#this was during jazzys stream

[puppyrelp]

drop the lightbrush milk and cereal drawing here

since you asked So politely

[earth-64]

Wake Up Call - Nintendo Alarmo

All through Summer 2024 the Nintendo fandom had been in a fervor. The Nintendo Switch’s reign had eclipsed its seven year apex: the time had come for a new flagship piece of hardware to take its place. The stage seemed to be set: the game releases were thinning, the Nintendo Directs sparse, and the major game releases clearly smaller, outsourced, and not the main focus of development. Nintendo had already acknowledged the new machine’s existence with an assurance of it being announced within the fiscal year, followed by a continuous promise below each and every announcement stream that there “will be no mention of the Nintendo Switch successor during [...] these presentations.”

As the dog days passed by, during the fleeting few weeks of Fall that still existed between the ever widening record-high Summers and devastating Winter storms, it seemed undeniable that the stage was being set. Nintendo filed new patents for motion sensor technology. Word got out that they were filming a commercial for a new piece of hardware. They flew out content creators to demo something kept under wraps. And on October 9th, 2024, fans awoke to a flurry of notifications, an early morning unheralded announcement shaking the very foundations of what was thought possible for the gaming giant: 

Alarmo.

Nintendo’s smart alarm clock. A touchscreen device with a sleek interface, loaded with 35 themes inspired by 5 games (and more to come), and a $100 price tag. Their patented motion sensing technology made for a hands-free experience. Set the alarm once and from then on, each and every morning, your eyes would flutter open to a jazzy Mario tune, and your triumphant rise from bed would be rewarded with a victory jingle, a “Lets-A-Go!”, and a shot of nostalgic dopamine. 

But is nostalgic the right word? The motion sensor only works with a very specific set-up: most notably being limited to one person, a small bed, and a room that will remain otherwise empty through the night. No spouses, no pets, no roommates. It was clear this was intended for a child’s room. So no, it wasn’t nostalgic. At least not yet. It was designed to create new nostalgia.

Nintendo Alarmo, along with the similarly aimed Pokemon Sleep, are part of Nintendo’s long-running obsession with intentionally forming habits and responses. From the scheduled broadcasts of the Satellaview to the daily-task centric Animal Crossing series, and especially the predatory practices of their mobile game releases, Nintendo had a penchant for designing parasites that attached themselves to your waking (and non-waking) cycle. 

Today I’ll be sharing excerpts from interviews with people who received Alarmos as children, and uncover the shocking effects of waking each morning to a pavlovian coin-get jingle. But first, speaking of coin-getting, a word from today’s sponsor: LoanFast. Is payday just a—

God what a waste of time. Shit’s always so negative these days. These nostalgia-grab video essays used to be pleasant. Here’s an old-school animated movie you haven’t seen since the DVD bargain bin! Top ten cartoons of the 2010s! The misunderstood genius of the Wii U! But nah, now time has crept past the optimistic millennials. We’re struggling to find the diamonds in the rough patch that was the 2020s, to salvage anything from that fucking trash heap of a decade. God, no wait. Now I sound like them. I grew up with that age of media. I love that age of media. It’s just so easy to let the zeitgeist of doomerism– Okay stop. It’s way too easy to let these things override my brain. I had to mentally backspace the phrase “easily impressionable” right there too. I watch these videos with their big words and their gloomy ways of lookin at life and I feel it all start to seep into me. 

Millennials will convince you that the 00s were the peak of human creation. That the 10s were the last big push of creativity. But that's just not true! My cartoons were way better! Our video games are just objectively cooler and bigger! Adults get stuck on trying to make fun of my generation for the same few bullshit things, if I hear one more Skibidi Rizz I’m gonna– Shouldn’t think like that. I’m 24 now. That’s an adult. I’m an adult. I keep saying that and it doesn’t sound any more true. It happened so fast. It took so much time but it happened so fast. I was just a kid, playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD, and then I was a teenager and a lot happened, so much happened, and now I’m an adult playing Super Mario Odyssey on an old LCD and nothing happens, nothing ever happens. I am an adult and it is Christmas Eve and I am alone.

It was Christmas Eve then too. Back when Christmas felt like Christmas. I was 12 years old when I got the Nintendo Alarmo. December 24th, 2024 when I tore open my first present of the year. It was tradition to get one present the night before, usually something to pass the time until I was more tired than I was excited for the next morning. You wouldn’t think a clock would keep me busy but I spent the whole evening fiddling with the options, looking at every theme, resetting the time to hear the top-of-the-hour jingles for each game. I remember dad helping me put in the wi-fi password, I remember mom’s hurried trip to whatever convenience store was still open on the holiday because the damned thing didn’t come with an AC adapter. She brought back a package of Reese’s and one of those juice drinks with a plastic toy on it. It was… a Spongebob one? Yeah, and I set it on the shelf and it fell off during all the unwrapping the next day and it rolled underneath the shelf and it was down there for months and I’m remembering every single time I was sitting on the floor playing Mario and Luigi Brothership after getting it the next day and every single time I could see the Spongebob juice topper below the tv smiling at me and I never thought to get it I never put any thought into it being there it was just there until a day my mom must have swept and it wasn’t there and I didn’t think about it not being there. Until right now. 

Why didn’t that thing come with an AC adapter, god that’s so stupid.

I think about all that and I don’t think about everything that happened afterwards. I’m 12 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2024 and I’m getting the Nintendo Alarmo and now I’m 24 years old and it’s Christmas Eve 2036 and I look over at the window sill next to my bed and the Nintendo Alarmo is still there, still ticking. The AC adapter has been replaced a couple times and it’s a bit dinged up but it’s still ticking. So much happened all the while that clock kept ticking. I’m still ticking. I’ve gotten so worked up over this fucking video and I’ve been scrolling my home page this whole time. I try to actually read the titles my eyes are glossing over: “The Untold Story of Minecraft’s 1.50 Disaster”, “What Went Wrong With Forza 2030”, “Does Sony Regret Dropping Out of Consoles?” and I almost click the last one to see which retired executive guy they’re interviewing and personifying the whole company onto this time and I stop myself. It just takes one god damn clickbait title to manufacture curiosity like that and I’ll be watching another two hour video about job layoffs and feeling like shit again. I’m so sick of feeling like shit. It’s getting harder and harder to find content that makes me feel good. 

I decide to just turn the damn thing off. I sit there in the dark for a minute, as a dim light comes from across the room: it's 11:00pm and my Nintendo Alarmo is displaying a top-of-the-hour animation. Mario runs into view, bumps a block 11 times. I hear the little coin-collection jingle 11 times, and then the screen defaults back to its calmer darker state. 

I google for a day calculator on my phone and punch in that Christmas Eve and this one. 

4,383 days. If you take into the fact that after the Animal Crossing theme releases I swapped to that for Halloween and Christmas mornings, that’s 22 Animal Crossing mornings, and 4,360 Super Mario mornings, and 1 Mario Kart morning that I hated. Who the fuck wants to wake up to tires screeching? And the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY!” out-of-bed message was a bit patronizing even for me. But yeah, 4,360 Super Mario wake up calls. 4,360 times I have heard the Super Mario Bros. theme song as the very first sound of the day. Through thick and thin, from one side of the country to the other, through every school morning from 2024 onward and every single day of every job I’ve worked, it's remained constant. A morning without that jingle is just not conceivable to me, it's as natural a part of life as anything else. As sure as I’ll eat food and as sure as I’ll take a crap and as sure as I’ll turn my computer on and as sure as I’ll sleep again the next night is as sure as I will hear that jingle. Speaking of, sleep.

I brush my teeth with Scooby Doo bubblegum toothpaste and a toothbrush that I avoid looking too closely at because its got Spongebob on it and I’m too tired to let myself start back down that path of thinking about the things I took for granted. I can feel on my teeth that the brush is awfully frayed. I’ve been putting off buying a new one for months. I don’t know why. I could just grab one at the store and swap it out and it would make me feel so much better and be so much better for me, but I just don’t do it, I just never think to get it while I’m there and that just happens everyday and I blink and it's been months and my toothbrush is still frayed. 4,360 times. 4,360 times. 

