52 (2011) relaunch event made a few major backstory changes to the Batfamily. It unparalyzed Barbara and reinstated her as Batgirl. Cass and Stephanie both lost their Batgirl (and Robin) histories and were completely set back to ground zero, ready to be reintroduced with new origins. It does introduce Duke Thomas/Signal to the team, as well as Harper Row/Bluebird (though she is not in many non-N52 books).

Honestly just avoid all of the New-52 for as long as you can, but if you do get tempted later on:

We are Robin (2015) and Robin War (2016): Features Duke Thomas, his friends, and later Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. If you're going to read anything, read this. It is genuinely very good and worthwhile.

Batman & Robin Eternal (2015) focuses on the whole family (including Harper Row/ Bluebird!!) and re-introduces Cass and Azreal. It has a LOT of family bickering and team ups. Ironically, it doesn't really have Bruce or Damian in it.

REBIRTH & PRESENT

The Rebirth era and following (2016-) does mostly keep the same canon as the New 52 created. However, following the Dark Crisis event (2022), everyone's backstories were merged with their previous incarnations. It is not clear to what degree this effects each character, however Stephanie is back to having been Robin now.

If you're reading the Rebirth era, I recommend starting with the Detective Comics run rather than Batman. This is just personal preference but I strongly stand by it. It highlights lesser known characters (initially Kate/Batwoman, Steph, Cass, Azreal and Batwing, with Tim and Bruce) but most importantly, it's way better written. There are a lot of batfamily crossover events (like Joker War, or Fear State). So yourself a favour and read the collected editions so you catch all of it in one place.

Three major events happen that effect all Batman-adjacent comics, that (because they still fairly recent) I will not detail for spoiler reasons, however: Batman #50 (Sep 2018) and #77 (Oct 2019), and to a lesser degree Detective Comics #940 (Nov 2016), have lasting impacts on the series.

COMIC RECS

Batman and the Outsiders (2019) is amazing. It focuses on Cassandra and Duke. Read Detective Comics #983-987 first. B&tO is continuing off from it.

Batman: The Knight: a 10 issue series about Bruce's training years and the friendships he made. Introduces a prominent character who shows up a lot in Batman #100 onwards. This is just really great

Batgirls: If you like Barbara, Cass, and Stephanie, I highly recommend reading the first arc of this. The art and the story are a lot of fun

All-Star Batman (2016): features Duke Thomas with Batman blasting heavy metal music out of his chest. It's a series of contained stories and doesn't require context from other runs

Task Force Z: Jason is roped into leading a government team of resurrected villains. It is quite an interesting exploration of his current ethics. The rest of the family do make appearances as well.

And additionally:

Wayne Family Adventures: an official (but non-canonical) Webtoon about the various domestic shenanigans of the Batfamily. It's light and funny and heartfelt and updates every Thursday.

-------

Lastly, I want to recommend my favourite oneshot, and it has absolutely no bearing on any plot, characters, or world:

Batman: Dreamland (2000): It's Batman exploring Area 51 and he looks like this:

What more could you possibly want?

[duckprintspress]

My June Reads

Storygraph introduced auto-generated graphics for sharing our reads by the month, which makes it much easier to do a review, and here I am! Sorry it's kinda pixelly, the settings on Storygraph aren't perfect yet but they're planning to add functionality.

I've been posting on the Duck Prints Press Book Lover's Server for a while, so everyone knows there that the answer to "how do you read so much?" is the library, but just to be clear, if it's a graphic novel, I got it from one of three libraries - either my local system, @queerliblib, or the Japan Foundation Library. The last two are both free-throughout-the-US Libby libraries and they've both been awesome.

Prose books, I usually own.

Anyway. Onward! My June reads:

How to Love: A Guide to Feelings and Relationships for Everyone by Alex Norris (graphic novel, short self-help stories about how to be in relationships, how to be alone, etc., all very inclusive.

Blue Flag Vol. 1 - 2 by Kaito (manga series about modern high school and a young man and his best friend - who has a crush on him - and a young woman and her best friend - who has a crush on her. poly vibes.)

The Tea Dragon Festival and The Tea Dragon Tapestry by K. O'Neill (graphic novels, very fluffy fantasy slice-of-life with various queer rep)

Squad by Maggie Toluda-Hall and Lisa Sterle (graphic novel, modern with magic, wlw high school student discovers that fitting in with the cool kids means becoming a murderous werewolf)

Clementine vol. 1 and 2 by Tille Walden (graphic novel, post-apocalyptic set in the same 'verse as The Walking Dead about a wlw amputee surviving against the zombies.

A Thousand Hopes, A Thousand Risks by Kelas Lloyd (short story, fantasy, pre-mlm between a young merchant and a god)

Ride On, Shooting Star by J. D. Harlock (short story, science fiction, a space courier wants to retire)

Deadendia vol. 1 by Hamish Steele (graphic novel, modern with magic/horror elements, about a trans male teenager who runs away from home and moves into a haunted house at an amusement park)

Giant Days vol. 2 by John Allison and Whitney Cogar (graphic novel, modern college setting, about the somewhat silly lives of the main characters)

Yona of the Dawn vol. 1 by Mizuho Kusanagi (manga, fantasy, about a young princess whose kingdom gets taken over by someone she thought a friend)

In the Dark vol. 3 by Jin Shisi Chai (danmei novel, mlm, last of three volumes - I read the other two in May - about an undercover drug cop who returns home after six years undercover)

The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation manhua vol. 6 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (manhua version of the MDZS novel, mlm, historical cultivation about a fraught political situation)

The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha (graphic novel playing on story of the fox maiden Gumiho in Korean mythology, with a side of wlw)

My Hero Academia vol. 9 - 12 by Kohei Horikoshi (manga series about teenagers at a high school for superheroes)

Frontera by Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo (graphic novel about a young man crossing the border between the US and Mexico illegally, and about the mlm ghost who helps him)

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Nagata Kabi (autobiographical manga about a young lesbian in Japan trying to figure out her identity and find companionship)

Solo Leveling vol. 1 - 2 by Chugong (a manwha series set in modern fantasy Korea, about a young man is terrible at "hunting"...until he isn't)

Haikyu!! vol. 5 - 6 by Haruichi Furudate (manga series about young men who play high school volleyball)

Little Birds by Anaïs Nin (a collection of short erotic stories with lots of trigger warnings applicable and a few dashes of wlw, originally written in the 1930s and 1940s)

To Strip the Flesh by Oto Toda (manga collection of short stories, with the longest/most involved being about a young man's journey coming out as a trans man)

Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed (graphic novel exploring three stories of Egyptians getting first-grade wishes in a modern-with-magic world, includes NB rep)

Limerence by Jiang Zi Bei (danmei novel, mlm, about a young college student who breaks up with his boyfriend and ends up falling for his ex's roommate.)

Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame (manga about a young Japanese gay man coming our of the closet and making friends/finding a mentor in an older gay man)

Silent Hearts vol. 1 by Jing Shui Bian (danmei novel, mlm, modern high school setting, lots of disability rep though not for either member of the main couple)

Rainbow! vol. 1 by Sunny (modern, maybe with magic, about a young woman with a tough life and the people around her; wlw implied in the future?)

Out of Left Field by Jonah Newman (real-life-inspired graphic novel about a young gay man navigating high school)

Escape From St. Hell: My Trans Life Levels Up by Lewis Hancox (autobiographical graphic novel about a young trans man with severe anxiety)

This was the most pages I've read in a month all year, and the second most individual books. There's actually one more book not pictured, as it wasn't on Storygraph and I opted not to add it.

Happy reading, y'all.

[formulaorange]

2024 Winter Anime

It's here! It's finally here!!! Solo Leveling comes out this season! There's definitely a few others to keep an eye out for but this is the star of the winter season:

Solo Leveling One of my most anticipated series. I'm caught up on the english light novels (8 volumes) and I'm honestly so invested in this story. In a way it gives the same impact as One Punch Man but if the story progressed a little faster toward fame and growth in his power. Easily the best of the season. Noteworthy On Going Shows: Frieren - Episodes 17-28 One of the most mesmerizing and well paced fantasies I've seen. Also one of my 10/10s of all time. Worth looking into if you remotely like fantasy. Shangri La Frontier - Episodes 14-25 Another fantasy game series that honestly just looks like it's a fun game. Explores a lot of game mechanics within this full-dive VR type game that almost puts SAO to shame. Fun action, fantasy and fun for game lovers. Apothecary Diaries - Episodes 13-24 My current favourite drama/romance/medical mystery series. The characters are simple but the show highlights the different dynamics and almost feels like an enemies to lovers plot. New Seasons:

Blue Exorcist - Season 3 This is one of the og shows I watched growing up. It's a mythology school themed show that I loved. It's been 13 years since season 1 aired and I'm stoked to see it come back. It's being done by a different studio since A-1 is busy with solo leveling, so I'm not sure if it'll hit the same but I'll still check it out at least for the nostalgia.

Mashle - Season 2 The funniest anime I've seen in a while. Man muscle brains his way through magic school and the whole show is a meme of harry potter and other magic series. Truly entertaining. Can't wait for this season

Delicious In Dungeon This is a series I've wanted to pick up the manga for for a while. It's about dealing with food and hunger when these adventurers are deep in a dungeon and learn to start cooking and eating what they can find down there. Funny concept but honestly looks like a lot of fun.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer I read this manga and light novel so long ago. (Literal years - link to my manga thoughts and summary). I'm looking forward to the adaptation. I think nowadays this kind of story doesn't catch nearly as much attention as it did a few years ago. An adventurer dies in a dungeon and is reborn as an undead who can evolve as he kills other monsters and he deals with trying to fit in with the human realm again and evolving. I'm still looking forward to it after keeping an ear our for so long!

Mr. Villain's Day Off I recently heard about this series and thought it was such a cute concept. Us with all our villain complexes with enjoy this one. Will likely be a background show for me as there won't be a huge plot, regardless, still fun to watch. Burn the Witch - #0.8 - 30 min Special I think this won't be as exciting now that Bleach has come back and we aren't as depraved of Tite Kubo's work but I really enjoyed the original short series. Hoping for more of this world in the future. Sequels: Classroom of the Elite - Season 3 Tsukimichi - Season 2 (Link to review of season 1) The Dangers in My Heart - Season 2 More Continuations: Undead Unluck Ragna Crimson After going through 20+ shows every season, many with sub-par animations and the same fantasy twists, I've become real picky about which series are even worth trying to watch these days. Here are the ones that deserve at least 2 episodes in order: A Sign of Affection - Gets a special spot since it's incredibly rare to see disability representation in anime and it looks like it's done quite well- A romance between a guy and a deaf girl. Looks super sweet Bucchigiri?! - I honestly can't say this looks appealing to me personally but I've hear the name before and well it's MAPPA. (Give em a break) 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess - looks well animated and just a fun watch Metallic Rouge - The sci-fi series for this season. I'm not sure I have it in me to watch something heavy like this this season but it looks decent. The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic The Witch and the Beast - Here for manga readers - lowkey looks like the manga will be much better and this might be a skip for me. Hokkaido Gyaru's are super Adorable (Ecchi) ALSO - Big reminder: Haikyu!! and Demon Slayer have their movies coming out this season as well (both theatrical releases so keep an eye out!!!) Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training - Feb 2nd 2024 Haikyu!! - The Dumpster Battle - Feb 16th 2024

[tetrix-anime]

Ore dake Level Up na Ken (Solo Leveling) - Blu-ray/DVD Volume 1 Illustration. Release: 27 March 2024. Anime is listed with 12 episodes across 4 Blu-ray volumes.

