#world building‚ mythology‚ & lore — when we lose our myths‚ we lose our place in the universe

[mystiika]

misc tag drop

[fyrapartnersearch]

Devilish Delight

Welcome, welcome! Please call me Gil :) I have posted here before and was very happy with the results, as it helped me quite a bit finding amazing partners! Through my recent post I met amazing partners who I share a great Roleplay with. But now I am also really craving for another kind of RP, a darker one… with less boundaries and more grit. It’ll be a hell of a good time! 



Stay seated because puns will be rolling through this whole shebang :P (And they will be terrible.)

My mind has become restless with the idea that has been haunting me recently - a Roleplay involving Devilish creatures, Demons, Demon Hunters as well as the concept of Heaven and Hell. And no I don’t mean in a biblical sense… more in a mythological kind of sense. I am heavily inspired by original lore and creating our own version of it.


But before I whip out an excerpt from my idea, a few things first! 
 If you reach out to me, please be sure not to ghost me after the first few messages before we even get to the Roleplay itself. Don’t write to me without a proper thread, or a simple one-liner like ‘Hey, I’ve come across your rp ad on tumblr and I thought I’d message you. Wanna rp?’ sort of thing. Short and lacklustre messages will also be ignored, sorry :( I am currently searching for a literate, mature (preferably 20+ partner) writer with a vast, creative mindset willing to push some boundaries. Someone who is not afraid delving into darker themes, or come up with new fresh ideas for a fantasy plot. Someone who is willing to commit to a long-term Roleplay. Are you that someone? I’ll swing you a few facts about me: I am a 20+ woman, living in Europe, currently studying at a university that is fairly time consuming. With that being said, I am able to type out 3-4 messages per week. I think tis a good solid rate that can get the plot going. Depending on my schedule, my frequency will increase or decrease. Not to worry, I will let you know as soon if there is something coming up that might influence the Roleplay. I love detailed paragraphs that describe a scenery and emotion of one’s character. If you are someone comfortable or only willing to type one-liners, you are not going to find your match here, sorry. I only role-play on either email or goggle docs.

Summary:

    Above the age of 20, thus mature and open minded

    Paragraph writer

    Detailed

    Experienced with 10 years under my belt

    Preference to doubling

I love a good brainstorming. Once we get to know each other, I would love to do a bit of strategising, erecting a system in our own world, a gathering of ideas that we can utilise for the story. 
Here’s a detailed description of my style and boundaries that I have for a potential RP. How I write: I am a multi-paragraph sort of writer, which means that frequently, my writing will exceed at least 500 words, and upward of 1000+ words. I love detail in description, and I am actively seeking someone of the same infamy. Generally, I tend to write in the 3rd person. But it can change based on the situation. My partner should have a basic grasp on grammar, punctuation and somewhat of an interest in erudite writing.   The genres I am into: I am versatile when it comes to genres and settings that I like to focus on. Supernatural is my bread and butter, especially urban and gothic fantasy, but also very much mythological stories. But I am not opposed to tapping into science fiction, action, romance, crime, action or thriller genres, though my most favourite is a combination of both fantasy and science fiction. What has struck my interest lately, is a world with gargantuan titan like monsters battling against each other, causing all sorts of havoc and devastation. I was heavily inspired by Pacific Rim, Godzilla and other monster themed movies, films and games. We could forge something original along those lines, like a clash of titans, ancient deities and creatures believed to be myth who now awakened to take back the world by storm. For the Roleplay I would like to take a lot of elements from the Lovecraftian lore and a bit of inspiration from Hellboy. I love to mesh multiple genres together to make it an original and different sort of universe. Romance: I openly play and accept characters of both genders, preferable m x f pairings, but I am open to m x m and f x f relationships as well. I have more experience with m x f relationships, so I might excel in this category more than I would do with the others. I do not fade to black - instead I encourage erotism and tastefully written romance scenes. The passion must be felt, even if its just an intelligent description of someone’s stream of thought. I am double friendly and prefer it over a single pairing! Characters, the center of attention: Faceclaims, GIFs, drawings, mood boards or just a plain physical description is absolutely welcome / sufficient. I am not someone who necessarily requires a face claim for a character in order ‘to get the picture’. There are many instances where I could not find a suiting match for my character’s definition, so I resorted to drawing them myself or leaving it with a simple description. Characters should have flaws - that is a no brainer obviously, because its what makes them most interesting and compelling to read. I think we’re also far past the Mary Sue and Gary Stu issue, so I am certain that anyone who messages me, is capable of forging great characters. World building & plotting: An active Roleplayer is wanted in this category, without a doubt. I love to build but I tend to lose interest real quick when I get the feeling I’m the only one who puts effort into it. I can’t do the thinking for two people, so I implore anyone to at least share the burden (which should not be regarded as such in the first place, because Roleplaying is a fun hobby and nothing more). Too often I find people shying away from it in this regard. If I feel that I’m carrying the weight of the world-building part with specific ideas, I will end the Roleplay with immediate effect. Be bold with your ideas! A bird cannot fly with only one wing. Content: I find writing erotic, dramatic or action packed scenes very enjoyable. I don’t hinder myself when certain subjects are mentioned that may be uncomfortable for the general public. But then again, as a reminder, a Roleplay is not reality but fiction. For example situations that heavily imply and involve brutality, mayhem, psychological and physical torture are things that don’t really bother me in a sense, because again, it is fiction. Characters should be fully fleshed out, even the not so pretty parts of one’s personality and actions. Limits: I don’t do necrophilia, pedophilia & and any sort of underage pairings, bestiality, vore, toilet play, furries and other strange fetishes. What I’m also not particularly fond of are oneliners, text-talk ‘grammar’, or emails with the subject: ‘Hey wanna rp?’ or ‘RP?’. I also note that my partners must be around 20 years or older, I will accept no younger partners, sorry. The last thing I tend to avoid like the plague are slice of life Roleplays, because lets face it, our own lives are pretty much slice of life. MY IDEA: So this idea takes place in a world that is modern, much like ours but different in some ways. Humans have evolved enough to not believe in the supernatural and rely on technology. However this cannot be further from the truth …. Devils and demons are hiding in the shadows, creating their own little network among mortals, possessing, draining and eventually killing them. Spirits whisper things, inspiring people with the best and worst of ideas, driving them to reach their ultimate happiness or demise. Although rare, magic seeps through every crack of reality. With each passing year the spectacles increase until the veil finally breaks, unleashing demons into our world. Corruption, violence, deviation and other carnal vices become rampant in the world, especially in capital cities. Who or what set them free? And what is the purpose behind all of this? What powers have come into play here?
Well… this can be answered by a multitude of characters who are willing and capable enough to take the infernal bull by the horns. An extremely sharp and intelligent detective who comes to realise that there are powers at play here beyond anyone’s control - a secret agent who specialises in the supernatural with a dubious mission to end it one way or the other - an extremely experienced demon hunter with his target set on destroying evil - a halfbreed, born from a devilish father and human mother who shares a great vendetta against the world - and a world class thief blessed / cursed with the eyes of the devil, granting her inexplicable powers and the ability to see evil. Who will be the one to save the world and who will be the one to destroy it? Who will win in the Devil's Dalliance? Of course we can totally rearrange things here and there, change it up, modify the story and create our own cities, characters and so forth. Its just a very rough concept that I am dying to role-play for quite some time now! 

If this idea managed to garner your interest, you know where to find me! <3

Original pairings I am absolutely down for are:

Supernatural x Human (non supernatural)

Witch / Warlock x Human

Witch / Warlock x Hunter

Witch / Warlock x Witch / Warlock

Monster x Human

Antagonist x Protagonist

Bully x Victim (sort of..)

Criminal x Regular citizen

Criminal x Cop

Soldier / Warrior / Knight x Civilian

Royal / Noble x Peasant

Royal / Noble x Traveler

Mentor x Apprentice

Knight x (Female in disguise) Knight

etc.

The list goes on.

Also, if an original doesn’t really suit your fancy - I am willing to do canon Roleplay, although I don’t feel as much inspiration for it as I do for an original story. I’m also very picky about it, so apologies if there aren’t too many things listed here:



Marvel

DC
Carmen SanDiego

Pacific Rim

Star Wars

Star Trek
Harry Potter

Castlevania

Berserk

Witcher

Dark Souls

Bloodborne

Devil May Cry (The original series, not the reboot)

Shadow of the Colossus

Kingdom Hearts 
God of War

What I will NOT do are canon stories of shows, games, movies, books, comics, etc that aren’t listed here. Please don’t ask me if we can do a specific RP based on anything I have no interest in, or don’t personally know. I highly welcome ideas and other takes on a story. If you crave something different, I am down for it as well :) If you are still reading, congratulations! xD 
The journey has come to an end! Usually I would also list my Discord on this platform, but since Discord did an update on me recently where I can’t log into it anymore - I thought email would be a better alternative. That way I can better assess the person. In the past, people on Discord had only sent me friend without messaging whatsoever so I couldn’t quite figure out what they were looking for in the first place, or being completely uncommunicative. Email is much safer and more professional that way. Contact me here! EMAIL: gilgameshmercury@gmail.com Hope to talk to you soon!

[apostateangela]

A Bell’s not a Bell Until You Ring It

There is a specific Mormon myth/fable/scripture story that is prevalent and used as an allegory for life. It is the story of Lehi’s dream. It is found in the first book of the book of Mormon,

1 Nephi chapter 8.

This is the Mormon’s version of the Tree of Life myth. Throughout all religious mythology, the Tree of Life bears magical fruit that is white and brilliant and gives everything from pleasure to everlasting life to those that eat of it.

In Lehi’s dream it is a fruit filled tree, shining with light at the end of a dark path next to a river. There is a treacherous mist on both sides of the path. There is a “large and spacious” building off to the side, full of people. And all along the path to the tree there is an iron rod, not unlike a railing, to hold on to as you brave the deep and dark and dangerous misty swamp.

This allegory has been explained in Mormon terms and taught to members of the church from the time you are very young. Each piece of the dream is explained in symbology as well as scripture. There are hymns and primary songs written about it.

Here is one hymn:

1. To Nephi, seer of olden time,

A vision came from God,

Wherein the holy word sublime

Was shown an iron rod.

[Chorus]

Hold to the rod, the iron rod;

'Tis strong, and bright, and true.

The iron rod is the word of God;

'Twill safely guide us through.

2. While on our journey here below,

Beneath temptation's pow'r,

Through mists of darkness we must go,

In peril ev'ry hour.

3. And when temptation's pow'r is nigh,

Our pathway clouded o'er,

Upon the rod we can rely,

And heaven's aid implore.

4. And, hand o'er hand, the rod along,

Through each succeeding day,

With earnest prayer and hopeful song,

We'll still pursue our way.

5. Afar we see the golden rest

To which the rod will guide,

Where, with the angels bright and blest,

Forever we'll abide.

And here is the symbol breakdown:

The Tree: Love of God or Everlasting Life with God

The Fruit: Happiness or the Blessings of Christ’s Atonement

The Mist= The Temptations of the Devil

The Iron Rod= The Word of God or Sacred Scripture

The Spacious Building= The World filled with Wicked People who mock the Righteous

The River= Spiritual Death

As young members of the church continuing into old members of the church, you are commanded through this vision written in scripture to ‘hold fast to the iron rod’ and not depart from the path of righteousness that leads you to everlasting life and eternal happiness with God. Holding to the Word of God means that you obey all the commandments and rules contained within the Mormon books of scripture (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price). Letting go of the rod means you deviate from the path, tempted by the world (other people from the building) and Satan (the mist) and risk falling into the river or into spiritual death—which in case you didn’t know is worse than real death.

The purpose of my explaining Lehi’s Dream here is to provide you with the context that surrounds the depth of obedience programmed into members of the Mormon Church.

This is only one angle. But it is far reaching and prevalent.

It is designed almost perfectly:

An ancient prophet (Lehi) has a vision from God about his own family, which consists of various children; some of whom are righteous and obedient and some who are rebellious and wicked (examples of humans we can all relate to).

This God bestowed lesson/allegory is then written into scripture that is then revealed to future generations and translated by modern prophets. Then, given to the current people of the church with a charge to do everything they can to bring it into every corner of their lives: the Iron Rod story has been adapted into art, music, literature, spoken sermons, and even film.

I can almost feel my metaphysical hand grasping…

The Iron Rod story is all about what God wants you to do.

And what I find interesting is that it is a structure wrapped in God’s love and perceived safety that creates division between those that follow and those that do not.

One group is righteous, those that hold the rod and follow God step by step never deviating. The other group is labeled as wicked and mocking because they challenge those holding onto the rod. They are even put into a building, segregated from God’s followers.

Two of the basic building blocks of Christian belief are first, love thy neighbor or love everyone, to which this dream decimates. And the second, more obscure is about a counsel in Heaven. Before this life there was a counsel where God deliberated on how he wanted His children to live here on this earth. He himself wanted His children to have choice; choosing their own path and learning from this life and their experiences—saved from their sin by the sacrifice or atonement of God’s beloved son Jesus Christ.

Instances of this doctrine are in Job and Isaiah as well as Luke and the book of Revelations

(King James Version).

In the Mormon translation of this counsel in Heaven, there was actually a war where Lucifer wanted to force everyone to do what was ‘right’ so that God wouldn’t lose a single soul. And as God chose Christ’s plan of choice and redemption, fighting ensued causing Lucifer to be cast out of Heaven with 1/3 of the Hosts of Heaven (which became the Devil and his demons).

I add this bit of lore to show the strangeness of the Iron Rod piece.

If one of the main purposes of this life—something that God wants--is to explore and discover, to learn from experience, then iron-clad rules of the Mormon church prevent this very thing from happening. It traps people in a place of prescriptive living that limits not only the exploring of the outward but also of the inward and alienates those who do not obey.

There are many things that holding to the blistering iron of this rod prevented me from discovering about myself, as well as the world I lived in.

I’ve already written about sex.

It seems that journey is not over.

But before I get to the new piece I have discovered I think it is time I shared with you my journey to understanding love and relationships.

One of the most well-worn spots on the path of the Iron Rod is that of Mormon Temple Marriage. I have written about this structure as well as documented somewhat the harsh 25 years I spent there. After my divorce, and months of therapy and self-reflection I found that while I didn’t exactly know what I wanted in terms of love and relationships,

I definitely knew what I DID NOT WANT!

I did not want marriage.

Of course I did not want the psychologically abusive, Mormon version of marriage I had lived. But I also knew that I didn’t want the patriarchal oppressive structure marriage is both culturally and legally in the United States either.

From my 8-month foray into single womanhood and divorcee I quickly came to the realization that the church AND the world are not fair or kind.

As I set out to explore sex, I also was moving, albeit more slowly, towards examining different kinds of love and relationships.

I virtually stumbled upon a philosophical pot of gold in the form of a man who made a claim on his online dating profile.

He said he was a Relationship Anarchist.

He explained a little bit about it in his profile,

enough that his words set off a deep bell within me.

It reverberated, resonated like something unending—a bell that couldn’t be un-rung.

I asked him questions both about what it was and what it meant to him.

And then, I started researching.

As a teacher, student, writer, and curious intellect, I know how to research.

I read articles and blogs, and manifestos. I watched vlogs and personal testimonials and informational videos. I joined chat groups and made friends and found a very patient guru that I plagued with questions and scenarios.

With each bit of information, I asked myself, “Is this even possible? Would this actually work for you?” And more often than not the answers sent electricity into the original reverberation and resounded with either a ‘YES!’ or a ‘I can’t wait to find out!’

Then I tested it with actual experience, as any loving God intended I should.

The answers and experiences have both challenged and amazed me.

I cannot thank that golden man enough.

Before I go further, here is the barebones definition:

Relationship anarchy (sometimes abbreviated RA) is the belief that relationships should not be bound by rules aside from what the people involved mutually agree upon. If a relationship anarchist has multiple intimate partners, it might be considered as a form of polyamory, but distinguishes itself by postulating that there need not be a formal distinction between sexual, romantic, or platonic relationships.