I catch my brain multi-track drifting and decide I can’t sleep without a distraction. I open Youtube on my phone and start scrolling for something to play while I sleep. I crawl into bed and I just barely remember it's Christmas tomorrow. I grab the Nintendo Alarmo and thumb through the settings, swiping through menus. 

When I wake up tomorrow I’ll think that maybe I was just too tired, maybe I just got other shit on my mind, and that maybe these old LCD touchscreens are just over-sensitive pieces of shit or that maybe just maybe I am. But tomorrow my eyes will open at the time they’re used to opening anyway and I’ll be ready to hear the special Animal Crossing Toy Day Jingle that I was so certain I set it to, and I’ll hear the horrible screeching of tires on pavement and something will snap in me and I’ll hear the “FIRST PLACE VICTORY” and think about the empty platitudes and the 12 years I can barely remember and the four thousand wake-up calls that accompanied me as I kept sleep-walking through them and I’ll wake up and something will shatter and I’ll spend Christmas morning cleaning up the shards. 

[therandomtapes]

Last week, in the middle of a pretty trash week in general we learned that Sakurai Atsushi, lead singer of legendary Japanese rock band Buck-Tick passed away on Saturday October 16th.

I'm not sure how much I've spoken about them on here.

I found them in late 1998. When I got that X/1999 fansub in Brooklyn where I first heard X-Japan, it sent me down a rabbit hole. I would find out the fandom and the country were reeling from the passing of X's guitarist hide earlier that year, in Spring, and I would find a stream of a tribute album. Hide tribute spirits.

This is where I first heard Buck-Tick. Their cover of "doubt" left me wanting more.

I would then learn that they had been around since 1983 (i was 3).

(this is from 87)

They evolved through many eras, from new wave to goth (?) to cyberpunk to rock'n'roll to a combination of all eras. Their influence can be felt even in modern visual kei. They are probably the band that made everyone in that scene wanna have at least one jazzy swing type song on their albums. Hell, Acchan's the reason Kyo is Kyo. Sakurai's look inspired many anime character designs (and I'm pretty sure Benimaru Nikaido from King of Fighters is based on 80s Buck-Tick....yes...they ALL had that hair).

In fact, a lot of their music was in anime (especially if said anime was about vampires. It always amused me that during the era where Acchan looked like a vampire, B-T were the band you called if you needed a theme song for your vampire anime.) Nightwalker, XXXHolic, Trinity Blood, and the very best one, the one that is actually scary, SHIKI!!

If you're not up on vis kei, you probably still have heard of him since he and Imai were in SCHWEIN with Raymond Watts from Pig and Sacha Konietzko from KMFDM.

He also had a band called The Mortal which did a pretty amazing Siouxsie cover.

I recommend Buck-Tick and the Mortal's entire catalog, most of which is on streaming now. I should make a bloody playlist.

I will add the playlist to this post later.

R.I.P. Sakurai Atsushi

one of the greatest vocalists ever, and condolences to the band.

I cannot stress enough how awful I feel for those guys.

This band was together for THREE FUCKING DECADES. No lineup changes.

Atsushi and Imai had the kind of vocal interplay you only get if you're basically best friends.

It's a terrible loss.

. . . and, . . . . no.

I can't end the post like this.

It's too sad.

This band brought too much joy to end the post like this.

I am leaving you with the saga of the paper mache head people.

in the 80s, for the album Seventh Heaven (an album I might actually like better than Sexual XXXX, I can't decide), B-T did videos for quite a few songs (they did PVs for pretty much every song on Sexual XXXX), and 3 of them feature Atsushi having nightmares about/seeing people with large fake paper mache heads. Then in the video for In Heaven they are playing a show for them.

They had something I think is crucial to every band now and forever: WEIRD ASS MUSIC VIDEOS.

You think it was jus the 80s?

no no no

check out UTA

Just your average performance video? No. They dressed up like rock icons, with ridiculous wigs.

This is what I'm talking about. Joy, kids.

Atsushi and Buck-Tick brought JOY, dammit.

enjoy.

I'll post a playlist later, I guess.

Atsushi Sakurai, rest in power you legend!

[spiritmander13]

This is a cry for help.

Someone called me out during the Jazzy Oliver stream. And I don't mean in a friendly way. LITERALLY THEY STATED THE CONTENT OF THE FIC WITH NO FILTER. IN HER CHAT.

This has been my worst fear. Already, the fandom knows about my fucking joke. I don't want the staff to find out. Yet someone had no filter. At least don't mention the fucking MPREG.

Hi, I'm a creator of the Silver Spoon Pregnancy joke and lemme tell you: THIS IS NOT OKAY. Only I really have the power to tell people that I made that joke a reality. Please, this is asshole behavior. I never stated the contents of that fic in front of any staff because I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. Once again, really only I and my friends have the automatic consent to tell people that I wrote that fic. Just because you found it, doesn't mean I give you my fucking consent to expose me.

Posting this in the main tags because pretty sure y'all on Tumblr know what I mean because of June 9th, and also once again, this IS a call for help and comfort.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Eiko Ishibashi's Mournful Meditations

Eiko Ishibashi; photo by Shuhei Kojima

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When composing for film, singer-songwriter and musician Eiko Ishibashi knows how to both pull you in and shock you out of what you expect. Her latest fruitful collaborations have come with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Ishibashi first composing the score for Hamaguchi's 2021 film Drive My Car. Her musical cues tie into the narrative to the point where they're inexorably linked. I saw Drive My Car once when it came out, and every time I listen to its Original Soundtrack, I'm taken back to exactly the points in the film associated with each track.

Ishibashi and Hamaguchi's second collaboration, however, is a bit more complicated in terms of relationship between picture and sound. Hamaguchi was set to follow up Drive My Car with a 30-minute short silent film specifically designed to be screened with Ishibashi's live score. As he shot it, it grew into a full-length feature with dialogue, Evil Does Not Exist, with an accompanying score and soundtrack (out now via Drag City) from Ishibashi. Yet, Hamaguchi didn't totally scrap his original idea. Instead, he made a shortened, silent version of Evil Does Not Exist to go along with a live Ishibashi performance, entitled Gift. While it has a similar, if abridged plot to Evil Does Not Exist, viewing Gift is a different experience because it serves to emphasize the narrative power of Ishibashi's music.

Ishibashi; photo by Shuhei Kojima

When I saw a screening of Gift, accompanied by an Ishibashi performance, back in May at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (presented by The Renaissance Society), I had not yet seen Evil Does Not Exist or heard the standalone soundtrack. I was familiar with the basic plot of both films: A development company wishes to build a glamping site in a rural village, much to the chagrin of its residents. Watching Ishibashi perform, I marveled at her ability to tell a story with a mix of sampled elements and live synths and woodwinds. Both films begin with skittering, jazzy cymbals and guitars (played by Ishibashi's partner Jim O'Rourke) before being cut off by the main swelling, dramatic string theme, sound-tracking a long, continuous skyward shot of forest trees in winter. Live, Ishibashi manipulated the sound of the orchestration, cutting it in and out, disorienting you when you got too used to the hypnosis of the shot. Likewise, in Evil Does Not Exist, the sound of footsteps slowly mixes in with the strings until they suddenly stop; at that point, you realize the camera is from the vantage point of a young girl, Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), walking through the woods, and the film goes on.

In both Gift and Evil Does Not Exist, we see characters on screen deep in their routines. It's almost therapeutic watching widower Takumi (Hitoshi Omika)--Hana's father--repeatedly chop wood, fill jugs with water from the stream, and pause for a cigarette. It's even more jarring, then, when these characters are taken out of their routines or beyond their comfort zones, like when Takumi suddenly stops his work because he realizes he's late to pick up Hana. Occasionally, we hear the sound of a distant gunshot as the villagers hunt for deer. During Gift, the booms were not far off from Ishibashi's bass thuds, but they certainly contrasted the light clicking of her pedals during quieter moments, just as they resemble a far cry from more "natural" sounds in Evil Does Not Exist, like the crunching of leaves and rushing water.

But more than challenging the repetitiveness of manual labor, in both films, the sound of a gunshot grows to symbolize the difference between rural and urban experiences. To pitch the glamping site to the villagers, the development company hires two talent agency representatives, Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani), the latter of whom admits that the ringing blast was the first time she had ever heard a gun before. The two actors are, as we learn, clueless about the villagers' way of life, asking whether wild deer would be a threat to potential glampers (as opposed to the glamping site being an existential threat to the deer themselves). In one of the film's most tense scenes, Takahashi and Mayuzumi are put through the wringer when confronted by villagers' concerns about the effect of the glamping site's waste on the safety of their water supply. In Evil Does Not Exist, this scene is sound-tracked only by the stock music of the presentation before the characters start talking, suddenly cutting off. Gift, meanwhile, uses the scene to showcase the power of Ishibashi's compositions: We can feel the tension of the conversation by just hearing her score accompanied by only occasional words on screen.

As Takahashi and Mayuzumi shadow Takumi and help as much as possible with chopping wood, carrying water canisters, and so on, they become slightly more accustomed to the villagers' way of life and empathetic to their perspectives. They bluntly communicate the villagers' concerns to the project heads, who would rather rush through the project so as to keep their time-limited COVID subsidies. What happens from here, I will not spoil, though it's clear Hamaguchi's asking moral questions about the lengths people go to protect their loved ones and their surroundings, and whether or not the fight against capitalism is all-or-nothing. But during the scenes where the talent agency representatives are helping out, Ishibashi layers syncopated strings on top of the natural sounds, as if to blur the lines between humankind and the natural world, throwing even more wrenches into Hamaguchi's central queries.

Because Hamaguchi and Ishibashi render so complex the relationship between picture and sound via Gift and Evil Does Not Exist, the latter's soundtrack doesn't necessarily provide a new way to experience the projects' themes. Like that of Drive My Car, though, the soundtrack places you back in each scene. What's more, it exudes the films' distinctive moods. Of course, the opening and pseudo title track "Evil Does Not Exist v.2" consists of pattering drums and scraggly guitars giving way to the aforementioned solemn main string theme, squarely placing the film's beginning forest shot in your mind. The spacey synthesizer blips of "Hana V.2" make you picture the consistent wandering of its namesake character, the sound of thumping bass and footsteps making the listener feel an almost parental instinct when thinking about a child alone. And "Smoke" juxtaposes tactile and malleable instrumentation, a collection of cymbals, kick drum, woodwinds, and buzzing drones, the sonic manifestation of Hamaguchi's musings on the extent to which we can bend the world to suit our whims. Are we extensions of our surroundings, or have they become subservient to us? Does evil actually exist? Take in Hamaguchi and Ishibashi's multi-media world, and you'll have no answers, but certainly more to chew on while you, too, go about your every day.

[moreclaypigeons]

crying at the tags on the playlist names post oml. anyway what're your top 5 mountain goats sounds for someone who loves no children and has not heard any other of their songs

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHH

Well here is the tmg essentials playlist that I have crafted, which is an hour and a half long (also is the reason my pfp is John Green mountain goats And was mentioned in the playlist tags :])

And as for the top five? Hhh okay.. I want to get a good mix of times and feelings in there as well as try to cover the essential albums uhhh

1. This year | The Sunset Tree | 2005

This is an absolute classic and is great to scream in your head. It's about getting through this year if it kills you!! It's one of my most played songs of all time at this rate (I've streamed it 500+ times apparently??)

2. Get Famous | Getting Into Knives | 2020

I love this one, it's more jazzy than most of their songs and is just very fun. It's not what a lot of their music sounds like but it's a good time.

3. The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton | All Hail West Texas | 2002

I love this album in general, it is very acoustic and every song has its own narrative. This song is the first on the tracklist, and it's a good representative for a lot of their music especially in that time period.

4. Deuteronomy 2:10 | The Life of the World to Come | 2009

Be warned this song will make you fucking cry. Content warning for extinction and animal death. That's all I will say. This song changed my life... I've never been able to listen to this album all the way through cause it's one of their more emotionally heavy ones. By god are some of the songs profoundly sad. Good but devastating.

5. Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1 | Transcendental Youth | 2012

If you like No Children, I must recommend something near it in catharsis. And of course that's Spent Gladiator. This song is like if This Year had an older sister. It's about going through rough shit and thinking you're not gonna make it but you find every way you can to keep going.

Bonus:

Here's the ska cover of no children. Because I love it.

You Were Cool is one of my favorites that they only perform live and haven't released a recording of. You can find videos of it on YouTube! I used one of the lines from it on my graduation cap.

If you do like these songs and want to get more into the mountain goats, I would recommend listening to either:

A Jordan lake sessions album, which are live session recordings they especially did during the height of the pandemic. The whole thing tracks over and has a lot of talking between songs and many of them have a different or more raw take on some of their more popular or personal favorites.

Any of their albums all the way through in order. My top recommendations for this are Tallahassee (which no children is on!), The sunset tree, all hail West Texas, bleed out, heretic pride, and transcendental youth. I do love many of the other albums but these ones are my favorites as a unit.

I know listening to the mountain goats at first can be really intimidating cause their discography is SO BIG (like more than 24 hrs worth of music big) but if you do then you end up with a lot of room to explore! I don't think I've even listened to every song they've made and I've been a fan for a good few years. Like mountain goats fans are super cool about that kind of thing (I know other music fan communities can be the opposite) cause they just love to share even a little love! And if you (or anyone else!!) have any questions or want more playlist suggestions (I have several hyperspecific tmg playlists saved and or made) my inbox is always open :] I love talking about tmg

[luci-j]

Headcannon Time! Blackjack O'Hare

Since our lovely laogomorph is now in the middle of his backstory, figured I could do some headcannons/facts about him!

- I knew early-on I didn't want him to be from Halfworld. I wanted Rocket to have that loneliness of being the only one like him from High Evolutionary's lab. So I settled on him being a creation of Tony Stark's. This also continues with the theme of Blackjack being a good person who was made worse by bad people who were on their way to becoming better. Stark was an arms dealer, and I feel like that got lost in the shuffle sometimes. I also wanted to highlight that cruelty, and the same kinds of it, are a universal in the galaxy.

- He has a lot of parallels to Peter! While Peter grew up with an 80s experience, and is sort of frozen in time there, he grew up with a 90s one.

- He's named after a character in a violent 90s cartoon, of which there were plenty of. As someone who grew up during that time, there were a lot of cartoons from R-Rated properties that should NOT exist lol.

- Why DOES he sound British? This is actually an homage to Rocket’s first appearance in the comics, when he had a British accent. I also liked the idea of having a running gag of where it's addressed that half of space sounds like this. And it plays into a lot of 90s kids having TVs for babysitters, and nature documentaries being a go-to thing in the days before streaming when you couldn't afford the GOOD cable.

- He's a voracious reader and loves reading literally anything. In a regular month, he can get through about 30 books easily. This is a weird callback to the Pizza Hut "book it" challenge from the 90s that a lot of kids did. A lot of 80s and 90s kids in the U.S. owe their literacy to how much they desired a personal pan pizza.

- He knows Braille and also BASL -- Black American sign language. He also knows some sign language from other pockets of the galaxy. BASL is a lot like ASL, but tends to use two hands instead of one.

- He's intensely pansexual, and has instant crushes on Mantis and Kevin, among others. Over the course of his life, though, he has two great loves. Readers have met them both currently.

- His favorite music is rap and hip hop. This, again, is something where he's very attached to something like Peter is, but in a very different manor. The Guardians soundtracks were based a lot in classic rock, and I wanted each new character I introduced to be like adding a new genre to the playlist-- Sort of like a new instrument getting introduced in an orchestra, so it all comes together to make one big, beautiful symphony.

- He's not very handy. He's been alone a lot of his life, and had to figure things out by himself a lot, just by nature of not trusting overs.

- He has intense anxiety, and abuses anti-anxiety medications as a result. He's got the heart of a prey creature, and has to live in a world where he has to be on guard literally every second.

- He's fully blind, and he has Braille stickers and other aids to help around his ship.

- His ship is named the Jazzy Belle, which is a nod to an Outkast song. It's very old and he doesn't know how to make a lot of the repairs. He doesn't like parting with it because he isn't a very big fan of change or instability.

- He's also a foil to Rocket and Meti in some respects. He is a version of them that never got a support system like he needed. Rocket eventually got the Guardians, and Meti his family. They represent found family. Rook represents BAD found family in her introduction. Blackjack represents what happens when that help just never comes.

