Hallo Halloween II: The Bloodening / 'Anodyne'

Once again, Halloween's on the way -- and I'll be providing, in the run-up, some examples of seasonally relevant culture-y stuff that you can make use of to keep yourself entertained while hiding from trick-or-treaters and their inhuman demands. Kicking off this week with independent developer Analgesic Productions' surreal action-adventure game Anodyne.

Looking at Sean Hogan and Jonathan Kittaka's 2012 game, Anodyne, there are quite a few aspects of it that that don't necessarily make it look like the most obvious choice of game to be looked at in relation to Halloween. The game's got a relatively prominent sense of humour; on the surface, it draws comparisons more to an old Legend of Zelda game than to, say, Silent Hill or Forbidden Siren; and there are plenty of moments that could be seen as lightly whimsical: for example, the girl with a bike called Wares, and a bear called James who asks you not to defecate on his berries.

Of course, in talking about how Anodyne contrastingly has many other elements that create a sense of unease (and in a way, too, that makes these aforementioned lighter aspects contribute to this dark atmosphere), I'll make a little reference to a compelling old online urban myth I read about a few years ago about a haunted Majora's Mask cartridge.What interested me about that (to get quite wanky about it) was how, like any good ghost story, there were depths to it that, through the supernatural elements, had some resonance with real life -- this idea of someone, in adulthood, revisiting something representative of the carefree innocence of his childhood and finding it tainted with the death and sadness that people grow to realise is an inherent part of existence.

I have no idea whether Hogan and Kittaka are aware of this particular 'Creepy Pasta' (there's nothing that conjures up fear and dread like a famous and widely-appreciated staple food), but I definitely think that their game shares, to some extent, this same vibe of 'corrupted childhood artefact'.

To gamers of a certain age (i.e. my age, and a bit older), aspects of the game's presentation and gameplay will likely evoke nostalgia. Probably bringing back memories of playing old Super Nintendo games, or maybe - if you're closer to my age - of playing something like the old Pokemon games on the Game Boy.

Further comparisons with such games (specifically something like Zelda) can be seen in the premise and storyline of Anodyne: travelling and puzzling through a variety of dungeons and environments, with the objective being the seemingly simplistic one of having to "save the Briar from the Evil Darkness". It is here, in the unfolding of this storyline, though, where a player will also first notice the 'haunting' in all the nostalgia and apparent traditionalism.

Emerging from the apparently simple and traditional 'fight the evil force' storyline are an array of fascinating, cryptic mysteries. You'll come to play through increasingly strange and imaginative settings (I don't want to spoil these -- though the monochrome world alone makes the game very suitable for Halloween playing); meet a cast of eccentric, bizarre characters and enemies who serve to compellingly complicate any search for clarity with regards to what's going on; encounter commendably nuanced suggestions of heavy narrative themes that include murder, loneliness and suicide; and, after the credits roll, you have the chance to experience the game world in a thrillingly innovative new way.

All of this (coupled with the excellent soundtrack by Seagaia) serves to create and maintain this really effective atmosphere of melancholy, unease and deliberate 'brokenness' throughout the entire game; emphasising the creeping surrealism of its darkest moments, and skilfully undercutting the moments of lightness, humour and naivety. Is the ever-shifting world of Anodyne its (with this in mind, perhaps aptly named?) protagonist's attempt to escape the pressures and stresses of the adult world by trying to retreat into a dreamlike fantasy representative of the 16-bit video games of his more carefree childhood days?

I, frankly, don't know... and it doesn't really matter whether or not you 'figure it out', because the challenging, yet addictive, classically-styled gameplay is accessible, entertaining, and never alienates; helping to form a complete piece in which the player is able to experience, analyse, and - importantly - enjoy Anodyne's unique complexities at his/her own pace.

Great stuff.

Anodyne (Analgesic Games, 2012)

http://www.anodynegame.com/

Available for £6.99 from Steam here -- http://store.steampowered.com/app/234900

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On a similar note...

Lone Survivor

(Superflat Games, 2012)

Jasper Byrne's 2012 independent survival horror game, Lone Survivor, is - like Anodyne - a fever-dream-esque experience that similarly works a constant air of unease and danger through Silent Hill-esque dilapidated environments, a relentlessly surreal and bleak storyline, and experimental survival-based gameplay mechanics.

Available for £6.99 from Steam -- http://store.steampowered.com/app/209830/

Label to Keep Your Ears On: Sparkwood Records

A while ago I wrote a piece about some tracks released by Above, Convenience Store! on their Soundcloud page; in this piece I'm going to recommend the independent label started by the duo, which is named Sparkwood Records.



At the time of writing, the label is home to three releases -- Above, Convenience Store!'s own full-length album Building in Search of the Sun; and self-titled EPs from the Elephant Frame and Eyesix.

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Building in Search of the Sun continues the promise of the duo's earlier work; relevantly enough, I first listened to this from start-to-finish on a day that had kicked off with lightning, thunder, and lashings of rain. This is an album that reflects the storminess and the turbulence of the natural environment -- something that can be heard in the samples of rain on a track like 'Boneyard Stray Dog', and atmospherically throughout the album in the windiness evoked by the lo-fi drones and layers of distortion that can be heard in tracks like 'Mask of Mammon' and the aptly-titled 'Shaken from Earth'.

Also interesting is that this album shows the duo nicely branching out and showing a bit more of themselves in their music: while twanging guitars like those on 'Hierosheva', and the synth textures of 'Dusk Encryption' still sonically bring to mind the influential collaborative efforts of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, I can hear them using these sounds to explore different themes and ideas. For example, I get from this album -- from the storminess of the sounds, from the interesting title, and from the cover art's towering pylon against a sinister grey sky -- a sense of the duality and conflict between humanity and nature.

From a label that can be seen to (as you'll see from the other release) specialise in highly nuanced, almost 'visual', sounds, it's this full-length release from the label's founders that I feel really sets the standards.






With this self-titled EP, Oslo's The Elephant Frame certainly fits well alongside Sparkwood's founding artists. The five tracks on this EP have the same evocatively mysterious 'outdoorsy' feel of the tracks on Building in Search of the Sun, albeit with less use of distortion, which serves to lend the Elephant Frame's work a general sense more of grey-skied cloudy melancholy than the stormy turbulence of Above, Convenience Store!. As a sense of greater threat is introduced in EP closer, 'A Day to Remember' - as distortion and noise begin to take on a greater role against a contrastingly gentle guitar line - I can visualise a storm beginning to emerge from the melancholy, and I find myself anticipating what lies in store for future releases from the Elephant Frame.






Offering a different sound altogether is eyesix. In keeping with the general style of the label, this is music fascinated with and deliberately evocative of nature and the outdoors -- something that can be seen in the similar artwork, and that can be heard in the continued utilisation of field recordings / samples of field recordings on this release. Crucially different though is the mood evoked: where Building in Search of the Sun and The Elephant Frame explore dark clouds and storms, eyesix brings to my mind's eye a greater sense of a brighter atmosphere; something more like a clear, blue-skied Winter's day.

The Boards of Canada-esque synthesizer textures give the EP an unmistakably nostalgic, almost 'hauntological' sound (implied also through track titles like 'Nuclear Family' and 'Soylent Green'); and are coupled with a good ear for melody that helps the music act as more than just a vehicle for nostalgia -- something that I find can sometimes be a downfall with many artists working with this similar sonic palette -- as the music evokes a feeling not dissimilar to going for a carefree walk in a fresh, cool Winter breeze, as the sun retreats behind hills. Especially on the excellent 'Soylent Green'.



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Definitely a label I'd recommend -- not just for the music (as in tune with my taste for music that blurs the lines between 'organic' and 'electronic' as it is) -- but also for this ambitious sense of almost continuity that runs through the work they've released to date: this sense that Sparkwood are a label who aim to reflect, through music, the various faces and characteristics of the outside world and how people can interact with it.

Details from where you can hear their music on Soundcloud, and stream / download (pay-what-you-want) from Bandcamp are...
Soundcloud -- https://soundcloud.com/sparkwood-records
Bandcamp -- http://sparkwoodrecords.bandcamp.com/

Epilogue #2

The Trial

Franz Kafka

It seems like there's not a great deal that I can say about Franz Kafka that's not already been said. But having read, for the first time, what is (except maybe for the short story 'The Metamorphosis') probably his best-known work, The Trial (as part of Vintage's The Complete Novels collection), I feel the urge to say all that stuff anyway.

