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stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland · 4 years

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Lauren’s Attunement///Boundaries

Sigh...

I had planned to write a very different post from the one I have now because Lauren's livestream was long and mentally exhausting for me because I had to focus on understanding English to reflect my thoughts about it and that tires me out. But that is not the issue. From everything Lauren talked about at the Attunement I think we can get clear that boundaries and space are important. It is important to ask for respect for the space and I was very struck by some things he has said and that we can see a little reflected in the relationship of the girls. But before continuing, I don't know if I want to focus on that completely in this post. I have too many ideas and things that I want to say that I don't know how to express with words because it is too much and it would take years, but the point is that I understood a little the dynamics of both in the past. And I hope that everything I write here is not taken wrong or that the truth is one hundred percent, because I cannot write anything related to them at that level. I want to make it clear that I only do this kind of posting based on what Lauren has said. From his own words and my own feelings. Because I must say that I loved this Attunement. I agreed with almost ninety-nine percent of what Lauren has said on her livestream because they are my thoughts too and I think I have already mentioned them here before. But I get to the point, before I get lost. Lauren mentioned a very common topic with Camren, space and communication. Both have talked about it in their songs but I will not put the lyrics because that is more than known. What I felt when he spoke about it is that they did have their communication problems in their time, because they did not speak, but they argued and as one of them avoided confrontation because the other was screaming, they stayed without saying anything.

"I don't have the ability to talk to you right now" "I'm not going to argue with you, I don't like to argue. You can yell at yourself, I'm going to leave this room" That is something that curiously we saw reflected in Bad Things and Consequences. Also in the lyric of Expectations.

I think it's something I already mentioned in my first Attunement post, but since Lauren mentioned it in this one, I had to put it back. They're details. Details that according to the music of both, led the relationship to become toxic. And I think here I have to take another break from the subject because I need to make another clarification. According to what Lauren has hinted she was working on it. In leaving that toxicity aside. In talking about what was causing problems in a better way. And try to fix what should be fixed. Because there is something we have to remember, folks. Something very important in everything that has to do with girls. The toxic environment of the industry in which they grew and developed their relationship. Around people who banned them from being together because it was bad for Fifth Harmony and its artist images. With toxic people telling them that their love was immoral and that it shouldn't exist because the industry is run by heteronormativity and all that shit they preach just to sell more music. The pressure of families, friends, the bosses of their careers. Time. Secrecy. They being teenagers and being forced to be something they were not. And I stopped counting. The girls went through a lot of shit at the same time. Lauren, being the too sensitive and honest girl that she is, must also have taken her very badly for the same and no relationship (Camren or not) could survive developing in an environment as toxic as the industry because they hardly ever stopped. It is understandable that they wanted to keep it private. And that they keep it private because it is the only way to survive in a world in constant competition, that punishes you when you do something wrong and that definitely dictates with whom you can or cannot be being a public figure. In these lives we can see a bit of Lauren's part of the story perhaps in some sense. Because we have always seen Camila's version of how she was hurt, how she had a bad time and how she suffered, but ... Where was Lauren in all that history? Where was your part? And here's the thing, folks. We cannot take sides. We have no right to take sides with one or the other. Defending one and neglecting the other as some fans do and how an astroturfer pointed me out in a couple of asks. A couple relationship is two. And of them. Just as I'm here trying to be respectful of my words for what Lauren has mentioned, that's just the tip of the iceberg and what they have allowed us to see. We have no right to anything other than to support them. And yes, we love Camren for what it meant and for what the music of both transmits to us, but it is all we can say about it and I think this is the last post about Lauren's livestream that I am going to write. And I do not know if she has sent hints but I couldn’t help but laugh at this:

"Or, hey I can't get out because we are socially estranged and I currently respect that rule." It is the second time that he has sent this kind of hint and I think we know who he should have gone to. As for other things that Lauren said, this has caught my attention because it is common with me: "Are you really listening or are you waiting to speak (Related to toxic people)" I remember being shocked when I heard her say this because it got too deep in terms of personal relationships. I am not going to delve into the subject of course, but I loved this. I'm going to end the Lauren part by saying that I love this facet of her. Lauren is an excellent speaker despite being easily distracted and a bit rude but fun at the same time, I love her mother outings. I hope that if she reads this I can thank her because her words inspire and she has the ability to move masses, so it is appreciated that she is doing it this way and not like other artists who have really angered half the world with their unwise sayings. If I'm in love with Lauren Jauregui, it's her fucking mind. I hope it continues like this. I love her.

