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Has anyone else been looking up chainmail on eBay? Every now and then I'll feel these tendrils of "something" pushing up through the zeitgeist and right now, it's armorcore (not to be confused with Armored Core), or maybe broadly medievalcore. Weavings worn through by time, beams of slanting light coming through decayed arrow slits in crumbling towers, hammered metal glinting with the deep, uneven burnish of age... That vaguely autumnal scene shift, pampas grass soaring into the shortening day, swaying shafts alighted with sweeping brushes of pale gold, gleaming bristles...ah!
A little life update, I'm in the middle of writing Book 2 right now. I've been describing my process as "seeing and transcribing visions." I learned this from writing Book 1: I write toward specific moments—highly stylized sequences that underpin the emotional stakes I've been laying down the entire time, driven home with a meticulously honed single spike, a vampire stake prepared for, uh, the phantom of the story...I don't know if I can complete the circle of this metaphor but "you get what I'm saying"? Even when I'm writing "contemporary realism," I'm completely uninterested in being realistic; I want to show you the impossible world.
I "learned" to write like this from music. Or rather, the kind of music that excavates some previously unknown ache in your heart and brings it up to the surface like a midnight school of phosphorescent squid. I'm a looper (someone who loops songs), and there's a certain kind of song that claws right up into your rib cage, screaming to be released from the bars of your body, which feels sooooo good-bad to repeat over and over. Invoking drowning, devouring, ripping, gushing, or maybe something gentler but no less violent, a smile delivering an indictment or an ultimatum you know you can't meet.
My shorthand referential "genre" for this kind of song is "sword hilt hits the heart." (Not really a shorthand.) You've already forced the blade to pierce skin, yet you keep pushing past the point of necessity. I always imagine the artist / perpetrator making direct eye contact with the listener / receiver in that moment. "I knew it'd be you," or some other raw line passing between lips on their last gasp. That rawness isn't necessarily a rarity within Art™️, but when you encounter it within the lull of everyday life, it takes your breath away.
To be clear, "sword hilt hits the heart" doesn't assign an emotional quality. Not all songs in this vein are sad bangers, though many are. And, not to get off topic, even things that are "positively" intensely memorable are permanently touched by sadness. The curse of only being able to touch the seams of the present when it has already taken form as past, or remains only partially formed as future.
In fiction, there are no coincidences. /Sky Ferreira voice/ Everything is intentional. Yet often, the best stuff, or at least my favorite kind of work, has no easy final "message" either. The writer builds a tower that suddenly un/resolves into sky. You might feel cheated, but then again, you never would've experienced that previously impossible view if it weren't for the journey.
In the first book, I wrote some real clunkers trying to get to the scenes I actually wanted to create. For Book 2, I'm trying to create and sustain that "sword / heart" momentum for probably 90-100K words straight. Action and emotion and language rising and rising until suddenly, you break skin yet still keep going.
Let's flip the arc and complete this circle: I aim to run the blade completely through :^)
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Alright, now we can get to the "recipe." This is the part where I warn you about a flashing image...
...
I warned you...I'm not trying to Porygon anyone...
Okay:
💿 The "SWORD HILT HITS THE HEART" Megamix
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Notes:
I did not have "bôa re-enters the culture because wannabe Lains on TikTok make 'Duvet' trend" on my anytime bingo card... Maybe five years back or so, I thought about covering "Duvet" and making a bid for internet virality, ha, ha, but it's too late now! Anyway, great song. (Did anyone else think bôa and BoA were the same artist when they were in middle school...)
Favorite b2bs: Kelela / Lykke Li, Kate Bush / Björk ("I imagine what my body would sound like slamming against those rocks / And when it lands will my eyes be closed or open?" aaaahaahhhahhaha!!!), Charli XCX / Mitski / Jeff Buckley / Utada, Strange Ranger / "Instant Crush," Angel / Lana, L'Rain / Slowdive...
DO NOT PUT THIS ON AT A PARTY you will kill the mood (I say, as a serial party mood-killer).
I try to line up all the songs in my playlists so that the cover art creates a general color gradient. The GIF below is already out of date but you get the gist. The Spotify version of the playlist breaks at the very start because it has an alternate cover for Mashrou' Leila but what am I gonna do...petition Spotify to change the art, ha, ha...
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Flyers:
🎨 The new Omar Apollo Live For Me EP is much more my speed than anything on Ivory. Standout is for sure "Pilot." (Someone's gotta make Frank music while Mr. Ocean's out of the game.)
🍷 Speaking of "medievalcore," one of my favorite extra-extra, lute-loving warblers (finally?) did a Tiny Desk. I don't love "Pretty In Possible" or "Blood and Butter" as much as CP does but the sing-song versions are kinda nice. The lil tremolo on "Sunset" (which, I've said my piece about it compared Kate Bush's Aerial cut) is such a flex, and I quite like the Dido-fied "I Believe"; a different kind of ecclesiastical take on Desire's saddest celebration.
🌠 I don't know why this Peabo motherfucking Bryson cover of Utada fucking Hikaru's Kingdom Hearts II banger "Sanctuary" is set to an iMovie filter-mangled clip from one of the X-Men reboot films but it (Bryson's cover) is (un?)surprisingly beautiful. (If anyone has a hookup for the full Utada covers album...drop a line, or else I'm googling "YouTube to mp3 converter" like it's 2008.) (Thank you Diano for sending this to me with an all-caps subject line... A unique intersection of our interests for sure...)
🔗 Thee original Bay Faction album is back on streaming... I think only "Sasquatch .22" was up for a long time? If you feel like chasing this playlist with some even rawer music, "enjoy" :)
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I'm not going to talk down to anyone about the goings-on in the world right now so if you're financially st/able, consider making a donation to Doctors Without Borders, ANERA, the Middle East Children’s Alliance, and/or the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. Thanks for "listening." Stay tuned...!
🎶 xoxo Lio
♬ﾟ࿐⋆｡♪₊˚. ݁₊ ⊹ *:･ﾟ. ݁