#they had to loop the bridge part of the song multiple times to keep it long enough for the scene too 😭😭

[codecicle]

Listening to JRWI and realizing in absolute awestruck horror that the reason I recognize the background song during the paramount finale is because I preformed it like 2 weeks ago on a stage. I'm a cellist I litterally played that fucking song the other week why is my absurdly powerful dnd podcast playing Farandole in the background of their fight scene 😭

[apocalypticgargoyle]

meet clay, he knows how you'll die.

intro filler chapter sorry

☾ pairing: dream x reader

☾ cw: interact at your own risk; contains graphic depictions of various character death and violence, suicide, blood, gore, and other triggering material. angst, language, guns, adult content, mentions of sex, slow burn friends to lovers

☾ wc: ~4100

Clay pulled the strap of his backpack further on his shoulder as he wove through the mindless sea of college students, eyes scanning the crowd for you, his best friend and the only person he could stand at the early hour. His knuckles flashed white as he sighed, taking the blunt impact of someone walking into him. He removed one of his headphones, mumbling a quick apology and swatting off the enthusiastically apologetic sophomore girl. All he could focus on was how much she bit her lip as she stammered on about not seeing him. It wasn’t alluring to him when most girls tried to sway his affections by looking at him with a puppy dog expression; all his mind drifted to was the dead skin across the body of her lower lip.

He finally nodded and reinstated his headphone, turning on his heel and heading for the front of the building. He received a few greetings from his peers as they crossed his path, people who shared past lectures with him and who had cheated off of him during exams. He wasn’t popular by any means, but he stayed out of people’s business and didn’t express his opinions loudly, so people tended to like him. The autumn breeze picked up as he stood in the dwellings of political science majors on the front lawn, acting as if they hadn’t seen one another in years when it had been only a few days. Clay absent-mindedly looked down at his cellphone, flipping through music as he leaned against the cool brick of the hall’s facade, waiting for you to find him.

Clay’s usual brooding manner was often off-putting to outsiders, with the careless-hollow look in his eyes giving bystanders the impression that he was nothing but a machiavellian. But you always saw the brightness in him; the side that you always experienced was specifically for you, and he made sure to keep it that way. You had wedged herself into his life and he was ever grateful for the love you had given him.

Despite the understood truth between the two of you that nothing was to be left unsaid, Clay still found himself keeping one of the most important aspects of his character unknown to you. His bloodcurdling secret was his own curse, something that would only be poison for another soul to know.

“What’s up, stud?” Somehow a flush of relief rippled through Clay’s body as his eyes locked to yours, pulling him from his isolated shell. Your hair looked brighter today against the dark hoodie peeking out from beneath an all too familiar bomber jacket. The wind fluffed your locks slightly as you continued towards him.

His eyebrows perked up as if to signal he was attempting to downplay his excited demeanor. “Stud, huh?” You smirked at his response, taking one of his headphones and putting it in your own ear, her face angled up to Clay as you waited to recognize the song, swaying slightly.

He chuckled as you shrunk away from him after muttering the song’s artist disappointedly and rolling your eyes, pulling on his hoodie pocket to follow you. As chaotic as his life often felt, he could always rely on the consistency of you. You usually attached yourself to one of his backpack straps, handles, his belt loop, or ended up under his arm, wedged against his side. It had gotten to the point that he felt naked if you weren’t within arm’s length of him, which was rare for the two of you. “So, I have something for you.” He smugly looked down at you, green eyes masking a hidden sparkle as you handed him a can of root beer, making him chuckle.

“Aren’t you sweet?” He popped the tab, taking a sip as you waved at a group of girls passing the two of you before slipping your hand against the crook of his elbow where his hoodie sleeves were pushed back.

“Actually, I was hoping it could be payment for later. I need to head over to the cemetery for some rubbings. History 270 has me getting into some weird shit, huh?” He laughed again at you, offering you the drink.

“And you need wheels?” You nodded and smiled politely at him, beaming at his words. “Yeah, alright. I have to sketch something for art anyway.” He thought about the week’s assignment and then about your little project he had dealt with the prior year. You had acted like the two of you hadn’t been to the cemetery on a regular basis, but he was grateful that you wanted him to come along with you.

You quietly jumped once. “You are my hero in faded denim, Clay. You know that, right?”

The two of you parted ways to your select destinations, one of Clay’s least favorite parts of the day, which was only solidified as he sunk into his seat and attempted to look equipped for the lecture. He spotted an unfamiliar kid shaking his knee in a distant section of the classroom. In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have thought twice, but the sie of the class had given him the pleasantries of getting his own personal curse out of the way on the first day.

He carefully watched the boy speak smugly to a few of the more athletic kids in the room. One of the athletes pointed to the general direction Clay was sitting in and they all moved towards him. He, yet again, took out his headphones, knowing full well that they would be talking to him for the rest of the class.

“Oi, Shaman,” one of the main guys greeted Clay like they always did: a strange pattern of slapping and shaking his hand. He was thankful he had gotten all of their first impressions months prior and didn’t have to worry about getting their scenarios again, but he geared up to meet the new kid.

“How are you, Punz?” Clay took a deep breath as the new kid was gestured to and brought into the light.

“This is Mark. He’s a transfer from one of the commuter campuses. Mark, this is the mastermind you pay for notes.”

Clay sarcastically smiled at Punz. “My, you flatter me more than any girl. Nice to meet you, man.” As soon as he touched Mark’s hand, Clay’s mind flashed to a dingy-looking barn out in the middle of nowhere before an older man in his mid-thirties came into view with a lever-action rifle in his hand. In another flash, Clay was in front of the man, now kneeling with the gun in his mouth, red, blurry eyes looking straight through Clay. A pang of guilt broke open in Clay’s stomach as he pushed against the handguard lever and pulled it back into place, squeezing the trigger and sending Ckay back to the class. He let out a sigh and fought to plaster one of his less absent smiles.

“Speaking of our lovely girls, Mark here has a question about her.” Clay’s head tilted towards Mark, not exactly squaring up to him, but sending him an amused look as if to warn him not to cross a line, knowing full-well this conversation would somehow involve you. “We all know that no guy would ever intrude on her without your blessing, but Mark sat near her on the bus before his first class and was thinking about asking her out.”

Clay bit back a laugh, feeling like the Vito Corleone. “Well, you know her, Punz, and you know she would be mortified if I told some guy to fuck off, so I would just ask her yourself?” Oh, how desperately Clay wanted to bash Mark for not even telling Clay himself and the fact that the boy before him was nowhere near your type, but Clay knew better than to burn bridges and he felt bad for the way Mark would meet his end.

Nobody, not even you, knew about Clay’s gift. In the going-on-five years of knowing you, he came breaths away from letting his secret slip but has always kept it hidden, hoping to bury it with him after being married to you for forty happy years.

The visions started around his fifth-grade year, beginning with vivid dreams of dying in the midst of the Civil War, feeling the warm gushing of blood leaving his system, and the stabbing pain of being shot multiple times beside a woman who oddly looked enough like you that he almost called out your name. He had lived what he presumed to be his death in the life before this one several times, each vision taking him a few clicks further.

Soon, he found himself catching glimpses of others’ deaths before they happened as soon as they touched him, but thankfully it was usually over with no time passing and he only endured the visions once for each person, fate having already sealed itself. The only person who seemed to mix him up was you.

It was love at first sight for him, but as soon as you touched his arm, bleak snapshots of a boating accident raced into his mind, only to have to re-experience the scenario a few months later with you stepping in front of a train. Even as a measly high school freshman, he promised himself that there was no way he was letting you die in the gruesome manners being predicted to you. He didn’t think changing fate was possible until he witnessed you in action. He hated seeing you so young in each of the glimpses, tearing him to shreds as he knew time and time again that there was no way he could change what was meant to be.

There were even times when he quietly promised you that he’d die by your side if he couldn’t stop it.

As his lecture let out, Clay found you tucked into a corner of the library, smiling to yourself silently as knew you had finally found what you were looking for in one of the massive books before you. There were many moments like this that Clay wished he could pause and remember for the rest of his life. He was proud that you were there for him even though you could have left instead of playing your own little game of library scavenger hunts.

Since knowing you, he had taken note of how you treated other boys, usually as first dates and never true pick-ups. You didn’t care if they called you the next day or not and he was sure you had never even been kissed before. Something about your guys’ relationship gave others the nod to leave it the fuck alone, and that your heart truly belonged to Clay; a responsibility he wished didn’t plague you with. Despite this, he couldn’t bring himself to be with you, only worried that what you had would be destroyed because he knew that as soon as he told you about his gift, you might leave.

You always brought a bag of marbles and a bouquet of flowers to the cemetery. You loved to find the tombstones that looked neglected or ones with older dates, knowing that the possibility of having family members who remembered the person was lower. The trees in the graveyard were reds and yellows with the changing season, leaves scattered over the grass, naturally piling in large masses. This was your favorite for how neglected it seemed to always be. You had a knack for making inanimate objects and lost souls feel loved; Clay often feeling like he was one of these disembodied figures.

Clay leaned his back against one of the massive trees a few paces from the tombstone you had picked, smiling as he watched you carry out her routine. He flipped to a clean page in his sketchbook as you sat cross-legged in front of the great stone resting place, pulling the long-dead flowers from the concrete gauntlet and replenishing a few flowers in their place while setting an equal number of marbles along the grass line of the stone. A daisy was tucked behind your ear as you ran her fingers against the worn chiseling of the dates, smiling slightly. He began to sketch you out. Your eyes drifted to him before the corners of your mouth curled up into a smirk and you returned to her previous position, straightening your shoulders. “Who is it?” He asked, blending a rough edge with the pads of his finger as you tilted your head at the script carvings.

“George McAfee. Born 1926. Died 1963.” The wind picked up, blowing your hair away from your face as you pulled your jacket closer around you. “What was happening in 1963?” You turned your head to him momentarily before looking back at the lucky man. “I mean besides Beatlemania and JFK’s assassination?”

Clay outstretched one of his legs, swallowing as he thought, his eyes fluttering from the page in front of him to you. “Well, Alcatraz was shut down, Studebaker stopped production, the USSR sent the first woman into space…” he trailed off, watching you as the gears began to spin in your head.

“Do you think he died in the Coliseum explosion?” You wet your lips and he couldn’t help but smile at you.

“Maybe he died in the USS Thresher sinking?” He was thankful that he could capture your thoughtful gaze in this picture.

“You’re smart, Dream. Have I ever told you that?” He chuckled at the sigh in your voice. He detailed the bomber jacket you were wearing---which you’d stolen from his closet god knows when---a bit as you placed a piece of paper over the engraving and rubbed a crayon against the stone, his name coming to life on the paper as you came to life on Clay’s. It didn’t matter why you two would be in the cemetery, you always had a type of bond with the dead, surprising Clay due to how bright you were and your power of holding onto so much compassion. He threw his sketchbook into his backpack and slug in over his shoulder, moving to help you up. You decided to give the rest of the flowers to George as Clay stood next to you, gazing down at his grave.

A high-pitched moan startled the two of you, snapping your heads to look over the hedges separating your section of graves and the one beside it. Clay’s eyes widened as they fell to a girl in all black with porcelain skin propped on top of one of the tombstones. You clasped your hand over his mouth pulling him onto the ground next to you as you peered through a hole in the bushes. His mind noticed your arms first. One of them was secured over his chest and the other wrapped around his shoulder from beneath his arm, holding onto him as he steadied himself in the weird crouching position. “Are you enjoying this?” He jeered, looking over his shoulder slightly as he heard you snicker. The girl began to ride the stone harder.

“How many times in your life are you going to see a girl humping a gravestone? Honestly, Clay, how many?” He shook his head as you both looked at the girl, giggling to yourselves. You dug her face into his shoulder trying to stifle the next laugh trying to rip through your body as the gothic girl moaned, letting out more labored breaths. Clay’s face contorted into a twisted look of disgust as the girl tugged on her own hair. “Oh, do you think that hurts?” You took the words out of his mouth, tightening your arms around him as he shrugged.

“I doubt it’s any rockier than sex with a human.” He bit his lip, a hollow sound interrupting him quietly laughing at his own joke as you thumped him in the chest. The girl moaned louder. “Alright, she’s climaxing. I’m uncomfortable now.” Clay stood and Willow popped up next to him, lacing your fingers with his, bringing color back to his cheeks as you slipped the remaining marbles into his pocket.

“Oh, hi!” In the midst of holding hands with you again and trying to slink back to his car, he hadn’t even realized that the moaning had stopped. The girl now stood near the two of you in what seemed to be a black slip. Clay found it hard to make direct eye contact with her. “Are you guys looking for someone?”

“We were, but we couldn’t find him so-” you began, gesturing for Clay’s car and pulling him next to you.

“Well, I can help. Who are you looking for?” A thousand sarcastically vulgar comments ran through Clay’shead but his eyes flickered from her face to the tombstone she was on previously.

“Uh, my grandpa. His name was Rupert Daniels,” Clay managed to choke out. Your nails dug into his arm while your hand squeezed his. The girl looked around at the surrounding stones.

“I don’t see him right now, but I can look?” You both shook your heads quickly and muttered various responses before finally slipping away from her and getting into his car. Neither of you said anything as you pulled off the gravel driveway until crossing the railroad tracks when Clay burst out laughing.

“Do you think she even knew who it was she was gettin’ it on with or did she just pick somewhere random?” Clay laughed harder at your stunned response. “I’m serious. Clay, what the fuck. How can someone even get off in a cemetery?”

“I don’t know, man. Would you hook up with someone in a cemetery?” Clay quipped, wiggling his eyebrows at you, causing you to laugh. You dug into his console, pulling out a bag of M&Ms you had stashed in there last week, popping one in your mouth.

“Only if it was you.”

He giggled. “Excuse me, what?”

“There are just some things you do with certain people, Dream. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered I’m the only one you would have sex with in a cemetery, or like, disgusted?” You laughed at his reaction.

Within ten minutes the sun had begun to set and Clay sang loudly with you to the song playing over the radio as Clay sped along one of the county roads near your apartment complex, not wanting the night to end. He loved these moments with you. You turned down the radio and threw your hair back into a ponytail. “So, what do you think of that new kid, Mark?” Something in Clay shifted, taking away the free feeling he had recently possessed next to you. He thought carefully.

He chewed his bottom lip. “Depends on what you think?”

“Well, he seems like a wannabe Punz. And he asked me out. Naturally, I said ‘yes’ because maybe he’s different?” Clay chuckled at your sarcasm, putting his car in park on the side of the street your flat was on and getting out with you. The radio still hummed in the air lowly. “He insisted on Friday, though.” Clay dramatically acted like you had stabbed him in the heart, even though it did hurt. Friday night was their night. It had been a running tradition for movie night every Friday since your freshman year and you had never canceled on Clay for a date. “I know, I know. But I figured that I’d tell him I had diarrhea when it hit eight o’clock and be over at your place with an extra pizza? Your roommate’s working right?” He chuckled with a nod, walking you up the first three steps to your place as you made it to the concrete landing. You turned to him. “And he said he was taking me somewhere fancy, so I’ll snag you some breadsticks.” He tilted his head at you as you winked at him.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Wanna be Punz might be fun. Maybe I’ll call up Minx and hang out with her?” He joked. Minx was a friend of yours that hung out with the two of you sometimes. He had never really liked her, but she was friends with you and thus he was always civil.

“You’re still my number one, babe.” You pushed him slightly as you climbed a few more steps, leaning on the railing as he waved to leave. “Hey, Dream?” He turned on his heel as you forced yourself to make eye contact. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “You could kiss me, you know? For science.” You smiled softly at him from where you were perched. He wet his lips as his heart hammered in his chest. He wanted to scale the steps and close the space between you, to knock you off your feet and show you just how much he was in love with you.

He hated himself. “A first kiss should have more magic in it than just for science. As a romantic, you should know first hand.” You smiled at the ground in front of you.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” The two of you seemed to shake off the serious moment as you stuck your tongue out at him and slipped inside your house as both giggled.

“I love you,” he murmured as you left, punching himself in the shoulder as he got back into his car.

Clay’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears, making him truly believe he was going to pass out. He had lost his gun at least a mile back. He was running mindlessly now, not knowing how long or where he was going. He trudged through the forest, hearing dogs barking and gunshots erupting around him, the ringing in his ears building with every step he forced himself to make. He wanted to rip open the front of his jacket to release the body heat drenching his collar, but he didn’t move other than propelling his body further and further away from the soldiers. You ran beside him, holding your skirt up while your hair danced around your shoulders like a great waterfall. As soon as his body felt like it might just give out, he would look at you and somehow find more of a drive to pull forward. His breaths were brittle and hoarse as he drew in borrowed oxygen. His lungs felt shallow like they were giving out on him.

