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eluminium · 1 year

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Life Series: Angel's Blessing

...or how killing Skizz seems to lock you into a Top 2 placement.

Welcome to another post where Eluminium goes insane about Skizzleman because the brainrot is consuming me.

So y'all know of the whole "Skizz and the number 3" thing? Well, a part I forgot to mention in the original post was a weird thing relating to Skizz's last deaths. Now Skizz is very good at dying early, he and Jimmy are the only two people who've never made it past session 7. In 3rd Life, he was killed by Grian. In Last Life, he was shot by Ren. And in Limited Life he sacrificed himself to TIES by having Etho kill him.

But.

In (almost) every single death he's had, he's been killed by either the winner of the game or by second place. And the other one (Scar for 3rd Life and Scott for Last Life) was also there to witness it firsthand. Every time. It's not as strong in Limited Life, but it's still there. Who was a witness to Skizz's sacrifice? Impulse. Who came second? Impulse. Martyn didn't witness it nor permakill Skizz, but you could argue that one of the kills Martyn got on Skizz pushed him towards his eventual martyrdom.

In almost every series, the one to either permakill Skizz or watch Skizz permadie gets top 2. With no fail (so far.) Three times in a row.

Hmmm, well isn't that weird? And it's happened in every series Skizz has been in. And what are the only numbers above three? That's right. One and Two. First and Second. It's almost as if Skizz's weird curse tied to the three works as a blessing for whoever is there to kill him or watch him die. I suppose one man's curse is another man's blessing.

So uhm, petition to call this weird phenomenon "Angel's Blessing." For...obvious reasons.

Hey I mean, could probably work it into a funny design thing.

Just imagine Desert Duo in the cactus ring. As they throw punch after punch and speak their woes on how they don't wanna do this, two cracked and barely noticeable triangle-shaped halos (haha get it because three) are hovering over both their heads. As Scar's health starts draining, the halo fades with him, while Grian's only grows stronger, and more stable. Eventually, Grian's fist cracks right through Scar's barely visible golden headpiece, and with that, Scar has no chance. Not that he put up much resistance in the first place.

Just imagine Scott and Ren's final battle. Scott, fresh from his kill on Martyn, with his triangle halo hovering, just taking shot after shot on Ren. With every hit, Ren's halo grows weaker. However, it isn't Scott who smashes the fragile thing into pieces, instead the honor is given to a random zombie, who doesn't care what it just destroyed. When Scott stands victorious, divine lightning strikes and shatters his halo too.

Just imagine Martyn cutting down Scott first because he knows. He's an observant guy, he's noticed the little gold barely-noticeable triangle floating over Impulse's head. A naive soul would have mistaken it for a trick of the light, but Martyn sees how it cracks as if solid when he ends Scott's life. Scott had to be first, Scott didn't have a halo this time. If Martyn himself looked up, it's quite likely he'd see his own little triangle. Strong, solid, blessed. But the one floating over the demon's head is a broken, helpless, sad little thing uselessly clinging onto hope after being so thoroughly crushed.

Martyn's brain takes him back for a second. Back to the very first session of this damned death game. Back to that cave, to the rush of the Boogeyman curse, and back to Skizz. As Skizz called him up to give him a sweet compliment, he readied his blade. But all he saw was this poor wingless angel, an angel who had his two snow-white wings hacked off by two boogies barely ten minutes in. All that remained was his halo, and if Martyn wanted to kill Skizz, he would have had to break it...and he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was almost too pathetic. He let Skizz live, let him keep his last piece. And that would be a piece kept until Etho broke it on Skizz's behalf since Skizz never got Boogey killed again.

He couldn't go through with the backstabbing then. It's different now. Much blood-drenched time has passed since.

Now Martyn brings down his axe and lava on his ally, a betrayal he refrained from when this series started. He's numb by now.

When lightning strikes where Scott once stood, he looks over to a shocked Impulse. An Impulse with no armor, an Impulse who won't be able to react in time. Just as helpless and vulnerable as Skizz in that cave. The halo still sits right over the demonic horns, and to kill Impulse, he'll have to break it.

But Martyn is a different man now. Those acts of mercy are long gone. Now, he feels nothing as he mercilessly chases Impulse down and brings his axe through the halo that once made him hesitate. Wrathful, hungry, animalistic.