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#lauren jauregui #attunement #boundaries #toxic relationships #camren #camila cabello #personal thoughts #love her mind #edited

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thirstinmore-blog · 5 years

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Best Albums of 2018

BEST ALBUMS 2018

20. Noname: Room 25

19. Jeremih & Ty Dolla $ign: Mih-Ty

18. Tierra Whack: Whack World

17. Parks Burton: Pare

16. Oneohtrix Point Never: Age Of

15. Angelique Kidjo: Remain in Light

14. Shannon Shaw: Shannon in Nashville

13. Curren$y & Freddie Gibbs: Fetti

12. Ariana Grande: Sweetener

11. Vince Staples: FM!

10. DJ Koze: Knock Knock

9. Mariah Carey: Caution

8. Courtney Barnett: Tell Me How You Really Feel

7. The Carters: Everything is Love

6. Snail Mail: Lush

5. Shannon & the Clams: Onion

4. Teyana Taylor: K.T.S.E.

3. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour

2. Blood Orange: Negro Swan

1. Dirty Projectors: Lamp Lit Prose

(Spotify playlist)

(Capsule reviews of Top 10 below)

10. DJ Koze: Knock Knock. The music writing trope of “a sounds like b + c” is as lazy as it is played, but sometimes you hear a record and those type of comparisons spring to mind, like when I first heard Saint Pepsi’s Hit Vibes and instantly thought of J Dilla making a disco record. That was also my response to Knock Knock, which sounds like the Avalanches making a more patient update of Since I Left You for 2018 ears. The record is long and lush, and draws from roughly nine billion different aesthetics, but its particular mélange still manages to sound fresh. As with SILY, the album is best experienced as a complete piece of music (though several tracks, such as “Lord Knows” and “Scratch That” would sound great in a mix or DJ set). Knock Knock takes the listener through ambling pathways that wrap around and revisit each other, like an evening stroll through the spacious Joshua Tree National Park depicted on its cover. It’s nearly a two-hour journey, but it’s well worth the price of admission.

9. Mariah Carey: Caution. Mariah got a dirty mouth and I’m here for it. As mother, a twice-divorcée, a woman nearing 50, her work and her image are all her own; if she wants to include the word “fuck” in a bunch of songs on her new album (“GTFO,” “With You,” “The Distance”), then who the fuck are we to tell her no? It’s a refreshing twist from someone whose public persona is often so curated, but I’m burying the lede. The real story here is that Caution is a batch of excellent R&B songs from one of the genre’s all-time greats. It’s not overwrought – by contrast, the album’s sultry blue cover art is indicative of the moods within. The Ty Dolla $ign-featuring “The Distance” is laid extremely deep in the cut, assisted by some subtle production from Poo Bear, Lido and—holy shit, Skrillex? Yup, and like Mariah herself, everyone involved uses an even hand and measured patience to let each song breathe.

A personal highlight for me is “A No No,” which flips the Lil Kim/Lil Cease classic “Crush On You” on its head. Here, where Biggie intones “he’s a slut, he’s a hoe, he’s a freak/got a different girl every day of the week,” there is no irony intended. She gauges her suitors’ intent and responds simply: “that’s a no-no.” In fact, the word “no” accounts for easily half the song’s lyrics, but it’s still a blast on subsequent listens. But don’t get it twisted – highlights abound herein, from aforementioned singles “GTFO” and “The Distance” to the thoughtful, expansive, Dev Hynes-helmed “Giving Me Life,” which begins as a downtempo club hit and morphs into a surrealist dream. Mariah Carey is one of the artists who’s been in my life the longest – I’m so happy she’s still killing it.

8. Courtney Barnett: Tell Me How You Really Feel. Courtney Barnett is what I was raised to believe an indie rock star should be: an unassuming, smart slacker with regular clothes and the ability to unleash earthbound poetry and atmosphere-puncturing solos with equal aplomb. That effortless cool permeates every facet of her work, from her casual half-singing style to her loose but proficient playing, a mighty guitar god in the body of a humble 31-year-old. (That she recorded a collaborative record with renowned cool guy Kurt Vile should surprise no-one.) But what’s really striking about Barnett’s work is her wryly observant lyrics; whether she’s describing the banalities of urban life (“City Looks Pretty”) or eviscerating toxic masculinity (“Nameless, Faceless”), her keen eye and incisive wit pervade every line. Tell Me is the sound of a strong artist getting stronger.

7. The Carters: Everything is Love. I often say that as I get older, my favorite elements of songwriting are editing and restraint. That’s why I tend to hate double albums and love EPs. I just believe that most double albums would be better if distilled down to one really strong record. EPs, on the other hand, leave the listener wanting more. Such is the case with Everything is Love, which reads like a Beyonce trap record with a number of guest verses from Jay. Regardless of speculation on who did the lion’s share of the writing on the record, both are in top form. Bey’s signature vocal virtuosity is on display as ever, but the real delight is in her capable delivery as a rapper. She glides effortlessly through triplets like “Poppin, I’m poppin, my bitches are poppin, we go to the dealer and cop it all.” Big Sean could never. Meanwhile, Jay turns in a few of my favorite bars of the year (and also a very slick Drake diss) on “Boss:”

“You not a boss, you got a boss. N*ggas gettin’ jerked, that shit hurts, I take it personaly. N*ggas’d rather work for the man than to work for me. Just so they can pretend they on my level, that shit is irkin’ to me. Pride always goeth before the fall, almost certainly. It’s disturbing what I gross. Survey says: you not even close. Everybody’s bosses till the time to pay for the office, till them invoices separate the men from the boys. Over here we measure success by how many people successful next to you. Here, we say you broke if everybody is broke except for you. BAWSE.”