You reached back, grasping his hand and pulling him into a sharp corner, hoping to lose the group. You both had managed to weave into the forest, but the dogs were somehow still picking up on your scent. The pair of you finally came upon a clearing and kneeled down out of sight, spotting a house in the middle of a glen. Bullets were streaming through the air. The forest was catching fire and cannons were echoing through the distant air. You squeezed his hand tightly, looking at him with terror in your eyes. He had gotten the two of you into this mess, but he was glad he was beside you.

He pulled you to your feet as the pair of you sprinted for a distant house. A sharp pain stabbed into Clay’s back, making him drop to the ground. How did he not hear the gun? You dropped to your feet, your eyes welling with tears, ripping at his jacket, but he pushed you off, telling you to leave quickly. He leaned forward, eyes locking on the soldiers in gray coming towards them, reloading their rifles. He groaned, pushing himself up, but only having the same stabbing sensation two more times in his chest. He heard you scream, but he couldn’t see you.

His hands were going numb as he touched where the bullets entered, feeling the warm and sticky crimson substance seep between his fingers. The soldiers reached you before you had made it to the house, pulling you to the ground next to him. You were crying heavily as you looked at him. Everything began to run quiet as you held onto him tightly. You were saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear you. He was only aware of his jacket soaking with blood. He coughed, wanting to tell you he loved you one last time, but you were tugged away from him, pressed to one of the men in gray. He raised a hand to you as you fought against the man. And then everything went dark.

Dream Tag List: (hopefully this works)

@karlkitten @pluto-dizzz @more-like-reyna @honk-izzie-was-taken @marrymetheonott @froggyy06 @ghoulandghost @savingpluto @marshmallow-babe @drunkpumpkincake @unstableye @tinyegg @behzzyboo @twist3dtinkerbell @sparkletash @shroomieissmall @clubfairy @camerondiaz48104 @victory-is-here @rat-poisin @alm334 @acidluvs @pachowpachowbucket @bbigbbrainn @cdizzlevalntyne @idiotinnit @generallysleepdeprived @sacvf @phsychopathetic @froggerrrr @robinslie @essencee @jemalovesmarvel @sbi-is-my-onlysanity @jenlouvre @victoria-a567 @miilliiie @bunnylotl @thegirlwhowritesawksh-t @carlyferrell @dumb-chaotic-bi-energy @nyxieahh @quivvyintheclouds @sarcasticmichelle @book-of-anarchy @millavalntyne @lightdreamy @baddiesforcorpse @sunnynapp @fantasy-innit @rat-poisin @wreny24 @deepestofwaters @exenestea @indecisivehusky @fallxnly @alm334 @skaratjung @punzcanrailme @sap-naps @denki-exe @angeltears18 @silvemistxe33 @andreamalik6 @kris-stuff @sun-fiower-seed @where-thesundoesntshine @dilfdream @esmegregory04 @itsparasocial @mlqcool @mcgoddess404 @rinatdawn @chaoscait @peppermintkisses @libbynotfound @speedrunningtherapy @lunxramour @aoonai @loraleiix @ghoulpixiie

[inkykeiji]

What is your writing process like?

absolute chaos.

lmao i’m kind of kidding. it’s organized chaos!! eeeee okay prepare yourself for a massive post below the cut anon bb!! <33

i start by making notes. i have several notebooks dedicated to fics (i use two the most; one is dedicated to everything in general and the second is my ‘character journal’). these notes contain story/plot elements i know i want to include in absolutely no order whatsoever. sometimes, certain sentences of prose or dialogue that i KNOW i want to include will come out of this, sometimes it won’t. these notes also include information about the characters and their relationship dynamics, and the mood and tone im going for.

this is essentially a brainstorming session. how long this lasts varies; sometimes i only do it once and feel like i have a good grasp on a story, and sometimes this takes several weeks and pages and pages of my notebooks. there’s no formula to it, and not every point is used in the final draft.

usually (but not always!!) after i’ve made my notes and i feel like i understand the story well, i make a super barebones outline (sometimes this is made in conjunction with the notes, sometimes this is made BEFORE the notes, if i already have most or all of my plot points in my mind—these steps are essentially interchangeable for me!). this outline just consists of my main plot points and often throughout the writing process i will go back to it and make notes or changes with a different coloured pen!!!

i have this beside me the entire time i’m writing, so i can refer back to it etc. sometime throughout these first few steps i’ll create a playlist for the story or for certain characters within the story, that i usually end up adding to throughout the process. i can, and do, write without music (usually when something really isn’t working, i’ll wait for total silence—which is usually like 2-3 am hehehe—and then really force myself to hash out whatever bit isn’t working) but for the most part i enjoy having songs that encompass the mood of the story itself playing on loop as i write!!

then i get to writing!!!! this is probably the most chaotic part of the entire process, as i do not ever write in chronological order, and i am constantly revising as i write, but i like to keep EVERY draft of my work, which means by the end i have 7-8 documents on average named vaguely (like: bmb rough, bmb good, bmb GOOD good, bmb final, bmb editing, etc) lmao. anyway i usually write certain plot points or story events separately in one document (totally out of order) and then piece or bridge them together and rearrange them during my final revision and editing. if the piece is really big (like bmb part three, for example) i’ll split it across multiple documents because for some reason that makes it more manageable and organized for me??? so for bmb part three, for example, i had a document for week one, a document for week two, and a document for that final breakdown all the way to the end.

and that’s it in v general terms, really!!! if i get REALLY stuck while writing, i’ll usually go back to my playlist and add to/revise it, or make lil mood boards, or watch a film with the same mood/tone i’m going for!! i also work out kinks a LOT while i’m running (i run every day!)

i call my process organized chaos because i normally end up with several slightly different copies of the same story by the end, and then i have to figure out which one i want to use, or fuse bits and pieces of each together, etc etc. but it’s how i write and it’s how i have always written, so!!! hehehe thank you so much for this question anon i love answering stuff like this, and i love hearing about other people’s processes as well!!! i just find it so interesting; writing + creative processes are so cool, because they’re each so unique to the creator!!!

[radramblog]

Radiohead Retrospective Part 8: Slowly we unfurl

Last week I compared The King of Limbs to Kid A, a reference I find completely natural. Both albums use significant electronic and ambient instrumentation, especially compared to the albums preceding them, and both feature stark, surreal imagery and lyricism. Kid A is a response to the band’s discomfort at getting huge, while The King of Limbs is a response to them deliberately getting much smaller after cutting ties with EMI/Parlophone.

I’m also pretty sure that comparison really pisses off a bunch of people who really like Kid A and really don’t care for The King of Limbs. And they’re entitled to their opinion, but they’re wrong. Album’s great.

Aside from potentially the spookiest cover of any Radiohead album, TKOL as it’s so abbreviated happens to be the shortest Radiohead album, clocking in at 8 songs and under 38 minutes (for reference, the longest one is Hail to the Thief at 14 songs/~57 minutes). It does not, however, seek to be wasting any of those minutes, despite the often looping nature of its songs, each drizzled in enough Stuff Going On that it feels much deeper than that short timeframe makes it seem.

That, or I just get lost in the groove.

While the comparison to Kid A is probably getting a bit old at this point, I think I’d like to reiterate it by comparing the opening seconds of Everything in its Right Place to that of TKOL’s opener, Bloom. EIIRP opens with this ultimately simple electronic line that feels cold and robotic, and while Bloom’s opening moments are still obviously electronic, they’re clearly made of something more lifelike. And by that, I mean it sounds a lot like a heavily edited, chopped, and looped piano line, one that folds itself into the very genuine percussion loops that follow. It’s a difference of tone, this life against the coldness of silica, even though the two are obviously both computer-made.

I don’t think Bloom truly comes into its own until that bassline comes in. Fortunately, it only takes like a minute for that to happen, with the incredibly ethereal and reverb-y vocals soon to follow. The bass is ultimately incredibly simple, but it adds such a grounding to the other instrumentation, those rapid, looping, high-pitched tracks that go on and on et cetera. And then you get about a two-thirds of the way in and the brass and strings come in that I had entirely forgotten about, but are so pretty, during the bridge (?), it’s genuinely quite lovely.

I wouldn’t call Bloom a banger, because it’s not that type of song. But at the same time, Bloom is a banger, basically.

By comparison, Morning Mr Magpie feels much more organic, in that more of the instrumentation being looped is acoustic/”real”. There’s a very delicate and deliberate guitar strum that the song is built around, with a similar but looser bassline meandering around in the background as it goes. MMM is much more built around the vocals than Bloom was (apparently the bass and vocals were the last things to be added to that track), more concrete images developed, and an actual verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure which feels a little strange on an album like this.

The instrumentation on this track feels anxious, the guitar and percussion reminding me of drumming my fingers on the table in impatience or nerves, but it’s so uncomfortable that it can’t get it perfectly rhythmic.

And frankly, this song does make me uncomfortable. You see, magpies in the UK have an association with thievery, collecting, and having an eye for shiny things. In Australia, magpies are associated with pecking people’s eyeballs out. So there’s a bit of a disconnect between countries and species is what I’m saying.

At some point I had decided that Little by Little was my favourite song on TKOL, and while I can’t really justify that, but I will (for now) stand by it. It’s got some excellent instrumentation- jingly background loops sounding like a machine, or even a bicycle, giving the track a sense of motion. Meanwhile, the bass is just absolutely killer, somehow both intricate and simple-sounding, notes that sound almost the same but aren’t quite. The lyrics are nursery-esque, with rhyming pairs and idioms aplenty. “Little by little by hook or by crook/I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt” is a really fun couple of lines, even if they really don’t have the same meaning outside of context as they do inside.

Every time I think I’ve heard everything there is to hear in this song, there’s more to surprise me. The different guitar lines, the background noises, rising instrumental and sinking vocals. Underrated, methinks.

Track 4 is the shortest song of the shortest album, Feral. Not so much lyrics in this, as snippets of heavily edited vocalisations- they might say something, but you’re sure as hell not going to figure that out listening to it. The song is heavily percussion-driven, to the point where there are long spans of it where the looping drums are the only instrumentation actually present. More electronic white noise comes in later, getting louder and harsher, as the vocal snippets increase in frequency and variability, but there’s always those drums, keeping on keeping on.

Feral is kind of in an odd spot, frankly, because it is one of hose tracks that’s fine, it’s good¸ but I genuinely cannot imagine being in the mood to listen to it. It’s tightly wound, almost stressful, but what little is added on doesn’t especially cater to that mood. I think there’s some comparison to be made to The Gloaming, of all things, though I think I like that track better than this one.

The one single from the album is Lotus Flower, and if you haven’t watched that music video…fucking, do it? Thom is just iconic in this one, channeling memetic levels of weirdo-dance. Lotus Flower makes the best choice for single on this record, being both the most past-Radiohead-y, and the most traditional song-y track on the record, somehow. Thom’s falsetto is at its peak here, utterly gorgeous in performance and presentation, with loops on some of the held notes that in some cases only just reveal themselves as artificial.

This is not to discredit the instrumental, with the best Radiohead use of handclaps since 15 Step (to my knowledge, the previous iteration of this), an electronic instrumental that would probably make a much sadder song were it not for the vocals and the groovy bassline. Seriously, the bass makes this piece genuinely danceable, it’s incredible.

…man, look at him go.

Every time I hear Codex I think it’s the last song on the album, and I always have to remind myself, no, it’s not that short, come on. This slow, sad, piano ballad (?) echoes previous album closers while still feeling incredibly TKOL, its piano being reminiscent of Videotape, brass coming in like Life in a Glasshouse, and utterly down vocals akin to any number of Radiohead’s finest. Some of the lyrics are actually very reminiscent of Pyramid Song, imagery of, well, jumping into bodies of water, but as that track’s river was full of tragedy and memory, Codex’s clear lake is, apparently, clear and innocent.

I was thinking about that album-closer comment before I heard the section of the track that comes in at 3:35, with wavering strings that feel incredibly like Kid A, like Motion Picture Soundtrack and How to Disappear Completely.

I should probably stop comparing Codex to other Radiohead songs, though. It does stand on its own without those, a beautiful, melancholic song. It is incredibly chill, muted even, the kind of song to float in the water to, staring up at the stars. It’s down, but it’s not in pain, if that makes sense? Like, the vibe I get from it is of acceptance, and of moving past what’s holding one down- something you repeat in your head while you’re deep in the shit.

Wait that’s just How to Disappear Completely again, fuck.

Moving on, Give up the Ghost opens with, of all things, birdsongs. It’s actually an acoustic guitar ballad to pair with Codex’s piano ballad, multiple iterations of the instrument layered over each other in a natural but artificial soundscape. The vocals do the same, with the lead harmonising with a backing refrain of “don’t haunt me” to give this relatively gentle track a sense of desperation, almost (I’ve seen it written as “don’t hurt me” in some places but…come on, listen to it, also it is Give up the Ghost after all).

Give up the Ghost is another very chill track that you can just lean into and relax by. Even as it gets more complex and layered as it goes, with another background vocal layer edited in the background steadily getting fuzzed and less comprehendible, the song doesn’t stop being what it is. That acoustic line doesn’t stop vibing, the tempo doesn’t pick up, it is more than content to stay right where it is. And it’s a comfortable stop.

The album’s final track is Separator, and it is frankly one that I always forget. Despite being the actual track closer (sorry again, Codex), it doesn’t have that impact that tracks like Street Spirit (Fade Out) or A Wolf at the Door do. Ironically, this might make it the most fitting closer for The King of Limbs, considering the largely relaxed, ambient nature of the album.

There isn’t honestly that much to divulge about Separator that you wouldn’t have guessed from the album that precedes it. It’s got looping tracks, layered vocals, and this one really satisfying electronic note that hits every couple seconds that I quite like. About halfway through, a patently lovely guitar line comes in, one of the few I can definitively think of that are relatively downtempo but that I could still describe as “bright”. With all the stuff going on at once, the song does end up a bit of a mess at times, as these different elements that have been present in different pieces of the song blend together for a bit of an echoey jumble, but it does resolve itself before long. After that, the song and album’s final minute or so is surprisingly simple, with the track effectively picking the handful of lines it wants to hang on to, one of the vocal tracks and one of the ambient effects and one of the percussion lines, and lets them run their course, the album ending on an echo of the track that once was.

That completes The King of Limbs, an album named after a tree in England, by the way. It always bugs me when I see this one near the bottom of people’s tier lists, because it really just doesn’t miss. It’s the product of a band that’s been working and experimenting for two decades, and it really shows the fruits of that labour. It’s quite the band that can put out something like Bloom immediately after an album with tracks like Bodysnatchers and Jigsaw Falling Into Place, and have both work.

The King of Limbs was the last album that came out before I got into Radiohead, so naturally, I basically didn’t listen to it for several years. I kinda went piece by piece into their discography, and I hadn’t had it as heavily recommended to me as others. But it easily stands just as tall as those other albums, even if it’s technically a little shorter.

For the record, I haven’t decided if I’m going to cover TKOL RMX 1234567 yet. It is listed next to all the rest of them on any collection of their albums, and it’s a perfectly respectable piece of Radiohead canon, and I did want to cover all the non-main-album stuff at some point. On the other hand, it is just a remix album, I’ve kinda been going through the main stuff chronologically, and also I’ve never listened to it.

So basically, we’ll see! And you’ll see, next week, whether we go straight to A Moon Shaped Pool or deviate a bit for some capitalised numerical action.

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 1992

This list was incredibly difficult to make and some cuts were made. Using both the US and the French year-end charts also made this list way more interesting than I anticipated.

Also, you will hate me for all eternity. For various reasons, actually.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

Honorable mentions to Back to the Hotel by N2Deep, Le Chat by Pow Wow, and November Rain by Guns N Roses. That last one is objectively great but was never my thing, for some reason.

The only reason Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t on this list is because it’s a re-release and I decided it wouldn’t count because the list was already VERY difficult to make without even including it.

If the year had been as wretched as 1990 was, I would probably have counted it, though.

10 - Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

US: #8 / FR: Not on the list

I respect this song more than I enjoy it, and I’ve never been a fan of this band (I know. I know. Keep your rocks to throw them at me later. I swear it’s gonna be worth it), but listen. I have to acknowledge quality when I hear it

9 - Jump Around (House of Pain)

US: #24 / FR: Not on the list

I don’t have anything particularly interesting to say about that one, it’s energetic, it’s fun, it kicks some serious ass. That looped high pitched noise might have been annoying for a lot of people but I thought it was fine.

8 - Baby Got Back (Sir Mix A Lot)

US: #2 / FR: Not on the list

Actual critics have already written long thinkpieces about this song and why it’s so important in the cultural landscape but frankly, I just like it because it’s a lot of fun and because that beat is fantastic.

