#subgenre: coda

[lgbtqreads]

Do you know any Dystopias (as in fucked up futuristic high-tech society, not post-apocalypse) other than the Imposters Series by Scott Westerfeld, or An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon that heavily feature queer characters?

Yep, you can always find them here! https://lgbtqreads.com/sff/spec-fic-by-subgenre/ These all star queer characters, but if you want heaviest emphasis on queerer worlds, I'd say maybe start with Rainbow Islands and Chameleon Moon.

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow – B

The Culling by Steven dos Santos

Rainbow Islands by Devin Harnois – T

The Fever King by Victoria Lee

Proxy by Alex London

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz – NB

Coda by Emma Trevayne – B

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Adult

X by Davey Davis

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (Amz)

When You Were Pixels by Julio Alexi Genao

Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace - A

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller – L

Docile by K.M. Szpara

Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver – A,L,T

[myhahnestopinion]

THE 2022 AARONS - Best Film

75 films released in 2022 are eligible for this year’s ceremony. That ties a low with the pandemic year of 2020, but my goal was to focus on quality over quantity. Well, at least that’s what I told myself until I opted to watch Disenchanted over Decision to Leave. I did watch a lot of good films last year though. Here are the Aarons for Best Film:

#10. Scream

Ready or Not directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett were the first people brave enough to take a stab at Scream since the passing of director Wes Craven. They slayed at becoming its stewards. The fifth film’s satire has bigger prey in mind than just the slasher subgenre, cutting through a whole culture obsessed with reliving an idealized past. It’s a scary, and pertinent, reminder of how easily infantilized fan-bases can be weaponized against human beings, told with a sly style that would have made Craven proud. While the film features plenty of familiar faces and Ghostfaces, it’s the new blood of current and soon-to-be horror icons like Dylan Minnette and Jenny Ortega that really made the horror-comedy a scream.

#9. The Black Phone

Based on the short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone recalls the best works of his father Stephen King. The 70s-set serial killer thriller grabs ahold of viewers with its supernatural hook - a phone that converses with the dead - but it’s the clever characters that will keep them captivated. Sinister director Scott Derickson slowly dials up the dread as young Finny Blake tries to escape the clutches of his kidnapper, with the looming specter of past victims making the cost of failure clear. The frightening film’s secret weapon is its resourcefulness, deftly deploying Ethan Hawke’s maniacal villain and eerie 8mm imagery as it lays the groundwork for an off-the-hook finale.

#8. The Batman

Since its debut, every comic book filmmaker has been riddled by the same dilemma: how to eclipse The Dark Knight. If director Matt Reeves, who sharpened his skill for thoughtful blockbusters on Planet of the Apes, didn’t solve the question, he at least gave a very good guess. Reeve’s reinvention pushed the envelope of superhero cinema by drawing inspiration from David Fincher, distinguishing itself in the competitive genre through grounded stakes and great spectacle. Abetted by Paul Dano’s riveting Riddler and Robert Pattison’s arresting, arrestedly-developed version of the vigilante, the twists and turns of the mystery noir keep viewers tightly-wound even after its dam breaks open. 

#7. TÁR

TÁR’s composition is unusual: it begins with a full set of production credits, shown in reverse of traditional order. The switch-up is the opening salvo of a film fully intent on upsetting power dynamics. The three-hour character piece plays with audiences’ sympathies as it chronicles the collapse of famous (fictional) symphony composer Lydia Tár. The nuanced tale of narcissism takes some cues from modern day ‘cancel culture,” but the tenor is a tragedy as classical as they come. To alleviate trepidation, it’s important to note that TÁR isn’t as stuffy as it may sound: the coda of this unusual composition is a rollicking punchline as appropriate as it is unpredictable.

#6. Pearl

Pearl is a gem. Filmed in secret alongside its predecessor (more on that shortly) and released a few months later, the prequel extrapolates X into a compelling study of its eponymous character. The wickedness of the Oz-inspired technicolor terror contrasts itself through its singular focus. Tracing the lead-up to Pearl’s first string of murders in 1918 as her fairy tale dreams turn into a deranged fervor, the film keeps the body count going but the spotlight fixed on the incontestable star power of Mia Goth. Goth’s devotion to the demented ending guarantees that, while X is extricating, Pearl will always linger in the back of one’s mind. 

#5. X

‘Elevated horror,’ the designation given to the recent trend of arthouse films, has routinely struggled to find the right balance between lofty thematic ambitions and expected genre titillation. X marks the spot. The trick was in fixating both on being unabashed about one’s nature. The thrust of Ti West’s throwback grindhouse flick, which documents a group of sexually-liberated filmmakers’ fateful encounter with an envious elderly couple, is a morality play about accepting mortality. The sexed-up slasher doesn’t skimp on penetrating flesh though, with gnarly gore effects designed by Wētā Workshop. It could have been objectifying and objectionable material, but West directs it all with a curious compassion; as a result, X multiplied wins for his films this year. 

#4. The Banshees of Inisherin 

Banshees is a lament of ghosting gone wrong. Martin McDonagh’s drama escalates an unconscientious uncoupling - truthful but tactless - between two life-long best friends to its most absurd and absurdly funny degree. Backdropped by the Irish Civil War, the boiling tension between the curiously incongruous but synchronously stubborn pairing of Brendan Gleeson’s ambitious Colm and Colin Farrell’s simplistic Pádraic highlights how quickly spite can erode one’s better angels. It’s a downbeat design yet Inisherin’s spirit lies in its impeccably witty dialogue. They may not be able to put their finger on whether it’s gaiety or grief, but audiences will be howling in response to Banshees for one reason or the other.

#3. Speak No Evil

Much has been said recently about horror’s use as a vehicle to process past trauma; Speak No Evil returns the conversation to the genre’s custom of cautionary tales. Danger lies ahead, not behind, of the film’s family when they accept an invitation to an idyllic weekend stay with a foreign couple. Evil preys on the unprepared; the insidious nature of its terror isn’t clear until its trap is already sprung. For the unassertive, the Danish film is uniquely devastating. The less said to prospective viewers, the better, though rest assured that Speak No Evil deserves every good word.

#2. The Fabelmans 

Steven Spielberg has spent a lifetime doing his dream work and capturing his audiences’ imagination along the way. Loosely based on his own childhood, The Fablemans brings that wide-ranging filmography into focus. The assortment of anecdotes is one of the director’s funniest films and undoubtedly his most vulnerable. While this semi-autobiographical story could have been a simple victory lap for the septuagenarian, Spielberg’s sentimentality has always been far wiser than critics claim. The sure to be sacred text to future generations of filmmakers is certainly a testament to the magic of movies. Yet, even as Spielberg reframes his past, the learned moral imparted by The Fabelmans is really about what cinema is unable to control. 

AND THE BEST FILM OF 2022 IS...

#1. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Movie multiverses may be inescapable at the moment, but no project encapsulates the concept’s infinite possibilities more than Everything Everywhere All at Once. The revolutionary martial-arts flick runs like The Matrix trading its estrogen for ecstasy as it awakens an under-audit laundromat owner to the larger worlds around her. The film’s directors, collectively credited as Daniels, learned the tools of the trade on the offbeat Swiss Army Man and apply that same sense of humor here: one that’s lewd, ludicrous, and incredibly life affirming.  Able to transform a universe of humans with hot dogs for fingers from joke to tearjerker and back again, the film is continually unexpected but everything one’s ever wanted all at once.

NEXT UP: THE 2022 AARONS FOR WORST FILM!

[dweemeister]

The complete list of films featured on this blog’s 2023 “31 Days of Oscar” marathon

Hello everyone,

Thank you once more for allowing me to present the annual marathon of Oscar-nominated films to your dashboards. This year, the films were grouped by genre or subgenre in primetime (5 PM Pacific into the night). This is the most exclusive period on this blog, as the selection of films that I can post and queue about is at its most limited. But at the same time, the blog is at its most accessible as this yearly marathon’s selection skew to more popular fare. I hope you enjoyed this year’s presentation of 31 Days of Oscar.

What follows is the exhaustive list of all 380 short- and feature-length films featured on this blog over the last thirty-one days for the 31 Days of Oscar marathon. This is down from last year’s record of 420. But that count remains only a fraction of the 5,019 films that have been nominated for Academy Awards since 1927.

Of those 380, 37 were short films (53 short films is the record, which was set last year). 343 were feature films.

BREAKDOWN BY DECADE 1927-1929: 6 1930s: 52 1940s: 53 1950s: 50 1960s: 37 1970s: 31 1980s: 25 1990s: 25 2000s: 27 2010s: 31 2020s: 50

TOTAL: 380

Year with most representation (2022 excluded): 1940 (11 films) Median year: 1967

Time for the list. 62 Best Picture winners and the one (and only) winner for Unique and Artistic Production that I featured this year are in bold. Asterisked (*) films are films I haven’t seen in their entirety as of the publishing of this post. Films primarily not in the English language are accompanied with their nation(s) of origin.

The ten Best Picture nominees for the 95th Academy Awards, including the winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

The fifteen nominees in the short film categories for the 95th Academy Awards

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

The African Queen (1951)

Aftersun (2022)*

Against All Odds (1984)*

Air Force One (1997)

Aladdin (1992)

All About My Mother (1999, Spain)*

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

All the President’s Men (1976)

American Graffiti (1973)

An American in Paris (1951)

The Americanization of Emily (1964)*

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Anna Christie (1930)*

Apollo 13 (1995)

Argentina, 1985 (2022, Argentina)

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

The Artist (2011, France)

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)*

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)*

Auntie Mame (1958)

Avatar (2009)

Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1997)*

Balance (1989 short, West Germany)*

Bao (2018 short)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Barton Fink (1991)*

The Battle of Midway (1942)

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Becky Sharp (1935)*

Ben-Hur (1959)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Bicycle Thieves (1948, Italy)

The Big Sick (2017)*

Black Narcissus (1947)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Block-Heads (1938)*

Blue Valentine (2010)*

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Boyz n the Hood (1991)*

Breaker Morant (1980)*

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Brief Encounter (1945)

Brigadoon (1954)

The Broadway Melody (1929)

Buena Vista Social Club (1999, Germany/Cuba)*

Caged (1950)

Carol (2015)*

Casablanca (1942)

The Cat Concerto (1946 short)

Catch Me If You Can (2002)*

Chicago (2002)

Chico and Rita (2010, Spain)

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

Cimarron (1931)

Cinema Paradiso (1988, Italy)

Cleopatra (1934)*

Close (2022, Belgium)*

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Coco (2017)

CODA (2021)

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989)*

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Creed (2015)

Crimson Tide (1995)

Crip Camp (2020)*

Crossfire (1947)

The Crowd (1928)

The Dam Keeper (2014 short)

The Danish Poet (2006 short, Norway/Canada)*

Dark Victory (1939)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Days of Heaven (1978)*

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

Dead Poets Society (1989)

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Dersu Uzala (1975, Soviet Union)

Designing Woman (1957)*

Dillinger (1945)*

Dirty Dancing (1987)*

The Divorcee (1930)*

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

The Doorway to Hell (1930)*

Double Indemnity (1944)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947 short)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Dumbo (1941)

The Earrings of Madame de... (1953, France)*

Easter Parade (1948)

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994, Taiwan)*

Educating Rita (1983)*

Elizabeth (1998)*

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)*

Encanto (2021)

EO (2022, Poland)*

Erin Brockovich (2000)*

The Fallen Sparrow (1943)*

A Few Good Men (1991)*

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Fire of Love (2022)

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

The Flame and the Arrow (1950)*

Flashdance (1983)*

Flowers and Trees (1932 short)

The Fog of War (2003)*

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

42nd Street (1933)

The 400 Blows (1959, France)

A Free Soul (1931)*

The French Connection (1971)

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Frozen (2013)

Fury (1936)

Gangs of New York (2002)*

Gaslight (1944)

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950 short)*

Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)*

Get Out (2017)

Gigi (1958)

Glass Onion (2022)

The Godfather (1972)

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Going My Way (1944)

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Gold Diggers of 1937 (1937)*

Gone with the Wind (1939)

The Goodbye Girl (1977)*

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

A Grand Day Out (1989 short)*

Grand Hotel (1932)

Grand Illusion (1937, France)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Great Dictator (1940)

Great Expectations (1946)*

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

Gulliver’s Travels (1939)

Hamlet (1996)

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Heaven’s Gate (1980)*

Here Comes the Navy (1934)*

High Noon (1952)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004, Japan)

Hud (1963)*

The Hurt Locker (2008)

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Imitation of Life (1959)

In Cold Blood (1967)

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Incendies (2010, Canada)*

Independence Day (1996)

Inside Out (2015)

Into the Woods (2014)

The Irishman (2019)

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)*

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Juno (2007)

The Killers (1946)

The King’s Speech (2010)

Kiss Me Kate (1953)*

Knives Out (2019)

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

La La Land (2016)

Lady Bird (2017)

The Lady Eve (1941)

Lady for a Day (1933)*

Lagaan (2001, India)*

The Last Command (1928)*

The Last Emperor (1987)

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)*

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)*

The Leopard (1963, Italy)

The Letter (1940)

Libeled Lady (1936)*

Licorice Pizza (2021)

Life with Father (1947)

Lincoln (2012)

Little Caesar (1931)

Little Johnny Jet (1953 short)*

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

A Little Romance (1979)

Little Women (1933)*

Living (2022)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Lost in Translation (2003)*

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Malcolm X (1992)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

The Man with the Golden Arm (1956)

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)

Marty (1955)

Mary Poppins (1964)

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)*

The Matrix (1999)

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)*

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

A Mighty Wind (2003)

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Minari (2020)

The Mission (1986)*

Mon Oncle (1958, France)

Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953, France)

A Morning Stroll (2011 short)

Moonraker (1979)

Moonstruck (1987)*

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Mrs. Miniver (1942)

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)*

The Music Man (1962)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

My Life as a Dog (1985, Sweden)

Network (1976)

Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)*

The Night Before Christmas (1941 short)

Night Must Fall (1937)*

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Ninotchka (1939)

Now Hear This (1962 short)*

Now, Voyager (1942)

The Nun’s Story (1959)

Oliver! (1968)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

One Night in Miami... (2020)*

One Way Passage (1932)*

Our Town (1940)

The Ox-Bow Incident (1941)

The Paper Chase (1973)

Patton (1970)

Peace on Earth (1939 short)

Peyton Place (1957)*

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Pillow Talk (1959)

Pretty Woman (1990)*

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Prisoners (2013)*

The Producers (1967)

Psycho (1960)

The Public Enemy (1931)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

The Queen of Basketball (2021 short)

The Quiet Girl (2022, Ireland)

Quo Vadis (1951)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Raintree County (1955)*

Ran (1985, Japan)

Random Harvest (1942)

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Rebecca (1940)

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Robin Hood (1973)

Robinson Crusoe (1952)*

Rocky (1976)

Royal Wedding (1951)

RRR (2022, India)*

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Schindler’s List (1993)

The Sea Beast (2022)

The Sea Hawk (1940)

The Sea Wolf (1941)*

The Secret of Kells (2009)

The Shape of Water (2017)

Shaft (1971)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

She Done Him Wrong (1933)*

Ship of Fools (1965)*

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

The Sky’s the Limit (1943)*

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The Snowman (1982 short)*

Some Like It Hot (1959)

The Sound of Music (1965)

Spartacus (1960)

Spotlight (2015)

Stagecoach (1939)

Stand by Me (1986)

A Star is Born (1937)

Stella Dallas (1937)

The Sting (1973)

The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)*

The Story of Three Loves (1953)*

La Strada (1954, Italy)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Strike Up the Band (1940)

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Swing Time (1936)

The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Superman (1941 short)

The Tale of Cinderella Penguin (1981 short)*

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Japan)

Tango, no me dejes nunca (1998, Argentina)*

Teacher’s Pet (1958)*

Tess (1979)*

That Obscure Object of Desire (1977, Spain)*

That Uncertain Feeling (1941)*

The Thin Man (1934)

The Third Man (1949)

Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)*

Three Colors: Red (1994, Poland)

Three Little Pigs (1933 short)

The Time Machine (1960)

The Tin Drum (1979, West Germany)*

Titanic (1997)

To Catch a Thief (1955)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Tom Jones (1963)

Top Gun (1986)

The Tortoise and the Hare (1934 short)

Travels with My Aunt (1972)*

The Triplets of Belleville (2003, France)*

True Grit (1969)

True Grit (2010)

Tsotsi (2005, South Africa)*

Twelve Angry Men (1957)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Turning Red (2022)

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, France)

Vertigo (1958)

Victory Through Air Power (1943)*

Wait Until Dark (1967)*

War and Peace (1966, Soviet Union)*

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The Way We Were (1973)*

West Side Story (2021)

The Westerner (1940)

The Whale (2022)

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

What Price Hollywood? (1932)

When Worlds Collide (1951)

White Heat (1949)

White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)*

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

The Windshield Wiper (2021 short)

Wings (1927)

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968 short)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Woman in the Dunes (1964, Japan)*

Wuthering Heights (1939)*

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)*

You Can’t Take It with You (1938)

Young Bess (1953)*

[cybercitycomix]

Top New Misc Comic Releases for the Week of October 18th, 2023.

Beautiful Soldiers #1,

Bite Sized Tales of Terror #1,

Coda #2,

Cyberpunk 2077 XOXO #1,

Gargoyle by Moonlight #1,

Gargoyles Halloween Special #1,

Granite State Punk: Breaking Edge #1,

Hack Slash: Back to School #1,

Headless Horseman Halloween Annual #1 +

Subgenre #1.

[animalinvestigator]

📌✨ hi coda!!

hi emily!!!!!!! n_nthanks for sending an ask!! I hope youre having a good day : )

✨ what draws you towards your hyperfixation? what is interesting about it?

like i mentioned in the last ask i honestly have always felt like petscop is like, perfectly tailored to me . it covers a subject matter that is really really important to me and resonates with my lived experiences, and it's presented in such a way that it aligns perfectly with all of my favorite framing devices in media!!! it's got the whole melty reality thing going on, it's (on the surface level) a "creepy gaming ARG" (ITS NOT ACTUALLY AN ARG IT JUST POSITS ITSELF AS ONE DONT THROW ROCKS AT ME) which has been a weird internet subgenre ive been fascinated with since childhood, it's psychological fridge horror, distinctive visuals, metaphors about post traumatic stress posited through technology, its like, so disgustingly codacore that sometimes i genuinely cant believe it really exists. i have like weekly moments where im like. petscop is real?

i think the most interesting thing about it to me is the amount you can take away from it and how much depth there is despite its relatively short runtime, and also how the purposeful ambiguity allows for everyone who watches it to walk away with a different set of conclusions and feelings about what happened. i'm fascinated with the storytelling mechanisms that allow for it to act as such a mirror to the viewer. i love trying to pull apart how the thing works and how it manages to fit so much into so little explicit representation of the actual literal events of the story. its so cool to me!!!!!!! guys i kind of like this stroy. just like a little

[whichstiel]

2020 Year in Fic (and art)

Like many people, the pandemic reordered my world - both personal and professional. Despite all that, and the emotional energy spent on this awful, nail-biting election year in the United States, I did actually publish a few stories.

I only published two longer stories this year, opting out of writing for any bangs as I had very few spoons (or time) available.

Hope is a Living Thing I don’t usually go for Endverse stories. They make me melancholy and often ache over broken Dean and Cas - without much in the way of hope. When I was asked to write Endverse for a giveaway, I couldn’t help but sprinkle in some hope. This was published on New Year’s so it was clearly written in 2019. I don’t care, though! I’m counting it.

And They Were Ghostmates Like most of my stories, this one came about because I made a dumb joke in a text thread, and liked it so much that I wrote a story about it. My contribution to the quarantine fic subgenre.

Season 15 Codas

LOL, remember when I was going to write a code for every episode of season 15? Reader, I did not.

Fine Coda for 15x6 Golden Time. Cas rents a cabin and ruminates on emotions.

Maybe I’m Amazed Coda for 15x9 The Trap. A little Sam/Eileen, a little Dean/Cas.

Dancing Cheek to Cheek Coda for 15x10 The Heroes Journey. Dean and Cas dance together.

Devotional Coda for 15x17 and 15x18 Despair and Unity. A series of vignettes exploring Castiel and Dean's past

Limitless Coda for 15x19 Inherit the Earth. Thinking about human Cas, and God Jack.

There’s Something About Jenny Coda for 15x20 Carry On. Remember that trash fire??? Hahahahaha (weeps). I knew there had to be a reason Jenny showed up in the finale. Turns out, it was dark time travel magic and it IS reversible!

Art

While I didn’t write for any challenges, I did contribute art to a few projects:

Art for Missing Art created for Kitmistry's story, Missing, which was written for the DeanCas Pinefest 2020

Art for The Elmwood Haunting Art created for Sarasaurusrex's story, The Elmwood Haunting, which was written for the DCBB 2020

Art for Ode to Squirrel World I begged my friend to write this, and promised squirrel art. It brings me joy.

Creatively, I’d rank 2020 as a middling year. I created more than I did during a massive dry spell, but less than recent years. Here’s to a calmer 2021. Hopefully I can inject a little more beauty into the world than I managed this year!

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 1

Phicus

Another year, another volume of Dust, which means we’ve been collecting these brief, pithy reviews for seven years now.  This time around, we sample the usual cornucopia of genres, from ambient death metal to Iranian punk to noisy skree to shoegaze-y lookalikes to polyglot global dj grooves, with the usual stops in free jazz and improvisatory environments. Contributors include Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Andrew Forell.  

Aberration — S/T (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Aberration by Aberration

Not sure what “ambient dark death metal” is, but recently formed band Aberration claims to play it. The “ambient” bit may be a nod to the drone that sometimes resonates deep in the mix of the three songs on this 10” EP. Other than that, Aberration’s music sounds pretty typical of the death metal created by bands on the primitive, murky end of the genre’s sonic continuum. Some of the musicians are in other, more established projects: John Hancock plays guitar and provides vocals in the widely admired death doom outfit Void Rot, Dylan Haseltine plays bass and sings for the blackened death metal (mostly black metal, it seems to me) band the Suffering Hour. Those bands have much more specific musical identities, and their intense records express the players’ clarity of vision. Perhaps Aberration wants to live up to its name, presenting something unprecedented, an unpleasant mutation — and hence, perhaps, the decision to release the vinyl version of the EP on an unusual format. That’s sort of fun. The music is not. But that’s nothing new in death metal, and to be honest, these songs don’t warrant the announcement of a new sub-subgenre. They are just fine, if you like your death metal atavistic, cavernous and claustrophobic. But an aberration? Nope. Maybe a weeping pustule. In death metal, isn’t that enough?

Jonathan Shaw

 Steve Baczkowski / Bill Nace — Success (Notice)

Success by Steve Baczkowski/Bill Nace

Dallas is synonymous with a sort of excess that begs to be perceived as success. Old TV shows, memories of oil, nation-splitting politics, you name it; it’s bigger, badder and gaudier in Dallas. A tape of a free improv show that was recorded at a Dallas bookstore might not fit your preconceptions of longhorn accomplishment, but go ahead and tell that to Steve Baczkowski and Bill Nace. If they answer at all, they might let you gently know that it’s your problem, and then pop in the tape. This 42-minute-long recording will hook you by the belt, take off into the stratosphere, drag you through an asteroid belt, and deposit your cindered remains by the bar (yes, The Wild Detectives serves liquor as well as literature) before the tape reverses. That still leaves plenty of time savor the duo’s mastery of transition, from stout-sounded duel to fading filigree framing the sounds of the cash register opening and closing. Yeah, that’s the sound of Success.

Bill Meyer

 Aidan Baker — There/Not There (Consouling Sounds)

There / Not There by Aidan Baker

Unsurprisingly, 2020 doesn’t seem to have slowed Aidan Baker (Nadja, WERL, Caudal, Hypnodrone Ensemble, and many more) much at all. Of the many records released under his own name, the recent There/Not There stands out for being a surprisingly accessible entry to his personal metal/drone/ambient/shoegaze melting pot, even given the opening 20-minute title track. “There/Not There” marries some whispery shoegaze songwriting with a beautifully monomaniacal repeating drone. Over the course of the track, it does slowly transition until we get to a crescendo as intense as any Baker’s done, but even more so than normal the unwary might get lured in by the low key, blissful opening and the frog-boiling slowness with which the tension is ratcheted up. One of the other two tracks is really just a way to section off the real noise-squall coda of “There/Not There” but then “Paris (Lost)” offers a more concise, quieter storm version of the same framework. Like a lot of Baker’s work, it sneaks up on you, but when it hits it hits hard. 

Ian Mathers

Ballrogg — Rolling Ball (Clean Feed)

Rolling Ball by Ballrogg

The Scandinavian combo Ballrogg changes direction once again on Rolling Ball. Founders Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (clarinets) and Roger Arntzen (bass), who are both Norwegian, started out reinvestigating the folksy jazz vibe of Jimmy Giuffre, then sought out a new home on the range by adding slide guitarist Ivar Grydeland. Now, incoming Swedish guitarist David Stackenäs and his rack of pedals have redirected the trio into a technology-enhanced future. Not the sci-fi imaginings of Sun Ra, but a future more like 2019 might look if you stepped straight into it from 1959; in some ways quite familiar, but in others, different enough to be disorienting. The Giuffre-esque and country elements are still there, but when punctuated by minimalist-influenced compositional flourishes and illuminated by the diffuse, digital flicker of Stackenäs’ effects, it suddenly becomes clear that those Viking cowboys didn’t put a key in the ignition before they drove out towards the horizon.

Bill Meyer

 Bipolar — S-T (Slovenly)

BIPOLAR "Bipolar" EP by Bipolar

For a band named Bipolar, with a single called “Depression,” this EP sure is a lot of fun. Two of the band’s mainstays are apparently Iranian emigres, now seeking the more permissive environs of Brooklyn. (The only hint of that exotic origin is in “Sad Clown,” where there might be an imam exhorting the faithful, but who knows? I don’t speak Farsi.) One of them sometimes plays keyboard with the Spits, and in fact, the Spits are a pretty good reference point for these hard, fast, bratty songs. “Virus” pummels a relentless pogo beat, the one-two of the drums rocketing ever faster, the shouted all-hands chorus in tumbling sync. “Fist Fight” is even more exhilarating, with its blaring, roiling guitar blast and adrenaline-raising refrain, “It’s a fist fight. It’s a fist fight.” There’s nothing profound here, but it’s a good time.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Bosq — Y Su Descarga Internacional (Bacalao)

Y Su Descarga Internacional by bosq

Bosq, a globally omnivorous DJ formerly based in Boston (real name Benjamin Woods), recently moved to Colombia, perhaps to get closer to his source material. The Colombian influence is certainly strong on Y Su Descarga Internacional, which opens with a scorching “Rumbero,” featuring the Afro-Colombian star Nidia Góngora. Dorkas, another singer from Colombia, follows immediately with “Mi Arizal,” an intricately textured dance track which erupts with fiery bursts of Latin brass. Justo Valdez, whose Son Palenque did much to define the Cartagena sound in the 1960s and 1970s, drops by for two of the album’s best tracks: a rollicking “Mambue” and the hand-drummed, bass-thumping hand-clapping “Onombitamba.” And yet the album doesn’t just document the singers and artists of Bosq’s new home. Kaleta, a Benin-based Afro-beat artist who has worked with Fela Kuti and Eqypt 80, takes the lead on funk psych “Omo Iya” and the stirring, horn squalling “Wake Up.” Bosq knows how to pick collaborators, and there’s not a dud track on the disc, but wouldn’t almost anyone sound like a genius in company like this?