[raytorosaurus]

I have seen maybe half a season of TUA and didn’t read the comics so let me tell you seeing those panels where Vanya is yelling “We belong on that stage” (and in reference to herself and her taller blonde bass-playing brother) drawn in profile with literally Gerard’s haircut and outfit was a big shock to the system. I never even considered that he’d inserted elements of himself and his bandmates into TUA except for a bunch of weird edits people made comparing how much Aiden Gallagher looks like Frank but now I feel like I really need to read it.

im really looking forward to rereading all of the comics after this semester's over because i haven't done that since volume 3's run ended and i'll definitely make more coherent posts about it then but like. it's really really interesting to compare to all of gerard's other art because he is just...so distinctively him, even across different mediums and genres. tua and mcr and hesitant alien and kjna and his visual art etc etc etc like his artistic fingerprint is stamped so boldly and unapologetically all over them and that's something i really love about him. like his art, love it or hate it, is sooooo genuine always. even when he's purposely imitating other artists, he's very consciously doing it in his own voice, putting his own spin on it.

when i say tua and mcr are completely separate projects i mean it - i don't think one should only ever be discussed in relation to/in the context of the other - and, above all, tua is certainly not like...autobiographical, or a direct representation of real people/events. it's led by gerard but it has a different creative team than mcr does and that really shows as well - i definitely wanna talk ant this when i have more time but part of the reason im not sold on conweap as an album is because it's too umbrella academy - it's really evident that gerard was working on both of them at the same time, and letting one influence the other too directly. mcr's a band, not a Gerard Project, and umbrella academy is largely a duo (w gabriel bá), so they can't just be transplanted onto each other yk.

anyway I'm rambling but all this to say - tua isn't meant to be "about" mcr any more than bullets is "about" 9/11. but gerard's life was changed and shaped by his experiences in the music scene throughout his life, by dropping everything and living as a penniless artist, by becoming suddenly (in)famous, and that really shines through in tua. he says he drew inspiration from touring band life to write a dysfunctional family, and the dehumanising effects of fame and attention, and of being categorised and scrutinised on a private or public level, are huge themes - as is addiction, mental health, complicated grief.

like...i actually got into mcr through the tua comics lmaooo. i read volume 1 because of wonderful @blackmoldmp3 talking about it and immediately said oh. i need more from this dude's brain right now. and i was soooo not disappointed haha. i really am obsessed with quite a lot of the things gerard is also obsessed with as an artist. the particular themes and imagery and scenarios he's fixated on are really very consistent throughout everything he does - only the way they're discussed or portrayed does change over time. i don't rly subscribe to the idea of gleaning specifics abt artists' personal lives from their works because, beside all else, it just does them a huge disservice (that's my number one gripe with the popular talking pounts around hes alien and frank's solo work in particular; however "confessional" you wanna read art as, it's still art that was created with skill and intent.)

anyway that's way off topic dkfnfj. what i do love about this kind of thing is looking at distinct creations in the context of the rest of an artist's body of work. like...yeah, gerard's said there's a lot of mikey in klaus. has dressed similarly to vanya and the kraken and the seance at times etc etc. has compared himself to the rumor, because she's the one he relates to most. puts a lot of his familiar ideology surrounding music and performance into vanya. puts angry teenage vanya in a shitty punk band with her disillusioned teenage brother on bass, and puts a classical music prodigy in a punk band as an excellent guitarist, writing songs about killing the president etc etc. i could go on! because these things are just scattered everywhere through the comic, just like all of gerard thematic and aesthetic and ideologic fingerprints.

so what's reallyyy interesting to me is looking at umbrella academy as something gerard wrote on the road with mcr across multiple years. volume one was released while the tbp world tour was ongoing, and volume two only a few months after. the progression of parade -> tua -> conweap -> danger days is SOOOO fascinating to me, especially because one of the things that really works about danger days imo is the way it kind of shakes off some of the tua-style gritty cynicism and returns to mcr's defiant, extravagant theatricality. if you go through tua with a fine-tooth comb you'll definitely find the most direct comparisons to conweap, in terms of mcr. the way dd approaches the themes it has in common with tua is just.....so different, and so so mcr. and then you can see the at times self-referential development on those things in hesitant alien - AND THEN VOLUME 3 COMES AROUND AND LIKE. AUUUGGGGHHHHH the change and growth there is SO apparent. btw i don't mean "growth" "progression" etc in this post to mean "improving" - i just mean change and development in a neutral sense, bc it's so interesting to see it laid out there in an artist's body of work. but like. man it makes me crazeeee actually the way gerard picked tua back up....almost certainly around the same time mcr started discussing a potential reunion. and the way that foundations revisits and reconceptualises mcr's existing catalogue is paralleled in the way vol 3 of tua is, like...........like there's so much life lived there, between those things. gerard's even said he's changed his plan for the ending (if we ever see it 🥲) because he has more compassion for his own characters now and doesn't want to see them broken down for good. he says he's gotten better at listening to other people - for starters, he's a lot more conscious of his own subconscious racism/whiteness that came through at times in the original run and has expressed regret for that (namely, the entire main cast being white, with a couple of side characters being uncomfortably stereotyped).

but just like. augh. im not gonna lie man i have no idea what i've just typed im sorry it's probably so rambly bc I'm so dizzy rn and definitely am not gonna proofread it or whatever skdjfj but. I LOVE ART! I LOVE ARTISTS! I LOVE DIVING DEEP INTO AN ARTIST'S BODY OF WORK AND WATCHING THEM REINVENT THEMSELF AND/OR DOUBLE DOWN ON THEMSELF (SOMETIMES FOR BETTER, SOMETIMES FOR WORSE). obvs this fandom genuinely does have a big issue with invasive/un-self-aware parasocial behaviour but there's a difference between that and like. getting obsessed with a particular artist. that's so normal and in fact necessary to life imo. i think every artist literally has to have ppl like that i can't imagine any other way to live it's just a specific type of human connection at a distance baby. don't get me wrong tho i also wanna chew on his thigh. anyway.

my god. how did i get here what even was your question. tua. yes it's crazy. it's not for everyone for sure but it has enough of the shit that makes me crazzzzyyyyy that it got me into mcr which made me crazierrrr so. yes i can recommend. especially if ur like me and lovvvve stories that are a little bit fractured by design. that dance around big parts of the story, where there's as much significance in an absence or in a tiny background detail than there is in any dialogue or action scene. most of the criticism i see of tua is about the pacing but like. to my tastes it's a really great use of the comic medium yk? lmk if you want content warnings or something there are plenty skdjfj.

[havendance]

Library Trade Haul Roundup post!

I already talked about The Old Guard: Opening Fire, but onwards to the rest!

Hawkeye: Private Eye by Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, and Jordie Bellaire. I already touched on some more general thoughts here, but to talk more specifically about this book, I thought that it was fun. I liked the private eye premise of it all. Coming into this primarily because I was interested primarily in seeing more of the creative team at work, I came away knowing Kate BIshop more (which I suppose is the purpose of a solo...). Anyway, this was in standard graphic novel size like the upcoming DC compact collection (or whatever it's called) so seeing the size of it and how it worked was also nice.

Pretty Deadly vol 2 and Pretty Deadly: The Rat by Kelly Sue Deconnick, Emma Rios, and Jordie Bellaire. I'd read Pretty Deadly volume 1 previously and I think I should have read it closer because I came out of it going 'I'm not entirely sure what the story of this was but it was a very pretty comic.' I do feel like I understand what happened in these two better. Pretty deadly continues to be a very pretty comic. It has a lush quality to it that's always a pleasure to read.

X-Men Red vol 1 and 2 written by Al Ewing with an artistic team that changes enough I won't list them out. These were grabbed off the shelf because they looked cool and as the first X-men comic I read it was a wild ride. My previous exposure to the X-men was watching X-men: Evolution as a kid and this was not that. I'm over here like "krakoa? resurrection protocols? Why isn't Xavier in a wheelchair?" This series features x-men are on Mars which is named the dune-esque name of Arako and is also habitable now for some reason. Anyway, these kicked ass and each volume had multiple 'oh shit' level moments and it got me interested in checking out just what is going on in more current X-men comics.

The Authority Book 1 by Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, and Laura Martin. This is a book for people who enjoy watching extraordinarily competent and powerful people kick ass and save the world from various huge threats and I am that target audience. Jenny Sparks is very cool and I met her just in time to watch her die :( This was my first entry into Wildstorm and it's got me interested in reading more and checking out Stormwatch (and reading more of Jenny).

Captain America: Red Menace Ultimate Collection by Ed Brubaker, penciled by Mike Perkins and Steve Epting, and colored by Frank D'Armata. I am continuing my Captain America by Ed Brubaker read at last (needed to wait until I could check this physically out of the library.) I care less about Sin as an antagonist but Steve and Bucky coming together in the finale was so good. Slipping back together into partnership like nothing had changed but Bucky can't stay when it's done ;; Next up are the civil war tie in issues.

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

Sketchbook Week Day 1 - Backstage

Summary: Johanna didn’t really care for her daughter’s favourite singer. In her opinion, the songs were just a tad too aggressive, too loud, and all too capable of filling her young mind with ideas that her mother didn’t really think needed enforcement. So, obviously, Johanna wasn’t too thrilled to know that KAiSA would be performing in Trolberg.

But it would make her daughter so happy and it would just be one night, wouldn’t it? One night, and she’d never have to think about that woman again

Notes: Written for @sketchbookweek Day 1 - First Meeting (or is it? 😏)

Okay my friends, the premise here is: what if they were narrative foils in every universe?

Btw the genre of music that I’m picturing for Kaisa here is like a mix of AViVA (obviously - that’s the singer who Kaisa’s stage name is inspired by), PVRIS and Ashnikko. In case anyone wants to understand the tone a bit better since I can’t describe music for my life, I just went ahead and made a playlist for the type of song she’d sing in this verse, in case you’re curious: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3V01wHaO6ALuhPbNC8r0tU?si=1248165be2914be8

Read it on ao3

For her twelfth birthday, Johanna got her daughter good earphones. She’d resisted against doing so for a while, arguing that the girl might isolate herself even more if given the opportunity, but she’d eventually relented. Both because she trusted Hilda, and she knew that it was normal and even healthy for teenagers to not be as attached to their parents as they grew into this new phase of their life, and because she could not stand it anymore. Because even if the reason behind her resistance had been wanting Hilda to spend time with her and not shut herself off, she couldn’t (and wouldn’t) stop the girl from listening to the music she liked. And she did. All the time.

Johanna had always been partial to country and folk. She liked the type of song that made her feel calm, like she was floating, like she was resting her body on a field of wildflowers and being told folk tales by gentle elders. She liked the songs about falling in love, the ones that made her feel hopeful that there might be someone out there even for her.  

Hilda, however, did not. Hilda liked fast paced and energetic songs that were made to be screamed to in dimly lit places. The ones that made the structure of their building quake when she turned the volume too high. She liked the kind of song you associate with unruly teenagers running around at night, graffiting walls, raising their middle fingers to any and everyone who dared to judge them.

She was particularly fond of one specific singer, a woman that went by the stage name of KAiSA. Well, fond was probably not the best way to describe it. Hilda all but idolised her, knowing by heart exactly what was going on in her artistic life at any given moment, asking for her merch at any festive occasion and listening to her songs minutes after they were released. Johanna supposed Hilda finally had a solid reason to venerate her, now. After all, it was the realisation that Johanna had her lyrics memorised that made her decide that enough was enough and she was going to get her child some headphones. 

That didn’t mean she had to be happy about it, however. She had only caved because those had been extreme circumstances and Johanna had begun to fear for her sanity if she had to be submitted to one more electronic chorus or guitar solo. But the idea that she now didn’t even know what Hilda was listening to didn’t please her. To put it simply, and Johanna saw no reason why she shouldn’t, KAiSA was a bad influence. Not that she seemed to actively do anything reprehensible, at least not from the very surface level research Johanna had done. But her lyrics, all about rejecting expectations and choosing your own path, never failed to make Johanna cringe and fear for what messages were coming across from them.

Not that she was wrong, per se. Heavens knew where Johanna would be if she hadn’t painstakingly detached herself from the life her parents wanted for her. Johanna just decidedly didn’t think that Hilda needed a push in that direction. The girl was lovely, of course, and Johanna loved her with her entire being. Maybe even more, if that was even possible. But she’d been growing up, and they didn’t always see eye to eye. She knew her daughter hid things from her. She knew the unwavering trust and companionship from her childhood was fading away. And Johanna knew it was fair, because she wasn’t at all perfect and it would be selfish of her to expect her daughter to think of her like so. But she was still trying, and didn’t know what good that was if Hilda reverenced a voice in her ears telling her to rebel and cut herself away from any strings.

Which was why Johanna found herself in a precarious tightrope when her daughter approached her with her best puppy eyes one evening. 

“Darling…” Johanna sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose after Hilda had shown her what was on her cellphone screen. “You know how I feel about this singer.”

Hilda seemed completely unsurprised by the argument. She did know, after all. 

“But mum-” She whined with practised stubbornness. “What are the odds that she’d ever come to Trolberg? It’s probably a one time only thing, I’ll never have the chance to go to one of her concerts again! Please, mum! Frida is dying to go as well, I wouldn’t be alone!”

Johanna sighed, knowing it was a lost battle and unsurprised that Frida would be with her daughter in this. The girls’ parents had been very worried recently, noticing changes in her behaviour that they had no idea how to handle. She’d been, according to them, speaking back to them and disobeying a lot more often than she used to, staying up late and ignoring them. It wasn’t exactly a hard thing for her to be more disobedient than she’d previously been, since Frida’s track record was one of following their wishes to a t, but it still meant there had been a shift.

Now, Johanna wasn’t exactly sure the situation was dire like they made it out to be. Considering what she knew about her upbringing, it was just as likely that Frida had just decided she wanted to be treated more like a person and less like a show animal, and Johanna had never seen her be anything short of sweet and polite. But either way, the two of them had also noticed a link between their daughter’s behaviour and her growing attachment to a certain artist. 

“But would Frida’s parents’ allow her to go?” She asked, even though it was more of a rhetorical question and they both knew it. Hilda looked shyly at her feet. 

“They might if you let me.” The girl answered in a small voice, and Johanna groaned. She’d really been put between a rock and a hard place with this one. 

If she didn’t allow Hilda to go, the girl would no doubt hold that against her for the longest time, and Johanna was already aware that her daughter was quickly piling up complaints against her that she couldn’t even imagine. It’d be better to not add another one, especially one this big, to the list. On the other hand, there was no way she would allow Hilda to go to such an event unaccompanied save for a friend whose well-being would also be Johanna’s responsibility, apparently. 

She rubbed at her temples, regretting her next words even before they left her mouth.

“Fine. We’ll buy the tickets.” The smile Hilda shot her was almost blinding in its brightness. “On one condition.”

“Anything!”

Her light immediately dimmed with Johanna’s next words, but not as much as she’d expected, and not enough to make her feel bad.

“I’m coming along with you.”

…......

The venue was an abandoned warehouse on Trolberg harbour, because of course it was. The subversive and avant-garde youth would never be seen gathering at, say, a club or a stadium like their boring parents, no sir. Johanna had to bite back a groan when she put the address on her map app days before the concert, just to have an idea of what she’d be dealing with. She hoped there had been some semblance of an inspection at the building before, but she highly doubted it. Certainly, being somewhere that wasn’t structurally sound was part of the fun. That sounded like just the kind of thing those types would say. 