Relationship anarchists look at each relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise) individually, as opposed to categorizing them according to societal norms such as 'just friends', 'in a relationship', or 'in an open relationship'.

That’s Wikipedia and I’m okay with their definition.

Here’s a few more extensions that I like:

“A relationship anarchist begins from a place of assuming total freedom and flexibility as the one in charge of their personal relationships and decides on a case by case basis what they want each relationship to look like.”

“Relational anarchists are often highly critical of conventional cultural standards that prioritize romantic and sex-based relationships over non-sexual or non-romantic relationships. Instead, RA seeks to eliminate specific distinctions between or hierarchical valuations of friendships versus love-based relationships, so that love-based relationships are no more valuable than are platonic friendships...another important theme within RA is the resistance to placing demands or expectations on the people involved in a relationship.”

Here are the bits that matter to me:

Full autonomy= I want to be in charge of myself and what I want as well as filling my own needs. After all, anarchy does not mean ‘no rules’ but rather ‘NO RULERS!’

No expectations= In line with the previous piece, I don’t want to have or have placed on me expectations that are often unreasonable or unreachable. If there are no expectations, things happen based on what someone has to OFFER-their hand is extended full of what they can share-instead of what I THINK SHOULD HAPPEN-my hand open and empty begging for something I expect them to give me.

No hierarchy=No one is more important than anyone else.

This is how I love. I always have. I have deep intimate friendships as much as I have romantic ones. I want to have my heart touch their heart. I don’t have large groups of people in my life.

I have a handful of people that mean everything to me.

Evolution=Step by step the relationship creates its own life that evolves with time and investment into something incredibly beautiful. And because every step must be looked at and communicated about before the next step, and there are no prescriptive stairs to climb, the relationship is a journey instead of a destination.

If you’re asking the question about polyamory because it stuck to you from the Wikipedia definition, the answer is yes, of course polyamory--the love of multiple people--would be part of this. If you love all your people, all your partners regardless of a label, you are potentially going to have more than one person you have sex with as well as more than one person you don’t. It’s called ethical non-monogamy and it is brilliant.

It is such an incredible thing to be freed of the idea that one person has to be everything to me. It provides perspective.

I have many needs, but I can present any portion of those as something I want from a person based on what they have to offer.

It’s the best kind of authentic gift giving.

Also, I don’t go hungry as often as I used to.

I was starved for love and attention.

And while it is true, that many people stuck in amatonormativity—the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship—cannot break free of this societal norm, there are many people searching for the answer to the wrongness they feel in such relationships.

These people are enlightened and on their way to self-actualization and are

WHO I WANT IN MY LIFE!

We feed each other, loving as we want and as we can.

You may be thinking, “She’s just having a knee jerk reaction to leaving the church and her divorce, pushing herself to the other side of the spectrum. It’s a stage that will eventually end.”

I believe you are wrong.

I have been practicing RA for over two years now and do not see an end.

I have had many partners, some who have passed through my life.

The inevitable transience of this lifestyle is a hard thing, because sometimes what someone can give me doesn’t last a long time. But even in the heartbreak of their leaving there is peace knowing that what I had with that individual was more honest, more real than most of my marriage.

And

some stay.

Our evolution is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

I am learning what love is in an organic way as it becomes what both partners want it to be.

It is glorious and beautiful (to steal a phrase God says from the temple representation of the creation of the earth).

I find it fitting,

I’m CREATING love!

Now you might be asking, “What about jealousy?”

And you are right, there is jealousy. But jealousy wears many faces and when you stop trying to control others jealousy’s biggest face disappears. And what you discover is what your own jealousy is based on at its roots. Mine is about self-worth. I am not sure I’m worthy or worth as much as another. After some reassurance from my partner—that I’ve asked for because it is my job to advocate for myself—I find instead of jealousy I feel kinship with those people that love my people.

We have good taste after all!

And with every successful step my inner bell’s reverberation is renewed and deepened.

It is this ‘ringing true’ within oneself that I believe to be the best guide for my life--and in my opinion--for yours as well.

Shakespeare wrote, “This above all, to thine own self be true.”

What rings true for you?

You can’t hear it, but rather you must feel it.

It is inside yourself and not an exterior envisioned cold rod of iron, but rather a living bell that’s sound enters your every cell on every plane.

When something resonates

do not ignore it

especially just because someone outside tells you God wants differently.

Understand that I do not put aside basic human morality.

Some people find pleasure in the pain of others.

I am not talking about just doing everything that feels good to everyone no matter the cost.

I am talking about listening to your own heart—once you free it from what others say it should feel.

Here is what I know:

I have lived by a thousand rules.

And now I live by only two.

They answer two questions:

Will it hurt someone?

Is it good for me?

If the answers are respectively ‘no’ then ‘yes’ I do it.

True, there are more implications within those two questions and answers, but they are my personal compass that works only for me, pointing me in a thousand directions instead on only a single iron one.

The diversity of this journey has brought me to such beauty and joy.

The newest being the discovery of my own bisexuality.

RA has also broken the heteronormative shackles my Mormon prescripted marriage bound me with. I finally understand the love I had for a girl long ago during high school and the intimacy I find in the touch and company of other women.

I am reveling in exploring where that intimacy can go and my bell rings as I find and partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life--growing in more places than one.

Turns out it is your inner bell that leads you to that Tree and its pleasurable fruit, not some cold, harsh rod of iron.

And through this journey I have found that my bell leads me to not just that Tree,

but an entire Grove.

A world of joy and life my idea of a loving God could get behind.

An expanse open for you and I to experience all that we can.

Once more I urge you to just let go.

Find the fruit once forbidden and eat.

And then, eat more.

Be greedy my friends.

I deserve it

And so do you.

-Angela

[academiablogs]

Borrowing From Borrowers: The Art of The Retelling

(Image source) I was seven when I first knew I wanted to tell stories. Seven, small, and a very eager Girl Scout on a trip to the Children’s World Fair in New Orleans. This is a large cultural festival hosted by the local children’s museum, and it features several countries every year, complete with food and elaborate décor. I held up my entire troop in the India room one year, when they hosted a storyteller (this was the coolest job in the world to me; why I do this now). 

I found out she exclusively told Indian fairytales, which surprised my seven-year-old self, since they too had a Cinderella and Rapunzel; never quite the same as the English (or Disney) versions, but similar enough to recognize. I went home to search Google, and found out that there were a lot of Cinderella and Rapunzel stories in the world. Little me suddenly understood something that has remained as cornerstone of fiction: shared ideas.

Storytellers are a little like The Borrowers, of the famous Mary Norton novels. “Borrowers borrow,” and writers are much the same. Small and busy, we gather pieces in the shadows of our legendary forbearers and cobble together something of our own. A touch of folklore here, a dash of an archetype there. Never the bits that people will miss; iconic characters, threads of plot, or paragraphs of writing. That would be stealing, wouldn’t it?

Or would it?

If you found yourself in a bookstore or movie theatre in the last decade, you probably noticed a boom in the retelling. Not adaptations of an original novel, but sequels, spin-offs, or alternate universes for the novel by other, newer authors. Lewis Carroll’s famous Alice in Wonderland novels have been subject to so many re-imagined variations that it’s become trite. There’s Tim Burton’s movies, American McGee’s Alice horror game series, The Looking Glass Wars, Once Upon a Time, Alice in Zombieland, Alice in The Country of Hearts, Pandora Hearts… (including the full-ish list of Alice-based works here, because jeez- it’s long).

(The image was the source of so much Hot Topic merchandise, and I loved it all) 

This seems odd, since Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a novel. It’s not some anonymous piece of folklore passed from a culture; it’s Carroll’s words and creations. It could be argued that Carroll borrowed from his culture first (and he does), but now it seems that the storyteller becomes as much a part of the borrowed works as the work he originally borrowed from.

Carroll isn’t alone in these ranks. Jane Austen, Frank L. Baum, Mary Shelley, J.M. Barrie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle- to name a few! Their works not only inspired people to share their works, but retell them in new novels, movies, and TV series. Inventive projects like Showtime’s Penny Dreadful even go far as putting different characters from these books in the same world, often with dangerous, entertaining, and scandalous results. 

But the question remains, is this trend a good one? At first glance, these books, movies, and shows appear little more than legal fan fiction for classic works. Literary mincemeat, re-churning of ideas and tropes, slopped onto a plate of familiar characters and popular stories. There’s a huge outcry for “original content” on the internet after all these recent retellings. “Where are all the new stories? Why can’t writers stop being hacks and write something of their own?” The masses are a little tired seeing new reincarnations of Alice and Elizabeth Bennet, it seems. 

But let’s wrap back around to fan fiction for a moment, because fanfics are still a hugely popular kind of writing and their entire basis is borrowing. And not just from YA novels and Star Wars, but from sources like fairytales, Greek mythology, and even the Bible. Say what you might about fanfics, but the idea behind good fan fiction is that a story can build upon the source material while respecting canon, or a story that brings something new to the table without losing the heart of the original (being “too OOC” as we say). 

Let’s hop further back now, to works like the collected adventures of Robin Hood and the many plays of William Shakespeare. To King Arthur and his legends. To mythology from the Greeks and Celts. These stories did not exist in a bubble, but drew their strength from older stories and myths. They carry in them ancient bones, placed  long before we knew to write our stories down. We, in turn, borrow from these works without much thought at all. The authors of classics simply followed in the footsteps of more faceless storytellers.

So, where do these retellings stand in the place of literary history? Is it always disrespectful to draw new life from books like Pride & Prejudice or Phantom of The Opera, or are writers simply carrying on old traditions? Are an author’s works truly sacred, or do we all simply join the ranks of other storytellers by creating a new layer of cultural lore? Are Alice and Elizabeth untouchable, or are they no different from Persephone and Athena? Archetypes for a new age.

Time will tell which of these stories remain important in the long term, but until then, we are free as Borrowers to continue our respectful borrowing. We will continue to cobble, create, and reinvent, paying tribute to stories and characters while passing them into the hands of new readers.

[tinymixtapes]

Feature: 2017: Favorite 50 Music Releases

Do we still move in 2017? In a year when our AI systems were becoming citizens and shut down for inventing new languages, when our social media interactions were weaponized with unprecedented precision by political campaigns, when our very DNA could be encoded with malicious software, what does movement even look like in such an information-rich world? A string of data waiting to be computed? If an average of 68 Facebook “likes” is all it takes to predict skin color with 95% accuracy, then it’s not hard to imagine a future when our movements find their significance not in expressing our desires, but in being algorithmically expressed. But how much data do we create when we cry? What does data look like when we are fake laughing? The musical movements of 2017 offered both a glimpse into our mental health and possible ways to reconcile our technopolitical anxieties with our overbearing, untenable individualism. Our favorites this year didn’t offer solutions to our waking nightmares — why should they? — but they helped remind us that, while life is fragile (Ryuichi Sakamoto) and death is real (Mount Eerie), recovery is still possible (Björk). Amidst our fantasiis (MHYSA), dreams (Twin Peaks), and distorted reflections (Bell Witch), even our electronic music felt like ethereal gestures toward renewal, whether it was through reflexive neo-songs (Klein), a dance in the smoke (Actress), or an effervescent faith (Yves Tumor). And our movements were many. For every articulation of bodily devotion (Perfume Genius), ruthless loyalty (Kendrick Lamar), and tender obsession (Lorde), there was a subversion of spacetime (Toiret Status), revelatory Euclidean algorithms (Konrad Sprenger), and circuitous experimentalism (Playboi Carti). For every instance of emotional nourishment (Charli XCX) and critique of power structures (Richard Dawson), there was a desire to build community “in the face of absolute fragmentation” (Club Chai Vol. 1) and to try “new forms of living in a deteriorating world” (Lawrence English). We left 2016 already bruised and exhausted, and while 2017’s shitshow can’t be completely undone, we are not beyond repair. It’s easy to question our obsession with music, especially when our audio-editing tools find parallels in a gene-editing tool like CRISPR, when the noise of our time could be silenced in a flash by Minecraft scammers, when our hybrid musics coincide with hybrid wars and whatever the fuck these are. But this year’s sounds continued to expose and counter our artifices and mythologies in compelling ways, and we should count ourselves lucky that there was even a semblance of healing in both the ambience and the losses of 2017. Our movements, especially in this small corner of the internet, remain vital — necessary, even. What will our movements look like in 2018? Hopefully something a little better than this. –Mr P --- 50 Perfume Genius No Shape [Matador] [WATCH · READ] In the music video for “Slip Away,” our introduction to the fourth Perfume Genius album, Mike Hadreas ran through a slideshow of soft-focus fantasies, away from a cast of hapless villains and toward an implied happy ending. Like a dream, the detail seemed both blurred and crudely exaggerated; the antagonists’ faces painted in caricature, overcome by Hadreas dashing through the exploding set with his fairytale bride. Most of all, for an artist who dealt nothing but shade on 2014’s comeback “Queen” — all vicious contours and slicked-back hair, lips frozen in a permanent sneer at American heteronormativity — “Slip Away” presented a palette that was warm, dynamic, and deliriously playful. From start to finish, the intersections of love and death that played out across the record (see: auto-erotic asphyxiation tribute “Die 4 You”) never felt cheapened by the gauzy nightdress they came swaddled in, but elevated by its vaudeville sexuality. Even the posthumanist tropes that swirled through the album were rendered with joy; at the death, No Shape swooned at the spirit’s liberation as readily as it lamented the body’s failure. –Matthew Neale --- 49 Sun Araw THE SADDLE OF THE INCREATE [Sun Ark/Drag City] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] Strike the stage. Think of the desert as a set, an empty set, one in waiting. Potential, not unrest. Perhaps an inclination. Look around, it’s barren and stable, tough to soil. (A grain of sand ain’t nothin’). Here it is: total poiesis (There’s a snake’s scale on that bird’s tail); the verbal rendering of all forms present by no trick greater than insistence (Ain’t that a sight). The presentation of a gift: a hidden giver, a lost recipient (…ain’t nothin’). Nowhere to go, cannot go beyond all that is present unless presented (There is a chute). It’s a classic place, an old joke, plain enough. A cowboy story, “as futuristic as possible.” Dehydration, waiting for a sign. It’s a trip, an experience, a losing time. “IT’S MORNING. HARNESS IN. STRAP UP. RIDE ON OUT BRAVE INTO TODAY.” My tongue is a chair, and I like that. –Ben Levinson --- 48 Tara Jane O’Neil Tara Jane O’Neil [Gnomonsong] [LISTEN] In the summer, the light warms and deepens everything natural. Summer sunlight makes shimmering greens seem deeper until the end of August, but come December, even at high noon, the empty branches look washed out; the air looks washed out. In 11 gentle songs, on a self-titled album, Tara Jane O’Neil tucked that deep, warm summer light into her pocket. In fits and starts on tracks like “Flutter,” “Kelley,” and “Blow,” she raised it slowly over the horizon. “The path forward is well lit,” she sang on “Metta,” and even on the harshest winter days, it is, thanks to her druidic calm. The path unfolds like a clean line traced by the afternoon across a bedroom floor. Follow it to keep inside its warmth. Look up sometimes, but never too directly or for too long without those heavy-duty and professionally inspected eclipse glasses. This album was inviting and elusive. It pulled us in close but never let us forget how fragile our little human retinas are. And then it dipped out of sight. –Taylor Peters --- 47 Nmesh Pharma [Orange Milk] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] Nmesh’s plunderphonic monolith Pharma was many things: a chemical cocktail for a future nightlife, a hallucinogenic trip through the dark fractures of 2017 and its nostalgic histories, a waking nightmare catalyzed by vaporized pop cultural memories. Pharma went beyond simulation, toward the tangible archaeological rescue of base cultural artifacts, offering a digital rendering of the remnants of human primitivity that felt especially appropriate in this historical moment. The melodic duality of “White Lodge Simulation,” the psychedelic brutality of “Mall Full of Drugs,” and the grotesque fantasy of “Acid Baby” were all the stuff of cosmic horror, but channeled through aggressive grooves and hooks that can only charm and intoxicate. Through Pharma’s many tributaries, Nmesh took on a whole society’s obsession with the artificial and gleefully liberated us. –Colin Fitzgerald --- 46 Colleen A flame my love, a frequency [Thrill Jockey] [LISTEN · READ] The events surrounding the creation of Colleen’s seventh studio album, A flame my love, a frequency, were as heavy as it gets. Colleen’s real name is Cécile Schott, and she is from France. She happened to be in Paris, getting a viola bow repaired the night of the 2015 terrorist attacks. For weeks after, as the songs started coming, the looming specter of death wouldn’t leave her mind. Yet, for how overwhelmed she felt, the album she created was full of light and hope. The viola de gamba that created the backbone of her 2015 comeback album Captain of None was replaced here by a focus on the Critter and Guitari Pocket Piano and Septavox synthesizer, as processed by a Moog delay pedal. The minimal compositions were recorded live, without vocal overdubs, fostering a sense of personal immediacy amid the waves of synthetic sound. A flame my love, a frequency remains an album of essential contrasts. –Alan Ranta --- 45 Bell Witch Mirror Reaper [Profound Lore] [LISTEN · READ] “Mirrors are the doors through which Death comes and goes. Look at yourself in a mirror all your life and you’ll see Death at work like bees in a hive of glass.” Jean Cocteau’s 1950 cinematic adaptation of the Orpheus myth has its hero journey through mirrors to the underworld in a vain attempt to save his beloved Eurydice. Mirror Reaper, Bell Witch’s somnambulant third album, echoed that film’s themes of dreamlike movement, distorted reflections, and an obsession with death. After former drummer Adrian Guerra died during the writing and production of Mirror Reaper, current members Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman created an album that alternated between an elegiac dirge and its angrier mirror image, a mournful march showcasing that death is but an inverted reflection of life. The power of Mirror Reaper lay in its world-building; consisting of a single 83-minute track, the album forced the listener to meet it on its own terms. Through repetition and a loud/quiet dynamic, Bell Witch lulled us into a slumber in which the voices of the dead spoke to us again and then violently shook us awake to remind us of our own fetid mortality. –Jeff Miller --- 44 Toiret Status Nyoi Plunger [Noumenal Loom] [LISTEN · READ] Ingestion and invisibility, undo our reverse cornucopia; plunge and unplug, let loose the profusion. Microscopies swell to burst in bubbleshine, but don’t forget to meet the man, the man himself, who cans all that laughter. We’ve got lyrical machines, all pistons firing and tiring, building all those silly swirls of collapse and sweettoothing their hardware hollow. The arc of the priest’s staff leaves a sparkling trail of emoji — snap, swing, zing, plonk. Things move fast and then they move faster and then they don’t. Thank you, thank you, grazie. The trunk sort of explodes, splitting loose and scattering the grid, leaving queues all out of sort, and cutting the stone with recrudescence. While you can help it, never stop iterating += 1. TFW when the POP ROCKSTM pass the blood-brain barrier I caught the cows tangoing on the roof, clapping and clacking their hooves hailstone-style on the corrugate. A toast to every comet that explodes overhead! Drum rolls please, but we shouldn’t cater to bourgeois enjoyment. Quiet, the show is set to start… Elsa coughs a light cough and foghorns: Dedesnn nn rrrrr, Ii Ee, mpiff tillff toooo, Dedesnn nn rrrrr, Ii Ee, mpiff tillff toooo, tillll Dedesnn nn rrrrr, Ii Ee, mpiff tillff toooo, tillll,Jüü-Kaa?llll,Jüü-Kaa? Roshi, scepter at his side spilling smileys, nods. The crowd detonates. And what would you call that act? –Cynocephalus --- 43 Julie Byrne Not Even Happiness [Ba Da Bing!] [LISTEN] Not Even