tldr: capitalism is cutthroat, even when it’s trying to fix ice cream machines

New Jordan Peele. I will not watch a second trailer; this is a perfect tease.

Dan Olson on Line Goes Up and other topics

One of my ex-VHX pals recently launched Wavelength, a new iOS and Android party game app. The teaser explains the concept pretty succinctly; you and a group of friends collaborate and try to land on a ruling for some absurd topic. In short, you're trying to read your friends minds!

The app is out now and looks pretty dang slick. I'll be gathering some friends and trying it out very soon.

got my NIN tickets for May. Hope they break this one out.

A splendid 1:45 and an excellent reminder to listen to TV Torso

Largely over my head but still quite interesting

I don't specifically remember how I ended up here but I've come across a large trove of ZZT Games, an early game development engine that allowed anyone to put together their own games with their own narratives and objectives; through a common set of tools. Every game "looks" the same but this was happening 1991, so that's true of most PC-based things at the time. There are some vaguely familiar titles like the homespun Adventure of Link II or the less widely known originals, ZZT Slayer. If you didn't grow up on ANSI and text adventure games, these are all going to feel fairly crude. They are crude because gaming was crude in the early 90s but there's also something amazingly charming about this plethora of homemade creations.

You can read more about the ZZT in general over on Wikipedia; the most intriguing fact being that it was developed by Tim Sweeney, who also is founder of Epic Games and the creator of the Unreal Engine. The company going head to head with Apple and Google, started by offering a gaming engine for early DOS games. Completely bonkers.

There's more ZZT gaming archive work over in the Museum of ZZT, "a site dedicated to the preservation and curation of the many games and worlds created with ZZT."

After you're done there, cruise through this history of the IBM smiley (the protagonist of ZZT games) and then immerse yourself in Oldschool PC Fonts. You know, for fun!

Back in March of 2021, yk Records released the debut EP from No Stress, entitled Prelude No. 1. It's a wonderful combination of jazz, hip-hop, glitch, ambient and all sorts of styles that blend together masterfully. It's only 18 minutes long but it's a wonderful ride from start to finish... in my biased opinion.

The EP struck a chord with Ryan Norris, aka Coupler, and he started working on a remix EP. The fruits of that labor are now available everywhere in the form of Reinvention No. 1. The writeup for the record goes into some detail about some of the original seeds of inspiration for Norris being Madlib, DJ Shadow, MF Doom, J Dilla and other "left-field hip hop" artists. Over the years, Coupler has become more associated with ambient music than hip-hop but hearing Reinvention No. 1, it's clear that Norris is getting back to his roots.

Obviously I'm biased whenever a yk Records release comes out but I think this is a wonderful piece of work. These reinventions manage to have their own identities but don't lose any of the magic of the original tracks. They are much longer form than the original songs but if you let yourself be a little patient, it really pays off. The drums on "Wake Up (Wide Awake Remix)" are stellar.

Get it on Bandcamp or streaming.

Several friends I know worked on this and it looks legit fun. Sign up for release updates; app available Feb 10th.

getting some early Weezer vibes here and I'm liking it

quite a dramatic saga! apparently this is a real thing...

essential

Endurance challenge

First new Midlake since 2013? Yes please. Produced by John Congleton? Approved!

If you've heard of NFTs you probably have thoughts on NFTs. It's a topic that is wrapped up in a lot of, understandably, heated opinions. Many believe it is the future of transactions and the Internet as a whole, while others believe it is a eco-terrorism grift that overlays capitalism on anything and everything. I tend to veer more towards the latter but try to keep an open mind about legitimate and decidedly fun versions of it.

As I sort through my thoughts on the matter, I found this Folding Ideas documentary - Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs - to be immensely enlightening. Yes, it is two hours long and that is an absurdly long runtime for a YouTube video but it's well researched, entertaining and educational. You don't have to watch it all in one sitting but I do recommend you watch it all.

I find discussions about NFTs to be the most exhausting part of the whole endeavor, so it's nice to be able to sit back and soak in some facts about the whole thing.

country music gets a deservedly bad rap but sometimes you find an artist that does it right and you put that song on repeat.

A few months back I was flying to New York and posted an Instagram Story of our descent set to the Jay Leo Phillips song "You Might Not Like What You See When You Get There." It worked quite well in my opinion and sparked the idea to try fleshing out some footage set to the song.

Cut to a few months later (aka today) and now there's an official video for the track set to various bits and bobs of video that I've captured over the years. It's not really a narrative piece but the track is instrumental and I think the two pair together well. At the very least, I'm happy with it and Jay seems to be, too.

The EP from which the song comes is called DAYS and you can get it on Bandcamp or streaming. If you're into Tortoise, The Sea and Cake or some of the instrumental Jim O'Rourke stuff, I believe you'll dig it.

Am honestly delightful 8 minutes

you like Kirby music? how about peruvian cumbia music? well, here's some Kirby music done in the style of peruvian cumbia.