"Airship of the Menders of Ouroboros" by Michael Richardson. Animation at source.

the resemblance is strong

I hadn't really seen it before but this makes it clear

WIP of Automaton, as of 24 May. One of the great challenges for me with regards to my recordings this year has been sorting out what to do with my voice. My whole life I’ve received negative feedback on my singing voice almost exclusively. Until quite recently, I’ve been encouraged by listeners to let others be the primary/sole vocalist in all my work, which makes obvious sense when my collaborators’ talents are considered but still made me feel bad. Only in the past several months have I gotten any positive singing feedback from anyone except my partner, but even that has been couched in “we never knew you were actually good”. When said about something as personal as the voice, and my voice being a quality I have learned to be exceptionally sensitive and guarded about, those compliments I only took as, at best, condescending. I’ve had a lifelong habit of shirking what I perceive to be mainstream measures of success. Instead, I seek different ways to define myself, by which I could possibly be among the very best, unlike the standards presented to me. This is not a strength. I despise this quality, even, and it has had negative, material consequences in my life. However, until I unlearn this vile tendency, it is part of me, and I must understand myself accurately. Inspired by vocalists like Sue Tompkins of Life Without Buildings, Tim Darcy of Ought, and Isaac Wood of Black Country, New Road (and many others), I resolved to find my own lane in which my voice could succeed. “Shouty” I had been called when I still sang with my high school band. I stopped singing in that group after a couple of years. “Have the other singers sing more” was the thought offered upon hearing my college group, for which I was bandleader, sole songwriter, producer, engineer, nearly every credit possible. How deflating for months of work representing the height of my technical and artistic achievement to be chewed up and spat out as “less You would make this better”. That record was the purest distillation of my creative voice possible, and someone told me they’d rather have less of my actual voice on it. Crushing. If I couldn’t succeed at singing Well, I’d just make my own rubric. Get expressive, intense, own my own Shoutiness and just talk and shout and monologue. Sometimes I took that too far. But it felt good to lean into my identity in such a bold way, and sometimes receive positive feedback from people who Got It. Automaton (finally the real subject of the post) is lyrically about lots of things. The production choice to double-track my vocals is the relevant quality, though. Double-tracking vocals isn’t new or experimental. There’s a great history of artists using this as a signature sound, like Phoebe Bridgers and Elliott Smith, to pick just two serial offenders. But for me, it was a step into the great wide open. It’s my attempt to reel myself back in to more traditional singing, but push for a new aesthetic I had never tried. I haven’t settled on the choice yet, but making that choice at all is an act of reclamation of my voice lost.

5, 12, 19, 22, 50 for oc asks

Some OC questions

5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be?

Ummmm... Haven. I think he deserves it.

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

@tarottss' Valor OCs. I also love a funny little science facility in a weird town. I only say OCs because I can't pick from any of them since I love them all.

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)

I did Haven many times already so here's Michael Richardson!! He's an autistic, gay drummer in a 70s-80s band. I project my autism stuff onto him a lot. <3 He's just a nice guy.

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how?

People don't talk about my OCs much outside of my spaces so I couldn't say. </3

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you want

(Spoilers for Cobra Kai season 5 up ahead)

I'm thinking about Ramon so much. I'm thinking about how fiercely loyal he is to Terry Silver (maniac) and how Silver is his absolute weakness. I'm still figuring out how they work in season 5 because at some point Silver is so overrun with power that he pushes Ramon aside a lot </3

The Silver gets outed as a liar/cheater (not relationship wise but like. Competition wise) to everyone and Ramon is a little upset about it!! He's still incredibly loyal to him and loves him regardless but he's upset!!! So his feelings are so Complicated.

Also Silver like. Started focusing on getting other senseis and was so focused on Kim joining everyone that he kinda. Lost focus on Ramon? And Silver is Ramon's weakness so the cycle of "feeling hurt by the person you're codependent on" continues, babeyyyy!!!

I think about these old men a lot.

The concept of nothingness is a human concept which does not exist external to human existence. It is not a factor inherent to existence itself. Existence as a whole is marked by continuity. We are not born from nothing. Nor are we born into something. On the contrary, it is only by being born that the conditions of presence are created by which we can conceive of nothingness.

— Georges Bataille's Essential Writings by Michael Richardson 

Flesh, Desolation, Spiral

Tma Avatars Part 2 👁️

Part 1 • Part 3

Yo distortion girlies check this shit out

#My Various Moods

How would a melody describe itself, when asked?

Aziraphale/Crowley + PRAISE

A working demo of my song google street view. Inspired most directly by caroline and Drop Nineteens.

This one is fairly “Michaelized”, my word for my songs that are pretty spoken-word, stream of consciousness, aiming for emotional rawness and intensity. 7/10 Michaelized, I suppose, at it doesn’t get too loud or yelly.

gsv’s guitar parts are in line with the Eno quote about change through repetition. I played a two-voice hemiola extending for a long time until they realign, then start the whole phrase over again. 12 repetitions specifically, as the parts are phrased in groups of three and four respectively. Then I doubled that guitar part while standing in my room facing backwards, away from the microphone. These main acoustic guitar tracks are named in my session “frontward” and “backward” accordingly. Then there is a texture of three E-bowed acoustic guitars. One of these is a doubling for most of the song of the three-note hemiola. The two other E-bow tracks are more impressionistic. I round out the guitars with a down-tuned acoustic guitar (Perhaps as low as B? After recording I promptly forgot.) That is my bass substitute, chosen for a more acoustic aesthetic than my electric bass (on long term loan from a friend) would allow. Each guitar (and pseudo-bass) part was recorded in my bedroom, standing at different points around my room while keeping the microphone in the same place. I intended to capture the entire sound of my living space. Sometimes the guitar sounds a bit out of tune. Currently there are a couple of mistakes in the vocal editing! Worry not- that’s at the top of my fix-list for next time.

In the second half there are sampled horns. Bonus points for guessing the sample’s source! There’s also a simple sine wave synthesizer which I treat like a church organ, meshing quite well into the pure tones of the E-bow guitars.

google street view will released in an official capacity at some point this year. As always, you can email me to chat or to buy the track.

The Magnus Archives is YELLOW

[ooooo dis-door-tion ooooooooo]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 Part 5

Mike: I think it's time for you to bury the hatchet.

Roger: Waste of a good hatchet.

Behind the Scenes of Good Omens Season 2 - Part Three

from the X-Ray Bonus Features on Amazon Prime

[ Part One ] [ Part Two ]