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theageoftheunderstatement · 1 year

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Newsweek Magazine: Arctic Monkeys Change Direction Yet Again on 'The Car'

Written by David Chiu, 24/10/2022

When Arctic Monkeys released their sixth studio album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, in 2018, it was viewed as a dramatic left turn for the British band primarily known for their guitar-charged indie rock and the distinct lyrics of frontman Alex Turner. For that record, the British quartet incorporated ornate psychedelic and lounge-pop influences that leaned toward Burt Bacharach and the Beach Boys, with the piano becoming more prominent than the guitar. Yet, those noticeable shifts didn't appear to alienate the band's diehard fans when Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino became the band's sixth consecutive number one album in the U.K.

After that stylistic detour, fans might have expected Arctic Monkeys—Turner, drummer Matt Helders, bassist Nick O'Malley and guitarist Jamie Cook—to return to the earlier brash rock for their next album. But the band from Sheffield remains determined to evolve and defy expectations, as indicated by The Car, released October 21 via Domino Records. It's a continuation of the trippy and elegant after-hours vibe mined on Tranquility Base, although the music—featuring strings and horns this time—sounds more loose, atmospheric and expansive.

"I think there's this idea of when starting a new record [is the] 'we're-not-gonna-make-it-anything-like-the-last-one,'" the pensive Turner tells Newsweek. "But what I realize more often than not is they all seem to bleed into each other. It's only now when I've got this one under the microscope, I realized how much of that is true. I was probably trying to get away from things we've done on that last record. But I think there's still some of that kind of hanging over here into [The Car], but hopefully not to the extent where it isn't also reaching some new places that we haven't been before as well."

A listen to The Car (produced by longtime collaborator James Ford) immediately draws comparisons to the music of such artists as David Bowie (somewhere between his Young Americans and Station to Station albums), Serge Gainsbourg, Nick Cave and Scott Walker as well as '70s R&B and glam—and yet it still sounds like Arctic Monkeys. "I find it a bit more difficult than I have in the past to draw a line between records of other artists and this thing," Turner says. "I could probably pencil in a few. Perhaps the things I've sort of absorbed for a relatively long period of time now just influenced the process but in a more subtle way than having a discussion saying, 'Let's try and do a song like this' or something. It feels a little more unspoken now. Perhaps I'm just still too close to it in the moment."

Unlike Tranquility Base, whose theme centered on a futuristic hotel on the moon, The Car doesn't primarily focus on a particular subject running through the songs' enigmatic lyrics. "I think there is a theme or feel that runs through this whole record, but I don't think it's exclusive to the words," Turner explains. "It's almost easier to latch on to a theme if I take the words out of it for a minute and focus on what the feel of everything else is doing. I think that the lyrics are sometimes subscribing to that feel. And if there is a theme that runs through it, it's more along those lines than it is about XYZ, if that makes any sense at all."

"The first thing I wrote through it was this instrumental section at the beginning of the album," he continues. "Everything that came after that was written after that. It felt like it has a relationship with what was being evoked in that instrumental section. I wouldn't be leaning into the idea of it's just another 10 songs that aren't connected in any way. But at the same time, I don't think I can pin down a theme, not in a succinct sentence anyway."

The first single released off The Car, "There'd Better Be a Mirrorball," carries an air of melancholy amid the gorgeous strings and prominent piano lines, as Turner sings wistfully: "So if you want to walk me to the car you ought to know I have a heavy heart, so can we please be absolutely sure that there's a mirror ball."

"Obviously, you're describing the lead-up to some sort of goodbye line," Turner says, "and suddenly a mirrorball drops into the middle of that situation, which somehow doesn't seem totally incongruous in my mind. Perhaps on some level, the mirrorball is kind of synonymous with the closing of the show or something like that. But I think what I was imagining is carrying someone's suitcase to the car and then the lighting suddenly changes and the mirrorball drops in the middle of that situation. It's like, 'What's going on there?'I think it does feel like there are a few goodbyes here and there."

Introduced by beautiful acoustic guitar picking, the lyrical setting of "Mr. Schwartz" seems to take place at a movie shoot, which seems appropriate given the cinematic feeling of the song and the album. "There is a feeling of that behind-the-scenes of the production," Turner says. "That idea is not exclusive to or contained within just that song....It feels like there is something going on in the background of all these songs, like sort of a production: There's someone with a clipboard somewhere and somebody's up a ladder not too far from where these things are going on. The character of Mr. Schwartz was something that kind of did present itself to me in very real life, but sort of has been allowed to become a character in a song, I suppose."

The sweeping "Body Paint," the latest single, may be the most brash song of the collection. There are moments of electric guitar bursting through the lush orchestrations, while Turner's vocalizing echoes Bowie's '70s soul boy phase. It opens with a line Steely Dan or Prefab Sprout could have written: "For a master of deception and subterfuge you've made yourself quite the bed to lie in." Explains Turner: "It definitely does get pretty sparkly in the guitar toward the end of that. It's loud...more than I had expected it from the sketches of that song that we had before. I had it down for something that was gentle at the beginning. But during the session, there was something that was more lively that wanted to come out there at the end. I think that songs always continue to reveal themselves even sometimes after they've been recorded. We played the version of that on stage for the first time the other day, and it definitely seemed like it's still got somewhere to go. It's becoming a more exaggerated version of itself."

The Car marks another maturation and evolution in Arctic Monkeys' sound. Its release falls on the 20th anniversary of the band's formation. The hype surrounding Arctic Monkeys' arrival in the post-Britpop era has since become the stuff of legend: their early recordings were burned on CDs and given away at their shows, which prompted fans to upload them online. After signing with indie label Domino, Arctic Monkeys released 2006's Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which hit number one in the U.K. and became that country's biggest-selling debut. Since then, it has been hit albums, touring and festival appearances for the band. On his end, Turner has been engaged with a side project, the Last Shadow Puppets, whose elaborate sounds may have been a prelude to the music of Tranquility Base and The Car.

"It was the summer of 2002 when we first got all the way through the same song at the same time together," he recalls. "We still are friends like we were before it started, and still trusting each other and our instincts in the same way. " The fact that Arctic Monkeys never made the same album twice most likely contributed to their longevity and friendship. It's been a progression that was more natural than calculated.

"When I cast my mind back to 20 years ago," says Turner, "there's always been something inherently uncooperative. I don't know if that somehow has translated to each time we've been faced with the task of making something new. There's something about not wanting to kind of cooperate with our perception of what we think that should be. I suppose you can arrive at the idea that if one record was successful, the next one should try and emulate or bark up the same tree as that one was. We're not having the board meeting where we're kind of discussing that out loud to that extent. The whole thing in the first place was done on a hunch, on an instinct, and I think that's something we're just still paying attention to, that same instinct all the way along. That's the through line."

Arctic Monkeys will be touring the U.K., Ireland, North America and South America the rest of this year and into 2023. Having branched out on their last two records, it wouldn't be surprising if their next record tackled another genre, perhaps hip-hop or ambient music. Turner says. "Yeah, why not? I'd have to give it some more thought. When I think about my perception of the way people make dance music, I am interested in that approach to it. I'm not saying that it's something I want to do, but I'm interested in watching somebody do it or something for an afternoon."

#interview #arctic monkeys #alex turner #the car era #newsweek magazine 2022 #it's an interview in october but i think it wasn't posted here?#i love how he described there'd better be a mirrorball and mr. schwartz here

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aralezinspace · 7 months

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Fic Writer Questions

Stolen from @delta-pavonis cuz I too am procrastinating xD Under cut cuz long

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

191,110, and going up just about every day xD

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently I write Doctor Who, The Sandman, Black Butler, and Assassin's Creed Fandoms with fics that will never see the light of day include Naruto, YuGiOh, Death Note, and Pirates of the Caribbean

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

~Pas de Deux ~That Deathless Death (I would like to thank Hozier for this title) ~Vindictus ~Send Me to Sleep ~Demons Don't Wear Suits ... huh. Aside from send me to sleep these are all Black Butler fics. Interesting, considering I don't really write Black Butler as much as I used to, aside from PDD

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! anything beyond generic 'nice work' type comments I'll respond to everyone (guess that's a benefit of not being a Big Name, I can respond to everyone) I love talking about peoples' interpretations of my writing and also want them to know their encouragement and praise is not unappreciated <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

At present, it's a tie between Vindictus and That Deathless Death... HOWEVER I do have quite a melancholy/bittersweet/feels-y ending in mind for PDD when i finish it in a hundred years xD

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Aside from the fics above they all have pretty happy endings tbh, or at least not-angsty endings xD

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Haven't yet

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

HELL YEA smut with feels, smut with banter, smut with banter and feels, kinky smut, kinky smut with banter and/or feels, 'elegant filth' according to one comment, sprinkle some plot in there for morale- various levels of graphic-ness depending on the Vibes

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

DO I WRITE CROSSOVERS?? I LOVE CROSSOVERS The very first fic I wrote with the intent to share was a niche crossover, Black Butler/Assassin's Creed xD Currently writing a massive niche Sandman/Assassin's Creed crossover

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of, hopefully/probably not

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! I wrote Vindictus with @chromehoplite they're such an incredible writer

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN ok the top ones that Send Me every time are Dreamling, Altair/Maria, EzioLeo, Ezio/Sofia, SebaCiel, and The Doctor/River

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Demons Don't Wear Suits- it's based on/inspired by the classic children's pulp fiction books The Bailey School Kids (Aliens Don't Wear Braces is the title I always remember). The ideas just dried up, maybe they'll come back

16. What are your writing strengths?

Descriptions and writing action like fights and chases

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I can't write out of order, for whatever reason my brain has to write the story beginning to end. Like I can't write a bunch of scenes and then put them in order

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Only if relevant tbh. Like I'll throw some Italian in EzioLeo stories courtesy of google translate and a high school language course

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ever ever? Naruto. Those will never see the light of day xD

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

again DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN But honestly I think my favorite writing ever has been the RP threads I did with my Doctor Who original character that I'm in the process of consolidating and editing- I love writing her adventures, and she got me through a really dark period in my life

If you're a fic writer and see this TAG YOU'RE IT

#my stuff #writing things

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lionellistuff · 10 months

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June 20th Osaka Day trip

This morning went mostly as they normally have, but today I got to sleep in an extra 25 minutes, which was great. We then made our way to Osaka which is the largest city in the Kansai area. The train ride there from Kyoto was about an hour, but it’s more like an hour and a half with walking time.

Osaka is very modern like the rest of Japan, but has a different vibe. If Tokyo is the professionalistic and sleek urban center, and Kyoto the place of refined aristocratic elegance, then Osaka is their warm and outgoing neighbor who isn’t afraid to relax.

Here we made it to Osaka castle, which was beautiful, but less impressive than Himeji castle. Then we walked to the Dotombori market area. Since Osaka is known as the food capital of Japan, this was my chance to try any street food that I hadn’t had yet. But I had seen everything they have there before, snd nothing really piqued my interest. So, I just had a smoothie with matcha, banana, and condensed milk.

This was the last day of the activities that we all did together as a class, and I feel melancholy in wishing everyone goodbye. I am so lucky to have met people who have become my friends on this trip, who seem to really understand me. It would be a shame if we can’t all stay in touch. This has been the adventure of a lifetime, and I am so privileged to have been able to do this, but I feel saturnine that it really is only once in a lifetime. No two things can ever happen in exactly the same way, or as the Japanese say, 一護一会, one meeting, one time. We can, however, take solace in the fact that these people will always be with us in our hearts. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but I know that we will meet again.

Thank you to all my readers who have joined me on this trip, I am humbled by your gracious patronage of this blog.

Academic reflection

Osaka, like many other Japanese cities, is known for its mixed use, loosely regulated zoning. As such, one might find commerce, industry, and residential spaces in close proximity to each other.

One aspect of Japanese cityscapes is the short lifespan of most buildings and houses. In Japan, buildings are frequently torn down to make room for new growth. As such, when the Japanese population was increasing, available units of housing increased correspondingly.

Although I don’t think that modern Japanese architecture is particularly inspiring, I do think there lies a particular charm in this country’s buildings. They feel more welcoming.

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hersheykise · 3 years

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Jonathan Joestar’s Spotify Playlist

Hello and welcome to the beginning of a series (or projected to be ahaha) that has to do with Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure characters and their own personalized playlists! I’ll be listing the track list and then will be going more in depth as to why I chose these particular songs for Jonathan’s playlist. The top part will not have spoilers, but be aware that the second part will so read at your own will! For the first playlist, we have none other than Jonathan Joestar, the original Jojo!

💿✨Track list✨💿

01. Jojo (Sono Chi no Sadame), Hiroaki Tommy Tominaga

02. BREATHE, AB6IX

03. breathin, Ariana Grande

04. We Belong, Ong Seong Wu

05. My Heart Will Go On, Céline Dion

06. Silence, Marshmello ft. Khalid

07. Dollhouse, Melanie Martinez

08. London Boy, Taylor Swift

09. Needed Me, Rihanna

10. Line Without a Hook, Ricky Montgomery

11. Glorious, Macklemore ft. Skylar Grey

12. Fighter, Christina Aguilera

13. Classic, MKTO

14. Win, CIX

15. Blue Hour, TOMORROW X TOGETHER

In Depth (spoiler free)

🔹 Jojo (Sono Chi no Sadame), Hiroaki Tommy Tominaga

Sono Chi no Sadame is the first opening of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and is truly what sets up the stage for the rest of the series. Jonathan Joestar, being the first Jojo, begins the Jojo legacy in Phantom Blood. The song lyrics heavily foreshadow the future of the Jojo series and describes Jonathan as someone who has honor and always does what is right. Sono Chi no Sadame is a spectacular opening act to the unique concept of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. *side note* Muscially speaking wow this song is incredibly good the crescendoes and frequent tempo changes as well as the instrumentals amaze me- this is easily my favorite Jojo opening.

🔹BREATHE, AB6IX

Hamon (also known as Ripple or Sendo) is a technique that heavily focuses on controlled breathing. Jonathan learned and mastered Hamon in a very short amount of time. BREATHE also has a very light feeling to it, making the song easy to listen to which connects to Jojo as he is a lighthearted and easy going guy.

