If you're unfamiliar with the band Snooper, I suggest you take some time to listen through their body of work - Compilation of the Hits is as good of a place to start as any. They are considered "egg punk" and I imagine that's a genre label they hate - it's lo-fi, high energy, punky and unbelievably fun aesthetic. There's also something a little something tense about it.. a kind of anxiety that I appreciate. If nothing else, look at this gallery of characters - giant paper mache creatures that show up at shows. Insane in the absolute best way. Here's a good introductory song. But I'm not here to talk about their music or their aesthetic. I'm here to tell you they also have their own videogames. Truthfully, that's much less outlandish in 2026 than it was in, say, 1988 but it's still pretty rare! Accompanying their latest release is a new game called Snooper Recess, built by Sketchy Dumpster.

Fantastic art direction, perfectly strange story mode and honest entertainment while playing it. The band also has other games on their site (by the same developer / artist) if you're looking to continue investing in the Snooperverse.

Threads recently dropped me into the work of Anton Elfilter, a "mixed media / digital / ai" artist. Poking around, it seems that Elfilter has quite a few works on the blockchain and loads of works on Instagram.

I really enjoy this work. It is a mixture of lo-fi, glitch, collage, datamoshing, late 90s gmunk, hacker aesthetics and even a bit of Renaissance and classical arts. The animations imbue much of the same magical mixture of styles.

Now, I realize that because AI is one of the tools in this toolkit, that mixture may not be coming directly from the brain of an individual. I'm not privy to Elfilter's process but it's possible that a chunk of this is the fever dream mixture of the AI itself, under their direction. I would love to know more about the process, not as a critique of it but purely out of curiosity.

At the end of the day, I simply can't deny I like what I'm looking at... whoever or whatever made it!

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I've been a fan of Sam Hoffman for some time. I think he came across my radar back in 2018 with Fairweather, a languid and melancholy album that I revisit regularly still today. If you're not familiar, go ahead and get him on to your "I should check this out" playlist (if nothing else, put "Glencrest Lane" into heavy rotation). He recently released the new track "Afloat" and it seems he's turning a new leaf with his approach. It's always a treat when artists explore new territory and it's double-y satisfying when they actually do it this well. The track is psychedelic and floaty - never moving along with urgency but also never sprawling out too far to lose interest. Hoffman's voice is the perfect fit for this kind of music; thoughtful, curious and evoking a worldly disconnection. I hope this is the first of many new tracks to come but even if it's a standalone, I'm happy to have it.

I didn't get MTV until high school (that's the mid-90s for anyone keeping score) but, once I did, I voraciously consumed every moment of 120 Minutes I could get my eyeballs on. I primarily associate the show with host Matt Pinfield but he only took over in 1995. The show was created by Dave Kendall, a British journalist and early MTV VJ. He passed away this week but I would be remiss if I did not honor the impact his creation had on my life.

I'm not alone in my love of 120 Minutes. There's a massive archive that documents every episode that aired, what videos they played and tries to recreate that content with what is available on streaming. A herculean effort that is highly appreciated. There are also loads of fans posting full episodes to Archive.org. You can even just search directly for "Dave Kendall" to get straight to the goods. There's treasure troves on YouTube as well. It's everywhere!

Kendall hosted 120 Minutes from 1998 to 1992 and always had such great rapport with the bands he interviewed. I am not sure how involved he was in the specific music selections episode-to-episode but he should get credit for creating the environment where less-than-mainstream videos could find a home (Yes, I realize music videos in 1988 still cost an arm and a leg but all the more reason to give them a place to air!).

Big fan of Dave Kendall and I urge you to celebrate his life by partaking in some 120 Minutes.

I was gonna have the cover GIF be footballer Erling Haaland getting spooked by his own reflection and let you know it's a deepfake manipulated from a clip originally created by Chinese creator Jin Long... but that's not what Friday videos are about! No soul crushing reminders of modern times! Just stupid videos. Let's go.

The absolute best thing you'll see this week is "heaven let your eent shine down," which can not be embedded outside YouTube so you'll just have to trust me and go enjoy it. absolute perfection.

• Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs then runs away. - shockingly, also perfect.
• You're a Dish Network Pirate - pretty amazing clip where a DISH employee lets you know they are on to you. I love it.
• Some Albums With Great First Few Seconds - a lot of clips packed in this 3 minutes; all very satisfying.
• PROFITWAVE!!! - I was confident this was AI. A Star Trek-esque theme song from Philip Morris to promote profits from cigarette inventory. Nope, this is a 1987 reality. Also, a total bop.
• Center Core Never More - a music video made in the early 90s on an Amiga 500. Impressive and insane to say the least. Also kind of a bop if we're being honest.
• Tango (1980) - Oscar winning short film featuring an absolutely insane number of looping animations. I can not fathom the work involved to create this. Yes, its 8 minutes but it is captivating.
• What's Michael? - some things you don't need to understand, you just enjoy that they exist.
• Obama Does the Tetris Beatbox - back with another dose of internet perfection.

Back in April, yk Records released Seeds for Cosmic Radio, a seventeen track electronic ambient album that was inspired by something especially not electronic... gardening! Infinite Limb (aka Kyle Numann) was tending to his home garden and pondering the relationship between the seeds in the soil and the cosmic fuel they receive from the sun. It's a rather incredible relationship that we're all aware of and likely take for granted! It's wild!

That idea fueled his work into culling through hours of improvisational pieces he had recorded and shaping them into something more thematic. I won't call it a concept record but it's inspired by some very specific things and sounds like those things as well. Our official writeup says:

The album forages the textures and rhythms of the natural universe, from the seed-small to the galaxy-wide: the bleary melody of spring thaw, the pulsing beat of cellular activity, the endless drone of interstellar space, and the radio signals of our most distant voyager.

All true!

I am biased because of my involvement but it's a very rewarding listen start to finish. It's ambient but it's immersive. It's also just now available on all streaming services. We've been holding off for a number of reasons but this week it unleashed itself everywhere! So, if you wanna support it on Bandcamp, Ampwall, Mirlo, or Subvert - you certainly can! You can also stream it on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music and everywhere else.

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It's also worth noting that the physical version of this release is a packet of seeds; culled from Numann's own garden where the original inspiration took place. He says they are "hearty bloomers."

Pop Rock Record continues to be a wellspring of great new music discovery. For example, a recent post led me to the full-length, self-titled, debut of Softjaw. The platitudes from the review include "Beatlesque charms", "strong Big Star flash" and "guitar-hook rush from start to finish." Certainly more than enough to hit play!

If you do hit play, you're likely to hear "Playing Bogart" - the last track on the album but the default selection. Much to my surprise, that's a cover of 23 Jewels from 1979. Equally surprising, the track preceeding it - "Working Too Hard" - is a cover of The Nerves (you know the one). They're at the end of the record but they really do serve as the perfect introduction to the band.

The website of artist Ezla Li Eismont is intentionally minimal. Specifically he says "I am opting for less screen time as I strive to find the time to create new physical works, and spending time researching music." Admirable! But his Instagram and Patreon have plenty to see.

I find myself incredibly fascinated with these literal vinyl collages aka "Cut Ups." Eismont slices up actual records and glues them back together, resulting in these incredible - somewhat accidental, somewhat curated - sound collages. Check out examples here, here, here and here (just to start). Phenomenal.

There must be something in the air recently. I found myself deep diving into the FuelTV archive and now I'm rummaging around the Pinkpop Archive. I'd heard of the festival in the Netherlands but never really paid much attention to its lineage. Turns out, having a music festival running since 1970 with fully recorded and broadcast performances since 1992 results in quite a few delightful goodies. Here's a sampling of items I plan to partake:

• Radiohead - 1996 - a much different band than today but still quite a compelling setlist
• Nada Surf - 1997 - their later albums were stellar but I never spent much time with this era
• Bjork - 1994 - again, a much different Bjork than modern times but still fascinating
• Deftones - 2006 - maybe the unhealthiest era of the band but a helluva setlist.
• Smashing Pumpkins - 1994 - been on a kick lately
• Dire Straits - 1978 - truthfully, I just enjoy the vibe of footage from this era
• Spiritualized - 1998 - intriguing
• QOTSA - 2003 - again, probably not the healthiest time for this band but a good setlist

I suggest you go to their videos list and just filter by a year. What you'll find in the results is nuts.

Funny story, Vimeo is shutting down their On Demand service. As of November 2026, it will no longer be available at all. Truth be told, it's been a long neglected service and (mostly) unnecessary since Vimeo acquired VHX, aka Vimeo Streaming, in 2016.