Yes. I’m putting the ass anthem higher than the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

No, I insist, don’t throw your rocks yet, save them for later.

7 - Beyond My Control (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #59

Just imagine what these lists would look like if I was STILL a fan of this singer. That is a terrifying thought.

Anyway. That’s the paroxysm of her goth phase, featuring murder, wolves and possible witchcraft, and yet another not safe for work music video, and she had nowhere else to go in that direction. And she mostly crashed and burnt.

She’ll be back later, unfortunately for all of you and for my poor brain trying and failing to ignore her songs like the multiple calls of a vengeful ex.

6 - Paradoxal Système (Laurent Voulzy)

US: Not on the list / FR: #94

We’ve already reached the songs I genuinely love. In a more mediocre year, this could have easily taken the top spot and it’s only #6 here.

This song’s melody has a weird contrasted watercolor-like gradient as a background and its colors are very, very strange and it would be enough to land it here but the lyrics are also pretty nice, something about a long distance relationship that works better from far away than in person, and the more apart these two are, the more in love they are, which sounds like a receipe for disaster and makes it way more interesting than your standard Voulzy love song. Listened to it quite a lot when I was around 15.

5 - The Show Must Go On (Queen)

US: Not on the list, I REPEAT, NOT ON THE LIST / FR: #10

You can thank the French charts because otherwise this wouldn’t be on this top 10 at all. I actually couldn’t believe it wasn’t on the US year-end chart. Like? Really?? You found a hundred songs better than this one in a single year? How???

I have nothing to say about it. You all know it, you all love it, let’s move on.

4 - Sweet Lullaby (Deep Forest)

US: Not on the list / FR: #92

Aaaaand we’ve now officially entered the “played that song on a loop for hours” category. The album too, actually.

It’s the perfect balance between calm enough to listen to while working and energetic enough to enjoy it while walking. Also I’ll let Wikipedia say the most interesting thing about it:

The song is based around a traditional Baegu lullaby from the Solomon Islands called “Rorogwela”, and uses a vocal sample originally recorded by ethnomusicologist Hugo Zemp in 1970 and later released by UNESCO as part of their Musical Sources collection. The lyrics refer to a young orphan being comforted by his older brother despite the loss of their parents.

Loved it way before I even knew that, but still. Good.

3 - Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

US: #32 / FR: #6

You knew this was coming. Remember how enormous the impact of that song was? I mean, look at its placement on the US year-end chart. Wow.

Ok. Now look at its placement on the French year-end chart.

Yepppp.

Why isn’t it higher on MY list, you ask? Overplay from the radio and overexposure from years of being an edgy angsty kid, mostly, but also the fact it’s a mostly meaningless roar of anger. A very powerful and cathartic roar of anger, mind you, but still. Also my ex significant other/best friend (insert here the “It’s Complicated” fb relationship status) when I was 16 absolutely adored Nirvana and there’s some bagage attached to this song for me.

Even taking all that into account, the fact I’m putting two songs above Smells Like Teen Spirit should be enough to permanently revoke my punk card.

Especially when you’ll see what these songs are. Be prepared.

You aren’t.

2 - Rhythm is a Dancer (Snap)

US:  #75 / FR: #2

SEE. I told you my favorite Snap song was yet to come. You can throw the rocks now. I’m ready.

The funniest thing about this is that I don’t have anything to say about this song. Yes the rap bridge is terrible. But this is extremely good 90s dance music and I’m a sucker for that, as the next lists will probably demonstrate.

Now that you’re out of rocks to throw at my face, we can proceed.

Because.

Uh.

Here goes nothing.

1 - Friday I’m in Love (The Cure)

US: #71 / FR: Not on the list

A Real Critic(tm) would tell you that this is the worst Cure single ever and that it is a complete sell-out and that it is cutesy and stupid and OH MY GOD YOU’VE PUT THIS ABOVE NIRVANA WHAT THE F█CK

But you know what makes a cute and silly happy song better? When it’s sung by a band who’s mostly making vaguely angsty, mostly slow music and who’s members look like they slept in a bin and put on their make up at the bus stop. It sounds happier than ever (the music video doesn’t hurt either, it always makes me smile). We need more music like this and I will never get tired of this song. This is the sound of being in the gutter and wanting to die and suddenly seeing a really dumb and cute thing that makes you forget you're sad for about three minutes, and for a moment everything is ok again. Like, look, a bird! OH. A CAT. That song I like is on the radio. Someone gave me a free cookie. Holy shit it's FRIDAY

So... YES. I’m putting the silliest, happiest, cutest Cure hit ever above Nirvana. I know. It’s absolutely outrageous.

Fight me. In. The Pit.

Be careful though, I have a tambourine and I won’t hesitate to use it.

Next up: Another top ten where some painful cuts had to be made to make room for songs nobody is gonna defend in the year of our lord 2019 except the OP

[soundsof71]

Hal Blaine: “May he rest forever on 2 and 4.”

That quote is from his family’s Facebook posting, announcing Hal Blaine’s passing at age 90.

He played on 40 #1 singles, 150 top 10s, some 6000+ tracks in all. (You’ll see stats that say north of 30,000 but don’t believe the hype. All these guys were union and kept their timecards. When Hal says more than 6000, he knew what he was talking about.)

Hal was the drummer on six straight Grammy Record of the Year winners, 1966 through 1971: 

“A Taste of Honey”, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

“Strangers In The Night”, Frank Sinatra

“Up, Up, and Away”,  The Fifth Dimension

“Mrs. Robinson”, Simon & Garfunkel

“Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In”, The Fifth Dimension

“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, Simon & Garfunkel

Plus if it was a studio recording by The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Sonny & Cher, Carpenters, The Association, The Fifth Dimension, or The Partridge Family, the odds are that it was probably Hal. 

You don’t need me to cue up Hal’s biggest hits like the ones listed above, or “Be My Baby”, “Good Vibrations” (Hal seen below working on it with Brian Wilson)...

...so I’m going to take you to the first song that made me say, “WHO’S PLAYING  THOSE DRUMS?!?!” The song was a deceptively complicated pop trifle called “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe, and it spent four weeks at #1, starting on March 15, 1969 (50 years ago almost to the day as I write this). 

I say deceptively complicated because even though it’s basically two verses and the chorus three times (it actually starts with the chorus, which I’m a sucker for.) There’s not even a bridge, but it manages to go through 11 key changes in less than three minutes! And while there are other instruments, I always heard it as a duet between the drums and the strings. 

You already know it was Hal Blaine on strings, and the string arranger was another member of the extended family known at the time as The Usuals, Jimmie Haskell. I was delighted to find this, as both Hal and Jimmie were well known to me from so many other albums in the family collection by then. (I was reading album credits before I was reading books.) 

This really is an astonishing track. Bubblegum pop on one level, exceptionally baroque on another, and a drums-strings pas de deux the likes of which we’ve yet to hear again. I used to listen to this on repeat for hours, singing at the top of my lungs -- including the drum breaks and strings stings (c’mon, you know you sing instrumental parts too!) spinning around and around the room until I was DIZZY. 

Check Hal’s snare kicking it off like a gunshot.

I have a couple of other gems of Hal’s that are a little off the beaten path.

I hope that y’all are enough in the know by now to not be pissing on The Partridge Family, who was making absolutely first-rate pop composed by some of the best writers of the day, with pros like Hal Blaine laying down the tracks. 

(Plus, c’mon, David Cassidy would have been a singing star without the show,  and Shirley Jones WAS a star, an Oscar-winner no less, with one of the great voices that humankind has ever been blessed with.)

“I Can Hear Your Heartbeat” uses Hal’s right foot on the bass pedal as the titular heartbeat, until the whole kit comes swinging in after the first verse. One of the keys to appreciating Hal (or any drummer, really) is to listen to when he starts and stops, and the gaps in between what his hands are doing. This one is a real gem. 

(And yes, there’s performance footage of the Partridges of course, but none of the clips SOUND good enough to hear all that Hal is up to.)

Now having sung Hal’s praises, I’ll note again that it’s possible to overstate the case (which Hal encouraged, and participated in more than once). There were plenty of other drummers on the Hollywood studio scene, including Earl Palmer (very likely on more records than Hal in fact), plus a number of times that Hal was one of a couple of drummers on a single track.

This was a Phil Spector trick. Multiple drums, multiple bassists (often one electric and one acoustic), and an army of guitars all playing at once were the key to the Wall of Sound, NOT multitracking. Sure, Phil used that too now and again, but rarely to add depth. More often for polishing, because there’s no substitute for the vibrations in the air when all those players are playing simultaneously. THAT’s the Wall of Sound, and Hal and his friends are the exact musicians Phil used.

Mike Nesmith used this "Wall of Sound” trick to fine effect when he produced one of the best tracks he wrote for The Monkees, “Mary Mary”, so sharp that it appeared in FIVE episodes, yet still manages to be too little known.

“Mary Mary” features FIVE guitarists (Glen Cambell and James Burton both on lead, with Peter Tork among the rhythm players), two bassists (Larry Knechtel and Bob West), and two drummers (Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon, whose name may also be familiar to you from Derek & The Dominoes, George Harrison, Delaney & Bonnnie,  et al.), with notable percussive support from Cary Coleman.

This is definitely Hal kicking it off, though, with a snare lick so sweet that Mike looped it three times and added it to the front of the track, making it that much easier to sample, and sampled it was, including on a nifty COVER of this track by Run-D.M.C. (even though they changed Mike’s lyric on the verses, Mike is the only writer credited) that also used Mickey’s vocal singing the words “Mary Mary”.

I should mention that The Monkees’ version of “Mary Mary” was never released as a single in the US, but WAS included as a cardboard cutout single on the back of Honey Combs cereal!!!! Yes, I had it, though, like a fool, I failed to keep  up with it.

Anyway, this is GROOVE, kids.

Last but not least, Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (1968) was so far ahead of its time that it STILL sounds like it’s from the future. Originally recorded early in the year, it was re-recorded for the famed Elvis ‘68 TV special, but scrapped at the last minute. (Hal did in fact appear in the special!) The second version of "A Little Less Conversation” was used to outstanding effect in the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven, and a subsequent remix by Junkie XL charted even higher than Elvis’s original, going to #1 in 14 countries including the UK.

And all of ‘em featured Hal’s drums, absolutely swinging.

You’ve surely seen Hal’s name by now in the context of “The Wrecking Crew”, a name that he invented well after the era had finished to describe this loose group of LA studio aces. It was not only NOT used at the time, but explicitly and angrily rejected by many of the folks tagged with that label later (Leon Russell was so furious at the name that he insisted that the chapter of the movie devoted to him be removed, and he’s far from alone in his outrage)...but hey, as long as you keep that in mind, you can still enjoy the documentary of the same name for what it is: a long conversation between some of the folks who made some remarkable music.

You probably know the song “A Little Less Conversation” well enough (although you should check it out if you don’t), but in this little clip from the aforementioned Wrecking Crew movie, you can see 2008 Hal playing along with 1968 Hal for 30 seconds or so.

Watch his right hand in particular. It’s practically floating on air. He’s holding the drumstick so lightly that I bet you could have snuck up behind him and snatched it right out of his hand. Not that 70s rock drummers like Bonzo couldn’t swing plenty, but the death grip on drumsticks as heavy as telephone poles characteristic of later drumming is barely even the same thing as what Hal was doing.

I’m not saying one is better than the other -- I hope you know by now that I love light 60s pop every bit as much as heavy 70s rock -- but this clip tells you everything you need to know about why drummers in particular revere Hal as one of the greats...even if he pissed them off sometimes, too. 

Additional notes: the photo, the quote and some of the stats at the top are courtesy redef,  the picture of Hal with Brian Wilson is via forums.stevehoffman.tv, and the single of “Mary Mary” is via 45cat. The rest is from yewchewb, and me obsessively reading the back of albums since 1963.

Here’s a great list of highlights from Hal’s credits. You’re going to be flabbergasted by them. If you have any kind of record collection that dips into the 60s at all, you may have dozens of them.

And while most of Hal’s key work was in the 60s, he did in fact have a terrific 1971, with appearances on two albums each by The Partridge Family (including one of my favorite singles of theirs, “Echo Valley 2-6809��) and Barbra Streisand (Stoney End is one of my favorites by anyone that year), Carpenters (featuring “Rainy Days and Mondays”), and a good-sized handful more.

[asktheghosthost]

😀 (it's happy time)

Night had fallen over the Magic Kingdom some hours ago, and the last of the guests were gone, but Beau was still cautious as he made his way from Liberty Square to Fantasyland. Cast Members could still be taking care of last minute tasks. Tonight, he couldn’t simply go invisible not with the small satchel he had slung over his thin shoulder. So he continued his quick, darting, sometimes floating trek, past Rapunzel’s tower and “it’s a small world,” beyond Prince Charming’s Carousel, and into what had been dubbed New Fantasyland, (although he wasn’t sure if anyone called it that anymore). 

The Beast’s castle loomed up in the distance as the fountain in front of Gaston’s Tavern burbled playfully close by. Past those, around the hill of the Seven Dwarfs’ Mine Train, and he was at his destination: Prince Eric’s seaside castle. 

He slowly made his way through the beginning part of the queue, peering over the rock formations into the water below every few steps. “Princess,” he called out in a soft, sing-song tone. “I’ve got whozits and whatzits!”

Where was she? He continued scanning the water. It was always right here–

A splash, and cold water went through the back of his transparent head and out the front of his face. 

With a laugh, he turned around to see Ariel on the other side of the bridge. She held to the pathway, keeping her upper half above water. Her bright red hair clung to her neck and the top of shoulders, then spilled out into the water, making her look like the victim of a vampiric dolphin.

He dropped down to sit on the edge. Then he pulled off his spats, shoes, and socks, and then rolled his trousers up to his knees and plunked his feet down into the bay. The magic that flowed all through this strange kingdom made it deeper at night. Normally, it’d only be a shallow stream winding under the queue. 

“How is my favorite mermaid princess?” He slid the satchel off his shoulder and undid its clasps.

“Beauregard!” she chided with a giggle. “I’m the only mermaid princess you know.” Putting her cheek against her knuckles, she tried to give him a glare, but it didn’t last more than a second. “Unless there is another one you’re sharing human things with. I might be a little hurt by that.” Her curiosity overpowered any urge to tease, though, and her big, blue eyes darted over to see what he brought. 

Resisting the urge to prolong her waiting, he dug into the bag and pulled out an ornate hair clasp. The top was decorated with a big, cloth flower. Its pink petals started with black freckles near the center, and darkened into royal purple at the outer edges. It even had a yellow, upright pistil. 

“Be careful,” he warned. “The metal clasp can rust. I recommend you only wear it on land.” He handed it down to her, and she gently grasped it like it was an actual flower. 

“Oh, Beauregard, it’s beautiful! Thank you!” Ariel’s appreciation was always so sincere and genuine that the old ghost couldn’t help smiling. 

She set the accessory on top of his bag to keep it safe. “I almost forgot.” After a quick dive, she popped back up with her own treasure pouch in hand. Whatever its contents were, it was bulging.  “I thought you’d appreciate this…” 

What she pulled out looked like a belt, but also had another strap that went diagonal from one side to another. It had multiple pouches and clasps. Not until Beau held it did he realize it was made from reeds and bits of rope. Pearls and shells of various colors, in swirling, ornate patterns, decorated it. 

“It’s a royal guard merman weapons belt,” she explained. “They would put spears through the loops here…” She pointed as she went on. “Knife pouch here… Uh, little supplies here…”

Beau held it up, marveling at the craftsmanship. When the bits of shell caught the light from an overhanging lamp, the effect was a dazzling prism. An actual mermaid tool… The scent of salt water and seaweed clung to it. 

“Ariel, this… this is incredible, simply stunning!” Clutching it, he gave her a worried grimace. “Are you absolutely sure it’s all right to give it to me? I would be devastated if King Triton were to be upset with you for sharing this.”

She nodded away his concern. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Beau. You know what daddy used to say? ‘The only good human is a dead human.’ And you’re the deadest human I know!” She laughed, and he joined in.

“Well, thank you. I’m going to put my hatchet in it right away.” He set the belt aside and once more reached for his bag. “Dorian also has some new flute reeds for Eric…” 

Thus the conversation continued, the two odd friends continuing on for another hour under the dim lamplight. 

[ryanmeft]

MCU Final Battles from Worst to Best, Part Two

I hear there’s a movie coming out tomorrow that people are looking forward to. Infinity War promises to be the biggest fight in the MCU to date, but what about the other ones? Here’s part two of my list ranking every final battle in the MCU to date. The link to Part One is below.

