Survive Or Die (Then Do It All Over Again)

The last couple of posts were quite substantial so I guess it'll be okay if I scrabble up a grab-bag today, even though it's not Friday. If not, tough. It's going to have to be. That's all I've got.

Will The (Dire) Wolf Survive?

(Maybe. Next Question.)

Here's an odd one. Who knew Dire Wolves were real? Well, I did but I'd forgotten, so it was a bit of a surprise when I read they were coming back. 

The NME, which bizarrely enough is where I saw the news, seems to have jumped on it because of the Game of Thrones connection. The headline blares "Dire wolves from ‘Game Of Thrones’ have been brought back from extinction", which does seem to suggest a lack of journalistic rigor in a number of directions. The claim is dubious and anyway it's not like George invented the creatures, after all, or even that he has a unique claim on them from his fiction.

The author of the piece, Max Pilley, does attempt to justify the assignation by saying the long-lost species "re-entered the popular imagination in recent times thanks to George R.R. Martin selecting the animals as the sigil for the Stark family in his epic fantasy series", which is fair enough except that it ignores the previous few decades, when dire wolves were being stuffed into pretty much every generic fantasy epic and every D&D-inspired role-playing game out there. They're about as over-used a trope as dragons or orcs.

Speaking of orcs, for an orc chieftain, a dire wolf has to be the canine equivalent of a blood-dripping skull daubed in blood on your shield, doesn't it? You pretty much have to turn up to clan gathering mounted on the back of a Dire Wolf or who's going to take you seriously?

I couldn't begin to count the number of Dire Wolves I've killed in a whole bunch of MMORPGs, where they're generally encountered about one step on from the Holy Trinity of starter animals, bears, boars and regular wolves. Name recognition meant I was initially quite excited to hear the extinct species was being revived through the magiscience of genetic engineering but the scientific reality, as usual, turns out to be less thrilling than the headlines. 

On deeper examination, it turns out the extremely cute, fluffy puppies aren't true Dire Wolves at all but mere hybrids, the result of a combination of "DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull" and "20 edits of the genetic code of the gray wolf, the species’ closest living relative".

The resultant embryos were then brought to term by "domestic dog mothers", as reported by the BBC, whose journalistic standards are, of necessity as well as by tradition, considerably more rigorous than those of the New Musical Express. The resultant animals aren't purebred dire wolves, more like genetically modified grey wolves with white fur and larger skulls.

And much greater marketing potential, of course. Let's not forget that.

Still, I look forward to seeing what the mad scientists do with the Tasmanian tiger, the next extinct superstar animal on their short but highly evocative list, which includes mastodons and dodos. If they're taking suggestions, I've always wanted to see a Giant Sloth, a creature from the past that features surprisingly rarely in fantasy but which always seemed to turn up in the dinosaur books I read as a child: "As tall as a giraffe and much heavier than a Grizzly Bear". That'd give even a dire wolf pause, I should think, although it might look a tad less impressive on a shield. 

Will The Survival Game Survive? 

(Are You Kidding Me? Next Question.)

Two new survival titles caught my eye this week. I realize I don't need any more but they're hard to resist. They're like the M&Ms of the online gaming world; they look so deliciously different in all their different colors, even though you know they all taste exactly the same. And you just can't stop yourself grabbing another handful.

These two come in similar shades of cute. The first, already available on Steam, is called Squirreled Away and I'm guessing that tells you just about everything you need to know about it but if not, here's the trailer.

There's a free demo, which I'm downloading as I type this, so there may be a whole post about the game here one day. I suspect the demo will be about as much as I need (Or can take.) of being a squirrel so if there is it'll likely be the only one.

The other game looks like it might have longer legs (Than a squirrel? Not difficult...) but it's not coming until 2026. It's called Tomo Endless Blue, which sounds like something you'd see on a paint chart or possibly in the 2pm slot on the opening Friday of a minor music festival. Depending which source you believe it's either a "survival MMO" or "a Monster-Taming ARPG set in a Voxel Open World."

Whatever it is, it's probably going to have Nintendo's lawyers checking their precedents. Given Palworld's problems, presumably the developers, Onibi, will at least have the wit to steer clear of anything round, hand-held and throwable.

Then again, maybe not... 

Will My Patience Survive

(Too Late! Next Question.)

Speaking of festivals, I never did get around to listening to the eighty or so acts on the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Contest long-list. Too late now. 

I did, however, waste half an hour of my life listening to the official playlist, showcasing the submitted song from each of the eight finalists. It was grim.

The only ones I could say I liked - and "like" would be pushing it - would be Sarah Meth's Steps and Westside Cowboy's I've Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Love. The other half-dozen I either barely noticed or actively disliked.

Luckily, there's no Glastonbury next year so I'm saved the embarrassment of claiming this is the last time I'll bother with the ETC, knowing, even as I say it, that I won't be able to resist at least taking a look at the damn thing.

Will My Channel Survive?

(Hell If I Know. No More Questions.)

Finally, and since we're on the subject of music anyway, here's something I very much do like. I came upon it in a mildly curious way that might be worth reporting. 

One of the many pieces of advice I took on board when setting up my new YouTube channel was that you should never just start one from scratch and immediately begin uploading. Do that and YT's algorithm will assume you're a bot and ignore you.

What you're supposed to do is use the channel like a normal person for a while so it builds up a viewing history that makes the algorithm feel loved and wanted. Consequently, these last few weeks I've all but ignored the channel I've been using for well over a decade in favor of the one I made last month.

To get things started, I subscribed to a few channels I already follow. Both of my channels belong to the same Google account but it seems YouTube doesn't care about that. It doesn't make any "helpful" observations like "You already follow this channel" when you add one you've been following for years, anyway. It just does as it's told, which makes a nice change.