I don’t know if they intend to release more records as The Carters, but Everything is Love is a fun, successful experiment.

6. Snail Mail: Lush. There’s no reason for a debut LP to be this good. The record, from solo project-turnt-band of 19-year-old Lindsay Jordan is focused, clever, and sophisticated. Every component of these songs appears exactly as it should. Jordan’s songwriting is clean and incisive (“I hope whoever it is holds their breath around you/’cause I know I did,” she sings on album standout “Heat Wave”). The arrangements are smartly simple; seldom do they deviate from the four-person rock lineup, so the embellishments that are included (the French horn on “Deep Sea,” the layered keys on “Speaking Terms”) really leap out. The playing throughout is lovely, with Jordan’s beautiful guitar technique front and center (the finger-picking on “Let’s Find an Out” is a particular delight). Everything in its right place – only where Radiohead’s inward gaze can be mopey and self-indulgent, the core strength of Lush is its efficiency. There’s no filler here – just the exact amount of support that each piece requires. The drumming feels especially strong in this regard – there’s an economic directness in Ray Brown’s playing that prioritizes the backbeat over everything, including his ego. The fills that he does include are modest and workmanlike.

It’s right that the record would be released by Matador, because these songs are drenched in the influences of the 90s slacker rock of Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Sleater-Kinney and Sebadoh. And as with each of those bands, Snail Mail’s songs are buoyed by excellent lyrics. Jordan doesn’t just sound wise beyond her years, she actually seems to have lived more in her 19 years than many folks twice her age. There’s a subtext of sobriety in some of the songs (“It just feels like the same party every weekend, doesn’t it?” on “Pristine,” or “I’m so tired of moving on/spending every weekend so far gone” on “Heat Wave”). Perhaps the self-reflection that’s required in recovery has helped to distill her worldview.

And look, I don’t mean to be patronizing here – this album would be a major achievement from any person of any age. But to hear an artistic vision this crystal clear and laser-focused from a 19-year-old is something truly special. I can’t wait to hear what she does next.

5. Shannon & the Clams: Onion. Upon first listen, Onion struck me as the best record the Clams have released to date. Now, admittedly, I’m a sucker for keyboards, and the inclusion of organist Will Sprott is pure Patrick-bait. But beyond my own tastes, the organ both fills out and anchors the Clams’ garage doo-wop sound. There’s a welcome succinctness to Onion: the songwriting is tight, the guitar playing is melodic and utilitarian, and the vocal performances from both Cody and Shannon are more technically refined than in any of their previous outings. One wonders if Shannon’s work on her own solo album (the very good, Dan Auerbach-produced Shannon in Nashville, which also came out this year) pushed her to improve her technique. And don’t get it fucked up – this is still a Clams record. It’s still shaggy and loud and rambunctious – but they’ve worked hard to reign in their wildest tendencies. Some might say that it’s layered, just like-- *an oversized cane hooks around my throat and drags me offstage* ….Well…..let’s just say it’s good.

4. Teyana Taylor: KTSE. Of all the seven-song mini-albums Kanye produced in Wyoming this year, KTSE is both the best and the least talked-about. She arrives seemingly out of the blue, a fully-formed artist who knows her strengths exactly. She has bars when she feels like spitting them, a beautiful husky alto when she feels like crooning, and a profound connection to multiple styles of club music that’s borne of her history as a dancer. It’s become a bit trendy to nod to vogue & ballroom culture in the last few years, but while Drake’s Big Freedia feature on “Nice for What” feels a little forced, Taylor can walk it like she talks it. A dancer by trade, her comfort in the ballroom is palpable.

Ye keeps it simple, remaining comfortably in his wheelhouse and flipping excellent soul samples such as Billy Stewart’s “I Do Love You” (which he repurposes into a nostalgic 4/4 slapper on “Hold On”) and The Stylistics’ “Because I Love You, Girl” (which he expands into a melancholy mediation on the horn section of the original). It’s a welcome return to form.

3. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour. In her SNL performance earlier this year, Kacey Musgraves appeared as a flat-ironed, longhair disco queen. As she slayed Golden Hour’s catchy lead single “High Horse,” I was reminded of Dolly Parton. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Dolly’s mid-70s and early-80s catalogue this past year, having purchased vinyl copies of All I Can Do, New Harvest…First Gathering, and Dolly, Dolly, Dolly. Parton is one of those artists whose discographies are so gigantic as to seem practically impenetrable, so I’ve been trying to hear as much as I can. Dolly, Dolly, Dolly is an especially interesting entry: released in 1980, it was her 23rd album, and it represents a pretty clear swing for crossover success. A handful of the tracks are straight-up disco, and these are what Musgraves called to mind. I was thrilled – Dolly’s disco experiments were widely panned, but I think there’s a lot of good there, maybe Golden Hour would be an attempt to vindicate Parton’s vision?

Unfortunately or not, I was incorrect. In total, Golden Hour bears more resemblance to Dolly’s friend & frequent collaborator Emmylou Harris (Kacey’s hair should’ve tipped me off, SMH). It’s a beautiful, understated, and thoughtful set of songs that could fit as well on a folk radio station as a country one. Like Harris, Musgraves has an innate sense of how to let a great song be great, hanging back in both arrangement and vocal performance. She’s emotive when she needs to be (“Rainbow”), and contemplative as needed (“Golden Hour”), always letting her writing breathe. Also, she has the confidence to bury the lead single so deep on Side B that you almost forget it’s there (and are thrilled when it is). As a person who prefers the full album experience to that of a shuffled playlist, this is one of my very favorite tricks.

Quite simply: great songs + great arrangements = a surprising list-topper for me.

2. Blood Orange: Negro Swan. For years, the roles of sexuality and gender in black identity have been foci of Dev Hynes’ work as Blood Orange. He spent time with drag queens and sex workers while writing his debut album Coastal Grooves, and has often cited transgender icon Octavia St. Laurent as one of his primary influences. But while these interests have colored his previous albums, on Negro Swan they’re the bedrock. In a press release preceding the album, Hynes described the album as “an exploration into my own and many types of black depression, an honest look at the corners of black existence, and the ongoing anxieties of queer/people of color. A reach back into childhood and modern traumas, and the things we do to get through it all. The underlying thread through each piece on the album is the idea of hope, and the lights we can try to turn on within ourselves with a hopefully positive outcome of helping others out of their darkness.”

These ideas are fundamental to the songwriting, and they’re reinforced by snippets of conversations with Janet Mock and Kai the Black Angel (who adorns the cover in a durag and angel wings) peppered throughout the album’s 49 minutes. On “Family,” Mock defines community as “the spaces where you don’t have to shrink yourself, where you don’t have to pretend or to perform, you can fully show up and be vulnerable in silence, completely empty, and that’s completely enough.” That search for community, the desire to be seen and loved and supported as your whole self informs each of these beautiful songs. Already a competent producer, Hynes continues to grow, selecting beautiful flourishes like the jangly, perfectly out-of-tune guitar on “Charcoal Baby” or the soft, echoing snare drum on “Dagenham Dream” to characterize the thematic content of each piece. Negro Swan is a powerful and complete work of art. It sounds like he’s finally found some answers to the questions he’s been asking.

1. Dirty Projectors: Lamp Lit Prose. On Lamp Lit Prose, David Longstreth appears to be having more fun making music than he has in years, probably because almost 100% of his band has turned over (kudos to longtime bassist Nat Baldwin, whose playing tethers him to his own beginnings). Beyond the new Projectors themselves, Longstreth spent the months during the writing of the album making new friends in the LA music scene, and bringing them around the studio to record various parts. Members of Haim contribute to album standout “That’s a Lifestyle,” Syd (of The Internet) anchors the refrain in “Right Now,” and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Vampire Weekend alumnus Rostam Batmanglij stack harmonies onto the swirling ballad “You’re The One.”

I see LLP as the second half of a diptych begun by the self-titled Dirty Projectors, released last year. While that record wallowed in the pain of a broken relationship with former Projector Amber Coffman, LLP reveals a healed and newly in love protagonist. Both records feature David Longstreth at his most vocally competent: he’s now able to truly execute the melismatic R&B runs he lovingly wrote and charmingly attempted in his earliest work, his diaphragm now supports his every leap and bound, and his croon is sweeter than ever before. But furthermore, both albums expand on ideas that have popped up throughout his illustrious and impressive body of work. Whether he’s reviving the Rise Above era blasts of noisy guitars on “Zombie Conqueror” or revisiting the orchestral ambitions of The Getty Address on the stunningly soulful “I Wanna Feel It All,” Longstreth sounds like a worker with a complete toolbox and a detailed blueprint. He’s been working at honing his craft for years.