It's what these worlds do to them. It's what they do to them.

An Angel's Blessing can't guarantee victory. But it can guarantee something better than third.

And well. For once, the blessing went to Impulse. About time, considering Impulse has watched Skizz permadie every single time.

Isn't the Life series just full of fun patterns to discover?

btw Skizz said on the podcast today that he has a habit of sometimes kissing Impulse on the cheek when they're reunited. Just a fun fact to cheer you up <3

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vapemaster42069 · 7 months

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So, while Hermits are crew members, a lot of them are not! The only full-time HC-9 residents are people who want to be there, work as admins or operate the server, or have another job that requires them to be there. The Hermits aren’t super strict about their roles either, because the crew is so small. Grian, for instance, is likely to drag one player or another into a brainstorming session at random, and Ex and Hels mostly do whatever they want from any department when they’re procrastinating their own roles.

The catering department is entirely made up of Grian and Scar. Grian, surprisingly, is an extremely good cook. He doesn’t bake as much, usually delegating that to Scar, and he’s always trying to “branch out into new experimental horizons” (as he repeatedly insists). Half of his job is trying not to strangle Scar when he knocks shit over, and the other half is translating whatever recipes other Hermits give him. They could absolutely write it in English, but it’s funnier to see Grian strutting around like a scrutinous pigeon trying to open a plastic bag with a fat ham sandwich inside, attempting to pronounce Swedish or German or what have you with an inspiring amount of gusto and a painfully British accent. He’s about the most British person that’s ever lived. This man wears sweater vests.

He and Scar live together on-server, so most of their cooking/baking/atrocities happen in their kitchen. Meeting & Eating, the periodic logistics meetings with everyone, nearly always end up in their basement, everyone bundled up in ridiculous volumes of quilts and pillows and huddled in an eclectic arrangement of chairs, couches, an entire stolen metal park bench, several actual swings, and a wooden picnic table hung from the ceiling.

BigB, while not an on-screen Hermit (at least, not as a main character in the show), is the entire costuming/makeup department. He lives on-server in a little place next to the MU/Costuming closet, home to Bernard the fax machine and the Duplication Chamber. He’s got a habit of sticking googly eyes on random objects and blaming it on Grian.

Etho is the Coffee Boy.

Pearl manages staging, continuity, and mise-en-scene.

Skizz, Ren, Cub, and Grian are the main writers, but that's pretty flexible depending on whose storylines are being run. A lot of the show is improv, too, so there's not a whole ton of specific planning as much as set design and technical set-up like lights, dolly tracks, and sound equipment, which are run by BDubs, Impulse, and xB, respectively.

Gem and Beef are the entire safety department. You can imagine how well that goes.

Mumbo is the director, Skizz is the AD, X is the stage manager, and Zed runs marketing, scheduling, and R&D. If it weren't for their combined efforts, approximately jack shit would get done. Anytime even one of them is sick, the entire management team falls apart and they usually elect Etho to stand-in for whoever's gone to restore balance to the forces that be (namely, coffee and energy drinks, unrestrained trains of thought, and Cub's complete lockdown of the props department). He doesn't do much but he thinks it's funny to be there so he goes along with it.

X still admins, and Tango, Ex, Hels, and occasionally Etho operate everything he doesn't.

Most other Hermits either have more specific or smaller crew roles or are only cast members!

#hermitcraft backstage au

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woagopossum · 1 year

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hi. wanted to do random team up predictions/hypotheticals/funnies before the new series.

Team PiSS - Pearl, Impulse, Scar, Skizz

what I think would happen to this team: it would last a glorious 1.5-2 session before one of them either goes red or decides they don't want to hear the word piss anymore.

Hookup Duo - Scott, Martyn

This team would make. many a innuendo. They would also last till the last session. My reasoning is that they were on opposite corners of the divorce duo last time and didn't really interact one on one last time so I think it would continue interestingly

Bunker Trio - BigB, Grian, Mumbo

Grian and his guys go crazy I think. This one would be messy I think there is turmoil and drama here. They would live in a bunker but constantly have to move around and trap them so people stop breaking in but everyone does it anyways.

Cletho - Cleo, Etho

Thif one's self explanatory I think. They almost win, but not quite.