Part One: http://ryanmeft.tumblr.com/post/173198399342/mcu-final-battles-from-worst-to-best-part-one

WARNING: THIS LIST THOROUGHLY SPOILS THE END OF EVERY MCU MOVIE. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

10. Spider-Man: Homecoming

What Happens

Spidey and Vulture battle in the skies and on a beach over a stolen crate of Stark weaponry.

Why it’s not half bad

The battle itself is nothing special, and forgoes some opportunities to take greater advantage of Spider-Man’s powers and Vulture’s flight. The best parts involve the interactions between the two, stemming from the fact that, whereas usually the hero doesn’t want to hurt the villain, this time the villain doesn’t really want to hurt the hero, either. The big finish, with Spidey dragging Vulture from the mess he himself caused, is golden, but overall it felt like the battle itself could have been more.

9. Ant-Man

What Happens

Ant-Man and Yellowjacket battle mostly at microscopic size in AM’s daughter’s playroom, using her toys as weapons.

Why It’s Not Half Bad

The creative use of toys like Cassie’s train set pushes this one up on the list. It’s genuinely funny and creative to see the way a child’s toy world is transformed into a battleground, and highlights the fact that the movie’s greatest strength was the interplay of bite-sized powers with the real world. The stakes are lighter than in any other MCU movie, which takes some of the urgency out of it, but this is wisely made up for by the use of humor in a way that recalls older, more physical silent films.

8. Black Panther

What Happens

Amid a wider battle for Wakanda, T’Challa and Killmonger both don identical Black Panther suits and face off with each other, and a train.

Why It’s Not Half Bad

Because the big battle between competing Wakandan factions is really, really cool, to the point where even a few ridiculous rhinos can’t dampen it. You can really feel the stakes in this one, since it amount to BP’s own little civil war. Sure, it was a little bizarre that they tried to make big drama out of Killmonger offing a random, nameless extra, but whatevs.

Sadly, in a movie so full of neat new ideas, the writers fall back on the most tired trope in superhero movies: two similarly-equipped combatants in a mirror match while the environment occasionally gets in the way. They already did this in Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-Man, and The Incredible Hulk, and several other non-MCU films have used the concept, so it feels like something that was pulled out of Script 101 and stuck in the middle of a better fight. Killmonger’s emotional death, however, adds enough feels to boost it.

7. Thor

What Happens

Loki tries to destroy Ice Person Land to prove he’s a better son, and Thor, who has learned compassion in, like, three days because of a pretty woman, goes a few rounds with him over this.

Why it’s Not Half Bad

The internal logic of this one is really spotty---why does Loki think destroying the world Odin stopped Thor from destroying will make him daddy’s favorite? All we care about is the actual fight, though, and it has a lot of cool touches. Thor’s brute force is pitted nicely against Loki’s cunning and bag of tricks, and Thor ends their one-on-one duel by taking a page from Loki’s book and using a trick instead of a punch; the hammer-on-the-chest thing was clever. While the “consequences” of Thor destroying the Rainbow Bridge to stop Loki’s plan were wiped away with a couple lines of dialogue in subsequent films, that’s irrelevant on this list, and in the moment, it was a surprisingly ballsy move.

6. Iron Man 3

What Happens

Iron Man uses all his resources, including multiple Iron Man armors, to to combat a baddie against which no one suit would have been enough. Then Super Gwyneth Paltrow almost ruins it.

Why it’s Not Half Bad

Yes, Super Gwyneth Paltrow was bad. Real bad. There was no reason to drag out the final battle to get that in there, especially since Tony’s initial solution of wrapping Guy Pearce in armor and making the armor go boom was basically his Mortal Kombat fatality, and it was AWESOME. But the rest of the battle still has that creative thrill that the other Iron Man finales, and most superhero flicks, are missing. Tony running between platforms and jumping between armors runs the danger of making things seem too much like a video game, but the movie pulls it off and gives us a great note to go out on for what is likely the last Iron Man finale we’ll see (at least until the 2030 reboot of the universe).

5. Thor: Ragnarok

What Happens

Thor, Loki, Valkyrie, Hulk and Karl Urban throw themselves against the forces of Hela, before ultimately deciding they must unleash a demon and destroy Asgard to defeat her.

Why It’s Awesome

The stakes for this one are higher than almost any other Marvel movie, and while some viewers might have been disappointed by the highly humorous tone of the film, the final fight is all business. The ultimate result---Thor and Loki have to destroy their entire world to prevent Hela gaining control over all the universe---is easily the biggest sacrifice a Marvel hero has made, and the battle has the secondary effect of justifying why Thor keeps Loki around. The battle itself is a little less impressive than the big finale. Basically, it’s another instance of the heroes throwing themselves at a clone army led by a nigh-invincible super baddie. Hulk vs. Fenris was cool, though.

4. Marvel’s The Avengers

What Happens

Loki opens a portal to the far reaches of space, allowing an alien army through to attack New York, and the newly formed Avengers, ahem, assemble to stop him and them.

Why It’s Awesome

For better or worse, this one set the tone for most of the non-solo MCU films that followed. It became predictable and, as a result, boring after a few years, but it still felt relatively fresh here. Everything about it, from the banter between the team members to the endless wealth of creative moves pulled---Hawkeye’s exploding arrow was a particular highlight---worked nearly effortlessly. And, of course, there was arguably the greatest single moment in any MCU fight to date. There’ve been few wonderfully hilarious surprises as great as “Puny God” in any superhero film, period. Like all such big fights (see the Lord of the Rings trilogy for more examples) it doesn’t quite have the same impact when you’ve seen it a few times, but it holds up better than a lot of others on repeat viewings.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy

What Happens

A gigantic fleet mostly fails to stop Monotone Space General from using an Infinity Stone to wipe out his race’s rival planet, so the Guardians land and stop him using the power of friendship and sick 80’s dance moves.

Why It’s Awesome

You might be asking why this one is so high on the list. The space battle is effective but not revolutionary, and for a moment it looks like we’ll get a typical Marvel ending to a fairly atypical Marvel movie. Then it busts out what I’m fairly sure has never happened in another movie: an intergalactic, genocidal warlord gets defeated by the power of friendship and a dance-off. That a cosmic baddie who is supposed to be nigh-unstoppable gets taken down by the song “O-o-h Child” is not only a riotously funny surprise, but for a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, the remaining Guardians joining together to use the power of the, well, Power Stone is shockingly effective. In terms of group-of-heroes vs. army-of-bad-guys style showdowns, this one is hard to top.

2. Doctor Strange

What Happens

Doctor Strange and company battle Kaecelius’s zealots, before Strange ends Dormammu’s threat to earth by trapping him in a time loop.

Why It’s Awesome

Because it’s not only clever and unexpected, but it fully utilizes the trippy, LSD-ish visual style and insane plotting that typified Steve Ditko’s famous 60’s original run. Even if you don’t care about that, though, there’s little question that trapping Dormammu in a time loop that Strange will only break if he leaves is not your typical showdown. Strange dying over and over again, having volunteered himself to suffer forever in order to protect humanity, has the air of ancient mythology about it, and is just damn effective, to boot. The movie itself had a mixed reception from fans, and you don’t hear much talk about it now, but it had a lot of interesting plot beats, and this was the best.

1. Captain America: Civil War

What Happens

Zemo leads the heroes to believe he’s going to unleash an army of Winter Soldiers on the world, but when they go to stop him, they find his plan is actually to turn them against themselves.

Why It’s The Best

This one has it all. First, since this basically an Avengers film in many ways, we’re led to expect the typical Avengers ending, with the heroes squaring off against an army of personality-free super-baddies. I actually audibly groaned when the plot revealed the existence of a Winter Soldier program. “Here we go again”, I thought. I can’t overstate my satisfaction when it turned out to be deliberate feint on both the part of the filmmakers and the bad guy.

Of course, a final showdown was necessary---this is still a popcorn movie, even if it is one of the best. More than any other MCU film, though, this one needed to feel personal, and boy did it ever. On every level, from direction to writing to acting, Iron Man squaring off with Captain America one-on-one for the right to kill Cap’s best friend for assassinating Tony’s parents was perfectly executed. All the little details, from Downey’s face when the truth is revealed to the undramatic way Cap drops his shield and Stark’s despair over the whole thing, are as pitch perfect as movies like this get. This was the last movie with most of the traditional team before Infinity War promises to shuffle the deck, and if its the de facto end of an era, it could hardly have ended on a more gripping note. These movies may not be Citizen Kane, but this came as close to greatness as they get.

[onlyjihoons]

figureskater!jihoon

a/n: based off this picture!

you and jihoon had this unspoken rivalry that till this day, no one knows why

except your coach and jihoon

essentially, you and jihoon trained under the same coach when the two of you were younger

one day your coach praised you for nailing a camel spin and jihoon was jealous

not because he didnt have the ability to do so, but your coach rarely compliments the both of you

so from then on he started to lowkey hate you bc you were the "first" skater to break the "no compliment" facąde of your coach

and then it just got worse when the both of you started to enter competitions

the both of you do top your catergories and your coach praised the both of you nonetheless

but jihoon cant seem to let the hatred go,, despite being older than you

your coach found it funny how jihoon couldnt let his childhood jealousy go after so many years of training together

like,,, youve matured in your looks but not your jealousy??

you on the other hand had no idea why jihoon hated you sm

so you just hated him back LOL

during training, the both of you would be uber competetive

oh jihoon did a double axel? you would do a triple axel and double toe combination

oh you did a biellman spin?? jihoon would do a biellman spin and then an I spin right after

thank you wikipedia and yuzuru hanyu

its just hella competetive between the both of you its just so funny

your fellow best friend, also figure skater!daehwi would lowkey be worried for you

bc all those spins and jumps?? like wont you fall or smth

you just huffed, "yah, lee daehwi, are you underestimating me rn??"

"no, im just afraid that you will get hurt:(("

on the other hand, fellow figure skater!guanlin tries to salvage a friendship

"but hyung, she did nothing wrong to--"

"shut up guanlin you know no shit"

you do have friends you meet outside of korea during competitions

like,, wakaba higuchi(yall i love her ksndksksm)

and they always tease you about jihoon

but you always shake your head and threaten to loosen the laces in their skates if they uttered the word "Jihoon" one more time

during competition season it was always common for fellow skaters to evaluate between themselves

and this time, ice prince baejin was your mentor

(also do check out iris' figure skater!baejin)

he was like the yuzuru hanyu of your team

there was this certain element in your routine which was pretty difficult to nail

which is a triple axel and a triple loop

you asked your coach to cut it down to a double loop instead but he told you he had faith in you so you felt bad and just tried to nail it from scratch

and of course, baejin was worried but neither was he in any position to change your routine

so he had to help you and guide you through

he was patient in every step and made sure your landing does not compromise on your ankle

meanwhile, as jihoon watched the both of you interact he cant help but to feel a certain feeling bubbling at the put of his stomach

was it jealousy? was it anger?

he could only watch afar when baejin pulled you up from your fall as the both of you exchanged giggles

so jihoon just skated around the rink, trying to show off a few jumps and spins as perfect as possible

baejin saw it, and smirked, "why dont your coach get Jihoon-hyung to help you? hes the best at jumps though,"

you could only smile sheepishly, "we arent really close enough to do that"

"ah..." it all clicked in baejin's head already, "not close enough--ow!"

"youre supposed to coach me, not play cupid."

on the competition day, as you practiced the dreaded combination on flat ground, you did exactly as what baejin told you to do and your coach was proud

until... you went on ice

you were not the type to make any mistakes on ice, but the combination failed you as you landed quite roughly and fell

you heard multiple gasps from the audience and could already visualise yourself getting cut out of the team

nonetheless, you continued on and finished the routine nicely

as you exited the rink, tears were already forming when your coach tried to comfort you, and you quickly shrugged on your jacket

in the end, you were placed as a runner up, which wasnt bad but not up to your expectations

when you walked back to the locker room, you walked past jihoon and his friends who were seemingly laughing about something

"yah, did you see her fall? it was tragic" you heard one of his friends snicker

"i know right, shes gonna get cut off."

you glared at jihoon, whilst he was still smiling at their joke

and that made you hate jihoon even more

having the audacity to hate you for no reason and now laughing at your fall? he was being such a blatant bitch about it and wasnt even sorry

you stormed off, exiting the gymnasium to get some fresh air

then settling on a park bench and sighing into your slouch

your brain took over the rest of your feelings as your tears stained your face again, makeup long erased from your previous tears

just then, you felt a presence beside you and looked up, it was jihoon, carrying a plastic bag

your rolled your eyes as you got ready to stand up, an arm pulling you back into your seat

"what? are you gonna laugh at me more for my fall? mr perfect jumps?" you sniffed

"you idiot," jihoon shook his head as he took out a bandage and some dettol,"you dont even notice that youre bleeding"

you looked at your left shin, and heck, it was, blood cascading down your legs and staining your white nikes

"give me your leg," jihoon patted his tigh as he shrugged off his jacket and placed it on your tighs

you obediently complied, as jihoon gently dressed your wound and occasionally asking you if the dettol was stinging

you were genuinely touched that jihoon would actually care for you though, since he has been hating you for so long

after he bandaged your wound, he cleared his throat awkwardly,

"if you want me to i can beat up those bastards for you, they got a scolding from me already--"

you were surprised that jihoon actually wasnt laughing with them, as you giggled

"its fine, they wont even be able to make it to the team anyways"

jihoon raised his eyebrows, as he cleared his throat again, "do you want to watch my routine later? coach choi said that it was my personal best"

you scoffed as you rolled your eyes, he was using your coach to make you jealous

"yeah sure, i'll see if coach choi's right"

"then i'll--"

just then, jihoon's phone rang, and he pulled his phone away from his ear as soon as he picked it up

"i'm sorry, i gotta go now"

before you could return jihoon his jacket, he disappeared into the gymnasium already

you begrudgingly sat beside your coach as you watch jihoon prepare himself on ice

no doubt, he looked hella good in his costume, a white button up and black pants

what made you more surprised was the song he was skating to

it was Spring Day by BTS

you remember yourself always playing Spring Day in the background when you warmed up in the rink during practice

it was your favourite song

when the song was reaching its climax, jihoon did a series of triple axels and quads, which was honestly really pretty and he landed perfectly

during the chorus he actually danced on the ice?? like wOaH

you were throughly impressed honestly, it takes alot of effort and skill to be able to dance on ice

with stray parts of his blonde hair flying wind, he looked ethereal

you getting snatched was an understatement

during the bridge, he did a quad lutz which was, really mind blowing

in the end, jihoon did clinch that champion title

you swore if he didnt get that you would physically fight the judges

you thought jihoon would saunter to you just to show off that he was the champion,, but no

he gave you the flowers he was gifted with one of his knees on the floor

“y/n... i know we have been hating on each other for the longest time, i really dont want to keep up with this honestly, will you be my girlfriend?”

before you could turn to your coach, he was already filming the whole ordeal on his mobile phone

you shyly nodded, as jihoon picked you up and spun you around aaa

the next thing you saw trending on the internet was you and jihoon’s relationship LOL

dating jihoon didn’t make the competetiveness go away tbh

except that jihoon would actually stop when he thinks its too dangerous for you to attempt

warm up is no longer you warming up alone

jihoon warms up with you with cheeky rounds of tag on ice

you have never fell on ice thanks to jihoon

because that boy would blast to your side just to catch you

“i told you to be careful babe, im not always here to catch you when you fall”

the type who will actually send a video of himself doing aegyo before you go in for competitions just to make you laugh and relax

its not that you hate it, you just find it funny

he is now your unofficial coach as well, aiding in your jumps and spins

“i love figure skating, and thanks to it i met the girl i love.”

[dannsmith95]

Week 10 -  Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Description

Writing and recording my song has been a massive learning curve, I usually get a chord progression or riff I like and record it into my phone. If I get lyrics to it at the time I write down as much as comes out at the time then tend to leave it there, no thought of the context of the song or the audience etc. This time I came up with a riff during guitar practice which I noted on my first diary entry and I really liked the riff so I decided as I knew I would be working towards submitting a complete song for the formative/summative I would develop it into a complete song with lyrics, using the courses resources to expand on my knowledge of my discipline to develop guitar parts for the song, to also consider the audience it could be aimed at based on the sound and feel of the song so I could then write a full set of lyrics to it and work the song out from start to finish. I wanted to get more technical, adding layers to the chorus guitar parts and developing a bridge part that had more of a rock guitar sound. I also wanted to use my amp for the majority of the recording (I was initially unsure as to if I would use the Slate plugins as I liked the solo sound I got in the formative version) I decided to look into more miking techniques and dual miking the amps cap with 2 different styles of mic (dynamic and condenser) to capture a nice full sounding gain tone which in the end I was happy with. I recorded the songs and aimed for around -6db as I had in my head that this was a good recording input level, I watched a lot of tutorials before going into the mixing process to give myself a good base knowledge as shown in my research pdf, starting with the static mix once everything is recorded setting the levels and panning then moving through the mix track by track assessing the sound and tone and noting down what I thought could be altered and adjusted such as EQ on the snare sound to adjust the tone with some added compression to add more punch, softening the drum overhead track to take the harshness away from them also with the vocals some compression to smoothen out the vocals in the chorus parts. I EQ’d the bass to add more mid-range and cut some of the low end so it was less muddy and cut through the mix a little more while still sitting in the lower end. Strategically working through each individual track’s sound adding and taking things away with purpose was my main focus.