Happiness is Julie Byrne’s truth, honesty, desire, and memory laid bare. It’s a woman accepting the universe, chaos, and herself through a calm that’s almost hard to take in. It’s airy. It’s layered. It’s self-love in motion. It’s an attempt to discern a place in the cosmos. It’s Grouper out of the mist, Angel Olsen on Xanax. It’s pure consonance. It’s about moments both meaningful and mundane — a cup of coffee in the morning while looking out the window — but they’re actually all important if you care about how you live. My friend who barely talks to me anymore sent me the record in April; I played it on repeat for five hours that day, and I’ve kept listening to it ever since. –Adam Rothbarth --- 42 Pharmakon Contact [Sacred Bones] [LISTEN · READ] I spend more time than I’d like in meetings centered on teaching middle school students empathy. It’s something I care deeply about, but these meetings often make me doubt that adults (especially those in positions of interacting with children) are actually competent models of reaching out and making positive contact. These meetings feel a lot like how most people would describe Pharmakon’s music: chaotic, headache-inducing, dissonant. I don’t think it’s an accident that what “kids these days” are bumping always seems, by adult standards, alienating. “At least it makes them feel something,” right? Truth is, kids are really good at “feeling things”; adults have just had more practice turning feelings into ulcers. Margaret Chardiet hasn’t forgotten how noise can make us feel things. Contact was what empathy (feeling what other people feel) really sounded like: generative, alleviating, and cathartic, qualities that may be better taught through unadulterated sound than through rudimentary recalibration. So next staff meeting, I’m playing “Nakedness of Need,” hoping that it will expand our discussion on how we can build better connections between us. If it doesn’t work right away, at least it will have made us feel, and that’s something. –Jazz Scott --- 41 Amnesia Scanner AS TRUTH (MIXTAPE) [Self-Released] [LISTEN · READ] AS TRUTH (MIXTAPE) was as engrossing as it was adverse. With migrating noise and tones hammered out along pulsing rhythms, the mix was the out-loud dialogue of the desires and fears of machines laid flat. Of IP addresses beating like thumping veins. Of processors moaning and crying toward nothing. It was like the open wounds of aux cords oozing their creamy innards, reliving their nightmares on repeat, doled out into dulled infinity. This year has been tough, but out of strife and constant defeat comes a readmitted commitment to past truths. Processing grief and anguish is necessary for growth. Let’s just hope the machines have a better world in the works than what we have created for ourselves. Amnesia Scanner was here to help the wires deliver sensitive content with distance and grace, along with a mirror to gaze at our own created horror. –Bort [pagebreak] 40 Kara-Lis Coverdale Grafts [Boomkat] [LISTEN · READ] Montreal resident Kara-Lis Coverdale returned in 2017 with her most fascinating and poignant work to date: her first solo vinyl release titled Grafts. Over the course of its 22 minutes of playtime, Coverdale expertly layered various textural and melodic ideas, molding them into a whole that inspired reverence and wonderment in the listener. The piece drew inspiration from contemporary electronic music, seminal minimalist compositions, and church music, as overlapping muted piano flourishes, dense organs, gentle drones, and fluttering synths blossomed into fascinating meditations on texture and melody. As the third — and most peaceful — movement (“Moments In Love”) slowly drifted to its conclusion, there was tangible sacredness in the air. Grafts was spiritual, intimate, contemplative, and completely alive. And in 2017, it was a stark reminder that beauty exists, even amidst the ever-present chaos and confusion. –A B D --- 39 Actress AZD [Ninja Tune] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] To enter such a realm, of life between being and nonbeing, of sound surging with numinous intensity and laboriously weaving itself into some vague, half-formed nightmare… The horror of reality, the limitations inside of genres like “dance” and “club” and outside: icy white silk of pouring rain and a backdrop of bleak office buildings. A ghost in the making, a figment, a cash register, a pistol, a zombie. People say that I am in a city, but I suspect I am amongst thousands of mountains. Expressive force over representational legibility, with the snowcaps amongst us. Slabs of marble dragged onto raw drips; flings of dust conjuring a far-away vision of the Dragon Gate, and in its fairy tale therein occurs a dance battle, or maybe a rap battle, or actually a 4/4 beat created from synths of yore, heavy with retrofuturism and insinuating something, something deep. So we go out, to the warehouses, to the studios, to the grottos, to the basements, with a question to ask: Do you remember real life? –Hydroyoga --- 38 Upgrayedd Smurphy HYPNOSYS [R-CH-V] [LISTEN] HYPNOSYS’s Giger-inspired cover art depicted Upgrayedd Smurphy morphing into something like an apex predator, xenomorph style. Smurphy’s beats were tighter and more austere on this album, driving the melodies while integrating classic post-punk texture into modern beat work. This approach effectively aligned her music with recent works by Andy Stott and Zomb while still sounding nothing like them. It was music for driving at night through morose, dilapidated cities. Dim-lit neon bulbs flickering out, exits collapsing in the rearview. The malaise of modern living, all connected yet lost (hypnotized, even) in reconciling that this was all actually meaningless. The whole thing felt appropriately bleak, the product of how awful our world has become. If we have to go on, let’s become something else. It’s already happening all around us. Upgrading to extraterrestrial. –Joe Davenport --- 37 Pan Daijing Lack 惊蛰 [PAN] [LISTEN · READ] Pan Daijing herself described Lack 惊蛰 as an “opera,” suggesting listeners were to consume the work as performance rather than music proper. Immediacy and vulnerability, then, were core tenets of the work: Lack 惊蛰 was an intimate process to be witnessed, not only by the listener, but by Daijing herself: “I saw myself being this absurd, mad person ‘acting’ out the sounds.” Taking listeners through various modes of sound affect, Daijing’s arsenal included experiments with verbal intonation/inflection, disquieting moans, aggressive synth loops, and arrhythmic percussion. Still, the album was less about sonic extremes and more an exploration of what noise — and perhaps the avant-garde at large — can achieve by forcing us into spaces that make both listener and performer more visible, allowing us to express and embody sincerity in an era rife with irony, superficiality, and untruths. Fundamentally, Lack 惊蛰 instilled awareness: the simple suggestion that we are here, we are feeling, we are real. In the years to come, art and performance in a similar vein will become paramount in creating spaces where we are free to feel vulnerable and consider our emotions and experiences as they relate to the human condition. –Alex Brown --- 36 Richard Dawson Peasant [Weird World] [WATCH · READ] Peasant detailed the lives of the 6th- and 7th-century peasantry during the violent unification of the Kingdom of Northumbria in present-day Northeastern England. Daunting stuff for the historically disinclined. But as TMT writer Sam Goldner pointed out, this obscure theme counter-intuitively allowed Richard Dawson to address very current, and very pressing, political concerns. By giving voice to otherwise mute historical figures — soldiers, prostitutes, beggars — Dawson implicitly critiqued the power structures that allow these characters’ oppression to persist today. Wary of drawing any explicit connections between his music and recent politics, Dawson nevertheless remarked that “some of the things that are described in the songs are not too different from some of the things that occur today in a supposedly civilized society.” And what is described in the songs was bleak: the world of Peasant was violent, superstitious, corrupt, and all too recognizable. Dawson’s powerful Geordie bark and discordant acoustic guitar brought this world arrestingly to life. The intensive historical research and dissonant experimentalism of Dawson’s earlier albums now seem like necessary steps toward creating Peasant’s sprawling narrative, one of those rare documents that perfectly encapsulates an artist’s approach. In retrospect, it’s obvious Dawson had to make this album, and that he had to make it in 2017. –Matthew Blackwell --- 35 woopheadclrms Meeting Room + Rare Plants [Ukiuki Atamata] [LISTEN · READ] It took a few listens to pinpoint what made woopheadclrms’s Meeting Room + Rare Plants so compelling. Putting aside the overwhelming amount of samples and otherworldly qualities hidden in the pitched-shifted mutant vocals, there was an underlying presence. It was almost like a secret, whispered between the barrage of sound. The smooth transitions between sounds, the gentle jokes, the memes, the chirping of birds, the conversations between friends, the jungle-like atmosphere: it all made for an experience akin to those overly romanticized depictions of death we see on television, where the character’s life flashes before their eyes, millions of moments rushing back toward a light that had shined for decades, maybe even a century, separating the unknown pre-birth world and the halcyon ocean that lay ahead. All the detailed subject matter blurred and the memories seemed randomly chosen, but when pieced together, they formed not a grandiose message, but feelings of warmth, solace, maybe even alleviation. –Sam Tornow --- 34 Giant Claw Soft Channel [Orange Milk] [WATCH · LISTEN · READ] There are few rockist tropes as worn-out as the breakup album. Many of rock & roll’s big names have one among their canonical works (Blood on The Tracks, Here My Dear, Rumours, The Boatman’s Call, Sea Change, Vulnicura, etc.). Is Soft Channel “a breakup album for the internet age”? Cutesy rhetorical clutches aside, the album indeed found Keith Rankin exploring the fragments that circle one’s head in the aftermath of a sentimental crisis, the mix of frustration, disappointment, relief, loneliness, regret, and everything else that threatens to overwhelm you in such episodes. And if Rankin’s post-digital approach to plunderphonics, his brutalization of modern pop and appropriation of the remains, suits the anxiety buildup that comes with a breakup, Soft Channel wasn’t just a trip through despair. The later part of the album pushed for a sense of closure, with melodies becoming recognizably tame and R&B vocals acquiring luminescent shapes. Striving for serenity might be naïve, but a measure of peace existed in letting memories and whispers dilute in the past. After all, we will all find a home in there eventually. Even awful exes and sanctified breakup albums. –jrodriguez6 --- 33 Konrad Sprenger Stack Music [PAN] [LISTEN · READ] Stack: With Stack Music, Konrad Sprenger put the authorship of music in flux. The music was authored by a system: user, interface, instrument. The user directed the interface to make choices for patterns of sound. Despite a complete oversaturation of questions regarding artificial intelligence in electronic music, Sprenger’s process stood monolithic in its reversal of “man vs. machine” rhetoric. Here, the system’s authors shared an economy of sound. String: Every sound came directly from a computation of resistance; the string resists its labor. The physicality/artificiality of the string was totally elusive, creating an audible treachery of sound. The string sounded like a train. Stanza: 7:01 / 18:56 / 18:07 / 6:28 Space: The Euclidean algorithm, here applied to rhythm, creates an interplay of space. The computer-author finds space and generates sound to fill it. Sprenger’s longtime influence and New York minimalism counterpart is Ellen Fullman, but where Fullman’s string instrument creates space, Sprenger’s devours it. When there is no space left, Stack Music sounds the most beautiful. Syncopation: “I can make syncopation sound like death.” –John Fahey. –E. Fosl --- 32 Khaki Blazer Didn’t Have to Cut [Hausu Mountain] [LISTEN · READ] Even Khaki Blazer felt it this year. Taking a respite from the whiplash frenzy and wormhole plunderings of his sample-heavy, hyperaccelerated pinball methodology, Pat Modugno launched an uncharacteristically patient, low-key textural investigation on Didn’t Have To Cut. Through lateral pathways into parentheticals and ellipses plunged into the hearts of his samples and discovered something like a universal glitch, stuttering alongside elastic harmonies and oblique slippages, plopped onto the cement like putty and smeared into the shape of a rainbow. Our bodies twitched, our eyes glazed over. Time was a bar of soap. Space was up for debate. “My battery’s almost dead. Do you have a charger?” We looked down, and Khaki Blazer was trapped in the grid, crying. He had flowers in his hand. The flowers were melting. It was a cartoon! –Mr P --- 31 Young Thug Beautiful Thugger Girls [Atlantic] [WATCH · READ] Wending his way gently into the crevices of a rich and sensuous realm of pop, Young Thug used Beautiful Thugger Girls as a faultless freeze frame that captured his increasing rise to stardom and the social misdemeanors that come with it. His observations were as astute and as resounding as ever, rapping about everything from his difficulties at school to family loyalty to individuality. Each cut carved fresh insight into the complicated world of a rising artist as he continued to veer away from the mainstream while flirting unabashedly with it. Although it might not have been as crass as Barter 6 or as uncompromising as JEFFERY, Thug made sure that his summertime mixtape proved to be one of his most captivating releases to date, and for that we were truly grateful. –Birkut [pagebreak] 30 Lawrence English Cruel Optimism [Room40] [LISTEN · READ] You don’t hear the sounds so much as you feel them, like a distant mudslide slowly moving your way, when everything stalls and a moment seems to last forever. Sharing its title with Lauren Berlant’s 2011 monograph, Cruel Optimism addressed the same affect theory concern of an individual’s optimistic attachment in an increasingly compromised society. Across Cruel Optimism, English was able to push his own boundaries, combining freeform ideas with captivating instrumental sequences, conceived, at times, by ”happy accidents.” With repeated listens, Cruel Optimism became unshakable, its scope and imagination conveying a divine, indeterminate place and time. Picking out moments to describe the whole feels Sisyphean, as the whole was simply an intense masterclass in sound sustention. Cruel Optimism embraced Berlant’s theory of “crisis ordinariness,” but sought to experiment, to try new forms of living in a deteriorating world. In doing so, this release saw this extraordinarily talented composer deliver his most beautiful, pathos-laden, and, above all, human masterpiece yet. –David Nadelle --- 29 CupcakKe Queen Elizabitch [Self-Released] [WATCH · READ] By turns lurid and lucid, CupcakKe had the stamina to out-pace, out-rap, and out-fuck just about everyone this past year, and Queen Elizabitch was her glistening testament to the fact. Whether she was raiding your shit (“Quick Thought”), preaching body positivity (“Biggie Smalls”), or fucking in the back of an Uber (“Cumshot”), there was little room for the sacred in her urgency and diligence. Put simply, this was 100% profane to its very core, jettisoning any notion of radio-friendliness or crossover appeal in her perverse outlook; if I could point to any one rhyme as a suitable M.O., this might be it: “Name anything freaky and you know I’m ‘bout the shit / Only time I’m not on the dick is when I’m ‘bout to shit” (“CPR”). And, consistent with her meticulous impulse toward what’s real, Queen Elizabitch was bookended by two of the most thoughtful cuts anybody could muster in 2017, introducing and capping off a tale of personal triumph amidst societal anguish. Long live the Queen — true to her word, the 33rd of the month never came. –Soe Jherwood --- 28 Léo Hoffsaes & Loto Retina Early Contact [PERMALNK] [LISTEN · READ] The nuclear family of Early Contact includes father, mother, son, and soon-to-be second child, who, in this perfect narrative, would be a daughter. The first time we heard the pregnant mother, our narrator, speak, her voice inspired a surge of strings to burst forth from her swelling heart and belly and announced two of the album’s three scores: the mother’s internal monologue, written by Bastien Vairet and performed in the distinctly superficial style of true-blue American artifice; and the orchestral arrangements that soundtrack her thoughts with extreme, almost Disney-like pathos. But a third, subtler score was also present, though in suspension, and sounded its poignant piece through muddy, atmospheric synths and electro-acoustic compositions that seemed to come from far off or, more likely, from deep within. It seeped like a vapor through the album’s amniotic fluid — unformed sometimes, as in in the beginning of “11 am”; and eternal other times, as in “2 pm.” The tension created by the three tracks spoke to the whole absurd theater of this life-in-the-day-of, and even though we were listening to the scripted thoughts of an archetype, I couldn’t help but wonder how our own thoughts do so churn. –Cookcook --- 27 Big Thief Capacity [Saddle Creek] [LISTEN] SNOWFALL, a word like an other, a root transformed by circumstances. Words are containers for wonders, imagined expressions of the world we see. In words like in snows, the world is temporarily transfigured, a familiar thing under bright fabric. Sound and snow transfix; “you won’t recognize your house.” MYTHOLOGICAL, almost, legends of our every days, we walk in the feel of falling skies. The dog pulls, happy haywire in the shifted smells of these streets. In snows like in songs, silhouettes of the world resound from under a momentary veneer, a changed air. Somewhere, tree’s leaves. Somewhere, a dead deer under these new white mounds. “Will you recognize the iris of the body?” Half-familiar home, a streetlight of us stepping, “forgetting the word “dog” and looking at that naked animal and getting much closer to it and how it is different to you.” CAPACITY bridges could-know and have-known, fabrics worlds and traumas in folk and rumbles. Capacity contains all our breaking engagements, all our dog-walk joys, the paths that fade from the steps that can’t be taken back. Worlds break but songs make, myths for forward. “You’re all caught up inside/ But you know the way.” Hearth and hurt, coma and home, Capacity takes and holds, getting us much closer to us than we can without it. –Frank Falisi --- 26 Various Artists Club Chai Vol.1 [Club Chai] [LISTEN · READ] How do you build something communal in the face of absolute fragmentation? Is there a way out of the hell of singular ready-made identities, something that allows one to carry solidarity further than individual interests? Club Chai Vol. 1 sought answers to these questions while bridging the gap between the local and the global to find a common tongue, regardless of the variety of struggle. The comp managed to locate a solidarity that progressed beyond common interests of a single identity group, a solidarity of simply caring for others who are different. Rather than artificially creating common ground by imposing an overarching theme or artistic direction, the record embraced the differences of its co-creators, their varied backgrounds, their unique musical styles. This created a sonic world wherein FOOZOOL’s tense “AZAT Ազատ” felt right at home next to the gently sung “BLACK WAX” by SPELLING. Every contribution to the compilation was irrevocably different, and yet it never felt incoherent or arbitrary. In its disregard of borders, be they political or artistic, Club Chai Vol.1 brought to the fore voices routinely excluded by the West and the faux-liberalism of middle-class uniformity. It succeeded by forging out of them a harmony that felt complete and unafraid, destructive toward the existing rulesets and intent on creating new spaces of possibility. –Acedia --- 25 Slowdive Slowdive [Dead Oceans] [WATCH · READ] The news is grimmer every year. We find ourselves at the crossroads in modern society: party over country, corporations over people, division over unity. We fall neatly into categories and find ourselves embracing or rejecting what is reported about our adopted identities. So, here we are, staring at our shoes, deciding where next to stride. I chose the light, where it seems Slowdive have been hiding for two decades with open arms, hoping society came to them naturally. We didn’t, so they’ve reemerged and are urging us toward the inner peace of doing the right thing. Slowdive has broken my shackles, and I’m no longer tethered to characters typed out on a screen that may or may not speak to my demeanor, message, and identity. I’m transcending it all, leaving the orange psychic shadow behind. We have better things to do with our time and energy, and it begins with a deep dive into the return of Slowdive and our roots of making the change we want. –Jspicer --- 24 Chino Amobi PARADISO [UNO NYC/NON WORLDWIDE] [LISTEN · READ] An understated appeal of the circus or carnival lies in the elevation of “characters” that we otherwise neglect to acknowledge in our daily