When the day arrived, Johanna drove to the harbour with two hyperactive pre-teens on the back of her car. Neither of them had talked about anything else for the past week, and as much as Johanna was not looking forward to being squeezed between screaming strangers for two hours, at least after this it would be over. And at least, she reminded herself as her daughter jumped out of the car - parked neatly in a spot directly in front of the venue, which had been miraculously free - and took her best friend’s hand to pull her along, Hilda was happy and would have good memories of a fun night while being safe.

They’d arrived early. Johanna hadn’t wanted to risk anything stopping them from getting in, knowing Hilda would be beyond heartbroken, and the girl had been doing nothing but waiting for that moment all day (all month), anyway. So there were still people standing outside the warehouse, either waiting on the rest of their groups to arrive or killing time before being inside the venue officially. It was… odd. The warehouse was exactly what one would expect, ink peeling away from the walls - courtesy of the salty and humid air - and rusting gates. But the fans were not. She’d expected to see some standardisation, an army of moody teens and young adults, dressed in black and sporting sharp looks, the kind of person you figure would make you have nightmares just for kicks and laugh about it behind your back. The kind of person that made Johanna sing along when Hilda played that Teenagers song in the car, who really did scare the living shit out of her. 

And sure, there were some of those. Mostly confined to a group of giggling girls that couldn't be over seventeen. But the rest of them… Johanna couldn’t figure out a pattern for the life of her. The ages seemed to range from younger than Hilda and Frida to way older than Johanna. People she would categorise as shy nerds, standing quietly near the walls, queer elders who carried themselves with confidence having a smoke (or just a conversation) before coming inside, even a group roughly Johanna’s age that looked like they’d just come out of an important office meeting that could very well have been an email.

It was… not what Johanna had expected.

The girls took it all in with the enthusiasm of children to whom this was the height of nightlife, of course. They insisted they go inside right away, preening when many of the adults nearby gave them thumbs ups or friendly waves at the sight of them, cooing about how sweet it was to have younger fans present among themselves. Johanna clutched her purse tighter. 

A buff looking woman with a hard face and grey hair arranged tightly into a bun was controlling the entrance. It was clearly just her face rather than an attempt to intimidate, though, because as soon as Johanna showed her the three tickets she made her best effort to put on a smile - she didn’t look as if her face was used to doing that - and opened up the gate for them. They cringed at the sound, being reminded that abandoned clearly meant nobody had bothered oiling the thing in quite a long time, but they were immediately distracted by a vision of the inside.

It wasn’t just an empty space. There had been a structure built inside. They couldn’t see very far, since a wooden wall had been put up to make something like a corridor parallel to the front of the building. The wall was covered in art, each next to an instagram or twitter username, most of it either variations or clearly inspired by KAiSA’s album and singles art covers. The spaces that weren’t filled by the fan drawings had verses of lyrics, tossed around at random like out of context poetry. There was little time to analyse it, however, because as soon as they’d stepped inside a cheery voice greeted them. “Thanks, Agnes! And hello, you three!” Said a sun kissed woman with dark curls and wearing a merch shirt that matched Frida’s. She was on her feet behind a wooden stand, making Johanna wonder for a moment if this was where they’d be selling their products. The hypothesis didn’t really make a lot of sense when you took into consideration that there were no signs of shirts, hoodies or CDs anywhere near, though. “I’m Adeline, here to handle any accommodations you might need. We asked you guys about it during the ticket sales fill out form, but we have extras of everything, in case anyone else wants. How can we make this experience more comfortable for you?”

It was clearly trained, a mould that shaped the speech each time. But it was clearly genuine and even in the low lighting of the warehouse they could see the gentleness of Adeline’s eyes and the soft smile on her face. None of them knew how to react for a moment - they hadn’t really given much thought to what that question had been doing in the questionnaire, but had answered automatically. It wasn’t like it ever made any difference what was answered in those kinds of forms. The first to have any sort of reaction was Frida, who stepped up to the stand with fidgeting hands.

“I… am autistic?” She said, the unusual situation making her wonder if this was really what she was supposed to be doing. Adeline, however, only opened up a wider smile.

“Cool, me too! We have so much in common already.” She quipped, gesturing between their matching t shirts, a black garment with a golden hexagon print and a purple diamond in the middle. “Any sensory issues? We have earbuds and dark glasses, though I will let you know that there won’t be any harsh lights, anyway. Boss hates them.”

Frida only managed to gape, staring at the woman in disbelief for a couple of seconds. Adeline only smiled back gently, giving her all the time she needed to answer. When she eventually shook herself out of it, she asked for the earbuds, and Hilda stepped up and asked if she could have a pair as well. Both of them got them (Hilda’s were black and Frida’s were purple, of course), and when Adeline directed that blinding smile to Johanna to ask her if she could help her out with any accommodations, Johanna’s negative answer was a lot less certain then it ought to have been.

Adeline bid them goodbye and wished them a lovely concert, but not before pointing to the other edge of the corridor, where there were plenty of chairs, a couple of fans (the ‘wind making’ type, not the ‘screaming their devotion’ type) and what looked like noise cancelling headphones, as well as a drinking fountain, telling them to feel free to lounge around before the concert began and to head there if it ever felt like they needed a break. And not before telling them to come to her if they figured she could help in any way, of course. 

They walked away just as someone else arrived to ask if their partner could have a chair for when they could no longer stand up during the concert, leaving the woman to her job. Hilda looked more energetic than ever, and Frida matched the sentient even if she looked… touched, and more pensive than usual. Johanna followed the girls past the passage that took them to the other side of the wooden wall. The stage had clearly been built for that occasion, and the more obsessive fans (the ‘screaming their devotion’ type, this time) were already sitting down on their own towels or standing close to it, making a barrier. The girls weren’t too upset by it, however, pleased about still being able to stay at a short distance from their idol. It wasn’t like they were going to attempt to touch her, anyway, they were both far too polite and respectful for that. 

Other than the stage, the fans, and the pit, the place didn’t really live up to what Johanna had imagined. There was no trash on the ground, no scents that alerted her to illicit activities happening nearby, no screaming (at least not yet). The lights were soft, just like Adeline had promised, the warehouse’s white lamps having been covered by some sort of transparent purple filter to make them emit a much softer lilac glow. The speakers were already on, and while the show hadn’t begun, they seemed to be playing an ambience noise at a low volume. And it was classical music. 

Had they walked into the wrong place?

It took no time at all for Johanna to feel like an outsider. She’d been expecting it, of course, but she’d also expected to have to keep Hilda and Frida as outsiders as well in order to protect them. Instead, the two girls soon found easy conversation with a group of college students that were standing near their chosen spot, sharing stories about how they’d found out about KAiSA’s music and become followers. Seeing absolutely no reason why she should interfere on the perfectly innocent interaction, especially not when they got into the topic of what their routine was like at college and seemed to be giving a shot at converting the two girls to the STEMS, Johanna simply stood near them, feeling awkward, silly, and a lot older than she actually was. 

And then it happened. The moment everyone there was waiting for with such fierce anxiety that no amount of mingling with pleasant strangers could make them forget about. The lights over them dimmed even further. The ones above the stage got a shade brighter. A voice with a heavy accent - which Johanna only barely recognized from all of the songs blasting from her daughter’s computer, different as it was when it was just talking normally - bid them good evening through the speakers and everyone began to scream.

And onto the stage walked the most beautiful woman Johanna had ever seen.

…......

The concert itself wasn’t as much of an expectation breaker as everything else so far had been. Johanna had been forced to listen to a huge part (if not all) of KAiSA’s work, after all. Even if she did have to admit that whenever Kaisa stopped singing, whenever she interacted with the audience or introduced a song, she was far… softer than Johanna had expected. There was an edge of shyness to her that however many concerts she’d performed in so far hadn’t been able to erase. A lot of gratitude, too. She wasn’t insecure, but she didn’t act like she was proud of herself for being there, for having carved out that space for herself with nothing but pure talent and dedication. Rather she acted like that place was a gift, like that night was an opportunity given to her by everyone who had ever taken the time to press play on her songs. Johanna didn’t much care for the guitar riffs, for the middle fingers at some parts which she could only guess who they were aimed at, wasn’t too particularly impressed by the way that the singer’s dancing seemed to begin and end at shoving her torso forward to make her black and purple hair fall all over her face.

And yet, Johanna must have been just as entranced as any of the undying fans on the floor with her.

The woman had something magnetic about her. Something magical. Her style, for one - black wide leg jeans, doc martens, a loose black tee shirt with something long sleeved with black and white stripes underneath - reminded Johanna that ‘dressed like a rockstar’ was a thing. Even if Hilda had insisted many many times that KAiSA’s genre was pop rock and indie rock, still Johanna couldn’t see the difference since there was a rock somewhere in the name. There was also the way she put her hair back into place after doing one of her moves, the way that she carded her finger through it and made the mess worse, yet it always looked better. There was the way she looked so pleased when the crows shouted her lyrics, eyes flashing with genuine emotion as if she didn’t do that every week, as if she wasn’t a global phenomenon on the rise. There was the awkward smile she’d flash when she decided to try cracking a joke in between performances, the surprise on her face when people would laugh at it and not at her, as if this wasn’t her stage, her kingdom, and they weren’t all just happy to be able to be a part of it. 

Two hours went by, somehow. Johanna was pretty sure they must still be in the first twenty minutes of the concert when the singer was giving her last farewells and acknowledgements, listing every single member of the crew (many people cheered when she said Adeline’s name) and thanking the audience once again. She turned her back to them to take a selfie with them all - not that she managed, some people around the edges still didn’t make it in - and told them they were a lovely audience. 

And then, it was over.

It should have been over. People were promptly heading out the way they came, out of the warehouse and into the night, with goofy grins and memories of an evening well spent.

Except Johanna let herself get roped into something stupid. 

…......

“Come on, you saw how she is!” Hilda had said. “Fans do this all the time! The worst we can get is a ‘no’!”

Johanna had had to survive the pressure of two pairs of puppy eyes pleading with her. They hadn’t even moved from their spot near the stage, even as people walked past them. It was a terrible idea. Sure, a normal thing for young fans to do, but Johanna was neither young nor a fan, and she really should have put a halt to this idea the moment it came up.

But it was just once, and Hilda was right in the end. They weren’t going to break into anywhere, just make an attempt. If they faced a locked door or got told to fuck right off, well, they’d have tried and no harm would have been done. And Hilda would be so thrilled if it did go well. Johanna had had her hands tied, really. If she, for once in her life, did the unexpected thing and helped her daughter and her best friend onto the stage, right before climbing herself, then it could be blamed on the adrenaline and Hilda’s influence. Nothing to do with the way that light caught in the singer’s eyes.

They were so quick about it that nobody else saw them. The three of them quickly snuck behind the stage’s curtains, going the same way that KAiSA had appeared and after the show, disappeared. There was a corridor, there, dimly lit and empty save for a technician working at what looked like a sound table. Everything inside Johanna was yelling at her to ask him if they could go in a bit further, maybe accidentally bump into a rising star if they got lucky, but he paid them no mind and she discovered she was too much of a coward to risk it. They tip-toed along the corridor, pretending they weren’t doing so, of course (looking casual was the key), and reached a door. An unlocked door.

Hilda opened it, naturally. She was by far the bravest one out of them, and it gave the other two some peace of mind knowing that they could always tell themselves they were just following Hilda along. Couldn’t let the girl go wandering off all by herself, now, could they? And just when they had forgotten that that structure that had been built inside the warehouse didn’t, in fact, belong to it, they were faced with the vast empty space of all that was left of it, a high ceiling and that same peeling wall they’d found out in front. Only one thing occupied the space, and it was a trailer in characteristic black and purple colours. 

The girls gasped. It was almost too good to be true.

Would have been, too. If one boulder of a man hadn’t been standing directly in front of the trailer’s steps, and if his head didn’t immediately snap at them at the sound of two teenagers’ excitement. 

They held their breaths. Johanna put her hands on both of their shoulders, just in case they needed to bolt quickly. The man - tall, as has already been established, dark skinned with thick eyebrows and a tailored suit - met each of their eyes. And then, after stepping closer to them, he stood up straighter, took a deep breath and opened a smile.

“Hello there!” Said the gentle giant, sounding a lot cheerier and more welcoming than he had any right to. “I’m Eldrid. Fans, I’m assuming?”

They nodded. Even Johanna. If felt like anything other than that simple gesture would require a muscle that had been locked in fear.

“Well, she doesn’t usually see fans after shows. Tired, and all. But would you like me to see what I can do for you?”

They were once again too stunned to do anything but nod. 

“Great! One moment, please.”

Rather than going to the trailer to ask, he picked up a walkie talkie from his suit’s pockets. His voice lost no hints of that gentleness when he spoke. 

“Hey! We have two young fans and an-” He squinted at Johanna like he was asking her a question. “Adult supervisor here. Do you think they could…?”

Johanna snapped out of it long enough to mouth the word ‘mother’ at him, at which he brought a hand to his chest and made a cooing sound. The moment barely lasted a second, though, because they soon heard the voice that answered through his communicator and it was decidedly not the singer’s.

“Children, you say?” Said what sounded like an elderly woman. “Well, let me see. My dear would you… oh, is that so… in that case-”

Someone was talking to the elder in the background. It didn’t take a genius to guess who.

“Yes, let them in!” Chirped the voice. “She’d love to meet them.”

Eldrid beamed, looking as happy for them as they themselves were. Or, well, maybe even happier. It hadn’t sunk in just yet that this was actually happening.