I saw the Projectors in June, at a time when only “Break-Thru” and “That’s a Lifestyle” had leaked. I didn’t know what to expect, being among the seemingly small minority of fans who liked their previous record. But their set was staggering. Flanked by his group of mostly-new faces, Longstreth was bouncing all over the place, proudly showcasing each instrumentalist & vocalist (seemingly everyone had at least one moment in the spotlight), visibly excited about playing with this group of people. And that makes sense: LLP is Longstreth relishing the fundamental glee of musical collaboration. The joy is positively bubbling over in tracks like “Right Now,” “I Feel Energy,” and “I Found it in You.” To see him play these songs live is to wonder if he’s talking about the act of musicmaking itself when he sings: “Ask now, I’m in love for the first time ever.”

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peckhampeculiar · 6 years

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Hey Little Sister

Nicola Brierley is the one-woman powerhouse behind Peckham-based vintage fashion company Little Sister. The engaging entrepreneur tells how she came to open her carefully curated clothing emporium in Holdron’s Arcade

Words Rosario Blue; Photo Lima Charlie

Inspirational female entrepreneurs are as necessary to society as humans are in order to have a society. They not only offer hope and encourage ambition in other women, young and old, they also bring with them a quiet, yet loud and resounding (word) assurance that everything is going to be OK.

Men have been running and dominating the business world from the beginning of time, with constant celebration and minimal resistance. When you meet a female entrepreneur you know immediately that you are faced with a warrior armoured by strength, struggle, determination and ingenuity.

Nicola Brierley is one of those warriors, fighting tirelessly to balance familial and domestic duties and a growing empire in our glorious kingdom, Peckham. You most probably know Nicola as the powerhouse behind Little Sister, a vintage clothing boutique located deep in Holdron’s Arcade on Rye Lane, sandwiched between a group of fellow warriors – the extremely talented Sam of Tens Studio, Esme of Deserted Cactus and Ellinda of One organic.

Meeting Nicola, you are immediately struck by her warmth, character and a uniqueness that is truly reflective of the Little Sister brand. Nicola is a proud Peckham local who has lived here for 19 years and counting, and has used her skills in media to develop her empire.

“I started off as a camerawoman working for a television company, [a] post-production news-based company in Soho,” she says. “I met my husband and I had my little son Jonathan, who has Asperger’s syndrome, so I could no longer work in the industry because he had very extreme separation anxiety.

“I’m not a person who can kinda stay still and not be busy, so I discovered eBay, which was like my little lifeline, and I started selling vintage books. Books have always been my passion and they were a bit of a salvation for me, when I realised I had a son with disability.”

I was curious to find out how Nicola went from being a camerawoman to running a business on eBay to launching Little Sister. “I had a business called Love the Baroness and I’ve always bought secondhand and vintage clothes and people kinda liked my style,” she says.

“I sold on eBay for 10 years and was a power seller for five years, but they changed the nature of the business by introducing a 14-day return policy, which kind of killed my business, because you can’t really return vintage clothes.

“From having a business where you would probably get two to four returns a month, it became the opposite – with a majority of returns. That was not sustainable for a business like mine.

“I started doing sales at home, I did a lot of vintage fairs out and about and I met Tim [Wilson], who runs and manages the Bussey Building. He said he’d find me a space somewhere and he found me this space [Holdron’s Arcade]. Since I’ve been here, it’s like I found my special place.”

Nicola discovered her calling, but in a way that would work for her. “What I loved the most about eBay was taking photographs, writing about the clothes that I thought were amazing or crazy or silly and I could do that every day all day here. So through the shop I’ve got to know this end of Peckham and I think it’s me, it’s more me. It’s great fun.”

So why did she name the business Little Sister? “I was called Love the Baroness and it’s a bit of a mouthful,” she says. “When Tim first offered me a space I thought, ‘Ooh, Love the Baroness is a bit of a long-winded thing to go across you know, a shop.’

“I’ve got a friend called Will who is a music journalist, and he started to talk to me about Sly and The Family Stone and Little Sister, and like my heart kinda lifted and a kind of spark exploded and I thought, ‘That’s me, that’s me, I’m taking that name, I am Little Sister!’

“Although it’s a family thing, there’s something about it, everybody’s got a little sister. Even if they don’t have a little sister in their life, if you’re a man or a woman, you want that little sister in your life. I think it’s such a positive thing and it means loads of different things to different people.”

I’m in total agreement because to me, the name feels familiar, warm and welcoming, all things synonymous with the appeal of Peckham.

“I’m a local girl, I’ve been here for over 19 years and my parents lived here when I was about nine so I went to St Francis school [on Friary Road] for a couple of years. So although I’m from Paddington area originally, part of my roots are here,” Nicola says.

“I’m getting to know all of Peckham, I just love it ’cause I see my customers on the bus, I see them when I’m walking through the park, people say hello to me and I go, ‘Oh my God!’

“It’s like a real community spirit and when you actually live and work in a place, you’re seeing it evolve, you’re seeing it grow and to me that’s absolutely… you can’t buy that, I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else.

