Forest Circles - Poison Leaves

I know nothing about Forest Circles - I'm not even sure where I encountered their name. But I'm glad I did. Super cool, moody Autumngaze - yes, I do believe I'm coining that term - and it fits my mood at the moment perfectly. Can't wait to hear more.

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Watch:

Friday night, K and I watched an excellent documentary on The Doors.

 

The Thumbnail for The Doors: When You're Strange caught my eye on Prime Video and after watching the little sample clip, I saw Jim Morrison climb out of a wrecked car on the highway near Joshua Tree, walk down the road hitchhiking, and eventually get picked up by... himself? 

What really floored me was, this appeared to be an actual piece filmed by Morrison. I was so intrigued I started the film and was immediately sucked in. Johnny Depp narrates, and no matter what you think of the man now, this was a reminder what a bastion of class he is. There's so much raw, unseen footage of The Doors in this one, I was floored, and fully recommend it for anyone with even a passing interest in the group. 

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Read:

Now that Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Primordial is finished, I went back and re-read the entire 6-issue story in one sitting.

Wow.

Part Grant Morrison, Part David Lynch, all kinds of mind-bending and thought-provoking, Primordial was definitely created to be read in a single sitting. The issues are tight, and the art/script hit that synergistic level from the jump, so that you fly through this and only slow down to try and figure out what you're actually seeing during the sequences that involve the three animals sent into space in 1957 and 1961 (two monkeys by the US in '61, one dog by the USSR in '57). The narrative really uses Sorrentino's art to play with the concept of extraterrestrial life, how it would exist outside of our dimensional perceptions and what it would be like to actually experience encountering something like that. Honestly, I found the entire read as awe-inspiring as some of Morrison's most heady stuff, and it left me thinking about it for days.

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Playlist:

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

Pearl Jam - Vs

Urge Overkill - Oui

The Jim Carroll Band - Catholic Boy

Forest Circles - Poison Leaves (single)

Chrome Canyon - Director

Orville Peck - Bronco (pre-release singles)

Ghost - Impera (pre-release singles)

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Card:

I'm exhausted, so while I'm recording my pull, I'm not attempting to interpret it (at the moment).

MF Doom

 

I'm way late to post a tribute to MF Doom. I love this guy, but honestly, haven't listened to him on a regular basis if at all in quite some time. One of the 'methods' to my creative process is curating (read: micromanaging) the media I consume, and just like I haven't read any of the novels Irvine Welsh has released since Skag Boys - and he's one of my favorite authors ever - I very rarely listen to Hip Hop. RTJ4 broke that mold a bit this year, and if there was ever a time I felt like I needed to step out of my own headspace and try and reconnect with the world around me, it was the summer of 2020, hence I dialed back in a lot more Public Enemy, Kendrick, etc. But a lot like Guru and his Gang Starr and Jazzmatazz, MF Doom, or perhaps more accurately, Doom and Madlib's 2004, one-time collaboration Madvillainy, I just haven't gone back there in quite some time. Doom's recent death made me revisit the record, and move beyond it to some of the stuff I missed.

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READ:

I finally finished my re-read of the entire Gideon Falls series by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino. I will say, great book, great ending, but the abstract, Twin Peaks-meets-Grant-Morrison-like premise and evolution of the book left for a slightly frustrating aftertaste. Still, really cool series and, reading it in a binge is a totally different experience than reading it monthly/yearly, as you really see how much heavy lifting Andrea Sorrentino's art does. The issues fly by at about five minutes a piece, so there's a cumulative frenzy effect after you pass the half-way point.

The art in this book really blows me away. I don't normally bond this strongly with the art in the stuff I read, but this... this really transcends a lot of what people are doing to push the medium. And while some of it is obviously influenced by and predicated on books that Grant Morrison and various artists conceived over the last 25-30 years, Mr. Sorrentino really stands on his own.

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta: Saturnarian Poetry

The Used - Vulnerable

Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City

Cocksure - TVMALSV

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

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Card:

Illumination. 

This really feels like where I'm at in this particular moment. The best thing I've done in a while was take yesterday off work. I filed the Copyright for Murder Virus, got Jonathan Grimm the specs to do the art (and he already sent me a mock-up that far surpassed what I had in mind), and my mind and body feel rested. It's been a few weeks since I could say that.