Feelings

I was feeling anxious about the process as I knew I wanted to make a big improvement on this version of the song in comparison to the formative version and I knew I had to work completely in line with my action plan in order to get it done with enough time for me to review it before submission. I knew that I had to create a bridge/middle 8 which would change the songs dynamic and feel completely to keep from the song being to much of the same and surprise the listener. I knew I wanted it to have a more rock feel to add sit with the other pop style elements as I feel this is my style and knew this is what it was missing. Once I created the piece musically, I knew I had to write lyrics for it again something I was anxious about however I thought best to record the music side then see what came out lyric wise which worked well. I really enjoyed creating the sound with different mic techniques for the chorus and bridge parts and adding a slightly more gainy sound for those parts also, this gave the song added punch and bite that I also wanted, the subtle chorus on the verse guitar parts I thought worked a treat adding a slight sparkle to the sound. Going into the mixing process was the most daunting although I had watched a lot of tutorial videos as much as it had informed me it had intimidated me to firstly how much of an impact this stage has and how crucial it is but also how complex it seems to be watching somebody do it. However, I had so much fun working through the song track by track and tweaking the tones where I though it needed adding and taking away where necessary. I thought to myself “treat it like tweaking an amp or pedal to find the right sound” once I simplified it a little in my head concept-wise I just had to watch some tutorials as I went a long of how to use certain features of Pro Tools. I found myself lost in the process spending a lot of time looping up parts of the track trying to get it to where I wanted it and then mastering the track to bring the volume up without losing the musical sound. Once the song was done I was unsure about the video editing process, what programme to use, how to piece multiple bits of video together showing all my contributions and then to match this up with the audio. After it was all recorded, I tried to load the different pieces of footage into a free video editing software which did not go to well as the video were jittery and the audio was sipping so matching up the video to audio was basically impossible, so I decided to invest in adobe premiere pro via the creative cloud as students get a big discount on the monthly instalments. This created another problem, learning how to use a more complex video editing software, so began the rabbit whole of premiere pro tutorials however after a few I was away and began to play around with some animation for the starting title and end credits.

 Evaluation

I thought the process went well, I worked to my action plan creating checklists for recording and mixing making sure I was keeping tight to them to leave myself a good amount of time to review the track over before submission so I could take a day out and go back at it with fresh ears and show it to a few others for feedback. I was happy with myself that I managed to get the recording and middle 8 created with words done quicker than I had thought and planned for, so it gave me a few days extra time for mixing/mastering. I surprised myself honestly, I thought I would really struggle but I was having a lot of fun throughout the whole process that I was excited to get started from waking up everyday and not wanting to stop at night. The whole process of piecing the song together then getting the drums back and adding them in and hearing it come together as a full song as if I were creating it with a band was great and so inspiring so much so I have been working on a couple of other songs in preparation for next term. I have learnt so much in such a short space of time I can not wait to see what my next recordings sound like on the back of this one. I think the song sound great in comparison to my formative version not just because it has full band arrangements but tonally however, I will look to re-record the song as my main error was the initially input levels were too high and this does not sit well when compression is involved so that was a massive learning curve. I sent the link to my song/performance video to a couple of friends who are also musicians for feedback regarding the musical arrangements and sound, also my friend’s girlfriend as she is a big music fan and I was thinking about my target audience which should we would be a part of so I wanted some feedback from someone who the song would generally be aimed at and all was positive, my friends thought the riff was really catchy and had the John Mayer vide I got from it and also loved the middle 8 as it was a refreshing rocky element which again I wanted and was so happy that they noticed. Also, one of them said the vocals were a little Ed Sheeran like (I was not at all going for this, but I’ll take it). My friend’s girlfriend said it would be something she would listen to daily and will be doing as she cannot get it out of her head which you could not really ask for more, this is also something my brother and my dad have said, I hear them humming or whistling it sometimes around the house and it gives me a really good feeling. Lastly, I delved into video editing, something just as daunting as using premiere pro was not easy initially but after a few tutorials I pieced the video together with the audio and even delved into some simple animation for the title and credits sections. Once I had played around with the masking for the title animation as I did not want to use a template, I wanted to create my own and the rolling end credits I tried something different a section of the guitar solo. The video is in black and white for the most part as I had to record in different rooms of the house and wanted to clean up the background a bit without using green screen techniques, I felt the black and white was simple and gave it an old tv feel. However, for the section of the solo I wanted to add a bit of colour and movement at the part where I slide down the neck so I added movement to the screen and an offset colour effect which is almost like the blue/red colour effect you would get from a stuttering VHS tape.

Analysis

I think I overlooked the recording aspect in favour of the mixing side of things initially, I thought I had the recording part down and was confident in my mic placement and tones however I did not take into account the input level as I set the input gain to as high as it could be without it clipping which in hindsight after some further research it seems -18db to -12db seems to be a sweet spot for input level to keep the sweetness of the sound and will be something I will be experimenting with moving forward before my next recordings as I found once the mix/mastering had be done the compression seemed to bring out some harsh tones in the chorus guitar parts, snare and lead guitar part. I will also be trying to relax more when I’m playing not worrying to much about how many takes I have to do and just having fun playing so that feeling comes out in the recording (I was so conscious about getting the lead guitar part right note for note that I picked to hard while playing) this is something that I come to notice a lot once the mix had been compressed. I will also be looking to purchase a better pop shield and portable vocal isolation booth, I feel the ‘T’s’ stick out too much in the mix (I have done all I can to take the harshness out of them) the pop shield I have is not very good and is a little small. Also, I want to isolate the vocals to prevent reflections from nearby walls as I work in small spaces mostly and this can be a problem, this will hopefully give me the truest vocal sound to work with when recording. Lastly, I want to look into video editing more to create performance videos for my songs that look clean and good quality and the after some investment into camera equipment potentially music videos as to add to my capabilities for my work portfolio, for use with my band and for my own personal satisfaction. I loved seeing it come to life in video and I also want to begin content creating via YouTube and Instagram in the future.

Conclusion

Moving forward I would set the input levels lower than I did initially as you can also turn the levels up in the mix, this will help to keep the tone and musicality of the instrument sounds when they are compressed when mixing/mastering. I would also make sure I am going into the recording stage with all parts of the song wrote so I do not have the pressure of writing while recording for the most part as I will always make adjustments where I feel they are necessary if they feel right when recording. I will be investing in some better equipment for recording, RODE NT-1a mic with Rode’s pop shield as mine does not cut it and a vocal isolation booth to capture the true vocal sound. Most importantly I will be learning to relax more and not take notice of the amount of takes I am doing as I am still very new to the whole process and it takes as long as it takes until it sounds right, I want the fun of creating my own music to come across in my playing and to capture that in the recording so when it comes to mixing and the end product I am completely happy with my work and what I have created. I have learnt so much about recording and mixing that it has inspired me to record and write more, I just want to create, capture, and release my music as much as possible moving forward. This course so far has been everything I could have ever wanted and needed, it had opened my mind to the possibility of me being a recording artist in whatever capacity that may be and has given me a passion I will continue to develop throughout my lifetime. Also, it has helped me prove to myself I am able to do it and given me the confidence to do so moving forward something I will be forever grateful for. I can know set up my equipment and get a song recorded, mixed and mastered to a point I will be happy with and if not I will know where I need to change it to make it something I will be proud to release to the world and then move on to performing live which will be the next step in my career when I have around 5 songs I can send to people and perform as a short set in local venues.

Action Plan

I would definitely create an action plan, recording/mixing checklist, again. This was something that helped keep me on track and gave me a clear path to follow and also eased my anxieties surrounding my progress as I was always aware as to where I was at. I will be researching further on recording and mixing so I can continue to develop my skills to get better sounding mixes and hopefully get good enough to add this to my future work portfolio as a private recording engineer. I want to develop my video filming/editing skills again to add to my future work portfolio, but I also want to create content for YouTube and Instagram for my band and my own personal channels, I enjoyed piecing my video together and adding the effects/animation bringing it all to life was great and I would also like to potentially do this for other people. I need to improve generally on the whole process, but I feel now I have a great base knowledge of recording music, video and mixing which I can develop on and progress for the next assignments and I am looking forward to it. One thing I have been inspired to do is write more and finish more songs, I have loads of riffs and chord progressions with either no words or some words so I will be going through the arsenal so finish them, something I have already done with 2 songs. I am going to continue to push myself to my limits as I think it brings out the best in me and I have surprised myself in how much I have accomplished in just a few months.

[callmeblake]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21st 2017

Despite the stereotypical Scottish weather, fans of all ages settled in outside Edinburgh’s La Belle Angele last week in anticipation for the nights lineup. Frank Iero and the Patience return to the UK alongside Homeless Gospel Choir, Paceshifters and Dave Haus And The Mermaid in support of September’s Keep The Coffins Coming EP. I sat down with Frank before he took the stage on Wednesday to talk about the release, family life, and answer some of your questions.

M.E: You are right in the centre of your UK tour alongside The Homeless Gospel Choir and Paceshifters. How does it feel? Frank: It’s great, yeah. I mean, I feel like when you come out from the states on tour, there’s usually a threshold, right? I think that three and a half, four weeks is where you’re feeling strong, but when you hit the fifth week that’s when things start to, like, “Oh my God”.

M.E: You start to miss home and go a little crazy? 

Frank: Yeah, but I think the way to combat that is to surround yourself with people and bands that you like.

M.E: I noticed that with Homeless Gospel Choir, you guys are with them constantly! Frank: That’s the thing, you know? Having Derek around and having Dave and the mermaid around; I mean, we just met Paceshifters but they’re amazing, really really nice guys, so, I have to tell you that, that helps. When you have someone that’s just a jerk, it really brings the rest of the tour down, you know? So we’ve been really lucky, so knock on wood.

M.E: You released the new EP, Keep The Coffins Coming almost a month ago now; how are you feeling about the response from fans?

Frank: It’s been amazing. I mean, I didn’t expect that much attention around it because when we did the recording, I just did it for me, you know? And I didn’t know if it would ever see the light of day. I heard it was going to come out and it was like “Whoa, that’s amazing; people that really care are going to see the bridge between the two records,” and that’s awesome. It’s a session that I am in love with and I had a lot of fun doing, and looked forward to dong since I was, like, fuckin’ eleven, and then all of a sudden it came out and people were really enjoying it, and that makes you feel even better about it. M.E: So, fans are going crazy for the new stuff? Yeah! It’s fun, there were songs like “Best Friends Forever”. M.E: Ah, I remember when that music video came out, it’s real sweet. That’s the thing, right? We did that and people knew it, but the way we do it live is a little bit different and I think that it threw people through a loop a little bit to hear the live version because they were so familiar with the original. So, now to have the live version recorded and out there, too, kids really knew where certain segments happen and they’re bouncing off of that version of the song, so that’s awesome.

M.E: Do you have a favourite track from the EP? Frank: I guess best friends, I mean, that song holds a special place in my heart and the fact that my kids kind of approved it, too, they were like “Yeah, that’s pretty good”. M.E: What age are they now?! Well, the girls are seven, and Miles is five.

M.E: What were you listening to right now, and what were you listening to writing the record? Frank: Oh man, just right now, I was listening to new Weezer songs, which are phenomenal. The Paceshifters record just came out, I think that’s a fantastic record. The new Homeless Gospel Choir record is amazing. The new Culture Abuse single, I guess it’s old now, but I love that. The new Liam Gallagher, we like!

M.E: I feel like, despite being a frontman where a lot of people focus on your vocals, you manage to make every project you’ve been involved with so far (MCR, Death Spells, LeATHERMOUTH) sound so different. How does it feel to play with so many different genres in that way? Frank: Yeah, I think it’s because I just love making music so much and I enjoy so many different types of music that it kind of just makes sense to branch out and make things with different people and try different, new things. It keeps me interested and keeps me inspired, I like to have so many different projects because I feel like if I hit a wall with something else, like, a creative wall, I can go to something else that opens up my head and opens doors, you know?

M.E: How does having a family back home change the approach to touring and live performance, and all of those things? Frank: It’s harder, you definitely get more homesick, and you try to tour smarter as opposed to harder, but it’s one of those things where I think you have to have really understanding loved ones, that, you know? M.E:That appreciate what you’re doing? Yeah, and that get that you’re doing it for the best for everybody.

M.E What is the first thing you’re going to do when you get home? Frank: Spend time with my kids, the girls are in soccer right now so I want to try to get to a soccer game.

@kayleighewing_ asked: What made you decide to do full Scotland dates, like Aberdeen and Edinburgh, whereas most people will focus solely on Glasgow? It’s very much appreciated. Frank: I think because, after this UK run, we have a couple more shows for the rest of this year and then I’m going to take some time off. I think it was important for me to try to hit as many places as humanly possible, we’ve always had really great Scotland shows and it’s fun to go to new cities and play new venues that we’ve never played before.

How do you keep yourself busy/stop yourself from getting bored on tour? Well, usually you have a lot of things during the day, but also, there is a lot of “hurry up and wait” kind of stuff. We take a lot of walks and see as much of the city as we possibly can. You’re good here, then! There’s a lot of history in Edinburgh. Yeah, I think it’s really inspiring to get to walk around and look at things. I mean, where I come from everything is very new, so you feel the history in a city like this, and I think that kinds helps remind you, in my job, how much bigger the world is than just your view.

Gaby and @aya_lmao asked: How do you feel about so many people being dedicated enough to follow a tour and travel as far as they do to see you play? The queue outside is crazy tonight. Yeah? Man, it’s amazing. I feel very lucky to have that type of fan base and those type of people that care that much to want to come to multiple shows, and stay and come early and wait, and see all of the bands on the tour. That means a lot. You feel that support, you feel that love, and that makes you want to put on a good show every night for them. I know a lot of people have fanbases that aren’t that dedicated and I feel very blessed to have that, it’s amazing.

@penceyprick asked: What were your favourite pedals and amps to use on “Parachutes”? On “Parachutes”, I used a Fender Tone Master, head, mostly. I think some of the clean tones are through a VOX AC30, and the main distorted tone is a Keeley modded Blues Driver, and sometimes I’ll have a chorus and a reverb kind of going through that as well, so, you always have that little open weave. There’s a little bit of tremolo on there, I use the boss tremolo, the green one, and… I’m trying to think! There’s a little bit of memory man in there in some parts, but the main tone is the Fender Tone Master with the Keeley modded boss Blue Driver.

How do you manage to get through days when you experience creative blocks? Do you have any methods to overcome those moments? Honestly, I like to keep multiple projects going where I can jump back and forth and really explore other options and different musical stylings, that really helps. Sometimes you just have to know when to bust through the block and when kind of just leave it alone. Sometimes just living your life is a good way to get around that block.

@pussyliquorband asked: Any advice for new bands starting out? Just don’t be full of shit. Basically, do it because you have to do it, don’t do it because you expect anything in return.

@fordangeroushumans on Instagram asked: Have you ever considered recording a full album on analog tape? Do you feel as though there’s a difference between that and digital? I have found that a lot of musicians say that it makes music feel more human/real. Well, yeah! Keep The Coffins Coming was on tape. The drums on Parachutes is all tape and then, that was bounced down and recorded digitally over the top of that, so the guitars- Actually, a lot of that, I think, was recorded on tape and bounced down, so yeah, both of those records are to tape, but Steve’s studio is a full studio, so.

@coffeeandavocados on Instagram asked: If you were in a post-apocalyptic comic book world, what kind of character would you be? Survival/fighter/leader etc? … Dead, I’d be a dead character.

[zak-bucks01-blog]

Experimental Music Composition - Church Walk Student ID: 21815459 Module: MC568 Experimental Music Composition

Introduction:

For this composition I have been tasked with the creation and conceptualisation of an experimental track along with writing a journal in order to document the experience and process. With the help of a hand-held recording device, I spent time field recording throughout the weeks, trying to capture sounds that I thought would be interesting to use in the production or sounds that would in any way compliment the overall finished composition.

