actinides

Another for the gothy fangirl hoard

tess — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:28:21 -0700

I must be out of my mind this morning.

I just bought tickets to Opeth at the Myth nightclub on September 27th.

This despite the lousy state of my bank account right now... Maybe I just need something good to look foreward to.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Tess d'Minnesota

Is that whom the fireworks are for?

tess — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:00:39 -0700

Lyrics

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Tess d'Minnesota

Dimensions of Shadow and Sound

tess — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:29:05 -0700

Nifty! Moonspell is releasing a new album this month in Europe, and next month in the US (drat). I only stumbled upon it earlier this week when Sirius 27 played the title track. Needless to say, it's been stuck in my head for the last few days.

Sample, anyone?

I've developed a fondness for the Portuguese Gothic Metal band the last few months. More times than not I've plugged their name into Last.fm and listened for hours and hours. Delicious, dark, symphonic in places, their sound can be oddly comforting to me.

Perhaps it's a bit contrarian that harsh riffs, and Death Metal grunting can be comforting; music with a much brighter tone (irrespective of the lyrics) fill me with a kind of squeamish disgust. It's like being drown in honey. I want to rip through it, tear through the golden color and the stiflingly sweet air and unmask all that is ugly and painful. That release is precious to me as it was something I was not allowed to do growing up.

In a way, I feel that unmasking is my calling as a writer. I want to pull all the ugliness of humanity from its dark hiding places and force them into the light. Only then can we appreciate its subtle beauty.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Tess d'Minnesota

Music Reviews by Tess

tess — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:32:17 -0700

I've developed a love of posting oddly poetic posts in the shoutbox of various songs on Last.fm. I began doing so after realizing so many people posted variants of "I love this song!" or (given my playlist) "It's so heavy!". In my mind, there's something a bit mischievous about posting something like the following in such a venue.

Here are some examples; for "Traverseé" by Year of No Light:

"Amazing, graceful in it's ugliness; a hand reaching to block out the sun."

For "Hyenas" by Khomoa:

"A quiet space;
a field of wheat,
the smell of coffee
and of rain."

For "The City in the Sea" by The Ocean:

"Grinding machine, terror of gears. Whom in the city can deny its sound?"

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Tess d'Minnesota

Why are most music videos so unimaginative?

tess — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:40:04 -0800

I've developed a pet peeve as of late reguarding music videos.

This strikes me as rather odd, since I've never been one to be interested in music videos before. In past years when I was into electronica, videos were obscenely difficult to come by. The Internet was just developing, and all of the sharing mechanisms we have today did not yet exist. I coveted the few films I had from bands like Orbital, Underworld, and Moby. Many of these videos were almost as fascinating as the music itself -- bizarre, funny, or even chilling imagery seemed commonplace. I still shudder at the thought of the video from Orbital's The Box, a time-lapse masterpiece of the slow decay of humankind (or however you want to interpret it).

When I developed an interest in the metal genre, I expected the same level of quality in videos I had enjoyed from electronica. Sadly, I've been disappointed. And not just once, but again,
and again,
and again,
and again.

For reasons I can only begin to fathom, most videos from the rock and metal genre feature the same thing: The band playing the song. Again and again, I direct my browser to YouTube with the hope of a throughly facinating video and I'm presented with the same scene over and over.

This is where my pet peeve comes in. Many of the songs I've sought videos have rather fascinating lyrics. The create an image, or the impression of a story in my mind that trancends the music itself. Music is a primary inspiration for my writing, as the timbre and word of the song suggests images from my own stories. I often create playlists of music by story or by character to help me "dial in" on the subject at hand. Naturally, when I listen to these songs and hear their lyrics, I think, "That's shiny, I wonder what they did with that?" The answer, more often than not it, nothing at all.

Exhibit A: "Bloodmeat" from Protest the Hero. The lyrics suggest the story of a tribe living on the stepps of Mongolia, fearful of an attack by the Gengis Khan. Even while performed in a fast, thrashing style, there's a hint of fear of the coming dawn and a weary strength drawn from inevitability. All of this ran through my mind as I typed in the keywords in my Firefox search bar for the video. I had hoped for something more, something interesting and visually appealing. What did I find in return? Another video of the band playing the song.

Yes, they tried to make it more appealing than my banal description. Odd, shadowy lighting, shaking and violent camera angles, crane pans and more elevated it above a mere camera on a tripod recording them in a studio. But really, couldn't they do better!? They had such interesting lyrics, and an interesting video only serves to increase my interest in the band as a whole. Instead, I'm met with this unimaginative crap. Couldn't they have at least tried?

Exhibit B: "Quasi Putrefaction" by Chthonic. This Taiwanese band brings a great deal of their country's history and mythology into a melodic black metal mix. Although they've been around since 1999, they're only now beginning to gain some traction in the US. If it weren't for Ian Christie's Bloody Roots radio show on Sirius 27, I would have never heard of them. For this reason, the lyrics are a bit more difficult to come by. Typical of bands of their genre, it can be difficult to understand the lyrics on first (or tenth) listen. "Quasi Putrefaction" paints a tradgic but spiritually enduring image of a nation repeatedly run over by invaders throughout its history.

So here we are again; it certainly does sound shiny, but did they do anything with the video? Take a look for yourself.

It starts out in typical fashion, the band is shown playing the song and my hopes began to sink. Then, the video takes a left turn. Interspersed with the band, are clips from (apparently) a historical movie, showing the struggle of the native inhabitants against technologically advanced forces. The lyrics and music actually take a second stage when the clips are playing and mix sung and spoken story into a fascinating blend. I may be giving them too much credit, but the simple fact is I like it, and it's better than just the band playing the song.