Gold Husbands - Jimmy, Bdubs

Both Jimmy and Bdubs tend to like, obsess and cling a little so I think they would work good together. They would be called gold husbands because a) they have to collect gold to get clocks and b) because someone makes fun of Jimmy for still wearing gold armor in the session 3 and then they both start stubbornly having gold helmets or something. They absolutely die first

The Infernal Three - Tango, Ren, Joel

Okay. Ren would give them this name because their plan is to keep setting things on fire and using for traps and I think most of the time this only kills them. Tango specifically dies of fire damage every single time. It's a really fun energy though

#trafficblr #okay. this is more like me making up my own life series based on what i think would be funny/hype than actually predictions #but i think some of the teams could happen. just probaby not the specific names or things i was just having fun with those

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dragonpuff17 · 1 year

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Simply just go ham tell me all about the Friday night stabby crew. I wanna hear all of it from headcannons to your favourite, there is so little content about my favourite little guys and it makes me sad:(

was gonna talk about each person but i dont have the energy for that so just my faves. its still gonna be a long one

astro: THE BELOVED. my top favorite of the crew 100%. it was originally his alien theming that captivated me but i also really really enjoy watching him play! i think of him saying "i do a decent job of suppressing the inner chaos" all the time cause he may not come off like it but hes a lil silly guy, a chaotic neutral. hes very smart at playing among us, i wanna talk about some of my favorite moments: a) when he faked a task as a sheriff to lure an impostor and it WORKED, b) when he was impostor and part of the last 3 alive and purposely tied the vote because he knew there was a jester, c) killing Both impostors as sheriff multiple times, d) somehow carrying an impostor round when he had the giant role which made him super slow, e) him pulling off TWO arsonist wins out of the 3 that happened ever in fns (in the same session no less), f) (now for the sillier ones) when he killed pearl in front of scar, and g) making ppl pick a number between 1 and 20 in both among us and this team beat stream

brody: i love him sm hes so fucking funny and also incredible at the game!! i love his dynamic with astro, theyve been friends for a while so they know each others tells, and they always try to kill the other when one of them is impostor. the lawful good and the chaotic neutral, the tallest and the shortest, the sheriff and the jester, the alien and the human. i wanna talk about how he is statistically the best impostor, with a 54% win rate!! everyone seems to think its etho but his is only 50! he's so smart and also has a decent amount of wins with neutral roles. brody is also part of the impostor duo that has the best win rate, with impulse. theyve been partnered 20 times and won 15!! 75% wtf!!! his sarcasm is just so funny, i maintain that he and mrs t are the funniest people in the group. also shoutout to brody's cats doan and fitzgerald who are absolutely one of the reasons you should watch his vods

evil: EVIL MY BELEVIL!!!! despite his name and among us skin and whole brand he is. so so nice and so so silly. he's quieter during meetings because he doesn't like talking over people, but his pov is so worth it, he has a great contagious laugh. in the earlier sessions hes the only one who hated being impostor, which is incredibly funny given that His Name Is Evil. sometimes he decides to get a lil silly with it, such as the time he was sheriff and took a random shot to hopefully cause chaos, but was right and killed tango. bonus facts: his channel point rewards are playing audio clips of his friends' "opinions" of him, most of which are "evilnotion is a butt nugget and no one should like him" and he has been hosting jackbox games on twitch every saturday night for 7 years and they are a fun time

#friday night stabby #long post

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spreens · 3 years

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'charred wedding photograph' FIRST OF ALL HOW DARE YOU. SECOND, THAT IS BRILLIANT (aaa but pAIN). the perk builds fits them really well!! how about scar or etho? :O i'd say Bond for scar (s1 reputation point system) but he's more into scamming people so.. :/ honestly i kinda wanna start playing dbd again because of this crossover -dbd anon

AHHAHA I KNEW THAT OFFERING WOULD HURT!! and true dbd anon, i started playing demo and pig again when last life started previous week because i was like huh . . hu h hhmmm.

scar joel and eefo below >:)

As you mentioned, Bond would be a great choice for Scar because of his actions in s1, but I also believe it's a fantastic perk for him because of it's frequent ingame use as a double-edged sword for teammates. Yes, it's a fantastic perk for helping your friends, but there's a reason why Bond is considered one of the essential perks for a sandbagging/kill your friends/make randoms hate you match, and it's not so you can avoid the jungle gym they're hiding in.

Diversion is a fantastic meme perk, and I feel like where Scott would get his serotonin from stabbing attackers, Scar would take great joy in throwing various debris away and at the assaulter. Also incredibly infuriating and/or endearing for the killer at the receiving end of it. Is there anything more Scar?

If Dead Hard antis even exist, I'm one of them. I love getting outplayed by the letter E. However, I can't deny this exhaustion perk's place in Scar's roster, considering it's use straight up requires him to be injured. I feel like he would get the most v a l u e out of the perk than anyone else in previous or future perks.

Up the Ante is an Ace perk, for one, which immediately favours itself to Scar's personality, but also his insane luck/"""plot armour""" in s1 lends itself to great synergy with the perk. The more people alive, the luckier he is, which roughly lines up with the s1 timeline.

One brown medkit to get a cheap, quick self heal off of, and a shroud of union for... friend :)

YOU THOUGHT JOEL WOULD GET A SURVIVOR BUILD? FOOL (disclaimer i am a fake trapper player my trapper is p1 but my skill is p-1)

Hoarder is both for funny and sad because he spent basically most of the beginning of his red life experience getting robbed by multiple factions- something tells me that might become a sore spot in the future.

Rancor is an extremely fun one for Joel, both playing into the obsession mechanic and the fact that I have no idea if it'd be Lizzie or Pearl as the obsession, each with their own valid reasons. Both the aura exchange and the endgame kill mechanic are terrifying factors for whoever's unlucky enough to become the obsession.

M&A is just a lucky guess right now- people only seem to notice him when he's in talking distance, but that changes as soon as people spot him and go on high alert.

Bitter Murmur again is just creepy. Knowing (or not knowing) that through every death your position is being completely revealed, no matter how well you're hidden.

The logwood dye would help him hide his traps better (he needs it after that extremely shoddy one this session), and... the padded jaws are until he can get used to the fact he's setting fucking bear traps for his friends?

Etho here uses off-meta perks with good synergies because this man doesn't need a 5-gen chase to survive. Quick and Quiet, Iron Will and Dance with Me is a classic combo to escape most chases efficiently. The only major difference here is that instead of Lithe to make it even better, he's got Blast Mine because I genuinely cannot think of a more Etho perk than setting up a fucking flashbang for shits and giggles.

The key is there for a quick and easy escape when or if times get tough, and the offering basically guarantees a hatch spawn in or around the shack, which is extremely convenient. I fully believe he's got the skillset to support altruistic actions, he just has a preference more suited to blending into the shadows and frying killer retinas.

#last life spoilers #last life smp #llsmp #dbd #dbd anon #asks #goddd making builds is so fun #chirps #dbd LL

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hermitcraftheadcanons · 4 years

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Zombie Apocalypse AU Masterpost 2 Electric Boogaloo

Previous Post: https://hermitcraftheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/618314308275863552/zombie-apocalypse-au-masterpost

-Bdubs is slowly going feral because he has the virus, it just doesn't show itself physically.

-Cub was tempted to purposefully get the virus to try and help find a cure, (they probably don't have lab rats given the circumstances,) by Scar talked him out of it.

-The timeline of events with DocM is that he started in the NHO group, they ended up dispersing (Etho turned and then left to ensure the safety of his friends, Beef ended up going separate due to Doc and Bdubs' constant fighting and Bdubs stormed off after an argument.) He ends up getting taken in by TFC, (he's the first to arrive,) and eventually captures Rendog.

-Stressmonster and Iskall originally lived in a cabin in the mountains. After Iskall got swept away in a snow storm and Joe and Cleo stopped by, Stress had no idea there was a Zombie outbreak.

-Hypnotizd and XB ended up trespassing in Jevin's property and Jevin shot Hypno. XB pleaded to Jevin that they weren't zombies and to not hurt them further and Jevin begrudgingly went, 'okay, fine. You aren't taking my food though.'

-Impulse's weapon of choice was a shovel.

-Grian can't fly in this AU. Let's be real, if he could, it would be pretty OP.

-Keralis most definetly gave a larger share of his rations to Xisuma while he was sick.

-TangoTek entirely blames himself for Impulse leaving and Zedaph getting bit. He feels especially conflicted because he wants to leave because he's convinced they both hate him and blame him but he can't because 'what if they go looking for him?' 'What if someone worse comes from that?'

