#10: finely tuned & carefully crafted
Welcome to issue #10 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU, cracking double digits at long last.
Highlights from Scottoworld
The audiobook version of BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES got a lovely review from book blog BiblioBloggityBoo, which is the first I've seen for that format. What I've heard so far is that narrator Justis Bolding does an excellent job. I'm looking forward to hearing it once I've gotten a major rewrite of a new thing wrapped up and shipped off.
I was invited to share my "dream casting" for a hypothetical film version of my book, for a book blog called My Book, My Movie. It was a fun exercise, perhaps only disappointing in that I couldn't rattle off a list of fantastic Seattle actors for the dream cast and still satisfy the spirit of the invitation.
If you've read the book and are willing to say nice things about it, dropping a review on Amazon or Goodreads would be greatly appreciated. There's a tipping point on Amazon in particular - my recollection seems to be that it's around 50 reviews - which you need to reach before you start surfacing in the "you might like" modules. I could be wrong about the specific number, but probably not about the existence of a trigger, etc.
Scottovision
But now, on to the heart and soul of this newsletter, the issue's finely tuned & carefully crafted list of recommendations: ten video artifacts that you might enjoy, should you need momentary distraction from the steadily encroaching oblivion that seeps through the cracks all around us.
"(Nothing But) Ashes..." by Röyksopp and "Impossible" by Röyksopp & Alison Goldfrapp (2022) - Electronic act Röyksopp has returned after a four-year hiatus to promote their upcoming album, Profound Mysteries, due out in April. To support it, they've released a series of visualizers and very short films. "Visualizers" are a somewhat recent category for music promotion, a big step down from the complexity and budgets of music videos, often as simple as short animated loops like a VJ might use, but over time the category has evolved to feature a wide range of stylistic approaches and levels of spectacle, sometimes including actual video starring the track's artist, until it almost does feel like a music video, proving once again there's no static definition of an art form that artists won't eventually exceed, destroy, or subjugate to their will.
"The Backrooms (Found Footage)" (2022) - If you're not familiar with the concept of the Backrooms, let this short film by 16-year-old Kane Parsons be your introduction. And if you do know all about the Backrooms, this film is an excellent depiction deserving of its hype. A world of internet fiction evolved around this particular creepypasta, which originated in a 4chan thread beginning with the prompt "post disquieting images that just feel 'off'."
"Smile Guide 5: How to properly phone" (2015) - Please enjoy this short episode from the Mushroomland web series by Wiktor Stribog. Be sure to enable subtitles for this one. Don't be alarmed by the 1990s VHS aesthetic. No, save your alarm for the surrealist & daintily menacing content, which you will fail to understand, but in a vaguely unsettling fashion. Further context not required, but the series has a total of six episodes, collected here.
"Putsch" (2015) - The strangely majestic atmosphere of this short animated film is like being at an alien zoo exhibit where the creatures on display have only recently acquired sentience and are already up to no good with it. Created by five students of the MoPA 3D animation school as their graduation project.
"Grey Area" by Jerry Paper ft. Weyes Blood and "Cholla" by Jerry Paper (2018 / 2020) - I'm ambivalent about Jerry Paper's weird take on soft rock or folk rock or whatever, but I love his absurdist videos. In "Grey Area," a hapless outsider tries its best to fit in with the crowd; in "Cholla," Jerry tries on an array of amorphous alien biologies while trapped in a TV screen. Directed by Cole Kush and Steve Smith respectively.
"In The Waiting Line" by Zero 7 ft. Sophie Barker and "Home" by Zero 7 ft. Tina Dico (2003 / 2004) - Directed by Tommy Pallotta and Barney Clay respectively. Somehow I made it this far in life without seeing these videos until just recently. Needless to say, my assistants have been flogged in the public square; they shan't soon forget that lesson. "In The Waiting Line" is touted as the first music video created using machinima tools; its director, Tommy Pallotta, would go on to produce his friend Richard Linklater's movie A Scanner Darkly. "Home" has no such distinction, it's just real pretty. Both videos were cleaned up and re-released a few years ago when special editions of their respective albums, Simple Things and When It Falls, came out.
"I'm A Disco Ball" (2019) - In which YouTube personality Jenna Marbles becomes a disco ball.
Exit Music
Sending you out with the latest Joy Crookes video, "19th Floor" - a song that she describes as "a recognition of all the obstacles immigrants have to overcome to build a life in somewhere like the UK, an acknowledgement of the journey that my Grandmother for example had to face to get to the 19th floor of a South London tower block and the heights that she has managed to reach."
Here is the YouTube playlist featuring all the recommendations from this issue. I make daily recos of music videos and tracks at Much Preferred Customers if you need a fix before the next issue of this newsletter graces your inbox.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto