“The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies The Answer” – A Dialogue With Hank

"Hey, Hank." "Hey buddy." "Been a weird one, huh?" "This?  This ain't nothing." "I don't know whether to take comfort in that, or be fearful." "You're always fearful." "Yeah.  I suppose.  Don't mean it.  But, yeah." "Why do you think that is?" "I should be asking you.  Questions, I mean." "Don't deflect." "Well.  I suppose.  …

Oh, poor me…

I want to write. I want to document things. Show people things. Film. Photos. I want to. I dunno. Fucking leave something. Something out there some other piece of shit might find that opens something. Makes them think about or feel something they might not have otherwise. But then, at the end of the day, …

Aztakea – The Crawling Chaos Album Review

I was recently lucky enough to hear an exclusive play-through of the forthcoming album from Swedish sludge behemoths Aztakea, and let me tell you, the music world is in for a treat later this year. Which will be all the more welcome considering the existential horror this year has brought the world thus far. Aztakea's …

Droll – ‘Bitter Flower’ Album Review

Droll - 'Bitter Flower' cover art by Alvin Fai droll /drōl/ adjectivecurious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement."his unique brand of droll self-mockery" I'm the kind of person who feels passionately enough about the music and art that I like that I think everyone else should love the things I love as …

Digressed Mind – Essential Worker Lab Test – New Track!

Some months ago I created what has, until today, been the last piece of anti-music for my experimental noise project, Digressed Mind. Late last year, my trusty laptop got sick and we haven't been able to record anything since. Today, we said enough. . This track was created on my smart phone using the BandLab …

Kryge – ‘n Dura’ Album Review

KRYGE - Ryan Petersavage and Kage Krol My introduction to Tucson experimental post-metal duo Kryge (pronounced "CRYge") came midway through 2018, a year which I began by finally overcoming the fallout from my major psychotic break three years prior, enough to start flirting again with one of my passions, live music. Denver blackened sludge behemoths …

An Uncanny Despair…

"Never moving toward, life of anymore... I am empty..." https://youtu.be/mEKaK2N24dU "...convinced of nothing else..." I am not well. I feel paranoid and delusional. I feel unreal, outside of whatever this is that we call reality. Disconnected. I feel like I am an artificially constructed thing being controlled from outside itself. I feel like everyone, everything, …

In The Ear Hole With An Ice Pick

I find myself in a horrible space today. I feel disconnected and unreal and separated from Being. My thoughts are rampant and volatile and nonsensical, full of formless anger and hatred and self-loathing and exhaustion. My state of mind alters and falters constantly and irrationally and without reason, forever into oblivion. I cannot make sense …

A Mild Psychotic Trip

We were in the car, cruising dreamily along Lakeshore Drive, eyes like flying saucers peering out into the blanket of cool, black void consuming the vast expanse of Lake Michegan, when the waves began to wash up my spine, shockingly cool, with a strangely serene froth lapping at the bank of my lizard brain. Time …

A Moral Quandary?

I began a discussion with some online friends and acquaintances by asking for opinions related to art created by figures who have, for one reason or another, fallen on the wrong side of history, i.e. Richard Wagner, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, H.P. Lovecraft, T.S. Eliot, et cetera, and whether their work in light of what we know …