Because they were the first I thought of, I added Lana del Rey, Polly Scattergood and Sunday (1994), all of which, it has to be said, bear some superficial similarities. This had an immediate and intriguing effect on the kind of recommendations I was getting.

Instead of the usual mish-mash (Itself admittedly far better-targeted now than it was a year or two ago.) I found myself being pointed almost exclusively towards very new uploads by solo, female artists or female-fronted bands, all of them in broadly alt-pop range of sub-genres. Quite a few of them looked worth investigating so I clicked through several and that seemed to start a kind of snowball effect with more being offered up for my attention all the time. 

From the many possibilities I've heard quite a few I've liked but so far only one I've liked enough to add to my subs, the oddly named R. Missing, who immediately leapfrogged the competition by the simple expedient of including the keyword "Pony" in the title of one of her songs.

Pony Yeah - R. Missing

More incontrovertible evidence for my theory that any song or band with a name that includes the word "Pony" is more likely than not  to be worth your time and attention. At this point, I don't even think it's a theory any more; it's clearly a proven fact.

I listened to a lot more of R. Missing's enigmatic electronica and I liked all I heard. This, I think, is the best of them but that's just as well. When you discover a  new artist, you always want their current work to be their best. It suggests there's more great work to come. If all the best stuff was from four years ago, it wouldn't inspire much confidence in what's coming next, would it?

I'm sure she'll be turning up in future posts. As for my own, new channel, none of the advice on how to get noticed seems to have made the least difference. But that's material for another post and another day.

Knowing Where You're Going

The plan for today was a music post but they take a while and the weather's turned warm and fine so that's not happening. The garden won't tidy itself, more's the pity.

Instead, how about another Friday grab-bag? I think I have enough bookmarks for one of those...

Is it, Though?

The headline on the news report at MMOBomb trumpets "The World Of Pantheon: Rise Of The Fallen Is Looking Much Better With The New Lighting Update". News Editor Troy Blackburn seems really impressed: 

"...the most impressive thing they have implemented into Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is the improved lighting.... The video does a fantastic job of highlighting the changes to the lighting system and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes."

I was curious to see it after that build-up. I'm broadly in favor of the new graphic style Visionary Realms have chosen and it's looked pretty good in the videos they've put out so far to promote it. This one? Not so much.

The video wasn't produced by VR themselves but by a YouTuber called Redbeardflynn (No relation to our own Redbeard, at least I'm assuming...). The video itself is perfectly fine. It's what it shows that bothers me.

These things are always a matter of taste but to my eye, many of the Befores in that video look more atmospheric and characterful than the largely bland and over-illuminated Afters. It's not that I think the new lighting is in any way bad. I just can't see it as much of an improvement. By and large, I prefer it the way it was. 

It does, I suppose, have the merit of making it easier to see everything, which seems to be in keeping with the direction the game is heading. I'm beginning to think that, when and if it ever reaches an official launch state, Pantheon won't look much like Brad's original vision at all. 

That may or may not be a bad thing. By then the whole retro scene might almost be ready for a revival of its own, it's been going on so long now. I'm not entirely sure who the target demographic is any more, anyway. People who plan on playing video games when they retire? If so, maybe it makes sense to make everything easier to see.

Maybe they should include a magnifying glass in the Collector's Edition.

Anyone Got A Map?

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday's post about the latest EverQuest II update, Darkpaw Rising. Attentive readers may have noticed a throwaway line in which I described it as "excellent, awkward and frustrating". It's all of that and what's more it's meant to be.

The new instance is based on, although by no means the same as, the sprawling dungeon included with the old Splitpaw Saga Adventure Pack from June 2005, a time when the EQII development team at SOE was still taking no prisoners when it came to accessibility. Almost two decades later, someone at Darkpaw clearly thinks the time has come to revisit that aesthetic. 

The new update is... challenging. What it mostly challenges is your patience. If you're the kind of person who yells "Yippee!" when they realise the quest they're on is sending them deep into a maze or someone who keeps a pad of graph paper and a mapping pen always to hand in the fervent hope a cartographic opportunity may arise, you're going to love this update.

If you're everyone else, you're going to tab out after ten minutes and start searching for help. I did and found nothing so I gritted my loins, girded my teeth and got on with it. 

In a couple of hours or so I'd killed every last gnoll in the place, as well as all the bats, snakes, mushroom-men, earth elementals and any damn thing that moved. I'd bought some tracking scrolls in the cash shop so I could find my quest targets and now there was literally nothing on track. Not a living or undead thing left in the place and yet I still had plenty of unfinished quests, some of them asking me to kill mobs I'd not seen at all.

That was working as intended. The dungeon is meant to take more than one run to complete. It has multiple levels with some areas inaccessible without the use of crafted devices such as ladders or teleport crystals. I knew all that. I'd even stopped to do the tradeskill instance so I could make the items I needed. The problem was, I couldn't figure out where I was meant to use them.

In the end I decided to do some proper research, which eventually paid off.  Searching for all kinds of variations on Darkpaw Dungeon/Instance/Warren got me nowhere but when I googled Darkpaw Maps I finally got some hits. In case anyone reading this is thinking of giving the new content a look, I'm very happy to share what I found.

There's a page on the wiki but it's tucked away under the heading Darkpaw Warrens Maps. It has several links to some maps made in beta by a player called Taled, along with a fairly comprehensive quest walkthrough.

Taled says he's not planning on uploading the maps to EQ2Maps (Although now I check he has at least posted them on the forums there so someone else can do it.) so you'll have to install them yourself. Luckily for the less technically-minded among us, he's included comprehensive instructions, which I followed and can attest work perfectly. There are also some PoIs you can add to the maps, which is an even fiddlier process but if I can manage it, anyone can.

Thanks for the maps, Taled! I'd be lost without them. Literally.

