When you’ve dearly departed There will be all those broken-hearted But I’ll have a smile painted on my face There’s a spot in the grass Waiting for you at Whispering Glades
This month is all about the real start of autumn, the cluster-fucked vaccine rollout, and a lot of great acoustic female vocals – Molly Lewis making use of an underutilised instrument (the human whistle), Natalie Bergman and Nicole Dollanganger bringing folksy tunes straight out of yesteryear, and LDR serving a solid album of fantastic tracks on Chemtrails. It’s folksier, more stripped back and consistent and less attention-seeking than her last few – and better for it. The mixing is fantastic too – every distinct detail of those vocals blows gently across the peach fuzz gracing your ear lobe.
Meanwhile, the original Gorillaz self-titled album turned 20 this month. I revisited it and reflected on just how unique and fresh it was – and, aside from two main singles, seems to remain unknown to many to this day (despite the enormous success of the two albums which followed). It’s spooky, quirky, unusual, genre-hopping and thumping, with plenty of fun and bizarre lyrical moments. It was an album that really made an impression on me. I’ve added one of the lesser-known tracks.
The Voidz also finally released TET 2.0 to streaming platforms, which cross-pollinates with The Adults Are Talking. I’ve paired it next to the Gorillaz track – The Voidz are to The Strokes what Gorillaz is to Blur (right down to the COOL Z) – I love all of the above but the more adventurous latter creations speak to me far more than the originals.
There are no gods, no nations, no money and no human rights, except in our collective imagination.
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Incredible digital artworks such as this from Clement Morin now have a place in the art trading world
“This is ridiculous. Why would anybody pay so much for something they can just save to their hard drive?” I asked myself when I first heard that the Nyan Cat gif sold for over half a million dollars. Furthermore, this “ownership” did not entitle the buyer any kind of exclusive rights with which they could use the property. It was ownership in name and nothing else – backed up by the security of cryptocurrency to ensure a means of proof. They’ve been deemed Non-fungible tokens (NFTs or “Nifty’s”). In other words, they are exclusive and can not be replaced by a copy. The purchased item is deemed unique.
So what was the point, I wondered? Is this just rich people flexing? Or trolls having a laugh? It seemed absurd. Seems like a scam.
Then I thought some more.
Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup Cans (themselves a copy of an existing image) hang proudly in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. They are valued in the millions. The original soup can labels are worthless. Furthermore, the artworks are easily reproducible, and MoMA wouldn’t pursue a cease and desist should you decide to try. Your reproduction would likely be considered almost as worthless as the original can of soup. The original works have value because we as a society agree, in our collective imagination, that they should.
Say a photographer sells a limited run of 100 prints for thousands of dollars a piece, and they display a high resolution image of the photo on their website. You could just as easily save it and print it yourself. But it’s not the same, is it? Nobody would deem it as having the same value, even if you managed to attain the same level of print quality, because it’s not “authentic”.
Really, how is digital ownership any different? Hell, a crypto-secured artwork makes more sense to me than cryptocurrencies on their own, which is essentially the same thing – but instead of art it’s imaginary currency – gambling with an enormous carbon footprint (to produce nothing).
And money itself is a fantasy concept. It only works because as a culture we’ve all agreed that it has value.
13 years of making digital art every single day paid off for Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)
Even the biggest cynic surely can’t go past this reaction video above of Mike Winkelmann (Beeple) as he watches a grid of thirteen years of digital artworks climb to $69 million. For over 5000 days this Bill Gates doppelganger has pumped out a new artwork, not for financial gain – but out of love, and as a personal challenge. It’s endearing to see it rewarded. His joy inspires me to get back into making my own (unpaid) digital art again.
Obviously, there’s going to be people who get burned as with any new technology. People will exploit it. Celebrities will endorse random trash much as they do as with crypto. Some will get caught up in the excitement and lose out, trolls will escalate the price of complete crap (no different to traditional art), but many artists will gain from this – and largely artists who have, as yet, not had a market.
The cynic in me wonders if the true artists will get buried by the scammers. At some point, society may again deem these to be worthless, thanks to oversaturation – and if it no longer lives in the collective imagination of society, we’re back to square one.
Could we find a better way than carbon-intensive blockchain to secure them though?
Uh, yeah, how you get closer to love? How you lemonade all your sadness when you openin’ up? How you make excuses for billionaires, you broke on the bus?
Noname, Rainforest
The original FUF had one of my favourite album covers of all time, and Tom Fec has already won best album artwork of the year for this year’s sequel
Shit yeah new Tobacco! With a throwback Tobacco sound too. I’ve been looping his dirty beats for the last week and have deemed it worthy to share the title of his 2008 debut. No individual track meets the heights of a Hairy Candy or Gross Magik, but all contribute a unique flavour to the whole. I think most of all I was longing for more tripped out vocals. This release is mostly an instrumental affair, but it makes up for the lack of lyrics with distinctive and fresh sounds.
My favourite discovery for the month was Mica Levi, who brings some incredibly unique experimental soundscapes on Blue Alibi.
Anyone who knows me knows that I loathe the royal family. I distinctly remember as a child when I discovered that Kings and Queens were real things that still existed in the real world, and I was gobsmacked. Santa Claus made more sense – at least he was magical, not just a regular human elevated for being born. It’s absurd that such an institution should still exist at all – but it’s beyond ridiculous that it should exist in Australia.
As such, I generally avoid them as best I can. I skipped past The Queen’s Gambit for months, thinking it was another Crown or royal period drama. I also feel great discomfort at grown-arse adults who seem to idolise them. They are not above politics as many usually claim; they are unaccountable celebrities who use weddings and babies as marketing material to hold onto their power and wealth – and protect themselves from the law (*cough* Prince Andrew).
hear me out—instead of Meghan, we interview prince Andrew. and instead of Oprah, it’s the police
But schadenfreude got the better of me and I had to pay some attention to the latest drama. Now, I couldn’t stomach the interview itself, but I saw some clips. Gross phrases such as “speak your truth” (vomit) and unnecessary trips to the thesaurus with “falsehoods” (“lies” wasn’t good enough?) were enough to put me off watching the whole thing, but I got the gist – a heavy dose of high-school level gossip from rich people complaining about their privilege while an overrated (junk-science promoting) interviewer acts surprised at everything as though it hadn’t already been discussed prior.
What?!? That institution which has discriminated based on gender, wealth and religion forever is also racist? What a revelation!
The stuffy old antiquated English system expects you to be seen and not heard, and used as a prop for the media? And repress your feelings?! What a surprise!
A truer bombshell might have been the absence of these things. It doesn’t make them any less wrong, but the apparent surprise reveals how well the tabloid marketing works.
The media are picking sides to create more drama, but let’s be real – everyone involved is horrible, entitled, and narcissistic. Once upon a time, elite, entitled celebrities were able to demand, and receive the kind of glorification which would make an ancient Pharaoh envious. Back in the day the media and celebrities had a symbiotic relationship where they both lived in the same bubble and the rest of us had to just tolerate it. Those days peaked in the 1990s. The age of celebrity is dead – it was one of the benefits of the internet. The pandemic has only encouraged the democratisation of media. You only have to look at US late night talk show hosts working from home amid the pandemic and how amateur their efforts looked alongside long-time YouTubers. This doesn’t mean celebrity is gone or that it doesn’t still come with benefits – but it does mean that you no longer get a free pass simply for being famous. Ask Gal Gadot and her imagination.
Sitting on millions of dollars from Spotify and Netflix as you complain about not getting free security? It’s enormously out of touch.
The elevation of one individual for no reason other than their being “famous” or born into wealth has always been wrong – but it is abhorrent in 2021. It goes against the grain of the egalitarian values on which modern Australian society is (meant to be) built.
The royal family are effectively no different to the Kardashian-Jenners (although it could be argued they earned their wealth to a greater extent than the Windsors). Would you sit them at the top of your system of government and society?
I believe that the main element keeping this institution together is the Queen, and it further unravel upon her death in the next decade. In any case, Australia should have removed this anachronism a long time ago. There is absolutely no argument for keeping a foreign, unelected individual at the top of our societal and governmental chain. Especially when that individual doesn’t understand our culture or feel our pain or celebrate our successes. An individual from a country which slaughtered thousands of Australians in the late 18th Century.