lives, but whom we know exist in the shadows. PARADISO offered a similar promotion, although in lieu of so-called “freaks” with biological conditions, the musical sideshow centered around a plethora of artists affiliated with Amobi’s NON WORLDWIDE label, which arrived on the scene a few years ago figuratively offering the mic to a variety of underrepresented. Elysia Crampton recited Poe with variations on a couple of tracks, and the title track had a veritable litany of artist features, which began with the defiant and possible mission statement: “I’m not an animal.” Cages were for sure lifted accordingly on an overall musical level, and the whole of the release showcased the chaotic stew that possibly represents our current societal state better than vanilla and holidays sales ever did. Some of us still need a blatant welcome, despite a distant organ. –Mike Reid --- 23 Various Artists Twin Peaks (Music from the Limited Event Series) / Twin Peaks (Limited Even Series Soundtrack) [Rhino] [WATCH · WATCH · WATCH] It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that, for most of us at TMT, the most important event of the year (particular stages in the ongoing degeneration of the globe notwithstanding) was not primarily musical, but televisual. But, of course, in the new Twin Peaks series, as with anything involving David Lynch, the musical side could never have been less than crucial, whether as a conduit of signification and significance, as punctuation, or as a peculiar kind of marginalia to the show. The original series left innumerable traces on the wider world, detectable ever since in television, in film, in our favorite music — in our very perception of things. Even detached from the accompanying pictures and story, the soundtrack has always possessed an almost uniquely powerful ability to evoke a polyvalent kind of nostalgia. Now, disoriented by novelties, the old is given strange new salience and sent down an entirely renewed confusion of interpretative possibilities. Twin Peaks has grown, expanded to fill voids it had left behind, and engendered new ones. In the years since its first incarnation, it found points of entry into our own world; this year, ours found a way into its. Could “Laura Palmer’s Theme” ever mean the same thing again? –Michael J --- 22 Jlin Black Origami [Planet Mu] [WATCH · READ] Watch it fold. A few things, maximized, then steady. Singularity: each sound an organelle, tiniest units of tissue, collectively defining the tissue, gradually forming the organ, one formal unit, one after the other, track by track, slowly shifting. It doubles back, flips the script, keels over. Origami. “The fold serves as an apt metaphor,” says Prathna Lor on Renee Gladman’s “Calamities.” “The fold is at once additive as it is subtractive. Folds, as they increase in number, generate more and more possibilities, and completely reimagine the space within which they are reconfigured. Space is reconfigured, (re)constructed, diminished, and translated along new and different planes.” It sounds good. “[It] feels knotted; like being in a mouth.” It speaks from another, from within another (mouth), it moves the body. “What becomes necessary is not the untangling of its density but the tracing out of its textures, surfaces, and shapes. […] It is therefore not in the name of teleology but of experience that we must seek a phenomenology, an erotics, a contouring of writing.” Working with steel, working the body, working toward elegance. Refining, tempering, deliberate, shifting. –Ben Levinson --- 21 Björk Utopia [One Little Indian] [WATCH · READ] Recovery’s tricky. You know it’s been rough, don’t worry, it’s fine now, etc., but shit can and will dive down again. The cycle repeats, and Utopia was an abstract pop frolic through it. Having endured the breakup that inspired 2015’s Vulnicura, Björk, again partnered with producer Arca, pondered the confounding trials of emotion. Against frustrating soundscapes that allowed industrial thuds and ethereal flutes to coexist, Björk cooed and wailed over the sensory/biological overload of first kisses, brokenness, and the responsibility of guardianship. Mysterious noises scattered, never to be heard again. Flames and birds crackled, and the question of their authenticity added to the experience; we have our fantasies of love and pain, but what is the reality? By the end, having addressed tactile, spiritual, and digital communication, she reached beyond herself, bore the world’s angst, and protected its lantern, even though it has prompted her to shift shapes. Guardedly optimistic, Björk faced an increasingly indifferent world, so maybe her hope will falter, but that was Utopia’s point. It was a gorgeous mess, a contradictory album by/for contradictory minds, and its enigmas will persist. –Snacks Kyburz [pagebreak] 20 M.E.S.H. Hesaitix [PAN] [LISTEN · READ] “How did I become so stupid?,” Hesaitix asked, in sonic pursuit of a grotesque metamodernism. An anagram of “cathexis,” Hesaitix invested profound energy into the imponderable bloom — a bloom declared as “essence” by so many discredited philosophies — but a process rightly ignored by the Machine, just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. M.E.S.H. tensely collected the grapes of wrath on record, pooling expired audio into cisterns filled with birdsong, vision, electricity, and pulsing acid-shade hues of burnt purple-gold. The hybrid result was an organic/plastic sound with half-utility as an armored “club record,” while still half-fantasizing a dilapidated attempt at introverted worldbuilding: “This is my world…but how did it become so stupid?” Over-rendered, fleshy, but recast rigidly into stark obsidian, M.E.S.H. sketched hopeful boundaries for form, as if creating lumpy sculptures out of a constantly melting red clay. There was no real reconstruction happening here, only ephemeral reactions that merely complemented M.E.S.H.’s previously deconstructionist audio agenda. Here, there was only the search and the reveal — a revelation in the sound of void-wind cuffing the plaza. –Nick James Scavo --- 19 Chief Keef Thot Breaker [Glo Gang] [LISTEN · READ] They’ve been asking for the old Sosa since he was 17. But how can you miss the old Chief Keef when he can be the pill that you gotta take, your night shift, your light-year, the sun in your rainy weather, your listener, your boat? Your Number 1 Pop Star, your “LOVE.” He’s changed (“Slow Dance”), and he’s stayed the same (“My Baby”), turning his Gucci/Wayne smear resplendent. Thot Breaker arrived overdue and yesterday, a pop time slide, a HNDRXX from the future, in 2017, after the honestly equal albeit unmastered Two Zero One Seven. Anamoly (Almighty So), phantasmagoria (lil glo). The old Sosa’s ttttturbo made us go “Whoa,” then his voice took us inner, outer, and higher. How far is a light-year? –Pat Beane --- 18 GAS Narkopop [Kompakt] [LISTEN · READ] Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that, even after a 17-year pause between albums, GAS felt, in essence, unchanged. Wolfgang Voigt’s most sublime musical outlet has always felt more like a natural phenomenon than a project, tied not to the passing of trends or eras, but to the epochal aging of the Earth itself. If that sounds grandiose, great — Narkopop was a giant piece of music, tall as sequoia and unapologetically huge in scope. And yet it was Voigt’s personal touch for turning his few ingredients into an entire world that stuck when the record ended — the wisps of fog-synth and floor tom, masterful in their ability to subtly play the human senses. The cap on a now 20-year experiment in opening ambience to its widest point, one hopes this is, for Voigt, just one of many trips back to the forest. –Dylan Pasture --- 17 SZA CTRL [Top Dawg] [WATCH · WATCH] While Taylor stumbles through her deferred quarter-life crisis and Vagabon’s Laetitia Tamko stakes her claim in the socioeconomically monopolized realm of indie rock, Solána Rowe, d/b/a SZA, forged a middle ground between the two artists on CTRL. Her debut long-player after a string of EPs, CTRL channeled Swift’s narcissistic empowerment and tempered it with Tamko’s outspoken insecurity and tacit gender politics. Oscillating between off-the-cuff lyricism and carefully deliberated melodies, SZA located personal trepidation in the album’s stream-of-consciousness musings and discovered affirmation in its mantra-hooks. When she sang “Leave me lonely for prettier women/ You know I need too much attention for shit like that” on the blank-verse confessional “Supermodel,” it was a supplication to be proven wrong. And on the would-be capstone single “Drew Barrymore,” she asked confidently, knowingly, “Am I warm enough for you outside, baby? Is it warm enough for you inside me?” Rowe’s mother graced CTRL’s interstices with soundbites of maternal wisdom and exhortation, the most pertinent of which inaugurated the album: “That is my greatest fear: that if I lost control or did not have control, things would just be… fatal.” –Sean Hannah --- 16 DJ Escrow Universal Soulja Vol. 1 [Self-Released] [ http://j.mp/2Bw9CuU

[mystiika]

   one cool thing about ancient chinese religious practices is the huge variety from province to province & even from one village to another, for religious behaviour is bound to local communities, kinship, & environments. in each setting, institution & ritual behaviour assumes highly organised forms. temples & the gods in them acquire symbolic character & perform specific functions involved in the everyday life of the local community. ancient chinese religion pervades all aspects of social life. 

   but one thing to note is that the prime criterion for participation in the ancient chinese religion is not "to believe" in an official doctrine or dogma, but "to belong" ( though typically applied to being in the local unit of an ancient chinese religion since that is the "association", the "village" or the "kinship", with their gods & rituals ).

   so deity or temple associations & lineage associations, pilgrimage associations & formalised prayers, rituals & expressions of virtues, are the common forms of organisation of chinese religion on the local level but neither initiation rituals nor official membership into a church organisation separate from one person's native identity are mandatory in order to be involved in religious activities. contrary to institutional religions, chinese religion do not require "conversion" for participation.

   i’m taking that non-association once step further in my portrayal by saying this but while tu’er shen is a chinese deity, he does not only respond to the prayers of chinese people or people in religion that worships him. so long as you pray earnestly & believe in tu’er shen’s ability to help you, he’ll answer you. be devout in your intention & that’s good enough for him.