Another funny story: right around the same time as the VHX acquisition, Vimeo announced Vimeo Originals - a slate of exclusives and Vimeo-funded endeavors - and their own SVOD service. The plan was for people to subscribe to Vimeo content in the same way you would subscribe to Netflix. Those plans were nixed in 2016. I am not privy to the exact reasons why but I do recall it being a surprising bit of news when I worked there.*

One of the headlining pieces of content for that forthcoming Vimeo SVOD service was 555, a five episode series from Kate Berlant and John Early, directed by Andrew DeYoung. The episodes were all released and have been available for years but I just recently noticed that John Early has been posting them to his YouTube account.

Are the episodes being shared because Vimeo On Demand is finally being shut down? Is it promotion for Early's new film Maddie's Secret? Probably a bit of both and I'm happy for it! Here's all the episodes (and the bloopers) in one playlist - let it roll!

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* Worth saying: the slate of content from Vimeo Originals was actually quite good and very well curated. The idea of a Vimeo service ala Netflix is a different conversation to have. I hope that Vimeo's legacy is that they highlighted a lot of great, independent, content and even managed to create some of it themselves.

This performance from The Helio Sequence was posted just a few weeks ago in mid-June 2026. It's taken from The Daily Habit, a show on Fuel TV... an Action Sports channel. I've not heard of any of this and, clearly, this footage is not from 2026.

The Fuel TV Channel is filled with hundreds of performances from this late aughts era:

• ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead
• Minus the Bear
• Mobius Band
• Oh No! Oh My!
• Cursive
• The Rentals
• Aqueduct
• Cut Copy
• Islands
• King Khan and The Shrines
• Colour Revolt

There are so many performances here and most of them have been viewed less than 100 times. The entire channel has less than 1 Million views. This is a phenomenal, untapped, time capsule, truly.

It's wild to me that someone has been uploading to this massive archive but not even bothering to put the airdate alongside each video. There's not even a link accompanying subscription channel for FuelTV+ - a site that also makes no mention of these performances. I think it's probably safe to assume that this isn't really a Vevo channel, despite the clever naming.

Wild stuff here folks. I hope someone is downloading all of this before it's zapped away forever.

I'm a bit shocked at myself for never having mentioned Christian Marclay's The Clock. If you are unfamiliar, it is a 24-hour film composed of film and television clips showing the exact time of day. It will screen in a museum and when it's 12:05 here on Earth, The Clock is showing you snippets of media that display 12:05. It's very difficult to see this creation because it's incredibly long, it simply rarely screens anywhere and its not exactly fast paced. This thing is a gauntlet. You can watch a bootleg snippet of it here or read about the experience here.

I've never seen it myself. I did see another enormous installation from Marclay back in 2015 called Surround Sounds that left quite an impression tho.. so I am intrigued by his works.

Despite not having seen it, I find it fascinating. I am not alone. There is a Fandom Wiki for The Clock that crowd sources a minute-by-minute breakdown of what clips are shown throughout the 24-hour experience. It's an impressively thorough tome. You can see the individual works used or browse the timeline. Incredible.issin

I have never played 1982's The Tomb of Dracula before but when a friend shared this delightful Dracula pixelart, I had to give it a spin. It was... something special! You may be better off just watching a playthrough or just enjoying more screenshots. Some real delightful drawings in there!

• Gremlins Superfan discovers and renovates Three-Hour Assembly Cut - Ian Grant, founder of the Gremlins Museum, acquired the original assembly cut of the film and then worked it into a screenable state. An impressive tale worth reading.
• Gen Z moviegoers are reviving indie cinema - the kids are alright?
• A Literary History of Fake Texts - whenever Apple announces some new marketing feature that involves "Messaging" they have to show some actual messages being sent. What if you took the time to deep dive into those fake conversations? Max Read did just that. Pretty amusing.

There's no way I can keep up with (or share) the firehose of tech news but I'd be remiss if I did not mention Midjourney Medical - a new division from Midjourney that aims to introduce a new body scanning device that will replace / compete with MRI's.

Yes, the company that generates AI images and videos has started a new division to create immersive medical devices. I was sure it was a joke after reading the announcement. A clever way to showcase their next generation of models? But then I found a press release from their hardware partner talking about the agreement they signed to leverage "semiconductor-based ultrasound devices." The device is very real. I was also struck by this quote from Joseph DeVivo from the semi-conductor partner, Butterfly:

"After nearly 35 years working in healthcare, it's clear to me that our U.S. healthcare system is still primarily designed to treat illness, not prevent it. The future of health starts with awareness: understanding your body earlier and tracking how it responds to factors like diet, exercise, and behavior. Midjourney has unveiled an extraordinary whole-body scanner — no radiation, no magnetic risk, low cost, and accessible — with about half a million sensors scanning simultaneously and over two petaflops of processing power. Designed for weekly use, this is the next generation of AI on device. A continuous window into your health… because the earlier you can see what's changing, the sooner you can do something about it."