But it was. And they were greeted at the door of the trailer by the owner of the unfamiliar voice they’d heard, a lady with wrinkles and round glasses and a head of hair like a fluffy cloud. She offered them a kind smile, which they were all three too stunned to truly appreciate, before stepping aside and allowing them into a space that looked like a secret room that bookish children daydreamed about finding in libraries. It was cosy, with a kitchenette to one side, a couch and a beanbag in the middle and a built-in bunk bed. There was also a little corner that was very clearly meant for work, with a couple of instruments on the wall as well as an open laptop and a microphone. Books stacked on every available surface, including the kitchen counter, and there was a scent of lavender in the air. Most of the lighting came from fairy lights hung all around, and the walls were decorated with drawings and stickers that could have been taken from a children’s fairytale compilation.

The scene before them made a very stark contrast with the rockstar staring at them with a barely noticeable blush and a careful smile.

Hilda was the first to break. “Holy shit.” She breathed, meaning Johanna immediately also snapped out of it to chasten her. “Miss Kaisa, hi! Thank you for having us, we’re such huge fans!”

With the first barrier already brought down by her friend, Frida managed to take a step forward and open a beaming smile. “Yes! The show was fantastic, we can’t thank you enough!”

Looking very much like she had no idea how to handle the situation (which didn’t mean she didn’t seem pleased, her blush growing a shade darker), Kaisa walked closer to them.

“Is that so? Ah, you’re way too kind.”

“No, we’re not! We mean it, really.” Hilda insisted, her tongue loosening up at thrush of having her idol not a metre away from her. “Mum only came to keep an eye on us, and even &lt;em>she</em> enjoyed it! Didn’t you, mum?”

Suddenly every set of eyes in the room - trailer - turned to her, and Johanna was keenly aware of it. Especially KAiSA’s. Those storm grey eyes locked on her and a spark immediately shot down her spine. 

What was that word she’d thought when she saw her for the first time?

Ah, yes. Magnetic.

That checked out. 

“I- yes! Yes, very much. It was a riot! An absolute banger of a time.”

Jesus Christ Johanna shut the fuck up-

The singer’s smile turned genuine suddenly.

“I’m happy to hear you think so!” She said. Neither of them were aware of the elderly woman looking between the two of them with an eyebrow raised. “I always like it when someone leaves happier than they expected to. You’re certainly not the first parent to accompany their kids to one of my concerts, and I have to say I really admire all of you.”

Johanna was good with people. She dealt with them on the regular for her job, interpreting the most overly complex instructions and appeasing the more difficult clients; she made small talk with strangers on the grocery line, she got on well with all the parents during Sparrow Scouts meeting. Yet somehow in that moment she felt like she had a net total of zero social skills under her belt, all of her cool suddenly evaporated under the heat of a hundred little fairy lights. 

“I- well- you do?”

“Of course!” The corners of her thin lips quirked up even higher. She’d walked onstage with dark purple lipstick, Johanna was sure. There was nothing left of it now, even if there had been when she’d left the stage. Not that Johanna had been paying attention to that. “The younger fans are always so lovely. And it’s endearing that you care about both their safety and their happiness so much that you’re willing to tag along to something you won’t really enjoy.”

She was sure her cheeks must be nearing the colour of her sweater. Which, damn, why was she wearing &lt;em>that</em>? She was at a concert, for heaven’s sake, couldn’t she at least have made the slightest effort to be in anything other than her everyday clothes? She looked like she was going to Starbucks. But it was too late to do anything about that now.

“I- I- I- did enjoy it, though!” And what was it with her that she couldn’t stop stammering? Her only saving grace was that a celebrity like her was probably used to a lot worse. She was still looking kindly at her, patiently waiting for her to speak with her hands folded in front of herself. She’d removed the black tshirt, leaving only the black and white striped garment over her torso and oh &lt;em>gosh</em> it was a tank top, Johanna could see a patch of her belly if she so much as lowered her gaze for a single second- “Like Hilda said, I didn’t expect to. But you’re truly really talented!”

It looked like Kaisa was going to thank her for it again, but Johanna was spared from having to continue embarrassing herself by Hilda, who had apparently gotten sick of her mother getting all of the attention. The elderly woman was biting back a smirk behind them, having closed the door. 

“If it’s not too much trouble-” Kaisa’s eyes went back to the child, widening a bit like she’d forgotten she was there. “Could we have your autograph? And maybe a picture?”

“Of course!” She said immediately. “If only I had- oh, thank you, Tildy!”

The woman had stepped up to Kaisa and given her a notebook and a pen, which none of the other people present had a single clue where she’d taken from. After taking the items from her hands, the singer kept a hand on her arm, covered by a woollen cardigan because apparently Johanna wasn’t the only one not abiding by concert dressing codes, and smiled at them.

“I should probably introduce her! This is Matilda. She’s my agent, and most importantly, my mother.”

The look that Matilda sent her daughter, apparently, was one of pure adoration, even though said daughter had now lowered her gaze to the notebook in order to find a blank page. All three of them ‘aw’ed at the scene, though if she was being honest with herself, Johanna felt something unpleasant stir within herself, like guilt rearing its ugly head and nudging insistently at her ribcage. It was becoming all too clear for her, and all too quickly, that she’d made all sorts of assumptions about the woman in front of her and that at least half of them didn’t come close to being the truth. Driving here a few hours earlier, she never would have expected someone who sang lines like ’fuck your oily slick truths, fuck your sugar sweet lies, I’d be my own martyr before letting you be the reason I die’ to also sweetly introduce her elderly mother like she was her precious treasure.

Johanna knew where this all stemmed from, of course. Trying so hard to be perfect and irreproachable all your life will mess you up on the occasions when you find out that people who do not censor themselves like that can, in fact, be just as kind and smart and responsible without bordering on anxiety attacks at the thought of doing something others deem ‘wrong’-

“What do you want me to write?” Kaisa’s voice cut through Johanna’s frankly concerning train of thought. Some feelings should only be set loose in places like home and therapy and definitely not concert backstages. 

The singer had lowered herself down on one knee, which with her stature (Johanna noticed that even if her presence onstage was so enthralling that you couldn’t tell it then, the woman was actually quite short) made it so the kids stood taller than her. The two of them were apparently on the verge of vibrating at having her so near.

“Just your name would be perfect, miss!”

Kaisa lifted an eyebrow at Frida, and Johanna was afraid that she’d question the way the girl had called her (which Johanna knew to be because of her parents’ insistence on politeness and formality), before she tilted her head to the side. “Are you sure? I always feel so weird giving people bits of paper with just my name. It feels so self centred. I mean, I’ll give it to you if it’s what you really want, sure, but… just let me know if I can do anything else.”

Both Frida and Hilda looked at each other, surprised and also thoughtful about how to use the given opportunity. Johanna knew she should have stayed out of it, but the words left her mouth on her own accord.

“Why don’t you make them a doodle of something?”

All three of them turned to her. She thought she actually saw the rockstar look sheepish. 

“Honestly, I can’t really draw.” 

“That’s the fun, though.” Johanna smiled, trying to look far more confident than she was actually feeling as she tried to convince someone who had been on the billboard top 100 for the past three years of her silly idea. “Doesn’t have to be good. It’s just something for them to remember you by.”

If Kaisa expected to have allies in the two fans, she was certainly disappointed when they both smiled brightly at her, excited with the idea. She sighed, resigned, and beckoned them further inside the trailer, where she promptly let herself fall down to the beanbag and gestured for them to settle on the couch. Only Tildy remained standing, looking at the scene with a twinkle in her eyes. 

“Alright, then. What are you guys called?”

Though she was focusing all her attention on the notebook in front of her, she still smiled when the girls introduced themselves. “Those are beautiful names.” She said without looking up. “Our names all kind of sound alike a bit, don’t you think? We didn’t get very original with the vowels there.”

“Wait, so Kaisa is actually your name?” Johanna asked, and apparently it was the wrong thing to do, because Hilda looked at her like she was about to die, Frida very pointedly did not look at her but there was clear mortification on her face and Kaisa… well, Kaisa looked amused.

“Yep!” She said, exaggerating the ‘p’ sound with a pop. “My stage name is just a stylization, but that is actually my birth name.”

The singer continued watching her, so Johanna hummed in understanding and nodded. It must not have been the reaction she had been expecting, because the mirth faded out of her eyes just a notch as she turned them black to the notebook. 

“Oh, this is so embarrassing.” She huffed before ripping the page and offering it to Hilda, who took it in her hands like it was made of pure diamond. “Hope you’re happy, young lady. You can actually ruin my reputation with this.”

It was all Hilda could do not to jump out of the couch and run around in excitement. “Thank you so much! I love it!” She said as soon as it was safe in her hands. After a second of squinting, she added. “Just, uh, what… what is it?”

Johanna looked over her daughter’s shoulder at the piece of paper. In a fancy cursive handwriting, Kaisa had written her stage name at the top of the page, and then underneath it, a short sentence. It read ‘From the Trolberg concert on 19/11/2023. To Hilda. Love your hair!’

And then, besides it, there was a stick figure with an uneven circle for its head, a triangle on top of it, and a bigger triangle for its torso. 

“It’s… an elf.” Kaisa said after deliberation. “Alfur the elf.” 

Tildy snorted from her post a few steps away from them, and Hilda smiled even brighter. 

“It’s really great!” Hilda said, and bless her soul, she probably believed it.

“Don’t lie in front of your mum, kid, she might think I'm a bad influence.”

Luckily, Kaisa had already turned to her second sheet of paper, so she was distracted from the distinct silence of three people biting their tongues.

When she gave Frida her own sheet, which was accepted with just as much reverence, it had a similar dedication but instead of an elf, there was a creature with pointy ears, a tail, and what looked like an attempt at wings. It was hard to tell, but there wasn’t much else that the bigger triangles sprouting from the oval body could be.

“It’s a catowl.” Kaisa said before even being asked. “Since it doesn’t exist, you can’t tell me my drawing doesn’t look like one.”

An eyebrow lifted, Johanna asked. “Implying that elves do exist?”

“Oh, we have a cynic in our hands, do we?” Kaisa answered with a smirk. The girls were still practically trembling with excitement, and were likely about to see if they’d lucked out and could also ask for a picture, when Tildy swooped in and asked them if they’d like to take a look at the recording apparel at the trailer. They jumped at the chance, of course, so the agent took them to the music corner of the space and began giving them a tour through the music creating process, leaving the two women alone. As alone as one they could be inside a trailer, of course.

“I don’t suppose you would like an autograph, would you?” Kaisa grinned playfully. It made Johanna blush something fierce; she hadn’t considered, so far, how it would feel to be the sole focus of the singer’s attention. It felt like what she imagined standing too close to a star must be like. 

“That- no, I don’t need it.” She answered and then immediately bit her cheek, noticing what that must sound like. “Not that I don’t- I just don’t want to give you any trouble- oh, bother!”

To her infinite relief, Kaisa threw her head back and laughed. The fact that the gesture exposed her pale neck didn’t help Johanna’s predicament in the least, but if it meant she hadn’t taken offence then Johanna would take it. 

“Johanna, I’m only teasing.” Though the words were softly spoken, Tildy still heard them all the way from the other corner of the trailer, bit her lip, and turned back to what she had been showing the girls. Neither of them realised it. “Trust me, I would not want to live in a world where everybody was my fan.”

The mother nodded, gulping when Kaisa got up with a graceful movement just to sit back down again by her side on the couch. She splayed herself, draping her low back over her side’s armrest and spreading her legs, making herself comfortable. Johanna wasn’t looking. Johanna was very pointedly not looking.

“You are great, though. Even I can recognize that and I don’t know anything about music.”

Kaisa flicked her wrist and looked away in what she recognized to be an ‘oh, stop it’ gesture. If Johanna’s brain had been making better use of its blood supply, she probably would have put together a sentence that said ‘sorry for barging into your post concert rest, and thank you for being so lovely with the girls’ in some shape of form. But her mind had a lot going on just keeping Johanna rational at that moment, so she only managed to follow Kaisa’s cues. 

“So, what do you do, if I may ask?”

You may ask absolutely anything. No, bad thought. Answer like a normal person.

“I’m a graphic designer.”

Yes, that’s better. Normal person, normal answer. Good job, Johanna.

Kaisa’s eyes widened as she lifted both eyebrows. “You’re an artist? Did you ask me to draw something for them just out of sheer sadistic satisfaction?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see if there was something you weren’t good at.”

No, Johanna! she mentally took herself by the shoulders and shook hard. Too forward! You’re being creepy to the celebrity!

She was about to apologise when the glee in Kaisa’s face made it clear she wouldn’t have to. It might just be Johanna’s mind seeing what it wanted to, but the singer’s face seemed to gain a bit of colour.

“Well, it’s good to know Hilda has someone who can give her actually good drawings, at least. Are they both yours?”

Johanna sighed, relieved she apparently hadn’t overstepped. She’d have to reel herself in, though. Heavens knew what kind of terrifying situation strangers put someone like Kaisa through every day of her life just for doing her job. She was determined to not be one of them. 

“No, just Hilda. Frida is her best friend.”

Kaisa smiled sweetly, glancing over at them. Unfortunately, they could see that Tildy had finished showing them the instruments they brought everywhere and the apparels in the recording booth, and were coming back to join them.

It made Johanna start, to realise that her daughter coming back so that she wouldn’t be alone with an artist she supposedly hated was an unfortunately situation for her.

Oh, there was no way this could end well.