Ever Wish You Hadn't Bothered?

Remember those two posts back in March, where I went through every act on the Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition longlist and gave my thoughts on all of them? Well, that was a waste of time!

Yesterday, the organisers announced the eight names that made it through to the shortlist. No mention of my favorites, of course. I wasn't all that surprised. There wasn't a lot that interested or impressed me on the long list and I was fairly sure the few I did like wouldn't make the cut. 

That said, I did think George Houston would make it onto the shortlist. He looks like a star already. But nope. No sign of him, or of the wonderful Chloe Slater - who, to be fair, may only have that one, great song...oh, wait...

Of the eight, most seem like solid, musicianly picks. I guess it's in keeping with the way Glastonbury is these days - slick, professional, polished and more than a little dull. I guess they didn't call it Worthy Farm for nothing. Not like the old days, although god knows the old days weren't all that great, either. 

Anyway, for completion's sake, the eight shortlisters are The Ayoub Sisters, Bryte, Caleb Kunle, JayaHadADream, KID 12, Nadia Kadek, Olivia Nelson, and Problem Patterns. If you want links, you can find them in the aforementioned posts. 

I'm kidding!I know no-one here cares!

End With A Tune

I did say I wanted to do a music post today. I guess I'm halfway there. I've been bookmarking a lot of stuff to share of late but on review I'm not wholly convinced it's all up to the mark. I mean, I like all of it but a lot doesn't really stand out from the pack the way it probably should if I'm going to pull it out for special attention.

This does, though.

 I LUV IT feat. Playboi Carti - Camillo Cabello

She's a pop star, apparently. I hadn't heard of her but that means nothing. Pop's changed, hasn't it? For the better. 

A lot of things I've liked lately seem to have had Playboi Carti somewhere around them, too.

Also, I love that video, particularly the very last shot with the bloodstain slowly spreading and that wonderful expression she pulls...

And we're done. Real music post soon, weather permitting.

... And Raise You 40

Ha! I did get it done by Sunday! Mostly because I was too tired after work to play games and listening to music is easy, although in this case I wouldn't exactly call it relaxing. Remind me not to do it again next year. Yeah... right...

Anyway, here's part two of the series no-one wanted. My specialty! See the first installment for the rules. 

Hah! "Rules"!

1. Cortisone - FHUR - ooh I like this! Skittery, fractured club beats with a scifi gloss. Keeps shifting focus, too. As they say, bangin' - A
2. The Ball - Youth Sector - 80s funk/disco with a disturbing twist, not least in the band's fashion choices - B+
3. That Girl - SpaceAcre - If they ever ban animal masks there's going to be a lot of indie bands flat out of ideas for the next video - solid indie-rock - B
4. not a vibe - Chubby Cat - Got a strange feeling we've had Chubby Cat on the blog before... B
5. British Rail Class 170 Turbostar - Static Caravan - ok, we have a winner for the best band name/song title combo... Half Man, Half Biscuit do Kraftwerk. I really want to see what these people look like - B+
6. Holy Smokes - Shtëpi - Whoever told you the post-punk revival was over was lying. They just keep coming. What are the Glaxo Babies doing now, that's what I want to know? Their day finally came and they're nowhere to be found. - B
7. Statue - Tilly Valentine - A blessed relief after all that clanging and banging. Sweet pop r&b. C+
8. Nothing's Gonna Change - Rowan - What I said about post-punk before? Same for guitar bands. C+
9. Girl God Gun - Gen and the Degenerates - Oh, this is the one we've had before. Sorry Chubby Cat, my mistake! Also, more post-punk fractured funk. Top end, though. A
   
   
10. Letter of Resignation - Problem Patterns - FFS! Forget post punk, now it's 1978! A minute too long but otherwise great, especially that solo. B+
11. Keeper - Natalie Lindi - Not sure what this is. Pop balladry, I guess. - C
12. Twist - Joe T. Johnson - Link goes to David Dean Burkhart's channel and this sounds exactly like that would lead you to expect - C
13. All in Your Head - Caleb Kunle - funky R&B - slick - not doing it for me, though - C
14. SOLEIL - GEORGIAN - Strikingly odd video that fits the lush, quasi-goth tune. Nose rings really seem to be making a comeback. - B
15. Rituals - Mouse Teeth - it's like whoever did the playlist programmed the last one and this so you'd go "Oh, no, you're right - that's what a strikingly odd video for a quasi-goth tune really looks like!" - C
16. E1 - Latir - not easy to label, so, good for that. Brooding comes to mind but a little playful as well - B
17. You're a Lot - SISTRA - Pleasant, unmemorable - C
18. Sundays Are Always Quiet - NO PHOTOS – Had high hopes for this from the title but it's not my kind of thing at all. - D
19. Move On - Temm - Pleasant. Nothing else to say. - C
20. Knuckle Sandwich - Some Remain - Blimey! That woke me up. Post-punk, here we come again, only with some hardcore thrown in. Video's clever. - B
    