On paper, an inarguable standpoint to take! The US healthcare industry is broken in a bunch of ways! Our entire US culture is not really shaped to be health conscious in this way. Maybe there's promise here? Conceptually, it's an interesting stance.

Practically speaking, my skepticism is at full boil. It's an AI company that likely stole all its training data now adding a medical division. I am sure there is overlap in the tech but it's a long road before you convince me to step into one of their spa / MRI machines. Their device deep dive blog post didn't really quell my fears either.. they don't even cover the basic question of why Midjourney is the company you would trust with your privacy, your body and (one day) your health insights.

Look, spin off companies happen! Flickr was spun off from a multiplayer game called Game Neverending. Slack was spun off from... a multiplayer online game called Glitch. Twitter was originally a podcasting directory. It's not impossible that Midjourney could pivot or expand into medical but it certainly feels wild to imagine the new association.

I know one person that works at the new medical division and they are smart, hardworking and not treating any part of the undertaking with folly. I am intrigued to say the least and will be keeping an eye out as it develops.

I posted about this in Friday videos but it really bears repeating - this Dev Lemons song and video for "Maybe I'm the Reason instantly hit heavy rotation. The track is a blend of ethereal and melancholy pop that unfurls into a big wall of fuzzy guitars. Delightful.

The video is lo-fi as hell, combining vaporwave, glitch, videogame and a twinge of unexpected horror. I absolutely love the turn and I think you will too. Repeatedly.

I wish my setup for gaming from a laptop was even slightly together because I'd be putting in serious time with Moss Moss. It's a platformer / Metroidvania with an excellent lo-fi aesthetic and just the right balance of puzzles to exploring. I know this because I've watched playthroughs.. which just makes me yearn to play it more myself!

The concept here is unbelievably simple - a tiled background GIF paired with a transparent subject GIF, randomly chosen and recycling forever. The curation on the source material is top notch. You'll see repeats but every pairing is incredibly satisfying. Enjoy cachemonet.

In a world of TikTok, Instagram Reels,YouTube Shorts and every other "pivot to video" platform out there - I don't think you really need a collection of videos to distract you on a Friday. But, then again, who doesn't need a random slice of absurd happiness simply for the sake of absurd happiness? Let's go!

• The Strangest 1970s Public Information Film of All - you do not know where this is going. I promise.
• Bob's Burgers "Transmission" - an excellent Joy Division cover. Watch like 30 seconds, that's plenty.
• Puerto Rican Michael Jackson - I love MontessoriBoy. This one is particularly stupid but that's the charm.
• Robot Falls During "Billie Jean" Dance -Truthfully, a pretty stellar recovery but I lost it the first few times I watched.
• Breaking Bad but his HAT grows proportionally to his ego - just like the title says but it really delivers.
• Dev Lemons - Maybe I'm The Reason - new-to-me artist bringing the goods with this video. The first 1:40 is a delight but the turn is the real treat.
• The Room Returns - The original version of The Room cost $6 million dollars and months to film. What if it was done by professional actors with no budget, all green screen, no rehearsal and only teleprompters? Better? Worse? If you live in LA, you can find out next week.

A few months ago, Talking with Hands sent me a demo for a song titled "Hot Shit." It was a big riff, noisey, number that was like an autobiographical takedown - a nod to his past self being a "hot shit."

Around the same time, Mac Burrus of Telefone sent me a demo of a song he was working on called "Bullshit" - a takedown of some unknown source that was full of shit.

Two songs. Two shits. It seemed reasonable to suggest that we combine powers and release them together as The Shit split EP! So.. we did! Both artists fleshed out their songs to their proper final forms and each added additional tracks. So, the actual split EP is four songs - sandwiched in "shit" songs but providing plenty of real sustenance. Get Some Magazine reviewed the split and had many, very, nice things to say! Most notably: "Talking With Hands and Telefone are able to create some serious magic."

Obviously I'm biased but I'm happy with how it turned out. It's streaming on all the things and you can support it on Ampwall and Bandcamp.

There's also two great music videos - "ESP" and the aforementioned "Hot Shit" but more on both of those later...