Featherweight

 

In the quiet moments of my day - which admittedly are fleeting - I am still entirely under the spell of Fleet Foxes' newest record Shore. While I've heard this band before - specifically, in 2009 my cousin Charles came out for a visit and introduced them to me with the previous year's Eponymous debut - I've never really listened to them in anything but a passive capacity. Why then, do I feel as though Robin Pecknold's voice hits me like that of an old friend? Someone I've really spent some time listening to, reflecting on, and being moved by? While my memory has absolutely proven to be complete shite the older I've got (who knew all those fears about constant and gratuitous pot use would actually yield these results?), and it's possible I spent more time in the late 00s listening to this band than I remember, it seems more likely that first trip Charles and I took around San Pedro's Portuguese Bend on a ridiculously peaceful and serene July day where he first played the band for me really cemented itself in my emotional epicentre. Although I'd moved from Chicago to LALALand three years prior at that point, when you consider how the momentum of daily life makes it pass in a blur, I remember I still felt like a relatively new transplant at that point, and the first visit from one of my favorite people on Earth no doubt combined with the music to make a photographic impression that is retriggered by the sound of Pecknold's voice here, over a decade down the road. 

Pretty cool.

---

---

---

Watch:

I finally got around to watching Antonio Campos's cinematic adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock's novel The Devil All the Time. I really liked it. Instead of attempting to stuff Pollock's novel into a conventional three-act movie, Campos and his brother Paul, who wrote the screenplay, really allowed the film to go on a more literary journey. 

The Devil All the Time sprawls over the course of two generations, weaving together multiple people's stories and how they all coalesce around the death and depravity of the twisted impulses of humanity as reflected through the misleading light of religion when not tempered with intelligence and common decency.

Yeah. The more things change...

---

---

---

Playlist:

Code Orange - Underneath

Willie Nelson and Leon Russell - One for the Road

Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny

Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1

The Doves - The Universal Want

Anthrax - Spreading The Disease

Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Fleet Floxes - Shore

---

---

---

Card:

 

In a fairly superficial way, I find it interesting that the card I draw for this post is the 8 of Wands Swiftness when I post Fleet Foxes as the music and the first words of the second song on that album are "For Richard Swift."

Greg Puciato's Fucking Content

 

As if I'm not completely overtaken by my love of Greg Puciato's debut solo album Child Soldier: Creator of God, the former lead singer of Dillinger Escape Plan has put out a new, multi-media package. Available from his own Federal Prisoner label HERE, Fuck Content is a video/audio release featuring a ten-song live set and five new studio tracks. I love Puciato's music, but I've also become quite a fan of his aesthetic. All the glitchy, seizuring graphics, the black and white digital abstractions that almost resemble some cyberpunk version of newsprint. It's all very fitting for the noisy/melodic mash-up that defines this first album's sound, so the idea that his follow-up release is an audio/visual thing really just makes sense. Also, not nearly enough musicians do this.

---

---

---

Read:

I finished my re-read of Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn. It'd been over ten years since I read this the first time and inspired by the film, I decided to revisit, not remembering a lot of specifics, except that the movie is very different. Still, I really enjoyed both. After that, I picked up that new Brubaker/Phillips Hardcover Graphic Novel Reckless, expecting to read it in several sittings. Nope. I blew through Reckless non-stop, and even though I just got done telling everyone Pulp is their best, Reckless comes in ahead of that one by about 100 miles. 

This book is the perfect iteration of these gentlemen's ongoing collaboration, and if this is the case, we have nowhere to go but up. Hot damn, go buy this and read it now; Reckless is FANTASTIC!

---

---

---

Watch:

The Mandalorian's second season ended last night and I am going to feel every day between now and season three. I am absolutely floored, not only at how fantastic this show is, but how John Favreau has completely undone my hatred of star wars - a hatred rooted in a betrayal, the complete undermining and convolution of something that should have been so simple, namely, making new star wars movies. This veritable disgust that I feel for the franchise began to sink deep into my blood three years ago, when I sat in a movie theatre in LaGrange, Illinois and watched the trainwreck that is The Last Jedi.