- A lot of his mechanics have bits and pieces of household items and toys. The red of his eyes emotes, which is based on one of these:

- The family he lived with on Earth is religious. He followed in this path, even if he doesn't feel particularly worthy of it these days with some of the underhanded things he's done as a bounty hunter.

- He can use both guns and blades, although he opts for a lightsaber-type blade. Why? I thought it looked cool as hell in my mind.

[kickmag]

The Legacy Of J. Dilla Streaming On FX & Unheard Music Released Via Kano

The Legacy of J. Dilla is making its debut on the FX network tonight. The New York Times documentary about the late hip-hop producer explores Dilla's ingenuity as a beatmaker, the history of his Conant Gardens neighborhood and the various conflicts over his estate. Dilla died in 2006 at age 32 after battling a rare blood disease. At the time he was a budding underground legend having worked with Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, The Roots, D'Angelo and Common. He also founded his own group Slum Village and used his beats to elevate several local rappers from Detroit including Phat Kat, Frank-N-Dank and others.  The producer's career took a different turn after R&B veteran Amp Fiddler introduced him to Q-Tip after a fated interaction during a Lollapalooza tour. Since his passing, he's been talked about heavily among rap connoisseurs, beat junkies and producers. The general public is still unaware of his contributions and the documentary is a way to commemorate his work and introduce him to those who still don't connect the sounds to his name. DJ Jazzy Jeff is in the film deconstructing Dilla's methodology that still mystifies the most initiated beatsmiths to this day. 

The James Yancy estate has made a deal with Kano, the company responsible for the STEM player to release unheard music from Dilla over the next 10 years. The 20 songs are being released alongside the film. Fans can listen to the music on the STEM player which allows the songs to be remixed and the mixes can be shared online. The STEM player costs $200 and a monthly subscription is $1.94. The Legacy of J. Dilla will debut on FX and can be watched later on Hulu. 

[krispyweiss]

Rewind: Huffamoose - Huffamoose (1993)

If there was any justice in the music universe, Huffamoose’s 1993 self-titled debut would’ve been picked up by a major and become, if not a huge hit, a beloved cult favorite.

Instead, it just languished.

Released on 7 Records in 1993 and not made available for streaming until sometime during the pandemic, Huffamoose is nevertheless as revelatory - and relevant - in 2023 as it was 30 years ago.

It was hard to find even then, and Sound Bites bought every copy he ever saw - four in all - to allay fears his CD would fail or it’d get left behind at a party. And the blog took Huffamoose everywhere, turning on everyone he knew to the sounds of one of the ’90s’ greatest, unique, releases. Even Huffamoose didn’t sound like Huffamoose when the band’s major-label debut, We’ve Been Had Again, arrived in ’97 with inferior remakes of “James” and “I Wanna Buy You a Ring.”

Sound Bites can still remember the moment he first heard Kevin Hanson’s guitar and the thwack of Erik Johnson’s drums as the opening track “Everybody Else” first crossed his ears.*

Nobody takes me for granted/nobody gets one over on me/I’m a new man and my new problem/is everybody else, songwriter Craig Elkins sings in a laconic manner sweetened by Hanson’s harmonies.

So it goes for nearly an hour as Elkins spills his cynicism and sorrow over Hanson’s jazzy runs and the taut rhythm section of Johnson and bassist Jim Stager, whose work continues to reveal itself as a jazz-rock master class hundreds of listens down the line.

I need to stop the cycle now before it’s too late and my children catch it, too/I need to let her go and move on with my life/but I can’t/forget/her face/in the mirror, Elkins sings on “Mary,” one of a handful of heartbreakers set among more playful fare like the stream-of-consciousness dream that is “Song about Nothing” and the celebratory swing of “I Can’t Turn Around.”

Throughout it all, the band cooks as Elkins’ acoustic guitar provides intros and rhythmic padding for his bandmates’ more-aggressive playing.

It ends - save for a reprise-laden hidden track - with the elegiac majesty of “Sacred Ground,” a latently powerful song suitable for funerals and weddings (seems incongruous, I know) that finds Elkins singing:

This is what we are all here for/we are all here for/we are standing on sacred ground/there is nothing greater/there is nothing more/than this/is what/we/are/all/here/for

Its a mystical ending to a magical album that somehow, and unjustly, cast its spell on only a relative few. It’s not too late to change that - and with streaming, it’s now possible and highly recommended.

*Sound Bites was honored to tell Hanson this very thing when he and Mrs. Sound Bites traveled to Philadelphia in 2018 for the album release party for … and that’s when the golf ball hit me in the head, which immediately became - and remains - the blog’s second-favorite Huffamoose LP.

Grade card: Huffamoose - Huffamoose - A

9/17/23

[rabbitechoes]

there were a lot of good tracks this month! judging by some of the new singles, early 2024 is shaping up to be a cool time for new releases. another note, i'm not sure if i'll do a favorite songs of december because i might just do a favorite songs of the year thing instead. i wanted to do one or the other because doing both would be a lot of work and i wanna enjoy my winter break tbh!!!!

as always feel free to follow me on rate your music and twitter (i’m not calling it X)

"Mother Nature" - MGMT

◇ featured on Loss of Life - MGMT (not yet released) ◇ genres: neo-psychedelia, indie rock

This February we’re finally getting the follow-up to MGMT’s incredible 2018 album Little Dark Age! The lead single to this new record has the band exploring fresh, new sounds to great effect. MGMT are no stranger to psychedelia, but this track has them taking a considerably less electronic approach to it. The songwriting is some of their strongest to date. Very excited about this new album.

"I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a 'Rap' Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time" - André 3000

◇ featured on New Blue Sun - André 3000 ◇ genres: new age, ambient

This month we finally received the first full-length solo project from hip hop legend André 3000. As the title of this song suggests, this is a much different direction than his work in OutKast over 16 years ago. On this album, André explores ambient or occasionally jazzy soundscapes driven by the flute (his recent instrument of choice). This track is gorgeous with André’s flute passages taking center stage. This whole project is definitely worth a listen.

"Now And Then" - The Beatles

◇ featured on The Beatles 1967-1970 (2023 Edition) [The Blue Album] - The Beatles ◇ genres: piano rock, baroque pop

The jokes have been played out by this point about “these Beatles guys are good, they’re going places!”, but it is still bizarre to have a brand new Beatles song in 2023. I highly recommend watching the documentary about the history of this song and how it came to be. Admittedly, that documentary played a big role in my enjoyment of this song. It feels like a fitting send-off for one of the greatest bands of all time. Is it overproduced? Yeah lol, but this project is clearly driven by Paul McCartney who, as everyone should know, is no stranger to overblown schmaltz. We love him for it! Will this ever be lauded as one of band’s best songs? No, but it’s still very good.

"Celibate" - Danny Brown

◇ featured on Quaranta - Danny Brown ◇ genre: abstract hip hop

This new Danny Brown album lived up to most of my expectations while also subverting them. Brown takes a more introspective approach which really sets this project apart from his previous work. This track has been in constant rotation for me since it dropped. Danny's more subdued delivery works very well with the feature from MIKE (who just dropped a strong contender for rap album of the year). Really enjoyed this track and also the entire project.

‧₊˚✧ BEST SONG OF THE MONTH ✧˚₊‧ "Oral" - Björk & Rosalía

◇ genres: art pop, electronic

I thought this track would be good, but this is like unbelievably good. Björk wrote this track during her "classic period", but it never saw the light of day until this reworked version with Rosalía. These two work so well together. Björk's trademark ethereal sound shines through hear and the occasional reggaeton percussion underneath is a very nice touch. The chorus is a highlight in both of their careers and thats coming from someone who holds both of these artists in very high regard (admittedly mostly Björk, although MOTOMAMI ranked very high for me last year). Please give this a listen! Not only is this a great track, but its for a good cause!!! All streaming proceeds go to protecting Icelandic fish from harmful fish farms.

"Wall of Eyes" - The Smile

◇ featured on Wall of Eyes - The Smile (not yet released) ◇ genres: art rock, psychedelic folk, post-rock

The Smile are returning with a new record out in January and this track is very good! A few months ago they dropped "Bending Hectic" which, if you're keeping up, was my favorite track back in June. That track is making it on the album so even if this song wasn't good, I would be stoked. Luckily, this track is really good. I love the bossa nova inspired guitar throughout the song, the hazy psychedelic sound, and the small string flourishes. Really beautiful stuff. I can't wait to hear the rest of the record!

"Red Flags" - Brittany Howard

◇ featured on What Now - Brittany Howard (not yet released) ◇ genres: psychedelic soul, neo-psychedelia

Look, I don't know why so many banger psychedelic songs dropped this month, but I'm not complaining. I was a big fan of Brittany Howard's last record and the announcement of her new album flew completely under my radar until I was made aware of this single. This is an interesting new sound for Howard, but she pulls it off really well. If the whole record is stuff like this, we're in for a treat.

[khiita]

Hello hello! Development and Wild card from the Infamous ask game for whoever you'd like please, if you want! ~whowhatifs

[ infamous mc ask game ]

hiiii thank u sm + sorry for the late reply !! 👴💕

development: how did you come up with your character? is their design still evolving? how do you think they might develop through the story?

haha so i've talked a little about it here before but my main mc for the game, fred, is an oc i've had for a looooong ass time. the first iteration of him was a sim in the sims 2 LMFAO and his design has ( of course ) changed a lot since then ! the only things that've remained the same are his hair color, eye color, his love for striped black+white t-shirts and the fact that he has tattoos ! :-)

and from then on the variations his current design has seen in different verses are hairstyle / facial hair / amount of tattoos 🤡 his "normal" or original self has 37 of them ! in infamous he has 39 😭

and i have no thots + head empty about any changes he might go through during the story, i'm very excited to see where it goes ! :-)

wild card: tell us something about your mc!

hmm ! i've mentioned this in another ask so i'll expand on it a little! all of the songs fred writes are love songs, its always been what comes most naturally to him and he struggles trying to write about other topics 😭 + love encompasses romantic songs, as well as cheerful and fun ones, and of course heartbreak ones. he's written a lot of songs for seven ( before, during, and after they dated ) + he's also written four songs about rowan + two for jazzy + one for iris and devyn. no songs about orion yet 😌 but he's written songs for most of his closest friends because he loves them and their support is what keeps him going :-)

he never tells anyone when a song is about / for them ( + nobody is allowed to look at his notebook ), but most times there's enough clues for them to figure it out ! also, when a song is about a band member, he likes looking at / going up to them while singing it during concerts ! he's not shy about serenading people + it also serves as fanservice lmfao. however he's also admitted that he writes songs inspired by fictional characters or by fictional relationships that he loves ! so now whenever his band puts out a new song, fans have whole reddit threads discussing whether the lyrics are about seven or like. the latest game he's played on t/witch 😭

🧍‍♂️ ( the rare ocassions where the songs aren't about love are the ones where he improvises something during streams / when joking around with friends 💀 one of the main reasons he ( and by extension his band ) really hit it off online is that he likes to sing pop songs either normally or with really stupid lyrics that he comes up with on the spot in team voice chat while gaming )

[kristsune]

There was still a wonderful amount of silliness during the mafia stream last week, including some moments like: Tim is a little picture frame (screenshot included) smooth jazz, its Tim Time, jar of jazzy piss, everything is fine, gangsters monthly, nothing is the sound of anything else, murder in the house of god, fucking hate bluey (disclaimer, out of context: Tim didn't know who bluey was), corpse in the truck, rhymes!, hey SAM, the brown starfish it sleeps tonight, Big Jelly John and his Spicy Orchestra, Himbo Jones!, Another fahrenheit rant, brine twerp, salt twat, beware the brine swindler!, sports!, test tube frankenstein, praise the lord and pass the ammunition!, just some time in the woods, gangsters monthly (reprise), and happy birthmoose (sounds included).

art by erebusodora, screenshot by me

[charissenicolette]

“Harry’s House” by Harry Styles — an album review

During the pandemic, a lot of things came to a halt, including concerts. A lot of people turned to music (streaming and physical copies such as vinyl, CD, and cassette) and other forms of entertainment for leisure at home. Meanwhile, a lot of musicians started working on new music. At the time, they’d be thinking, "What would a ‘pandemic album’ sound like?" It depends on the artist, of course. To celebrate one year since the release of Harry's House, here is my review (I became a fan one month after this album's release).

The pandemic definitely made people reflect on a lot of things, especially their own lives. According to Harry, "It is definitely the most personal record that I think I’ve made... I think it’s also the most free I’ve ever felt making music..." "[The album] is named after Hosono; he had an album in the 70’s called Hosono House, and I spent that chunk in Japan; I heard that record and I was like, ‘I love that. It’d be really fun to make a record called Harry’s House.’"

Synth pop and Harry experimenting with the texture of his vocals take center stage. The album is full of pop bops that are sure to be on loop. Most of the songs are about relationships. Amusing lyrics like "Green eyes, fried rice, I could cook an egg on you/Late night, game time, coffee on the stove, yeah/You’re sweet ice cream, but you could use a flake or two" match the (mostly) cheerful atmosphere of the album. The album is full of standard pop songwriting paired with simple yet delightful melodies. "In this world, it’s just us/You know it’s not the same as it was" are the most relatable lyrics of the album as they describe the effects of the pandemic.

The slow, introspective songs in the middle of the album, Little Freak and Matilda, also shine, as the melodies suit the delicate subjects of these songs. He is sincere as he recalls a previous relationship then a person who has gone through something tough. "You showed me a power that is strong enough to bring sun to the darkest days/It’s none of my business, but it’s just been on my mind" shows off Harry’s potential as a good songwriter. After the ballads come the smooth, jazzy songs Cinema and Daydreaming, which continue to depict the attraction previously mentioned in the songs of the first half of the album. The last four songs of the album are interesting as they switch between paces and topics.

The only skip on this album is the track Boyfriends which was originally supposed to be on his sophomore album Fine Line. This ballad sounds like a lullaby; however, its pacing and Harry's crooning on this track aren't captivating or memorable enough. Maybe this track would have sounded better if it were middle- or fast-paced, or if he had sung in a different way. It's quite strange that this track is second to last instead of following or in between Little Freak and Matilda.

Harry’s House is introspective yet riveting. The album is one of the best recent mainstream pop albums I’ve ever heard. Despite the heavy synth on this one, it isn’t tiring to listen to. The hype is legitimate. In my opinion, there’s only one skip on this album (try guessing which song it is — hint: it’s on the latter half). This album is really fun and full of earworms.

Verdict: Good, fun

[notebookmusical]

Hi! Omg I hope you had an amazing time at your Eras show! I watched parts of live streams each night and I was so nervous during the surprise songs for you! I hope you're pretty happy with them. I also enjoyed watching the TTPD set again, which I've only watched a few times. How was seeing that part live specifically? I'm just really curious cuz I'll never get to see it live. What was your favorite song or part of it? I'm intrigued by the spaceship in Down Bad and the Roomba in Who's afraid of little old me..just with her flying around and the screams and live vocals. I also like the showbiz like jazzy intro and performance of I Can Do it with a Broken Heart. It's very almost like Broadway and makes me happy. Anyway your guitar mashup seemed quite random to me but I would've loved to hear Haunted omg and the actual mashup in the bridge worked well to me. Never Grow Up and the Best Day was beautiful and also made sense as a mashup to me. I thought she would add part of Robin too but she never did. Anyway I also got The Best Day as my surprise song back at my rep show! so that made me smile. It wouldn't have been my first choice but made sense why she played it that time and now. I just hope you're not bummed by not going to closing night or anything,and that it still felt pretty special. You were able to get two Speak Now songs and a Fearless song! Unfortunately she didn't add Long Live back in the set and I'm sorry you didn't get to hear it. But I also was right about the Long Live and New Years Day piano mashup at the last show!!! I loved that she also sang a debut song at the last show in the guitar mashup but I guessed Our Song. It was pretty emotional for me..the only thing that would've made it better is if she added You're on your own kid but The Manuscript makes sense too. I loved it and she seemed so happy. I'm glad you were able to be there so close to it ending! I wonder what was being filmed. My guess is a documentary about the tour, with more behind the scenes and the process of creating it..or even just adding in TTPD..idk. What do you think?

Oh good job on the reading lol. I'm hoping to start some books on my list soon or continue others too. I completely forgot about the Starless Sea but I was enjoying that when I started it a long time ago. Hopefully I finish it eventually cuz you love it so much, along with the Night Circus. I looked up These Violent Delights and it seems interesting..I hope you enjoy it. I actually might reread the Outsiders too since I haven't read it since 8th grade and I hope you enjoy that too when you get to it soon! Haha I think that's the one I have too..it's from previews so it has the duet in it lol. You should tell me when you're watching and I will rewatch. That makes sense, I just feel like with that approach..I watch it once and play the cast album once and forget most of the songs and how they go..like it's hard to keep track of the songs sometimes when you watch a bootleg..but maybe it will be different cuz you'll be familiar with the plot by then and it might be easier to know where the songs were if that makes sense but you might forget how they go. At least that happens to me, but you'd get the whole thing watching it rather than confused just by listening lol. Are you going to try to think about where the songs are while reading or watching the movie? It was really hard for me when I first heard about the musical lol. Omg I'm not as familiar with the Back to the Future movie compared to Outsiders but I have seen it, just not in a long time. Idk if I ever fully watched the sequels though or might get them confused.It should be a fun musical to see and it kinda reminds me of Groundhog Day as a movie, and that was turned into a musical too. Idk if you're familiar with it but that's just the kinda vibes and show I think it would be similar to. I haven't actually heard much of the music from BTF though. Please tell me how it is..it will be here In February and I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to go but I'll try since you're seeing it!

Luckily that problem with watching a musical and forgetting the songs after wasn't really a problem with Merrily at all, and after listening again, I like them all a lot more. That usually happens too lol. The movie is definitely interesting because of the 20 years thing. It honestly doesn't make sense cuz the actors are about 30 right now anyway so wouldn't it only take another ten years..haha. honestly I could see Jonathan Bailey in it..just cuz I am not sold on any of the cast so far either..but I also said that about Wicked. I also just really loved Daniel, Jonathan, and Lindsay in this version a lot so that's probably part of it. But I'm also having trouble imagining how it would be with the settings and time jumps since it seemed like such a stage type show and idk how they'll convey that in a movie. I have the same favorite songs as you! I also said that about Death Becomes Her..how were they going to do the deaths and stunts on stage? But they probably will do a good job..I'm also excited for the costumes. The songs I heard almost reminded me of Chicago and with them being rivals and some songs about wanting to be famous and the music was sorta jazzy I think. So I definitely see how audiences could like that and it's supposed to be funnier than the movie.

Wow I had no idea! I was actually pretty shocked he was doing another Broadway show that soon. I'm not familiar with the show so I can't comment on that but I am happy about Jeremy lol. Are you familiar with the show? Of course I would love Mike to return to Broadway and he was good in West Side Story too. Also I finally watched Challengers this weekend lol. Did you watch it? I'm not sure what I thought about it but everyone's performance was pretty good. I feel it was sort of over hyped..idk. But while watching, my sister and I almost forgot that he was in Dear Evan Hansen and that it didn't seem like him in that lol. So hopefully he returns to Broadway at some point. I wasn't really worried about her acting..just that she has a pretty soft voice compared to Broadway usually but it might be that kind of show. It seems like Maybe Happy Ending has softer songs so it might not be a problem. Aww that's too bad cuz it's an original show but I hope it can last too. It's also Darren's first original role and would want him to be nominated and also Jeremy. Unfortunately a few shows just closed so I don't really know and it might be too early for Tony chances.

I do love the little shop movie so I hope you get to it at some point. Like I would find it weird watching Wicked that much with the Act Two and then not get to see it in the movie lol. Im sure that's what you mean when you said the movie felt pretty long. I am excited for Act part 2 though. What are you most excited for in Part 2? I feel like my favorite parts are in Act one, just when they're younger, but I'm very excited for No Good Deed and As Long as You're Mine. Haha those are some of the best songs in the musical. I think I know what you mean with Cynthia and so I wanna see how she sings these songs and if she gets less timid and more Jonathan Bailey. I think I would rather them be older then, compared to young in Part 2 though. I agree with all you said and it was good for Something Bad cuz I remember everyone thought it would be cut haha. I didn't remember anything about the Grimmerie stuff in Short Day so maybe that's why or the monkeys so I agree. I did like changes with Nessarose and that the actress actually uses a wheelchair, and the Wicked Witch of the East should be interesting in Part 2 as well. I just thought the cuts and scene changes felt weird in Dancing Through Life but actually make sense that way too..so it's hard. I do agree about the color and lighting..the movie just isn't that vibrant.

I wasn't that surprised by my Spotify Wrapped. My top artists were Taylor, Beyonce and Twenty one pilots. They had three of the best albums of the year and also before I listened, I went back and listened to all their old albums. So that plays a part in the amount listened and Beyonce and Taylor also had longer new albums too. Plus, my sister and I share the account so it gets doubled. I also did this with Halsey and Ariana and she was one of my top artists too. The top songs are honestly more random and idk how it chooses the songs when I mostly play the album. But I will say that with Spotify, I will leave recommended music on and that's how I ended up with Good luck Babe and Espresso as two of my top songs..it was always playing after Taylor's album I think and a lot of their other songs. I am surprised cuz I hadn't really listened to Beyonce since her album came out but I feel like it puts more stuff from the beginning of the year. But I mostly use Spotify for listening to new albums and artists everyday compared to like my YouTube. Soccer Mommy didn't make my Spotify but will always make YouTube, and like the Cure..so more mood music basically while I use Spotify to keep track of what I listen to throughout the year. I also have a lot of Outsiders on YouTube and Spotify. My top song on YouTube was apparently the duet from Outsiders that isn't on Spotify and I've only known about it since August lol and another one is one of the performances. On Spotify, it told me that July was my musical theater month which makes sense since I was listening to all of the stuff from the Tony's lol. Whats on your Apple Music replay? It's cool that you can look at it anytime and it updates throughout the rest of the year. Who were your top artists and songs? I hope you have a good rest of the week!

hellooooo my friend! i did! i had a really lovely time at eras and i was so, so happy with the surprise songs — my friend and i were in the car like "oh i hope she plays haunted... she probably won't though" so you can only imagine our excitement when she played haunted! and i loveeee alice and so when wonderland started i screamed. but the real highlight was experiencing the best day x never grow up with my mom 🥺 i was in tears.

the tortured poet set was interesting live because it was really apparent that it was added late and lowkey felt a little bit out of place? but i still liked it. i think down bad with the roomba was my favorite, but i also liked who's afraid of little old me! and i did enjoy ICDIWABH! i was a bit bummed i didn't get long live again but i heard it twice in seattle last year so it was quite alright! i think the surprise songs i got were perfect and just so special 🤍 my friend and i played mastermind and i had predicted a place in this world for night two and so i was like :o when she played it night three! i think the night two songs were kinda random but was not surprised by her night three surprise songs in the slightest! i also would not be surprised if it's a tour doc with some extended scenes/performances! i will say though it was slightly annoying because the cameras were blocking our view a lot </3 but i am excited for whatever comes out of it!

i am currently making my way through the wicked audiobook, and then the outsiders is next! finally! hopefully i can get through wicked by friday, and then outsiders over the weekend maybe? i did finally watch back to the future (the movie) in preparation for seeing the musical on thursday! and i probably won't think about where songs are while i'm reading/watching the movie for the outsiders!! i'm going to do my hardest to think of them as three separate entities but we'll see how that works out... i'll let you know how back to the future is though for sure! my friend went over the weekend and said the sound mixing was weird (as is normal for the paramount) so hopefully that won't affect my enjoyment of it too much!

i'm not super familiar with floyd collins but i know the gist of it and i do enjoy adam guettel's music (light in the piazza is one of my favorites) so i'm intrigued! and i loveeeeed challengers, i saw it in cinemas and i think it was just so brilliant! but i also watched it before it was EVERYWHERE so i think that makes a difference. i think zendaya, mike and josh all give phenomenal performances too!!

i am also an act 1 wicked enjoyer, but i'm really excited for ariana's thank goodness and her i'm not that girl (reprise), and i can't wait for cynthia & jonny's as long as you're mine anddddd cynthia's no good deed! oh and for good... oh i just love wicked. i think it is just very odd for a movie that is essentially the wizard of oz fanfiction to be so ... dull and colorless, given that the wizard of oz is known for ... color.

i also had espresso as my top song but apple music replay will update through the year so maybe it will get dethroned....! i was really surprised that taylor and the 1975 both made it in my top listened to artists, given that i haven't really listened to them this year and have been listening to a lot of musicals, but i guess because the way cast recordings are billed that kind of makes sense... my top listened to artists were holly humberstone → sabrina carpenter → taylor swift → the 1975 → maisie peters, and then top songs were espresso → cigarettes & wine → feather → my days → leave the light on! and top albums were: the secret of us (deluxe) → brat → the notebook → short n' sweet → older! all of which is shocking to me but that's okay! i also listen to a lot of physical media, so my replay is never fully accurate!

how are you doing? do you have anything you're looking forward to? what are you listening to? if i don't get a chance to talk to you soon i hope you have happy holidays if you celebrate them! 🤍

[spiritmander13]

Y'all, have you ever realized something about yourself while watching someone else's content and really want to thank them because technically they were the reason behind you finding out something new?