🔹breathin, Ariana Grande

Likewise as BREATHE by AB6IX, breathin correlates to the Hamon technique that Jonathan used to fight. Adding onto that, Jonathan lived in a grand mansion and was very well off financially. This song has an elegant sound to it. Despite the wealth that he had, Jojo did not have the easiest childhood. Ever since Dio Brando began to live with him, Jonathan saw many mishaps occur with his relationships, reputation, and self esteem. But, Jonathan Joestar never gave up on his morals and values, and he always kept “breathin and breathin and breathin” no matter what, making sure he would always do the right thing.

🔹Silence, Marshmello ft. Khalid

Silence explains and describes Jonathan’s teenage years very well along with his relationship with Dio. Dio coming to live with Jonathan messed him up as Jonathan felt inferior to Dio who was taking the spotlight by being an amazing athlete and intelligent student. This prompted lots of praise from Jonathan’s father and comparing him to Dio constantly, which made Jonathan feel like he wasn’t worth as much. “I found peace in your violence” is a very meaningful line that contributes to Jonathan’s and Dio’s relationship because of the fact that Dio was... an extremely violent person ever since he was a kid and has done crazy evil things to Jonathan, yet Jonathan didn’t really hate Dio because of Jojo’s noble personality- Dio was Jonathan’s “brother,” therefore Jonathan couldn’t hate him. Jojo felt like he had to be silent over Dio’s actions because he didn’t want to spoil the love that his father gave to Dio, again proving how big of a heart Jonathan had.

🔹Dollhouse, Melanie Martinez

Dollhouse is a rather dark song, but is perfect to show off the darker side of Jonathan’s character. As we know, Jonathan is a young man who presents himself as well... perfect. He’s smart, incredibly kind and noble, rich, popular, and athletic. After Dio appeared and started to really turn things around for Jonathan, he had to continue to present the same image of himself even though his home life was becoming a wreck. His own father constantly scolded him and loved Dio to a great extent. “Pose with your brother won’t you be a good sister?” Jonathan knew that Dio’s actions were evil and he had ill intent at such a young age but Jojo had to go along with the act that Dio put on, faking the close brotherly relationship between them.

🔹London Boy, Taylor Swift

Sometimes I forget that Jonathan Joestar is in fact British. London Boy is a song for Jonathan not just because he lives in/by London, but also because the song describes a man who is just so sweet and has a beautiful laugh. The overall song is just so positive and loving towards this English boy. Every time I listen to this song I now think of Jonathan, and a smile always plasters on my face. Taylor Swift also has a lyric talking about watching rugby which reminded me of the iconic Jonathan and Dio rugby scene early in the story. Jonathan is such a respectful gentleman whom everyone just can’t help but fall in love with his lovely English charm.

🔷Line Without a Hook, Ricky Montgomery

After upon listening to this song, I felt like it really gave off Jonathan vibes because of the light but a tinge of melancholy sound to it. Thing song is quite reflective of Jonathan and Erina with the lyrics “I broke all my bones that day I found you crying at the lake” because it reminded me of when Jonathan first met Erina, who was being bullied by a couple of boys but Jonathan risked getting beaten up to stop the bullies from harming Erina. Later, Jonathan was laying on a hill with his dog Danny, feeling quite down because of none other than Dio, but Erina came and dropped off some grapes and his handkerchief and that was what really started off their relationship. The iconic line “she’s a, she’s a lady, and I am just a line without a hook” explains that Erina was Jonathan’s sole happiness in his life.

🔹Fighter, Christina Aguilera

Honestly, Dio really sucked (I still love him *sigh*). He wanted to completely destroy Jonathan’s life and make it absolutely miserable... for what? Well, despite the horrific actions that Dio performed to ruin Jonathan’s reputation and will, that ultimately backfired as Jonathan rose stronger than ever. Of course Jonathan was mad at Dio for his unspeakable actions, but because of him, he was able to have a certain drive where he gained immense strength in a short amount of time. William Zeppeli describes Jonathan as a Hamon prodigy because of how quickly Jojo was able to master it. Jojo was a natural, but again, he had that determination to defeat Dio once and for all. Despite the hardships Jonathan went through as a result of Dio’s decisions, Jonathan did not resent him in the end- Jojo became an extremely powerful individual because of his past.

🔹Classic, MKTO

In order to create a playlist for our favorite gentleman, it’s only necessary that we add a classic gentlemanly song to it! There’s not much of a deep gloomy reason why this song correlates with Jonathan, in fact it’s the complete opposite. Classic is a song that talks about being a classy and polite man, and to put it simply, Jonathan is exactly that.

🔹Win, CIX

From the God of High School soundtrack, Win is a song about fighting and training together as a team. This upbeat song greatly reminds me of the mini team of Jonathan Joestar, Speedwagon, and William Zeppeli all fighting against Dio and his minions together. Jonathan Joestar was not able to fight Dio without a hamon teacher, William, and an incredibly loyal friend, Speedwagon. This trio had great camaraderie and were overall an incredibly adorable and high morale team.

🔹Blue Hour, TXT

Ok so does this song really have a deep meaning or correlation to Jonathan Joestar? Nahhh not really, I just added it as a bit of a bonus. Blue Hour has an almost fairytale like vibe to it and I just thought it would be something that resonated with Jonathan, especially when he was a child. So, enjoy this little serotonin bonus boost!

⚠️Part 1 Spoilers⚠️

🔹We Belong, Ong Seong Wu

Jonathan’s and Erina’s relationship was very short... but sweet. We Belong is an emotional love song explaining how this one guy meets someone who is their entire world, like when Jonathan met Erina. Through Jojo’s darkest times when he felt like he lost everything, Erina was by his side no matter what. Even though their marriage was abruptly ended with the death of Jonathan, it doesn’t disregard the fact that Erina completely loved Jonathan and supported the Joestar family for the future generations to come. Jonathan and Erina truly belonged together.

🔹My Heart Will Go On, Céline Dion

My apologies, I’m absolutely in love with Jonathan’s and Erina’s relationship. My Heart Will Go On automatically reminds me of the last moments of Jonathan. Since the song was a part of the Titanic soundtrack where there’s a romance story and people die on a sinking ship, it really correlates to Erina and Jonathan going on their honeymoon but Jonathan ending up dead on the ship. Everytime I think of either the song or Jonathan’s and Erina’s last moments together, my heart feels heavy. Both the song and the scene are extremely high in emotions and both suit each other quite well.

🔹Needed Me, Rihanna

Dio killed Jonathan so that he could merge with Jojo’s body, and ultimately use it for evil and for power. “Never told you, you could have it,” symbolizes that Dio forcibly took everything Jonathan had, again including his own body. Although Jonathan would probably never say the lyrics of this song to Dio because he’s so noble, externally everyone knows that without Jonathan, Dio would have been absolutely nothing in Part 3.

🔹Glorious, Macklemore ft. Skylar Grey

The song Glorious questions oneself’s purpose in life, the answer being ‘give back to the people.’ Jonathan has proven that he has countlessly sacrificed himself for others, as was seen when he died on the ship and told Erina to take care of the orphaned baby and to “live a happy life.” Jonathan struggled greatly in his short life, but he always had the passion of helping others since he was born to do so.

🌟Conclusion🌟

Thank you for reading through my first ever blog on Tumblr! I hope you enjoyed the playlist and descriptions! Hopefully this playlist blog series will continue with majority of the main Jojo characters- that’s the plan. Have a good day and/or night💓!

#jonathan joestar #anime #jojo joestar #dio brando #playlists #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo part 1 #jjba #jjba jonathan

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vgriffindor · 3 years

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aMusketeer Fanfic Master Post

Calling all Musketeers! We’re all in need of a serious dose of our favourites, amirite? I’ve seen a few queries floating around lately asking for some great Muskie fanfic recommendations. I thought I’d do 20 weekly posts, each with a different theme, and ask for your help! There are a ton of great Muskie fics out there, let’s help each other discover them.

How this works: For each theme, please give me your TOP recommendation. It can be a one-shot or multiple chapters, complete or still a WIP, your own or some one else’s, just shout about that one fic that fits the theme and you want people to READ! Reblog to spread the word, with your recommendation and tag me @vgriffindor, or DM your recommendation so that I can post it! I’ll keep each theme as a pinned post up/keep adding to it for the entire week.

Week #2: AUs

It sure is fun to place these four in a different world, and see how they react! Whether it’s the quiet heaven of a bookstore, the flirty, caffeinated vibes of a coffee shop, the perfume of a flower shop, the hard-bitten reality of a detective bureau, or just about anything else you can think of, the boys seem to handle whatever universe we throw at them with their trademark personalities and humour intact.

Midsomer Musketeers by Suzie_Shooter: Exactly what you think and want this to be, when you combine the Musketeers and Midsomer Murders.

Fraternité et Égalité by BazinMousqueton: Clever, funny, sexy and gorgeously written modern AU in an architectural firm’s office. Slash, but not explicit, almost everyone is bi, and the whole thing is perfection.

(Below is all due to the hard work and enthusiastic response from @animanightmate! Thank you, you are awesome!)

E: yeah, you got me by cherryfeather - modern au graduation party oone-shot with a game of spin the bottle that gets angsty with forthcoming farewells and then very fulfilling indeed.

T: Chapter 10 of the collection of unrelated shorts (very short) His Smile Me Draws, His Frown Drives Me Away by akathecentimetre is entitled In Goodly Colors Gloriously Arrayed and is a modern au where the lads are working for the Sûreté in Paris (though it’s never confirmed precisely as what) and it’s basically a series of three (the original Inseparables) character studies as they get used to being Responsible Adults. No filth... well, apart from Aramis’s feet...

G: Fancy is a very short modern au short by AnathemaDevice about the cats owned by (or owning) the various season three characters. Includes one of the most beautiful word-sketches of Sylvie I’ve yet read.

E: Mis Adventures by Doom Canary is an utterly filthy, modern British police au short featuring a trans male character that blew my mind in the best ways. If there’s a plot, I blinked and missed it.

T: born like a vapor by mellyflori is - and I can’t believe I’m typing this - a modern au where two of the Four are genies (yep, you read that correctly). It is utterly, unforgettably gorgeous, and just works. Angsty and charming, and has one of the most elegant solutions I’ve seen for “what happens with Constance?” The world-building is done so well it’s almost seamless, and I’m weak for that kind of thing.

T: Brand New Start is a short modern office au by potentiality_26 from Constance’s perspective and is melancholy, sweet, and vivid. OT3 but nothing graphic.

E: One in Ten Thousand by breathtaken is a novel-length modern soul bonds au that, as usual with her, subverts the trope and delves deep into the psyche of an intensely depressed Athos who was in no way prepared to meet his soulmate. It’s hard going at times, but utterly beautiful and very hot.

M: my heart upon my sleeve by cherryfeather is a novel-length modern Shakespearean actors au and I avoided it for ages because the synopsis was written in a deliberately tabloid style and I assumed the whole thing was like that. It is not - it is the most elegant, eloquent, literally tear-tugging bit of angst and mutual pining I’ve ever encountered, and takes in: hurt/comfort, Only One Bed, and friends-to-lovers tropes along the way. Basically, if they were a character in the first two seasons of the original, she finds a place for them in this gorgeous work.

E: The Humbling River (author unknown) is the only A/B/O fic that I will ever recommend, ever. This short is canon era, but I guess it still counts as au? I fell into it accidentally, but it was written so well that I didn’t care about the premise.

E: Une histoire de bleu by ceeturnalia is long. A 100k word modern day au where the lads are security specialists for a private firm in Paris. It is vividly stark and lushly compassionate in one go, and also explores a developing D/s relationship in great detail, so if that’s not your bag, that’s the main core of the story. And it’s handled so well that I have zero hesitation in recommending it, even though that in itself is not really my thing. It’s just so very, very good and, even at that length, still manages to be very tightly written.

M: Death in Waiting by Suzie_shooter is your actual 1920s country house murder mystery with all our favs (seasons 1 and 2 anyway) in a short-novel-length interbellum piece of Upstairs-Downstairs only of course there’s lots of forbidden sex all over the place, and a genuinely gasp-inducing (at least in me) set of reveals.

M: Still Waters by evilmaniclaugh is a modern office au with a twist. It’s porn with a plot (and a great deal of angst), and is startlingly hilarious in places (for good reasons, I promise).

M: Gentlemen of the Road by Suzie_shooter is a highwayman au set, from my vague enough understanding of the descriptions, about 100 years or so after the canon era. As usual for S_s, it’s Athos/Porthos pairing, from the perspective of Porthos, and I keep coming back to it, for the humour, the story, and the sex. Bonus points for Ninon and Rochefort showing up, and our brief glimpses of d’Artagnan being an utter little shit.

M: Mise en place by breathtaken is a short series featuring season 3 characters as chefs. And it’s stunningly beautiful, intimately told from a conflicted Constance’s perspective (something I’m utterly weak for) and I want there to be more because dammit - food and polyamory and found family and so many of my favourite things and I wish she was going to write more and aaaaah. Anyway, everyone is bi and kinky and I am so there for that...

I have so many of these, but I’m going to leave it here while I retain any shred of sanity or dignity, and finish by telling you about my own only (so far) modern au, entitled Summoned (rated M), set in modern-day Cambridge, UK, complete with references to Brexit and climate change, and a detailed depiction of the Fitzwilliam Museum. The MacGuffin is a museum anti-heist. Or is it reincarnation? Or music? Or synaesthesia? WHO KNOWS?! Anyway, it’s 75k+ words of conversations, misunderstandings, music, musings, museum architecture, poetry, stolen kisses, awkward flirting, and confusing flashbacks. There is one extended explicit sex scene and the rest is more along the lines of innuendo and a great deal of heated kissing. And I wrote it in about fives weeks and am rather proud of it, actually.

#musketumblr #bbc musketeers #the musketeers #fan fic requests #fan fic #fan fiction #alternate universe

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Dust Volume 6, Number 12

The Flat Five

It’s November, and the culture is telling us to be thankful again, at least from a distance. We’re a prickly, argumentative bunch here at Dusted, but I think we can all agree on gratitude for our health, each other and the music, good and bad, that comes flooding in from all sides. So while we may not agree on whether the best genre is free jazz or acid folk or vintage punk or the most virulent form of death metal, we do concur that the world would be very dull without any of it. And thus, seasonably overstuffed, but with music, we opine on a number of the best of them once again. Contributors this time include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Mason Jones, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake. Happy thanksgiving.

Cristián Alvear / Burkhard Stangl — Pequeños Fragmentos De Una Música Discreta (Insub)

Pequeños fragmentos de una música discreta by CRISTIÁN ALVEAR & BURKHARD STANGL

The acoustic guitar creates instant common ground. Put together two people with guitars in their hands together, and they can potentially communicate without knowing a word of each other’s language. They might trade blues licks, verses of “Redemption Song,” or differently dire remembrances of “Hotel California,” but they’re bound to find some sort of common language. This album documents another chapter in the eternal search. Cristián Alvear is a Chilean classical guitarist who has found a niche interpreting modern, and often experimental repertoire. Burkhard Stangl is an Austrian who has spent time playing jazz with Franz Koglmann, covering Prince with Christoph Kurzmann and realizing compositions that use the language of free improvisation with Polwechsel. This CD collects eight “Small Fragments Of Discreet Music” which they improvised in the course of figuring out what they could play together. Given their backgrounds, dissonance is part of the shared language, but thanks to the instrumentation, nothing gets too loud. Sometimes they explore shared material, such as the gentle drizzle of harmonics on “No5.” Other times, they find productive contrasts, such as the blurry slide vs. palindromic melody on “No6.” And just once, they flip on the radio and wax melancholic while the static sputters. Sometimes small, shared moments are all you need.

Bill Meyer

Badge Époque Ensemble — Self Help (Telephone Explosion Records)

Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble

Toronto collective Badge Époque Ensemble display the tastefully virtuosic skill of a particular strain of soul-inflected jazz-fusion that politely nudged its way into the charts during the 1970s. Led by Max Turnbull (the erstwhile Slim Twig) on Fender Rhodes, clavinet and synthesizers with members of US Girls, Andy Shauf’s live band and a roster of guest vocalists, Badge Époque Ensemble faithfully resurrect the sophisticated sounds of Blue Nun fuelled fondue parties and stoned summer afternoons by the pool. Meg Remy and Dorothea Paas share vocals on “Sing A Silent Gospel” which is garlanded with Karen Ng’s alto saxophone and an airy solo from guitarist Chris Bezant; it’s a track that threatens to take off but never quite does. The strength of James Baley’s voice lifts the light as air psych-funk of “Unity (It’s Up To You)” and Jennifer Castle does the same for “Just Space For Light” during which Alia O’Brien makes the case for jazz flute — Mann rather than Dolphy — with an impressive solo. The most interesting track here is the 11 minute “Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins” a broodingly introspective piece which allows Bezant, Ng and bassist Giosuè Rosati to shine. Self-Help is immaculately played and has some very good moments but can’t quite get loose enough to convince.

Andrew Forell

Better Person — Something to Lose (Arbutus)

Something to Lose by Better Person

Like any musical genre, synth-pop can go desperately awry in the wrong hands. The resurgence of all things 1980s has been such a prevalent musical trend in recent years that it takes a deft touch to create something that taps into the retro vibe without coming across as smug. Under his Better Person moniker, Berlin-based Polish artist Adam Byczyowski manages to summon the melancholy vibe of 1980s classics such as “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and “Drive” by The Cars, reimagined for the 21st century and set in a run-down karaoke bar. This succinct and elegant half-hour set pivots around atmospheric instrumental “Glendale Evening” and features three Polish-language tracks — “Na Zawsze” (“Forever”), “Dotknij Mnie” (“Touch Me”), and “Ostatni Raz” (“Last Time”) — that emphasize the feel of cruising solo through another country and tuning into a unfamiliar radio station. There’s roto-toms, glassy synth tones, suitably melodramatic song titles (including “Hearts on Fire,” “True Love,” and “Bring Me To Tears”), plus Byczyowski’s disaffected croon. It all creates something unexpectedly moving.

Tim Clarke

Big Eyes Family — The Disappointed Chair (Sonido Polifonico)

The Disappointed Chair by Big Eyes Family

Sheffield’s Big Eyes Family (formerly The Big Eyes Family Players) released the rather fine Oh! on Home Assembly Music in 2016. Its eerie blend of folk and psych-pop brought to mind early Broadcast, circa Work and Non Work, before Trish Keenan and James Cargill started to explore more experimental timbres and themes of the occult. Bar perhaps the haunted music box instrumental “Witch Pricker’s Dream,” Oh!’s songs cleaved along a similar grain: minor keys, chiming arpeggiated guitar, spooky organ, in-the-pocket rhythm section, plus Heather Ditch’s vocal weaving around the music like smoke. The Disappointed Chair is much the same, enlivened with a touch more light and shade, from succinct waltz “(Sing Me Your) Saddest Song,” to the elegant Mellotron and tom-toms of “For Grace.” “From the Corner of My Eye” is stripped right back, with an especially affecting guitar line, plus Ditch’s vocals doubled, with the same words spoken and sung, like a voice of conscience nagging at the edge of the frame. It’s a strong set of songs, only let down by the boxy snare sound on “Blue Light,” and on “The Conjurer,” Ditch’s lower register isn’t nearly as strident as her upper range.

Tim Clarke

Bounaly — Music For WhatsApp 10 (Sahel Sounds)

Music from Saharan WhatsApp 10 by Bounaly

The tenth installment in Sahel Sounds’ Music For WhatsApp series introduces another name worth remembering. In case your attention hasn’t been solely faced on the ephemeral charms of contemporary Northwest African music in 2020, here’s the scoop: Each month, Sahel sounds uploads a brief recording that a musician from that corner of the world recorded on their cell phone and delivered via the titular app, which is the current mode of music transmission in that neck of the woods. At the end of the month they take it down, and that’s that. This edition was posted on November 11, so set your watch accordingly. Bounaly is originally from Niafounké, which was the home of the late, great Ali Farka Touré. Since civil war and outside intervention have rendered the city unsafe for musicians of any speed, he now works in Mali’s capital city, Bamako, but his music is rooted in the bluesy guitar style that Touré championed. Accompanied solely by a calabash player and surrounded by street sounds, Bounaly’s singing closely shadows his picking, which is expressive without resorting to the amped-up shredding of contemporary guitarists like Mdou Moctar.

Bill Meyer

Cash Click Boog — Voice of the Struggle (CMC-CMC)

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Last year, Cash Click Boog made a few very noticeable appearances on other people albums (especially on Lonnie Bands’ “Shred 1.5” and Rockin Rolla’s First Quarter) but his own Extras was a minor effort. This Californian rapper was always a dilettante at music, but that was his main appeal and ineradicable feature: you always knew that he’s always caught up in some very dark street business, and he appears in a booth once every blue moon, almost by accident. He is that sort of a player who always on the bleachers, yet when they let him on the field he always does a triple double or a hat trick (depending on a kind of sport).

Voice of the Struggle was supposed to be his big break, the album in which he would expend his gift for rapping while remaining in strictly amateurish frame. Sadly, Boog has chosen another route, namely going pop. He discards his amateur garbs almost completely and auto-tunes every track. If earlier he was too dark even by street standards, now almost all the tracks could be safely played on a radio. The first eight songs are more or less pop-ish ballads about homies in prison, tough life and the ghetto. By the time we reach the last three tracks where Boog recovers his old persona, it’s already too late. The struggle remains but the voice is gone.

Ray Garraty

The Flat Five — Another World (Pravda)

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The Flat Five musters a great deal of Chicago musical fire power. Alt.country chanteuse Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird collaborator Nora O’Connor and Casey McDonough sing in Andrews Sisters harmonies, while NRBQ mainstay Scott Ligon minds the store and Green Mill regular Alex Hall keeps the rhythm steady. The sound is retro —1930s radio retro — but the songs, written by Ligon’s older brother Chris, upend mid-century American pieties with sharp, insurgent wit. A variety of old-time-y styles are referenced — big band jazz, country, doo wop and pre-modern pop — in clean, winking style. Countrified, “The Great State of Texas” seems, at first, to be a fairly sentimental goodbye-to-all-that song, until it ends with the revelation that the narrator is on death row. “Girl of Virginia,” unspools a series of intricate, Cole Porter-ish rhymes, while waltzing carelessly across the floor. The writing is sharp, the playing uniformly excellent and the vocals extra special, layered in buzzing harmonies and counterpoints. No matter how complicated the vocal arrangements, no one is ever flat in Flat Five.

Jennifer Kelly

Sam Gendel — DRM (Nonesuch)

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Normally, Sam Gendel plays saxophone in a classic jazz style. You might have caught him blowing dreamy, airy accompaniments on Sam Amidon’s last record, for instance, or putting his own spin on jazz standards in the solo Satin Doll. But for this album, Gendel experimented with ancient high tech — an Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, some synthesizers, a 60-year-old nylon-string guitar —t o create hallucinatory fragments of beat-box-y, jazz-y sound, pitched somewhere between arty hip hop and KOMPAKT-style experimental electronics. “Dollars,” for instance, laces melancholy, Latin-flavored guitar and crooning with vintage video-game blips and bleeps, like a bossa nova heard dimly in a gaming arcade. “SOTD” dances uneasily in a syncopated way, staccato guitar runs paced by hand-claps, stuttered a-verbal mouth sounds and bright melodic bursts of synthesizer. “Times Like This” poses the difficult question of exactly what time we’re in—it has the moody smoulder of old soul, the antic ping and pop of lush early 00s electronics, the disembodied alien suavity of pitch-shifted R&B right now. The ringer in the collection is a cover of L’il Nas’ “Old Town Road,” interpreted in soft Teutonic electro tones, like Cluster at the rodeo. It’s odd and lovely and hard to get a bead on, which is pretty much the verdict for DRM as a whole.

Jennifer Kelly

Kraig Grady — Monument of Diamonds (Another Timbre)

MONUMENT OF DIAMONDS by Kraig Grady

The painting adorning the sleeve of Monument of Diamonds is entitled Doppler Effect in Blue, and rarely has the cover art’s name so accurately described the sound of the music paired with it. The album-length composition, which is scored for brass, saxophones and organs, consists almost entirely of long tones that Doppler in slow motion, with one starting up just before another peters out. The composer, Kraig Grady, is an Australian-based American who used to release albums that purported to be the folk music of a mythical land called Anaphoria. Nowadays he has no need for such subterfuge, since this lovely album holds up quite well on its own merits. Inspired by Harry Partch and non-Western classical music systems, Grady uses invented instruments and strategically selected pitch intervals to create microtonal music that sounds subtly alien, but never harsh on the ears. As the sounds glide by, they instigate a state of relaxed alertness that’ll do your blood pressure some good without exposing you to unnecessary sweetener.

Bill Meyer

MJ Guider — Sour Cherry Bell (Kranky)

Sour Cherry Bell by MJ Guider

MJ Guider’s second full length is diaphanous and monolithic, its monster beats sheathed in transparent washes of hiss and roar. “The Steelyard” shakes the floor with its pummelling industrial rhythms, yet shrouds Guider’s spoken word chants with surprising delicacy. “Body Optics” growls and simmers in woozy synth-driven discontent, while the singer lofts dreamy melodic phrases over the roar. There’s heft in the low-end of these roiling songs, in the churn of bass-like synthetics, the stomp of computer driven percussion, yet a disembodied lightness in the vocals, which float in pristine purity over the roar. Late in the disc, Guider ventures a surprisingly unconfrontational bit of dream pop in “Perfect Interference,” sounding poised and controlled and rather lovely at the center of chiming, enveloping synthetic riffs. Yet the murk and roar makes her work even more captivating, a glimpse of the spiritual in the midst of very physical wreck and tumult.

Jennifer Kelly

Hisato Higuchi — キ、Que、��えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? (Ghost Disc)

キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? by Hisato Higuchi

Since 2003, Tokyo-based guitarist Hisato Higuchi has quietly released a series of equally-quiet albums, many on his own Ghost Disc label, which is appropriately named. Higuchi's work on this and the previous two albums of his "Disappearing Trilogy" is a sort of shimmering, melancholy guitar-and-vocal atmosphere — downer psych-folk in a drifting haze. His lyrics are more imagery than story, touching on overflowing light, winter cities, the quiet world, and the transience of memories. As the guitar floats slowly into the distance, Higuchi's voice, imbued with reverb, is calmly narcotic, like someone quietly sympathizing with a friend's troubles. These songs, while melancholy, convey a peacefulness that's a welcome counterbalance to the chaotic year in which we've been living. Like a cool wind on a warm summer evening, you can close your eyes and let Higuchi's music improve your mood.

Mason Jones

Internazionale — Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade) (Janushoved)

Wide Sea Prancer (At The Blue Parade) by Internazionale

It’s been nearly half a decade since Copenhagen’s Janushoved first appeared in these annals, and in that time, a little more information — and a lot more material — has cropped up to lend some context to the mystery. The focus, however, steadfastly remains with the music — perhaps my favorite of which among the regular projects featured is label head Mikkel Valentin’s own swirling solo synth vehicle Internazionale. In addition to a reissue of 2017’s The Pale and the Colourful (originally out on Posh Isolation), November saw the release of all-new songs with Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade), 14 tracks of gently abrasive headphone ambient that carry out this type of sound very well. Occasionally there is a piano (“Callista”) or what sounds like vocals (“El Topo”), but as it’s been from the start, this is primarily about tones and moods. Notes for the release say it’s a “continuation and completion of the narrative set by the release Sillage of the Blue Summer,” but it’s less the narrative you should be worried about missing out on than the warmth of your insides after an uninterrupted listen.

Patrick Masterson

Iress — Flaw (Iress)

Flaw by Iress

Sweeping, epic post-metal from this LA four piece makes a place for melodic beauty amid the heaviness. Like Pelican and Red Sparrows, Iress blares a wall of overwhelming guitar sound. Together Michelle Malley and Alex Moreno roust up waves and walls of pummeling tone as in opener “Shame.” But Iress is also pretty good at pulling back and revealing the acoustic basis for these songs. “Hand Tremor” is downright tranquil, with wreathes of languid guitar strumming and Malley’s strong, gutsy soprano navigating the full dynamic range from whisper to scream. “Wolves” lumbers like a violent beast, even in its muscular surge, there’s a slow, anthemic chorus. Likewise, “Underneath” pounds and hammers (that’s Glenn Chu on drums), but leaves space for introspection and doubt. It’s rare that the vocals on music this heavy are so good or so female, but if you’ve liked Chelsea Wolfe’s recent forays into ritual metal, you should check out Iress as well.