For a number of reasons, reading this novel rarely gave me the feeling of one written in the early 20th-Century: obviously, there's the fact that the contemporary reader can most likely empathise with Josef K.'s frustrating dealings with a satirically absurd bureaucracy (I shamefully admit that I drew parallels between K.'s anguish and the time when I got a bit annoyed because I had to keep sending documents to the Student Finance Company). But there's a lot in Kafka's general world view that I think is very interestingly more in line with later writers and with the contemporary age in general -- the shadowy dystopian setting of The Trial, the depiction of a society controlled by unknown and un-knowable forces that exert their power elusively from a space seemingly towering above even the most elaborate hierarchies is something more akin to the culture and thinking of the post-modern age: the conspirators so frequently rambled about by Thomas Pynchon protagonists, for example, the vast conglomerates of cyberpunk fiction, or the almost alien figures behind the scenes of Mulholland Drive's film-within-a-film The Sylvia North Story.

Furthermore, there's been much notice from others regarding the fact that what - at the time - may have been read primarily as a darkly surreal satire on the bureaucracy of modernity gained a much more sinister sense of relevance in the wake of the totalitarian, fascist regimes that would contribute to the shift from modernity's world of order and categorisation into post-modernity's (rather Kafka-esque) age of increased uncertainty, distrust, and paranoia (hello GCHQ / the NSA!). This is definitely something I picked up on throughout my reading of The Trial: in the aforementioned elusiveness of its dystopian power structure, I noted that - far from being an Orwellian portrait of an oppressed 'Big Brother' state - it was (even though the whole novel is given a dreamy, surreal tone by Kafka's focus on the insular figure of K., and his effectively blunt and straight-forward prose) a more hauntingly recognisable dystopia: one where the governing systems' corruption and unhealthy disconnection from ordinary people doesn't make itself apparent (or maybe just doesn't matter to you) until, like K., you find that your fate is in its hands.

Though the novel does have a final chapter that ends K.'s story, it's a shame that Kafka died before writing what leads up to it, as The Trial resultantly concludes with an abrupt time shift. Though that said, it is quite fitting with K.'s constant state of profoundly not knowing what's going on that the novel ends so very strikingly and with such a crucial lack of supporting context as to be possibly even more powerfully Kafkaesque than Kafka himself ever intended.

I definitely look forward to progressing onto Amerika (and then, The Castle soon after) in the near future.

Epilogue #1

Epilogue is a new section where I aim to write a little bit about a book that I've recently read... Just so you know.
I'm back after my slight absence with my brows facing more towards the moon than ever before; and I aim to break new ground by blogging about literature without at any point making reference to tea or gin.
Like what some sort of enterprising pioneer of the form would do.


Mason & Dixon
Thomas Pynchon

Around this time probably about two years ago, Thomas Pynchon was one of those writers whose work I thought I would be eternally intending to read without ever getting round to it. Since then (partly due to deciding to write a chapter of my undergraduate dissertation on Gravity's Rainbow), I've now read his first five novels -- as well as some of the hilarious bits of Pynchon miscellany that have been archived on the line (see: http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_cohen.html / http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_dailyshow.html).

Most recently - as you can probably tell from the massive picture and heading above - I've read his 1997 novel, Mason & Dixon. After 1990's Vineland - smaller-scale, and more low-key in its thematic complexity than typically associated with a Pynchon novel - this novel represents more of a return to the sprawling, dense and tonally eclectic fictions of V. and Gravity's Rainbow.

The striking difference here is that - unlike with his previous works - Mason & Dixon's primary setting is far-removed from the recognisable 20th Century, modern / post-modern age to which Pynchon is so strongly linked. The novel follows a lengthy period in the 18th century, centred around the lives of astronomer / surveyor team Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, best-known for charting the Mason-Dixon line to establish the correct boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Despite this, it's definitely worth noting that Pynchon's historical narrative is firmly connected to the 20th / 21st century age of late / post-modernity... and it's this that leads me to talk about what I feel makes Mason & Dixon really fit with its aforementioned encyclopaedic predecessors. From his work, Pynchon's general aesthetic attitude towards history is (and for more about this, by the way, read up about Linda Hutcheon's ideas about 'historiographic metafiction') one that argues the importance of the outsider and the 'preterite': leaving us with novels that highlight how the present moment is always essentially the culmination of the chaotic mess of all events of the past (including, crucially of course, events 'forgotten' by or 'rejected' from the grand narrative of history).