Why does these seeming disparity exist between my previously beloved genere, and my currently beloved genere? I wish I could furnish an answer. My suspicion is that metal, being comparatively more populist than electronica, tends to get more videos. The higher quantity depletes the local quality of each video. Electronica groups seem to have less of an opportunity to create videos, and may put far more effort into each one. Or, perhaps, I only saw the good videos as only the good ones made it to the 'Net. It's difficult to tell without further research. Either way, it does little to spurn my developing pet peeve.

In a previous era, I would have been burned for Heresy

tess — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:30:31 -0700

Oh, the writing ideas I get while listening to symphonic death metal...

French and Japanese

tess — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:30:51 -0800

I'm not one of these people who posts reviews often. Mostly I've come to keep my opinions about consumable media quiet. I think part of this is that I had very few allies who liked the same things that I did. Everyone else seemed quick to make fun of me for this reason. When I first got into anime, I always had to explain it to people that "Yes, it is animated, but it's not a cartoon. It's not something for kids just because it's drawn rather than acted." Roughly the same time I was big into electronica, and was mocked for my "videogame music". After a while, I just stopped trying. Why invite mockery?

Today I'm still into anime, but my music tastes have shifted toward heavy metal. Over the last month I've come to enjoy two particular creations in each genre. Curiously, both involve the French, and both involve the Japanese. Weird, huh?

Le Chevalier d'Eon

The first is an anime series that's currently running through the fansubbing network. Le Chevalier d'Eon is a 24 episode series produced by Production I.G. The story centers around d'Eon de Beaumont, a knight of King Louis XV. It's pre-revolutionary France, and d'Eon's sister Lia is found floating down the Seine river in Paris. Her corpse bizarrely incorruptible, the church denies her a Christian burial. d'Eon dedicates himself to finding the killer.

d'Eon, however, soon finds himself plunged into a world of alchemy, Western magic, and royal intrigue. Thankfully, he's not alone -- ever.

Unable to go to Heaven, the spirit of Lia takes up residence in the body of her bother. At first, d'Eon did not notice this. When enraged or threatened, Lia takes control and completes the battle at hand. Spiritual possession is not a new subject in anime. Hana-Kimi -- one of my favorite manga -- also features a possession subplot. Other examples exist. What particularly drew me to this series, is what happens to d'Eon when Lia takes control.

Throughout the series, it's noted how similar d'Eon and Lia look. Indeed, a properly attired d'Eon would (and does) appear to be a splitting image of his sister. During battle d'Eon isn't simply possessed by her sister, but becomes her. Subtle details betray the transformation: Posture, lip coloration, eye design, and most obvious, a change in voice. This isn't a Ranma 1/2 style transformation with it verging on fantastical. You can see an example at wikipedia. The effect is so subtle that the characters even use this to their advantage at key moments. How far the transformation extends -- are there actual physical changes or not? -- has yet to be answered at the episode I'm currently at.

This isn't the only thing fascinating about the series. The story is deliciously laden with conspiracies, secret societies, and plots against royalty from several countries. A type of Alchemy and Western magic based on the Book of Psalms predominates the series. Even without all the gender changing, this is a wonderful series.

I was only incidentally attracted to this series due to the title. Another series I have yet to complete, Blood+, also makes copious use of the word Chevalier. Upon researching the series and it's titular transformation sequence, I had to see it myself. It sometimes can be curious watching a series set in France, with French characters, where everyone speaks Japanese. This can be a bit confusing for a native English speaker. Despite other "high-priority" series on my anime queue, such as Ergo Proxy and Nana, Le Chevalier d'Eon has moved to the top of my list.

Gojira - From Mars to Sirius Gojira - From Mars to Sirius

For the last year, I've developed in interest in Heavy Metal. I've been introduced to several fascinating bands in that time through my Sirius Satellite Radio subscription. While "anything heavy" sounded appealing at first, I've come to adore bands that edge more toward Progressive Metal, Post-Rock, and Sludge Metal. Many of these bands are (reportedly) drug influenced.

A few months ago a new song appeared on my receiver, "To Sirius" by Gojira. The DJs would always crack at the incidental relationship between the song title and the corporation name. Despite that, it was a spectacular song. When I finally remembered to look up the lyrics, I was even more impressed. "To Sirius" told the story of a group of beings that left a dying world to seek beings on a planet orbiting Sirius C. I hit record on my Stiletto 100 and repeated the song often.

One afternoon I decided to seek out the entire CD. It had been years since I liked a CD. A few songs, sure, but the entire CD had always been a miss. Lacuna Coil's Karmacode was an exception to that trend last year. I was also happy to find out that Gojira's latest, From Mars to Sirius was also an exception.

Much like "To Sirius" (the second to last track), the entire CD revolves vaguely around the same subject. While some tracks are brutal examples of metal with curiously spiritual lyrics, others are more wistful. I've found myself listening to the CD again and again. Even more strange, I listened to the tracks in the order in which they're given. From Mars to Sirius tells a story best read (or listened to) in order.

The band was originally named "Godzilla", after the famous Kaiju. Due to licensing problems, the band decided to adopt the original Japanese name "Gojira". The band, however, isn't Japanese. From their songs you can tell they are singing in English, and despite the death metal grunting, no accent. To my surprise, the band members are French. Given the pride in which native French speakers have in their language, this seems surprising to me. A French band with a Japanese name that sings in English; if that doesn't suggest it belongs in my menagery of tunes, go listen to it yourself.