-The location of Etho's bite is right on the front of the neck. He actually passed out from blood loss initially and he very nearly died. (Luckily for him the zombie didn't pull away, ripping out anything important (like a windpipe of an oesophagus,) giving Doc time to carefully unhinge the zombie's jaw and save Etho.) Nobody was quite sure how Etho was even alive with a big chunk out of his neck until he started displaying some strange behaviour.

-False is usually the one who stays up late to stand guard and protect her group.

-Mumbo accidentally caught Hypno in one of his traps at one point but let him go.

-Hay here’s a dumb idea, The reason ren is immune to the zombie virus is because he has like an anti-zombie virus in his body it behaves just like a normal zombie virus but it doesn’t turn you into a zombie, so how the hermits turn the zombie hermits human again is by making ren bite them.

-I have an angst ending and a no-angst ending so first here's the not-angst one: Doc and Ren team up with Cub and Scar to make a cure (so Ren doesn't have to bite everyone personally). They travel around finding every bitten survivor and salvageable zombie they can, using the weapons and resources from the NHO for protection. They find ways of producing and distributing enough cure for everyone, and during that process all of the Hermits decide to stay friends and in touch afterward.

-For the Zombie AU, if Scar doesn't already have like a different role in this au, he could've possibly been the first human infected because *someone's* pet cat ate a weird looking mouse and bit their owner.

-This is very angsty and gory, so fair warning: How fast does the virus spread through the body from the bite? If slow, you can cut the bitten part off before it spreads out through the body. To doc having a robot arm, what if he got bit and out of fear, they amputated his arm to stop the spread. I know y'all probably don't wanna go with body horror, but that's something to consider in this AU.

-Lowkey I feel zombie Etho doesnt do justice to his epic PVP skillz, but!! I do see Etho to be something SIMILAR to it! Idk if you've ever played Telltale's The Walking Dead game, but Etho could a zombie whisperer, a human who wears zombie skin and lives amongst the zombies for protection. So when Etho got bit, they THOUGHt he turned but actually just decided, hey I live here now and just vibin.

-You know how ren being a werewolf is popular in the fandom(from what I've seen) maybe that's why is immune to being a zombie and getting bitten by him if your infected cures it because the zombie infection and werewolf infection cancel eachother out.

-A more jokey Zombie!Au thing: The first episode of Llamas with hats but it's Zombie!Etho and Beef.

-I feel like if Wels could get to some of his friends he would try his hardest to protect them and if he ever managed to get bit it would be to save someone else.

-There is just always so much angst potential in any scenario or AU where it involves the possibility of Wels sacrificing himself in some way to protect his friends from something poor bb 😔

-Would infected hermits be able to like recognize people after the infection zombified them or whatever it is? Because if so oh my god imagine the angst.

(All those above in red are from our community's lovely anons!)

-About the anti-zombie Ren bite thing: Doc has the idea suddenly in the middle of an argument so the conversation goes a little like this:

Ren: "So what I'm trying to say, my dude, is that would never work because -"

Doc: "Ren. Bite me."

Ren: "Oh yeah, real mature way to end a disagreement there -"

Doc: *facepalming* "No, Ren, I mean actually.... Just do it, I'll explain later."

-Angst ending: They could never produce enough cure to stem the tide of undeath. They all choose to band together and take shelter underground, hoping to wait it out. They use X's tunnel, but that many people that close together smells irresistible to a horde. The zombies flood after them into the tunnel. X says he'll buy them some time, even though he is terrified. He collapses the tunnel on himself and the zombies so the others can escape. His last thought: At least I get to die as myself.

-Thinking about Etho's bite location (you said it was on his neck): Most bites are on the shoulder or leg (bit from behind while running away) or on the arm (bit while raised to defend). To be bitten on the neck he would have to have his arms and shoulders lowered. Etho, being a good fighter, would have only done this if it was absolutely necessary. Conclusion: he was bitten with his arms stretched out to protect someone behind him, and he knew the consequence that his choice would have.

-(@shadeswiftdraws.)

-The NHO are all strangely dressed (Etho is kakashi, Doc is green, Bdubs has a bandana,) because they were all at a cosplay convention. (-@tomcatacaphe.)

-When Etho left The nHo, he brings a Journal with him. Every Night he'll write a Journal entry. He'll write just about anything, there even some random lyrics and some pretty flowers he pick up along his travels. But as the Journal goes on, the words slowly became wobbly. Inconsistent. until finally, Unreadable chicken skrach. His final (at least readable) entry is: "-I hoPE yoU GUyZ ArE DoInG bETThEr ThAn I Am" As some point in time, Etho lost his Journal and Joe hills found it.

-Speaking of Joe Hill, he made it his personal mission to collect every literature and entertament media he can possibly carry on him. From Dnd Book, poetry, Documentary DVD's, to random journal He think would be usefull. Stress is happy to help Joe but Cleo is a little annoyed because it's will only slow them down, but Joe Argued that "If there's no knowledge left, then what will the future be? Just staying alive and surviving?" Cleo begrudgingly agrees.

-I can totally see Joe and Cleo Rocking an actual Sword and Dnd Cosplay (Joe got is a gift while Cleo Commissions her's after seeing Joe whip out his sword one time in a one shot DnD session) they keep the swords, but they ditch the Costume pretty early on tho.

-Mumbo's next Job Interview would be schedule at Concorp. But then the Zombie apocalypse happened on his way there.

(-@tearosepedall.)

-I don’t want this au to end but here’s my take: most of them get to the bunker where they don’t develop a cure, but do create a vaccine. Occasionally they will venture out to hand out the vaccine to survivors. Still, they all decide to stay into stay together. But because they were unable to develop a cure, even though they really try, there are some how have been lost such as etho, zed, and mumbo. Still the rest of them morn and try their best to survive without modern society. (-@lookitsspacekween.)

https://hermitcraftheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/618587883366957056/tw-very-brief-mention-of-vomit-general-warnings (-@carpe-shovelem.)

-Funny/happy ending to the Zombie AU: The hermits set up a zombie funneling system where the ones that didn't die from infection get bit by Ren to get turned back and they return the dead and give them proper burials. (-@my-cat-is-a-bastard.)

-I just remembered the thought post with Tuartis sleeping through things, Bdubs sleeping through the apocalypse, but now we've got Wels on the sleep team too! Wonder if he'd have slept through the apocalypse as well... (-@853dragons.)

TW: Mentions of dead animals:

I've got one last bit for the zombie au, it ties into my parasite one: With the rumors that the outbreak started in the Convex cancer research facility, and Scar feeling guilt because he Should Have Been Able To Stop This... It really was their fault. As a company. It wasn't intentional, of course, but Convex created the parasite. It was during research into a cure for certain conditions that are notoriously risky/impossible to perform surgery on, like brain tumors or lukemia-type cancer. The hope was to utilize the parasites as something that could harmlessly go in, eat or destroy all the cancerous cells, then die off, leaving a perfectly healthy human. The research project was abandoned after a several years, when every single attempt ended with either dead or, in later years, extremely sickly rats. Although the final round seemed promising, the rats weren't showing obvious signs of a decline in health after two weeks, Convex was convinced to just give it up and that the utilization of parasitic worms was asking for more trouble than it was worth. Plus, PETA was getting dangerous with their choices in protest against the tests, which was the main reason it was called off. Cub and the board of directors didn't want to risk bodily harm to their researchers, and it truly was getting so beyond ridiculous that a few bodyguards weren't enough protection.

Some researchers took some of the test rats home as pets, including our Patient Zero, because they really were quite cute. Patient Zero got bit by his rat, and nobody really thought anything of it for a couple weeks until his behavior took a bad turn. He was picking fights and throwing verbal abuse, and no amount of warnings and write-ups were giving any hint of stopping him. It all finally resulted in him viciously biting fellow labworkers, which sent two of them and himself to the ER. Upon arrival he had to be restrained and isolated lest he bite more people. He was fired from the company, his bodyguards pulled, but Scar had been friends and continued to visit him regularly, wondering where the change had come from, and saddened by his old friend's obvious decline in health. Nurses told him he was refusing to eat or drink, and too violent to reason with nor release to anywhere but the police or psychiatric hospital. Soon, there were more reports of uncharacteristicly aggressive actions from PZ's victims. And from there.... Well, it's your choice where the story goes, but it didn't take long for Scar to put the puzzle together.

-(@basaltdragon.)

More to be added!