Jennifer Kelly

Deuce Avenue — Death of Natural Light (Crash Symbols)

Death of Natural Light by Deuce Avenue

If you are a lurker of the cassette underground, you may remember a West Virginian outfit called Social Junk appearing in the mid-aughts. This duo offered up crackling melodic scree, blown out murky fuzz and semi-coherent mouth sounds like an industrialized version of The Dead C or a new wave outfit newly recovered post-coma. Noah Anthony, the male half of Social Junk, has since moved on to releasing solo material under both the Profligate and Deuce Avenue monikers. The latter is the more recent project and is quite minimal compared to his other work. With Death of Natural Light, there are no cold wave rhythms and vocals à la Profligate. What’s left is a dank, steamy vapor. Contrails of filter-swept hiss slowly develop into a more enigmatic and darkened tonal palette. The ominousness continues to thread its way into the second half of the cassette, fittingly entitled “Blood Turns Black”. Loops of nocturnal jump scare fodder coalesce into rhythms that provide skeletal forms to foil the menace of the more oblique textures. Those who enjoy their horror in slow motion will latch onto these sounds like a facehugger to… …well, a person’s face.  

Bryon Hayes   

 Fleeting Joys — Despondent Transponder (Only Forever)

Despondent Transponder by Fleeting Joys

Let’s start with the obvious. Despondent Transponder sounds a lot like MBV’s Loveless, with wild sirening guitar tones, waves of noise-y feedback, thunderous drumming and sweet, fragile lyrics engulfed in the swirl. “Go and Come Back” has the same fluttering guitar melody as the great “To Here Knows When,” while “Satellite” blusters with the dopplering, dissonance-addled grandeur as “I Only Said.” Fleeting Joys — that was Rorika Loring singing and playing bass and John Loring on guitar and vox — never made any secret of their love of MBV. Despondent Transponder was an homage right from the start. The album was the debut for this Sacramento-based twosome, released originally in 2006, then as now on Loring’s own Only Forever label. And yet, while no one will ever top Loveless, from an ear-bleeding psych-noise daydream perspective, this one has its own particular beauties. “Magnificent Oblivion” surrounds a lullaby-pure melody with a reeling, caterwauling mesh of inchoate sound; guitar notes stream off in bending contrails as Rorika murmurs sweetly into the mic. “Patron Saint” lurches to motion on a Frankenstein bass riff, but softens the brutality with calming washes of vocal hypnotism. It’s all super beautiful and, anyway, even after the reunion, there aren’t nearly enough MBV albums. Plenty of room for a band that sounds so similar.

Jennifer Kelly

 Get Smart! — Oh Yeah No (Capitol Punishment)

Push play: driving staccato guitars, rubbery bass lines, lockstep drums, declamatory vocals and it’s the mid-1980s all over again. Lawrence, Kansas trio Get Smart! — Marcus Koch (guitar, vocals) Lisa Wertman Crowe (bass, vocals) and Frank Loose (drums, vocals) — have that timeless mixture of English post-punk and American indie down. Then see that 33 years after it was recorded Oh Yeah No finally sees the light of day on the back of the band’s reformation. Time and the cycle of musical fashions are fickle beasts and in this case the wheels turn in Get Smart!’s favor. They sound both of their time and thoroughly in tune with the steady flow of recent guitar bands mining this lode of choppy, melodic indie. The Embarrassment, Big Dipper, Pylon and other regional heroes are being rediscovered and reassessed and, here’s the thing, Get Smart! are really good at what they do and this six-track EP is both a testament and, hopefully, a taste of what the future may hold.  

Andrew Forell  

 Rich Halley / Matthew Shipp / Michael Bisio / Newman Taylor Baker — The Shape Of Things (Pine Eagle Records)

The Shape of Things by Rich Halley

If the bolt strikes twice, it’s probably not lightning. The Shape Of Things is the second successful meeting between Rich Halley, a tenor saxophonist based in the Pacific Northwest, and the current members of the Matthew Shipp Trio. The album is, like its predecessor Terra Incognita, a congress of strengths. Shipp’s trio follows the pianist easily into one of his classic roles, that of supplying sonic foundation and harmonic framing for an extroverted saxophonist. Halley fights right into the spaces that they create, rippling easily over the trio’s turbulent surfaces. He works within the broader jazz tradition, sounding equally at home patiently sketching a lyrical line and blowing raw, acidic cries. This ensemble plays achieves a state of centered abandon which feels wilder than Halley’s recordings with West Coast musicians, but fits right into the spectrum that contains Shipp’s work with the David S. Ware Quartet and Ivo Perelman.

Bill Meyer

 A Hutchie — Potion Shop (Cosmic Resonance)

Potion Shop by A Hutchie

Hamilton, Ontario-based producer Aaron Hutchinson has his fingers in many pies. He nimbly dispenses free jazz, hip hop, outré pop and even more enigmatic forms of song. Potion Shop is his debut LP, although he is a long-time fixture in the Steeltown music scene. This immersion in a small, tight-knit domain has led to many fruitful collaborations. Hutchinson features many of his compatriots in these recordings, in which his music snakes alongside their vocal stylings. Mutant 21st century soul singlehandedly played by Hutchinson is a foil for the slam poetry of Benita Whyte and Ian Keteku, the latter of which the producer warps with a vocoder. Sarah Good’s vocals morph into those of a ghostly chanteuse among smeared strings, while the soulful Blankie swims beneath narcotic R&B beats. When imbibing these intoxicating concoctions, you will be immersed in a warmth of familiarity tempered with the unsettling yet exciting sense of the uncanny. Like absinthe, the disquiet is illusory while the intimacy is authentic.

Bryon Hayes  

 Imha Tarikat — Sternenberster (Prophecy Productions)

STERNENBERSTER by IMHA TARIKAT

Imha Tarikat’s principal member Ruhsuz Cellât (stage name of Kerem Yilmaz) breaks with black metal orthodoxy by musically engaging his family’s Muslim heritage. That’s a provocative move in an artform dominated by glib nihilism, rampant anti-religious sentiment and (somehow sometimes all at the same time) ardent claims of Satanist faith. And that distinction at the symbolic level likely doesn’t come near the intensities of being of Turkish descent, living and recording in Germany, in a scene that flirts (and at its extreme margins actively identifies) with fascism. Beyond those ideological and social dimensions is the music. Imha Tarikat demonstrates facility with tremolo riffs and song forms that twist and snake even as they hammer and pummel. But Cellât’s unusual vocal style cuts against convention’s grain, and it’s immediately apparent as album opener “Ekstase ohne Ende” commences. There’s a lot of grunting and hollering, but rather than contorting his voice, shrieking and croaking in mode of most black metal vocalists, Cellât goes for more straightforward intensity. He often shouts, and the lyrics frequently come in bunches, explosive and punctuated bursts of verbiage, but he makes no attempt to distort the lyrics or his voice. I wish my grasp of German were even halfway close to fluent, in order to report on the lyrics’ thematic content with some coherence — because Cellât clearly wants the words to be heard.

Jonathan Shaw

Jon Irabagon / Mike Pride / Mick Barr / Ava Mendoza — Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues Vol 3 Anatomical Snuffbox (Irrabagast Records)

I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox by Jon Irabagon

Never mind the blues; if you don’t exercise caution, when you’re done playing this loud-at-any-volume recording, you won’t hear nothin’. The latest installment in tenor saxophonist John Irabagon’s series of one-track, meta-blues recordings starts out with a spray of sound as bracing as Saharan sandstorm, but quickly solidifies into a veritable wall of sound. At the outset, Irabagon and drummer Mike Pride engage in a high-speed dance of charge and countercharge which, if heard without accompaniment, would sit comfortably on the same shelf as your Mars Williams and Mats Gustafsson records. But when you put guitarists Mick Barr and Ava Mendoza on the same stage and tell them both to start shredding, the effect is somewhat akin to putting the pyrotechnic specialists in charge of the circus. Subtlety, dynamics and even the oxygen you breath all disappear as everything catches fire. If any of the participants here have effectively bent your ear, you ought to listen all the way through once. By the time it’s done, you’ll know in your heart whether you ever need to hear it again.

Bill Meyer    

 John Kolodij — First Fire / At Dawn (Astral Editions)

First Fire • At Dawn by John Kolodij

Where there’s fire, there’s often smoke, and while this tape claims alignment with Hephaestus’ element, it’s more likely to evoke thick clouds. As the capstans turn, the murk of “At Fire” accumulates gradually, filling the room with an increasingly dense atmosphere. By the time you notice flashes of flame, it’s too late. “At Dawn” brings to mind a lesser conflagration — maybe the embers of the previous night’s campfire. John Kolodij (who has, until recently, recorded mainly under the name High Aura’d) pushes his heavily processed guitar sound into the background, where it lurks with a bit of birdsong, and leads with an unamplified banjo and acoustic guitar. Fiddler Anna RG (of Anna & Elizabeth) further bolsters the melody while some sparse percussion played by Sarah Hennies heightens the sense of moment. Once more, a mass of disembodied sound rises up as the piece progresses, but this time the effect is the opposite; instead of getting lost in sound, the listener finds a moment of peace and light.

Bill Meyer

 Lytton / Nies / Scott / Wissel — Do They Do Those In Red? (Sound Anatomy)

Do they do those in Red? by Paul Lytton, Joker Nies, Richard Scott, Georg Wissel

“Do they do those in red?” The title may speak to the particular peculiarities of this combo, which is formed from several pre-existing duos, Joker Nies is credited with “electrosapiens,” which seem to be self-constructed electronic instruments, and George Wissel applies various items to his saxophone to modify its sound. Georg Wissel’s synthesizers come with some assembly required, and it would appear that Paul Lytton, best known for playing drum kits and massive percussion assemblages, confines himself in this setting to the stuff he can fit on a tabletop. What, you think your saxophone is prettier because it doesn’t have anything red jammed into a valve?  

Moving on to the music, while the sound sources are heavily electronic, the interactive style is rooted in good old-fashioned free improvisation. Lytton’s barrage sounds remarkably similar to what he achieves playing with a full drum kit, and Wissel’s lines may be more fractured, but his alto sound has some of the tonal heft and agility that John Butcher exercises on the tenor. The electronicians’ bristling activity brings to mind a debate between opposite sides of the electrical components aisle at the hardware store, but it’s a lucid one, thoughtfully expressed on both sides.

Bill Meyer  

Ikue Mori Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura — Prickly Pear Cactus (Libra)

Prickly Pear Cactus by Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura

Pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura spent February 2020 touring Europe with their combo Kaze, which they’d augmented with the electronic musician, Ikue Mori. As lockdown wore on, they kept the connection going via Zoom chats between their abodes in Kobe and New York. After Fujii shared her experiences of trying to mic and stream her piano online, Mori suggested that she send some recordings. Mori edited what showed up and added her sounds; Tamura contributed additional elements to nearly half the tracks. Some of them are balanced to sound like live recordings, with Mori’s neon squelches and high-res, bell-like tones gathering and dispelling like real-time reactions. Others feel more overtly constructed, with the piano situated within a maelstrom of sounds like a view of a TV set turned on in a room with a party going on.  

Bill Meyer

 Phicus — Solid (Astral Spirits)

Solid by Phicus

Phicus is the Barcelona-based assemblage of Ferran Fages (electric guitar), Àlex Reviriego (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums). The line-up looks like a power trio, and if you heard them two seconds at a time, you might think that they were. Reviriego and Trilla each play in ways that convey a sense of motion, and Fages’ bent notes and serrated harmonics are just the sort of sounds to cap off a display of guitar heroics. But if you note that each track is named for an element or chemical compound, and that the album is called Solid, you might get a clearer idea of their concerns. This music is all about essential relationships, and its makers are more interested in making things coexist in productive ways than they are in re-enacting rituals borrowed from jazz, fusion or free improvisation. That means that even the sharpest sounds don’t hook you, nor do the fleetest charges carry you away. Phicus isn’t interested in settling for the familiar. But if you’re ready to observe that thing that looks like a duck making sounds that ducks never make, you’ll find plenty to ponder on Solid.

Bill Meyer

 Quietus — Volume Five (Ever/Never)

Volume Five by Quietus

Quietus songs unfurl like cream in coffee, spiraling curlicues of light into dark liquid drones amid clanking blocks of percussion. The songs expand in organic ways, picking up purpose in the steady pound of rhythm, strutting even, in a loose-limbed rock-soul-psych way you might recognize from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Anemone” or Grinderman’s “I Don’t Need You to Set Me Free,” but quieter, much quieter, and seething with submerged ideas. The words are mumbled, croaked, submerged in surface hum, but when pushed up towards the surface, arresting. “This life can be sunlit hills turned all to their angry sides,” murmurs Quietus proprietor Geoffrey Bankowski in the relatively concise “Reflex of Purpose,” which sprawls anyway, notwithstanding its 2:36 minute duration. The music’s better, though, when it’s allowed to find its slow way forward, unconforming to any pre-existing ideas of how long a pop song should be. I like the closer “Posthemmorrhagic,” the best, as guitars both tortured and prayerful intertwine, and Bankowski breathes slow, moaning poetry into a close mic, and the song revolves in three-time like the last dancer on the floor, not just tonight but forever.

Jennifer Kelly

Ritual Extra — In Luthero (Dinzu Artefacts)

In Luthero by Ritual Extra

In Luthero was performed inside an empty water cistern, and the ensuing reverberations act as microscopic versions of the grander ebb and flow within which French-Finnish trio Ritual Extra operate.  Percussionist Julien Chamla’s cymbal scrapes and tom hits form a backdrop of bomb blasts and shrieking, missives from some war-torn locale long since vacated by the populace.  Steel structures seem to groan and collapse as they are rattled by percussive ordnance. This bleak setting is given a sense of color by Lauri Hyvärinen’s acoustic guitar.  A stew of string scrapes diverges into discrete plucks, which morph into strums.  The metronomic chords are enriched as they bounce around the walls of the cistern, folding in on themselves through echo, becoming a mechanical mantra.  Tuukka Haapakorpi’s voice rises from the ashes, soaring polysyllabically yet wordlessly.  As In Luthero begins to take shape, these vocalizations are almost inhuman: whispers and gurgles that come on in waves.  Later, more anthropoid utterances take shape, yet fall just shy of coalescing into a discernable language.  Across 24 minutes, Ritual Extra musically narrate the pre-history of humankind, the primordial essence from which everything good — and bad — about us originated. 