The Concept:

The initial part of this process was coming up with a strong concept in which the following music could stand upon. This is the part of the journey that I found most difficult, trying to put some kind of a story or background/thematic idea to the music without it being purely technical is something that I have been aware of in music from other experimental artists, but never something I had ever attempted to do myself. I tried sitting down and listening to the reference music that I had heard in my Experimental Composition module but after some time trying this, hearing other people’s concepts behind their music was thought provoking but not entirely helpful in terms of having a sudden spark of personal inspiration. Feeling a little bit like I had already struck a creative block, I decided to think about the local environment and how I could manipulate it into sourcing creative sounds.

I felt that the best way to get started be to just spend time outside exploring, I did think of going to nature-based areas, woods and large parks to capture that environment but I thought that might leave me with some quite dull sounds to work with. Instead, I decided to go straight into the local town. It was just getting past 6pm, when I arrived and parked my car in a local, fairly dilapidated car park. I called the lift to reach the ground floor and suddenly realised that the mechanics of the lift were making a noticeable screeching sound as they were rising to my floor. To create this sound again, I took the lift to the ground floor, took the stairs back up to the top floor and called the lift a second time, recorder ready. The sound of the lift amplified through my headphones was intense, it enhanced the low-end bass frequencies, a rumbling sort of sound plus the high-end screeches of the mechanics sounded great. Once the lift arrived, I kept recording and deescalated to the ground floor. This time holding the recorder to the floor of the lift in order to capture more of the low end frequencies. I also captured the autonomous female voice, letting me know that I was “going down” and I repeated this process once more as I had realised the doors of the lift were making an odd “clinking” noise, they must have been slightly loose and were wobbling. I was unsure where to go next but then suddenly I noticed that I could hear church bells in the distance. Realising it was a Sunday, the local church was open. This is what sparked the concept idea for my track. Heading straight over - still recording, I captured the sound of church bells with increasing volume. I walked straight into the church and was greeted by a choir already set up directly in front of me and just by mere chance, then they all started singing at once. This seemed like such a perfect opportunity so I went to sit directly at the front pew to capture as much as I could. I recorded a few of their songs once I felt I had enough. Another set of recordings done. As I was on my way out, the organ player started improvising on the spot. After recording him for a few minutes I headed off back home to make a start on arrangement. The concept idea that had come to me while doing these recordings was based on religion, maybe in a controversial way. Since I had already recorded the mechanics of the lift before I heard those church bells, it gave me the idea that my concept could be a reflection of religion being a kind of industry/machine. The cross over between modern day industrial/mechanical sounds combined with the spiritual/spectral aesthetic related to religion could really make a haunting pair in my mind.

The Production:

I had a rough idea for a structure in mind at first, I wanted to have a full church choir recording acting as the main theme throughout the piece, along with the mechanical lift sounds to create some kind of noticeable structure, intro, verse, chorus etc. After doing some arrangement and sound manipulation with effects and pitch, I quickly realised that not only was this not working because the choir was over powering, even after EQing to reduce high and mid frequencies dramatically but also that the choir had its own tempo which was slightly out of time, trying to pin point it was very difficult. I did wonder if time stretching the audio would make a difference, but I didn’t go this far as I was also wondering why should I go along with a traditional song structure while creating an experimental piece in the first place. Instead, I left the church recording to one side and focused on the lift recordings. Firstly, I started by going through all the lift recordings one by one and cutting out the clips that had different qualities to them such as tonality or dynamic differences. I ended up having quite a wide variety to play with. After cutting out a piece that had more low end frequency than the rest, I added some basic reverb (EnVerb) to widen it out as the original recording was quite claustrophobic. I then had a try with effects like chorus and phaser but these seemed to cheapen and take away the uniqueness of the sound, a little bit too gimmicky. Finally, I came to experimenting with distortion, using a plugin called “PhatFx.” I also added some basic tape delay and a single band EQ along with a graphic EQ to remove a chunk from the overpowering bass frequencies that PhatFx provided. This worked wonders, I’ve always been a fan of overly distorted noise in music, a good example would be the lower end pulsating from “Merzbow – Requiem” (timestamp - 6:25). For the rest of the lift recordings that make up the “middle section” of the composition, I used the same plugins throughout with varying settings, particularly on EQ. I sometimes opted for a delay pedal found under the pedalboard plugin section purely because I find it easier to work with and is usually my go-to delay effect, I also added a tremolo effect from the pedalboard plugin to further compliment the disorientation. There are parts of my track that resemble a “scrambling” sort of sound, this was accomplished by simply using different lift recordings that had differentiating tonalities to them, some picking up more of the screeching mechanics and wobbling doors with less of the floor rumbles but is mostly due to the heavy amount of distortion which emphasised the differences. A good comparison to these sounds could be intro section from “The Body – For You” (timestamp – 0.00). Using multiple of these scrambling, static-like sounds and cutting them up appropriately, I managed to make a kind of disorientating rhythm section. This was very useful for me as the Experimental Composition module that I’m studying has taught me that sometimes it’s useful to have some concepts of familiarity when creating experimental music, but not too much. It provides the listener something to grab onto as it resembles a recognisable quality in a more generalised sense of music.

After working for some time on the lift recordings, I had created somewhat of a structural piece already and decided that it would be best to have the church walk recording as the “intro,” and the lengthy organ improvisation recording to be my outro, the lift recordings being the “middle section.” Moving onto the church walk recording once again, my original idea of having this be the main point of focus throughout the song was simply not going to work, it would be far to difficult for me to integrate this into the chaos of the lift recordings. I also struggled trying to edit the church walk, other than a bit of EQ to remove the mid and low frequencies and pitch shifting downwards by only 1 semi-tone to add some unsettling vibes, I didn’t do much with it at all except use it structurally for a build up into the mid section. I also barely used the church choir recordings that I had, sadly I just couldn’t find space for them to fit in. Instead, this was also added into the intro, I used the “one-two,” speech from the conductor as my own count-in and only a small snippet of the choirs first harmony. Again, I didn’t do much with this recording, I wanted to keep it as raw as possible to really make it feeling like you walked straight into a church. Lastly came the outro, I knew I wanted to use the organ players improvisation here so I went ahead and attempted to make it sound as unsettling as possible to fit the feel of my overall track, adding downwards pitch shift by 6 semi-tones and reverb but most importantly, an octave pedal plugin. This allowed me to really emphasise the lower octaves of the organ which turned it into something resembling the inside of your stomach while digesting some unhealthy food. Very unsettling, but some of the sheen from the original recording still came through which resulted in an odd mix of deep low end octaves but with a shimmering almost spectral like quality in some areas. The real challenge on the outro was some kind of bridge between the mid section and the organ outro, I tried a few options like repeating the “lift punch” section again but that seemed a little unimaginative. Instead I created another rhythm by cutting out a tiny part of the lift recording and looping it to create a clicking sound. This was a nice tear away from the chaos of the middle section and a bridge to the outro. By using the single band EQ, I was able to add to the build-up by increasing the frequencies every few bars, about 200 – 300Hz at a time. This ranged from 1440Hz to 2450Hz. I also used the lifts autonomous voice “down,” to drop into the outro.

At this point I felt the structure was complete, it has an intro, a build up into a mid-section and a bridge going straight into the outro. Some parts of the track have recognisable musical qualities while other parts are off putting and I would consider the piece to be at an experimental level. All that was left to do was some mixing, compression and fine tuning any effects that I already had in place.

Here are some screen shots of the various effects that I used:

[zoestagg]

Ironman Bintan 70.3...

**It took me nearly a month to write this, as I usually focus on the positive around here — but it’s also my scrapbook, and has been for a decade. This is worth having to look back on, and worth voicing as a female experience. The positive? I had a race crew that was willing to get on a plane for eight hours, schlep a bike internationally, and hang around waiting to cheer me on all day. They’re why while the race experience itself might have scarred me, the DNF didn’t embarrass me at all. How could it? There was still a bottle of champagne waiting at the hotel and a week left to float in the pool and explore. That’s the amazing part. Now…the rest.**

I felt rushed. I worked in the dark in my eight square inches of space to arrange my transition spot. I hadn’t eaten yet, I hadn’t found the porta-potties, and I hadn’t done one single open-water swim the entire training cycle.

That sounds like a race-anxiety nightmare, and that was only the first five minutes.

It was about to get way, way worse. 

I’ve given up getting mad that they issue the women’s wave neon pink caps. It’s hack, but fine. Frankie is delighted when they get passed down to her immediately after. In the dozen of waves that waited in the corral for their chance to swim, there was only one of women.

The Pros and younger men’s age groups started off, and I tried not to throw up as I waited in the practice area, dipping my head in the water to make sure my goggles were good. It was as promised, blessedly smooth. Nothing like the squalling Mediterranean three years ago. And even though I hadn’t had the opportunity to swim outside of a pool, this was honestly as pool-like as it was going to get. The squared-off course was pretty straight forward.

All I had to do was get around it.

The green caps launched off, and the blue caps filed in. If you’ve never been to the start of a big corporate race, it’s not for the sound-sensitive. It’s loud. Constant announcements on a sort of endless yammer, music, repeat. At the start, there’s a sort of DJ/Emcee scenario. He was working the crowd, asking people where they’re from.

“Australia!” “All right then, mate!”

“USA!” “Right. Back of the line then.”

You guys. The world really isn’t pleased.

The horn blew and the blue caps splashed in, making room for the women. The pump-up music for the women’s wave started. I would say it was a really annoying one-off if it wasn’t played at every daggone race I’ve done.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Now excuse me while I REALLY try not to barf. You’re right, I spent two hours of every day, plus most of every weekend training to have FUN. You’re SECONDARILY RIGHT that no inspiring song about the female condition has been recorded since 1982. This would make me mad enough to swear right here if this was the extent of the grief I would be given for my gender that day, but it WASN’T AT ALL so stay flipping tuned.

I’m apparently still very, very mad.

When I did the Olympic distance ocean swim in my first race, I was so scared I wasn’t going to make the time cutoff. This go around, after I kind of jockeyed for space in my preferred spot, (back of the wave and as close to the line as possible) I got kind of calm. It wasn’t so bad. I just started swimming — PROPERLY, even. This is a big deal. Last ocean swim it was too choppy for me to put my head in. Sometimes in lakes there’s too much…nature to make it possible to crawl for long without wanting to scream the whole lake in. This time, eh. It was water.

IT WAS JUST WATER. And I swam.

I didn’t even panic much, when I heard them release the wave behind me. That didn’t stop me from being the girl who was yelling “NO TOUCHIES NO TOUCHIES” as my mantra when they got too close to my tail fins. Look. It’s the terrifying ocean with WILDLIFE, if you want to pass, just go around.

NO TOUCHIES.

I was feeling weirdly good. I don’t even remember the swim being much effort. It looked like I could have just stood up the whole time, which helped too. I think I checked my watch once at the half, and then not again until I could hear the music again at the swim out. 48:00. I had 70:00 minutes before I blew the deadline, I was fiiiiiine.

I swam as far in as I could, got out and pumped some fists that I didn’t have to try to peel off a wetsuit, and heard the *beep beep* as I crossed the timing mat. (Swim Time: 1900m/54:00)

This race, given that we had to schlep a bike and suitcase and everything on multiple planes and a ferry, meant that I didn’t bring a bunch of stuff I might have otherwise. Stuff, like oh, the race fuel I’m used to. I couldn’t really bring onigiri that far in advance, I couldn’t really pack a jar of peanut butter and tortillas, I just… Improvised. I’d downed a couple of handfuls of trail mix before the swim, and now before the bike, I crammed in bites of protein cookie washed down with water like a competitive eater. I pulled on my fanny pack with more snacks, pulled up my bib belt, and yanked my bike off the rack. I was feeling cautiously optimistic and ready to ride. (Transition 1: 6:30)

I didn’t know as I pedaled out, that it would be about 45 minutes until everything turned to garbage.

Indonesia is lush. There are legit monkeys just chilling on the side of the road like wild cats. I pumped my legs and tried to occupy my thoughts and take in the scenery. It’s in those moments, that a couple of things can happen: you can look down at your speedometer and be pleasantly surprised that you’re pulling 20 mph without really trying; and you can discover that the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is the exact beat that makes that cadence.

I had read the race description. Something about “a few gentle rolling hills.” I had watched the time-lapse video of the whole bike course. Looked pretty flat to me!

IT WAS NOT FLAT.

The first hill hit, and preceded three hours of switching back and forth between 4 mph as I stood up and pumped in the lowest gear, and 24 mph as I tried to make it back. I struggle a little with my feet on the bike, I have to remind myself to stay off of them and wiggle my toes and watch my form so I don’t end up with knives stabbing through the balls. This amount of standing up? There’s no terrain around here that I could have used to prepare for that. But whatever. We finished a loop out of a forested road, and hit a town. There were Indonesian flags everywhere, most buildings and houses had one planted. I don’t know how much of that is set-dressing for the race, but the KIDS.

The kids, were not.

They stood outside of houses and tiny village storefronts watching and cheering. This parade of 2,000 insane people on bicycles was the most exciting Sunday morning show, and they cheered everyone who passed. I made it my mission to be a one-woman good-sport committee and gave every single group a “Good morning!!!! Hiiiii!” Some of them yelled back, “Winner!” and it was pretty outstanding. Eventually, the tiny villages in the trees thinned out, revealing violent red clay hillscapes, and the sun started to really beat.

From the course preview video -- even watching again, I don’t know how they managed to make the hills disappear, but they did. And that bridge? The “guard rail” was just the two pipes and then a 50-foot drop. Not cozy.

By the bridge, enough time had passed to thin the herd, and I suddenly found myself in Indonesia, about 25 miles from anyone I knew, and as race rules dictate (YOU WILL BE GIVEN A RED CARD DQ IF YOU ARE CAUGHT USING A PHONE OR ELECTRONIC DEVICE) without a phone.

Fun.

I pumped on, and tried to stay positive. The course wasn’t closed, it was on roads shared as the rest of the island’s life went on, and as I started to think about pulling off to stand up for a second and swap my water bottles around, a scooter passed. The man driving it slowed as he passed me and took a hard look. I watched, because as much as Japan doesn’t require you to have street smarts, I’ve lived places, okay. He continued up the road a hundred yards and turned around, riding past again.

I didn’t stop.

Another scooter revved up from behind me. This one had friends. He pulled ahead of me, while one pulled beside and another, stayed behind. They were teenagers, and started talking to me, motioning me to pull over.

“No. I’m fine. I’m riding. No.”

Sometime after the water stop that told me they were out of water after I had already dumped my hot water out to switch, a truck rolled by. The man leaned out the window and said,

“I love you.”

I don’t think he meant that in a positive and nurturing way that respects my agency as a human being.

All I wanted was to stop and spend 45 seconds getting my fuel situated. The second my speed dipped, there would be a scooter or two, appearing out of nowhere, making very sure I wasn’t going to stop for all of the Gatorade in China. About the time the man drove by making kissy noises, and I’d spent a good three hours calculating how long it would take me to get stuffed in the back of a truck on a course where the only chip mats are at 20k and 70k and it would be a really long time before anyone missed me, I started to sob hysterically.

(Let’s take a moment of brightness to know that as awful of a time I was having, Ryan and Frankie were okay waiting for me. Phew.)

Now. There were medic vans and mechanic vans on the course, I did see them periodically. But by the time I was rolling through 40 miles, I was in such a state from dealing with harassment from almost every vehicle that passed, I started to really lose it.

“DON’T TALK TO ME. DON’T LOOK AT ME. LEAVE ME ALONE.”

It’s kind of hard to ride your bike when you’re scream crying.

Eventually, I rolled though 52 miles, and another biker spun up past me. “There’s 30 minutes to cutoff! Keep going, you’ll make it.” At this point, I really didn’t even care. I was sobbing, and worried I wouldn’t be able to stop if Frankie was at the transition point. I think I rode past Ryan and Frankie at the end of the bike, and was completely relieved I wouldn’t have to talk to them right then. (Bike 56 miles/4:39:12)

This smile is fake.

I racked my bike, probably still yelling “BAN MEN,” and sat down at transition and really cried. I cried because I was slow enough that I’d been an easy target. I cried that 75% of the competitors probably had a LOVELY time on the course and in the world in general and would never know how awful it feels to be prey, and I cried because what a burden that is, what an unequal athletic playing field that is and BAN MEN.

And then I put on my running shoes and tried to find the run out. No signs. Who cares at this point, right? (Transition 2: 6:23)

I started to run. I was scared I was going to have to go out and subject myself to more unwanted attention, but the run course was protected, in some kind of weird golf course or something. The sun dipped behind clouds and I set the first goal to getting to where I thought the spectators might be. I was still entirely on edge, and when I heard a male voice behind me, I whipped around with a LOOK. He paused.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but um, is this your first lap or your second?”