Disney + has really been a gamechanger for the fan-driven content previously only associated at such a high level with movies released in megaplexes. If you watch The Mando show, you're missing something great if you skip the end credits (especially on this last episode. Whewww! and on that, I will say no more). When you watch all those names and roles scroll up your screen and realize that these television shows Disney is producing are every bit as accomplished as major motion pictures. That in itself just blows me away, the fact that Disney is so big they can change the game this much (also, I secretly hope all the Marvel/Star Wars stuff will go this route and we can go back to having non-blockbuster movies in theatres in a year or four).

Anyway, Favreau really should be crowned king Geek for what he did for starting the MCU with Iron Man and now reinventing and, frankly, saving Star Wars from itself by taking it back to its roots. This final episode brought me to tears. Not just because of the story, but because finally, after twenty years of new star wars material, SOMEBODY GOT IT FUCKING RIGHT.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Four Stroke Baron - Planet Silver Screen

Opeth - Deliverance

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

The Plimsouls - Everywhere At Once

Preoccupations - Eponymous

XTC - Drums and Wires

Kevin Morby - Singing Saw

Calexico - Seasonal Shift

Squeeze - Argybargy

Slayer - Live Undead

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun

Devo - Going Down (single)

Fleet Foxes - Shore

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Various Artists - Joe Begos's Bliss Spotify Playlist

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Code Orange - Beneath 

---

---

---

Card:

 

A solid foundation for a solid trilogy. That's what I've been thinking about as I approach a stopping point in Shadow Play Book Two. I have to wind this plot down just right by the end of this section of three sections, so after I do one last post-Beta Reader edit on Murder Virus and release it, I can hop back into Shadow Play and really make that third act SPRING.

Loathe - Two Way Mirror

 

My god, these guys are like the Bloc Party of Post Metal. This is, of course, one of the albums I discovered directly after putting up my 'best of 2020' list last week. The way Loathe move between noise, atmosphere, super intense metal, and melodic vocals is seamless and an absolute joy to listen to, especially on headphones.

---

---

---

Watch:

 

Alex De La Iglesia is a filmmaker who I've known about for nearly 20 years now but never seen any of his movies. And there's a lot of them. To go back to the early 21st century, when I still lived in Chicago, my good friend and brain trust behind Darkness Brings the Cold Dennis is one of two friends who really stoked my love of Horror movies. Dennis had an enormous collection of DVDs and a wealth of knowledge for the genre at large, and one of the films he always touted as a favorite was one he couldn't update from his old VHS copy, for which he did not have a player. This was Iglesias's 1995 Day of the Beast. Without even knowing anything about this one, I was intrigued based on the name and cover image, which Dennis had on a badass shirt:

After a recent conversation with Dennis, I finally sought out some of Iglesias's films and added them to my Amazon Watch List. Just in time, because the other day the trailer for his new HBO series made its rounds in our Horror Vision text thread, and I was BLOWN AWAY. Whatever that is at 1:19 will be in my nightmares for years to come. It reminds me a bit of that thing at 21 seconds into the American Horror Story: Coven opening credits sequence. 

Either way, January 4th can NOT come fast enough. 

---

---

---

NCBD:

Holy cow, there were A LOT of new comics for me yesterday. I divide this between the two shops, so I'm spreading my support around, but here's a combined total of what I picked up:

This series continues to be one of the funniest things I've read in a while. Super light, super creative, each issue reads like a chapter in a big-budget action film. 

A recommendation from my Drinking w/ Comics co-host Mike Wellman, this one takes place in Chicago and totally nails its look at feel. Hell, I've been to the Globe Pub, so that got me right away.

 

The previous issue of this new Locke and Key mini series nearly made me cry, so I'm looking forward to some closure before we do next year's crossover with Sandman.

Miskatonic #2, wherein we get a ton of new characters from all kinds of H.P. Lovecraft stories involved in what is shaping up to be a really complex, interesting blend of historical fact with Lovecraft's literary legacy. 

Eddie at the Bug recommended this very independent book to me, and the moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. Artist Alex Ziritt - who made a huge impression on me with Space Raiders a few years back - offers some truly unique style when designing his visual worlds, and from the brief flip-through I did upon picking this one up, looks like Night Hunters is no different. 