Bryon Hayes  

 Subjective Pitch Matching Band — Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts (Remote Works)  

Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts by Subjective Pitch Matching Band

Chris Brian Taylor has trod a serpentine path on the journey that culminated in the creation of his first large ensemble electroacoustic composition. His roots are in punk and rave — he still DJs house and techno — but he recently shifted his gaze toward improvised electronics. Rather than stifling his ambition, COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdown encouraged him to think big: he would cast a wide net and compose a piece of music for as many people as he could get to participate. He reached out to friends, relatives, and internet acquaintances to assemble his orchestra, and borrowed the melody and chords from Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring” to act as the foundation of the work. Twenty people responded from a variety of musical disciplines, and all agreed to participate remotely. The composer gave each player audio cues to work with and encouraged the performers to respond subjectively. They could either stay true to the pitches provided, harmonize against them, or play ornamentally. Taylor collected the resulting tracks and structured the resulting thirty-minute piece of music based on what the respondents provided. Dense yet graceful, the composition unfolds like a slow-motion blaze. Flames of sonority form a sinuous body from which sparks of discrete sound leap heavenward. There is nary a moment of silence, as Taylor weaves a plethora of long tones together to form an undulating core over which stabs of piano, guitar and percussion materialize momentarily. Naivete didn’t keep Chris Brian Taylor from aiming as high as he could with this piece, and we are the benefactors of this ambition, rewarded with a rich and complex sonic brew to enjoy.

Bryon Hayes  

 TV Priest — Uppers (Sub Pop)

Uppers by TV Priest

TV Priest works the same corrosive, hyper-verbal furrow as Idles or, in a looser sense, the Sleaford Mods, spatter chanting harsh, literate strings of gutter poetry over a clanking post-punk cadence. The vocalist Charlie Drinkwater snarls and sputters charismatically over the clatter, a brutalist commentator on life and pop culture. The band is sharp and minimalist, drums (Ed Kelland) to the front, guitar (Alex Sprogis) stabbing hard at stripped raw riffs , bass (Nic Bueth) rumbling like mute rage in the back of the bar. And yet, though anger is a primary flavor, these songs surge with triumph as in the wall-shaking cadences of “Press Gang,” the blistering sarcasm of “The Big Curve.” This is a relatively new band, their first and only tour cut short at one gig by the lockdown, but the songs are tight as hell on record and likely to pin you to the back wall live. “Bad news, like buses, comes in twos,” intones Drinkwater on theclearly autobiographical “Journal of a Plague Year” against an irregular post-everything clangor, loose and disdainful and hardly arsed to entertain us; it’s as fitting an anthem as any for our lost 2020. But when band gets moving, as on the chugging, corroscating “Decoration,” it’s unstoppable, a monstrous thing bursting “through to the next round.” Sure, I’ll have another.

Jennifer Kelly

Voice Imitator — Plaza (12XU)

Plaza by Voice Imitator

Voice Imitator, from Melbourne, Australia, rips a hard punk vortex through its songs, ratcheting up the drums to battering ram violence, blistering the guitar sound and scrawling wild metallic vocals over it all, with nods to noisy post-hardcore bands like the Jesus Lizard and McClusky. “A Small Cauliflower” takes things down to a seething, menacing whisper, Mark Groves, the singer, presiding over an uneasy mesh of tamped down dissonance and hustle. “Adult Performer” is faster and more limber, all clicking urgency and sudden bursts of detuned, surging squall. All four members—that’s Per Bystrom, Justin Fuller, Groves and Leon O’Regan—have been in a ton of other bands, and the sounds they make here have the rupturing precision of well-honed violence. If you like Protomartyr but wish it was lots louder and more corrosive, here you go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter — Grist (Ugexplode)

Grist by Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter

Ornette Coleman once called a record In All Languages; these guys ought call one Any And All Possibilities. Saxophonist Sam Weinberg, bassist Henry Fraser and drummer (this time, anyway) Weasel Walter are scrupulous student of improvisation in all its guises, and they’re ready and able to use what they know. You could call it free jazz, for they certainly know how that stuff works, but they’re under no obligation to swing; that’d be a limit, you see. This music bursts, darts, expands and contracts in a sequence of second by second negotiations of shape and velocity.

Bill Meyer  

 Chris Weisman — Closer Tuning (Self-Released)

Closer Tuning by Chris Weisman

Chris Weisman is a Brattleboro, VT songwriter, in the general orbit (not a member but seems to know a bunch of them) of the late, great Feathers and one-time member of Kyle Thomas’ other outfit, the fuzz pop band Happy Birthday. A shunner of all sorts of limelight, he is nonetheless very productive. Closer Tuning is one of five albums he home recorded and released in 2020. You might expect a certain lo-fi folksiness and there is, indeed, a dream-y, soft focus rusticity to the tangled acoustic guitar jangle, the blunt down home-i-ness lyrics. And yet, there’s a good deal more than that in Closer Tuning. The chords progress softly, gently but in unexpected ways, a reminder of Weisman’s jazz guitar training, and the sound is warm and enveloping and every so slightly off-kilter, as if filtered through someone else’s memory. Cuts like “Petit Revolution,” with its close shroud of harmonies, its eerie, antic guitar cadence, feel like Beach Boys psychedelia left out in the garden to sprout, or more to the point, like Wendy Eisenberg’s brainy, left-of-center pop puzzles. “My Talent” is hedged in with blooming bent notes and scrambling string scratches, but its center is radiant, weird, astral folk along the lines of Alexander Tucker. “Hey,” says Weisman, in its slow dreaming chorus, “I gave my talent away.” Lucky us.

 A.A. Williams — Forever Blue (Bella Union)

There’s a dim and shadowy corner where heavy music, orchestral music and post-rock all meet, and A.A. Williams’ music resides there as naturally as anyone else’s. That’s what you might expect when you get a professional cellist who fell hard for metal as a teenager and then started writing songs after finding a guitar on the street. After an EP her first LP is the kind of assured, consistently strong debut that balances calmly measured beauty with the kind of crushing peaks that give that sometimes hoary quiet/loud dynamic a good name. At its best, like the opening “All I Asked For (Was to End it All)” and “Dirt” (featuring vocals from Wild Beasts’ Tom Fleming), Forever Blue is as gothically ravishing as you could hope for, and by the time it ends with spectral lament “I’m Fine” it might tempt even those not traditionally inclined that way to don the ceremonial black eyeliner.  

Ian Mathers

[bettsfic]

Hey Betts, someone asked me to have my work be part of their collection in ao3? Since you have been in ao3 for a while, I thought it would be okay to ask you what that means?

sure! great question. collections are an under-utilized feature of ao3, which is why i think they’re kind of a mysterious beast. 

ao3 is a unique archival platform, in that the archive work is done by users and a team of moderators, rather than administrators who either archive the work themselves (which would be a nightmare) or restricting the archiving options (like if we only had a few hundred tags to choose from), which is to say, when you post a fic to ao3, you tag it yourself. 

this has a lot of upsides (obvs, since the archive is so successful and effective), but one of the downsides is that a content creator may suck at archiving their fic. most writers abide by fanfic etiquette, but some don’t, and the ToS is pretty hands-off in that regard (the ToS say you need an archive warning, basically, and that warning needs to be accurate if it’s not CNTW. you don’t have to rate it or tag the ship or anything else. you’re even allowed to tag the wrong ship and wrong fandom, and the abuse team won’t take it down or fix your tags). 

so if the writer doesn’t properly tag the fic, and the abuse team/tag wranglers won’t properly archive fic based on the content (but they will wrangle your tags and uphold the ToS), that leaves readers.

ao3 built in features so that users could archive fic properly, so it can be found more easily, namely via collections and bookmarks, both of which are woefully undervalued as resources, and i wish, along with a few other features, they were more prevalent, because i think they’re brilliant.

collections have multiple functions. first, part of the work of the OTW is to import fics from other, older archives to the ao3. collections allow a central hub for those archives. one example is the Master Apprentice collection, which was an old archive for Obi-Wan Kenobi/Qui-Gon Jinn fics. this is also why you sometimes see fics dated earlier than 2008, when the archive was built.

another use of collections is to host prompt-fill memes (like kinkmemes), big bangs, or gift exchanges (like yuletide). this way, all the fics written for a certain event are located in a central space, and therefore easier to browse and find what you’re looking to read.

finally, getting to your question, a user can make their own collection and put fics into it so that other readers can find fics of a certain type more easily, especially if those fics are notoriously poorly tagged (codas) and/or for whatever reason the archive’s structure obscures the ability to find them. take, for example, Jaime/Cersei fics. in most fics, if J/C is tagged, it’s a secondary or background pairing, and there’s no way to separate “this fic’s primary pairing is J/C” from “this fic has J/C in it.” so a user can create a collection of primary-pairing J/C fics so that other shippers have easier access to them, instead of scrolling through hundreds or even thousands of fics in which J/C is used as a warning tag rather than a content tag. 

other popular collection themes are good smut, fix-its and codas (which are poorly tagged because many writers don’t look up the episode tagging style conventions, which is “Episode: sXX eXX Episode Title”), and fic subgenres like recovery bucky fics. 

the way the archive manages this feature is by allowing readers to automatically place fics in collections, and the author can remove their fic from the collection by going back in and editing the fic. so if, for whatever reason, you do NOT want your 30k fluff fest fic in a collection of “my favorite porn,” you can click Edit and remove the collection from the list. if you choose to keep your fic in the collection, the collection will be listed on the fic, so readers can find other, similar fics. 

the only collection i’ve ever seen that i did not want my fic to be part of was one whose description used grossly pretentious rhetoric that seemed completely antithetical to the spirit of fic. also, someone “accidentally” added one of my fics to the Anonymous collection, which as you might know, anonymizes the fic entirely. 

in the same vein as collections (i know you didn’t ask, but at this point i’m just begging people to use these features), users can “fix” poorly or under-tagged fics via bookmark. let’s say you’ve read a fic that’s 100k+ and has a billion kinks in it, and the author chose not to tag every single kink (which, fair). you, the reader, are maybe invested in archiving clothes sharing fics. you can bookmark the fic and tag it “clothes sharing” and a user can then search bookmark tags to find this specific subgenre of fic that isn’t often tagged because of how ubiquitous it is, or sometimes not even seen as a kink or trope.

you might be thinking, but why would i search bookmark tags? nobody uses bookmark tags. BUT LET ME TELL YOU, if people did bookmark more thoroughly, like back in ye olden days when we used del.icio.us, the archive would be that much more functional and efficient. 

so please, fic readers, i know you are constantly begged for comments and reblogs and all that, but if you have time or energy, or find interacting with authors anxiety inducing and want to help out in some other way, you can do other things to help out and preserve our genre. make collections. bookmark thoroughly. use the amazing features so lovingly offered to us. 

(one thing i didn’t mention is that i wish users would fill out their profiles more thoroughly, because author history preservation is just as important as fic preservation, but that’s maybe a rant for another time.)

tagging experts @naryrising and @ao3commentoftheday if they have anything to add/correct!

[cavitymagazine]

Haptic Narratives: The Absurdly R EA L Artifacts of Dale Brett / / / [part 2]

[D]: Lately though, most of my influence has come from other forms of media opposed to writing. I have found the more I write, the less I read – at least long form. Music, animated series/films - both Japanese anime and stuff like Adult Swim and internet culture - all of these things come through in my work.

[W]: Music.

[D]: Definitely music. I often try to write with a type of musical style I enjoy in mind. This is, believe it or not, one of the reasons I decided to re-commence writing fiction. I was sick and tired of googling combinations of "vaporwave + fiction + dream" or "shoegaze + literature + drugs" to try and find works that fit a certain aesthetic that did not exist. So why not create them myself? For instance, ambient and to a lesser extent dreampunk, would be the genres I was trying to build on in Faceless in Nippon. With Ultraviolet Torus it is no secret that it is my shoegaze project. As you know with our mall collaboration [cloud mall and maze/mall], this will be vaporwave-heavy in aesthetic and theme. I think these musical styles also take me right back to the original interests that I have garnered from literature: how to feel and express oneself in light of the consumerist dream, how to find meaning in the face of a constant blurring reality. I want to produce words that create a sensory experience. Words to touch your skin, words to make you see refracted colours, words to make you realise life sucks but it's all okay.

[W]: Aesthetics are important to me as well. The depth of the surface. The synthetic, simulacra. I suspect any "honest" portrayal of our day-to-day life, even a so-called "realist" presentation, would be sci-fi, at least in part. The kitchen-sink realism of today would include game realities and all sorts of "tropes" – or what one used to call tropes – of sci-fi. DeLillo’s White Noise is a big work for me, related to some of the consumerist themes. The three layers you refer to are impressive – you've put a lot of thought into where your work comes from, what it's shaped by. I've never thought in those terms really. Although "Pessoan cyberpunk nihilism" as a blurb would have me buying whatever that book is. Abe's The Box Man - I read that in I think 2015 or so. I see Abe's tone in some of your prose. That is a hard tone to tap. It's soft and dislocated. Requires a gentle hand, and a kind of amorphous thought process. In recent years I've taken influence more from video games and commercials and music than anything textual. I assumed your influences now were primarily visual. Graphic novels, anime, bad TV movies - I cull more from kitsch than I do from literature now. Would you tell me a bit about your time in Japan? And how would you describe Faceless in Nippon to a reader who knows literally nothing about it?