“You must be a great mother. Bringing not only your daughter but taking responsibility for her friend as well, I mean. Most parents I’ve met wouldn’t do that. “

She was saved from having to begin what would no doubt be one of the most stuttery sentences in her life by the teens coming back with Tildy in tow. They didn’t remain for long, though it was a lot longer than they’d expected to coming in since not only did they get their pictures, but also were offered tea. After that, they were off, thanking the musician in every way they knew of, just to watch her blush and insist that it was nothing. Just as the door to the trailer was closing, Johanna’s eyes met Kaisa’s one last time. She wanted to say something, something that went beyond thanking her for the experience and the availability, but her mouth wouldn’t even open. She thought Kaisa understood, though, because the last thing she saw before Eldrid was guiding them out was Kaisa’s shy smile. 

…......

“Do you still think she’s bad influence, mum?”

They were out into the cold night air, walking to their mercifully close parking slot. Johanna almost didn’t register the question, lost in thought as she was, but she was, first and foremost, a mother. Anything Hilda said would always be considered to have the highest level of importance to her brain.

Images of Kaisa flashed before Johanna’s eyes. Her smile, her hair, her twinkling grey eyes, the melody of her voice when it wasn’t shouting at a microphone.

Johanna bit her bottom lip. It was a good thing she was never going to see the singer again. Otherwise, this could become a problem for her. A very big one. 

She pretended to think her answer through, making the appropriate humming noises as she started the engine. 

“I might have been… overly critical.” She declared, pretending like there weren’t butterflies in her belly still. “She’s alright”

In the back of the car, Hilda and Frida shared a victorious look and smirked to themselves.

…......

“You got lucky she didn’t notice it, my dear.”

Kaisa stopped pouring the soup Tildy had made them into her bowl to look at her. The woman was watching her serenely from her claimed spot at the kitchen counter.

“Notice what?”

She smirked. “You said her name before she’d introduced herself.”

“Shit.”

[eurofanamongotherthings]

Review: Live From Arena Stožice

can you tell i’m on winter break and have nothing better to do?

1) Sunny Side of London

• What can I sayyyyy! we’ve had this live version out for a while now and it’s probably the only JO song that I 100% prefer live. It’s MADE for a live performance, for an audience that will have fun with it and participate. Great opening choice too! 9/10

2) Gola

• Felt much more energetic than the studio version! Gola isn’t my fave but I definitely like it more now that we have this live version! 8/10

3) Bele Sanje

• I think the best part about Bele Sanje are the little nuanced things like the “lalalala” and some of the electronics which I can’t really hear in the live version BUT I can’t complain….I loved it, especially the extended guitar part at the end (which im assuming is Jan lol) and the boys going absolutely CRAZY on backing vocals!

4) Plastika

• THE TRANSITION FROM BELE SANJE TO THIS?!?! HELLO?!?? MY SOUL ASCENDED!!! I can hear all of the electronics and all of the energy! I love that you can obviously tell that Plastika is a fan favorite! Bojan’s emotion in this live version (especially on “ne morem se odločit al se jočem al smejim) just took it to the next level imo. 10/10

5) Proti Toku

•Not much to say about it, I think it’s definitely more fun than the studio version but it just seems quiet to me??? idk?? 8/10 tho, it’s still a banger

6) Dopamin

• THIS!!!! I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOOOVE THIS!!! I see clips of Dopamine on tiktok or something and it sounds more aggressive than in the studio, and im SOOOOO glad it sounds that way here! It’s such a cute, happy song but it’s so…HARD! Guitars were going CRAAAAAAAAZY, but we could still hear some of the little electronic bits. Byfar some of the best sounds of the album. 20/10

7) Padam

• I cry, I cry every time. Love the audience in this one and Bojan’s voice?!?? angelic. 9/10

8) Demoni

• WE FINALLY HAVE THE DEMONI SCREAM ON STREAMING PLATFORMS! The ONLY thing I think you have been better was just volume, i don’t feel the impact as much in this song as i do in some of the others (which is not the case for the studio albums). Loved how they kind of slightly played around instrumentally with the beginning and the end. All my homies love Demoni. 10/10

9) Katrina

• Ok so…..Katrina is by far my favorite Joker Out song so by default, I think this version is great. There was a lot more tension this go around which, in my mind, fits nicely with the lyrics. HOWEVER…… I think I hyped this up too much in my mind. It was still very very VERY good (and the sheer quality of Jan’s solo was just impeccable, which is what I was hoping for), just missing something that I can’t really put my finger on. 10/10 tho, stream Katrina for clear skin.

10) A sem ti povedal

Ok ok ok hear me out . I am an A sem ti povedal binge streamer, the studio version is what I think musical perfection is. Every time i see a live performance of it, it’s always tweaked in some way, which hurts my little studio-loving heart. I’m not gonna lie and say the trumpet solo was bad or anything, in fact I thought it was quite beautiful, but I don’t think it should have taken the place of the heart-melting intro in the studio version. HOWEVER, I got over that pretty quickly, with the acapella introduction and the buildup into the A-MA-ZING bridge. Personally I think Bojan’s little changes to how sings this one really made a difference, especially since they went ahead and changed like….most of the song anyways. Still, i was transported to another dimension with this one even though I am still a pretty strict A sem ti povedal purist. 9/10

11) Omamljeno telo

Fun, Fun, Fun! One of my favorite JO songs! It almost felt too short! 9/10

12) Kot Srce, Ki Kri Poganja

Martin girlies WYA?!?! EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS WAS PERFECT! from ACTUALLY performing Kot Scre, to releasing it in the album, to the evergy, and ESPECIALLY to having Matic and Martin, who absolutely ATE THIS UP!!! Did anyone else become a Kot Srce, Ki Kri Poganja girlie after this? because I certainly did! 15/10

13) Metulji

• Upon seeing a 6 minute version of Metulji i was very excited. Figuring out that most of it was straight up guitar was definitely something that grew on me after a few listens. One of my favorite things about the studio version of this song is just HOW Bojan sings (it just scratches my brain) and it still does that in this album, and it’s even MORE emotional! Instrumentally, I LOOOOOVED the little tiny changes they made, it really was so beautiful, and also tense, and a little scary! it’s crazy what you can do with sounds. 10/10

14) Vse Kar Vem

•ALSKDSKDKFJ I LOVE THIS SONG!!!! I dont speak Slovene but I FELT EVERY SINGLE WORD!!! Ofc knowing the lyrics helps, and all of that just made me …FEEL! I WAS FEELING FEELINGS! I could feel the audience feeling feelings!!!! What I don’t see talked about enough is how Jure SLAYED that drum break like LORD HAVE MERCYYYYY. 10/10

15) Barve Oceana

• BRAVE Oceana absolutely killed me…but speaking of Jure absolutely eating the girlies up, the drum break in this was just PERFECT. Also I loooooved being able to hear Nace during the first few verses, I never realized the bass part was so fun! AND THE BACKING VOCALS? THE AAAAAAAA’s? PERFECTION! 10/10

mr. maček i love you

16) Ngvot

• KRIS GUŠTIN YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS! ALWAYS! We all knew he could throw down with the songwriting, and it’s just so nice to be able to hear him sing it too! Ngvot is a classic, nothing much to say about this live version! 8.5/10

17) Vem Da Greš

• also another OP fave here and another beautiful transition into this from Ngvot! Also not too much to say about this one other than I felt it wasn’t as impactful as the studio version, like the buildups were just for nothing because the actual hits were lacking power. Also the faint children’s choir-esque sound was throwing me off? I heard it it Metulji too and idk what it is! 8/10

18) Ne Bi Smel

• part 3 of Jure absolutely killing it. Now THIS was powerful! So much energy, especially compared to the already super-fast studio version. Bojan’s voice was definitely one of the highlights (it is in every song, but especially here!)!

19) Ona

• to be honest, i’m not rocking with this jazz band version of it. The sultry sax intro was a great addition, setting up the plot of the song and everything, but this big brass thing throughout the song was not it for me. I think what I love about the studio version is the angry electronic things we hear, and we do hear it here, but it’s almost cancelled out by the brass? idk man, it’s a song about crying your eyes out every night because of a girl and it just wasn’t feeling like that! 7/10, I still love Ona

20) Tokio

• The audience did their part in this one! Another great one, I have no complaints. 10/19

21) Umazane Misli

• God i love this one! I think this had the perfect amount of experimentation in it for the song to sound like itself while also feeling fresh. Personally i would have preferred if there were no mics or instruments on during the part with the girl’s voice and just had the whole audience sing the whole thing, but that’s just a stylistic, nitpicky thing lmao. 9.5/10

22) Novi Val

• I cried, i’m still crying. 15/10

23) Carpe Diem

• Carpe Diem NEVER fails! This was the absolute best song to close out with in EVERY way! It’s fun with a sappy ending that wraps up the album and the show perfectly. I would have sold all of my limbs to be there during that. 20/10

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 10, Number 1

Finnoguns Wake

Wow, it’s been 10 years since we started Dust, our monthly collection of short reviews. During that time, we’ve covered hundreds of records that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks — from obscure CD-Rs handed off at live shows, to long-lost reissues dug out of attics and basements, to the maniacally focused output of the micro-labels we love to even, occasionally, semi-major releases.  Our conclusion: It may be hard times for music criticism, especially the paid variety, but it’s an excellent era for listening to music.  Here’s what we’ve uncovered to kick off the next decade.  Contributors include Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell, Justin Cober-Lake, Bryon Hayes, Patrick Masterson, Alex Johnson and Christian Carey.

Dave Bayles Trio — Live At The Uptowner (Calligram)

Good things are happening around Milwaukee. That’s where Dave Bayles practices his crafts as a jazz drummer and educator (actually, he teaches in Kenosha). This recording documents his foray into band leadership, which was hosted by the Uptowner, a neighborhood tap that’s been serving drinks since the 1880s. The recorded evidence suggests that despite it being the kind of place where you can holler at the Packers on a screen, when the music’s playing, people listen. Bayle, trumpeter Russ Johnson and bassist Clay Schaub justify their attention throughout this collection of mostly original, bop-aligned themes, which they execute with a little early-Ornette flexibility and healthy servings of direct, swinging lyricism. Johnson in particular does yeoman’s work, drawing out nuanced, patient solos that are likely to induce you to forget to open your mouth, just like the audience on this entirely ingratiating live recording.

Bill Meyer

Cy Dune — Against Face (Lightning Studios)

Very late on Seth Olinsky (from Akron/Family)’s dance/noise/punk experiment, but holy wow, what a belching, squelching, head-whipping sharp turn it is. If Akron/Family took gentle folk songs right off the rails, Cy Dune starts in chaos and ends in angsty cyber-age freefall. The trip typically takes one or two minutes, though the unironically named “Don’t Waste My Time” extends for three. Within that time frame, bass note bobble, snares snap, guitars twist and Olinsky shouts in terse syncopation, breaking occasionally for non-Jude-like “na-na-na-nahs.” “Against Face” wallops hard and fast, pounding toms tethering wild squalls of guitar. “No fun, no fun, no fun,” howls Olinsky periodically, but it definitely is. Fun.

Jennifer Kelly

Dual Monitor — HARD19 (Hardline Sounds)

Say what you might about Rinse FM, the station’s leadership (read: they of the coffers) continues to do a service to the UK’s ecosystem of independent radio by way of keeping afloat other institutions. One such example was its buyout and relaunch of the old pirate station Kool FM; another was its unshuttering of beloved Bristol station SWU.FM last April. Part of the latter’s reinvigorated lineup is the duo of Fliss Mayo and Zebb Dempster, aka Dual Monitor, and their latest release caught my ear for its attention both to percussion amid propulsion and to its high-grade bass weight. “Level Up” might be the winner for me, but the pitch-black plunge of “Left/Right” and “Quattros Oxide” are grooves to behold, too. The airy D&B twist of “Switch It” is also unmissable, a lovely bit of work to close out the four-tracker. Good for a run of 200 from a label worth watching, it looks like you’re still not too late if you do a little running of your own to go grab it.

Patrick Masterson

Eluvium — (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality (Temporary Residence Limited)

Matthew Cooper has made and released plenty of music since 2016’s False Readings On (much of it under the Eluvium name) but in some ways the compact, masterful (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality feels like the first capital A Eluvium Album since that one. As with 2007’s Copia, it leans into the orchestral side of Cooper’s work (this time remotely collaborating with various musicians over the last couple of years), resulting in everything from the phantasmagorical choral/vocal work on “Void Manifest” and the dense arpeggios of “Vibration Consensus Reality (for Spectral Multiband Resonator)” to the solo piano miniature of “Clockwork Fables” and the whirling swells of the closing “Endless Flower.” At this point Cooper’s work is often too varied and colorful to be described as drone, and too active and involving to really be ambient; it’s just Eluvium music, and it’s wonderful to have more of it.

Ian Mathers

Finnoguns Wake —Stay Young EP (What’s Your Rupture)

Stay Young is a debut four-track EP from Australian songwriters Shogun and his mate Finn Berzin who rejoice in the name Finnoguns Wake. You’ll find no knotty linguistic experiments but for lovers of energetically melodic indie guitar bands, there are joys to be had. The pair, who share vocals, guitar and lyrics, meet somewhere between the concise attack of Shogun’s former band Royal Headache and the anthemic end of Britpop. The first three songs zip by with guitars abuzz, the rhythm section driving hard and the voices high in the mix. “Blue Sky” manages to feel satisfyingly loose atop its rigid drumbeat. “So Nice” reconfigures the riff of Husker Dü’s “Terms of Psychic Warfare” to good effect, with Berzin sounding tonally like young Dylan. “Lovers All” moves along like a rougher version of The Buzzcocks. The one misstep “Strawberry Avalanche” aims for Britpop grandeur with the misguided self-belief of late Oasis. Shogun takes his “melting ice cream” metaphors as seriously as Liam treats even his most absurd attempts to top big brother. Thing is you can picture the song working for an audience, so hats off. Stay Young is a promising introduction from a band that feels it like has more and better coming.