    
21. Heartbreaker - Internet Cafe - I really liked this but Internet Cafe is a flat-out weird name for someone peddling smooth drum&bass infused R&B - B+
22. Out of My Mind - Jonathan Patel - There's retro and then there's archival retro. Even the font screams 1973. Fine if you can't find your time machine. - C+
23. Ringing- TEEG - Not going to attempt to label this. Really oughtn't to be listening to it. - C
24. Feeling It All - Nadia Kadek - Possibly the first song I've ever seen on YouTube with a completely black screen throughout. Minimal visuals, minimal music. Certainly makes you concentrate on the singing. Makes me feel I ought to be in a church hall somewhere, drinking warm orange squash and concentrating hard. - C
25. Solve - Izzy Withers Prod. Eddie Lopes - Is someone playing some kind of existential joke here? Now it's a plain pink screen with a female vocal and minimal musical backing. Well, minimal until the drummer wakes up around halfway in. This is gorgeous - delicate and fragile. Lovely. B+
26. Somewhere in the Middle - Niji - Jazz-funk instrumental. Really, what else is there to say? - C
27. DRILL VS GRIME [THE PRELUDE] - Jords, Lil Sykes - Like I could tell the difference! - C
28. Southbound - ladylike - I thought I knew where this was going and then it went all prog on me! C (Or B+ if I was fourteen again.)
29. Feeling Like  - JayaHadADream & Wasalu - Dreamlike and soothing in a way it really oughtn't to be. - B
30. 24 hours - Chloe Slater - O. M. G! My absolute favorite so far. I just watched in awe. The disconnects between what she looks like, what she sounds like, what the backing track is doing and what she's saying are like a series of drug hits. I felt jangled to glory. One thing I haven't addressed at any point is how these 90 acts would actually look on stage at Glastonbury. Chloe would be mind-blowing. Apparently this is literally the only thing she's ever done, too, so her set would be hella short! - A. Thinking it might be A+
    
    
31. You Wanted This - Jodie Nicholson - I don't think I did, you know... Another black screen, this time with a rather pleasant instrumental track playing over it. How is this a submission for a live performance at a festival? And yet... B
32. Shade of Blue ft. Jess Edie - FineMusicUK - I'm getting confused now. I guess in the chillout zone. Do they still have those? - C. Maybe B. I'm losing the ability to tell one thing from another.
33. I'm Fine, I'm Alright - Hongza - I think this might be an actual band. I'd almost forgotten such a thing existed. Not sure I wanted to be reminded like this. - C-
34. ELEPHANT - Zoka The Author - Very odd video. Again with the animal masks. Pretty original, especially the violin. - C+
35. Untied (Left You Behind) - Con - Nice groove, soulful r&b, lowest views of all the videos so far, I think (13) - C+
36. Voiceover - Soft Top - very muso pitch in the blurb, citing Steely Dan as an influence and name-checking half a dozen bands the eight of them have been in before. Polished AOR. That's not really a compliment. - C
37. Oxygen - Auger - Synthygoth! He has a deeper voice than that guy out of Tindersticks. Made my speakers rattle not to mention my chest. - B
38. IF WE FALL - Affection To Rent - Grunge, apparently. Also the singer was "hand-chosen" by members of D. C. Fontaines. Very, very rocky. As in rock music. Not as in shaky. It's not at all shaky. - C
39. Ticket To Rock - Daxx & Roxane - Fuck me! Timing is all. Did I say the last one was rocky? This would give AC/DC a run. I literally had no idea anyone under 60 still made music like this. Or wanted to. Seriously, it sounds exactly like the second support band on a Thin Lizzy tour sometime around 1975 - C
40. Under Attack - BackRoad Gee - Something going on here I don't understand. This has 1.3m views. Reminds me oddly of Spearhead. I think it's the arc-welder. - C+

Oh, wow... and that's the end. I'm really confused by the numbers. Everything I read said there were 90 on the longlist. With three flagged on YouTube as "unavailable", there still ought to be 87 but I count only 85, which is the same as the playlist, so I didn't miss any. I guess whoever said there were 90 must have rounded up.

I can't say I'm missing the extra five. If I'm brutal, almost none of these would ever make the cut for a post here. (Lol at any of them caring!) Even the ones I like mostly don't feel exceptional and most of the others are so far out of my remit I can't pretend I even know if they're good examples of their style or not

The prime exceptions are Chloe Slater and George Houston. It was worth going through the rest just to discover those two.  24 Hours I think is both a wonderful song and a super-clever video. The first time I heard it (I've listened to it half a dozen times now.) I didn't get the irony, as you might get from the notes I made. Then the second time I read the lyrics and realized what was going on. 

I still kinda wish it was what I thought - a preppy, rich girl flaunting her privilege - just for how gloriously, nuanced that would make it as a pick for Glastonbury. I get it now and it would still be very meta. I'm not entirely sure why everything on the wall is backwards, though. Does that signify something or did Chloe literally film the whole thing in a mirror? 

As for George, as I said last time, I think he's going to be a big star. I'm pretty sure he thinks so, too. He'd go down a storm on a festival stage although maybe storm isn't exactly the metaphor I'm after.

Good luck to both of them. And to all the other eighty-three acts. Or is it eighty-five?

Still not sure about that.

I'll See Your 45...

Just to warn everyone, there may be several music posts this week. Actually, since it's Wednesday already, there may only be music posts this week! But hey, it's either that or more Nightingale so what you gonna do?

I was already planning on a regular "What I've Been Listening To Lately" post for Friday because it's been a fortnight since the last one and the damn songs keep piling up. 

(Can we say "fortnight" now without having to explain it, by the way? I feel like, since Fortnite became such a thing, everyone must know what it means. I used to avoid it as a confusing Britishism but like "wanker" it seems to have gone global now. That said, I never did get what Epic thought the pun was supposed to be...)

Anyway, there was that and then yesterday I got sight of this year's long list for the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition and for some hard-to-explain (Even to myself.) reason I decided I'd probably better do something on it. I do realise no-one cares but as the years go by the blog seems to be acquiring traditions like that ball in Katamari Damacy picks up objects and I'm nothing if not a traditionalist.

Having made the decision, then naturally I had to listen to them. All ninety! Luckily, there's a playlist showcasing what I assume is the specific song each of them submitted. Or maybe it's just a representative number. I dunno. I haven't read the rules.  

Whatever, it's more than four hours of music. I'm halfway through now and I thought it would be wise to stop there and split this thing into two parts. I also thought it would be fun to make notes as I went and then print them verbatim like a weird kind of time-delayed live blog.