“So you know I’m just happy being here with my people and that means all of them, all the communities. My children go to school here, I’m completely rooted in the community, I’ve been a governor in a Peckham school, so you know, it’s just a different side of me, a different facet.”

Nicola was brought up on hard work and strong family values, an ethos she has clearly passed on to her children. “I started doing a cleaning job with my grandmother when I was nine years old, she wouldn’t let any of us just sit down,” she says. “If we weren’t doing two jobs she wasn’t happy.”

She says those values, coupled with a supportive partner, are what allow her to thrive while balancing familial duties and looking after her three children. “I think the truth of the matter is I love this job, I love taking pictures and I love choosing the models,” she says.

Nicola is no stranger to modelling herself. “I was one of the first British black models who appeared on eBay. I used to do a lot of modelling for them, there were many in America but there wasn’t anybody who looked like me on eBay and I thought, ‘But why not?’”

Little Sister has three models, including Nicola herself. If you check her social media and see the diversity of her models as well as her customers, it’s clear that Little Sister is not a “one size fits all” type of business.

“I love working with Naomi and Hebe,” she says. “I love dressing them both because they’ve both got very different body shapes. That’s the way of the world and to me they’re both equally beautiful and stunning.

“I really, really enjoy talking to the women and men who come into the shop and supporting them. I can spend an hour with someone, it’s a real joy. In this little shop you might only get four customers for the day, but you’ve had such a rewarding time.

“You get to know about Peckham and there’s strange people that come in as well, but even then, they’ve got something to say, they’re all part of Peckham’s rich tapestry and rich life and that’s what I wanna reflect.”

Although Nicola appears to be superhuman, she is bound to face challenges as an independent business. “Yeah I think that the business rates are gonna be really crippling for business because that’s gonna go up soon and that’s gonna impact on all of us, especially with Brexit coming through. I mean, we need all the help we can get.”

Is there anything more Southwark Council could do to support local businesses in Peckham? “I really wanna talk or lobby the council to give us like, designated lampposts on which we can post and put our posters up, ’cause ultimately these are all micro-economies that are bringing,” she says.

“We’re mostly local, what happens is we eat here, we live here, we buy all our stuff here, so all the money is staying in Peckham, unlike these big multinational companies where the money just goes out, they don’t pay any taxes.

“We are [keeping money in Peckham] and we’re being penalised; they don’t recognise the contribution that we’re all making to the economy and we should be celebrated. It’s only these little vintage shops, your independent coffee shops, your independent restaurants that bring the life blood.”

Nicola lives and breathes the ethos that she built Little Sister upon – you only have to meet her to see the way she interacts with her customers, whom she treats like friends she has not seen in a while.

After all, that’s how I met her. She’s the perfect example of how hard work, no matter what the obstacles, a strong family support system and solidarity through sisterhood – or as Nicola puts it, “Our united women front” – can lead to making your dream no longer a mere fantasy.

…………………..

Visit Nicola Tuesday and Wednesday (10am-4pm), Thursday and Friday (12-7pm) and Saturday (12-6pm) in Holdron’s Arcade, 135a Rye Lane. Follow her on Twitter @littlesis_rocks and Instagram and Facebook @littlesister.rocks.

#peckham #nunhead #london #local #community #newspaper

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thomasroach · 5 years

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The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages

The post The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages appeared first on Fextralife.

The following post is this author’s opinion and does not reflect the thoughts and feelings of Fextralife as a whole nor the individual content creators associated with the site. Any link that goes outside of Fextralife are owned by their respective authors.

This started out as just a Steam review but I wanted to post due to the fact I enjoyed the game so much. But after the second paragraph, just after finding out that the Devs are releasing Season 2 in the coming year after a successful kickstarter, I realized that this is a game I want as many people as I can tell to know about. Just adding another positive rating to the already existent mass of them would be as helpful as getting a windmill to spin by blowing on it. So let’s do a full review, published courtesy of Fextralife so I can waste your time tell you about a pixel styled, point and click adventure game, so you can waste spend your money on it.

The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages

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Genre: Adventure/Point & Click Developed by: Spooky Doorway Published by: Spooky Doorway Release Date: July 27th, 2017 Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (Review Platform), Mac, Linux, Windows Price at the time of the review: $12.99

This is probably one of the funniest adventure games I’ve ever played and has got me back into occult fiction and fantasy. This is a mix of Ghost Busters and the X-Files, added with two thirds of the three stooges. It’s silly, spooky, laugh out loud fun and deserving of more investment, and no I am not a member of the dev team or affiliated with them in any way, but yes you should give them lots of money. If you have little to no interest in occult fantasy, buddy cop comedies, pixel graphics, or point-and-click adventure games, then I’m sorry to say you have lost approximately fifty seconds of your life reading the introduction to the review of a game you probably won’t want to get anyway. If you do, then let’s begin.