Andrew Forell

Lamin Fofana — Lamin Fofana and the Doudou Ndiaye Rose Family (Honest Jon’s)

New York-based producer, DJ and visual artist Lamin Fofana had a big 2023, with two releases on the famed Honest Jon’s imprint and a third for the illustrious Trilogy Tapes in addition to a Resident Advisor mix. That second Honest Jon’s album came in the form of this collaboration in early December with the Doudou Ndiaye Rose Family, an mbalax group of some notoriety in Senegal and descendents of the Dakar drummer, composer and band leader best known as master of the sabar drum family. It fits, though the exact nature of the collaboration is unclear — this is very much a percussion workout of the highest order with only a deft tinge of Fofana’s electronics providing light, cosmic buoyancy to the music, a quartet of meditations ranging between four and 12 minutes long. The most frenetic of them, at least for a spell, is “Bench Mi Mode III: Spectrum,” but even that one has its share of field recordings to lend a more immersive, consuming quality to the listen than pure rhythmic impulse. If you’re unfamiliar with any of the parties involved, you’ll thank yourself in short order for giving this a go.

Patrick Masterson

Fortunati Durutti Marinetti — Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean (Quindi (ITA) / Soft Abuse (USA))

Dan Colussi’s latest release under the Fortunato Durutti Marinetti moniker, Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean, is eminently listenable, engaging and, if paid proper attention, engrossing—although not always comfortably. His vocals never stray far from sprechgesang and the instrumentation tends towards warped mid-tempo. There are bright washes of keys; flute and string inflections; careful, elastic bass lines with steady, shoulder-danceable drum patterns. It’s easy to be lulled by the rosy, if somewhat baroque settings, until an ascendant burst of synthesizer or dramatic pause intrudes to break the spell. You may find yourself unsure, rewinding to find out what you might’ve just missed. In this way, the experience of the album can feel akin to a single, continuous performance with brief variations, rather than a straightforward collection of songs.

One such variation, adding perhaps the most friction to Eight Waves… is “Smash Your Head Against the Wall,” which, while not concussive, does make your ears perk up at its clawing guitar chords and the stark imagery that Colussi nearly spits out: “it’s a nest of vipers pissing on each other…and anyone else who’s around/would love to fuck you over if they can/and this community’s request/for the presumed benefit of all/is smash your head against the wall…a delta of corrosion/disorder/and decomposition.” I quote at some length, but there’s plenty more. Though a sonic departure from its surroundings — think Bill Callahan’s “Diamond Dancer” dropped into Destroyer’s Kaputt — “Smash Your Head…” is emblematic of a record that rewards the delayering effect of multiple listens.

Alex Johnson

Ghost Marrow — earth + death (The Garrote)

There is a patience to the songs on Aurielle Zeitler’s third record as Ghost Marrow, but it’s the patience of a predator stalking its prey. All seven songs here started as improvisations on the Juno-60 synthesizer, but by the time they’ve been arranged into these shapes (almost entirely by Zeitler, who adds effects and guitar as well as her voice) they feel focused and intent on the listener. The Bladerunner-esque sweep of “mother of the end” and the increasingly un-gentle blasts of static breaking into the title track both land somewhere between unsettling menace and a kind of holy severity. By the time the closing, ten-minute “microcosm” erupts into clouds of guitar and distant screaming, suddenly sounding a lot more like Sunn O)))’s Black One than the rest of the LP might make you expect, it’s clear that Ghost Marrow is intent on honoring both sides of her title.

Ian Mathers

Brian Harnetty — The Workbench (Winesap)

Composer Brian Harnetty has created memorable work by digging into cultural archives. Shawnee, Ohio (2019) uncovered layers of memory from Appalachia, while last year's Words and Silences drew on recordings of Thomas Merton for sustained contemplation. For his brief EP The Workbench, he takes a different approach, mining deeply personal moments for a individual revelation. He begins with items that his father had repaired — a watch, a radio — and adds in voicemail messages, all in conversation with an evocative quartet. Eventually he ends the piece with his father's breathing as he sleeps in hospice, a quiet outro that finds mournful but understated peace.

The 11-minute track moves so smoothly that singling out key moments almost misses the point; it's a single movement to honor a relationship while reflecting on the brevity of time and the artifacts that persist amid mortality. When a repaired music box overtakes the musicians for the final lift, it feels natural, because of course the reparations done in life will outshine our ability to articulate their meaning. Harnetty's compositions before that never falter. His use of bass clarinet (here played by Ford Fourqurean) provides the essential gravity. Violin and cello weave through the piece with his own piano lightening the composition as needed. A reworked instrumental track allows for a wordless exploration of the same topics. An accompanying video covers the workbench itself, the artifacts presented in themselves, a tangible and visual part of the legacy. It's a short statement from Harnetty but one that lasts.

Justin Cober-Lake

 Nailah Hunter — Lovegaze (Fat Possum)

Nailah Hunter plays lots of instruments on this lush and twilit debut full-length, but two define its sound. Her voice, to start, is cool and effortless and strong, prone to flowery embellishments and capable of soaring crescendos without strain. She might remind you of Sade, in the poised, unruffled quiet bits, but she can belt, too, filling cavernous sonic spaces with bright untethered flourishes. The other instrument is the harp, more common certainly in classical music but not as unusual as it once was in rock and soul. But unlike Joanna Newsom who laces her tunes with folk-echoing arpeggios or Mary Lattimore who finds a celestial drone, Hunter employs the harp to scatter pizzicato shards of crystal in velvety nocturnal textures. The harp litters her moody atmospheres with star light, cold, glimmering pinpoints of sound. It contrasts in a striking way with the warmth of her voice and the pulsing, irregular syncopations of dance-like drums. These are oddly shaped elements that ought not to fit as snugly or as wondrously as they do, but they do.

Jennifer Kelly

Ernesto Diaz Infante — Bats In The Lavender Sky (Ramble)

Bay Area guitarist Ernesto Diaz Infante has always been a restless sort. Nonetheless, this album feels like a bit of a curve ball, albeit a welcome one. The improviser ensconced himself in a San Francisco recording facility named Next Door To The Jefferson Airplane Studios, but did not take the trip you might expect given a choice like that. Instead of a west coast psychedelic vibe, he has gone natural, nocturnal and New Zealand-ish. Put another way, this album mines territory similar to Roy Montgomery’s mid- to late-1990s work, with a little bit of user-friendly Mego thrown in. Repetition leads to contemplation; this music won’t move you at bat velocity, but if you happen to be floating on a slow-moving air mattress while they fly overhead, it’d make just the right soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

Joy Orbison — “Flight FM” (XL)

flight fm by TOSS PORTAL

Getting married and having a kid really seems to have opened Peter O’Grady up over the past few years. After starting his own label in 2017, he came out with an album (2021’s Still Slipping, Vol. 1), has dropped a handful of singles exploring various strains of UK dance music, and even mined the archive of his glory days for a comp of loosies long thought lost or forgotten (last year’s Archive 09-10). Far from the reserved, elusive producer he broke so big with “Hyph Mngo” as, Joy O has instead blossomed into an approachable, seemingly well-adjusted guy who just wants you to enjoy music the way he does — and what better way to do that than with this heavyweight cruiser that rolls as deep as his best material from the SunkLo days. Concocted in a car on the way to a festival, it took some badgering from Four Tet (who has some unreleased work of his own to wrap up, while we’re on the subject) for him to finish it… but thank goodness he did. The best part about this is that we skipped the Aliasizm radio rip and the endless speculation on what it was called and got straight to the release. A simple, speaker-wrecking ode to the pirate station from which it takes its name, you couldn’t start 2024 (or 2012) any better. Variation on an oft-repeated refrain lately: It’s a shame Fact isn’t around to report on it.

Patrick Masterson

Matt Krefting — Finer Points (Open Mouth)

Finer Points by Matt Krefting

Students of the northeastern U.S. freak scene know Matt Krefting for his endeavors both written and aural. His critical ear has spilled ink across the pages of The Wire magazine and Byron Coley’s Bull Tongue Review, and his sonic exploits harken back to the turn of the millennium with the studied quietude of Son of Earth. These days, Krefting makes surprisingly musical constructions using cassette decks and other tape-adjacent curios, coaxing murky melodies from spools of ferric material. Finer Points comprises layers of dusky fuzz, sandblasted environments and warmly lit instrumental passages. A lonely organ features prominently across many tracks, its doleful moan warbling slightly as Krefting’s malfunctioning tape deck motors strain to maintain a constant speed. Standing out from the nocturnal scenery is “A Double Request,” in which multiple plucked string instruments coalesce into a swampy dirge. There’s a sense of evolution at play as the parts cycle through, forming melodies that shift and tumble before falling apart entirely. This is a common theme throughout Finer Points: Krefting subtly and gradually alters the scenery. The slow unfolding creates an intoxicating glow that permeates the entire experience.

Bryon Hayes

Thomas K. J. Mejer / Uneven Same — Saxophone Quartets 1 2 5 6 7 (Wide Ear)

Uneven Same – Saxophone Quartets by Thomas K.J. Mejer

If you’ve heard of Thomas Mejer, it’s most likely because he is a rare specialist in the contrabass saxophone. In that capacity, he’s contributed tonal heft and textural complexity to the music of Phill Niblock and Keefe Jackson. But for this album, which was mostly performed by the all-female saxophone quartet, Uneven Same, he applies a nuanced comprehension of the potentialities of other saxes founded upon the advances made by improvisers to composed music that operates that is carefully textured and glides more than it grooves. Manuela Villiger, Eva-Marta Karbacher, Vera Wahl and Silke Strahl realize his long, layered lines and carefully buffed sonorities with exquisite poise. Mejer also uses overdubbing to realize four more pieces, all part of a series entitled “Resonating Voids,” on his own. By turns rough, thick, and aquatic, its elemental earthiness balances Uneven Same’s more airborne performances.

Bill Meyer

Melted Men — Jaw Guzzi (Feeding Tube)

Melted Men are an enigma that no amount of online sleuthing can crack. The only information about them online is their Discogs page and a live show review from 1997. In that bizarre performance, Melted Men was a duo from Athens, Georgia. Apparently now, 25 years later, they’ve swollen their ranks, even roping in members from as far afield as continental Europe. With Jaw Guzzi, the anonymous outfit offers up a pair of side-long audio head trips. Warped, heat haze-distorted cassette detritus sidles up to blown out exotica and disjointed Martian funk beats. There’s a hefty dose of collage on display, with mutant vignettes that serve as rickety bridges between more tuneful passages. It’s these doses of song form that will extract bobbing heads and wobbly bottoms from the most adventurous listeners. Melted Men imagine a world where the jump cut jumble of Seymour Glass intersects the ethno-punk chaos of Sun City Girls and the junk shop proto-industrial bleat of early Wolf Eyes. It’s a world that this writer wouldn’t mind visiting frequently.     

(Note: Melted Men are such a mysterious bunch that they’ve asked Feeding Tube not to post any audio on Bandcamp or elsewhere on the internet.)

Bryon Hayes

Nehan — An Evening with Nehan (Drag City)

Nehan is all-star Japanese noise/drone/experimental ensemble led by Masaki Batoh and drawing members from Ghost, Acid Mothers Temple and the Silence. The disc in question presents two side-long improvisations which use as a starting point the 9hz brain wave emitted from a test subject. You can get a sense in the video above of how the experiment worked, as a dancer’s synaptic impulses feed into an elaborate synthesizer set up, turning whatever was in her head into long, pulsing drones. It���s a bit austere in its pure form, but the record elaborates, adding percussion, especially gongs and bells, and a wizened-kazoo-like wind instrument, something that might be a bagpipe and other sounds. It’s not entirely clear how much of what you hear comes from the brain waves and how much comes from the free interplay of the musicians, but maybe it doesn’t matter. The result is slow-moving and mysterious, with dramatic surges of drums and wandering threads of blown sound. The human brain is a notoriously mysterious organ but who’d have thought it could general all this instrumental turmoil? If you’d told me this music was sourced from sun storms or tidal currents or tectonic shifts, I’d have believed that, too.

Jennifer Kelly

Colin Newman and Malka Spiegal—Bastard (Swim ~)

Colin Newman’s Bastard created quite a stir in 1997 when first released. This nine-track, all-instrumental album, leaned heavily on a still mostly underground drum ‘n bass aesthetic and was a far cry from Wire’s terse, melodic outbursts. It also was Newman’s first project after Wire went on hiatus, billed as a solo effort, but actually a close collaboration with his partner Malka Spiegel. This expanded reissue gives Spiegel due credit and fills out the context with 12 additional contemporaneous tracks.