Specific question, I know, but this happened to me last week. No I will never shut up about this story.

I was watching a livestream from this voice actor named Jazzy Oliver (very nice person, VAs a canonically non-binary character and is a transfem non-binary lesbian). She was playing Life is Strange: Before the Storm and I was noticing how Rachel and Chloe were like me and my QPP @mxmc13. And that was pretty much the tipping point into me realizing that I was a lesbian and I was feeling very euphoric throughout the rest of the stream.

I feel obligated to thank them because specifically HER stream was why I found out I was a lesbian and the stream comforted me during the overwhelming euphoria I was having from the realization. Of course, I don't HAVE to thank her, but I feel like I should. And this isn't the first time I was comforted by her; back in late July (I think), I was scared of telling my family that I was Pangender, so I turned to her.

I was wondering if others had felt like they should do the same, so that's why I'm asking this question.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Anna B Savage Interview: Curated Vulnerability

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Over a Zoom call with Anna B Savage in March, I tell her that “Say My Name”, an acoustic, whispered, creaking highlight from her sophomore album in|FLUX (City Slang), reminds me of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”. Like that song, “Say My Name”, pattering drums and free saxophone nonetheless, is essentially a song-long crescendo. The first time Savage recorded the song, she burst into tears when finished. I tell her the story of how Thom Yorke did the same, a night after seeing Jeff Buckley and laying “Street Spirit” down to tape, but that I could be wrong. “No way! I’ll choose to believe the legend,” Savage said. Immediately after our conversation, I realize I did get it wrong--not the crying part, but the specific song. (Purportedly, the Buckley-to-recording-to-weeping pipeline happened with “Fake Plastic Trees”.) In a way, my error felt fitting when talking about in|FLUX, an album that saw Savage learning to not worry about, and ultimately embrace, uncertainty and imperfection.

While the themes of in|FLUX jive with Savage’s previous material, there’s a newfound openness to her approach. The dissolved relationship blues of Savage’s debut A Common Turn and subsequent ups and downs of her These Dreams EP presented a stunning new artistic voice, one unafraid to share her deepest insecurities, buoyed by details at once hilarious and cringeworthy. in|FLUX is more all-encompassing. She still explicitly refers to sex and sexuality, on tracks like the “Touch Me”, “Pavlov’s Dog”, and the title track, but she ranges from desire to self-sufficiency. She revels in the foreplay on “Touch Me”. “Just call me Pavlov’s Dog / I’m here, I’m waiting, I’m salivating,” she sings on the jazzy “Pavlov’s Dog”, literally panting in the background. On the title track, she recalls, “Last night I dreamt we were one / We had sex / I didn’t come,” a blunt, straightforward contrast to erotic songwriting. Beginning with voice and woodwinds, stop-starts of silence, the song transforms into a dance track with Moog synthesizer filling the spaces in between. “I want to be alone,” Savage sings, dancing on her own. It’s one of many aesthetic about-faces on in|FLUX.

in|FLUX was co-produced with tunng’s Mike Lindsay, introduced to Savage through City Slang, and the album was built up methodically, flushed out in the studio on a week by week basis. Though Lindsay certainly got to know Savage and encouraged her therapeutic songwriting, her ability to push herself made the record what it is. During the pandemic, she pursued a Master’s in Music and requested her mentor to force her to write a song on a Digital Audio Workstation, which ended up being the title track. The saxophone and clarinet that pepper the album were played by Savage herself, choosing to throw caution to the wind and pick up instruments she hadn’t played since her teenage years. She sung final track “The Orange” in the wrong key but ended up keeping it, turning a mistake into an artistic choice. “It’s a small miracle to finally enjoy being me,” she sings, “And if this is all that there is / I think I’m gonna be fine.” in|FLUX seems to be a touchpoint for Savage’s musical career, one where she’s less concerned about defining herself than being herself.

Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: At what point did you realize the writing process for in|FLUX needed to be more stream-of-consciousness?

Anna B Savage: I don’t really see it as a stream-of-consciousness thing. It was definitely easier than [A Common Turn], which makes it feel like it could have been stream-of-consciousness, but annoyingly, I probably made it a bit harder than I needed to on myself, going in and reworking it at times, wanting the right things to come to the foreground. I wanted it to be looser, and I didn’t want it to take me as long. Some of the songs on A Common Turn took me 2-3 years of rehashing and reiterating. I wanted this to be a speedier process. But they’re--and me and my therapist joke about this--curated, but vulnerable. I get to choose what people see and hear.

SILY: You hadn’t necessarily finished writing the songs before going into the studio with Mike, though, right?

ABS: That’s correct. It was a quick process, but I’d go in for a week, and go away for a week, working on all the songs myself before going back in with Mike. So it was definitely not an easy process, but much easier than the first one.

SILY: At what point did you pull out the clarinet and saxophone you hadn’t touched in forever?

ABS: [laughs] Mike and I, when we talked about doing the record--we hadn’t even tried working together yet--he asked, “What kind of things do you think you want [on the record]?” and I tossed out I wanted some clarinet and saxophone. He said, “We’ll try and find some players,” and I said, “No, I can play that.” He said, “Okay, you should bring them next week.” That was quite entertaining as well. I was like, “Oh, fuck, now I have to make noise out of these things.” The ideas were far-reaching and fanciful. I really should have practiced before I went there, but I made it work.

SILY: When did you first start playing those instruments?

ABS: When I was really little. I was maybe 10. I stopped when I was about 16.

SILY: What else can you play?

ABS: There are other instruments I’ve learned, but whether I can play them is a different matter. The violin, soprano recorder, treble recorder, piano, guitar, voice, clarinet, and sax.

SILY: Your playing is definitely expressive. Some reviews I read describe the saxophone as “purring,” like a big cat.

ABS: That’s so nice! I don’t read reviews ever, because they make my mind melt, but that makes me very happy. That’s lovely. Thank you for telling me that.

SILY: When were you first aware of Mike, and how did you come to work with him?

ABS: I was aware of Mike when I was a teenager at school. I listened to tunng. That was when music was completely inaccessible and this alien planet I had no idea how to get close to or facing towards. Simon [Morley], from my label, lives quite close to Mike, and suggested him [to me] after the first one because he thought I’d enjoy working with him. I’d listened to the LUMP records but hadn’t realized it was him. I didn’t know he was the same guy from tunng, so I had to go back and do my homework piecing together it was the same guy I listened to when I was little. It was a straightforward process, though. We met, we tested each other out for a couple days, and said, “Okay, let’s do it!” 

SILY: Overall, the record has such a varied instrumental palate. Sometimes, in a good way, the songs can’t decide what they’re trying to be. Similarly, the themes of the record are all about you embracing uncertainty and indecisiveness. Was that an intentional mirror?

ABS: I have zero qualms with that kind of label or idea being thrown around, that I’m a bit indecisive and I like all the things. I’m greedy! [laughs] I want all of these things. I’d be doing a disservice to not follow all of the things I like. I’ve always aspired to be a curated minimalist, but I actually like loads of different things from loads of different places, and I want to put them next to each other.

SILY: You use spoken word on “The Ghost” and “Crown Shyness”. How did you decide to include spoken word, especially at the start of the album?

ABS: The bridges of both of those songs were quite interesting. I knew the framework of the songs before I finished them. In both songs, there was this moment where I wanted something to happen. I wanted it to change to a different atmosphere, but I didn’t quite know how to do it. In both instances, [spoken word] ended up being what I wanted to bring into it. I didn’t want to crowbar in another verse or bridge when it didn’t feel natural. For some reason, for those songs, it didn’t feel natural. But I wrote the lyrics, especially in “Crown Shyness”, and they felt like the crux of the song. I needed to express it in the most straightforward, simplistic way possible. The spoken word at the beginning of “The Ghost” is actually a voice note from my phone of a dream I had. It was me, immediately after waking up, recording the dream for myself. I have a tendency to record my dreams quite a lot. When I was younger, I wanted to teach myself how to lucid dream, and that’s the number one way to get to that point. I think it’s interesting as a therapeutic tool, too, but I used to not think I had an imagination, and then I’d have these completely fucking wild elaborate dreams, which made me think I had some imagination in there.

SILY: Were you ever successful in lucid dreaming?

ABS: Yes. I knew I was successful because I looked at my hands, and they looked mad, so I decided I was gonna fly, and I lifted up off the floor for maybe two seconds, and then I woke up. I think it’s a win, but I don’t think it’s the most exciting win of all time in terms of lucid dreaming.

SILY: We’ll count it.

ABS: Thank you.

SILY: There are a few places on here, whether you’re talking about relationships or sex, where you’re placing the listener exactly where you are. When I hear, “Dissolving in the car with you on the A1 Southbound,” I can look up where that is. How important is it for you to have these moments on a record, where you hone in on something so specific?

ABS: For me, that’s where things start to really come alive. I’ve read a fair bit of poetry, and all of my favorite poems have moments like that where you’re suddenly dropped into a very specific scenario. I always found those the most affecting, which leads me to believe they’re the most universal even though they’re the most specific. I really love adding that color and flavor to it. You can locate it geographically or in a specific time or season. It’s the kind of lyricism or songwriting or poetry or writing I always find really exciting. I’m basically trying to emulate what I like and respond to. Maybe that’s what I like and respond to at the moment, and in four years I'll think it’s so passé and I should be theoretical and nonsensical.

SILY: These documents of times or moments in your life are truly the most honest, and ironically have the bigger change to become long-lasting.

ABS: It makes me think of Joni Mitchell, when I think of incredible specificity. “A Case of You” is an example of that. “I met a woman. She had a mouth like yours.” What the fuck?!?

SILY: Who thinks that, right?

ABS: I’ve thought that. My friend brought home a new girlfriend who had the same mouth as one of my old friends. I was like, “What is going on?” I think it’s wild when something like that happens in songs.

SILY: Did you say anything?

ABS: Not until years later. It was quite funny.

SILY: The title song was the first track you wrote on a DAW. What were the circumstances behind that?

ABS: It was my homework. I was doing a music Master’s program during the pandemic. I was on this course, and one of the modules was the tech side of music, which has always terrified me. I’m not sure whether I’ve internalized all the bullshit chauvinist, misogynist stuff about women not being able to be as good as men at the technical side. I’d been physically responsive in my fear; I was at such a disadvantage, I’d need to be the best in the world or I wouldn’t touch it.

My tutor, who I love so much, ended up marginally having to coach me for three weeks. We became friends, and he said, “What do you need from me?” and I said, “I need you to be really rigid with me and say, ‘You need to write a fucking song on a DAW by Thursday at 9 PM next week.’ And I need you to enforce that and keep enforcing that.” This was the first one I wrote, which pales in comparison to [the final version that appears on in|FLUX]. It was a little confusing. When I brought it to Mike, he said, “I’m gonna need to get more in touch with the way you write before we can tackle this song.” It was one of the last ones we did. I really thought it had something in it, so I kept bringing it to Mike, and he said, “I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” and one day he said, “Fuck it, let’s try it.” I don’t quite know how to express how it came out. I was just playing around.

SILY: I think it’s fitting that specific song is where you sing, “I’m happy on my own,” and you have a strength in individuality. When you sing that, your vocals are layered, and it’s like you are multitudes.

ABS: Exactly. I’m all of the different things all at the same time.

SILY: You reference John Luther Adams in “Hungry”. Are you a fan of or influenced by naturalist classical music in your work?

ABS: Yeah. I only really got to know it through my friend I met at Banff. He put me onto his stuff and so much different stuff. I definitely am very influenced by it even if not in any way knowledgeable about it. I love [The Wind in High Places], and I love the podcast Meet The Composer. I listened to the ones about John Luther Adams which are around The Wind In High Places. Anything that weaves in the landscape in non-lyrical audio is quite a feat.

SILY: Is there another hilarious story behind this album’s cover art?

ABS: Not really. When I spoke to Katie [Silvester], the photographer, and Sophie [Louise Hurley-Walker], the Art Director and Designer, I had all these different things I collected over the years that had a sense of flux in them anyway. The duality in the cover image was very important to me. We did it by playing with a mirror. The photograph is upside-down, which was important to me, because it feels slightly uncanny. The figure on the back, the creature outfit, you can’t even see an inch of skin. On the front cover, I might as well be naked. There’s a duality across the whole record for me, that feels so good and so cohesive and expressed in such a better way I could do on my own. There is a bum in my pictures, but it’s not on the front cover this time.

SILY: How are you playing these songs live?

ABS: Either with a band or solo, with a guitar. Some don’t work because they were never played on a guitar, like “in|FLUX”, which wasn’t written on a guitar.

SILY: Do you find it a seamless process to build up the songs from the guitar to a full band?

ABS: Yes? No? It’s a lot easier than if it was on the clarinet or the flugelhorn or something. You have the basic structure, the rhythm or main instrument. But a lot of the stuff did just have bass and drums on it, and the rest of the stuff is synths and analog machines. It gets to a point where it’s about paring down stuff and testing stuff out in the rehearsal room and seeing what works. I don’t feel entirely weathered to making stuff sound like it does on the record, even though I used to hate that when I was a teenager going to gigs. It’s not the same anymore. We have so many tools at our fingertips, it’s not the most feasible thing to make it sound exactly like it does on record, and it’s not the most interesting, either.

SILY: I used to be the same way, and these days, when I hear a band where it sounds just like the record, I think, “Why did I even come?” It’s like they just pressed play.

ABS: Exactly. And I want my band to have fun. I don’t want it to sound like they’re just pressing buttons, I want them to properly play their instruments. 

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who is always writing? Anything in the short or long-term coming up?

ABS: I am absolutely the opposite of a songwriter who’s always writing. I write for the equivalent of two months of the year. I used to feel ashamed about that and thought I was really lazy, but now I realize I’m not not writing in those 10 months, I’m just collating. It helps the process of writing go really fast, because I have everything squared away.

I have a skeleton idea for the next album, which I had before I started recording in|FLUX. I really should have worked more on that. It’s gonna be completely different again. I’ll make it completely hard to play live. 

SILY: It’s always cool to hear the evolution from debut album to EP to second album, artists that grow without moving away from what makes them, them. Do you think about that at all when deciding what to do next?

ABS: I wouldn’t say I do. I definitely felt quite nervous putting in|FLUX out. People who had been real champions of [my previous work,] I thought, “They’re gonna fucking hate it.” It’s the same thing as being a content creator or being on social media. I’m not interested in rehashing the same thing over and over again. It doesn’t bring me any joy. I like learning and expanding and testing myself. Even when I think I’m being lazy, I’m constantly testing myself. For me, I want to be able to express the ideas I have for these albums audibly. I don’t feel like the personality of in|FLUX, which I knew before I even started recording, lended itself to the same stuff A Common Turn did, and my next one, I already know doesn’t have the same aural personality as the others do. It’s quite exciting.

SILY: Any plans to come to the U.S. for a tour?

ABS: I wish. I really, really want to. Fingers crossed.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately?

ABS: The Madison Cunningham record absolutely fucks me up. I went to see her last night, and she exploded my brain into tiny pieces. I’m so inspired and amazed by her. She’s absolutely unbelievable.

I’ve basically just been watching RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars since I finished Schitt’s Creek.

Reading-wise, I just finished Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. I read Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I love winter for the hibernation and the reading and watching TV. It’s a good time to ask me this question.