Story & Setting

The Darkside Detective tells the story, or rather many stories by Francis McQueeen, a seeker of the occult and eldritch as well as an investigator of all things paranormal and supernatural. Teamed with his goofy cop sidekick, Officer Dooley, Detective McQueen investigates multiple cases dealing with some form of ghostly apparition, crazed cultist, demonic entity, or cryptic creature. Despite its many horror themes and monsters, this game is a satire through and through, making fun of everything horror B-movies have tried to scare audiences with. It’s filled with parodies of various popular horror flicks and myths.

The satire, however, is really only a small facet of the comedic hilarity, as The Darkside Detective excels with its writing of ridiculous characters, situations, with plenty of jokes and jabs, that revolve around what is terrorizing New Yor-I mean Twin Lakes at the time being. Twin Lakes is a city rife with crazy paranormal encounters, and equally crazy (if not more so) people to deal with. Its a bevy of kooks and weirdos who range from a pyromaniac eight-year-olds, a paranoid anti-government sea monster, An occultist train engineer, a rival detective so douchy he literally takes candy from babies (then fines the baby for crying about it) and more.

It’s just…a mess, a beautiful mess of madness that makes progressing through each story a treat, with dialogue so funny that I want to interact with every possible thing just to hear it all, and everything seeming to have some kind of oddity or quirk just to make it all that much stranger. I could go into further detail on each individual story, but honestly the best experience with this game, is going in blind. Truly it’s the storytelling and writing that makes this game fantastic, as it seems to be for the most part of these classic adventure games.

If my mother had that much storage space in her closet, she’d still run out of room by the end of the month.

It’s the major selling point, and what I most loved about The Darkside Detective. I wish I could say more, but unlike thoroughly explaining gameplay, visuals, audio, and all other more technical components of a game, story and humor are some things you can’t go into full detail without spoiling the plot, or weakening the experience compared to a first time playthrough. Again, if you enjoy buddy cop comedies, Ghostbusters, and horror movie satire, this is a sure thing, heck, even if you don’t like point-and-clicks, I would still say get a guide and play through it like that, cause the humor is top notch. Simple at times, witty at others, but splendid all around. Not every joke was equally funny, but there wasn’t a single one that didn’t at least put a smile on my face.

Audio & Visuals

Simplistic, is one word I could use to sum up the pixel art style and colorful is another. Blocky, square, and geometrically appealing are a few more. “The Darkside Detective’s pixel graphic style lends a nostalgic return to classic point and clicks of old, that is reminiscent of titles such as Monkey Island and Dark Mansion” is a pretentious sentence I could also use to describe the art style. However, when it comes to pixel art, there only three things I, and likely what most people care about.

There are no words to describe how I feel about this.

Does it look nice? Can you tell what’s going on and what’s what? And will it possibly give me an epileptic seizure? To all these questions I can pretty much answer yes, yes and you may want to consult your doctor about that. Really though, given the decades of practice game development has had in 2D pixel art, I think it should be the basic standard for any pixel game to look “nice”, decent at least, and The Darkside Detective has certainly accomplished that.

Though simplistic to the point of not having facial features for most characters outside of facial hair, and hardly any dynamic animations, the game looks vibrantly colourful, and is especially beautiful at certain points in the story. It’s…like a child’s drawing actually, made into pixel form. Lots of strong, crayon colors, simple details, and some cartoonishly designed characters. which is quite fitting given the game’s comical nature.

But this is a quite an important feature that can damn a point-and-click pixel game into the nine circles of game development hell. If a pixel game’s standard is to look attractive, then knowing what anything and everything is at a glance should be the barest minimum. This is so I can tell the difference between a baby rattle and a bomb so I don’t accidentally recreate a morbidly dark version of a loony toons skit. So, how hard is it to tell what the hell I’m looking at and clicking on? I’m happy to say, hardly difficult at all. Unlike some point-and-click titles, this is one where I can tell exactly what’s what and who’s who.

Pretty much everything of interest is definable from the background and usually large enough and colorful enough to catch the eye. Anything that doesn’t easily stand out can be found with a little mouse waving. The point is, I never had a “What the $&%! Am I looking at?!” moment, or ever got stuck because the thing I needed to find was so obscurely hidden in a mess of visual clutter, so that it ended up being a hidden object game on top of a logic puzzle.

Finding things was fairly easy, and the game hit that sweet spot of being visually interesting and fun, but not so much so that I ever got sick and confused from looking at it. The game’s visuals are neither boring nor over stimulating, and the valuable items are easy to distinguish with a little looking at the most, giving the Darkside Detective a pass and thumbs up in its visuals department. While I do admit some more dynamic animations would have be welcomed, I can’t say there was any point in the game when I didn’t enjoy what I saw on my screen.