Finally, in case that wasn't convoluted enough, I decided to give them all a grade. Everyone loves a grade, don't they? I mean, I know I do. As a reader, that is. If I was the artist I'd probably want to come round and have a quiet chat with any dick on the internet who thought they could sum up my work with a single letter. And maybe not so quiet, at that.

On that note and on the extremely unlikely chance any of them ever read this, I'd like to offer an up-front apology to anyone I've given what looks like a failing mark to, while taking a moment to explain that all I'm grading is the degree to which these songs did or did not intrigue, impress or excite me. I'm not making any judgments about objective quality. Well, not in the grades. In the comments, though...

Just to nail that down:

The grading process is based for the most part on a first impression from a single play. As we all know, songs and performers can grow on you or you can go off them, so take that under advisement.

A - There might be something special going on here and I advise you not to miss out.

B - I liked it, maybe you will, too. Worth keeping an eye on, for sure.

C - Solid choice if it's your kind of thing. Wasn't really mine.

D - Either made no impression on me or I actively disliked it. Could be either. Check the comment.

E - Really did not like this at all.

Plusses and minuses add nuance but the letter is the prime signifier.

Finally, I've embedded videos for some of the ones I like but for the sake of layout it does depend somewhat on where they fall in the list so I couldn't get all my favorites in. Plus, I pulled my #1 choice out and stuck it in the intro so as not to bury the lede. 

Finally, I did consider adding links to every entry but that would be a lot of work. Just use the playlist provided!

Let's get to it!

1. Who Is Jack - without - 50 seconds until it actually starts! Way too long to get to a dull ballad. - C
2. Marie Naffah - Rust&Blue -  Great video (Says it's a visualiser but it's a video), strong song, vocals sound like they were slowed down (Assume that's just her voice). - A-
3. Saina - Listen to my Voice - nice, unremarkable - C+
4. Slip Martin - Wallflower- dull - C-
5. Ella Tobin - The Ghost - Very pleasant neo-folk. This sort of thing does sound old-fashioned now - B
6. Nate Brazier - Feels - unremarkable - C
7. J Aliya - Not The One - Good. Sonically satisfying. Trippy. - B
   
   
8. Call Me Loop - Self Love - Bouncy! Fun. Kinda old-fashioned but not retro - B
9. Who Ate All The Crayons - 5 Seconds - Annoying melodic indie-rock. Very not like you'd expect from the band name. D
10. Lo Rays - Die Beside You - Sounds like a Eurovision entry - C-
11. Mirrors - Echoes- Pleasant, ordinary. Maybe building to something different but didn't have the patience to wait - C+
12. Talk Show - Closer - alright. Nothing special. - C
13. lau.ra & Surya Sen - Do That - Decent club track. C
14. Bryte - Zongo Boy - Toasting, although I imagine there's another name for it now. Not terrible. - C
15. Daniella Dee - Stutter - Smooth jazz! Sade/Erika Badu etc. Nice! - B
16. Re Teu - Glas - Most original song so far. Couldn't put it in a genre. Starts off kinda dance, goes all post-rock - B+
17. Jessie Reid - Let Your Love Run Cold - More neo-folk or maybe even anti-folk. Mildly reminds me of Peggy Sue. Good. - B+
18. retropxssy - Fading - chill lo-fi hip-hop or something - very much my thing - B+
    
    
19. Room Service - JCVD - Tribute to Jean Claude van Damme - funny in a kind of Pop Will Eat Itself way - very late '80s - Good riff. - B
20. Buoy Meets Krill - Sweetbreads -- quirky indie folk-jazz? - If this makes the short list I'll eat my fox hat - B+
21. Dogsbody - Let It Die - incredibly slow to get going but quite unexpected when the jazz sax appears - Builds nicely but I fear if they were playing live you wouldn't be able to hear most of it for the sound of people chatting - B-
22. Brian Grogan - Your Name - fine of its kind, not my thing at all - C
23. Maddie Ashman - 6AM - more pleasant neo-folk - B
24. Theo Bleak - It's Not Doing Me Any Good - Shoegaze. Pleasant. Unremarkable. Also, it's a band, not a person. - B
25. Meduulla - Limbo feat. The Mouse Outfit - pleasant lo-fi hip-hop - B
26. FINCHES - NOTHING FIXES ME LIKE YOU - Britpop revivalists! Interesting accent. Decent of its kind. - B
    
    
27. Maya Lane - Bump Into Me - Indie, almost twee-folk. Nice video but the van's the wrong color. - B
28. Eighty Eight Miles - Sophie - OMG! See above! So tweefest c. 2016 it's not true. Third on the bill to Camera Obscura - B+
29. Juju - Just Okay - indie/pop-rock not very much to say about it - C
30. George Houston - In Aeternum Vive - ffs! He looks about 12 and the video looks like it was made by 15 year olds for school assembly where they wanted to be as transgressive as they could get away with... and it's all for a really strong, classic-rock vocal performance with striking lyrics. Astonishing. He could be a star, the video already has ten times the views of anything else so far (180k+) - A
    
    
31. Georgia May - Guessin' - lovely R&B - A
32. Joe Winter — Laughing for the West - and more lovely r&b, very 80s except for the heavy auto-tune - B+
33. Frances And The Majesties - All Of Time - synthpop of some stripe, also a bit 80s - C+
34. simon a. - FERMI - slick r&b - smooth! 70s inflected - B
35. E. M Kane - Wasted Time - old school soul/r&b extremely retro - bit of a tour de force vocal, impressive! - B
36. Neckbreakers - Waiting On Your Call- 90s indie-pop - I was listening to it while reading a news feed and I came to write this comment after it finished I literally couldn't remember anything about it and had to go back and hear it again - C
37. alessi rose - eat me alive - good pop music although it's getting so I feel I've heard this same song a lot of times now - B
38. Home Counties - Bethnal Green - post punk pop, mildly frenzied. Weird to hear a band called Home Counties singing a song about Bethnal Green... B
    