Jennifer Kelly

Junta Cadre — Vietnam Forever (No Rent Records)

"Vietnam Forever" (NRR141) by Junta Cadre

Junta Cadre is one of several noise and power electronics projects created by Jackson Abdul-Salaam, musician and curator of the long-running Svn Okklt blog. As the project’s name implies, Junta Cadre has an agenda: the production of sound that seeks to thematize the ambiguities of 20th-century radical, revolutionary politics. The project’s initial releases investigated the Maoist revolution in China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam Forever shifts topics, to the American War in Vietnam, and tactics, including contributions from other prominent harsh noise acts and artists: the Rita, Samuel Torres of Terror Cell Unit, Leo Brucho of Controlled Opposition and others. Given those names, Vietnam Forever is as challenging and rigorous as you might expect. Waves of dissonant, electronic hum and fuzz accumulate and oscillate, crunching and chopping into textured aural assaults; wince-inducing warbles and needling feedback occasionally assert themselves. Abdul-Salaam’s harsh shout cuts in and out of the mix. The tape (also available as a name-yo’-price DL on Bandcamp) presents as two side-long slabs of sound, both over seventeen minutes long, both completely exhausting. At one point, on Side A, Abdul-Salaam repeatedly shouts, “Beautiful Vietnam forever!” It’s hard to say what he means. An affirmation that Vietnam survived the war? That its people and culture endure? Or that the U.S. can’t seem to shake the war’s haunting presence? Or even a more worryingly nihilistic delight in the war’s carnage, so frequently aestheticized in films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Da Five Bloods (2020)? The noise provides no closure. Maybe necessarily so.

Jonathan Shaw

Bastien Keb — The Killing of Eugene Peeps (Gearbox)

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The Killing of Eugene Peeps is a soundtrack to a movie that never was, a noir-ish flick which winds restlessly through urban landscapes and musical styles, from the orchestra tremors of its opening through the folky group-sing of “Lucky the Oldest Grave.” “Rabbit Hole” wafts by like an Elephant Six outtake, its woozy chorus lit by glockenspiel notes, while “God Bless Your Gutters” conjures jazzy desolation in piano and mordant spoken word. “All the Love in Your Heart” shimmers like a movie flashback, a mirage of blowsy back-up singing, guitar and muttered memories. “Street Clams” bristles with funk and swagger, an Ethio-jazz sortee through rain slicked streets. What’s it about? Musically or narratively? No idea. But it’s worth visiting these evocative soundscapes just for the atmosphere. It’s a film I’d like to see.

Jennifer Kelly

Jesse Kivel — Infinite Jess (New Feelings)

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Nostalgia haunts the new solo album from Kisses guitarist/singer Jesse Kivel. Infinite Jess is full of that knowing melancholy of The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and The Pale Fountains that was so magnetic to a certain brand of sensitive young thing seeking to articulate their inchoate visions of a future steeped in romance and adventure. Think wistful mid-tempo songs wrapped in cocoons of strummed guitars, shuffling percussion and wurlitzer piano fashioned into a catalogue of adolescent radio memories. These tunes are topped by the understated sincerity of Kivel’s voice and lyrics which effectively evoke the place, time and emotion of his vignettes. The production suffers occasionally from a distracting reliance on too perfectly rendered tropes — overly polite drum programming, thumbed bass, blandly smooth electric piano — but the overall effect is oddly beguiling. Infinite Jess closes with a charmingly wobbly instrumental cover of Don McLean’s “Vincent” played on the wurlitzer that captures the poignancy of the melody and serves as a fitting epilog to the record.

Andrew Forell

Kyrios — Saturnal Chambers (Caligari Records)

Saturnal Chambers by KYRIOS

The corpsepaint-and-spiked-codpiece crowd are still making tons of records, but fewer and fewer of them are interesting or compelling. The retrograde theatrics and cheap pessimism can be irritating enough (I’d rather be reading Schopenhauer, thanks); it’s even more problematic when the songs can muster only the vividness and savor of stiff leftovers from the deep-freezer’s darkest and dankest corners. Still, every now and then a kvlty band that follows the frigid dictates of black metal’s orthodoxy creates a set of songs worth listening to. This new EP from Kyrios is super short, comprising three tracks in just under 10 minutes that pull off that neat trick: when it’s over, you want to hear more. Sure, the dudes in the band call themselves silly things like Satan’s Sword and Vornag, but the tunes are really good. Check out the churning strangeness of “The Utterance of Foul Truths.” Kyrios claims Immortal, Enslaved and Dissection as primary influences, and the band recognizes the stylistic debt they owe to Deathspell Omega (let’s hope Kyrios digs the twisted guitars and weird-ass time signatures, but passes on the National Socialism declaimed by that French band’s vocalist). Stuff gets even more engaging when bleeping and blooping keyboards vibrate at the edges of the mix, giving the songs a spaced-out vibe. “Saturnal Chambers”? Maybe Kyrios has met the astral spirit of Sun Ra somewhere along their galactic journeys into the heavenly void. He liked bleeping, blooping noises and gaudy costumes, too.

Jonathan Shaw

Matt Lajoie — Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind)

Light Emerging by Matt Lajoie

The second volume of Trouble In Mind Records’ Explorers series is, like its predecessor a cassette that comes concealed within a brown slipcase. Like many other discretely wrapped products, the fun is on the inside. This time, it’s a tape by guitarist who understands that toes aren’t just for tapping. At any rate, I think he’s managing his pedals with his feet. Most likely Lajoie has spent some quality time listening to mid-1990s Roy Montgomery. But since a quarter century has passed, he doesn’t just stack up the echoes. Sped-up tones streak across the surface of this music like swallows zooming close to that sheet you hung on the side of your barn the last time you had everyone over for a socially distanced gathering to watch Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Wait, did that really happen? Maybe not, but if someone were to make a fake documentary about the hanging of the projective surface, this music is suitably epic to provide the soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

Lisa/Liza — Shelter of a Song (Orindal)

Shelter of a Song by Lisa/Liza

Lisa/Liza makes a quietly harrowing sort of guitar folk, singing in a high, ghostly clear soprano against delicate traceries of picking. The artist, real name Liza Victoria, inhabits songs that are unadorned but still chilling. She sings with childlike sincerity in an ominous landscape of dark alleys and chilly autumnal vistas. She wrote this album while chronically ill, according to the notes, and you can hear the struggle against the body in the way her voice sometimes wavers, her breath comes in sudden intakes. But, as sometimes happens after long sickness, she sometimes strikes clear of the physical, achieving an unearthly purity as in “From this Shelter.” A touch of plain spoken magic lurks in this one, in the whispery vocals, the translucent curtains of guitar notes, though not much warmth. “Red Leaves” is earthier and more fluid, guitar flickers striking out from a resonant center, and the artist murmuring dreamily about the beauty of the world and its transience.

Jennifer Kelly

Keith Morris & The Crooked Numbers — American Reckoning (Mista Boo)

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It's easy to imagine Keith Morris as perpetually frustrated. His last album, after all, took on psychopaths and sycophants, and the title of his new release American Reckoning doesn't suggest happy thoughts. There's plenty of bile on these five tracks, of course, but Morris approaches the album like a scholar. The opening verse describes the US as “Machiavellian: the mean just never ends” before referencing Othello and Yo-Yo Ma (the latter for a “yo mama” joke). If Morris and the Crooked Numbers just raged, they might be justified, but they'd be less interesting. Instead, they use a wide swath of American musical styles to thoughtfully consider racial (and racist) issues in our contemporary society. “Half Crow Jim” turns a Southern piano tune into a surprising tale about the fallout from slavery. It's a sharp moment, and it highlights that the only disappointing part of this release lies in its brevity. Morris has said he has more music on the way, and if he continues to mix styles, wordplay, and cultural analysis, it'll be worth a study.

Justin Cober-Lake

Tatsuya Nakatani and Rob McGill — Valley Movements (Weird Cry)

Valley Movements by Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill

In most percussion ensembles, the gong-ist is a utility player, charged with banging out a note once or twice per composition for drama and ideally not screwing it up. Tatsuya Nakatani works on a wholly different level, transcending the possibilities of this ancient, archetypical instrument with vision and an unholy technique. More specifically, his set-up includes at least two standing gongs, each about as tall as he is himself. He plays them with mallets, standing between, in blur speed rolls that range all over the surface of the instrument. The sound he evokes is distinctly unpercussive, more resembling string instrument glissandos than any form of drums, a full-on high-register wail of sound that he sculpts and roils and coaxes into compositions of incredible force and complexity. He also plays a bunch of other percussion instruments, little drums and cymbals which he layers on top of each other so that when he strikes one, the others resonate. It is quite an experience to see him at it, and if you ever get a chance, you should go. Here, he works with the saxophonist Rob McGill unfurling a single 40-minute improvisation at a studio in the appealingly named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. McGill is an agile player, laying alternately lyrical and agitated counterpoints onto Nakatani’s rhythms, carrying the tune and threading a logical through line through this extended set. He finds frequencies that complement Nakatani’s antic, nearly demonic drum sounds and knows when to let loose and when to let his partner through the mix. The result is a very high energy, engaging adventure in sound that evokes a rare response: you wish you could hear the drums better.

Jennifer Kelly

Overmono — The Cover Mix (Mixmag)

Mixmag · The Cover Mix: Overmono

It’s a really weird time to be advocating for club music of any kind, but Overmono’s Everything U Need EP out recently on XL again showcases what the fraternal duo known better as Tessela and Truss do best: melding thoughtful percussion patterns with these airy, gliding synth melodies that work at home just as well as in the club (theoretically, anyway). It’s not just original material they do well, though; whether it was the Dekmantel podcast a few years back or their live cassette from Japan or this mix for Mixmag, Ed and Tom Russell also have a knack for pacing in their sets. This one features stuff from the new EP as well as three unreleased tracks (not counting the Rosalía remix, which remains one of the year’s most addicting) and names both old and new — listen for DJ Crystl’s 1993 jungle jam “Deep Space” sidled up next to Smerz’s new skyscraper “I Don’t Talk About That Much.” If that sounds like everything you need, lock in and let Overmono do the hard work. Truly, they do not miss.

Patrick Masterson

Pole — Fading (Mute)

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As Pole, Stefan Betke’s work has always been both comforting and disconcerting. The amiotic swells and heartbeat bass frequencies generate a warm human feel in his music despite their origins in serendipitously damaged equipment. Fading, his first album in five years explores Betke’s reactions to his mother’s dementia and reflects on the nature of personality, memory and soul. Building on his trademark glitchy beats and oceanic bass tones, the eight tracks echo a consciousness unmoored by the fog of unfamiliarity that smothers and distorts but never completely submerges awareness. “Tölpel” (slang for klutz) evokes impatient fingers tapping out the guilty resentment of the forgotten and the frustration of the forgetful. The title track closes with a woozy waltz punctuated by recurrent sparks. Fading is a deeply felt work; somber, reflective, stumbling towards understanding and acceptance, alive to the nuances and petty nettles of grief and above all beautiful in its ambivalence.

Andrew Forell

Quakers — II: The Next Wave (Stones Throw)

II - The Next Wave by Quakers

After eight years of silence following 2012’s self-titled debut, Stones Throw production trio Quakers (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as Fuzzface, 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst) dropped the 50-track beat tape Supa K: Heavy Tremors out of nowhere in September and now, just two months later, are back with another 33-track behemoth that allows a litany of emcees to shine. Calling this The Next Wave is a bit of a stretch when you consider many of the voices on here are from guys who’ve been in the game for years or even decades (Jeru the Damaja, Detroit’s Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson, Chicagoan Jeremiah Jae, etc.), but even so, the dusty grooves and Dilla loops prove perfect foils for many of those who hit the mic. My favorite might be Sageinfinite slotting in with the organ grinder “A Myth,” but even if you don’t like it, everyone’s in and out quick. If you’re burned out on Griselda, give this a go for 1990s vibes of a different kind.

Patrick Masterson

Rival Consoles — Articulation (Erased Tapes)

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There are deep pockets of silence in “Articulation,” ink black stops between the thump and clack of dance beat, sudden intervals of nothingness amidst limber synthetic melodies. London-based producer Ryan West, who records as Rival Consoles, layers sound on sound in some tracks, letting the foundations slip like tectonic plates on top of one another, but he is also very much aware of the power of quiet, whether dark or luminously light. Consider, for instance, his closer, “Sudden Awareness of Now,” whose buoyant melody skitters across factory-sized fan blasts of whooshing sound. The rhythm is light footed and agile, pieced together from staccato elements that hold the air and light. Like Jon Hopkins, West uses the glitch and twitch to insinuate the infinite, chiming overtones and hovering backdrops to represent a gnostic, communal state of existence. “Vibrations on a String” may jump to the steady thump, thump, thump of dance, but as its gleaming plasticine tones blow out into horn blast dissonance, the cut is more about becoming than being.

Jennifer Kelly

Sweeping Promises — Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It)

Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises

The title track bounds headlong on a rubbery bassline, picking up a Messthetick-y blare of junk shop keyboards. All the sudden, there’s Lira Mondal unleashing a giddy screed of angular pop punk tunefulness, her partner in Sweeping Promises, Caulfield, stabbing and stuttering on guitar. In some ways, this band is straight out of late 1980s London, jitter-flirting with offkilter hooks a la Delta Five or Girls at Our Best. In others, they are utterly modern, lacing austere pogo beats with lush, elaborate vocal counterpoints. “Falling Forward” is a continuous rush of clamped in guitar scramble and agile, bouncing bass, anthemic trills breaking for robotic chants; it’s a mesh of sounds that always seems ready to collapse in a heap, but instead finds its antic balance just in time.

Jennifer Kelly

Martin Taxt — First Room (SOFA)

First Room by Martin Taxt

Sometimes a room is more than a room. In the matter at hand, it is a space that proposes a state of mind and a consequent set of experiences. It is also the score for a piece of music that extrapolate that state into the realm of sound. The cover of First Room depicts a pattern of tatami mats that you might find in a Japanese tea room. Martin Taxt is a microtonal tubaist and also the holder of an advanced degree in music and architecture (next time someone tells you that some good thing can’t happen, remember that in Norway you can not only get such a degree; you can then go ahead and present a CD that shows your work. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our society.). This music takes inspiration from the integrated aesthetic of the tea ceremony, using carefully placed and deliberately sustained sounds to create an environment in which subtle changes count for a lot. The album’s contents were created by mixing together two performances, one with and another without an audience. Taxt and accompanist Vilde Marghrete Aas layer long tones from a tuba, double bass, viola da gamba and sine waves. Their precise juxtapositions create a sense of focus, somewhat like a concentrated version of Ellen Fullman’s long string music, and if that statement means something to you, so will this music.

Bill Meyer

Ulaan Janthina — Ulaan Janthina II (Worstward)

Ulaan Janthina (Part II) by Ulaan Janthina

Part two of Steven R. Smith’s latest recording project echoes the first volume in several key aspects. It is a tape made in small numbers and packaged like a present from your favorite cottage industry; in this case, the custom-printed box comes with an old playing card, a hand-printed image of jellyfish, an old skeleton key and a nut. And Smith, who most often plays guitars and home-made stringed instruments, once more plays keyboards, which enable him to etch finer lines of melody. The chief difference between this tape and its predecessor is the melodies themselves, which have begun to attain the evocative simplicity of mid-1970s Cluster.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Joyous Sounds! (Chicago Research)

Joyous Sounds! by Various Artists

It’s been less than two years, but Blake Karlson’s Chicago Research imprint has already made its presence known both in the Windy City and beyond as fine purveyors of all things industrial, EBM, post-punk and experimental electronics. There were two compilations released within days of one another toward the beginning of October, and while Preliminaries of Silence veers more toward soothing ambient textures, Joyous Sounds! is more upbeat and rhythmic (Bravias Lattice’s “Liquid Vistas” is a beautiful exception). My favorite track is Club Music’s “Musclebound” (not a Spandau Ballet cover, as it turns out), but the underlying menace of Civic Center’s “Filigree” and Rottweiler’s pummeling “Ancient Baths” sit alongside merely unsettling fare like Lily the Fields’ “Porcelain” well. If you’re not already aboard or just have a Wax Trax-sized hole in your heart, you have a lot of work ahead of you with this label’s consistently superlative output.

Patrick Masterson

Kurt Vile — Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (Matador)

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Given John Prine's passing from COVID-19 this year, the new Kurt Vile EP might be received as a tribute to the late artist, with extra significance coming from Prine's appearance here. Four years in the works, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV offers more than just tribute, though. Prine's guest spot (if you could call it that) on his own “How Lucky” certainly makes for a moving highlight, the two singers fitting together nicely as Prine's gruff tone balance's his partner's smoother voice. Vile also covers Prine on “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” and he adds “Gone Girl” by Cowboy Jack Clement as he takes further cosmic steps.

His two originals here complete the record, and, mixed in with the covers, draw out the lesson. Vile's entire EP blends the country influences with his more typical dreamy sound, the guitar work bridging the gap between a songwriter's backing and something more ethereal. Nashville, it seems, has always suited Vile just fine, and hearing him embrace that tradition more immediately adds an extra layer to his work. Putting a cowboy hat on his previous aesthetic puts him opens up new but related paths for him, and the five tracks here could play on either a Kris Kristofferson mix or a laid-back indie-rocker playlist. Either way, they'd be highlights on an endless loop.

Justin Cober-Lake

WhoMadeWho — Synchronicity (Kompakt)

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Danish trio WhoMadeWho — drummer Tomas Barfod, guitarist Jeppe Kjellberg and bassist/singer Tomas Høffding — make enjoyable indie dance music that suffers somewhat from lack of personality and a tendency toward a middle ground. That may be due to an effort to accommodate a roster of Kompakt-related collaborators including Michael Mayer, Echonomist and Robag Wruhme. While there’s nothing bad and some pretty good here, the individual songs flit by, pausing briefly to set one’s head nodding and feet tapping, before evaporating from the mind. “Shadow of Doubt” featuring Hamburg’s Adana Twins has the kind of driving bass that anchored New Order hits but also, unfortunately, the unconvincing vocals only Bernard Sumner could get away with. More successful moments like the eerie piano riff and jazz inflections of “Dream Hoarding” with Frank Wiedemann, the arpeggiated house of “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh” featuring Perel and miserablist Pet Shop Boys inflected closer “If You Leave” do stick. Synchronicity might work well on the dance floor, but it doesn’t quite sustain at home.

Andrew Forell

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nitrateglow · 4 years

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Favorite opening titles/sequences?

Oh damn, there are so many. In general, I think the best movie openings set up the tone of the story to come and the cleverest ones subtly hint at the movie’s themes. Daniel Thomas MacInnes put it best:

While many movies treat a title and credit sequence as an afterthought, or perhaps a necessary distraction from the film, a good filmmaker knows how to integrate it into the film, so that it has a dramatic power. By placing a sequence of events on-screen while the credits roll, you are placing an emphasis on them. You are highlighting them, focusing attenion upon them. This can prove highly effective for the story you want to tell, and it's underlying themes.

Here are some openings from my favorite movies which I believe possess such dramatic power.

The Red Shoes

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On one hand, this opening is very much of the old-style title sequence: a simple set of cards listing the major players in the production. However, the music and use of colored illustrations in these images set the tone for the movie to come so well, something beautiful and emotional. You get the sense that you’re being beckoned into a fairy tale world, much like the classic Disney films which begin with a live-action book opening, introducing the characters and their universe as illustrations. The Red Shoes toes the line between realism and fantasy, especially in its most famous ballet sequences, so this is such a perfect way to open the movie.

A Christmas Carol 1951

Once again, this is nothing flashy, but the music is EVERYTHING, setting the tone well. We’re introduced to this version of the Dickens classic, not with some sweet jingle bell harmony, but with a loud, sinister brass section that sounds like it belongs in a horror movie. Then, just as suddenly, we hear “Hark the Herald, Angels Sing” in a jubilant register… and then right before the movie starts, the music jumps back to the malevolent motif. It’s such a great way of getting the audience in the right frame of mind, reminding us this is both a ghost story and a tale of Christmas redemption.

Blast of Silence

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Blast of Silence opens with darkness, then the sound of the hero’s birth— his mother’s dying groans, his own weeping and screaming—over a train barreling through a tunnel. Accompanying this is the film’s (in)famous second-person narration, with the gravel-voiced, street-wise, and sardonic Lionel Stander illustrating the protagonist’s anger and cynicism right away (“You were born with the hate and anger built in!”). Then light breaks through and we realize the camera is on the front of a train just coming into the light. It’s a brilliant opening, setting up the story’s noir vibe and evoking a strange sense of determinism in how it suggests Frankie Bono’s tragic end was destined from the beginning of his life… much like a train on the tracks.

Wait Until Dark

Both the pre-credits scene and the titles sequence are brilliant. The first image of the film is itself disconcerting: an expanse of red cloth, suddenly cut open with a knife before we even learn we’re looking at a doll—and already, the film is setting up its sense of imminent brutality, coupled with the dissonant dread evoked by Henry Mancini’s wonderful score and the editing itself. The interaction between Lisa and old Louis is also a subtle way of setting up the deceptive games the characters play out, with Louis wishing Lisa luck one minute, then calling up the psychopathic Roat to rat her out as she drives away with the intent on betraying her partners-in-crime. The airport scenes continue establishing the themes of dread, betrayal, and mystery, especially with Mancini’s creepy music making us aware Lisa’s drug trafficking enterprise will not end well, long before even she is aware of that.

Horus Prince of the Sun

Best cold opening ever. Horus is a movie that deserves to be listed with the great, history-changing films of the late 1960s: it is every bit as rebellious as something like The Graduate, only it had a greater restriction to overcome: the idea that animation is all kids’ stuff destined to imprisonment within the Disney mold. Rather than opening with the titles or a cute storybook, Horus starts with a barren landscape. And then we see a boy running for his life from a pack of snarling wolves that are not anthropomorphized or made cute in any conceivable fashion. The opening consists largely of our hero Horus fighting these wolves in a violent, harsh fashion, telling the audience right away this won’t be your usual kiddie musical. No music accompanies the images at all, granting the sequence a sense of gritty realism one would expect from a crime drama of the period, not a fantasy film.

A Clockwork Orange

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I have always found the opening titles of A Clockwork Orange so striking, even before we get to Alex staring us down in chilling close-up. The way the titles are just set against plain colors that alternate between the cuts—they suggest the flipping of switches on a machine or computer (foreshadowing Alex’s “cure” perhaps?). Wendy Carlos’s electronic score further establishes such a mental connection: the sound is inhuman and sinister, planting dread in your guttiwuts before Alex even appears. And when he does, is that not just one of the best introductions to a character ever? That smirk alone says so much—Alex is evil incarnate, but there’s a boyishness which makes it compelling.

The Castle of Cagliostro

I’ve often gone over why I love this movie’s opening (I even made a post about the pre-credits sequence: https://nitrateglow.tumblr.com/post/184327179573/the-castle-of-cagliostro-scene-analysis-the), but I’ll say it again: the pre-credits scene sets up Cagliostro’s playful side, with Lupin and Jigen defying physics in Looney Tunes fashion as they rob a casino, and the titles sequence establishes the film’s more introspective, melancholy qualities, with a gentle love ballad accompanying the thieves’ journey to Cagliostro. I adore this movie so much because it balances all of these elements with elegance, putting real soul into what is essentially a fun caper adventure.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Nausicaa’s cold opening reminds me a lot of Horus’s in that it throws the audience right into a desolate, dangerous world. Yupa finds a village where all the inhabitants have died from the polluted landscape, and the images are somber and despairing. We learn right away this is a world where death can take you at any moment and where human survival is becoming less likely. And yet, right after this scene, we cut to the credits, a series of tapestry images depicting a messiah rushing in a renewed world, accompanied by Joe Hisaishi’s gorgeous main theme, which can only be described as cautious, tragic optimism incarnate. Nausicaa is a movie which ultimately ends on such a note, though it does not shy away from despair and feelings of hopelessness, making it a rich emotional experience—and this is all forecasted from the film’s opening.

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iwannafuckyexiu · 5 years

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A TEASE A DAY BRINGS YOU CLOSER TO DEATH 001

GOTH BOI AND ♪ WALKIN' ON SUNSHINE ♬ contrast man, contrast - from a cold and elegant god to a bright and radiant teenager.

It's a typical Saturday night and Y/N is out getting that cash at Rake, a shady underground bar popular for its big tiddy hostesses and youthful hosts. No, he's not a server there, only a bartender at where all the crowd is at which means shit gets busy as fuck. But Y/N doesn't mind, because who would if they could stare at pretty and refined boys all night plus some nice asses as a bonus.

"So how old are you?" Y/N brings up a question to the young man at the bar. He scans the shelf of glass bottles for the Vodka requested while also continuing, "You look bordering underage."

"I'm literally twenty this year!" babyface defends himself friskily, dust of pink painting over his cheeks, clearly the previous glass of alcohol is getting to his skin.

"Ahahah, well to me you definitely look like a snack to those older women or even men." Passing the glass of Vodka to the young man, Y/N moves closer to his ear and says, hot breath tickling against his skin, "You gotta be careful down here, don't take drinks from strangers and don't ever leave your glass unwatched."

The young man's smile clots for a second. "What about you then? You look about my age, just a little shorter," he changes the subject oddly.

Y/N goes along with it and answers, "Me? I'm seventeen, not legal but this place isn't too, so who really gives a fuck around here."

"Good point." The young man chuckles and inclines in agreement.

"Anyways, you lookin' for any f-"

"Ohohoh!" a raucous laugh cuts off Y/N. From the entrance of the underground bar, a guy in a black cloak smacks the back of the man that came with him, poking fun of him, "This place has some nice looking girls, maybe you wanna try getting yourself some pussy while you're at it here?"

Goth boy clinks his tongue, "Shut the fuck up, Twice. We're here to have a meeting, not fuck around." Head twisting in a stoic demeanour, he lours at his companion, turquoise pupils faint with venom slithering slyly at the edges.

The several guests at the bar hush down for a second, all getting the frigidity from goth boy's tone of voice but soon return to normal, only more wary of their surroundings. Everyone here is familiar with the underground rules - even if you hear something or see something, you don't; mind your own business, or you might end up found floating across a river one day, dead.

Y/N peers at goth boy there from the side of his eyes, pouring the Whisky into the glass for the guest in front of you. A cold beauty. Not mentioning those eyes, albeit his face is wreathed with purple patches, you can still tell that before those stitches adorned his face he was definitely hot as fuck (not saying that he isn't now). Picturing some R18 shit in his mind, Y/N wets his ashen lips with a suspicious shine in his eyes as he ogles at goth boy.

"Tsk tsk tsk, waste of some good looks," Y/N comments under his breath stifled, whilst he joggles the cocktail cups in his hand. He lets out a big sigh at the shame in the form of Facepalm-kun. If he got the chance to spend money on coming here, he'd definitely get like at least ten hosts and hostesses.

Goth boy looks over as soon as Y/N utters out his remark. The latter catches his gaze and gasps, then hastily pretends to not notice the eyes on him while he gives another customer their drink in cold sweat and a stiff smile.

"What's wrong?" seeing goth boy raise a brow at the direction of the bar, dark Kermit curiously questions him as he pokes his head out to see what exactly could make his partner interested except for vengeance.

And just as Y/N thought goth boy's going to maybe come over and beat him up, he only withdraws his gaze and carries on striding straight ahead with a poker face. "Nothing, let's go."

Let's just say that goth boy didn't go beat up Y/N mostly because he thought the bartender wasn't good enough for his fire and he wasn't very much bothered at the moment. Well, there goes one of the only exquisite charmers Y/N has seen in recent days.

Fast forward to after Y/N finishes his shift, around eleven at night, he changes out of his uniform and exits the bar by the back alley door. That night, he walks home with the face of goth boy just zooming through his mind.

、、、

Blotting up his hair with a white towel, Y/N saunters into the living room to find his sister calling him vigorously from the kitchen.

"ONII-CHAN ONII-CHAN!" S/N rushes over to him, footsteps echoing through the house like an elephant just passed by. "A-... a ... hah ..." she tries to speak but her lack of oxygen restricts her as her chest heaves up and down.

"Jesus Christ, calm down man," Y/N rubs her back fondly, "what is it S/N?"

After S/N catches her breath, she clasps onto Y/N by both his shoulders and literally wails in his face, "A letter came in from Yuuei!" She waves the letter in his face, so much that Y/N's vision gets rather muddled up from the action.

"WHAT THE FUCK REALLY?!"

"Who was the one to tell me to calm down?" S/N lifts a brow up, taunting him.