Yes, a lot of good came as well, but that river stopped flowing a long time ago. There is nothing gained from keeping an unaccountable family which protects themselves from the rule of law – and is considered to be doing their best work when they are doing nothing.
We can, and should, do better.
I have no shortage of ideas on what “better” could look like. It starts with Constitutional recognition of Australia’s First Nations, and a number of other issues (distrust of politicians, corruption scrutiny for example) could be addressed in the process. But I’ll save that for another day.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps Wow. This occupied my Christmas break. As rain came down and Covid threatened yet again, I wore my thumbs numb playing this highly addictive platformer. When the batteries on my controller ran dry I ran through torrential Sydney rain for fresh ones. The gameplay is fun, the scenery is beautiful and the soundtrack incredible. That fucking spider boss though. And her babies. They can get fucked. I’m sure my new neighbours thought I had Tourette’s.
The Medium I loved this. I didn’t care a great deal for the plot but the format is almost exactly what I’ve long had in mind for how I would make my own adventure game (albeit with more structured camera angles & less camera changes and a less hand-holding in the gameplay). The spirit world split was also a very clever game device.
Series
How To With John Wilson Oh, how I’ve missed Nathan For You. I wasn’t sure about How To after seeing the first episode. It felt like a poor attempt at Nathan Fielder’s style, but as each episode progressed I realised John Wilson was truly doing his own thing. His style and approach is unique and subtly hilarious. Structurally it’s just as impressive as it manages to wrap the entire set of episodes up in a way you don’t expect. It’s a very visual show – if you play on your phone you’ll miss 90% of the jokes. Notable mentions: the foreskin guy (what!) and the absurdity of the art commissions.
Friday Night Dinner (Season 1-2) Another Robert Popper classic. Somehow this passed me by when it first aired but the advantage is I now have some comedy to watch – which I’ve been needing. The father is a classic, as is Jim (in smaller doses). Can’t stand the blonde son though – he reminds me too much of the kind of aloof motherfuckers I can’t stand in real life.
Your Honour This was a like a quality streaming show written by a broadcast television writing team. I enjoyed it, but there were a lot of moments of the story which were a bit too convenient. The cast carried it.
The Undoing I got right into this, and enjoyed the ride – but I’m not quite sure I liked how it landed. You’re led to assume that the most obvious ending can’t be what happens – and somehow the twist is that there is no twist.
The Mandalorian (Season 2) Even better than last season, each episode better than the last. It looks and sounds fantastic and not a moment is wasted. No other show makes me feel like a kid again better than this.
WandaVision I only really caught this because I have free Disney+ now. I enjoyed all the sitcom references, hated the pseudoscience and was lost by the references that went way over my head since I don’t have a PhD in Marvel.
Movies
Nomadland McDormand was great, cinematography and scenery is stunning (set in a region of the world that really represents a happy place for me). Script and plot are minimal, yet the themes of personal loss and the larger economic and societal issues still come through. Most of the characters in the film are real people – not actors – and at times it almost feels like a documentary. I really enjoyed it.
Mank Love Fincher, but I was far too distracted by the visual quality of this to enjoy the story. I’m guessing the idea was to pull the audience into the world, but it did the exact opposite for me. Plenty of beautifully framed shots regardless, as you’d expect. The Lighthouse used a visual style to great effect. This felt like a gimmick.
Before Sunrise Great script which plunges you right into a chance encounter between two travellers on a night in Europe. Enjoyed this a lot more than I anticipated. Soz for the blue balls Hawkie.
Soul I don’t tend to watch a lot of animated features these days. They generally bore me. I gave this a go when I heard a lot of hype surrounding it. The hype was unjustified. The story was boring, the visual quality was more “cinematic” than Pixar’s usual fare but generally bland. The one positive was the “Soul-world” where they tried something new for a change, but overall even that wasn’t worth it.
Docos
Some Kind of Heaven
Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult This was fascinating and shocking. Organised religion IS abuse, there really isn’t any other way to cut it. What’s particularly bizarre about NXIVM is the players in the game. Keith Raniere, the self-proclaimed “third best problem solver in the world” (lol) would have to be the most bland, uncharismatic cult leader to have ever existed. He’s the annoying guy in a group who you let come along cause you feel bad for him, not the guy you follow.
