Mindless Ones

In no particular order.

1.

2.

Playing D&D with Porn Stars is a. interesting for more than just the porn stars – an aspect of the project that I could give less of a shit about, except for the respect in which it explodes steroetypes – and b. interesting for more than just the game mechanics, another thing I could give less of a shit about, but suspect that if I actually played (something Zak’s site has given me a thirst for) would find very interesting indeed. The site’s main draw for me is that it’s like a massive rogue’s review of fantasy and fantasy gaming. Check out the Monster articles if you don’t believe me.

3. Chad Bundick’s J Dilla infused love letter to his girlfriend…

(2010 was also the year I discovered C’etait un Rendezvous, which I was delighted and horrified by in equal measure, and the link above kills two birds and a pedestrian with one super fast mercedes.)

4. This lassie releasing a new ep (even if it wasn’t as good as her last one).

5. Planet Mu bringing Chi-Town to Hove Street….

6. HBO bringing Madison Avenue likewise, and of course the brilliant, crazily insightful and utterly mindless footnotes by Natasha Vargas keeping pace with the (in)action…. (seriously, she could be one of us.)

7. And in return we gave Garage back to New York.

8. Daniel Lopatin’s cold war daydreams.

Returnal soundtracked my last walk through the misty fields surrounding my Mum’s village shortly before I returned to Brighton a couple of days ago. It was magical.

9. Is eighties suburban America the ‘rustic past’ Derrida predicted society at the end of history would pine for? Whatever, I can’t believe Lopatin’s taken down the video that the image from the link below comes from. He must be planning to sell it.

(Aaah, the games we play as the planet burns. But there’s only temporary refuge in those old C60′s….)

10. Whatever. We do hauntology very differently over here….. Romantic, yes, sometimes cosy even, but SCARY.

11.

Like Boards of Canada (who I like again now) but at a horrible seaside Punch and Judy show.

12.

13. The rave ghosted not by Burial but by this bloke.

I know everyone will have James Blake on their best of year list, but that’s because he really is that good. Discovering him last summer, which I did with virtually no prompting other than an uncommented upon MP3 link on a music site, long , long before I was aware of the fuss around him, was one of those brilliant ‘WTF?!?’ moments. From the slow motion detonations of his Air and Lack Thereof ep, the splattered R&B of CMYK and the late night, modern classical transmissions of his latest release, Klavierwerke, everything Mr. Blake turns his hands to fizzes with futuristic gorgeousness. If you like alien environments, and any proper comic fan should, then this is as good as it gets.

(So far it seems his album will be largely populated by his more straightforward song songs. How depressing. Obvs the listening public can’t be trusted to enjoy something unless it’s all cuddly and familiar, and the joy of James Blake is that he’s not.)

14. The way Bass Music continued to warp into more weird and wonderful forms.

15. And the way it started to draw its influences from absolutely everywhere. The year of global dancehall sounds.

From Limpopo…

16. …to Kabul (although probably not really). Mater Suspiria Vision, the original and best witch housers (tho’ this one is Italo tbh), ramp up to rip the black, thorn-ed crown from Salem’s poppy little head.

I fucking love this video.

But is that spunk?

17. One of the things I enjoyed most of all this year was the certainty that the bland, pappy band and synth-pop culture of the zeroes was played out and that the pendulum was swinging back towards all things bassy and weird, but I enjoyed this guy’s (GEDDIT?) last huzzah on their home turf of this fair bright-town. And, lo, it did rock, and reminded me why guitars are good again.

Anyway, the link contains no music, however the interview is telling. Band on the edge of collapse anyone?

18. David Uzumeri‘s brilliant annotations, Chris Sim’s comic geek stand-up, Caleb’s sunglasses at night…

…a popular comics site that’s prepared to take a stand against biotry, stupidity and mediocrity….

….a comic site that’s PRO-ART…

…it can only be

Thank you, Laura.

19. The half-seen weirdness of Hype Williams.

20. A new human in my life!….

21. ….who of course comes with new flatmates, who seem very interesting…

22.

23. The shit that inspired those creepy radio signals back when Lost was good.

24. If you haven’t seen the video this link leads to, you so should. Priceless, and very, very bad.

25. Onra, playing us out…..

(Yeah I know there’s an ad in the middle there, but, seriously, I had to go with that vid. For reasons that should be very clear.)

Happy New YOG!

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