I relaxed, a little. “First. THOSE HILLS.”

“I know! Okay, thanks! Have a good run.”

He jogged on, and I felt the first drop. And then the second. And then, dear reader, I found out what an Indonesian monsoon feels like. For the next hour, the skies opened.

The surface of the lake was a blur as raindrops bounced six inches off the surface. The trail filled with water, and then flooded. Eventually, it was ankle deep. My shoes started to rub blisters. I couldn’t see in front of me. Aid stations ducked under tarps as the wind whipped.

And I knew it was over.

I passed the halfway on the run, and a restaurant. Ryan and Frankie, who I was totally worried about in all of the rain, were tucked inside having lunch. I stood outside dripping, gave Ryan the short version of the awful day, and said I was checking out. I could have propelled myself the last 10k without the wet blisters. Without a time cutoff, I could have technically finished. As I neared the lap switch, the guy in charge said,

“You’ve missed it.” (Time spent running: 1:44:28)

You know what happens when you don’t make the last time cutoff in a monsoon? They withhold the giveaway towels because they say “Finisher” on them.

It’s fine.

I stood in the middle of the flooded field while those who’d had a much better day got their medals, and filed a report. Who knows if anyone got it, but now there’s a handy link to send to HQ, right? Ultimately, this race location is not suited for female athletes. I was wearing the same thing as everyone else. I’m OLD. I was still harassed for five hours. And I DNFed, my first one ever.

And I’ve signed up for another one in December.

[kpoprambles00-blog]

BLACKPINK (블랙핑크) - KILL THIS LOVE (2ND MINI ALBUM) [COMEBACK REVIEW]

One thing we can all agree on is that the past few months in K-Pop have had NO CHILL WHATSOEVER.

SERIOUSLY. There have been so many fucking comebacks for me to try and keep up with - THE SPRING COMEBACK REVIEW LOOKS LIKE IT'S GOING TO BE THREE PARTS LONG. YEAH.

But I've got two big albums to cover before we get into that whole set of shenanigans - I'll say it now, they're both girl groups. (Being blatantly honest, I'm not interested enough in BTS to do a full comeback review of Persona; "Boy With Luv" will be in the spring comeback review.) And this is the first one - BLACKPINK's first comeback since last summer.

Now, of course, I want to admit before we start that I am a Blink. I do like BLACKPINK quite a lot. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to write this whole review from that perspective; I'm going to do my best to be as equal and open-minded as possible here. Yes, there will be some fangirling on my part, because I can't help it. But I'm going to do my best to remain as impartial as I can. It's more fun that way!

I've admittedly put this review off for long enough (because finals are a bitch), so let's not fuck around any longer and finally take a look at Kill This Love.

1 - KILL THIS LOVE [TITLE]

...okay, so I know I said I'm going to be as impartial as possible here, but... I did also say there would be a bit of fangirling, so let's get that out of the way first, shall we?

Holy mother of FUCK this is going to be a contender for my song of the year.

From a Blink's perspective, I do not get a single ounce of the hate for this song. It fucking SLAPS. Did y'all hear that brass line, or are we listening to different songs?? Because while a good brass line is a surefire way to get into my heart, it gives the song so much raw power and poise that it's impossible for me to hate this. Hell, it's impossible for me to even dislike it. This is the first comeback I've actually prepared for, which included me watching the V LIVE stream the hour before the video came out. So I was already hyped. And then "Kill This Love" managed to meet pretty much all of my expectations! I was... super impressed by that. I stand by my opinion that I shared on Twitter a few weeks back; this is BLACKPINK's best title track by far, and one of the best songs they've ever released. Whilst "DDU-DU DDU-DU" admittedly wore off on me a bit over time, I don't know if that's going to happen with "Kill This Love". Every time I listen to it, I get just as hyped as the first time I heard it. It's fucking amazing.

But now, let's be more impartial and look at it from a musical perspective. Why do I like it so much, whilst others detest it or say it's nothing special? Well, I feel like that's mainly because of the structure. I've heard so many different people say that "Kill This Love" feels like an absolute mess; it has no consistency or flow, and just feels like multiple songs mashed together. And yet, some of the most popular and well-known songs in K-Pop are examples of that trope - look at Girls' Generation's "I Got A Boy"! I don't think I've ever seen someone who dislikes that song. I even love it! It knows what it wants to be, and has fun with it. And yeah, I wouldn't say that "Kill This Love" has fun with its concept - it... moreso wants to break your door down with its power and charisma. WHICH IS COMPLETELY FINE BY ME, BLACKPINK CAN STEP ON ME.

But to go off on a bit of a tangent real quick, because of the huge rise of social media (and most importantly, stan culture), hate is going to seem more prominent than ever - especially with a group as big as BLACKPINK. But that doesn't mean you can't like "Kill This Love" for what it is. I love seeing people discuss what they do and don't like about a song, because that promotes healthy discussion. But throwing around hate for the sake of it is what really bugs me; and unfortunately, I did see a lot of that with this comeback. But sometimes you just have to brush it under the rug and enjoy what you enjoy. If you don't like this song? Great! That's your opinion. If you love it just like I do? Fantastic! You also have an opinion! Basically, don't be a dick to someone who doesn't agree with you.

ANYWAY, back to the song. I see what people mean when they say it lacks structure, but that's exactly why people like "I Got A Boy" so much; it subverts your expectations, and feels so distinctively... K-Pop, if you get what I mean. It's meant to be flashy and in-your-face; the labels behind these songs couldn't give less of a shit about structure. It's something that the genre is known for, and something I quite like to see when it's done well. One problem I do have with this song, however, is its ending; I do feel like it ends too quickly, although I'll admit the problem goes away the more you listen to it. The more accustomed you become to the song, the more you expect the ending and the less abrupt it feels.

But hey, lack of structure or not, all four of the girls sound great here! Jennie sounds fantastic in her lower range (as she always does), Lisa's rap is just as charismatic as it's ever been, Jisoo sounds downright royal, and Rosé? Man, this is Rosé's ERA. Her vocals here are so powerful and charismatic that I honestly love watching loops of her parts from live performances. She suits this concept so fucking well.

The lyrics are pretty alright, too. They give off this very conflicted vibe of being in a relationship that you know is dangerous and probably quite bad for you, but you actually like the danger, and want to stick around regardless. I'm not even going to get into the whole controversy that came up with the lyrics and photobook pictures, because I've rambled enough as it is. If you take the lyrics at a superficial level - as they were probably intended in the first place - they're an interesting spin on a typical breakup/love song. And for once, I don't feel like the English sections are out of place! That's definitely an achievement in my eyes.

There's no answer to this test, I'll always fall for it I'm a slave to my emotions Screw this heartless love

I know it already feels like I've written an essay's worth of content, but that's just the song and lyrics. What about the choreography here? Do I like it as much as the song?

Spoilers: yes. I do.

This routine is just as powerful as the song it's choreographed for. It's not mind-blowing or anything, but it's definitely great in my eyes. There are so many little details and hand/arm movements that definitely tell you that Kiel Tutin was involved; which, yeah, we already know he was. It's a trademark of his style. And goddammit, it WORKS here. Every single little beat is hit or at the very least touched upon, and it's super satisfying to watch. I don't think I could imagine another choreography to go with "Kill This Love"; this one just seems so well crafted and has so much effort put into it that I wouldn't WANT any other choreography. This one is perfect. It's powerful, it's sassy, and it's exquisitely detailed. Sounds great to me!

And I don't care if it's been said a million times: Rosé's hair is the 5th member of BLACKPINK. THEM EXTENSIONS THO.

All in all, "Kill This Love" knocked it out of the park for me. It met - and honestly surpassed - all of the expectations I had going in, which were already sky-high. I really hope this is the standard BLACKPINK adhere to in the future, because I'll be a very fucking proud Blink if they do.

2. DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO [SUB-TITLE]

Next, in what's seeming to be a tradition for BLACKPINK, we have the side track - "Don't Know What To Do". And I'm going to say it straight away - no, this shouldn't have been the title track. It works best as a side track, in my opinion. The song is nice, yes, but title track material it is not.

What it IS, though, is a surprisingly emotional yet upbeat breakup song. The more natural elements are a nice surprise, with the acoustic guitar chords and finger snaps adding a nice sense of flow. There's also the fact that those synths in the chorus make this a pretty anthemic song, since the chorus just explodes after the great build-up in the bridge. The way the instrumental dips in and out is particularly effective. "Don't Know What To Do" almost reminds me a bit of G-Dragon's "Crooked" in its tone; you know, you listen to it for the first time, and think it's a party song. Then you look up the lyrics and you realise that it's not.

But the biggest thing giving away that this is actually a breakup song is the girls' vocals. All of them sound surprisingly emotional here - Jennie even sounds like she's going to burst into tears at some points! (Hopefully that's not actually because of her own breakup, which, if it is, then dammit I want to hug her.) There's also the fact that Rosé's doing her best Avril Lavigne impression in her first chorus, which is honestly SUCH a great sound for her. It's making me hope her solo has a rockier edge to it... Lisa's raps are still quite steady and have a good flow, but are surprisingly toned down for her - and her vocals sound great too! And Jisoo basically carries the choruses, if you ask me - her falsetto gives them that extra melodic hook they need, and she sounds fantastic.

The lyrics are quite good, too! Just like the song, they're surprisingly emotional, and focus on some of the smaller details (which is something I always like). They've got just the right amount of emotion to them without feeling overdone, sappy or cringey.

Wondering if the phone might ring I hate myself for anticipating [it] uselessly The tick-tock of my clock is especially bothering me

But thanks to this song's status as a side track, we've got choreography to look at here too. And... I may just like this just as much - if not even more - than "Kill This Love"'s choreography. And THAT'S saying something.

This routine is the definition of satisfying to me. It's so... dynamic, so fluid, and with so many little details and extra bits that they didn't have to add. But they did. And it's SO much better for it. There's a lot of floor sections, which means it must be fucking exhausting to do (especially since BLACKPINK normally seem to sing live in some shape or form), but the girls look effortless regardless. It's a very unique routine, and one that just gets better and better every time I watch it. I keep finding new little details, and that just makes it even more enjoyable for me.

So while I don't think "Don't Know What To Do" is title material, it's certainly fantastic as a side track. Hell, I'm glad it's the side track, because it means we still got to see choreography for it.  It fits in very nicely!

3. KICK IT

With both promoted tracks out of the way, we still have two new songs and a remix to look at. And the first of those two new songs is "Kick It", which the girls actually ended up performing as part of their set at Coachella. But while I do like the song - it's fun, with a nice chill vibe in places and a powerful one in others - it's... probably my least favourite song on the album. But that's just because I like all the other songs so much! So don't take that as a bad thing. I just find it to be pretty standard.

"Kick It" makes ample use of a really strong bassline in its instrumental, as well as some interesting drums and guitar melodies. But the bass is particularly strong here, and it'll be one of the first things you notice if you're listening with a good pair of headphones. The melody honestly has a really nice rhythm in places - it can change from being quite slow and steady to a little quicker and even quite anthemic towards the end. That chanting English section before the final chorus is awesome. The girls definitely supplement this power with their vocal delivery; Lisa's rap in particular is really nice. In all English, too! And it's not cringey, which is... certainly new for BLACKPINK.

Speaking of English, the lyrics for this song have about as much of it as you'd expect. It's used pretty frequently, but never feels out of place or unneccessary, which is always good. And the lyrics themselves are alright; they're pretty much what you'd expect from any empowerment anthem, but they're certainly fitting of BLACKPINK's overall image.

The dark night might take me away But now I can dance for myself I'll jump over the wall that is you

But yeah, "Kick It" is a song I honestly don't have a lot of opinions on. It's a good song, for sure. But it just feels very... normal for BLACKPINK at this point, for lack of a better word? It's the sort of song that you'd expect from them nowadays, and while I do like the song quite a bit, it's nothing too special. I still recommend giving it a listen if you're interested, though.

4. HOPE NOT (아니길)

Ironically enough, we're going from my least favourite song on the album to what's probably my favourite. Yeah, I love "Kill This Love" to bits - but I'm not including that here. Out of all the side tracks on this album, "Hope Not" is the best of them. Straight up.

That says a lot considering how minimal this song really is; all it's really got is the girls' vocals, some harmonies and an electric guitar riff in the background. But that's all it needs. Then you look at the credits for this song and you realise why it probably works so well - Lydia Paek was involved in the production of this. And she definitely knows what she's doing. Hell, I like her cover of Taeyang's "Eyes Nose Lips" more than the original. She's talented as shit. And I'm delighted to see her create something for BLACKPINK, because "Hope Not" is gorgeous. It's actually a really well-done ballad, one that's not too caught up in its own misery and expecting us to take it seriously. It's very real and sincere, whilst being emotional and heartfelt at the same time. There's a lot going on here, which you wouldn't think from just listening to the instrumental.

The girls once again sound surprisingly good here; they showed their emotional sides on "Don't Know What To Do", but I actually like the approach here just as much. They're not quite as emotional vocal-wise on "Hope Not", but the approach each of them takes with their performance is really damn pleasing to listen to, ranging from hushed melodies in their lower range to more emotional belting in the choruses. It's a great contrast, and sounds gorgeous when you put it all together. Unfortunately, my main problem with this song also lies in the vocals - the autotune. It's just not needed. It's making Rosé sound like she's either slurring her words together or singing underwater. Possibly both. You can hear it very clearly in a few places, and for a song that's attempting to be a lot more natural and stripped back, it really, really doesn't work. Especially when it's so thick. But I'm glad to say that's my only problem with the song; the rest of it is all excellent in my eyes!

Especially when it comes to the lyrics. I might need a plaster for my heart after reading them, because ouch. Yes, this is a breakup song, a ballad - but it's certainly an unconventional one. Instead of talking about how depressed the breakup has left them feeling, or being angry at their ex, or being empowered now that they're on their own again, "Hope Not" actually has a really sweet sentiment behind it. They don't know where their ex is now, or who they're with. The girls are just grateful that the relationship happened. And whilst they admit both parties made mistakes in the relationship itself, they hope their ex doesn't forget them and the times they had together.

OUCH. MY FUCKING FEELS.

For you, I'm okay with being hurt Since I only gave you pain during the time we were together But you, the love you want You need to meet someone better than me, and be happy But I hope not to the point where you forget me

I don't give a damn if you find that cheesy or cringey, I think it's sentimental as fuck, and a really damn good piece of songwriting. Overall, I find it to be more effective than "Don't Know What To Do" in terms of emotional power; it's more powerful than any slow song BLACKPINK's done, even if there aren't that many of them. This is their best yet.

I don't think I have to spell it out when I say I love this song to bits. It's probably my most listened-to song on the album, besides "Kill This Love". It just stands out so much, both because of how much it can do with so little, and because of its phenomenal lyrics. It's goddamn gorgeous, and a serious contender for my side tracks list at the end of this year. 😊

5. DDU-DU DDU-DU (뚜두뚜두) [REMIX]

To end off the album, we have a remix of "DDU-DU DDU-DU". Because of course we do, it's YG, what would you expect at this point?

But this is actually alright in my eyes, because this remix is actually fucking awesome. I've seen a lot of people say that they don't like it, but as someone who listens to EDM pretty regularly, this is my shit. It did feel a bit messy on the first listen, but there are some parts of this remix that are so goddamn hype, I'm majorly pissed they didn't perform it at Coachella. Seriously. THIS WOULD'VE SLAPPED, WHY DID YOU NOT DO IT. Although apparently they were performing it on their NA tour, but it was just as an encore. Why. I'd love to see some switched up choreography for this, please YG I'm begging you. ;-; (The electric guitars they added in sounded AMAZING though. Like wow.)

The more you listen to this, the more you get into it. For real. Jennie's rap section is honestly better than the original version, purely because of that use of the 808 bass. My jaw was on the goddamn floor listening to it for the first time, that shit went HARD. There's not really much else to talk about here - if you want to hear my (albeit very hyped at the time) thoughts on "DDU-DU DDU-DU" I talked about it back in my autumn comeback review last year. The remix is just a better version of it, if you ask me. It's got so much hype behind it that I can't help but love it.

And that's the entire album! Unfortunately BLACKPINK's albums are so short and few and far between that I feel like I need to savour each release. But now that they're really gathering momentum in the West, maybe - just maybe - we'll get another comeback this year? I mean I don't want to curse it, but a bitch can dream. 💀

ALL SOURCES FOR THE ENGLISH LYRICS I USED IN THIS REVIEW: Kill This Love Don't Know What To Do Kick It Hope Not (아나길)

COVER IMAGE CREDITS: Edited photo frame from KILL THIS LOVE album cover - me (yes I'm crediting myself here because bitch it took FOREVER) Camo background BLACKPINK PNGs - Soshiloverexid on deviantArt

[epfloutthere]

Social life at the station

The interaction with the other researchers on the station is very open and marked by mutual interest in our respective research projects. As I wrote earlier, the start was a bit bumpy, because the station was filled up to the brim with busy researchers and the cafeteria was too small to fit us all. Consequently, we had to eat fast and without talking and it took a bit longer to get to know each other. But in the later stages of our stay everybody relaxed because there was plenty of space and time to interact.