"Ahahahhahhahahah. ... let's just look at the results now," Y/N awkwardly laughs then changes the topic to distract S/N. He tears the envelope open and the figure of All Might appears as a hologram in a sudden which petrifies the two for a second.

"Young L/N, I am here to announce that you've been," drum roll, "accepted into Yuuei! Although stealing a kill from another student isn't a very hero thing to do, you still got the point for it! And also you did help catch a lot of falling students which avoided a great number of injuries for us to heal, so that's a bonus!"

"Congratulations, my child!"

"Holy shit you're in!" S/N yells before she begins bouncing up and down around the house like she's the one who got accepted into Yuuei. After a while, her stamina goes back to zero and she sits herself down on the couch, taking deep breaths. "Onii-chan?" she realises that Y/N hasn't spoken at all after watching hologram, he's just been sitting down in utter silence.

But when S/N sees his face, she lets out a giggle, "Are you crying?"

The male springs up as soon as he hears that, "N-No I'm not! It was just sand okay?" The glossy shine in his eyes makes S/N think otherwise.

"Mhm, sure. Now spill."

Exhaling deeply, Y/N's head droops and his eyelids curtain over any emotions divulging in his irises. He pauses for a while, then says in a low whisper, "I'm just ... happy that I got in despite having such a fucking useless quirk in combat."

"Awh, is this a heart to heart conversation?" S/N is a mood ruiner.

Now the feeling of standing at a railing of a bridge alone and drowning in melancholy is gone, replaced with only the purest urge to give his sister a big ass slap.

"No, now let's go eat and celebrate or something," Y/N responds with a flat tone, clearly just wants to get done and over with the shameful talk. He gets up from the couch and strolls over to the doorway, fishing the chain of keys that dangled on the edge of the shelf to the left of the door.

Chasing after him, S/N tugs on his shoulder, "Don't try to ignore the fact that you were crying and melting, I saw it with my own eyes!"

"What do you want to eat?" Y/N disregards the statement and continues to ask her, successfully taking her attention away from the embarrassing moment that just happened not up to five minutes ago.

"Let's go to McDonald's! It's like five minutes away and twenty-four hours open!" her eyes gleam like stars while she thinks about all the fries she's going to get.

"Okay, now put your shoes on you lazy ass, you're not going bare feet."

、、、

"Woah that's a lot onii-chan, are you sure we can finish this?" S/N's pupils dilate at the amount of shit on the tray that Y/N sets on the circular table.

"Of course, we have you don't we?" Y/N retorts with a mock, a cheeky grin rising on his features as his eyes curl into crescents.

"Onii-chan!" S/N pouts and glares at Y/N, which honestly give him the chills with those shoujo school girl vibes.

"Hey, I remember you!" a voice calls outs. The two siblings turn to find the source of the sound but they only see a blur of yellow dashing towards them, not minding the queer looks that the other customers are giving them.

When the blur of yellow stops in front of Y/N, he takes a while to flip through his gallery of bishounens until he finds one that matches this blur of yellow, "Oh, it's you!" Like his switch has been flicked, his expression alters to one in glee, eyes flaring up.

"Bro!" the boy immediately hooks his arm around Y/N's shoulder like they were on intimate terms and takes a seat with them, joining their table.

Y/N stiffens for a second before relaxing his muscles and gripping sunshine boy's waist back, "Bro!"

"Did you get accepted? The results are out now!" sunshine boy lets go of Y/N shoulder to take a handful of fries from the pile on the tray, taking no attention of S/N glare.

"Of course! Why else would I be here celebrating?" Y/N remarks in an: 'of course I'm here to celebrate and not to cry, what are you thinking man' tone, as his hand mischievously rubs against sunshine boy's waist. And sunshine boy thinks Y/N's hand is ticklish around his waist but he just assumes it is a natural thing to do between guys, so he doesn't mention it.

"Oh shit, I forgot! We don't know each other's name yet right?" Sunshine boy bends over the table and looks up at Y/N from a lower view, enlarged flaxen eyes literally disarming his heart. "I'm Kaminari Denki!" he beams, and Y/N can swear that Denki's background sunlight is so bright that he's actually going blind.

"I'm L/N Y/N, Den-ki~" Y/N trills with devilry, batting his eye at the already red Denki, "Remember that~" He narrows his eyes into a sly smile.

"L/N," Denki makes an effort to not get flaming at Y/N's words as he mutters. But the boy cocks a brow as if saying: 'shouldn't we be on first name basis already?', and don't ask me how but Denki just gets what Y/N's saying.

Sunshine boy tautens then utters with sedate, "Y ... Y/N?" A vivacious smile responds to him instead of any words, but it still makes his heart blossom with warmth. So he returns a sincere smile of his own back.

Absolute harmony is achieved at this moment.

But it just cracks the next second.

"I need sunglasses to block out this fucking treachery," commenting monotonously, S/N spins away from this public display of affection to avoid poisoning her eyes.

Y/N breaks the eye contact (heart connection) with Denki to look across to S/N, "Language, B."

"Hmph," S/N ends the conversation cold and elegantly, twisting her head away from the two gayass shitheads that say they're 'bros'.

Silence.

"So ..." Y/N starts, dragging out the end of the syllable.

"So ...?" Sunshine boy tips his head, repeating after the boy with a smile that kind of says: 'I am planning something bad'.

Y/N continues, "Can I get your number?" He props up his elbow on the table and lays his chin in his hand, from head to toe just screaming wicked charm (fuckboy).

"O-Oh, sure! I'll help you type it into your phone and you can type yours into mine." Denki fishes out his phone from who fucking knows where, keys in the passcode and slide it over the table to Y/N.

The latter does the same, but instead says, "1708, remember my passcode~" To which Denki just calmly replies to with a: 'of course~'. Sunshine boy's just used to it by now enough to stay thick-skinned it seems.

"That's a sexy home screen, the boobs are nice."

"Hahaha ... yeah ..." Denki laughs awkwardly and refuses to look at Y/N because he's sure that the asshole's probably got a shit-eating grin on his face.

After a session of both boys poking fun at each other with their contact names for people, they finally switch their phones back. And almost immediately they ask in unison.

"Pika pika?"

"Your future b-b-boyfriend?"

Y/N doesn't respond, he just nods as he props up his elbow, laying his chin in hand and smile at him with dote.

That continues for quite some time until Y/N's sister couldn't take it and breaks Y/N out of the gaze that is making Denki awkward, "Onii-chan stop staring at him, it's creepy." Denki, the subject of the gaze, just remains tranquil and zen - though the red tips of his ears sells him out.

"Cute."

Denki is screeching internally.

、、、

"Oh shit, I gotta go!" Denki yelps after he takes one look at the time on his phone, he briskly delves out a one thousand yen bill from his pocket and sets it on the table, "here's the money for the food I ate, I'll see you next time!"

"Well, I'll see you in April then," Y/N pauses then grins from ear to ear and continues in a lower voice, "Denki."

Doki.

DOKI DOKI DOKI DOKI.

DOKIDOKIDOKIDOEJHFIuUEIofihesou.

Even after he leaves the place, his rapid heartbeat doesn't seem to slow down one bit. Every pound hits the g-spot of his heart, making him clutch chest as he suspires by the side of the road, the aftertaste just cuffing him out now.

"Okay, my heart totally didn't skip a beat because of a guy, nonononono," Denki attempts to convince himself, holding his head between his hands just mentally breaking down. "I am as straight as a pole."

"As straight as a pole!" He clenches a fist and lifts it up high in the sky.

But poles can bend too, his mind says.

Shit.

"I AM A TITANIUM POLE!"

TO NOTE

i feel accomplished as fUck man, i finished a chapter in a day aHAhaha.

NOT PROPERLY PROOFREAD AGAIN

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #bnha x reader #bnha x male! reader #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #kaminari denki #reader insert

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vskpop · 5 years

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My 30 favourite songs of 2018

YouTube playlist ⋅ Spotify playlist

30. Heroine – Sunmi

I hesitate to call Sunmi feminist – does she consider herself one? Can k-pop really be feminist? – but her matter-of-factly, eyes-wide-open songs that touch on the position of women in relationships and in society are the closest thing to genuine female empowerment I’ve seen in k-pop. It doesn’t hurt that every single one of her songs is amazing.

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29. Bboom Bboom – Momoland

Considering I usually hate “viral” songs – I’ve been brainwashed to like Gangnam Style just recently – I’m still shocked at how much I love Momoland’s Bboom Bboom. I’m also proud to say that I was an early adopter of the song, and watching their success skyrocket made my Q1. I’m still not tired of the sax line and of the “GREAT!” shouted during performances. This song (and Momoland, really) is just irresistible.

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28. Retro Future – Triple H

The last ever song by Triple H (anger abounds) is just a taste of the genre-bending, sound-mixing, absurd-lyric-writing that we could have gotten for many years. Their retro-future has nothing to do with the Jetsons, and much more with insane 80’s synths and, well, that sexy vibe.

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27. Love Shot – EXO

Well, EXO, that was last minute. My ambivalence towards EXO is represented by this song, which I both find ridiculous and adore at the same time. This song’s luscious synths and layered vocals make it elegant, then the performance makes it kitsch. I don’t know if I’ve been brainwashed, but it’s so great.

Other songs of note: Electric Kiss – Tempo – Gravity

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26. Not That Type – Gugudan

A thousand times yes for Gugudan doing edgier concepts. Not That Type is the spiritual successor to A Girl Like Me, and it’s almost as good. This song, however, is even tougher and more explosive. The new 8-member Gugudan is off to a great start.

Other songs of note: The Boots – Shotgun

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25. Beautiful Feeling – Day6

Yet again, it’s my special skill to ignore all the popular songs that a group has, and in this case the rock vibe that defines it, and pick the sweetest, mellowest song they’ve put out. Day6 make some amazing power ballads, and Beautiful Feeling gives me warm and fuzzy feelings every time I listen to it.

Other songs of note: Days Gone By – Headache – Shoot Me – Somehow

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24. Dinner – Suho ft. Jane Jang

I don’t know how the powers that be decided that this duet should happen, but the result is everything. Jane Jang’s one-of-a-kind voice layers beautifully over Suho’s, who ended up being often overlooked as an EXO vocalist for all these years.

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23. Remember Me – Oh My Girl

Every single Oh My Girl put out is juicy in its on way. They may always go back to their foundational dreamy pop, but they never fail to throw in a twist. Remember Me’s EDM flavour and heavy rap are a total change from Secret Garden, but the song still blossoms into a romantic, airy chorus, and all of the members find something to sink their teeth into.

Other songs of note: Secret Garden – Magic – Love O’Clock

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22. La Vie en Rose – IZ*ONE

My resolve to ignore the existence of IZ*ONE (and survival show groups in general) faded at the first two octaves of La Vie En Rose. This song does so much with so little: the atmosphere it creates, and the contrast between the powerful pre-chorus and the understated chorus are what makes the song for me. In the meantime I’ve started to learn their names, so I’m doomed.

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21. I Want You – SHINee

SHINee’s constant stream of releases this year is at the same time a new beginning and the beginning of the end. It’s hard to imagine that a whole year has passed since Jonghyun, and it’s hard to think that the group has survived even though these songs are concrete proof. I really struggled to make it through the more melancholy songs, so I picked I Want You out of a series of basically perfect tracks.

Other songs of note: Good Evening – Chemistry – Electric – Who Waits For Love – Countless – Our Page

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20. LATATA – (G)I-DLE

I would be surprised if there was a single Boombayah lover who didn’t love this song. It has the same (pseudo-Indian?) influences, the same rhythms, the same anthemic quality. Latata is catchy, hypnotic, fun, and showcases all the members equally (ok, maybe Soyeon a bit more than everyone else). This is a textbook debut for 2018.

Other songs of note: Maze

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19. 1, 2, 3! – Seungri

Here’s someone who usually did club music and for once didn’t, and I loved it anyway! 1,2,3! is retro, guitar-led and much more lighthearted than anything Seungri has ever done. It’s lovely to see a less sultry (and a biiiiit slimy?) side of him. Also Anda.

Other songs of note: Hotline – Where Are You From

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18. 22 Century Girl – fromis_9

I feel that my obsession with fromis_9 is still at its earliest stage, and that by the end of 2019 I will have gone totally mad for them. I am in love with their singles – To Heart, Love Bomb, what instant classics! – but the whirlwind of sounds of fever dream 22 Century Girl have stolen my heart.

Other songs of note: To Heart – Love Bomb

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17. Blue Moon – Gyeong Ree

Another one for the theme of this list: house! Give me all of it in your pop songs! Here’s hoping that Gyeong Ree (wasn’t it easier when she spelled it Kyungri? Anyway) continues her solo career with such intriguing, sophisticated but super-fun songs.

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16. Stay Here – Sojung

I don’t know exactly, but I cry my eyes out more often than not when I hear this song. Ladies’ Code’s Sojung’s voce is as light as a feather, until it explodes in the soaring chorus. Everybody knows that I love any power ballad, but the complex emotional balance of this one is just on another level.

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15. Now or Never – SF9

I can’t say I’ve been following SF9 as idols, but I have been listening to all their releases and they have given me nothing but quality. I know I complain about songs with drops, but the deep house (yep, again) and that sensual “jealous” have been killing me ever since they came into my life. It might be my favourite hook of 2018.

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14. I Love You – EXID

I was a bit taken aback by EXID’s Lady earlier in the year, but it was love at first listen with I Love You. The distorted hook opens and holds together a song that has all the best of EXID, including Solji, who has returned stronger than ever with flawless vocals and zero shame.

Other songs of note: Lady

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13. Dejavu – NU'EST W

You guessed it – house. Nothing has given me as much joy as the rise of NU’EST W, and I’ve been even happier because they did it with superb, incredibly on-trend songs while retaining the dark charm of their pre-success material. They really leaned into the “sexy bandit” thing, and I’m all for it.

Other songs of note: YlenoL – Shadow – Feels – Help Me

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12. Oh! My mistake – APRIL

This song is fluffy and super-poppy and at the same time side-eye in music, if that was ever possible. The super-innocent and cute concept that APRIL have been doing since forever is now tinged with tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, and a little creepy synth that perfectly matches the theme of the track. It’s so addictive and so delicious.