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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M. Geddes Gengras Interview: Happy Accidents

Photo by Gabrielle Valenti

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Producer M. Geddes Gengras has taken advantage of quarantine to release music at a breakneck pace. Living among the nature (and Brooklyn spillover region) of Hudson, NY, he’s got six distinct releases on his Bandcamp this year alone, half under the moniker PERSONABLE. The most notable is the full-length album Time Makes Nothing Happen, a propulsive, techno-heavy record released in May but filled with many tracks that date back years past. (Thumping, clattering, glitchy opener “Dragging My Feet” is from the Aughts!) “I put it out there and wasn’t really sure whether anybody was gonna buy it or listen to it,” he told me over the phone last month. Indeed, as much as Bandcamp Fridays have helped, self-releasing still carries and inherent risk. “It either does really well or disappears,” he said. Plus, Time was far different from the material he had been working on and releasing under any moniker.

As it turns out, the album caught the ears of Max Allison, co-founder of Chicago bonkers experimental label Hausu Mountain. It wasn’t out of the blue; after all, Hausu had released Gengras’ I Am The Last of That Green and Warm-Hued World last year. But they had been long talking about doing another record, and while something never-before-heard is still in the works, Gengras and Hausu decided to physically release Time on CD and cassette, with a bonus track for good measure. It’ll be out November 13th. Most importantly, the record fits nicely within Hausu’s increasingly wonderfully sundry catalog.

Below, read my conversation with Gengras about the original record and the rerelease, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: What was the inspiration behind the aesthetic of this record?

M. Geddes Gengras: For the past few years, I had been putting out music at a much slower pace than I had been in the past. I wasn’t working on as much stuff and wasn’t recording as much. My process had gotten a lot more layered. My last record for Hausu I had made pretty quickly, but it was very dense. A lot of going over and over and changing things bit by bit. Lots of editing, micromanaging of sound. This one, it’s all live, with maybe a single overdub. I had a couple old tracks I never found a place to put out, and they had never really fit in with the straight techno stuff, but it was also a little too rhythmic and beat-oriented for what I had been releasing under my own name. The division between those two things had just been sort of pushed out to the extreme in a couple ways. So this was something where I was trying to bring it all together in a playful way, making decisions really quickly, first take-best take, and not obsessing over every contour and curve of each track. Trying to do something that felt a little more impulsive.

SILY: That impulsiveness speaks to the spirit of Hausu Mountain, which is funny, because you didn’t even make this record for them.

MGG: Absolutely. But I feel like it was inspired by them, even if indirectly. The last one I put out on Hausu, there are certainly things in their catalog that go along with it, but so much of what they put out is hyperactive, hyperkinetic off-the-wall. Max’s stuff is so crazy. It’s so bonkers. He’s one of those musicians where I’m just like, “I don’t know how you come up with that.” I don’t know how his brain works. It blows my mind.

When I’m working on something, I think about people. I think about an audience, even if it’s just one person or a couple people. It helps my mind file my way through decisions that might take longer otherwise. [laughs] Max and [label co-founder Doug Kaplan] and Hausu, we had been talking about doing another record together, and this wasn’t intended to be that, but that sort of ethos and spirit pervaded its way into this. It was also pretty early in the whole quarantine thing, and I wanted to do something that was fun, that wasn’t dour ambient music. I wanted something that felt like what I needed to hear at that time.

SILY: The notes on the back of the CD say “composed for/by synthesizers.” It speaks to the randomness inherent in synthesis and improvisation that was how this record was recorded.

MGG: Definitely. I know some people hear something in their head, and they make it. I don’t work like that most of the time. Sometimes, things like that happen, but that’s usually well down the road into the project, and I’m like, “I can hear this part over that.” This is just setting up machines, laying around with them, and being influenced and inspired compositionally by what they are doing. It’s a little more like riding a horse than driving a car: You can tell it what to do, but it’s not always gonna do what you want it to. That’s the fun part for me.

The things that I love when I listen to the recordings is the stuff I didn’t necessarily do but emerged out of these processes and systems I built. Those are the things that really excite me. It feels more like collaboration and less like sitting alone in a room and plugging wires into things.

SILY: Tell me about the bonus track. Was that just added on when you knew it was going to be rereleased?