For all three rounds of new arrivals, Banja night was the time to make friends with everybody else. Banja is the Russian equivalent of sauna. It plays an important role in Russian social life and even for business as we learned. Apparently, many deals and agreements are sealed in Banja. At Samoylov, Saturday evening is Banja time; men and women are split up into pre- and post-dinner groups. The girls have to go first such that the guys can drink vodka in the sauna after dinner. That’s fine with me, at least we get to watch the beautiful sunset, while shock-freezing our overheated bodies in the little lake just outside the banja.

Banja-to-lake is probably the biggest temperature gradient I have been exposed to so far. Heated up with great care by Sergei, the banja awaits us with temperatures well above 100 C, (the record being 110) and just before we reach the boiling point ourselves we throw our tortured bodies into the lake, which had cooled down to 2 C during the last week. After the courageous plunge from the little bridge, my brain seems to turn off for a little moment and then all I can think about, is the quickest way to pull myself back up out of the water. Only Flore who comes from a family of ice-water swimmers keeps her calm. As if she was visiting the local swimming pool, she slowly walks into the lake until she is fully immersed and then swims a peaceful lap around the bridge. All of us have been staring at her in disbelieve and nobody has dared to repeat this act of bravery.

But whichever way we choose to cool down, we all share the experience of perfect calm and peacefulness spreading through our bodies after each cycle of shock-treatment in this beautiful environment.

Btw, in Russian Banja one wears woolen hats to protect head and hair.

After the respective groups are done sweating, everybody gets together in the old station, a small and cozy-looking wooden house that accommodated the researchers before the new, modern station was stomped out of the ground in 2013. Banja night was also our introduction to the fine art of toasting, something we all very much appreciated and will try to bring home with us.

It goes like this:

First somebody, often the person about to toast, makes sure everybody has a full glass. To our great surprise and relieve, any liquid, such as tea or juice will do and we were never forced to drink alcohol.

The order of toasting often follows some kind of hierarchy and since I was supervisor and oldest member of the Swiss expedition I found myself surprising early in the game of stand-up speeches to praise the moment, the good company, or anything else worthy of our appreciation. Improvised public speaking does not come to me easily, but I still enjoy this new custom … especially once my turn is over. It brings everybody around the table together and teaches us appreciation of the common experience. At Samoylov, many toasts evolve around friendship, hope and nature; Downing the entire glass is absolutely not mandatory and in between toast you don’t usually drink, so if you want, a glass of vodka can last you an entire evening. Singing also seems to be an integral part of social events and our polish research team did an amazing job at this. When Greg pulls out the guitar to accompany Agata through sad and happy songs in various languages, all we had to do, was humming along and the arctic was ready to melt.

While most evenings were spent with group meetings, a some personal time and later on with the Aurora Borealis, we also had a few evenings together with everybody else at the station. Just before the end of summer, we had a great evening around a big fire on the beach and baked fresh bread on sticks (to Germans well-known as Stockbrot). Andrei delivered a beautiful end-of-class toast to our group and I tried my best to follow-up with a toast to the transition from student to teacher as we grow up as researchers. Not sure I got my point across since my front was half cooked from the fire and my senses side-tracked from the amazing smell of fresh bread. But it was a heartfelt goodbye from Andrei who left the following morning.

Before the AWI team from Potsdam left, we had an amazingly tasty fish BBQ in the station’s courtyard, the only location that was protected enough to allow for outdoor eating,… anywhere else the fish would have probably turned into Stroganina before we could eat it.

xWaldemar delivering his goodbye and retirement speech; after many years of coordinating the AWI logistics at Samoylov, it is a big goodbye for him.

With everybody gone, and Team-EPFL-alone-at-home for two days, we had a pretty special second weekend at the station: Saturday was Annina’s 23rdbirthday and we were greeted with a delicious-looking birthday cake for breakfast which earned everybody’s approval.

While Nicolas and Xavier carried out the daily CO2 measurements, us girls went out to brave the elements for a run around the island.

It is a beautiful loop, mostly along the beach, but with an interesting section of permafrost related earth-crack-hopping up on the eroding coastline. When we finished the loop at the old station the island dog Sever (Russian for North) came out to deliver his wishes,… he just caught the wrong girl for his birthday kiss. The evening was filled, with many games of Gems, a terrible Swiss card game that I seem to be incapable of mastering. =)

Along with all our other presents, we had brought three pieces of cheese with the best intention to share our culture and make a tasty meal for our follow researchers. Unfortunately, the logistics of Sunday cooking had not worked out as intended during the first week, since we had been out on our overnight excursion. Now the cheese was starting to get old and did not look like it would survive another week. So, we ended up making Chaesspaetzli and Rueblikuchen for an almost empty station, … with us being our only guests =). But I guarantee that we enjoyed it very, very much!!

Replacing Regina our cook in the kitchen was real team work, and it took us over two hours with 6 people to produce the Swiss Sunday Supper:

Fraenzi lead us with great routine through the many steps of Spaetzli-making.

Meanwhile Annina, Flore and Nicolas displayed the most admirable determination to produce a Rueblikuchen. The recipe called for 400g of ground almonds; the kitchen only provided whole almonds and no grinder. But this could not stop team Switzerland! With an iron patience that can only possibly be summoned by a real Swiss or the most team-spirited Frenchman, those three spent an estimated 2 hours on a knife-driven almond chopping mission. In multiple steps they decreased the splinter size, until it qualified for a true Rueblikuchen. Hats up!!

The meal was a great success and all guest were full of compliments =)

Bon appetit!

[alive-drumming]

“Song Rhythm Tracks” – A Comparison

“Song Rhythm Tracks” is Alive Drumming’s mobile Musician’s App providing production-ready rhythmic backing.  It is available on the Apple iOS App Store.

Alive Drumming brings musicians production-quality rhythmic backing, in it’s most convenient form — a mobile App to select, download and play Alive Drumming’s “Song Rhythm Tracks”.

Song Rhythm Tracks

Song Rhythm Tracks are a new type of backing track composed entirely of rhythmic backing (no melody or harmony) arranged to the musical form of the song — it’s “songform”. These tracks are complete performances like one gets from a professional drummer. They have a count-in, introduction section, choruses and characteristic endings, framed by fills showing where sections start and end. Even musical bridges and middle choruses have higher intensity where appropriate to the style. All this without a typical arranger’s interface thereby keeping it simple. One can select a track in under 30 seconds — under 15 seconds once one gets the hang of it.

The App’s player has tempo adjustment and a facility to sequence the tracks for your gig or jam session. It is for musicians of all abilities. New musicians use the App to provide an accompaniment to songs. They get a rhythm that is sympathetic so they learn to keep time, get into the groove and internalise the song’s musical structure – All this while enjoying engaging and inspiring rhythms. Gigging musicians catalogue their backing into setlists and use it to guide performance. Having quality rhythmic backing, with a setlist facility and a musician’s player, all in the one App is so convenient one finds oneself using this rhythmic backing more and more.

Musician’s Player

A “Musician’s Player” — what’s that? One that dims the screen, will play in the background, has good-sized buttons and allows you to change the volume with the physical buttons. Yes, that but this player also displays the musical form of the track such as

“4 choruses of 32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8) with no intro’ and a 4-Bar ending”,

and provides visual tracking against this as it plays. This is the information musicians want right before they are about to play a track. If they start to lose their place a bit while they play, a quick glance at the display will likely get them back “on track” again.

Massive Library of Rhythms

There’s a huge number of rhythms and endless musical forms for your songs. Once selected, the arranged track is downloaded from Alive Drumming’s servers and then it stays on your device for playing. Alive Drumming grants the user rights to remix the track so they may be transferred to a computer to be included in the user’s own compositions and album releases.

  What sets Song Rhythm Tracks apart?

We do not often see new innovations in this area — usually, it is a refinement or reworking of a workstation product — but Song Rhythm Tracks are a totally new approach addressing that age-old need for musicians to get good rhythmic backing, easily.

No More Sequencing

The choice of selecting the song’s form by name, or by using stick notation, over providing a sequencing interface is an innovation that has not been seen before and one that gives this App its character. It means that the musician needs only to know the musical form of the song. They will know this even if, at first, they don’t realise it. A musician might not be familiar with the names being used but the App also provides a description using stick-notation, so when one selects by songform name,

“32-bar AABA”,

the track also gets displayed using stick-notation as

“32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8)”.

There’s plenty of resources on Alive Drumming’s website on songform. In fact, songform names do not have to be used at all, one can also select using stick-notation,

“8|8/8|8”,

and get the very same description displayed,

“32 bars of standard AABA form (8|8/8|8)”.

The App also provides for a musician’s own definition of a song’s form using “stick notation”, e.g.,

“8|4/8|6”,

allowing for complex, user-defined forms. Also, even more complex forms are possible with independent repeats of four parts to a song. Even drumming breaks and pushes are now available for arrangements.

The App also includes a facility for sharing song arrangement, so if an arrangement for your song has already been shared you will be able to look it up and use that.

No More Drum Loops

Song Rhythm Tracks provides complete, production-ready backing tracks rather than drum loops. What’s more, Alive Drumming’s servers do not use drum loops either; they use high-quality recordings of talented drummers where a recording is more likely to be 8-bars long than a single drum hit or a single bar of playing. Alive drumming doesn’t provide a sequencing interface, so there are no drum loops to sequence. Instead, there is a simple selection interface to specify (i) an arrangement of the song’s form and (ii) the rhythm. This keeps the interface clean. The only option is a complete track from count-in through the choruses to a characteristic ending. Looping isn’t even provided in the player interface. It is clear that this App is about practising and performing with high-quality, complete, production-ready tracks. It’s for professional musicians and discerning amateurs. It is very, very far from a toy drum-machine; but it gives us the most musical enjoyment we’ve had in a long time.

A Service

Alive Drumming’s back-end servers do the sequencing and audio production, delivering the completed track to the mobile device. This is not the approach taken by other drumming apps where everything is within the app, either using bespoke loops or using iOS’ general midi sounds. This means Alive Drumming’s solution does initially have the user waiting for the download to complete, but this permits higher-quality and a greater selection of audio tracks from the server.

Musician-friendly Design

The user experience is “performance-friendly” adopting standard iOS features such as tables rather than esoteric design and sequencing interfaces. It’s been designed to be simple to use by musicians for musicians. Having a straightforward interface to specify a track is important to musicians because we are playing new tracks all the time and don’t want to be wasting playing-time sequencing drum loops — so true is this that I suspect the vast majority of musicians never do sequence drum loops — it’s too much effort and provides poor results. However, it is a totally different prospect with Song Rhythm Tracks where one takes between 15 to 30 seconds to specify a new track, which provides a great sounding backing.

It is the same musician-friendly approach with the player. It’s important to musicians, whether performing or practising, that the player is easy to use — read large buttons — and it is so much more useful having the sectional structure of the track displayed instead of an album cover. Finally, musicians need setlist facilities integrated with the player. They need to be able to order their tracks, adding and removing tracks across multiple set-lists. These are core features that differentiate a musician’s needs to that of general music listeners. These aspects combined make this App dead easy for musicians to prepare, practice and perform setlists of these tracks.

The competition?

This is a very new type of App but let us consider the alternatives to Song Rhythm Tracks.

Workstation Products

Similar High-quality Audio, Total Flexibility, Higher Purchase Price, Less Convenience.

Procuring and learning sophisticated workstation tooling for professional musicians to create high-quality backing music. This has similar great audio quality with more features and flexibility but also will take considerably more time, say around 30 minutes, to create a new track using sequencing software, render it, tag it and transfer it to a mobile device. You gain in compositional features and flexibility but lose out on convenience — particularly in the setlists and player.

Other Mobile Drumming Apps

Lower Quality, Lower Price, Different Convenience

There’s quite a variety of Drumming Apps with many features and facilities. They are generally less expensive but don’t deliver in the same way. Here is one which is closer to the Song Rhythm Tracks use-case.

Session Band Drums

This App aims at a similar proposition — good quality drum backing with a mobile interface, but it falls short in delivering both (i) high-quality rhythmic backing music and (ii) a convenient interface. The user interface is based on visual sequencing, specific to the task. This is an improvement to having to use a workstation based sequencer and transferring to the mobile device but I suspect is still too complicated and would still be a barrier to entry for a lot of musicians. As one has to sequence tracks, it is definitely more cumbersome and slower to use than Song Rhythm Tracks. Also, there is no real setlist facility and I don’t think it delivers enough on engaging, realistic drumming. It is though less expensive that Song Rhythm Tracks with lower initial cost and no limit to the tracks one can sequence.

Mobile Midi Musician Song Apps

Lower quality drumming, self-contained, more facilities

There are other mobile apps for musicians that are song-based that have attracted dedicated followers. iRealPro and Songster are two such.

iRealPro

This is a deservedly popular App, although probably not ordinarily considered in terms of rhythm-only backing music. It does a great job of managing setlists, has a user-contributed library of tunes, which often means preparing a tune is very efficient (via lookup). Its strength is in getting a full multi-instrument accompaniment (rhythm and harmony) to well-known tunes complete with an on-screen chord-sheet of that tune which is tracked as the song progresses. It probably is based on midi-technology and provides good facilities to balance the mix. This mix can be adjusted to have the rhythm part only.

iRealPro has good sound quality for its price but there are not many rhythms to choose from and the drumming-only audio-quality isn’t really there. It’s impressive on first encountering it but after a while hearing the same drumming loops over and over loses the lustre. This is particularly true if only playing rhythmic accompaniment rather than a full ‘combo’ as iRealPro does sounds more impressive at a complete mix than rhythm-only tracks. Why is this rhythmic audio lacking compared to Song Rhythm Tracks? iRealPro is an app with a limited collection of audio loops. I don’t hear different loops being used for different tempos of the same rhythm. I don’t hear the human variation that makes drumming come alive and I don’t hear truly great drumming like one does with Song Rhythm Tracks. This does matter with rhythm because these are the things we expect from real music. iRealPro has a big following for an inexpensive tool to assist in learning new tunes; Song Rhythm Tracks really plays in a different market. It’s more about enjoying playing to a large variety of high-quality rhythmic accompaniment while learning and performing tunes.

Songster

There are other mobile-based Midi Apps but nothing significantly new when considering high-quality rhythmic backing with a convenient interface. Songster is a competitor of iRealPro with a slightly different market and similar results. There are other drumming specific Apps but they all fall down in terms of supplying the realism, excitement and breadth of Song Rhythm Tracks’ audio quality achieved by being server-based. What’s served is complete high-quality tracks already optimally sequenced and audio-engineered before being delivered to the end-user. No sequencing or audio engineering occurs on the mobile App. It simply selects, requests and plays the tracks.

Conclusion

Song Rhythm Tracks is a new type of product for truly high-quality rhythmic backing that is convenient to select and play. You are not going to get tired of these backing tracks. You are not going to have to sequence anything. You will find that the player and setlist’s user-interface encourages continued use. You will get to appreciate the form of your songs more and you might include these tracks into your own single and album releases. Don’t be put off by experiences with mobile drumming Apps. Song Rhythm Tracks are something different.

Whether you are learning a new tune, jamming, gigging or cutting your latest album, this Song Rhythm Tracks provides a solution.

Check out samples of the audio at Alive Drumming’s Samples page

Check out these articles from Alive Drumming that give further insights into the thinking behind the product –

“How to practice, then how to jam”

“When to work on your rhythm?”

“Why songform with rhythm tracks?”

Download the Song Rhythm Tracks App on the Apple App Store

Try Alive Drumming’s sampler apps to sample previously arranged tracks of popular tunes. It is then easy to use the app to adjust these to your practice and performance requirements. All the sampler apps are the same Song Rhythm Tracks app but with the included sample tracks.

Jazz and Blues Sampler

Afro-Cuban Sampler

Country Music Sampler

“songform” refers to Alive Drumming’s identification of a song’s form, taken from a drummer’s perspective of the compositional structure of a song. In addition to adopting names for common forms such as 12-bar blues and 32-bar AABA, Alive Drumming introduces their stick notation to describe a song’s form. Stick notation is simply a list of section lengths in bars separated by a vertical bar, ‘|’, or a slanted bar, ‘/’ where the following section is a bridge.