    
39. Darla Jade - Broken Armour - more slick pop - B
40. Euan Stamper - Fast Fashion - Ivor Cutler without the jokes. Mesmerising. I really hope he makes the shortlist. - A (I would have embedded it but the video is unlisted on YouTube so you can only see it via the playlist. Or this link.)
41. Tommy Down - Mrs Blue  - old-school(ish) soul/r&b - very nice 90s vibe - reminds me of David Gray - B
42. The Ayoub Sisters - The Scottish Egyptian - Is it folk? Is it classical? Do I care? Way outside my abilty to assess meaningfully - No rating 
43. Kynsy - Simple Life - Wow! One of those songs they don't make any more. Except apparently Kynsy does. Would get radio play across five decades. - B 
44. KID 12- Dreams - Rich, thick sound. Satisfying. Would listen again. - B+ 
45. Olivia Nelson - Oblivion - More solid, professional modern R&B - not much more I can say - B 

Forty-five down, forty-five to go. Geez. Wish me luck.

I Went To The Seaside And All I Got You Was This Dumb Post

I wasn't going to post at all today because Mrs Bhagpuss and I went to the seaside with Beryl so time was short when we got back. Well, I say seaside... for strict journalistic accuracy, I guess I should make that estuary. The real sea is just a tad too far from where we live for a comfortable day trip with a small dog. 

Still, the Victorians apparently didn't care much for the difference, since they built a very nice little town where the river widens out and goes tidal. There's a lovely walk along the headland, a promenade, a pier, some nice pebble beaches and plenty of rock pools for Beryl to paddle in, so who's counting?

As I said, I didn't think I'd have time for a post but it occurred to me I had a couple or three odds and ends I'd wanted to fit in somewhere and this seemed like as good an opportunity as I was going to get, so here we are. It might be Wednesday but it's Friday in my mind... or something like that. 

AI Predicts The Future!

First up, that Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition. A few weeks back I posted about it in somewhat desultory fashion at the end of a piece about Google's AI chatbot, Bard. I wasn't very excited by any of the shortlist so I asked Bard "Who do you think will win and why?". 

Somewhat to my surprise, Bard had a very definite opinion, predicting, with some confidence, "I think that N’famady Kouyaté has a strong chance of winning." The result of the Battle of the Bands final, as reported by NME, although apparently not on the Glasto official site itself, as far as I can see, was announced yesterday. Guess who won?

Yep. Got it in one: N’famady Kouyaté.

Now, to be fair, I also had the balofonist down as the likely winner before I even asked Bard but even so... I wonder if Bard picks lottery numbers? 

We Mean It In A Loving Way!

In another callback to an earlier post, here's a video I meant to share a while ago but never found a suitable slot for. Oh, alright then, I forgot all about it. Happy now?

I thought it was funny but I guess you'd have to know the show. I wonder how much crossover there actually was, at the time it was originally broadcast, between the short-lived, cult TV series and people who actually play tabletop roleplaying games? I mean, it's not like D&D plays the same central of role in Freaks and Geeks that it does in Stranger Things. It's more of a bolt-on towards the end.

While I'm on the subject, I don't believe I've seen a single review of Honor Among Thieves anywhere in this part of the blogosphere. Did I miss someone's take on it or has no-one really had anything to say? Surely people must have seen it by now. I'd have thought a big-budget, critically-acclaimed, commercially successful movie based on a core component of our collective hobby might have triggered at least some kind of response. Then again, I haven't seen it and I think this is probably the first time I've mentioned it, so I can hardly talk, can I? 

And That's A Wrap!

Since TV's come up, here's another news story I spotted that I thought might be worth a note. It finally occurred to me that the third season of Stargirl hadn't turned up on Prime, so I did some googling and found it isn't going to happen. The Prime thing, that is. The third season of Stargirl, that's done. It's been and gone.

Why Prime isn't showing Season 3, when they showed 1 & 2 is anyone's guess. Well, money, I suppose. I'll have to watch it on DVD, which is fine. I'd like a hard copy to keep. I'd get the box of all three seasons, if they did one, which they don't. Whoever they are.

At least I know there isn't going to be a fourth season. The show's been cancelled. In an unusual move, though, two separate endings to Season 3 were shot; one for if they got renewed and one for if they didn't. It means the final season has a proper ending, for once.

I believe we were talking about that a while back. It seems like something showrunners and writers maybe ought to be considering as default option these days, although I guess it would be weird for the cast to shoot alternate endings for every season. Kind of like a recurring premonition of their own doom. 

It wouldn't be that hard to do, though. Most shows I can think of would be pretty easy to wrap up at the end of most seasons because what tends to happen is they tie a neat bow around the season arc anyway, then stick a foreboding cliffhanger on the end of that. Just crop it a bit and don't screen the lead-in to the series you didn't get. 

It Didn't Look Like This In The Shop!

And finally, I made BFF status with the latest on my Phantom hit-list, Urian. It happened a bit faster than I was expecting because I had a bit of luck with the latest event, the generically-named Fireworks Celebration, which is giving away handfuls of Ornate Gift Boxes, each worth a thousand points of Affection.

My glee was short-lived when I made the damn dress and put it on. I was - not unreasonably, I think - expecting it to look identical to the outfit Urian herself wears. The ones I got from Jenny, Johanne and Ave do. 

Unfortunately, whereas Urian's original is made of silk, the reproduction seems to be more like taffeta. It looks stiff and uncomfortable instead of free-flowing and instead of billowing, the long train sticks out to one side like a wonky bustle. It's not awful but it's not what I was expecting. 