This aesthetic approach to history and historiography can be seen in by the bucket-load throughout this novel: Mason and Dixon's tale is framed as a story told by the unreliably subjective and human narrator Wicks Cherrycoke to members of his extended family; the novel blends impeccably researched historical fact with obvious fiction (e.g. a talking dog, ghosts, a super-intelligent mechanical duck); a focus on the 'preterite' throughout history (the stories of slaves, indigenous cultures, etc.). Most significantly, almost everywhere is this idea of the many events of the past leading unquestionably to the present moment: it is as present in the largest aspects -- primarily, I refer the ever-looming theme throughout the book of how the innocence and naivety of superstition and religion / folklore gives way to the 'experience' of rationality and science in modernity and of commerce and consumerism in post-modernity -- as it is in the tiniest details -- the presence of Pig Bodine's similarly drunken ancestor, for example, and even a paragraph describing a grandfather clock that I feel can be read both as an extremely subtle allusion to the sort of shadowy almost-fascism that features so heavily in Vineland, and as an even more subtle reference to George Orwell's 1984 (for which Pynchon wrote a foreword, fact fans).

As is no doubt evident, there really is a hell of a lot in Mason & Dixon. Though it may seem a bit slow to begin with, and maybe not quite as detailed and intense as some of Pynchon's other work; if you persevere, it becomes apparent just how filled to the brim with detail, warmth, character, ambition, insight, and wonder this fascinating novel's 700-plus pages are.

Above, Convenience Store! - Tūndâr / Arvedálki Beaivvada (Foundcloud #7: A Set Review)

This month's Foundcloud thing is - unlike the previous instalments - going to be a look at one specific set. I think it's good to keep my possibly non-existent readers on their possibly non-existent feet.

What attracted me to write about this set was that I'd been particularly taken by some of Above, Convenience Store!'s earlier work that they had released on their page; in particular, the track 'Up to Jack's for No Good' -- a brilliantly atmospheric Twin Peaks-sampling piece that incorporates the uniquely eerie tone of that aforementioned show into an appropriately smoky almost trip-hop context.

This sense of the eerie and the pastoral is something that runs through much of the Norwegian duo's work: their hazy, dream-like sounds often sound lo-fi, but they never sound restricted to within the confines of a bedroom studio. Like fellow lo-fi experimentalists Grouper and Fieldhead - Above, Convenience Store!'s droning lo-fi compositions often sound as if heard somewhere in the vast expanse of the outdoors, from a distant clearing beyond oppressively tall hills and trees.




This set - Tūndâr / Arvedálki Beaivvada - is no exception. Tūndâr begins with murky reverberating guitar chords that gradually come to be accompanied by further meticulously-placed layers of distorted guitar and synth drones. All of this melds together to fuse into one huge, spacious sound that sonically recreates the feeling of harsh winds forcing themselves through the trees and chilling the skin.

Second track Arvedálki Beaivvada pretty much starts straight away with the dense wind-like drones, underneath which are snatches of melodies hidden and buried beneath the chaos. Breaking this is a guitar passage that, as well as being evocatively haunting, also serves effectively to calm the storm: giving structure to the thick layers of noise as they shape themselves to fit the guitarwork in a way that sounds appropriately organic and natural. All of this - in a way somewhat reminiscent of the work of Flying Saucer Attack or of Mirrorring's excellent Foreign Body - establishes a very effective dichotomy between subdued calm and stormy chaos.

While writing this, I also found that the duo operate a Bandcamp page -- http://aboveconveniencestore.bandcamp.com/ -- where you can stream and download two of their EPs - the brilliant Gasfarming EP, which contains the aforementioned 'Up to Jack's for No Good'; and the Planetary Exiles EP, which I have yet to listen to.

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While I'm here, I'd also like to take the opportunity to share the fourth instalment in Body in the Thames' series of mixes showcasing the music of the Drowned in Sound community, on which is contained a track of mine, 'The Almost Harp', as well as eleven other tracks by the freakishly talented members of the DiS forums.