Other songs of note: Oh-e-Oh – BEEP

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11. Snapshot – IN2IT

I love when smaller groups do really, really great and out of the box stuff instead of copying their more successful peers. I’ve watched countless performances, entranced by the bass that opens the song, holding my breath for that “heartbeat go fast, heartbeat go slow”. This is one sexy song, and IN2IT are one good rookie group that I will keep my eye on.

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10. Timeless – NCT U

Leave it to me to find the most niche release a super-popular group has had, and fall in love with it so deeply that the rest (most of which I hated, not sorry) doesn’t count. NCT are too big of a group with some really, really good singers hiding in the back line while the rappers swagger about. I loved that some of them got their chance to show off and I adore this poetic, heartbreaking song.

Other songs of note: Boss – Baby Don’t Stop – Replay (PM 01:27)

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9. Shine – Pentagon

I have to wonder if this song would have been higher in my charts if it wasn’t for the bloodbath that was of Pentagon and their career after this song came out. It’s such a pity that such a feelgood song has become, well, not so feelgood. This song’s wonky piano riff and anthemic chorus are still a delight, and their personality really shines (LOL) through. OT10 forever.

Other songs of note: Off-road

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8. The Grand Dreams – Minseo

Where did Minseo even come from? Why hasn’t she been here our entire lives? Her dreamy vocals have been giving me life this year, and her refined musical sense (or of her producers, really) is a breath of fresh air when everything gets a bit to same-y in k-pop.

Other songs of note: Is Who

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7. One of Those Nights – Key ft. Crush

Key came in last minute and slapped us all in the face with a perfect album that is reminiscing of SHINee’s work from earlier in the year, but also shows his personality as an artist. The lead single One of Those Nights moves fast and interweaves the melancholy of the lyrics in the music. Both Key and Crush are shockingly good vocalists, but together they just make each other shine even more.

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6. Allegro Cantabile – Nature

Random music terms / Italian? I had to check it out. Nature put out something that’s a musical number, j-pop anime opening and k-pop bubblegum all in one. Their vocals are amazing and they are adorable. I’m excited to follow them into 2019.

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5. DDU-DU DDU-DU – BLACKPINK

Is this Blackpink’s best offering? No. But what does it say when your not-best is still miles ahead of the competition? Blackpink have been doing k-pop bangers better than anyone else, and DDU-DU DDU-DU, from Jennie’s spitfire rap to Rosé’s melodies, hits all the right spots (like a ddu-du ddu-du).

Other songs of note: See U Later

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4. Puzzle Moon – GWSN

This song is so good. These girls are so good. As I put together this list, I realised how much all I wanted in 2018 was a good deep house sample, and GWSN delivered. The bass contrasts elegantly with the tiny voices, and the obscure chorus – “make it moon” – emphasizes the magical atmosphere of this song.

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3. Air – Winner

I miss old Winner. New Winner’s YOLO swag annoys me at best, so I dig through their b-sides in search for what we lost when Taehyun left. Air’s appropriately breathy chorus and gentle, romantic atmosphere did it for me and managed to put Winner on my podium yet again. Good job, Winner. Now stop it with the tropical house.

Other songs of note: We Were – Movie Star – Raining – Have A Good Day

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2. KILLING ME – iKON

The year started well for me (and everyone else) and iKON with Love Scenario, but I had no idea of where it would bring us. Killing Me’s bitter, moody atmosphere made for the dance song of my dreams. The decisive beat and array of distortions somehow create an eerie, understated atmosphere. It’s a dance song, but make it sad and a little creepy.

Other songs of note: Love Scenario – Rubber Band – Beautiful – Perfect – Freedom – Don't Let Me Know

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1. Oh My – Monsta X

I know. I am annoying myself by picking a b-side as my favourite song of the year, but here we are. Monsta X have become one of my very favourite groups and, while their album songs have always been amazing, to me Oh My summarizes everything I love and everything I want from them. In a year of minimalism, it’s loud, larger than life, unafraid of bleeps and bloops, rich in both vocals (Kihyun!) and proper rap sections. It’s the powerhouse that I expect from them and I hope to hear again and again.

Other songs of note: Jealousy – Destroyer – Fallin' – Spotlight

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megatentious · 5 years

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My lengthy defense of the most hated Persona game

Here’s my grand defense for the most hated game in the series: Persona 1, AKA Revelations: Persona. I know it’s too late to try and rehabilitate the game’s reputation on the internet, but I’m hoping that by rambling in modestly structured form for a bit, at least some folks might be able to look at Persona with a fresh perspective. It would be cool if everyone could try to understand what the game did so well and why it resonated so strongly with me and 2 or so other people. If you are the kind of person that thinks games age and become archaic, then I probably don’t have any hope of reaching you, but still, try to put yourself in the right mindset and approach the game on its own terms, and maybe you’ll discover something quite special.

So, Persona. Persona does very interesting things with choice. As the first Megaten rpg released in America, the negotiation system was a revelation (har har), providing the choice to talk your way out of battles and into rewards is a natural D&D element that never got a foothold in countless videogame conversions of the game, and in the first Persona these elements are at their peak. With every demon having four moods, four series of animation and four sets of voiced sound effects, the expanded options really let you get into the headspace of the demons you’re conversing with, unlike traditional SMT’s more spare binary system. Getting into the thick of things with complex sets of reactions (Joy + Interest, that’s what’s up) makes for a fun simulation.

The theme of choice is also really built into the game’s fabric, it’s the reason why in old usenet postings, Persona was recommended to folks who were fans of Gold Box games, during a time when RPG labels were more porous and that sneaky “J” hadn’t yet latched itself omnipresently to the term. Choice here also extends to the fifth character in your party, a friendly way to promote replay value without new game plus, and certain choices locking you out of giant chunks of the game, an unfriendly way of getting you through the game again. In a world though where developers are desperate to ensure that gamers experience all content (so many buzzwords!), the chutzpah of Persona being willing to lock you out of huge swathes of the game is something I actually admire.

It’s easy to underestimate the impact of the modern day setting in a post Persona 3/TWEWY/Alpha Protocol world, but dungeons that were hospitals and police stations and high school students snarling “EAT THIS” with MIGs in pitched street battles felt revelatory. Exploring the comically low-rent polygonal city (is this another reference to the abstracted icons of SMT1 and 2 world maps?) was actually fun, as ridiculous as waiting for traffic to pass might seem. There are also many complaints about the first person perspective dungeons, even though the rest of the game is third person, but the setting variety is nice and many of the wall patterns are quite evocative (Deva Yuga looks like Persepolis!)

The game also does PSX-era philosophizing in a tasteful and generally thoughtful way, while contemporaries were drawing from Evangelion, Persona looked to Zhuangzi and Jung. Not very high-falutin, true, but at least middle brow enough such that my 14 year old Sophie’s World reading self was entranced. The game has something neat to say about loneliness and identity and the way we construct the world around ourselves (all hinted at in the moody intro. The story is very nice and very Kaneko, even if he’s overestimating the literary quality in this interview, I’m very fond of it and it is my franchise favorite.

Here’s where I alienate the remaining people who might have been on board with me so far: if you ignore the loss of the Snow Queen Quest, a 20 hour alternate version of the story that takes place in a series of SMT:If... like towers, Revelations: Persona is actually the superior game. “Lunarvale,” a hodgepodge of America and Japan cobbled together by localizers attempting to mask the game’s origins, is actually more weird and interesting than the Mikage-cho that appears in Persona PSP. This bizarre mashup, combined with a nonsense translation attempt, somehow manages to better fit the lurid dreamscape vibe the original developers were going for. I can’t undersell how one-of-a-kind and wonderfully unsettling the game’s atmosphere is in the PSX version, and this is helped along of course by the sound.

Here are excerpts from some things I wrote on the music in this game:

Revelations: Persona has the best soundtrack in the franchise, possibly the best soundtrack ever made. In raw quantitative terms it's ridiculous, 113 songs and 3 hours of music without being looped, and all without doing Persona 2's trick of repeated (but still awesome!) remixes. Two majorly sweet leitmotifs for the two major quests, employed creatively and thoughtfully, four fantastic composers on four discs, cohesive and thematically coherent when by all rights it should feel disjointed as fuck, this is a generous OST!

Hidehito Aoki (R.I.P.) composed the dungeon music, which is exquisite. Lengthy songs that are moody, elegant, just plain beautiful and get you PUMPED! The iconic Deva Yuga Monochrome: School Revisited Dream-like, synthy, catchy, beautiful, quintessential Persona sound. Pandora's Den (Deepmost Area): The climax at 1:12! Ice Castle/Black Snow The twists and turns in this one, so effing good. Sebek Music, Karma Palace 90's music is the best!!! Misaki Okibe's range is ridiculous, she composed some of the most memorable, interesting tracks in the whole game. Reverse Dream World: You think you have this song figured out in the first few seconds, but stick around to see where it suddenly veers off to around :30, hilarious and awesome. Theme of Nemurin's Love: The intro! The power of a simple lovely melody, a little Uematsu-esque. Augustia's Wood: The save music, so memorable, I love the grumbling. City 2 Accident: Do you remember wandering the streets in the town, disoriented, listening to this gorgeousness, thinking about how Lunarvale suddenly seemed so scary, like an unsettling dream? Bar Attacked by Harem Queen: A bit of jazzy beauty. And most important of all of course, Misaki Okibe is the composer of the Pharmacy Music, featuring vocals by one Hidehito Aoki of all people. Satomi Tadashi Drugstore Song In our heads forever, teaching us about item use since 1996.

More alienating for readers who have gotten this far: the “whitewashing” character designs were all improvements, Kazuma Kaneko redrew everything himself and it’s easy to tell that a lot of thought was put into the redesigns. Finally, Mark is also >>>> Masao, everyone’s always yelling about the jive-talking but to me he came across as quite smart and savvy. I dunno, maybe this is just a Flavor of Love/Outsourced minorities just wanna see themselves effect operating here, leave me alone you guys! So yes, the franchise’s current fanbase might not be fond of them, but the cast is comprised of characters that are meant to be iconic and not friends you wish you had in real life, a cast that, FFVI-like, is meant to evoke broader themes and not follow the typical arcs of many RPGs these days. Check out the classiness of Yuki’s design, and allow me to quote some more stuff on how Tsuchiya, master of the character theme, nails it for each party member.

The sign of a good character theme is when you can extrapolate from instrument choice and melody to personality. Here Tsuchiya is the man, no one does it better this side of Uematsu. I hear these songs and I've got a perfect picture in my mind of each cast member. It's what I think of when I think of "videogame music" ha, here are my personal favorites, I could listen to these endlessly. Mary/Maki: Cheerful, just a hint of melancholy in the notes, love that slap bass. Yuki: Starts a bit slow, but soon we learn that Yuki's cool but determined. Alana: The song tells me she's brassy, energetic, fun. Chris/Reiji: Dangerous, exciting, a bad-ass delinquent. Ellen/Elly: Classy, elegant, confident.

Some also rag on the dungeon design, but it seems unfair to expect centerpiece labyrinths along the lines of Strange Journey or Etrian Odyssey in a game going for something completely different. Nevertheless, you’ve got tricky mazes with dead ends that test resource allocation skills and provide a sense of accomplishment. Encounters are tough and require thought, careful consideration of when to flee and negotiate is imperative for dungeon survival. This is something that gets lost a bit in the PSP remake as the encounter rate is increased but battles are a bit easier. Exploiting elemental weaknesses isn’t as elegant as in later games, but with a ludicrously high 14 damage types breadth supersedes depth. And there’s even a positioning system to consider that the developers decided to drop from later games rather than refine. In the end, surviving the dungeon and beating the boss is an RPG staple that just plain works, although yes you will probably grit your teeth at some of the loading times.

And finally, you don’t have to take my random word for it. Parish really liked it too! How’s that for an appeal to authority?

For series buffs, it’s fun to trace this game’s historical lineage, as one of the earlier spinoffs of Shin Megami Tensei, it's easy to spot the mainline series influence: the occultism of the opening ritual, the hospital as first dungeon, the first person perspective for dungeon travel, BLUE POINTER MAN, and the omnipresent danger of demons in town and dungeon alike. Revelations: Persona is drawing from a rich and storied history, but manages to recast SMT traditions in interesting new directions. Again, the atmosphere is really unbelievable and something I haven’t come across in other games. It’s more than a simple curiosity and it doesn’t deserve dumb dismissal or sneering derision for its flaws. Revelations: Persona is a real marvel, modern games ought to draw more inspiration from its lessons, and the game belongs in the RPG canon, there I said it!

#persona #revelations persona #persona 1 #unjustly maligned

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dontthinkwedontnoticeyou · 7 years

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Tom Kultury, nr 18/2017

Dynamically developing career of the british duo Hurts efficiently denies two popular stereotypes – that pop music is trivial by definition and aimed at the teenagers, and that 80’s is the worst time in the history of music. It’s enough to listen to any song of the mancunian band or to see them live, to see how false these two statements are. Hurts play adult, fine, and really interesting pop, and from the 80’s they got all the best things, starting from the new romantic vibes, through the dynamics of Depeche Mode, until the Tears For Fears elegance. About band’s new album called "Desire" we talk with Adam Anderson.

Adam, once again you provoke the audience with a music video. The clip for "Beautiful Ones" is a really heavy thing. Aren’t you afraid that someone will feel hurt?

We wanted to show what people who are different and stand out from the commonly accepted standards go through. We wanted to show the actual price many of us have to pay just for being ourselves. We didn’t think about how our fans would react, we focused on the message and this specific declaration from our side. We wanted this message to be as clear as possible, hence the clip is so intense.

Touching such serious and yet such delicate issues must come with a huge sense of responsibility. Your fans for sure listen closely to what you want to tell them.

That’s true, luckily our fans are people living on the verge of society. They’re like renegades, or unfitting ones, not accepting the stale order of the world. We definitely feel certain kind of responsibility towards them. They have to know we are on their side.

Please, tell us about the new album. Does the title, "Desire", somehow carry the whole message of this material?

In our case, the thing with the titles is that first we need to come up with some sort of a motto that will define the spirit of the album, and only then we start writing songs. In large measure "Desire" is the matter of intuition, we liked the sound of this word and its general meaning. Just like that, without any deeper filosophy to that.

The new album is a step in a new direction for Hurts. It’s clear you’re looking for new ideas and that the band has developed within the last few years. I’m curious in what part this process is controlled by you and in what part is caused by external factors.