MGG: When we talked about doing a physical release, I wanted something that was a little value add. [laughs] I was really happy with the way the original record flowed from beginning to end, so it was a practical thing. We were playing around with the order, and it felt a little lopsided. That was a good excuse. I had a couple things left over from the sessions and a couple earlier things I slotted in there, and what I ended up putting in was a year or two old. Something I made and forgot about that sat on my hard drive. I started digging for tracks for an appropriate length. It’s not really an exciting story now that I tell it. [laughs]

I have a handful of tracks that don’t really fit in with the kind of aesthetic I want to do with the PERSONABLE releases because they’re slicker and stripped down. But they haven’t really fit with other releases I’ve done. One thing I’ve done a lot during quarantine is go through a bunch of old stuff. I have a lot of finished recordings that have for one reason or another never found their way out there. In a time when I’ve been feeling particularly productive, it’s been good to clean that stuff out. Find something I like that I want to get out there.

SILY: How did you come up with the track titles of the record?

MGG: Coming up with titles is probably my least favorite part of making a record. [laughs] It’s always the last thing that I do. Maybe that makes it harder, because I’m attempting to put words on something that has existed in a wordless space for a while. I started with the album title, which I stole from a book by Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary, which I was thumbing through. The title caught my eye, and I was thinking a lot about time--I think a lot about time in general--and my music plays with the concept of time, whether it’s distorting your perception of time, or this release, different rhythms, which are expressions of organized time. I started with that, and then I went through the tracks and listened to them over and over again and wrote down words and imagery that came to mind. I started using that as a launching point. Some of the track titles are descriptive of what the sounds sound like to me, and some of them are more playing with the imagery I get when I hear it. It’s not a terribly deep process. It’s usually done in kind of a panic, and sometimes it’s okay. It’s one of those things after the fact I’m like, “It’s fine, I guess. At least I did it.”

SILY: So the album art got the Hausu treatment, too.

MGG: Oh yes. Max asked whether I wanted to do that, and I said, “In fact, I demand it.” Any time I can see a new piece of Max’s art, I’m excited to. His aesthetic is so deeply up my alley as a lifelong gamer from the Super Nintendo generation. He somehow makes the most psychedelic 16-bit dreamscapes and gets things perfectly, and it’s never what I expect. Both this and the last one. I love the aesthetic of Hausu. It’s so fried and beautiful and fits the sound of the label. They’ve created this visual umbrella: You can spot it from a mile away.

SILY: Are you doing any sort of release show with them?

MGG: That remains to be seen. I think it would be fun to do something. I’m a little intimidated about performing this kind of stuff live because it’s out of my comfort zone. I’d like to do something. It’s probably a lot easier to do something like this now that we’re trapped in our houses than it would be to [coordinate] from our respective cities otherwise. I’m gonna say yes, and then I’m gonna talk to Max and Doug. [laughs] I’ll be like, “I told the guy!”

SILY: Yeah. “In fact, it’s already published.”

MGG: That’s how you get things done. You start with the media and work backwards. But I haven’t done a performance since the first or second month of quarantine. I’m kind of itching to do something.

SILY: What’s next for you?

MGG: I’ve got a few really cool collaborations I’m working on right now that I’m really excited about. I’ve got a record with Miles Seaton from Akron/Family. I played with them for about a year. We made a record and did the basic tracking here in Hudson a little over a year ago. I’m right now going through the mixing and overdubs. It’s a strange record: a lot of weird instrumentation and operating in zones we don’t normally work in. I’m working on a project with this guy from Los Angeles that’s a video game-themed band that’s happening via WeTransfer. And I’m doing a record with a friend of mine who records as Psychic Reality that we made three years ago. A few solo things. And a few other things I can’t talk about yet.

I find it helpful to put something down for a long time, come back to it later, and see what makes sense. Coming out of a long period of inactivity, I’m trying to poke my brain cells a little bit, and one way of doing that is to work with amazing musicians.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

MGG: I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen King. I had been already, and it just seems extremely appropriate right now. It’s nice to curl into something where you could blast through a few hundred pages at your leisure. I haven’t been listening to a ton of music except for a lot of Imaginary Softwoods. That’s been my go-to recently. A lot of Keith Jarrett, too. I’ve been feeling really melodic, beautiful things. And the other side of that is I’ve been revisiting a lot of my favorite hardcore records from the late 90′s. As our world descends into chaos, I feel like it’s more relevant than ever.

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