The original album still sounds fairly austere, with clean, clipped drum cadences, locked-tight guitar loops and abstract surges of synthesized sound. The amusingly named “Slowfast (falling down the stairs with a drumkit)” allows the use of distorted guitar, but only in quick, percussive blots. The guitar sound becomes an element of percussion, but not the important one—an antic skitter of drum machine dominates the cut. “Spiked” strips a funk riff down to cubist blocks, a bass sliding woozily between sharp-cut breakbeat drums. None of this is so surprising now, in the wake of techno, house and all its variants, but people weren’t expecting it, least of all from a post-punk progenitor, in 1997. The reissue adds a bunch of other tracks, many of which hew much closer to how you probably think of Wire. “Automation” adds a sinuous, down-in-the-mix vocal to its pop-locked rhythms. “Voice” bristles with guitar dissonance and bobs with dubby bass. “Tsunami” floats euphorically on sawed-down guitar feedback, a good bit like My Bloody Valentine but dancier. And “Cut the Slack” sounds like a Wire song, deadpan chants running into shouted aggressions and layers of guitar shimmering around undeniable hooks. The extra tracks make Bastard sound less like a 100% departure and more like a gradual evolution—and they are very much worth hearing all on their own.

Jennifer Kelly

Ethan Philion Quartet — Gnosis (Sunnyside)

Gnosis by Ethan Philion Quartet

Here’s a welcome surprise. As a rule, bebop-rooted jazz is not the place to look for excitement in 2023, but the rules change when Ethan Philion is on stage. On this record, his second as a leader, the Chicago-based bassist helms a quartet that combines high energy with rhythmic grace and a thorough commitment to the mechanics of the music being played. The latter point might not sound so thrilling, but it is key, since it results in performances that can be appreciated for their cohesion as well as their outward-bound vibe. Philion’s debut was a tribute to Charles Mingus that felt a little too polished; this time, the soloing by all parties (alto saxophonist Greg Ward, trumpeter Russ Johnson, drummer Dana Hall) evince both vigor and rigor.

Bill Meyer

Rick Reed — The Symmetry Of Telemetry (Elevator Bath / Sedimental)

The Symmetry of Telemetry by Rick Reed

The Symmetry Of Telemetry is Rick Reed’s pandemic album. Methodologically, it’s hard to say how much that matters, since the Austin-based electronic musician’s practice already involved patiently collecting and sifting through shortwave broadcasts and then combining them with performed electronics. But the slow-motion uneasiness of “Dysania,” the alternately abraded and bulked-up bumps that introduce “Leave A Light On For Tony,” and the disconsolate, fizzling tones that occupy most of “Space Age Radio Love Song” certainly feel like that time felt. But there’s more to this music than downer vibes. Reed knows how to layer and arrange sounds so that an apparently static passage yields event upon event anytime you decide to listen into his compacted constructions. He also knows how to make waiting pay off, and while it would be spoiling things to tell you what he does, suffice to say that if you listen, you’ll know it when it happens.

Bill Meyer

Jason Roebke Quartet — Four Spheres (Corbett Vs Dempsey)

Four Spheres by Jason Roebke

When bandleaders like Mike Reed, Jorrit Dijkstra and Jason Adasiewicz have needed a bassist who could toggle easily between swing and abstraction, they’ve called Jason Roebke. Such calls, along with everything else a person has to do to maintain a life, mean that years might pass between Roebke’s turns as a leader. But when he does, you can count on them to be deeply considered and not quite like anything else going around. This quartet applies his trademarked fluidity to investigations of the tension between fixed and changing elements. Cassette recordings of electronic noise and metronome beats form nodal points within these pieces around which Edward Wilkerson Jr’s reeds and Marcus Evans’ drums surge and churn in overtly expressive fashion while pianist Mabel Kwan and Roebke shift their weight between fixity and flow. The sound is occasionally reminiscent of the more skeptical, interrogative side of the AACM, and particularly Roscoe Mitchell, but Roebke’s points of inquiry are purely his own.

Bill Meyer

Ned Rothenberg — Crossings Four (Clean Feed)

Crossings Four by Ned Rothenberg

This is some understated, shape-shifting stuff. On clarinets and alto saxophone, Ned Rothenberg matches a tone that’ll make you want to let your ear linger to phrasing sufficiently fluid to motivate them to get up and follow the music. The other three musicians in his Crossings Four are Mary Halvorson on guitar, Sylvie Courvoisier on piano and Tomas Fujiwara on drums. They and Rothenberg are well-matched in attitude, since everyone has chops to flex, but no one flashes them gratuitously. Although this is the quartet’s first recording, there are decades of shared experience and a myriad of interconnections between its members. This enables them to realize a variety of improvisational approaches, from droll and grooving to fractured and abstract, with ease. The moments when a signature lick pops out tend to be lures, inviting the listener to follow them as they disappear into matrices of brisk, nuanced interaction.

Bill Meyer

San Kazakgascar — Too Many People (Lather)

Too Many People by San Kazakgascar

The album title augurs misanthropy, but that’s not borne out by the sounds. This Sacramento seven-piece spares little time for sonic bleakness, and the sounds they choose to make reveal a robust curiosity about the music of other places. Disciplined west coast psych guitars converge with skronk-willing, souk-conscious reeds upon rhythm frameworks that suggest someone’s spent some quality time listening to Gary Glitter, the Meters and wherever it is that Chris Forsyth bottles his choogling spirits. The lack of vocals keeps them from saying anything you really wish they’d take back, and the commitment to a steady groove makes this a record you’ll want to hear on the go, so cash in that download code! But there are also lulls founded upon dust-blown acoustic picking, making this just the record to play when your Firestick won’t load and you’re back to watching that all western, all the time station, but you can’t stand to hear that bullshit cowboy dialogue anymore. Yeah, make up a Western in your own mind where the land defenders win and finish the day celebrating to the tunes of “Crockett Creek.”

Bill Meyer

Secret Pyramid — A Vanishing Touch (BaDaBing!)

A Vanishing Touch by Secret Pyramid

Amir Abbey often writes songs, but on A Vanishing Touch, he composes ambient music inspired by J Dilla’s Donuts. The two seem like strange projects to associate, but it is more the inspiration of Dilla’s jabbing beats that Abbey reconceptualizes to enliven the texture. The best track, “Whim,” is built around soaring textures amid just such rhythmic punctuation. Abbey also moved away from the long gestation period afforded his songs to greater immediacy. There is an improvisatory sensibility here that, rather than moving Secret Pyramid sideways, seems like a useful development.

A Vanishing Touch includes a wide range of synth sounds and doesn’t stint on yearning dissonance. As the ambient revival long exceeds its initial incarnation, it is up to artists like Abbey to reconceive it. Mission accomplished.

Christian Carey

Setting — At The Black Mountain College Museum (www.settingsounds.com)

at Black Mountain College Museum by Setting

Setting is Jaimie Fennelly (Mind Over Mirrors), Nathan Bowles (Pelt, Black Twig Pickers) and Joe Westerlund (Megafaun, Califone), and At the Black Mountain College Museum is the trio’s ultra-quick follow-up to their debut album. Recorded at the end of the brief string of dates that celebrated its release, it dives deeper into their blend of propulsive grooves and not-too-plush, not too rough textures in almost aquatic fashion. This music moves a bit like an otter might, drifting when the current does the necessary work, and then pointing head down with a vigorous kick into deeper and more turbulent eddies. The three multi-instrumentalists stick together, sonically speaking, so that you’re less likely to tune into their interactions than into the place the sounds take you.

Bill Meyer

Strinning & Daisy — Castle And Sun (Veto)

Castle and Sun by Strinning & Daisy

In a sax and drums duo, there’s nowhere to hide. If a musician lacks ideas, stamina or reciprocity, a duo will lay their deficit out for all to hear. Alternately, if they have what it takes, tuned-in listeners will know. The latter scenario is the case here. Swiss tenor saxophonist Sebastian Strinning and Chicagoan drummer Tim Daisy have known each other since 2019, when the former resided for a spell in the latter’s city. But they don’t have a lengthy shared history, so there’s an element of trying things on for size in this session’s dynamic. Each musician draws upon his diverse approaches in a series of mix-and-match explorations as tumbling lines meet steaming forward energy, hushed, textured tones part a curtain of metal sounds, and animal utterances confront circuitous patterns. Captured with three-dimensional palpability and spaciousness by engineer Nick Broste, their exchanges connect with both mind and gut.

Bill Meyer

Tiger Valley—The Celebration (Hausu Mountain)

The Celebration by Tiger Village

Cleveland based producer Tim Thornton’s latest album Tiger Village album, The Celebration, collects ten cheerfully constructed pieces capturing the chaotic joy of domestic life and music making under a feline regime. Random cat energy infuses Thornton’s music; languid relaxation gives way to manic activity, while parcels of affection turning into aloof, spiky demands for attention proffered with claws and cries. Both “Cat’s Up” and “Cat Chew” celebrate the beasts’ mercurial nature. The former is an insinuating strut constantly distracted by random shiny objects, sudden noises and those odd moments of fixation upon unseen emanations. The latter slinks about, looking you in the eye as it knocks your stuff off the desk and tramps across your keyboard. Across the other eight tracks, Thornton juxtaposes eight-bit squiggles, snatches of ambient melody, treated samples of his daughter’s voice, techno beats and machine detritus into a sometimes delirious delight. Quite lovely, though prone to scratching.

Andrew Forell

True Green — My Lost Decade (Spacecase)

My Lost Decade by True Green

Nine clever, loosely strung songs from Minneapolis novelist Dan Hornsby buzz and rattle like lost cuts from Pavement or Silver Jews. “My Peccaddilloes” is especially slanted and more than a little disenchanted, a rambling picaresque of guitars, drums and wheedle-y vocals. The chorus, if that’s what you call it, hits hard, though, “It’s a dog eat dog/said the dog with the taste for dogs/every man for himself/said the man for himself.” The music dissolves in your ears, mess of things that sting and bash and hum, but the lyrics are sharp and packed with reference. “You’re a hopeless diamond, and it’s rough,” yowls Hornsby in his kicked dog tenor, and that about sums it up.

Jennifer Kelly

Michael Zerang & Tashi Dorji — Schiamachy (Feeding Tube)

Sciamachy by Michael Zerang & Tashi Dorji

Sciamachy is named for the practice of fake fighting; if you make it to theater school, you might be able to take a class in it. The cover image augurs metal, but this mock battle between Tashi Dorji and Michael Zerang is improvisational to the hilt. What else can one do when faced with an instrument that’s one of a kind? Zerang is generally known as a percussionist, but on this occasion, he played something called Queequeg’s Coffin, which was devised to be both instrument and prop for a puppet theater performance of Moby Dick. It is a coffin-like box with a crank on one side, somewhat like a hurdy-gurdy without keys. It’s not precise, but it kicks up a great, raw racket of higher and lower pitches that sound like someone sawing open said coffin. Dorji’s response is to lean into texture, complimenting the coffin’s abrasive protests with Sonic Youth-like chimes, chain-in-the-skillet clanks and blinking feedback cadences. This music will have you picking imaginary splinters out of your clothes for the next week; how many records do you own that can make a similar claim?

Bill Meyer

[originaljiraiyan]

Solo Leveling Season 1, Episode 6 Review

[cringe--is--dead]

Hi!! This is my first time requesting anything so it might be really awkward or wierd(sorry if it makes things harder:( ) So please ignore this if it's not up to standard!

1- you! ~ My personality and the way I act usually depends on who I'm around, even if I'm with close friends, I usually change how I talk(volume, tone, politeness, ect) and how I act(like how confident I am, how much I talk). So half of my friends think I'm more like a people pleaser friend(criess) and half think I'm someone who doesn't care what anyone thinks of them. It's honestly kind of funny!! My personality is in more of the playful and teasing type and that usually only happens when I get closer to people. I think I'm on the introverted side, because I really like going out alone(going out with friends can be so stressful!!) and can be kind of shy, but my MBTI is actually ESFP(the performer?). I guess it's because I really like presenting in front people and performing in general?

2- Hobbies and such ~ I don't have a lot of interesting hobbies but I love reading and music a LOT. I love to read because even though it was my only entertainment when I was younger, I really grew into it. I read most genres(exept non fiction:) and I really love horror, fantasy and thrillers! Another 'hobby' I have is playing the flute and piccolo(is basicly a smaller flute). Honestly, it's more of an off-on obsession than a hobby, but I guess it counts? I really love the flute and music in general and it makes me so happy when I can perform(solos are super super fun!). I think flute is my biggest commitment and largest accomplishment:).

AH you're so good! I love the lil flower 🌼 anon! >.< Anyways!

Personally, I could see you as a great match up with Nirei!

Hear me out on this sweet, sunshine child.

I also think he's one whose personality matches who he's around, but on a more minor level? I feel like you're ability to be in different social settings and around other people would help him feel more comfortable/confident in himself, and he looks up to you so much because of that!

Teasing him would be a love language I think, maybe not on the same wave that Suo teases him, but in your own way. It's romantic and even if it seems small or subtle, your interactions set off Sakura's romance detector!

I imagine that while he writes a lot in his notebooks and journals, he doesn't read a lot. But I can imagine if you ever offered to read out loud to him he'd jump at the opportunity! He doesn't necessarily have a favorite genre (you probably scare him a few times with different horror books, please have mercy) he just enjoys what you enjoy. You both definitely get really into talking about the characterization and the plot twists and foreshadowing. You have your own mini book club between the two of you! If you delve into murder mystery books together you're both trying to solve the case as early as possible.

I also imagine that he would work on learning Korean to talk to you! He's so good with memorizing people and information on them, I feel like if you started helping him within a month he'd be able to have full conversations with you. Maybe not in super depth quite yet, but way more than a 안녕하세요. 잘 지내죠? type conversation.

You also definitely introduce him to different video games, and for the most part, he's happy just watching you play (his own personal YouTube gamer) but if you ask him nicely to play with you he's already downloading said game.

I hope this was a good match-up for you! >.< Have a great day!