Changes need to be accepted with humility and understanding. Everything changes all the time, everything grows and develops. We can’t stand still in this situation, and repeat the things we have already done once. If we still played the same way as we did on our first album, the listeners would quickly get bored. We would get bored ourselves. This attitude wouldn’t be true to what’s going on in our lives, and we try to act and behave as authentically as we can. Be at one with the world and with ourselves. That’s why, when we write music, we focus on making it reflect our actual state. Thoughts, feelings, emotions. We’re a pop band and it gives us slightly bigger room for manoeuvre than the bands associated with a certain genre of music. We can afford changes that would be unacceptable for the others. Music that we play is us, it will always be Hurts. So why not to try something new?

And how would you describe this new direction? What elements have appeared in your compositions?

First of all there’s more groove. New material is more dynamic and it has more, hmm… more motion to it. The first album was softer and lyrical. What pleases me is the fact that musically speaking we have became more mature band, the songs are finer, even despite the fact that they’re often very dance friendly. The fact that we’ve managed to get to this point surely confirms that we go in a good direction.

Interesting that you mentioned those dance songs. The whole sounds more joyful than the first album.

That’s true, you can say that. But when you really get into that album it gets clear that our roots come from melancholy. It’s a fundament we base our work on, and everyone who identified with us in the beginning will surely find it now as well. Some things can’t be erased or hidden. Listen to „Desire” closely and you will understand that it’s not really a party album.

But new songs will surely do well at the concerts.

Whenever we write new music we think about how it’s going to sound live. It’s very important element. After playing many concerts we can see for ourselves what’s missing, or what needs improving, or what we need to add to our shows. That’s why the new compositions sound the way they sound, they will surely add what we might have lacked so far. We work very intensively so that ninety minutes on stage was a time well spent. We limit alcohol before that, we rest a lot, we concentrate, and we try to be in the best possible condition. I think that the audience appreciates that.

From some time we can see that you grow beard. Tell us what has changed in your life because of it.

(laughter) Surprising question, but now that I think of it some things have changed indeed. Women who previously didn’t pay attention to me, started to like me. I’ve became attractive to the whole new part of the population. (laughter)

#Hurts #hurtsband #Adam Anderson #the life of a fangirl

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aesjae · 7 years

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Amnesia Pt.1 | Taeyong

A/N: I decided to write an angst scenario since I realised most of my scenarios/ reactions are quite fluffy (?) HAHA I actually quite like angst a lot… Do enjoy!

Pt.1, Pt.2

Reader’s POV

Summary: After an accident, Taeyong, your boyfriend, was left comatose, and you were forbidden by families on both sides from meeting Taeyong again. After a few months, you were informed of Taeyong’s awakening, only to be struck with the news that he had lost most of his memory. You still loved him, you never stopped, but did feelings on your part matter when the guy you loved did not even know who you were?

Word Count: 2,437

Style/ Genre: Scenario/ Angst

Date posted: 31/07/17

6 months.

That’s how long it has been.

The last time I’ve seen or heard about him.

6 months.

And I’m still not over him.

Zero.

It all happened because of a mistake I made. A mistake that cost me a whole lifetime of regrets.

“Babe, let me drive today, okay? Just rest during the ride, you haven’t been feeling well nowadays.” Taeyong said gently, a slight frown on his worried face.

“Noooo, I want to drive today! Please? I got my driver’s license 2 weeks ago and you haven’t once let me drive the car… Please?” I had pleaded to Taeyong, trying my best to make puppy eyes so that Taeyong would agree. I knew that Taeyong would always go soft whenever I was whiny while requesting for something.

Taeyong sighed, “Okay, but just for today okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

‘I don’t want you to get hurt.’ Who would have known?

It was one mistake, and it was merely within a span of seconds. Swerving, colliding, breaking, crashing. It was all chaos and in that few moments, I suddenly understood why people thought that a mere few seconds were so crucial.

During that day, I was driving on an empty road with a speed that was higher than recommended for beginners. However, after some persuasion, I managed to convince Taeyong that it was fine. Moreover, the road was empty, right?

I was turning into a blind spot, and I had not known before due to the lack of traffic, that I was in the wrong lane. Before Taeyong or I could consciously process what was happening, our car had collided with an oncoming car, and with the high speeds of both cars, there was a huge collision.

I could never wipe the horrific scene off my mind even if I tried all my life.

Groaning, I opened my eyes. There was a pungent smell of soot and smoke in the air.

What happened? Where am I? I’m alive?

I moved my arm, feeling sharp pain surging up my elbow. I looked down. My whole arm was bloodied. Crimson red blood dripped down from my palm to my elbow, accumulating a pool of red underneath my feet. From head to toe, there were streaks of blood, and it was a gruesome scene.

Suddenly, I thought of Taeyong. I snapped my head to my left, hoping to see Taeyong alive, breathing, safe.

He was still unconscious.

His head was leant against the front of the car.

His arms were twisted at odd angles.

His seatbelt had snapped.

Frantic, I unbuckled my still secure seatbelt and rushed towards Taeyong’s side of the car. I grabbed him by his shoulders and turned his unconscious body towards me, hoping the force of my actions would wake him up.

Taeyong’s forehead had a deep and huge gash across it, staining his gentle pink hair into a sticky mess of crimson, viscous liquid. He definitely wasn’t in a good shape.

Shakily, I hovered my finger underneath his nostrils – weak breaths. Weak, but he was alive.

Horrified yet relieved, my exhausted body could not take it anymore as my brain clogged with running thoughts. My slumped body laid in the car seat with Taeyong in my arms, unknowing tears falling from my eyes into Taeyong’s hair as I sobbed uncontrollably, praying for help to come.

One.

A month after the accident, I had fully recovered and was finally released from the hospital. I had not heard from Taeyong ever since. Every time I questioned my parents and my friends who had come to visit me over the past month about Taeyong, everybody would suddenly drop to dead silence, and each and every one would awkwardly avoid my gaze. For a moment of time, I had thought that Taeyong, the love of my life had died, and the thought of it broke me apart. However, I had occasionally seen a few of Taeyong’s close friends walking around in the hospital from my room’s small window on the door, and that had reassured me of Taeyong’s survival.

I definitely did not understand everybody’s avoidance of the topic on Taeyong, and I had not seen his parents ever since the accident either.

On my last day in the hospital, I decided to look for Taeyong’s room without my parents’ knowledge.

Room 508, Lee Taeyong

Apprehensively, I walked in. The room was so quiet, and there was only the beeping of machines that could be heard.

‘Had I come to the wrong room?’

But there he was. He laid on the hospital bed underneath the sheets with an absolutely peaceful face, with the kind of expression that everybody in the world would envy – worry-less and free. Yet, it was too quiet. Instead of being relieved by the sight of Taeyong, it gave me more chills and nerves. My heart had naturally beat rapidly at the sight of him, but the slow steady heartbeats shown on the machine beside Taeyong’s bedside indicated that something was off.

All of a sudden, I heard the room’s door open. In came in a lady with an elegant dress, however, it was evident that she was under immense pressure, for wrinkles had decorated her entire face, and heavy eye bags hung under her eyes like out-of-place ornaments. Taeyong’s mother was a wonderful and beautiful woman, so what had happened over the past month?

Upon seeing me, the melancholy expression on Mrs Lee’s face immediately transformed into one of extreme rage and hatred, and suddenly I was quivering in my spot under her intense glare.

“You! You wretched (Y/N)! It was you who caused my son to be in this state, it was YOU who caused him to be in an unwakeable coma! All because of YOU! You aren’t a blessing to Taeyong, you are a curse, a witch, a tragedy- Get out of here and never, NEVER let my family or Taeyong see you again!” Mrs Lee’s yell resonated across the whole hospital room, yet the steady beeps of the heart rate monitor struck me back to reality – Taeyong was in a coma, and all because of my one mistake and stubbornness. It was all because of me, that the man that I loved was in such a state. Me, me, me.

A constant stream of tears flooded my face, and I stumbled out of the room, my heart beating strongly in my chest, but that only served as a mocking reminder of how my heart and Taeyong’s would no longer beat in unison again. That was the time that Taeyong was forced out of my heart and life.

Two.

2 months, 61 days. The amount of time that had passed was agonising, and every day I couldn't help but think about Taeyong. When I heard my name being called out on the streets, my body reacted instinctively, hoping it was a call from him. But when I saw a guy slinging his arms onto another girl's shoulder, wide smiles on both of their faces, I knew that that was the past that I could see, but could never go back anymore.

4 years that I had been together with Taeyong, and it was impossible for me to forget about him in purely 2 months. My love for him ran deep, and I blamed myself daily for making such a deathly mistake. No, not the mistake of arguing with Taeyong and convincing him to let me drive, but the mistake of letting him slip away from my fingertips right in front of me. It was me, all me.

Three.

I broke my arm while thinking about Taeyong. Yet, the whole time, I knew I wasn't crying due to pain, but due to the sadness in my heart. It was as if there was a gaping hole in my heart, permanent, an unfillable void.

The whole time the doctor was giving instructions, my mind was dazed, still occupied with thoughts of Taeyong, and I merely nodded limply in response to his words. Yet, it was only Taeyong's words that managed to sink into my brain.

What would he have said when he found out I broke my arm?

"(Y/N)-ah, why were you so careless? You're like a baby you know, now I have to follow you everywhere so you won't get hurt again~"

"Taeyong, it's fine-" You would attempt retaliation.

"No, it's not fine (Y/N). You got hurt in my absence, it is thus my responsibility as my boyfriend to ensure that you do not get hurt again."

Boyfriend. How I missed calling Taeyong that.

Taeyong had tended for me the entire time whenever I got hurt, rendering me to be completely dependent on him. He would help me apply medication, he would help me apply bandages, he would cook meals for me. Taeyong had done everything for me, and now that I didn't have him, I was like a little child, helpless, clueless about how to take care of myself.

Every time I knocked my fractured arm against a hard surface, it was a surging pain through my heart, where all shot arrows collided, where invisible crimson red blood dripped out from at every second.

Four.

I heard from a friend that Taeyong had awoken from his coma. Needless to say, I cried. I cried because I was relieved, relieved that he was alive. But what came as a shock to me, was that Taeyong had all of his memory wiped out.

I was guilty of depriving him of his past happy memories, those with his friends and family. However, at the same time, I was relieved that the memories of both of us together would no longer haunt him since it was impossible for both of us to be together even if he remembered me.

Love was selfless, and I was willing to suffer alone agonisingly, buried in the memories of the past 4 years, while Taeyong started his life afresh, happy, in the absence of me.

Five.

I thought I saw Taeyong on the streets. I had known that I wouldn’t be able to not recognise the prominent jaw and the deep charming voice of his, but that particular person was different. He had the same prominent jaw, the same deep voice, but the vibe he emitted, was one of pure happiness and freedom. It was unlike the shy, reserved Taeyong that I once knew 5 months ago.

They were across the street, walking counter-direction from me. He had an arm slung over a girl's shoulder, cheerful laughter vibrating out from his chest, and resonating across the narrow street. The girl was gorgeous, and immediately I was sure that I was incomparable to her. It wasn't Taeyong, but I didn't understand why my heart had shattered into a million pieces.

Six.

After six months, I finally thought I was ready to move on. Yet, whenever I had chanced upon the kept away photographs of Taeyong and me, both my heart and mind had proven me otherwise.

Feeling raw, bare and vulnerable, I decided to head to the library, the only place that could provide me with solace and comfort. It was the only place that could give me the warmth I desperately craved for, for the space in Taeyong's embrace was no longer an option.

I browsed through the countless shelves of books when I chanced upon a favourite -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I picked up the book, and memories flooded into my mind.

“I love Harry Potter,” sighed Taeyong.

“Me too. Harry is like soooo charismatic,” I heaved a breath of admiration.

“What? I’m definitely more charming than Potter.”

“You? Charming? Well, I can’t blame you, I have a thing for Gryffindors, so they definitely suit my taste better.”

“Are you saying your boyfriend is not better than Harry Potter?”

“Mmhm, I may or may not be implying that?” I fake thought.

“You nasty!” Taeyong tackled me with tickles, causing me to squirm all over the place as both of us filled the house with giggles and laughter.

After the tickling battle, both Taeyong and I gradually calmed down.

“Oppa, what’s your favourite line in the whole Harry Potter series?”

“Hmm, that’s easy. It’s ‘After all this time? Always.’.”

“Really?! That’s my favourite line too!”

Taeyong chuckled. “Then I guess you’re my Always then.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so cheesy!” I squealed.

“But it’s the truth. You’ll always be my always.”

“Love you too oppa,” I buried my head into his chest, grinning to myself.

“I love you too (Y/N).”

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I had not realised that I was so absorbed in my own thoughts, I was crying in real time. With my head down, I quickly wiped away my tears with the back of my hand, lest somebody awkwardly caught me crying.

Wiping my slightly tear-strained cheeks, I looked up, internally hoping that nobody had actually caught me crying. But instead, I caught a familiar pair of warm and alluring eyes.

It was him.

It was really him.

I blinked, and blinked again, until the tears in my eyes had completely gone dry.

Lee Taeyong.

He had striking pink hair and had donned on a white T-shirt with a leather jacket. He looked absolutely gorgeous, and healthy.

He stared straight into my eyes. I tried to divert my gaze, but his stare was so intense, I couldn’t.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I managed to break away from the intense eye contact with Taeyong. However, thoughts flooded my mind: Why was he looking at me? And like that? Did he recognise me? That’s impossible. I heard that he didn’t even manage to recognise his family. Then, why?

When I looked back up, Taeyong was still staring in my direction.

Feeling awkward and self-conscious, I quickly put the book that was in my hands back onto the shelf and walked away to a corner where I could still observe Taeyong, but he wouldn’t be able to see me.

Seeing that I was out of sight, Taeyong walked towards the bookshelf that I was at. He took out a post-it note and scribbled something on it, then pasting it into the copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows I had picked up just now. Afterwards, Taeyong hesitantly put the book back on the shelf, before slowly retreating and walking towards the exit of the library.

Baffled, I walked back to the shelf I was just at a few minutes ago. I cautiously picked up the same book and opened it.

‘You’ll still always be my always. I never forgot about you. -T.Y’

lmk if you want a second part! ( which will be in Taeyong’s POV )

P.S ( 2/08/17) I just edited this and omg the number of grammatical errors was terrifying af 😭😭

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