I haven't decided whose look to appropriate next. I'll have to think a little more carefully about what the outfit's going to look like on my character, this time. Probably should have been doing that all along...

In other Noah's Heart news, there was another server merge recently. I didn't check who merged with whom but I'm guessing my server was the recipient because it seemed fairly busy before. Now it's busier still. 

How many more merges there'll be before the game goes dark I wouldn't like to say. Noah's Heart has such a minimal web presence I have to assume it's not going to be around for long. I hope it at least makes it to the first anniversary. I'd love to be able to say I played every day for a year straight.

And that's all I have for today. Let's be honest - it's a lot more than I thought I had!

Rate The Eight

It's possible, albeit unlikely, that someone reading this may remember a post here back in March, in which I talked about the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition. There was a longlist of ninety acts. It was going to be whittled down to a shortlist of eight, all of whom would compete at a Battle of the Bands style event in Pilton, the village where the Eavis' farm is located.

I said at the time that I'd try to come back and report on whether any of the bands I liked the sound of had made the cut. And then I forgot all about it.

This morning, the NME reported that Lewis McLaughlin had won the top prize, £5000, along with a main stage slot at this year's festival. Lewis doesn't get a mention in my post. I can't say his name rang any bells when I saw it this morning but I went back and checked and it turns out I had listened to the nominated track, Summer, and also watched the YouTube video. Here it is:

It's really annoying, isn't it? Everything about it - the tune, the performance, the video... I couldn't bring myself to watch it all the way through another time. 

He's got a newer song up now, Go With The Flow. I like it a lot better. I still can't say I can see it going down a storm on the big stage at a festival, although I can see people lying flat in the grass in front of some minor stage, far out in a field somewhere, lazily chatting with friends on a sunny day, their conversation drfting in a stoned haze while Lewis plays, scarcely noticed, in the background.

No-one's asking me what I think, of course. The people who were asked to make the decision included "Emily Eavis, Glastonbury stage bookers and music business professionals", all of whom know about a billion times more about what makes for a successful festival running order than I do. I imagine they have reasons why a soft-voiced, Scottish folk-singer is a good fit for a massive event in front of a giant crowd numbering tens of thousands; reasons I couldn't possibly begin to imagine.

I'd have picked someone louder. One of the twelve I singled out last time, for example, none of whom are anything you could reasonably confuse with a folk act.

Three of those dozen names did at least make it to the last eight, which is a pretty good result - for me that is. Better than I would have expected, for sure. One of them, English Teacher, even collected one of the two runner-up prizes of £2,500.

That's their latest. It's called Polyawkward and it's... strange. Not what I was expecting. It reminds me weirdly of Genesis circa I Know What I Like although considerably more of XTC circa Love on a Farmboy's Wages. Not that I think it sounds much (or anything) like either of those. It's more that as a band, English Teacher seem to be very much in the same bucolic, wordy, slightly creepy tradition. I think they chose their name well: very English, very literate, slightly scary.

The other runner-up was Crae Wolf, whose Countdown Freestyle on the long list I do like, even if it seems more of a fragment than a finished track. 

My other two picks, who made the final but missed out on the money, were SOFY and Smoothboi Ezra. Ezra, unfortunately, also missed out on the live run-off due to illness but gets a free pass to next year's ETC final.

SOFY's latest is this woozy, saturated dreamer, Sorry That You're Mine. It's the kind of tune that's made for one of those hour-long loop mixes. I'd have this on repeat for as long as it takes to write a post, any time.

Smoothboi Ezra doesn't seem to have anything more recent than the following video from just under a year ago. It's another of those vaguely horror-inflected masquerades but I think this time it's fair to say it doesn't in any way put me in mind of Peter Gabriel, let alone Steve Hackett or Phil Collins. Let's all be thankful for that.

 I guess at this point we really ought to have the full shortlist. Probably should have led with it, really. 

• Amahla
• Zola Courtney
• Smoothboi Ezra
• SOFY
• Lewis McLaughlin
• Nia Wyn
• Crae Wolf
• English Teacher

I checked out the others but I don't think I need to offer any links. I'm sure you can find them for yourselves, if you're that interested.

All of them, other than Smoothboi Ezra, who'll have to wait another year, get a slot on some stage or other at Glastonbury this summer. 

There are a lot of stages at Glasto. I don't imagine the television cameras will be at the right ones at the right time to give us a glimpse of many of the eight, although English Teacher already have the kind of buzz and profile that might appeal to a producer with an ear for indie.

I'll keep my eyes open when festival season comes around. If any of the performances do make it onto YouTube via something better than a shaky phone maybe I'll even get another post out of this whole thing.

New Bands ETC

Today turned out to be unexpectedly musical, thanks to this news, which I saw at NME. To save you a click, it's the long list for Glastonbury Festival's 2022 Emerging Talent Competition. 

I always read the full line-up for Glastonbury and I usually watch at least some of it on tv but I confess I wasn't aware the ETC was a thing that existed. This does seem a little remiss of me, especially since it's very far from new. 

It's  also surprisingly hard to research. You'd think there'd be a Wikipedia page listing all the winners, at least but there isn't. Eventually, I tracked the origin of the competition down to around 2003, based on this piece from BBC Somerset in 2008, which mentions it was then in its fifth year. 

The number of entries and the method of selcetion seems to have varied over the years. At one time there were as many as a hundred and twenty acts on the long list and as recently as 2019 the selection was made by "30 bloggers", which does get the pulse racing, although I suspect that description may be interchangeable with this year's panel of "30 music writers".

The long list for 2022 is ninety strong, culled from "thousands" of submissions. The official Glasto website has a handy breakdown of the thirty participating music journalists, each of whom gives a brief account of their three favorites. 

