#25: life, the sensuous dream
Welcome to issue #25 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU, arriving late and with several metaphorical bruises, but here nonetheless. Working from a new computer which decided to restart without my consent while I was watching videos, and when I got back to a web browser, the first draft of this issue had vanished, because for the first time since I started using Buttondown, the Autosave option on a new post was unchecked? Because that's something users want?? Is the option to write with steadily increasing RISK??? If you're having trouble imagining my reaction, this illustration captures the moment:
Then I couldn't upload images for a while or save a new draft because Buttondown began some DNS work, because apparently most users aren't drafting their important newsletters? At the unholy hour of four in the morning?? So they just turned off their website for a bit so it had a chance to cool off or something??? That's just a little joshing there, by the way, modern websites are kept under strict armed guard to make sure they're never turned off. It's that important.
Anyway. Now it's Friday afternoon.
Scottovision
But enough ranting and raving. I mean, for now. I reserve the right et cetera. Meanwhile here are some video treats I've been saving just for you.
"A Hard Fork For Humanity" (2022) - The latest short film from the animator Umami sets up this cheerful premise: "Aboard the SpaceX Starship heading to Mars, a sentient packet of soup mix comes alive to school Elon Musk about its future inhabitants." And friends, that soup is ruthless. This isn't the first time Umami has taken swipes at the absurd titans of our era, as demonstrated by his series of shorts featuring Zuckerberg ("Grill Talk," "Probe Talk," and "VR Talk"), not to mention his hopefully prescient "Seinfeld Expands." But the fangs are really showing on this one.
"Livin' In The After" (2022) - This is the third music video I've featured from Reset, the new album by Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, which I realize opens me up for legitimate, time-honored critiques such as, "If you love their videos so much, maybe you should marry them." This one's a cheerfully haunted video game flythrough, where you're exploring and waiting for something to happen, only gradually realizing that something has been happening all along. And yes, I do love this video, but no I won't marry it, because I have a little thing called values.
"First 30 Minutes: LSD: Dream Emulator [PS1]" (2013) - That last video reminded me deeply of a cult classic PlayStation game called LSD: Dream Emulator. Produced by Asmik Ace Entertainment in 1998, it flopped in its initial release in Japan. It was later rediscovered by gaming bloggers who appreciated its experimental mechanics and surreal atmoasphere. It's a "non-game," with no narrative or goals other than exploration. Its creator, musician & digital artist Osamu Sato, was a proponent of video games as contemporary art; the map is derived from the dream journals of a game designer at Asmik Ace. Sato also composed the score for the game, inspired by the sound of Warp Records, and a remix album eventually appeared featuring the likes of Ken Ishii and μ-Ziq. You can find variations of this album under the titles LSD & Remixes or LSD Revamped by Osamu Sato on reputable streaming services, and also on Spotify. And you can even try playing it via the LSD: Dream Emulator emulator hosted by the Internet Archive.
"Homesick" (2022) - This is one of those short films where anything I say about it will spoil it. In fact, I just read a review where the guy bemoaned how he'd be spoiling it by saying anything about it, but he had no choice, because that's just what reviewers do, and then he spelled out the entire storyline. Friends, there is another way: get your recommendations from some clown with a newsletter, who is not an actual reviewer and won't say a word about this film's plot. I will simply pass along that it's a non-violent dark comedy that runs about fifteen minutes, and was suspenseful enough in the middle that I stopped it a couple times and came back to it. But I'm one of those people who literally can't watch when something even vaguely socially awkward is happening on screen. (Lay off, I'm sensitive.)
"Memory of Places" (2022) - As COVID shut down cities, director Hiroshi Kondo crafted a mesmerizing portrait of an industrial district patiently waiting for its denizens to return, "marking time" by slowly amping up the level of ambient psychedelic refraction in the environment. Kondo isn't too prolific as an indie filmmaker, working primarily as a commercial director, so it's easy to catch up on his earlier work if you like this style. "Eye Know," for instance, plays out like a nighttime version of Michel Gondry's "Star Guitar" video for the Chemical Brothers.
"A Shaman's Tale" (2022) - Director/animator/composer Jules Guérin delivers a stunning, much too short rendition of a Peruvian folk tale, in which a healer becomes a conduit between the cosmos and the earth by evolving into a vine called ayahuasca.
"Praying - The Creature" (2022) - Filmmaker Kristoffer Borgli claims he was hired to write and direct a commercial for a line of sneakers put out by the brand Praying. But Borgli has deceived us before in the service of a good artistic prank or two. However Praying is a real thing, "fashion's preeminent Christiancore brand," and their sneakers are featured prominently in this commercial. But no brand manager of a Christiancore brand would ever go to Kristoffer Borgli in the first place, or so you might think if you'd, for instance, seen his work. I honestly don't know who got paid for what in this scenario, but the resulting commercial is an impressively deranged achievement. Extra credit: the story continues (for another twenty seconds or something) in "Praying - The Creature (Spillover)."
"Sad Night Dynamite - VOL II - Visual Mixtape" (2022) - This is a swift little trailer for a new album by Sad Night Dynamite, in which seven animated loops carry the band through modern purgatorial scenarios that seemingly represent some of the tracks on the record. It's dense with that vibe you get from watching Backrooms videos or those "liminal spaces" urban spelunkers, except instead of being alone with your fear, you just run headlong into a flock of headless purgatory beasts. But the music is great, I forgot to mention that part, a hip-hop/electronic mishmash that is shown off to great effect in a previous video, "Psychedelic Views" (which, surprise! is a fairly psychedelic video itself).
"They Might Be Giants - Flood EPK (edit)" (1990) - This was supposed to be a simple choice, an old electronic press kit put out by They Might Be Giants to promote their third album, Flood, because I had a vague recollection that it was pretty funny if you like their style of humor. But then I looked closer and realized there are three freaking versions of this EPK floating around out there from various TV and DVD sources, in official and fan edits, and now I had to have an opinion about which one to choose. So instead I made a fourth version that only includes the stuff I accurately remembered was funny, because it's literally easier for me to crack open a video editor than to form an opinion, apparently. I don't know, it's late in my mental time zone.
"This Is Mæh" by Bine Bach & Röyksopp (2022) - You see, it's lambs, but they're DJs.
Exit Music
One of my favorite subreddits allows you to crowdsource answers to a question in the form of "If I like <something specific, even a list of things>, what else would I like?" Recently someone posted this track by Nick Zammuto (formerly one half of The Books), "It Can Feel So Good," from the 2016 EP, Veryone. I've come back to it several times since then due to the sly upbeat vibe it creates, and here we are again. The OP was looking for other tracks that incorporated spoken words into melodic or rhythmic sampling; my contribution was "Ow Much?" by Creature.
Here is the YouTube playlist featuring almost all the recommendations from this issue; links to the missing items are provided in the description. If you like this newsletter, then we rejoice! For all was not in vain.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.