I totally forgot the new Brubaker/Phillis HC was landing this week until I walked into the shop. Perfect timing, as I finally just read their previous one, Pulp, over the weekend. It won't take me nearly that long to dig into this one, that's for sure, as I loved Pulp, and it definitely put me in the mood for more from these guys.

Two issues left after this one, and once again, I have NO idea where this is going. Some definite surprises in this chapter, and more of that gorgeous art and deep character development the Opena/ Remender team seems able to deliver flawlessly.

'

This final one, We Live #3 from Aftershock Comics, just turned this series from an on-the-fence read to something I Love. Definite shades of Day of the Dead and Girl with All the Gifts, this issue supplants the first two chapters' more Fantasy approach with an equal measure of Horror. This book feels like something new, something that blends a lot of different influences and genres for a unique effect. We Live has also proved its ability to continuously surprise me, so from here out, I'll be waiting for each subsequent issue with the kind of excitement few books these days inspire in me. 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Swans - The Seer

Howard Shore - Crash OST

Portishead - Third

Richard Einhorn - Shockwaves OST

Amesoeurs - Eponymous

Opeth - Deliverance

Anthrax - State of Euphoria

One Stroke Baron - 

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

---

---

---

Card:

 

This is certainly how I feel at the moment, having spent nearly $70 on comics today. I'm kind of beating myself up over it. It's such a weird feeling, to balance in your head what you want and what you need. I'd imagine my peers with children have an easier time staying on focus as far as needs/wants. I'm not jealous, but I definitely think that, as I age and find myself pretty much able to buy whatever I want within my realms of interest - none of which is extravagant, mind you, but definitely adds up - I feel occasional pangs of guilt at, well, I guess at not spending the money one something more important? This, however, begs the question who decides what's important. 

Crash into Eternity

 

I was super happy to finally get a copy of Criterion's recently released Blu Ray for David Cronenberg's Crash. Not only has the film become my second favorite Cronenberg just in the two years since I first saw it at 2018's Beyondfest Cronenberg retrospective, but Howard Shore's score is probably my favorite of his music for Cronenberg's films. Here's the title theme, some of the sickest guitar I have ever heard. 

---

---

---

Watch:

 

I guess I won't be getting rid of my Disney + sub any time soon... Wow. Just wow. The mind reels at what we could get from a What If? series down the road. Some of my favorites from the comic series - which I didn't buy regularly but always picked up if one of the 'What If' scenarios spoke to my particular Marvel series proclivities:

We're not really in a position with the MCU to see this kind of stuff happen, but then again, who is to say that the What If? show will only stick to variations of what the MCU has done so far?

---

---

---

Read:

In preparation of the upcoming final issue of Rick Remender and Jerome Opena's Seven to Eternity, I've just completed a re-read of the series to date. Next? The final issue of Gideon Falls lands this Wednesday, and as such, I have begun to work my way back through that series. 

Creepy AF, and featuring some of my favorite art EVER, I'm super psyched to be taking this trip again just in time for the end of the story.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Joseph Deluca - Evil Dead 2

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery

Radiohead - Kid A

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - May Our Chambers Be Full

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Meg Myers - Sorry

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again

Howard Shore - Crash OST

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free us

The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier: Creator of God

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Zeal and Ardor - Wake of a Nation EP

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Loathe - I Let It in and It Took Everything

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

 

---

---

---

Card:

8 of Wands - Swiftness. Eights always move on from the stoic, sturdy Netzach (7s) to a transient moment of swift action and/or decisiveness.

Time to switch gears again. My beta reader has finished Murder Virus, I have all her suggestions and edits logged and, mostly, completed. Now I need to pursue the cover art I want and get this fucker ready to publish by the end of January.

Top Albums I Discovered in 2020 Not Released in 2020

Here then is the list of my favorite records released before 2020 that I discovered this past year.

• Mol - Penumbra: 

Melodic, heavy, and mysterious. I love Mol's Penumbra record. 

• Iress - Prey

One of those great Bandcamp discoveries, Los Angeles's Iress have crafted a perfect balance between metal and 'grunge' with 2015's Prey. And in locating a picture of this one's album art, I realized Iress released a record this past September that's bound to be one of those that would have made this year's list had I heard it in time. This year, there's been quite a few of those, so I may do a 'booster' next week of those 2020 records that should have made the Top Ten but just barely missed out.

• The Plimsouls - Everywhere at Once

Thanks to Bret Easton Ellis, Valley Girl (OG), and Cameron on Halt and Catch Fire for all simultaneously introducing me to this fabulous 80s LA band.

• La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again:

A band I discovered through Henry Rollins's KCRW radioshow, La Hell Gang are kind of a more low-key Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Great album though, one that drifts through sandy, sudsy rock n roll atmosphere.

• Mannequin Pussy - Patience:

What can I say about Mannequin Pussy? I came for the name, stayed for the unbelievable songs. Kind of like if Hole had a talented songwriter who I didn't find too obnoxious to even look at, there's the spirit of the 90s here, but it's tempered with the same kind of time and distance that bands like M83 and Cut Copy did for the 80s.

---

---

---

Thus begins the section for my MVPs. My list of 2020's favs from last week can't even hold a candle for what these three records did for me this year:

• White Lung - Paradise:

Fucking perfect from start to finish and impossible to turn off after only three full-run throughs, White Lung have never recorded a song I don't love, but this record, from start to finish, is above and beyond even that. 

• Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

A late entry, Michael Kiwanuka's KIWANUKA is an album I have been unable to turn off for the past two weeks, and my rabid love of its 14 songs shows no sign of abating, much like my love of this year's Number One record:

• Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey:

Mr. Brown must have told me to check these guys out a thousand fucking times. I get caught up in my own little scene - especially when I'm knee-deep in writing something utilizing specific musical muses - but I always get around to stuff eventually. Usually, I happen upon these records when I need them most, and boy howdy, if that isn't true of Low Cut Connie's Hi Honey, then I don't know what is. I feel like it's only a slight embellishment to say this record more than any other saved me from 2020 - I put on The Royal Screw or Danny's Outta Money and I immediately feel great. Thus is the power of Soul. Destined to be one of my favorite records ever.

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou, Part Two!

And I thought I really liked the lead release off May Our Chambers Be Full! This is killer, and I can't wait for the EP, which can be pre-ordered from Sacred Bones Records HERE. 

---

---

---

Watch:

I'm really getting back into this Marvel thing: 

---

---

---

Playlist:

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Maxwell - Now

Les Discrets - Septembre et ses derniéres pensées

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took  Everything

Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone

David Bowie - The Next Day

David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

RIP Sean Malone

 

What the hell? Back in January, we lost former Cynic drummer Sean Reinert, now at the polar opposite end of the year, we lose bassist Sean Malone? Good lord. Here's the close-out track from Cynic's last full-length album, 2014's Kindly Bent to Free Us. It's fucking gorgeous. Rest in Peace Sean Malone. 

---

---

---

Watch:

All this awesome Spiderman news has me in the mood to, well, to finally watch the MCU Spiderman flicks, none of which I've seen! But it's also got me in the mood for some Marvel, and this show right here is numero uno on my, "I can't wait give it to me right damn now" list.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Cynic - Kindly Bent to Free us

Curtis Harding - Face Your Fear

Jehnny Beth - To Love is to Live

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Warsazawa (from Stage, disc 1)

Sir Neville Marriner and Academy of St. Martin in the Fields - Amadeus OST

David Bowie - Earthling

White Lung - Paradise

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA

Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou - Hollywood (pre-release single)

---

---

---

Card:

Ah, my old friend, the Queen of Swords. 

I keep getting this when I veer back on track. From my October 10th post, where I drew this card:

"...clear insights and the fresh perspective of adopting the perspective of another and cutting your own head off long enough to truly experience that other perspective..."

A violent reaffirmation of rulership over your emotions and intellect. I associate 'violence' in this respect, as my turning back on the deep dive function for writing. I pulled a major three hours yesterday, and made fantastic progress.