Flies on Sandstone

 

Heaven Is An Incubator recently posted "Love Fade," from Tamaryn's 2010 album The Waves, long a personal favorite since one of my old-school Inventory team back at Borders Torrance turned me onto it. No other Tamaryn album has ever slipped so perfectly into my personal sonic cosmology, but I've laid beneath the stars in Joshua Tree and soaked this one in. It's special, so I had to break it out and post a track, too.

 
Thanks Tommy!!!

 

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Watch:

About three months ago, I kind of surprised myself by re-starting Drinking with Comics. This was something that had been on my mind off and on for a while; I LOVE the idea of the show, but it's hard to move beyond the previous iterations. For me, the pinnacle was when Mike, Chris, Jordan and myself were in front of the camera and Kirsten was running tech. Doing the whole thing at Atomic Basement never felt fully 'right,'  and whenever I look on YouTube for someone discussing comics that move me, I'm almost always disappointed. 

Other than Comic Book Herald's channel, pretty much every "discussion" video I've attempted to watch does that annoying YouTube thing of drawing out what you're there for as long as possible to increase their watch time. I fucking hate that! So, I finally decided I'd let the old Drinking with Comics be what they were and start a new iteration. It helped that I get to call it Vol. 4.

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Read:

My good friend Jesus surprised us with some Christmas presents in the post this past Friday. Jesus and I tend to ship books back and forth to one another, and he's introduced me to some incredible novels. Well, he outdid himself this time, because one of the books he sent was C.J. Leede's 2023 debut novel Maeve Fly. 

I read it in just over a day.

I can't recommend this one enough, the only caveat is, I'd say you should definitely read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho first, as this book is very influenced by it, and even pinions some elements of the seminal volume of transgressive 80s literature. Despite this, however, Maeve Fly is definitely its own thing, and I couldn't be more in love with Leede's prose. Also, this book made me insanely homesick for L.A.

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Playlist:

Various - Learn to Relax: A Tribute to Jehu

Van Halen - 1984

Amigo the Devil - Everything is Fine

Godflesh - Purge

Godflesh - Hymns

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

Fever Ray - Radical Romantics

Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

Rein - Reincarnated 

Tamaryn - The Waves

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Christmas Bloody Christmas Spotify Playlist

Rodney Crowell - Christmas Everywhere

Thou - Rhea Sylvia

Frayle - Skin & Sorrow

James Last - Christmas Dancing with James Last

Willie Nelson - Pretty Paper

J. D. McPherson - Socks

Luciano Pavarotti - Christmas with Pavarotti

Iwan Rebroff - singt Weison von Wodka und Wein

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Queen of Disks

• Knight of Disks

• Two of Swords

Emotional aspects of Earthly matters, honed by Will, collaboration of intent. Not sure if this is telling me I'll find the 'honing' in collaboration or not - seems doubtful - but I'm definitely feeling like Earthly matter could use a shoring up. 

New Music from FEN!

In 2011, my good friend and Horror-Vision co-host Tori gifted me Fen's album Epoch. This, maybe more than any other album, propelled me headlong into Black Metal. I'll never forget the first time I hit play on Epoch; it was pouring rain - uncharacteristic for Southern California - as I drove home to San Pedro from Borders Books in Torrance where both Tori and I worked at the time. 

The rain was perfect; I've maintained ever since that this record sounds like it was recorded in the rain (whatever that means, exactly, I can't really explain). At the time I was also falling in love with John Crowley's Little Big, and that book, the weather and Epoch combined to invoke a nearly hallucinatory couple of days off. I kept up with Fen through the follow-up, 2012's Dustwalker, then kind of dropped off for no reason that had anything to do with the band. Seeing the release of Monuments of Absence last week, I was blown away by the opening track, which is considerably more severe than anything I've heard Fen do, though as I say, I'm behind a few albums. Looking forward to catching up, though.

Monuments to Absence dropped this past Friday, 7/07/23, so you can head over to the Prophecy Productions website and order a copy HERE.

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Watch:

Bloody Disgusting did an exclusive premiere of the trailer for the new company Neon Noir's first film, That's A Wrap:

Beautiful colors abound, so they definitely nailed that element of the classic Giallo aesthetic. I watched enough of this trailer to know I will be checking it out when it releases August 25. You can read Bloody Disgusting's full article about That's A Wrap HERE.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Stay (single)

Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Godflesh - Pure

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Fen - Monuments to Absence

Fen - Epoch

Drab Majesty - Careless

Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Final Light - Eponymous

The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre

Forhist - Eponymous

Type O Negative - October Rust

Type O Negative - World Coming Down

Cocksure - Be Rich

INXS - Kick

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

It's been a minute since I handled the Bound deck, so I tapped into it for this morning's Pull:

• Knight of Pentacles - The Will as applied to Matter; Fire/Earth

• Knight of Wands - The Will as applied to Will; Fire/Fire 

• Page or Princess of Wands - Matter applied to Will; Earth/Fire

That's a lot of wink-wink about my Will, eh? I read this as a reminder to be present and apply patience, lest my Will, pulled taut, snap and leave me rudderless for a while. Long story short, I need a reset in order to carry on.

 

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