Tracklist:
1. Ghosting Season - Time Without Question (alternate version) (DiS user worrier1)
2. Evangelink88 - Shok Shok (DiS user evangelink)

3. J Howes - TD-W700 (DiS user Howes)

4. Moth Effect - Toggy Dubness (DiS user bongodeldrongo)

5. Aquatic Slime - Howling (DiS user wasted_opportunity)

6. Cementimental - . Strangely Enough, There Was Also Electricity in Ataru's House (DiS user cementimental)

7. Internet Forever - White Light Collision Course (DiS users alcxxk, laura_wolf, & hrtbps)

8. Neon Highwire - Just Suppose (DiS user maosm)

9. oh-dude - 120 to 30, delayed and filtered (DiS user chris-budget)

10. Go Faster - When the last note sounds (DiS user dead_fred)

11. Falling Stacks - View of a lake (DiS users moribund & JimmyHuntspill)

12. Mute Branches - The Almost Harp (DiS user mute-branches)

Foundcloud #6

After not releasing a Foundcloud in March (though maybe the Pan.American post kind of counts), here's another couple of tracks from the 'Like' folder...


PLVS VLTRA - 'Rocks in Sun I'



This track is from PLVS VLTRA, the electronic solo project of Toko Yasuda -- probably better known for her work with the likes of St. Vincent, Blonde Redhead, and the Van Pelt.

'Rocks in Sun I' obviously differs from the work of those aforementioned projects: while the influence of electronic music is evident in the work of St. Vincent and Blonde Redhead, here the focus is entirely onto electronics -- as the sound-bending capabilities of the sampler are utilised to great effect.

The track admittedly doesn't go through any great changes in its 4 minutes, but where it stays - as its echoing 4/4 beat and vintage-sounding synth bass pulse through a hypnotic, sonically dense swirling collage of processed piano and vocal samples (which, I should add, at a number of points, I also found reminiscent of the dreamier and more electronically-influenced instrumental parts of St. Vincent's incredible 2009 album Actor) - is undoubtedly a nice place to be.

I should also, while I'm recommending this, urge you to listen to another track on her page - 'Sitcat (yo-yo blue)' - because it's just SO MUCH FUN.


Pinkunoizu - 'Tin Can Valley'



Speaking of fun, one of my favourite aspects of Copenhagen-based experimental rock band Pinkunoizu was how much fun their releases to date (the EP Peep and 2012 debut album Free Time!) have been to listen to, laden as they are with genre-smashing eclecticism, playful experimentation and an energy that they've shown a talent for successfully translating onto record.

This new single 'Tin Can Valley' (from an upcoming EP Second Amendment, out next month on Full Time Hobby) is no exception to that rule. On the track we can hear a band who just sound like they're enjoying every aspect of what they're doing, while unleashing the kind of exciting, noisy, sprawling music that wouldn't sound too out of place coming from Sonic Youth circa-Daydream Nation.


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While I'm here, I'm also going to mention a Soundcloud playlist originating from the Drowned in Sound forums:
https://soundcloud.com/body-in-the-thames/sets/1-minute-dis-challenge.

As well as including my track 'Lake', it also features 14 other great tracks that show how much interesting stuff can go on in a single minute.

Happy listening!
(not to be a regular sign-off, it just seems weirdly appropriate right here)

Not Foundcloud, But Something I Found On Soundcloud

I've been relatively more busy than usual recently, though I do plan to get another Foundcloud out by the end of the month (or if not then, then very likely early next month -- unless BioShock Infinite ends up taking over my life, which is VERY possible).

Anyway, here's something that came across in the Soundcloud feed that I was rather excited about...

The first taste of the upcoming new album from Pan American (Cloud Room, Glass Room: to be released on Kranky next month).

In all honesty, 'Project for an Apartment Building' is no great leap for Pan American... within the first minute, we hear the crackling static, the dub bassline, the clattering rhythms, the looping synthesizer sequence: these have been hallmarks of Mark Nelson's distinctive sound since early releases like 360 Business / 360 Bypass 13 years ago. And as more sounds are introduced -- further rhythmic elements, ambient washes, the buzzing and whirring of a dreamily processed guitar -- it's clarification that this is Pan American, doing what he does best and, I should definitely add, doing it as brilliantly as ever: crafting a soundscape full of atmosphere, beautiful textural touches and character.

Certainly an album I'm looking forward to, then (especially given the reported presence of former Labradford member Bobby Donne), but this will be more than enough for now to get my fix of Mark Nelson's brand of understated yet dense ambience.