[W]: I relate very hard to your not being able to google, say, "vaporwave + dream + fiction" and get a hit. You had to create your hits. I feel the same way. It's like I want "Borges + USA Up All Night" or something similarly niche and not-quite-available-elsewhere. The established subgenres you mention, like dreampunk, are still these largely unexplored parks of the mind. There aren't a whole lot of titles. Do you view Faceless in Nippon as your first book and Ultraviolet Torus as a sophomore effort?

[W]: One aspect of your work that struck me right away is its sensory nature, and its desire to make complex emotions like melancholy or lostness more tangible or tactile.

[Ed.:  racetams with caffeine are ingested.]

[D]: I really like your description – “the depth of the surface.” This really fits what I’m trying to achieve with writing. I try to attain a certain sensory experience with abstract imagery, but endeavor to maintain a somewhat conventional narrative or “everyday” story underneath. For instance, Faceless in Nippon was always meant to mimic the feeling of floating in/on water, gently bobbing through society’s ambient capitalist waters attempting to find a purpose. This incorporeal imagery juxtaposed with the more straightforward vignette format and story arc of a young western male living abroad. With Ultraviolet Torus, the prose and format are more unconventional – it was designed to mimic gemstone/mineral structure and shoegaze music, with the narrative underpinning the imagery taking the form of the rise and fall of a standard relationship. I agree that even a “realist” presentation is somewhat sci-fi these days – it is unavoidable. Our friend, contemporary, and collaborator James Krendel-Clark and I have often spoken about how the only thing left for sci-fi is this almost meta-sci-fi angle, where all the tropes have become so cliché and ingrained that really any attempt at sincere “world building” is futile. It’s better to experiment in syntax and delve into what another contemporary of ours, Nick Greer, likes to call “hyper-genre”. Use the tropes, but explore them linguistically, see what they do for the reader sensorily, opposed to using them as the building blocks to create another mundane genre narrative. I have certainly done that in shorter form through the Concentric Circuits: CODA stuff on Surfaces. I think my sci-fi influence comes through in both Faceless in Nippon and Ultraviolet Torus, certainly in the way that I frame the setting or landscape as a character almost, similar to how Ballard and Gibson craft their prose. I have had a lot of time to think about the aforementioned literary influences. I am slightly OCD too, so I often create these massive lists and Venn diagrams and shit of artists/works with certain styles and aesthetics that overlap. I do like to think of myself as a modern-day Walter Benjamin in the way I compile notes and lists and memories that form the basis of my artistic and existential exploration. I think Benjamin would have had a hell of a time with the notes app of a smart phone.

[D]: Regarding Kobo Abe, you are correct, certainly not an easy tone to master, and one that I definitely have not. My writing is not as sound as a master like Abe, which I think is why I subconsciously fall back on the sci-fi landscape syntax/prose mentioned above and the more colloquial twenty-first century alt-lit style to strive forward in my work. I am still developing though, and hopefully, opposed to just replicating Abe’s tone, one day I will be in a position where people are speaking about a tone entirely of my own that others will use as an influence. Abe is also a good segue into other forms of media that influence written work, as he has often been an inspiration to artist’s in the visual field such as filmmakers and video game creators. It is no secret that he is Hideo Kojima’s favorite author.

[D]: Since re-commencing my fiction-writing, which was at the beginning of 2019, you are accurate in your inference that I have primarily relied on other forms of media to influence my work. I have barely read any novels at all in the last couple of years comparative to the previous decade of reading. I garner much more from music, anime, and internet culture these days. I am glad you brought up the influence of commercials – I think we certainly share an avid interest in exploring the consumerist sphere and its effects on art and society. There are a number of important moments in Faceless in Nippon dealing with commercials, products, stores and their underrated aura. Hell, I even created fictional beverages and advertisements for the book.

[D]: My time in Japan was an incredibly formative experience for me. I really only returned to my home country, Australia, when my wife became pregnant. Otherwise I would probably still be there, cruising around upper-class malls, lower-class malls, drinking massive cans of Asahi on the train, staring at LED signs from concrete overpasses at night interminably. I certainly still yearn for my time there. I did go back to visit friends recently and it was a strange experience, like I could not re-create the feelings of my time there in the past no matter how hard I strived. It became apparent that my yearnings were purely for a time in my life while stationed there, opposed to the setting itself.

[D]: I would describe Faceless in Nippon as a meditative, aqueous travelogue on what it means to exist as a middle-class person in the twenty first century, the entirety of which is set in urban Japan.

[D]: I really admire artists that have an unmistakable aesthetic stamp on their work. Auteurship, if you will. For what it’s worth, I think you are one of the few that has a singular, univocal voice in the online “outsider” lit community or whatever you want to call it. I would like to think mine is the same. That people will read it and go, “Oh fuck, that’s Dale alright.” I have been told before that my work reads like MDMA. I am exceedingly happy with that comparison. I would be pleased if that was how I was known as an artist after my “career” or whatever you want to call it is over. Basically, I want to create things that are uniquely my own, things that have not been attempted before. Another reason I think that you and I gel well together as creatives is that despite our many differences in aesthetics, we are enamored by the depth of so-called low culture and continually mash it together with the supposed “high culture” of literature. 

The "Borges + USA Up All Night" example illustrates this perfectly.

[D]: Both Faceless in Nippon and Ultraviolet Torus will be available at similar times. However, there is no doubt that Faceless is my first book. It is the first thing I started working on when I didn’t know it was going to be what it became. Torus was a more experimental foray into the literary field. I compiled Torus, an exploration of gemstone and dream imagery, between drafts of Faceless. I was particularly taken by crystals, shoegaze, and giddiness over my interactions with some beautiful people on the internet at the time. It proved to be a fruitful break from Faceless rewrites, as not only did I let the novel marinate and become better before publishing it, I also gave birth to another creative treasure.

[D]: Making emotive words tactile, rendering the textually intangible tangible. This is something I want to see extended even further as we continue collaborating on our mall project. I want to delicately wrench the phaser knob on these effects and really see where we can go with our adventures in the literary sensorium.

[W]: I remember you saying you wanted Faceless in Nippon to "feel like floating in water." It made me think of a novel as a kind of sensory deprivation tank, the floating and the effects. Did you think of Ultraviolet Torus as a gem, in the abstract, or was the structuring of it more precisely gemlike? James [Krendel-Clark] and I wrote the rough draft of this Blanchot-bodyhorror, broken-videogame-reality novel called Cenotaph, and much of it deals with irrational spaces and Phildickian pulp. As far as sci-fi goes, the more subjective my take, the more "sci-fi" it seems to become. Just last night I drifted between three realities - one in which I was an unemployed writer living under Covid-19, one in which I destroyed an organic ship/braincraft with a cyber-tank, and another where I trained as a druid mage in a treacherous cursed desert. Of course these last two were games and that doesn't even entail any other branching realities that came about as well with regard to books, narratives, televisual influences, lies we tell ourselves, 5G brain-attacking waves, et al. It's late and I'm stoned and tired but yeah. Nick Greer is a fascinating individual. I didn't know you knew him. We spoke about set theory once. Gödel. I read very little, yeah. Or I should say I don't sit and read a physical book as often as I used to. I read rigorously for a good 20 years. If I'm awake enough to read, I usually would want to spend that time writing, or perhaps gaming. Or dreaming. All of these beats - the fictional beverages and ads and playing metafictionally with products and whatnot - I kind of live for that shit. I do that more and more. And it's not even a critique or any kind of satire of it for me - like the low-rez haze of 1-900 commercials was a fuzzy heaven in a box for me as a kid. The K-Mart cafeteria did possess a unique and strange power. I think we're kind of on the same page here as far as we share a kind of reverence for the artificial, the things rendered meaningless through mass production, and other similar slippery intangibles. There is a wonder here that sets it apart from, say, a satirical/scathing view of consumerist life. God, yeah, your experience in Japan. I think I've experienced similar stuff. I remember a time in 2000 when Boca Raton, Florida, was kind of magical for me. I went there a few years back; it's just any place now. Such a strange thing. And sad too. This is the only kind of interview I'd conduct, one with a writer whose work I think truly good. You might've remarked upon the melancholic allure of vending machines coding out at night. Or something similar. It's that sort of sentiment I recognized straightaway as what I consider tuned-in to a cryptic aesthetic I love. I was relieved to discover your wordcraft was honed – that's usually the big problem for me liking someone's work. One of the big draws for me about your work is the stuff you're able to do that I really dig but am not really suited to pull off myself, such as the MDMA vibe, or the ennui mixed with light, hope, etc. There are a dozen or so singular voices around in the online outsider-lit community/whatever, voices I'd consider distinctive: you, Clark, Elytron Frass, Durban Moffer – a few others.

[W]: Your themes I would say demand nuance and control. We've talked about how our mall project is slow-going because it seems very painstaking, almost like etching or surgery or something. Introspective, in any case. Although I just sort of dismissed reading a second ago, I do believe that a unique body of work is made unique by a dizzying variety of blendered influences. I had that 15-year stretch in the suffering cubes to read pretty much constantly, and haphazardly, as far as selection, in a lot of ways, so my influence map is like really fucking bizarre and extensive, which I think makes my stuff appear unique, when all that is unique about it probably is my little perspective or whatever subjectivity is injected into this array of eclectic influences.

[bthump]

Hi! What are your top 10 ships (any fandom)?

Hi, ty for asking! This is really hard to narrow down lol, but I tried.

In no particular order:

Guts/Griffith - Berserk

The current otp ofc. What can I say that I haven’t already said all over this blog?

Will/Hannibal - NBC Hannibal

This is my ideal ship. It’s stupid how perfect it is. It’s basically my ideal slowburn longfic but yk as a 3 season gorgeously shot and acted tv show.

Doctor/Master (especially Three/Delgado Master, and excluding het combinations lol) - Doctor Who

This ship is fantastic because it’s so versatile. You want childhood friends to lovers (to enemies)? Gallifrey era. You want bitter exes or frenemies with benefits? Three/Delgado. Five/Ainley was never my thing but if you want creepy villain/plucky hero there you go. You want former enemies who now live together in weird domestic bliss? Shalka. You want pathetic desperate protag willing to throw his ideals along with the rest of the world under a bus to get laid? Ten/Simm. It’s even got its own rairpairs, like cross era combinations or  Two/Warchief. This ship can run the gamut from fluff to angst to serious darkfic and never be ooc. It’s a delight.

Harry/Draco - Harry Potter

I mean I loved it when I was 14 and even though I couldn’t care less about Harry Potter now it’s still there for me. Like, if I want to read something gay and can’t find anything that strikes my fancy? I turn to drarry man, there’s so much genuinely fantastic novel length fic out there, you’ll never run out.

Xena/Gabrielle - Xena: Warrior Princess

Xena/Gab is an odd ship for me because they’re not really my type lol. Friends to lovers is something I’ve always been a little meh about, and while they have their tense and interesting and complex moments their appeal is mainly the soulmate thing. But this ship makes the list for two reasons: 1. they are immensely fun to watch together, like what they lack in an interesting dynamic they make up for in chemistry, and it’s a delight to watch the show and soak in all the ott subtext, and 2. Conqueror AUs. There’s a subgenre of Xena fic where Xena never turned good and met Gabrielle while she’s ruling the known world with an evil iron fist, and some of that has the good dynamics.

Fraser/Ray Vecchio - Due South

Honestly the main reason I ship them is because I love Ray and Ray loves Fraser, and Ray is one of those very rare faves that I actually want to be happy lol. But they do have a really interesting, and somewhat unique for me dynamic - Fraser prioritizes the abstract concept of duty over everything else, to really destructive lengths at times, while Ray prioritizes Fraser over everything else, also to really destructive lengths at times, and this leads to an unbalanced but v interesting relationship. Especially because like, this isn’t just a result of the show prioritizing Fraser lol, the narrative is very aware of this dynamic and explores it in interesting ways.

Eve/Villanelle - Killing Eve

I was into it from the start, and completely sold when Eve stabbed Villanelle. They’ve got the interesting shifting power dynamics, the disparate morals edging towards meeting in the middle, the violence, the chemistry, even the cute little domestic moments here and there. tbh I am a little.. nervous about where this show is going with them, because I am concerned they’re playing the Villanelle as a psychopath who can’t ~genuinely love~ thing straight, which could not be less interesting to me, but still, so far I’ve gotten more than enough material to keep me happy and hopeful.

D/Leon - Pet Shop of Horrors

In general they’re just a ridiculously fun dynamic, like come on. You’ve got the odd couple thing, you’ve got Leon switching between criminally investigating D and basically coparenting his brother with him, they all go on vacation together at one point, they have like, a dragon kid together, and who doesn’t love the married couple bickering? Also the ending [vague spoilers] is exactly the kind of sad romance I love. They both realize they’re in love, and D chooses to run the fuck away because he doesn’t know how to love a human, while Leon chooses to run the fuck after him for the rest of his life if that’s what it takes. This is technically subtext, but only barely.

Troy/Abed - Community

They had me at the Somewhere Out There duet. I stopped caring about the show after season 3 and I’ve only seen a few episodes since, but man when Community was good it was great and Troy and Abed were the mvps and clear otp of the show. Tragic that Harmon couldn’t commit beyond gay jokes tbh, but at least we’ll always have the romantic zombie episode.

Starsky/Hutch - Starsky and Hutch

This is a bit of a weird choice because I was never super into the fandom, like I haven’t read much fic, and I watched the show back in like my first year of university but not really since because like, it’s a 70s cop show lol, there’s not a whole lot that’s worth watching about it. But man, Starsky and Hutch are the damn kings of the extremely emotionally intense homoerotic friendship. Their off the charts chemistry and constant hurt/comfort plots were next level, and fully engaging and super fun to watch despite everything else.