[marshmallowgoop]

Mixing an Old Anime Dub with HD Footage

How I'm trying to mix every episode of the old FUNimation English dub of Detective Conan/Case Closed with the new remastered footage currently being released on Blu-ray in Germany.

This is less of a tutorial and more of a, "I-don't-really-know-what-I'm-doing-but-this-is-my-process" sort of thing. I welcome suggestions for improvements! Many thanks go to Fabre on the Detective Conan EN Community Discord server for getting me here at all; my earlier method of mixing, requiring me to cut the audio a bajillion times, is definitely not recommended.

Since I just posted a clip from Episode 76—thank you for the warm response!—I'll demo here with Episode 77! It's the start of a Heiji case!

Programs

Every program I use is free (though some have paid options available). These programs are:

MakeMKV, for ripping Blu-rays and DVDs

HandBrake, for ripping DVDs and compressing files

BeHappy, for audio conversion

DaVinci Resolve, for video editing

Subtitle Edit, for exactly what it says on the tin

Getting the Materials

To rip the Detektiv Conan Blu-rays, I use MakeMKV. (Note that the file size will be very large.) I also try to use MakeMKV to rip the FUNimation Case Closed DVDs, but there can be struggles. With Seasons 4 and 5 of the Viridian Collection, for example, not all episodes would rip without a lot of finagling. In that situation, it's easier to use HandBrake instead, making sure to select a FLAC codec for lossless compression of the audio.

Audio Conversion

With Detective Conan, the Case Closed DVDs have an audio "framerate" of 24 FPS, but the Detektiv Conan Blu-rays have an FPS of 23.976. They've gotta match for easy mixing. The way I fix the discrepancy is to convert the FUNi audio to 23.976 FPS, which can be done with BeHappy:

I use WAV Writer for a lossless conversion, and I've learned to select the "Normalize to 100%" option because I've had strangely low audio levels otherwise (as can sadly be heard in my Episode 76 clip).

(Also, one of my biggest struggles with BeHappy was how to even get the job going. So, putting it out there for anyone else who might need it: to get the conversion started, you gotta click that "Enqueue" button on the bottom right. It is indeed a button!)

I use FFAudioSource, and with the "Configure..." button on the far right of that, I can select the stream index to convert. (For many of the FUNimation volumes, Stream Index 1 is English stereo, Stream Index 2 is Japanese stereo, and Stream Index 3 is English surround sound.)

My mixing process involves lining up the Japanese audio of the FUNimation DVD with the Japanese audio from the German Blu-ray; then, I copy any movements or cuts to the English audio. So, I convert both the English and Japanese audio tracks from the FUNimation DVD.

But this is unnecessary. You can also line up the dub with the Blu-ray audio directly. I just don't trust myself to do that because they're not going to match up exactly due to the different languages.

Resolve can also have trouble importing the audio from my Blu-rays, so I BeHappy that audio as well, just making sure not to select the "TimeStretch" option.

Video Editing

The mixing isn't too complicated. Like I said above, it's about matching the Japanese audio tracks of the DVD and the Blu-ray. I solo the Japanese audio track from the Blu-ray, mark the starting point of a sound, and then I repeat the process with the Japanese audio track from the DVD and line up the markers (and solo both Japanese audio tracks together to make sure they're properly synced). Anything changed on the Japanese audio track from the DVD is copied to the English audio track(s).

Rinse and repeat. Timings generally need to be checked at transition points: the opening, doors, ending, post-credits, next-episode previews, and "Next Conan's Hint" segments. The Blu-rays also have blank sponsor screens and end-card jokes that aren't included on the DVDs, and I fill these spaces by either editing in the English version of the song that plays during the sponsor screen, or by simply copying the Japanese audio from the Blu-ray for content that wasn't dubbed.

There are some more nitty-gritty details involved with openings. For OP 1, I edit in the full English version of the song from Episode 1, while for OP 2, which wasn't dubbed (with OP 1 played instead on the DVDs), I use AI vocal isolation to isolate the audio of Shinichi's opening speech and edit that with the Japanese song. For OP 3, no full English version of "Nazo" exists, so I just kind of have to awkwardly splice in the Japanese version at the end during the sponsor screen.

Of course, this is a lot of extra effort that even the German Blu-rays don't do for the German dub. Songs and intros are entirely left in Japanese there, vastly simplifying this work. But I definitely want to preserve the English songs. And also, I love making things harder for myself.

Subtitles

Finally, I'm all about subtitles! Some of the FUNimation volumes include English dub subtitles, which I like to include on my final mix.

To extract them from the DVD, I use Subtitle Edit. I go to File -> Import -> Subtitle from video file...

The file does have to be an .mkv, which can be made with MakeMKV or HandBrake.

Once I select the file (in this case Episode 77), I use these settings to OCR the subtitles:

I make sure to have "Prompt for unknown words" checked because OCR (Optical Character Recognition) isn't a perfect process and may make mistakes.

"How's it goin (TM)" is pretty great, though, ngl.

I run through the OCR and fix anything that's needed. Since the FUNimation subtitles are a little hard to read, I also try to quality check them thoroughly for errors—though, I usually do that after the next step, which is timing the subtitles to the remastered mix.

Much like the BeHappy process, I want to start by changing the framerate of the subtitles from 24 FPS to 23.976 FPS. This can be done by going to Synchronization -> Change frame rate...

After that, I can attach the remastered video file and time much like I did with the video editing. I go to Synchronization -> Adjust all times (show earlier/later)... and click the "Selected and subsequent lines" option at all of the transition places that need adjusting. It definitely helps to have the waveform on when timing.

I also like to attach Crunchyroll subtitles for the more literal translation of the original Japanese script. The .ass files can be found here. Crunchyroll subtitles are timed very closely to the Blu-rays; all that needs to be done is a second or so of delay at the start. I also OCR the German subtitles from the Blu-ray and use those to time the Crunchyroll subs, but it's just as effective to use the waveform and/or your ear to time them.

And speaking of Crunchyroll subs, I like to copy their formatting for my OCR'd subs. To do this, I first need to export the Crunchyroll styles, which can be done by opening the Crunchyroll subtitle file in Subtitle Edit and clicking the big "A" by the checkmark for "Advanced Sub Station Alpha styles."

The following menu will pop up, and from there, I just have to click the "Export" button to save the styles.

After that, I have to change the .srt file of the OCR'd subs into an .ass file by opening that file and selecting "Advanced Sub Station Alpha (.ass)" on the "Format" drop-down menu.

Then, I again click the big "A" by the checkmark for "Advanced Sub Station Alpha styles" and hit the "Import..." button on the menu to import the Crunchyroll styles. I delete the original "Default" style afterwards and rename the Crunchyroll default from "Default 2" to "Default."

And that's basically it! There are some things I kind of glossed over; for example, I have to assign buses in video editing to get all the different audio tracks the way I want, and I do have to add subtitle lines to the English dub subs to get subs for things that weren't on DVD. But this is the basic process of preparing the video and subtitles.

Compression

The last step is compressing with HandBrake. I wind up with ginormous file sizes after exporting from Resolve, and it's nice to get something smaller. Plus, with HandBrake, I can also attach all my subtitle files to the video.

To do so, I just need to pop over to the "Subtitle" tab and select "Import Subtitle" on the "Tracks" drop-down menu.

The subs can even be named. I keep mine soft so that they can be toggled on or off, but they can certainly be burned in, too, if that's preferred.

Compression settings are utterly beyond me, unfortunately; my file sizes are still ginormous even after HandBraking. But there are several presets on the program that can be used.

And that's really the whole process!

Note that I use the German Blu-rays, despite their shortcoming of the name boxes being edited in a way that can't be turned off, because there are no other Blu-ray releases of this remastered material at the moment. Maybe one day I'll write a post about all the Detective Conan available on BD—it's surprisingly little!—but this is it for now!

Thanks for reading!

[juiceedapplee]

Likes:

-Games-

Stardew Valley

Roblox (royale high, bloxburg, dti, bloxy bingo)

Pjsk

Omori

Genshin Impact

Hsr

Sprout Valley

Dol

-YouTubers-

Niji en

Holostars en

Vshojo

Rin Penrose

Kenji

Monarch

Cyyu

Yuzuya

Azeru

Boze vs the world

Smii7y

Kurtis Conner

Danny Gonzalez

Augustheduck

Andy king

Chad chad

Annamarie

Manlybadasshero

Jarvis

Game theory (film, food, and style too)

-Musicals-

Be more chill

Beetlejuice

Kinky boots

Heathers (both vers are good, west end might be my fav)

Mean girls

Into the woods (the old one is better)

Hamilton

Bring it on

Tgwdlm

Black Friday

Npmd

The Oregon trail

-Shows/Movies-

Jjk

Mha

Nanbaka

Haikyuu

Blue Lock

Ohshc

Chainsaw Man

Mob Psycho

Black Butler

Hxh

Bridgerton

The boyfriend

Great teacher onizuka

Secrets in the hot spring

Scott pilgrim vs the world (movie, haven’t seen the show yet)

Trolls band together (got me crushing on a damn troll)

The Lorax

Drink masters

Death note

Saiki K

Saiki K: reawakened

Disenchantment

Mlp movies

Glitter force (I watched it on Netflix, dont know the jp name)

Kakegurui

Everything everywhere all at once

High rise invasion

Legally blonde (both movies)

Hsm (only the first two)

Cruella

-Books-

Tcgf (still reading)

Mxtx (still reading)

Mdzs (still reading)

Svss (still reading)

Remarried Empress

Southern book clubs guide to slaying vampires

Alice in wonderland

-BL-

Boy girlfriend (damn you axel)

Jinx

Perfect Buddy

Shutline

Love leveling

Angel Buddy

Roses and Champagne

Full volume

Semantic Error

Night by the sea

Love Jinx

No love zone

Killing Stalking

Obey me (not the game)

Dangerous Convenience Store

Serious Joke

No Holes Barred (includes a woman, and it’s technically not a bl)

Something’s wrong with my popularity

My darling signed in

Candy Man

Eyes clouded by the tiger

I have to be a good villain

Easy to notice

Kill the lights

Define the relationship

Take off

Angel bunny club

Puppy Love

Shame application

Omega Complex

Mr 100% perfect

Plaything

Don’t say you love me

Love is an illusion

Worst guy in the universe

Attack and Occupy (dropped cuz holy shit)

My hot friend is glowing

Hwanghyeon Text

Dear Door

Jackass

No reason

Raising a newbie to grind them

Galatea through the screen

-Manhwa/webtoons/manhua/manga-

Get schooled/ true education

How to live as a villain

Dungeon reset

Home plate villain

Leveling up by only eating

For my derelict favorite

Eleceed

Trash Count

I obtained a mythic item

World after the fall

Zombie x Slasher

Solo Max level newbie

End of the world is just a game

Duke pendragon

Steel eating player

Dungeon Odyssey

Tyrant of a defense game

Priest of corruption

Lady with one line

Everyone regressed but me

Beginning after the end

S-classes I raised

Bootleg Healer

Teenage Mercenary

Only necromancer

Money Game

Pie Game

+99 wooden stick

Talent eating magician

Max Level Hero has returned

Overpowered healer

Worlds strongest troll

Pick me up

Lazy swordmaster

Resetting lady

Debut or die

Tbate (I haven’t read the chapters from the new artist)

School bus graveyard

Hwarang: flower knight of the underworld

My brothers not so secret boyfriend

Jungle Juice

Disgusted Vampire

I was the final boss

Mono and Mochi

Hectopascal

Viral Hit

Solo Leveling

Solo Leveling Ragnarok

Orv

Villain to Kill

Cinderella Boy

Tax reaper

Deathsitter

Magic Girl Incident

Marry my husband

Return survival

Study Group

Hectopascal

Neon Revenge (I’m still sad it ended so early)

Weak Hero

Becoming the Monarch

Maru is a puppy

My little sister is the demon lord

Mafia Nanny

Hanlim Gym

Return to Player

Paranoid Mage

Born to work retail

World is money and Power

The dickheads

Jackson’s diary

Silho

Ams

Mayo Shonen

My daddy is a villain

Nina’s chest

G.O.D

Swordid

Kids are all right

Class 1-9

Dungeon cleaning life of a once genius hunter

Like mother like daughter

Bad plan man

Forever after

Les piggies

The hammer

[sofasaurusrex]

MyAnimeList: Saurusrex (same pfp as here)

currently reading:

yona of the dawn: 23/?? ch

*loving this series so much i definitely think im going to collect this once it’s complete (I’ve been reading from the library)

Solo leveling: 5/201 ch

*im really enjoying this series but so far not much of a plot has developed. I have the vol 3,4,5,6 at home so im gonna give it a solid chance

villains are destined to die: 145/?? ch

*I don’t think I need to say how much I love this series. Eventually when it’s complete I’d like to collect it

Wotakoi: 4/11 vol

*this is such a comfort read for me. I have up to the third omnibus and plan to read the third one soon

On hold:

assassination classroom: 1/21 vol

the way of the househusband: 5/?? Vol

*this one I was able to read vol 5 yesterday tho

Spy x family: 7/??

*the above are on hold cause I’ve read them so long ago but I plan to continue them

my hero academia: 1/?? Vol

PTSD radio: 26/? ch

Rurouni kenshin: 1/28 vol

*the above are not priority series but will read every now and then

Naruto: 1/72 vol

*planning on reading a few volumes then switching to the anime

Completed:

dementia 21: 37/37 ch

*this was such a great series and so interesting. Creepy and so unserious and odd loved it!