Supposedly, you can hear a sample track from each and every one of the ninety on this official ETC Soundcloud playlist, although for the life of me I can only see seventy-four tracks. What's more, some of the sixteen missing artists are ones picked out as standouts by the panel. It's hard to miss when one of the awol artists is the wonderfully-named My Fat Pony.

There appears to be a good reason for My Fat Pony's absence. Despite one of the entry criteria to the competition being "a link to one original song on SoundCloud", a search on the site itself finds only a picture of the band and a blank "Nothing to hear here". It's a pity because the band looks very intriguing on their one and only YouTube video, a half-hour live performance. The sound quality's terrible but I do like a trumpet.

Enough about what's missing. Let's get back to what's there. Seventy-four songs by seventy-four acts. I had a quick look through for names I recognized. I found two: Barbara, who we had here only the other day, when I was picking through the Louder Than War list of hopefuls, and English Teacher, who have been on a bunch of up-and-comer lists I've seen.

English Teacher are very much in that current wave of bands with singers who don't sing. It's a big thing at the moment, Yard Act being probably the prime proponents. We've had them here, too, but I don't think we've had English Teacher yet. I could be wrong but in case I'm not, let's have them now.

R&B - English Teacher  

I listened to at least some of all seventy-four tracks this afternoon. The quality was astonishingly high. Not everything was to my personal taste, although there was very little I wouldn't happily listen to if it came on the radio, but other than the sheer quality, at the risk of repeating myself, the most striking thing about the experience was how very familiar almost every one of them sounded.

It's about time I just accepted that everything mirrors everything else now and got on with it. It's either good or it isn't or I like it or I don't. I'm not going to stop making historical references when I talk about these things but I am going to stop sounding surprised about it. 

Choose A Life - Wings of Desire

The very first band on the playlist turned out to one of the most impressive of all. Wings of Desire isn't a great name in my opinion but with a sound as thick as theirs they don't need a hooky name. And it does have the merit of being easy to remember. If I heard that coming out of Radio 6 I'd be googling them in a heartbeat.

They're another of those talk-sing bands. The Germans had a word for it all the way back in the nineteenth century. Unlike all the others I 've heard, Wings of Desire also have a monolothic slab of a sound that never uses two chords when one will do. I have always been an absolute sucker for that. Wouldn't you love to play bass for them? I would. It's one note ffs!

They're so good we ought to have another. I listened to most of their stuff on YouTube and it all sounded like like this, like the Jesus and Marychain wanted to be Talking Heads instead of the Beach Boys. I hope they just keep on doing it and don't end up all sludgy like the Marychain did.

Strawberry Milkshake - SOFY

You know that cliché, where Americans hear a British voice and go "I really love your accent"? Fun fact: British people feel exactly the same about British accents that aren't exactly the same as their own. Just listen to the way she says "feel". I just love it. Rex Orange County has the number one album as I write this. Just sayin'.

FUZZY - Bandicoot

If SOFY sounds like it was written and recorded this year... okay, I know I said I wouldn't but seriously guys? I do like a bit of glam, even now, though. Me and Kanye both. One of my favorite songs of the nineties was called Fuzzy, too. It all comes together. 

 dial your number - Julia-Sophie

Bandicoot like ALL CAPS. Julia-Sophie's lower case. I know which I think is cooler. When you leaf through lists like these you're always hoping you'll find someone you'll end up following for years. Sometimes it happens but you can't make it happen. Just the possibility is exhilarating, all the same. I got a frisson of the future from several of the tracks I heard today. This was one of them.

Sparky - Nuha Ruby Ra

This was another. It's the one that feels the most "modern" to me even though it also sounds really eighties. It's more talk-singing too, isn't it, even though it sounds absolutely nothing like the others. You know stuff like this used to chart, right? Does it still? I don't follow the charts although I'm wondering if I ought to start. Start again, that is.

Deirdre's Luggin' Boxes at Bargain City - Joel Harkin

Cheating a tad here. The track on the playlist is Vada but after I heard it I went looking for a video on YouTube and there isn't one but there is this, which is just wonderful. The title grabbed me by the scruff and dragged me and then the performance is so... it's so there, isn't it? His bleach-blond pudding-bowl haircut, the bass player's truly unfortunate trousers, the way Nicole's mic is just a hair too low in the mix, the fucking intensity of it all... They're Irish, of course, as if you couldn't tell.

Chew My Cheeks - Prima Queen

Everything doesn't have to be raw emotion. An arched eyebrow and a quirky dance routine can take you a long way. Just ask Wet Leg. Of course you have to have the killer tune. Luckily Prima Queen have more than one.

What If - Sasa Zola

We seem to be in the cool zone now. This just oozes sophistication. Remember when this what what you put on the stereo system when you were giving a dinner party? Oh yes, that was a thing that happened. No use trying to pretend it wasn't.

Stuck - Smoothboi Ezra

There was a time when everything seemed to sound like this and it wasn't that long ago. For me it represents the moment in the timestream when I began to slip back in. Laura Marling, Peggy Sue and the Pirates, it seemed so new to me, the way they sang. It was so different to the way people sang before and somehow I'd missed the transition. Thanks, EverQuest. Now it's the way people sing but only one of the ways because everyone sings so differently to how they used to sing and it's SO. MUCH. BETTER!! Really, I don't know how we used to put up with music the way it used to be.

Mean Rock N Roller - MeMe Detroit

Then again... It would, as they say, be so boring if we all liked the same things, right? Not sure what it is about this one but there is something...

Okay, I could keep this up all night (I said they were all good and there are seventy-four of them, not to mention all the others I found in the YouTube suggestions...) but I'd probably better wrap it up. Let's go out in style.

Night Wars - Lees

Speaks for itself, I think. 

The long list gets boiled down to a shortlist of just eight. Not sure when that happens but I'll try and remember to come back and report on whether any of my picks made the cut.