(Also the 4th season is terrible, but shockingly good and ridiculously coherent if you watch it with the understanding that in between season 3+4 they had sex or made out or something and Starsky freaked out and Hutch is alternately depressed and pissed off at Starsky for his avoidance. Like that reading legit ties everything together lol, from their suddenly strained relationship to random jokes(?) like Hutch encouraging Starsky to try free word association, giving him the word “closet” to start, and Starsky getting mad about it for no reason. And in the 4th to last episode (production order) they clearly finally get together for real, in the coda to Starsky vs Hutch. I mean come on they fight while dating the same woman and then make up off screen and the final scene is the two of them meeting her in a bar and telling her she gets both together or neither, then walking away with their arms around each other when she turns them down.

I may have just wanted to ramble about this lol.)

[lgbtqreads]

Do you have any good dystopian novels with lgbtq people to recommend?

I do! Try these, which you can also find here https://lgbtqreads.com/sff/spec-fic-by-subgenre/:

YA

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow – B

The Culling by Steven dos Santos

Rainbow Islands by Devin Harnois – T

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz – NB

Coda by Emma Trevayne – B

Adult

When You Were Pixels by Julio Alexi Genao

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller – L

Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver – A,L,T

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Coda

Sian Heder’s CODA (2021) is firmly ensconced within the inspirational teacher/troubled student subgenre, with the focus here on the student (Emilia Jones) and being the hearing child of deaf parents subbing for other films’ use of a life in the coal mines and an illegitimate child (THE CORN IS GREEN), childhood sexual abuse (GOOD WILL HUNTING), race, gender, economic status, etc. Good for Marlee Matlin, who plays the mother, for insisting the other deaf characters be played by deaf actors (the very good Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant), and good for the film for showing the characters as fully functional professionals and sexual beings rather than the tin-plated saints of too many “Hollywood” treatments of disability. There are some very moving scenes dealing with Jones’ relationship with her family, though it’s a little obvious that she has heart-to-hearts with mother, father and brother in turn. Kotsur will probably win the Oscar because his character is the most entertaining, particularly when signing about sexual topics, and probably deserves it for a beautiful scene in which he feels Jones’ singing. Matlin wasn’t even nominated, though her performance is also quite powerful, and it’s refreshing that she’s one of the most resistant to her daughter’s going into singing much less going off to college. The scenes with Jones’ boyfriend (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) are painfully boring, and it seems strange Jones’ parents wouldn’t know how to behave at a choir concert. For that matter, the film seems to take place in a world without ADA compliance standards, though their absence makes it easier to create obstacles for Jones’ dreams. Nonetheless, CODA hits a lot of good emotional notes, and I only hated myself a little bit for the times I was moved to tears.

[upalldown]

Low - Hey What

Thirteenth studio album from the indie rock duo from Duluth, Minnesota produced by BJ Burton

9/13

Low seemed a singular band from the outset. They were a married, practising Mormon couple, devoted to playing as quietly and slowly as possible, in the teeth of the early 90s grunge era. In fact, Low stood out so much that people felt obliged to invent a new subgenre to describe what they were doing: slowcore. It was a label the band disliked and quickly outgrew; it turned out they could move at quite a clip when it suited them.

Then, 25 years into their career, Low became more singular still. Their sound had always shifted and changed, occasionally in unpredictable directions, and electronic percussion had crept into 2015’s Ones and Sixes. But nothing could quite prepare listeners for 2018’s Double Negative, which took the kind of studio processes commonplace in modern mainstream pop – pitchshifted vocals, digital manipulation, the sidechain compression that causes the rhythm tracks on pop-dance hits to punch through everything else – cranked all of them up to 11 and applied them to a rock band. The end result was an album that genuinely sounded like nothing else. Low weren’t the only alt-rock artists thinking along roughly similar lines – Double Negative was produced by BJ Burton, who had worked on Bon Iver’s technology-fractured 22, A Million – but the sheer extremity with which the band’s sound was altered shifted Double Negative into a category of its own.

Moreover, it was released 18 months into the Trump presidency, as his campaign managers were jailed for fraud, and Rudy Giuliani informed NBC that “truth isn’t truth”. Its lyrics seldom addressed American politics – dealing instead with everything from Mormon attitudes to same-sex marriage to mental health – but its short-circuiting bursts of unidentifiable sound, warped vocals and overwhelming mood of dread still seemed to fit the moment, feeling like a transmission from a country disastrously on the fritz, “dissolved into a state of awful inverse” as its closing track put it.

Album of the year acclaim duly followed, but the shock of Double Negative also seemed to raise concerns for the band who’d made it. It sounded like music literally pushed to the limit, and once you’ve pushed everything to the limit, the question of where you go next becomes pressing. Happily, that’s a query that Hey What answers perfectly by refining and adapting its predecessor’s sound.

The first thing you hear on opener White Horses is a guitar transformed into a kind of heaving, stuttering moan, followed by a rhythm track made up of crunching digital distortion. The latter sound might once have been produced by a guitar, but it’s impossible to say for certain. The song ends with an unadorned minute and a half of its unflinching pulse, which speeds up and becomes the basis of the second track, I Can Wait. Next, when you encounter the spongy sonic textures of All Night – you eventually give up trying to work out what instrument was originally involved – it’s hard not to be struck by the thought that on anyone else’s album, this might constitute the weirdest track; on Hey What, it feels like a kind of breather, before you’re plunged into the increasingly scourging soundworld of Disappearing.

Notice is thus served that Low are not interested in dialling down Double Negative’s confrontational experimental edge, but that isn’t the whole story. Hey What is also a far more melodically driven album than its predecessor. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s beautiful harmony vocals are largely unadorned with processing, and are louder, which seems to give the songs – or at least the listener – a little more space to breathe.

This chimes with the tone of the album, which couldn’t be characterised as optimistic, but at least hits a note of stoicism. The strength of Sparhawk and Parker’s partnership as bulwark against the former’s struggle with depression informs Don’t Walk Away and The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off). The lyrics of Days Like These consider the world lurching from crisis to crisis, but there’s something really stirring about the melody, which strides through the backing’s explosions of frazzled sound, while the extended instrumental coda feels calm and resolved. At other points, juxtaposition of the voices and the music is more unsettling: Hey boasts the album’s loveliest tune, but it’s set against a backing that keeps changing from delicate, flickering ambience to something far darker and creepier. Stranger still, in its own peculiar way, Hey What rocks, not least on the fantastic More, based around a riff that seems equal parts Led Zeppelin and My Bloody Valentine, if you squint.

A lot of bands have been compared to My Bloody Valentine over the years, largely because they were trying desperately to sound like them. Low really aren’t, but they feel an appropriate name to raise nevertheless. The music Low are currently making carries a similar, head-turning, where-the-hell-did-this-come-from air to Isn’t Anything and Loveless; as with those albums, the people behind Hey What are redefining how a rock band can sound. It says something – about Low and about rock music – that you have to delve back 30 years to find something with those qualities.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/09/low-hey-what-review

[gregoryjdillerblr]

Ranking all 9 Led Zeppelin albums, from worst to best

Led Zeppelin is without a doubt my second favorite band, following Pink Floyd. There is no doubt that these two bands really defined the 70s, with Pink Floyd pushing progressive rock into mainstream, influencing bands like Rush, Yes, Genesis, while Led Zeppelin was pushing harder rock, influencing bands like AC/DC, Rush (whose first album was pretty much a Zeppelin ripoff until they began exploring their more creative, progressive rock side), Van Halen, and even Black Sabbath. Led Zeppelin helped pioneered the 70s. They are one of the very few popular bands that didn’t won a single Grammy award. 

Led Zeppelin is also one of the very few rock bands that not only helped push rock and roll as it is today, but they are one of the very few bands that explored all subgenres of rock: from blues to folk, to metal to progressive rock, Led Zeppelin became one of the most popular artists of all time, often competing in the third spot with Michael Jackson and The Beatles. 

The Who’s original drummer, Keith Moon, heard the band (at the time was the New Yardbirds and with different band members) and jokingly said, “you guys are going to fall like a lead balloon.” Jimmy Page changed the name from The New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin, dropping the A out to of lead to make it cooler. Pete Townshend, however, would quickly grow hatred for Led Zeppelin, while mocking his own band just the same. Black Sabbath often went to their gigs, and two members of Zeppelin, Bonham and Plant, often visited Black Sabbath, with Bonham asking Bill Ward to play his drum set, of which Ward would decline, fearing Bonham would damage his set. 

Many would argue who started the metal movement: Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. While Led did come out a year before Sabbath, there’s no question that Sabbath’s descent into more darker, harder rock in their later years really defined the metal movement, while Zeppelin moved from blues to folk and progressive rock in their later albums. Nevertheless, Led Zeppelin helped shape hard rock and rock and roll in general, and their influence can be heard decades to come. With just only 8 studio albums and a rarities album, Led Zeppelin is still a popular, influential band. Here’s my list of their albums, ranked from what I think is their worst to best albums. This my personal ranking, and I know I may piss a few people off, but this is a matter of my taste. 

9. Coda, 1982. With the shocking death of John Bonham, Page, Plant, and Jones quickly departed, ending Led Zeppelin. The band was on the edge of splitting up, with their previous and last studio album was recorded on separate occasions because two members couldn’t deal seeing each other, but more on that within a couple of minutes. Coda was released as a tribute to the late Bonham, with the band releasing tracks from their previous albums. What we get with Coda is a forgotten mess of songs that were clearly cut for obvious reasons. Not to say Coda is a bad album, it’s just mediocre at its best. “Wearing and Tearing,” the album’s closer, is the one that often stands out for me, while I feel that the other tracks really don’t highlight Zeppelin’s greater works. 

8. Presence, 1976. The only Led Zeppelin album without a keyboard, Presence sees Led Zeppelin turning to their roots in favor of more blues driven rock of the first two albums. While I think Presence is a good album, I find that without the lack of keyboards from Jones really drags this album down. While many think the ten minute opener “Achilles Last Stand” is an epic, underrated Zeppelin track, I do find the song drags by the midway point as the band doesn’t offer much interchangeability in the track, often repeating itself for ten long minutes. “Tea For One” is the album’s nine minute closer, which is a boring mock off to the great track from Led Zeppelin III, “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” without Jones’ great keyboard works. However, I do enjoy “For Your Life,” “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” and “Candy Store Rock”  the most off this album. 

7. In Through the Out Door, 1979. Their last studio album, and perhaps their most controversial, In Through the Out Door sees the band bringing back the keyboards that were lacking from Presence, but more in the forefront than their previous albums combined. On the verge of breaking up, Plant and Jones went into the studio together and began recording, leaving Page and Bonham to come in much later when the other two weren’t present, and began working on what Plant and Jones recorded. Though this album may be a tad messier than Presence, the band nevertheless took a much great risk, one I think is a better result. I do like the ten minute track “Carouselambra.” It show cases Jones’ keyboards while Page does a beautifully haunting guitar riffs in the middle of the song, before ending the song on a much funky tune. “In the Evening” is a great opener, one of the very few Zeppelin tracks that was played with a Stratocaster, a guitar Page was rare to see playing with. While “Fool in the Rain” and “All My Love” receive more radio play, my favorite track on the album, the closer “I’m Gonna Crawl.” Plant pays tribute to his dead son with “All My Love,” which is an okay song but one I find often overplayed in Zeppelin’s catalogue. At this time, Page and Bonham were struggling addicts, with alcohol eventually leading to Bonham’s death the following year, ending the classic rock band’s incredible career. 

6. Led Zeppelin II, 1969. Zeppelin’s sophomore effort, coming out just months after their first album, Led Zeppelin II further explores their blues driven rock. The most well known song on the album, which the album opens with, “Whole Lotta Love” showcases that Page was began to explore a bit further, providing some soundscapes in the song’s middle, with scraping guitar techniques and even a Theremin. “What Is and What Should Never Be,” “Thank You,” “Ramble On,” and “Bring It On Home” are the highlights for me. Led Zeppelin II is a good classic album on its own right, no doubt about it, but I do feel this album is a bit more jejune compared to what’s to come the following few years. 

5. Led Zeppelin, 1969. Their epic debut, Led Zeppelin quickly exploded. This debut album is surely one of the best debuts ever to put out in rock’s history, defining the band what they were and the sound they were after. Led Zeppelin push hard rock and blues rock into mainstream, while other bands around them were exploring progressive and psychedelic rock. What makes this album stand out for me compared to II is the underrated tracks that don’t often get much airplay. Most of these tracks seem to be forgotten about, ones that the radio don’t play compared to other more well known Zeppelin tracks. My favorite track is “How Many More Times,” an eight minute closer epic with a killer, catchy guitar riff that the song begins and ends with, while the middle is an exploration to different territories within the song. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” is another standout, with Page providing haunting acoustic before kicking it into high gear during the chorus. “You Shook Me” is another one that showcases Page’s talent with guitar shrieks and Plant delivering blues with a harmonica.  “Black Mountain Side” is another great track showcasing Page’s skills on an acoustic guitar. While some Zeppelin fans may find this album a bit dull compared to the their other classic albums, this album for me still stands out as among on of their best efforts, and an underrated one at that.

4. Led Zeppelin III, 1970. A bit more of an uneven album, Led Zeppelin III really showcases the greatness to come. It is here where the band began to explore other than blues driven rock. While the album does have the kickass opener” Immigrant Song,” the albums also provides some harder classics like “Celebration Day” and “Out on the Tiles.” “Since I’ve Been Loving You” is one of my personal favorite Zeppelin tracks, with Jones providing a haunting organ soundscape as Page plays the blues on his guitar, while Plant delivers emotion on vocals.  The second half of the album shows the band playing with more folk rock, with the song “Gallows Pole” showcasing the start of this trend (Jimmy even plays a banjo in this track). “Tangerine” and “That’s the Way” are slower songs with a beautiful and haunting lap steel guitar work by Page. 

3. Houses of the Holy, 1973. Houses of the Holy really shows the band to explore in much more progressive rock territory all the while without losing their sound. While “D’yer Mak’er” is the weakest track for me (I’m not really a reggae  kind of guy, sorry, though I think that genre is very good at live gigs and concerts), the other ones no doubt make up on this classic album. “The Song Remains the Same” is an underrated, kickass opener, with the combination of six and twelve string electric guitars. “The Rain Song” is another classic, a bit more Pink Floydish song with beautiful and haunting acoustic and electric guitar works by Page. If there is one song the band ever came close to sounding a little bit like Pink Floyd, “No Quarter” sees Jones playing a haunting keyboard while Page’s guitar is tuned half step, with piano overdubs playing in the middle when Page is delivering a solo.  While I do think “The Ocean” is a bit overplayed, it’s nevertheless a classic closer to an amazing and still somehow underrated album.

2. Physical Graffiti, 1975. Their double album and one that provided their second biggest track, “Kashmir,” Physical Graffiti is the Zeppelin album that really covers their catalogue, from folk to blues to progressive rock, it no doubt this album is simply a classic, and one that perhaps made them bigger than they already were. The album started five years before, with Jimmy Page producing songs and kept them in a vault where when they were working on new material, Page has unleased these tracks that never found their way to their previous three albums. “The Rover” is one of my all time favorite tracks so Page uses the Phaser effect and delivers a catchy and killer guitar riff. “In my Time of Dying” is Led Zeppelin’s best long song, with a lot of guitar overdubs, from heavy blues to distorted slide, and Plant blasting on vocals about a man being on his death bed, while Bonham hammers with catchy drum fills when the band kicks it up a notch. “In the Light” is another progressive rock track that’s very underrated, often overshadowed by its famous sister, “Kashmir.” “Ten Years Gone” seems to be forgotten with some of the most poetic lyrics written by Plant as he reflects on life. “Down by the Seaside” is their take on a surf song but it becomes heavy in the middle. “Black Country Woman” is another take on folk rock, with the band actually recording outside and a plane can be overheard in the very beginning, with the members asking Jimmy to cut it out before Robert joining in, “nah, leave it, yeah.” “The Wanton Song” is a catchy bluesy, hard rock that seems to be forgotten. “Trampled Under Foot” is a bluesy and funky tune that’s also very underrated and obscured by other tracks on the album.

1. Led Zeppelin IV, 1971. There is no doubt Led Zeppelin exploded with their fourth album. It’s an amazing feat that only with eight songs, this album became an instant classic, and majority of the album, to this very day, still gets played. Though I would argue that these songs do often get overplayed, there’s something about them that somehow they never get too annoying to listen to, and that’s quite rare for songs that are repeated on radio stations. The kickass opener, “Black Dog” is catchy, blues song that was untitled until a black dog came in and bit Bonham during a recording, or so they say. “Rock and Roll” is another well known track, with catchy guitar overdubs and Plant hammering on the vocals, with Bonham ending the song with one of the best drum solos in rock history. “The Battle of Evermore” is a return to the folk rock the band experimented with their previous album. Here, Robert sings with Sandy Denny, as Page plays a mandolin. This track is simply underrated as Plant really delivers near the end with a delay effect. “Stairway to Heaven” is of course a classic progressive rock tune that mixes both folk and blues rock, with Plant sings poetic lyrics that many, to this day (and Plant himself) still don’t quite know the song’s true meaning. “Misty Mountain Hop” is another catchy, near funk tune that gets a slight overlook compared to other tracks, with Plant questing for better society. “Four Sticks” was another untitled track, with Bonham playing his drums with four drumsticks instead of the standard two. The song is in an odd timing, giving the track a bit more progressive rock feel. “Going to California” is another folk tune about one’s quest looking for love and settlement. “When the Levee Breaks” is simply one of the best Zeppelin tunes, and perhaps their best closer on an album they’ve ever done. It’s a bluesy, hard rock song with slides and overdriven guitar while Plants blows it out of water with harmonicas. The lyrics about going to Chico before the local dam breaks and floods the area. Without this album, Led Zeppelin probably wouldn’t have become a staple in all of rock and roll.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Arkansas

(Image courtesy of Lionsgate)

ARKANSAS— 3 STARS

Let’s just say it. The subgenre of redneck crime films is a messy place. The “black hat” is almost always a crazy SOB engaged with a less crazy SOV “white hat.” Slickness is replaced by stains. Dazzle is replaced by dinge. Calling any of them “sagas” is too much credit and heft. Unless you’re the Coen brothers (and even if you’re them too), spicing up this slow-and-low movie barbecue takes some of that absent slickness and dazzle injected into either the filmmaking or storytelling departments, or both. 

Bumped by a cancelled SXSW, Arkansas has about half of that needed relish, but you sure wouldn’t know it from the first 20 to 30 minutes. Liam Hemsworth’s lead Kevin, with his Kris Kristofferson starter kit, dives right into a tough-talking and half-hearted voiceover putting down the so-called organized crime scene as more of a “loose affiliation of deadbeats and scumbags” than any kind of Dixie Mafia. By the time Kevin hits the “I’m a drug dealer” exclamation point in his limping introduction, this kind of overly obvious narration hits the groan-inducing Scorsese Lite territory. 

Kyle is testy, impatient, and claims to have no feelings so that he can’t have hard ones when such moments usually call for them later. He spouts attempted codas (which will make many of this review’s signature life lessons), but the character’s self-appointed lack of life-defining philosophy makes for zero pathos. This dearth tends to be why most of these redneck crime movies are weak sauce. Kyle’s acquired partner-in-crime hopes to add a little flair to the “strong silent type that talks too much.”

That’s Swin, played by the film’s co-writer and director Clark Duke, with a query or a comeback for everything. He saunters with tacky wit and even tackier clothes. His long mane tops a doughy face with a pubescent mustache that somehow scores the smitten affection of local cutie Johnna (Eden Brolin of TV’s Yellowstone and Beyond). Swin and Kyle together aren’t convincing brains or brawn to any operation. Their pickles create a body count and fewer dollars for the unseen higher-ups.

LESSON #1: “RELYING ON OTHER PEOPLE IS THE FASTEST WAY TO END UP DEAD”— Another way this is said in Arkansas is “it ain’t smart to f–k around with people you don’t know.” When push comes to shove, only one person fits at the end of a knife point or a gun barrel at a time. Teamwork or a volume of slotted underlings can make a crime network and bring strength in numbers, but few of those moving parts ever bail another one out when asses and lives are on the line. 

Where the potent kick for Arkansas finally hits is in its villain. Vince Vaughn dominates this film in a reserved, yet resplendent performance as Frog, the man who may or may not be the kingpin of all drug-running gambit behind the Rackensack curtain. Arkansas, based on the flashback-filled 2009 novel of the same name by John Brandon, is comprised of five labeled chapters, several of which chronicle the history of Frog’s looming presence.

Vaughn, in every way, makes it look natural in The Natural State. Frog’s exterior shell may be loud with those hideous shirts, vests, and bolo ties provided by up-and-coming costume designer Ashley Heathcock, but the actor’s heat simmering behind his lanky posture and signature drool smirk has bite better than any moonshine. Vince is on a roll maturing from his former manchild prime on the indie scene. He’s the reason to pack a VOD bag and visit Arkansas. 

If Vince Vaughn is the slickness, then the uncommon artistic choices of Clark Duke, in his debut effort as a writer and director, are the dazzle. The feel of the movie and its chapters are spicy thanks to top-notch editing from Green Book Oscar nominee Patrick J. Don Vito. Cinematographer Steven Meizler (The Last Five Years) uses unflashy lighting with whips and pans spun all over the stellar location scouting of Joshua Crane and the designed hayseed gaudiness from Scott Enge. The setting may be simpleton, but the chops are not. 

The most inspired finishing touch is the soundscape. Arkansas is filled with a soundtrack of re-spun country standards performed by The Flaming Lips and stylish score by the team of Devandra Banhart and Alexander Taylor. The 80s-era rockers count as quite a get for Duke and their covers of Johnny Lee, George Jones, The Gatlin Brothers, and Hank Williams Jr. turn the honky and wonky into something twisted and sublime. 

LESSON #2: INCONSEQUENTIAL FALSEHOODS— The movie likes to talk about “inconsequential falsehoods” while being one itself.  None of that offbeat style can save a meandering and mild story. It has the starting pace of a forced road movie and the ending wimper of an unfulfilled romance. No one in the movie nails their presence quite like Vaughn does, and you want more Frog every time the unsophisticated narrative drifts back to Kyle and Swin. He is given true roots over everyone else

Whether it’s Duke and co-writer Andrew Boonkrong, the source material, or both, this movie wavers wildly in tone and purpose. What could have been a menacing mystery ends up being little better than a quirky pickle or two. The movie drops a quote that inadvertently sums up its engagement stating “It’s better to have something to do, then to have something to do look for you.” Someone needed to give this movie more to do.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#876)

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[dustedmagazine]

Dusted’s Decade Picks

Heron Oblivion, still the closest thing to a Dusted consensus pick

Just as, in spring, the young's fancy turns to thoughts of love, at the end of the decade the thoughts of critics and fans naturally tend towards reflection. Sure, time is an arbitrary human division of reality, but it seems to be working out okay for us so far. We're too humble a bunch to offer some sort of itemized list of The Best Of or anything like that, though; a decade is hard enough to wrap your head around when it's just your life, let alone all the music produced during said time. Instead these decade picks are our jumping off points to consider our decades, whether in personal terms, or aesthetic ones, or any other. The records we reflect on here are, to be sure, some of our picks for the best of the 2010s (for more, check back this afternoon), but think of what follows less as anything exhaustive and more as our hand-picked tour to what stuck with us over the course of these ten years, and why.

Brian Eno — The Ship (Warp, 2016)

You don’t need to dig deep to see that our rapidly evolving and hyper-consciously inclusive discourse is taking on the fluidity of its surroundings. In 2016, a year of what I’ll gently call transformation, Brian Eno had his finger on multiple pulses; The Ship resulted. It’s anchored in steady modality, and its melody, once introduced, doesn’t change, but everything else ebbs and flows with the Protean certainty of uncertainty. While the album moves from the watery ambiguities of the title track, through the emotional and textural extremes of “Fickle Sun” toward the gorgeously orchestrated version of “I’m Set Free,” implying some kind of final redemption, the moment-to-moment motion remains wonderfully non-binary. Images of war and of the instants producing its ravaging effects mirror and counterbalance the calmly and increasingly gender-fluid voice as it concludes the titular piece by depicting “wave after wave after wave.” Is it all Salman Rushdie’s numbers marching again? The lyrics embody the movement from “undescribed” through “undefined” and “unrefined’” connoting a journey toward aging, but size, place, chronology and the music encompassing them remain in constant flux, often nearly but never quite recognizable. Genre and sample float in and out of view with the elusive but devastating certainty of tides as the ship travels toward silence, toward that ultimate ambiguity that follows all disillusion, filling the time between cycles. The disconnect between stasis and motion is as disconcerting as these pieces’ relationship to the songform Eno inherited and exploded. The album encapsulates the modernist subtlety and Romantic grace propelling his art and the state of a civilization in the faintly but still glowing borderlands between change and decay.

Marc Medwin

Cate Le Bon — Cyrk (Control Group, 2012)

There's no artist whose work I anticipated more this decade than Cate Le Bon, and no artist who frustrated me more with each release, only to keep reeling me in for the long run. Le Bon's innate talent is for soothing yet oblique folk, soberly psychedelic, which she originally delivered in the Welsh language, and continued into English with rustic reserve.

Except something about her pastoralism seems to bore her, and the four-chord arpeggios are shot through with scorches of noise, or sent haywire with post-punk brittleness. In its present state, her music is built around chattering xylophones and croaking saxophone, even as the lyrics draw deeper into memory and introspection, with ever more haunting payoffs. It's as if Nick Drake shoved his way into the leadership of Pere Ubu. She's taken breaks from music to work on pottery and furniture-making, and retreats to locales like a British cottage and Texas art colony to plumb for new inspirations. She's clearly energized by collaboration and relocation, but there’s a force to her persona that, despite her introverted presence, dominates a session. Rare for our age, she's an artist who gets to follow her muse full time, bouncing between record labels and seeing her name spelled out in the medium typefaces on festival bills.

Cyrk, from 2012, is the record where I fell in, and it captures her at something close to joyous, a half smile. Landing between her earliest folk and later surrealism, it is open to comparison with the Velvet Underground. But not the VU that is archetypical to indie rock – Cyrk is more an echo of the solo work that followed. There’s the sharp compositional order and Welsh lilt of John Cale. Like Lou Reed, she makes a grand electric guitar hook out of the words “you’re making it worse.” The homebound twee of Mo Tucker and forbidding atmosphere of Nico are present in equal parts. Those comparisons are reductive, but they demonstrate how Cyrk feels instantly familiar if you’ve garnered certain listening habits. Songs surround you with woolly keyboard and guitar hooks, and one can forget a song ends with an awkward trumpet coda even after dozens of listens. The awkwardness is what keeps the album fresh.

She lulls, then dowses with cold water. So Cyrk isn't an entirely easy record, even if it is frequently a pretty one. The most epic song here, reaching high with those woolly hums and twang, is "Fold the Cloth.” It bobs along, coiling tight as she reaches into the strange register of female falsetto. Le Bon cranks out a fuzz solo – she's great at extending her sung melodies across instruments. Then the climax chants out, "fold the cloth or cut the cloth.” What is so important about this mundane action? Her mystery lyrics never feel haphazard, like LSD posey. They are out of step with pop grandiose. Maybe when her back is turned, there's a full smile.

Who are "Julia" and "Greta,” two mid-album sketches that avoid verse-chorus structure? Julia is represented by a limp waltz, Greta by pulses on keyboards. Shortly after the release, Le Bon followed up with the EP Cyrk II made up of tracks left off the album. To a piece, they’re easier numbers than "Julia" and "Greta.” The cryptic and the scribble are essential to how Cyrk flows, which is to say it flows haltingly.

This approach dampens her acclaim and her potential audience, but that's how she fashions decades-old tropes into fresh art. She’s also quite the band leader. Drummers have a different thud when they play on her stage. Musicians' fills disappear. She brings in a horn solo as often as she lays down a guitar lead. The closer tracks, "Plowing Out Pts 1 & 2," aren't inherently linked numbers. By the second part, the group has worked up to a carnival swirl, frothing like "Sister Ray" yet as sweet as a children's TV show theme. Does that sound sinister? The effect is more like heartbreak fuelling abandon, her forlorn presence informing everyone's playing.

Fuse this album with the excellent Cyrk II tracks, and you can image a deluxe double LP 10th anniversary reissue in a few years. Ha ha no. I expect nothing so garish will happen. It sure wouldn't suit the artist. In a decade where "fan service" became an everyday concept, Le Bon is immune. She's a songwriter who seems like she might walk away from at all without notice, if that’s where her craftsmanship leads. The odd and oddly comfortable chair that is Cyrk doesn't suit any particular decor, but my room would feel bare without it.

Ben Donnelly

Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind (Epitaph)

Here’s the scenario: Heavily tatted guy has some dogs. He really loves his dogs. Heavily tatted guy goes on tour with his band. While he’s on the road, one of his dogs dies. Heavily tatted guy gets really sad. He writes a song about it.  

That should be the set-up for an insufferably maudlin emo record. But instead what you get is Converge’s “All We Love We Leave Behind” and the searing LP that shares the title. The songs dive headlong into the emotional intensities of loss and reflect on the cost of artistic ambition. The enormously talented line-up that recorded All We Love We Leave Behind in 2012 had been playing together for just over a decade, and vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou had been collaborating for more than twenty years. It shows. The record pummels and roars with remarkable precision, and its songs maniacally twist, and somehow they soar.  

Any number of genre tags have been stuck on (or innovated by) Converge’s music: mathcore, metalcore, post-hardcore. It’s fun to split sonic hairs. But All We Love… is most notable for its exhilarating fury and naked heart, musical qualities that no subgenre can entirely claim. Few bands can couple such carefully crafted artifice with such raw intensity. And few records of the decade can match the compositional wit and palpable passion of All We Love…, which never lets itself slip into shallow romanticism. It hurts. And it ruthlessly rocks.  

Jonathan Shaw

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

When trying to narrow down to whatever my own most important records of the decade are, I tried to keep it to one per artist (as I do with individual years, although it’s a lot easier there). Out of everyone, though, EMA came by far the closest to having two records on that list, and this could have been 2017’s Exile in the Outer Ring, which along with The Future’s Void comes terrifyingly close to unpacking an awful lot of what’s going wrong, and has been going wrong, with the world we live in for a while now. The Future’s Void focuses more on the technological end of our particular dystopia, shuddering both emotionally and sonically through the dead end of the Cold War all the way to us refreshing our preferred social media site when somebody dies. EMA is right there with us, too; this isn’t judgment, it’s just reporting from the front line. And it must be said, very few things from this decade ripped like “Cthulu” rips.

Ian Mathers

The Field — Looping State of Mind (Kompakt, 2011)

Looping State of Mind by The Field

On Looping State of Mind, Swedish producer Axel Willner builds his music with seamlessly jointed loops of synths, beats, guitars and voice to create warm cushions of sound that envelop the ears, nod the head and move the body. Willner is a master of texture and atmosphere, in lesser hands this may have produced mere comfort food but there is spice in the details that elevates this record as he accretes iotas of elements, withholding release to heighten anticipation. Although this is essentially deep house built on almost exclusively motorik 4/4 beats, Willner also plays with ambient, post-punk and shoegaze dynamics. From the slow piano dub of “Then It’s White,” which wouldn’t be out of place on a Labradford or Pan American album, to the ecstatic shuffling lope of “Arpeggiated Love” and “Is This Power” with its hint of a truncated Gang of Four-like bass riff, Looping State of Mind is a deeply satisfying smorgasbord of delicacies and a highlight of The Field’s four album output during the 2010s.

Andrew Forell

Gang Gang Dance — “Glass Jar” (4AD, 2011)

Instead of telling you my favorite album of the decade — I made my case for it the first year we moved to Tumblr, help yourself — it feels more fitting to tell you a story from my friend Will about my favorite piece of music from the last 10 years, a song that arrived just before the rise of streaming, which flattened “the album experience” to oppressive uniformity and rendered it an increasingly joyless, rudderless routine of force-fed jams and AI/VC-directed mixes catering to a listener that exists in username only. The first four seconds of “Glass Jar” told you everything you needed to know about what lie ahead, but here’s the kind of thing that could happen before everything was all the time:

I took eight hours of coursework in five weeks in order to get caught up on classes and be in a friend's wedding at the end of June. Finishing a week earlier than the usual summer session meant I had to give my end-of-class presentations and turn in my end-of-class papers in a single day, which in turn meant that I was well into the 60-70 hour range without sleep by the time I got to the airport for an early-morning flight. (Partly my fault for insisting that I needed to stay up and make a “wedding night” mix for the couple — real virgin bride included — and even more my fault for insisting that it be a single, perfectly crossfaded track). I was fuelled only by lingering adrenaline fumes and whatever herbal gunpowder shit I had been mixing with my coffee — piracetam, rhodiola, bacopa or DMAE depending on the combination we had at the time. At any rate, eyes burning, skull heavy, joints stiff with dry rot, I still had my wits enough to refuse the backscatter machine at the TSA checkpoint; instead of the usual begrudging pat-down, I got pulled into a separate room. Anyway, it was a weird psychic setback at that particular time, but nothing came of it. Having arrived at my gate, I popped on the iPod with a brand new set of studio headphones and finally got around to listening to the Gang Gang Dance I had downloaded months before. "Glass Jar," at that moment, was the most religious experience I’d had in four years. I was literally weeping with joy.

Point being: It is worth it to stay up for a few days just to listen to ‘Glass Jar’ the way it was meant to be heard.

Patrick Masterson

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Heron Oblivion by Heron Oblivion

Heron Oblivion’s self-titled first album fused unholy guitar racket with a limpid serenity. It was loud and cathartic but also pure beauty, floating drummer Meg Baird’s unearthly vocals over a sound that was as turbulent and majestic as nature itself, now roiled in storm, now glistening with dewy clarity. The band convened four storied guitarists—Baird from Espers, Ethan Miller and Noel Harmonson from Comets on Fire and Charlie Sauffley—then relegated two of them to other instruments (Baird on drums and Miller on bass). The sound drew on the full flared wail and scree of Hendrix and Acid Mothers Temple, the misty romance of Pentangle and Fairport Convention. It was a record out of time and could have happened in any year from about 1963 onward, or it could have not happened at all. We were so glad it did at Dusted; Heron Oblivion’s eponymous was closer to a consensus pick than any record before or since, and if you want to define a decade, how about the careening riffs of “Oriar” breaking for Baird’s dream-like chants?

Jennifer Kelly

The Jacka — What Happened to the World (The Artist, 2014)

Probably the most prophetic rap album of the 2010s. The Jacka was the king of Bay rap since he started MOB movement. He was always generous with his time, and clique albums were pouring out of The Jacka and his disciples every few months. Even some of his own albums resembled at times collective efforts. This generosity made some of the albums unfocused and disjointed, yet what it really shows is that even in the times when dreams of collective living were abandoned The Jacka still had hopes for Utopia and collective struggles. It was about the riches, but he saw the riches in people first and foremost.

This final album before he was gunned down in the early 2014 is full of predictions about what’s going to happen to him. Maybe this explains why it’s focused as never before and even Jacka’s leaned-out voice has doomed overtones. This music is the only possible answer to the question the album’s title poses: everything is wrong with the world where artists are murdered over music.

Ray Garraty

John Maus — We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm, 2011)

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves by John Maus

Minnesota polymath John Maus’ quest for the perfect pop song found its apotheosis on his third album We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves in 2011. On the surface an homage to 1980s synth pop, Maus’ album reveals its depth with repeated listens. Over expertly constructed layers of vintage keyboards, Maus’ oft-stentorian baritone alternately intones and croons deceptively simple couplets that blur the line between sincerity and provocation. Lurking beneath the smooth surface Maus uses Baroque musical tropes that give the record a liturgical atmosphere that reinforces the Gregorian repetition of his lyrics. The tension between the radical ironic banality of the words and the deeply serious nature of the music and voice makes We Must Become Pitiless Censors of Ourselves an oddly compelling collection that interrogates the very notion of taste and serves an apt soundtrack to the post-truth age.

Andrew Forell

Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society — Mandatory Reality (Eremite, 2019)

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society

Any one of the albums that Joshua Abrams has made under the Natural Information Society banner could have made this list. While each has a particular character, they share common essences of sound and spirit. Abrams made his bones playing bass with Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Mike Reed, Fred Anderson, Chad Taylor, and many others, but in the Society his main instrument is the guimbri, a three-stringed bass lute from Morocco. He uses it to braid melody, groove, and tone into complex strands of sound that feel like they might never end. Mandatory Reality is the album where he delivers on the promise of that sound. Its centerpiece is “Finite,” a forty-minute long performance by an eight-person, all-acoustic version of Natural Information Society. It has become the main and often sole piece that the Society plays. Put the needle down and at first it sounds like you are hearing some ensemble that Don Cherry might have convened negotiating a lost Steve Reich composition. But as the music winds patiently onwards, strings, drums, horns, and harmonium rise in turn to the surface. These aren’t solos in the jazz sense so much as individual invitations for the audience to ease deeper into the sonic entirety. The music doesn’t end when the record does, but keeps manifesting with each performance. Mandatory Reality is a nodal point in an endless stream of sound that courses through the collective unconscious, periodically surfacing in order to engage new listeners and take them to the source.

Bill Meyer

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

I knew nothing about Mansions when I first heard about this record; I can’t even remember how I heard about this record. But I liked the name of the album and the album art, so I listened to it. Sometimes the most important records in your decade have as much to do with you as with them. I’d been frantically looking for a job for nearly two years at that point, the severance and my access Ontario’s Employment Insurance program (basically, you pay in every paycheck, and then have ~8 months of support if you’re unemployed) had both ran out. I was living with a friend in Toronto sponsoring my American wife into the country (fun fact: they don’t care if you have an income when you do that), feeling the walls close in a little each day, sure I was going to wind up one of those kids who had to move back to the small town I’d left and a parent’s house. There were multiple days I’d send out 10+ applications and then walk around my neighbourhood blasting “Climbers” and “Out for Blood” through my earbuds, cueing up “La Dentista” again and dreaming of revenge… on what? Capitalism? There was no more proximate target in view. That’s not to say that Doom Loop is necessarily about being poor or about the shit hand my generation (I fit, just barely) got in the job market, or anything like that; but for me it is about the almost literal doom loop of that worst six months, and I still can’t listen to “The Economist” without my blood pressure spiking a little.

Ian Mathers

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

By my count, Protomartyr made not one but four great albums in the 2010s, racking up a string of rhythmically unstoppable, intellectually challenging discs with absolute commitment and intent. I caught whiff of the band in 2012, while helping out with editing the old Dusted. Jon Treneff’s review of All Passion No Technique told a story of exhilarant discovery; I read it and immediately wanted in. The conversion event, though, came two years later, with the stupendous Under Color of Official Right, all Wire-y rampage and Fall-spittled-bile, a rattletrap construction of every sort of punk rock held together by the preening contempt of black-suited Joe Casey. Doug Mosurock reviewed it for us, concluding, “Poppier than expected, but still covered in burrs, and adeptly analyzing the pain and suffering of their city and this year’s edition of the society that judges it, Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.” Except here’s the thing: Protomartyr jumped that bar two more times this decade, and there’s no reason to believe that they won’t do it again. The industry turned on the kind of bands with four working class dudes who can play a while ago, but this is the band of the 2010s anyway.

Jennifer Kelly

Tau Ceti IV — Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Satan, You're The God of This Age But Your Reign is Ending by Tau Ceti IV

This decade was full of takes on American primitive guitar. Some were pretty good, a few were great, many were forgettable, and then there was this overlooked gem from Jordan Darby of Uranium Orchard. Satan, You’re the God of This Age, but Your Reign Is Ending is an antidote to bland genre exercises. Like John Fahey, Darby has a distinct voice and style, as well as a sense of humor. Also like Fahey, his playing incorporates diverse influences in subtle but pronounced ways. American primitive itself isn’t a staid template. Though there are also plenty of beautiful, dare I say pastoral moments, which still stand out for being genuinely evocative.

Darby’s background in aggressive electric guitar music partly explains his approach. (Not sure if he’s the only ex-hardcore guy to go in this direction, but there can’t be many.) His playing is heavier than one might expect, but it feels natural, not like he’s just playing metal riffs on an acoustic guitar. But heaviness isn’t the only difference. Like his other projects, Satan is wonderfully off-kilter. This album’s strangeness isn’t reducible to component parts, but here are two representative examples: “The Wind Cries Mary” gradually encroaches on the last track, and throughout, the microphone picks up more string noise than most would consider tasteful. It all works, or at least it’s never boring.

Ethan Milititisky

Z-Ro — The Crown (Rap-a-Lot, 2014)

When singing in rap was outsourced to pop singers and Auto Tune, Z-Ro remained true to his self, singing even more than he ever did. He did his hooks and his verses himself, and no singing could harm his image as a hustler moonlighting as a rapper. He can’t be copied exactly because of his gift, to combine singing soft and rapping hard. It’s a sort of common wisdom that he recorded his best material in the previous decade, yet quite apart from hundreds of artists that continued to capitalize on their fame he re-invented himself all the past decade, making songs that didn’t sound like each other out of the same raw material. The Crown is a tough pick because since his post-prison output he made solid discs one after each other.

Ray Garraty