The Vow This doco covers the same content as the aforementioned Seduced, just a hell of a lot more bloated. The “bloated doco series” has been a plague since Making a Murderer – find yourselves an editor and get some perspective as to how much meat your subject matter has on its bones. This only had to be 5 episodes at MOST.
Some Kind of Heaven This was fascinating, sad, heart-warming and bizarre. It follows some of the people at Florida’s famous The Villages retirement village as they live out their twilight years. The Villages is a carefully constructed world designed to resemble the lives they might have had in their twenties. It’s beautifully shot and it’s nice to see these people having fun, but incredibly sad to watch some of them still dealing with the kind of relationship stress and jealousy they had in their hey day. It made me reflect on my own life a little too much. Van life handy-man is a real piece of work.
A Glitch in the Matrix Rodney Ascher of Room 237 fame directs this feature length doco about simulation theory and, indirectly, the future of gaming and entertainment to come. He builds most of it around a 1977 Philip K Dick lecture where he emphatically suggests the likelihood of such a reality existing. This was really cool, and cleverly constructed. I particularly liked the use of avatars for interviewees. It doesn’t seek to convince you that we live in a simulation (would it even matter if we did?) but the ideas and people make for fascinating discussion, including some really disturbing takes. Long story short, I’m surrounded by NPCs.
Alien Worlds I loved this. I thought it was a great concept, well considered and executed. It mixes information from life on Earth and hypothesises how potential alien life may exist. Shout out to the guy getting excited watching beetles have sex.
Framing Britney Spears Had to jump on this bandwagon. Spears was my top celebrity crush when I was 18, and Toxic is still one of the greatest songs of all time, so I didn’t exactly approach it kicking and screaming. The main thing that struck me was just how different things were in the 90s. It’s easy to forget even though I lived through it, but some questions from journalists and jokes from late night hosts are just shocking and cringey when heard with modern ears.
Pods
Smartless Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes chatting with random celebrities, and paying each other out. Yeah, it’s in the celebrity-interviewing-celebrity circle jerk genre, but the dynamic between these guys really works and often hilarious. I powered through all of them in two weeks.
Every moment’s built to last When you’re living without a past
My list of key albums continues with the (still) incredible double album Blinking Lights and Other Revelations by Eels. It seems 2005 was a critical year for my tastes in music. My sixth entry in this list is the third album from this year.
I was 22, doing my Master of Animation degree, but still working the checkout at Coles and making websites on the side. I was out seeing live music every other week and spent most of the rest of my free time coding and designing my own websites and crafting 3D short films.
Most crucially as far as this album is concerned, I was feeling a little lost with life. I knew I enjoyed 3D, computer games, and movies, and was doing very well at Uni – but I wasn’t sure yet if there was a future for me in it professionally. I’d lost my last remaining grandparent. I couldn’t talk to girls, let alone get one to go on a date – and as a friend at the time frequently added, I looked like a “foetus”, so I’m sure that didn’t help.
The last year-and-a-bit, the pandemic, the isolation, the loss of people from life, has brought up a lot of similar feelings to when I was 22 and I recently rediscovered Blinking Lights as a result. It’s just as soothing as back in 2005.
Nothing hurts Like someone who knows Everything about you Leaving you behind
And it’s a hard time Trying to get through All the days that drag on Thinking about you
Last Time We Spoke
Melancholy is effectively the happiness of being sad. It’s also the word which captures Blinking Lights perfectly. Dark, sombre lyrics, dashed with just a sprinkling of hope and humour are layered over a bright and pretty sonic landscape. The album is paced beautifully and provides several (sometimes peculiar) instrumental moments where the listener has breathing room to ponder their own world.
Themes of death, loss, rejection, regret, and heartbreak are paired with admiration for the beauty of the world, be it the kindness of a pretty girl or the twinkle of car tail lights as they pass on the highway. Each song is either told with a smile and a hint of regret; or in sadness with a dash of optimism. That’s the trouble with reflection – happy memories can often bring a sense of sadness that those times have passed, while sad memories bring regret that they happened. Thinking about the past is lose-lose in this context.
Mark Oliver Everett puts it much better:
It’s also about hanging on to my remaining shreds of sanity and the blue sky that comes the day after a terrible storm, and it’s a love letter to life itself, in all its beautiful, horrible glory.
The tour which followed the album, Eels With Strings, is one of my favourite gigs of all time. It was raw, punchy, and at times hilarious (Everett is as good as any comedian between songs). It gave new life to the songs without losing their structure. The string arrangements added new life to the older songs, while unconventional percussion instruments (a suitcase kickdrum!) kept it down to earth, fresh and unique.
That breakdown at 2:35 is begging to be sampled
Prior to Blinking Lights, I was only really familiar with Eels’ Daisies of the Galaxy, a bright and sweet album which I had enjoyed but never loved. Following Blinking Lights I went on to explore the rest of his discography in depth. I became a huge fan of his entire body of work prior. There wasn’t a song I didn’t know. Unfortunately though, Blinking was so good it became hard to top, and my interest waned with subsequent albums.
But my love of Eels lives on in other artists such as Kishi Bashi and Big Thief – and Blinking Lights and Other Revelations will always bring a tear, and a smile, to my face.
My key albums list seeks to identify albums which I loved from beginning to end, which made an impact on me musically, lyrically and thematically, and sometimes even opened my ears to new sounds and new artists. Often they were paired with a highly memorable live show. It’s not necessarily representative of what I might consider my favourites in a traditional sense, although that is possible.
Well I’ve made another lap around the sun and can no longer pass for mid thirties any more. But hey, late thirties is still not the big four-zero I suppose.
Somehow I find myself with PTSD related to my journey home from Canada. The stresses and anxieties of getting back here linger, triggered by a covid scare and cloudy weather at Christmas – and despite the glorious weather and improved opportunities and environment with which I am surrounded since. Four hours of sleep last night suggests my head doesn’t care about that.
I feel for everyone still stuck inside in other parts of the world, and for those still trying to get back to Australia. It’s shameful that so little has been done to assist them.
We’re chimpanzees with brains the size of planets. The logical, rational brain is in a fight with its chemical, emotional side. It’s little wonder the two often struggle to coexist.
Anyway, here’s some tunes! I’m pretty happy with this one…
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
Isaac Azimov
But why are they called the Blue Mountains?
Moments before the Christmas break was due to kick off and “life as normal” seemed within reach, the clouds rolled in (literally and figuratively) and a new Covid cluster emerged in Sydney. Suddenly I was having Vancouver flashbacks.
But as usual for Sydney the clouds eventually moved on, and while Covid still lingers, it at least feels under control for now. Yes, I missed out on a lot of things I’d been looking forward to, but I did achieve one thing in my week off – I got some wheels!
(I also wore my thumb completely numb smashing through Ori and the Will of the Wisps in a week. That fucking spider boss can fuck right off.)
One of my goals for the next chapter of life now that I’m back home is to do more road trips around Australia, including off-roading and camping. I also wanted to visit some of the areas hit by the bushfires a year ago. The Blue Mountains seemed the most obvious place to start, so I gunned it out to Blackheath early on a Sunday morning and did two tracks. Each took around 2-3 hours with lots of stairs (my calf muscles were rooted on Monday and Tuesday).
I’ve seen these mountains countless times but never like this. Charred-black tree trunks still stood on the landscape like gravestones twelve months on. From within them, luminous-green branches pushed their way outward like a zombie hand bursting out of the dirt. Around the trees, flowing waters and full waterfalls gave life to the greenest grass I’d seen in those parts.
The clouds and rain which had caused annoyance the week prior were now providing me waterfalls to admire and watering holes in which I could cool off.
Cutting grass with scissors, whilst the great leader’s reclining
I’m a tad late on my November playlist. I’ll probably switch to every other month after this. I considered making a yearly playlist, but it’s essentially redundant since I’ve been doing them all year. I will note though – my top played track of the year was Momentary Bliss (below). Every time in enters my ears, it leaves me in the right mood.
My most played song of the year, and for good reason. It slaps. And the album it began was their best in a decade
As for this month – new Avalanches (from the dreamiest album of the year), new Voidz, a new-ish Strokes (from a few months back), some other bits and pieces. BC Camplight opens with a really cool slow builder and a favourite Christmas tune closes the year in music.
The lighting in this sequence is fantastic and is a vital ingredient in heightening the tension
Movies
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Not as funny as the first but certainly very clever. His daughter is the highlight.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things This was cleverly constructed as you’d expect of Kaufman. Plenty to deconstruct after the credits roll.
The Peanut Butter Falcon Such a pleasant movie. Nothing showy, but just all around feel-good, with some pretty scenery and a decent blues soundtrack.
The Squid and the Whale “Truly the filet of the neighbourhood”. Baumbach has a way of tackling unpleasant subject matter in a way that still leaves you feeling good. Those kids are messed up though. The young one especially, smearing his DNA everywhere.
Mandy Style over substance, and I was fine with that. It looked trippy as hell.
Rear Window I’ve been watching some classics lately. Some, like this, I had seen before many years ago. It was even better than I remembered. The suspense still holds up all these years later and it may be my favourite Hitchcock film (or perhaps second to Psycho). The lighting in the final sequence during the confrontation is fantastic.
Vertigo At the other end of the spectrum lies Vertigo. This is one I had never seen before and it regularly tops lists of best Hitchcock movies – but I honestly don’t know why, aside from some technical achievements. It’s got good moments and I can see how it could have been received well back in the day. It just doesn’t hold up. Underwhelming ending.
Rope The third Hitchcock movie I watched this quarter was another I’d never seen before. Rope is based on a play, and it certainly plays like one – and ties shots together to create the illusion of the movie being one single shot. Remarkable for the time.
Lawrence of Arabia This had been on my list for a long time but I’d always been intimidated by its runtime. I watched it in two sessions, using the intermission to break it up. I can see why it’s considered a classic. Cinematography is awesome and captures the sense of scale.
Palm Springs Disappointing. Started strong, but the laughs were too few and the substance too shallow to make up for it. I really just want another Hot Rod from The Lonely Island guys.
RoboCop This one had passed me by in its day but I had to check it out as a fan of Verhoeven’s Total Recall and Starship Troopers. I appreciate how it might have been fresh in its day, but it doesn’t hold up quite like the other two – aside from the in-world news desk and advertisements which were every bit as clever as ST’s newsreels.
Blow Up This was straight up weird. I could have done without seeing it.
Mandy
Series
An Evening with Tim Heidecker This was hilarious. It’s the freshest special I’ve seen in some time. I absolutely lost it several times. If you don’t “get” it then you’re really missing out.
Moonbase 8 Heidecker, Armisen and Reilly – you can’t lose. This was hilarious and leant itself very well to the talents of each of the main cast members.
Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun Great to see some Aussie comedy getting some airtime. Some of this misses the mark, but it’s delivered with such confidence that you glide on by to the good stuff.
Raised By Wolves Christ. What a colossal waste of time. It only caused me to lament that Prometheus didn’t get a true sequel. While that film could have done with less Alien tie-in and more ancient engineer and android story, RBW could have been more grounded. It looked great, but lacked substance. And those kids were annoying as hell.
Fargo (Season 4) This season was grounded in the real world more than the last two seasons. Jessie Buckley is great, and the Wizard of Oz inspired episode was particularly impressive.
The Boys (Season 2) I started this season reluctantly, and was frustrated by the early episodes given that I hated just about every character, but by the time I reached the end I was on board again. Not must-see but makes for decent entertainment.
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (Seasons 6-14) I managed to finish this in quarantine. Love this show, although the characters become caricatures of themselves as the seasons progress.
Docos
David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet Ugh we’re fucked.
Outback Ringer Discovered by accident, but I loved this. Covers the excitement of being a ringer up in the top end, and followed along a series of real characters. I could see myself having a good time at the pubs they frequent too.
My Next Guest with David Letterman I miss cynical Dave. He’s become increasingly nice as this series has progressed and it’s less interesting as a result.
High Score Aside from the brief moment of seeing Ken and Roberta Williams, this series was underwhelming. I didn’t finish it.