When it comes to audio, yeeeeah, don’t expect award winning vocal performances because as well as having no mouths, no one has voices either. Does this bring down the game? Well if you hate reading of all kinds, then yes, yes it does. However, if you do enjoy the written word as well as or even more than the spoken, then you’ll have no problems here. For me, the silence is actually preferable in this case. The lack of vocal sound leaves one in a quieter atmosphere, as well as it draws more focus on the music, which I’ll get to in a minute. Also, personally, I would bet that the voices the devs would get for the characters if they did, wouldn’t be as good as the ones imagined in my head.

Sound Effects

As for sound effects, they do their job, quite minimal and only occur during certain events such as putting out a fire but are well used as they do add to the scene or action. I can’t really complain about nor commend the sound effects, but given how little significance they have to the game as a whole, I don’t think it really matters. In a more action focused game, this would be a problem, but in an adventure title having sound only when something’s happening is probably for the best. Having constant, distracting noises would probably just get annoying over time, and like I said, when they do occur, the sound effects do add something, so they’re not a waste.

Soundtrack

Finally and most creepily, you have the music. If the voice and sound effects were largely ignored to focus on the music, then I have to say it was a smart choice. Simply put, the music for this game in fantastic, a beautifully fitting soundtrack of creepy and spooky pieces, paranormal and ghostly in tone and execution, amplifying the horror side of this horror comedy. Each song a similar yet unique brand of subtle horror, not truly scary or spine chilling in the sense of wandering around an empty house with Michael Mires walking in pace right behind with that classic Halloween music playing. It’s more on the side of what you would hear in say a supernatural mystery documentary, or a ghost story narrative such as tales from the crypt.

The Darkside Detective Soundtrack by Ben Prunty

It’s whimsical, with a good deal of creep factor, not to cause terror, but to draw one into a state of calm eeriness. It’s somewhat enchantingly haunting all at the same time, more serene than disturbing, in a way that soothes the nerves rather than putting them on edge like the aforementioned Michael Mires theme music. It also gives the feeling that something’s not quite right, that proper paranormal vibe like a specter may be looming over you.

Gameplay

As a point-and-click adventure game, the biggest thing you would want to know is this “how hard is the gameplay?” Because when it comes to games like these, difficulty can range from being fairly easy, just click the big shiny red button with “press this” in big, bold letters. To being more challenging in terms of gameplay with “you better have a detailed walkthrough on hand cause this will be like figuring out the Divinci Code, upside down, in a bad translation of J.R.Tolken Elvish speak…………and the paper’s on fire”. Thankfully, the Darkside Detective is not the latter and far from it.

The answer to this conundrum is easier than you think, though it does require extensive understanding of fourth dimensional quantum physics.

Puzzles

The puzzles are on the easier side of the scale, with the majority of puzzles giving strong hints as to what you need to do and what does what, as well as being largely involving “use this on this” style of puzzle solving. A staple of point ‘n’ clicks, with a few fun little mini games such as clear the tiles, make a pipe chain, or connect the wires without crossing them. Most of the use this on this puzzles usually took but a minute to put two and two together, after finding the needed objects. The only times I ever got stuck was because I didn’t know exactly how to use the items and on what. This was largely due to not knowing what order certain things had to be done in, but even then, that was only during a few problematic minutes.

Only once did I ever run into a situation where felt particularly stuck which I feel is worth mentioning. This happened due to an arbitrary order of operations where in this particular instance I had actually worked out what I had to do, before clicking on the hint that would lead me to the action.

Aaah, if gamers of the past could see us now. Futuristic graphical technology that can render beads of sweat dripping off of a realistic swimsuit model, and we’re still playing games you could run on a calculator.

Aside from that, the gameplay is, admittedly pretty average, though I did find the occasional mini game quite colorfully fun and a welcome exception to the standard point ‘n’ click affair. The puzzles that had logical solutions were in no way hard, and any puzzles whose sensibility and reasoning deviated from common logic were clearly explained. I never really encountered a situation where I’d solve a puzzle and then say “how the hell does that make any sense?!”, or, “how the hell was I supposed to figure that out?!”, or “how many drugs were these developers taking to think this up?!” And you know what? That’s the way I like it.

The puzzles are easy but not too easy, thus giving quite entertaining and not too frustrating obstacles between plot segments or events. The short length of each case (level as it were) makes it so that they don’t get stale before the next case, and helps change things up a bit.

Final Thoughts

The Darkside Detective isn’t revolutionary, it isn’t mind blowing and it isn’t a brain buster. However it succeeds where it matters most, it’s fun. It’s fun to look at, it’s fun to listen to, it’s fun to watch, it’s fun to read, and it’s fun to play. From start to finish, I had a great time playing this wacky little game and enjoying all the humor, mystery, and added spookiness that it had to offer. While I can definitely see room for improvement, this is still a solid experience as it is, and I wholly recommend it to anyone who wants a light-hearted adventure into the world of the supernatural and occult.

However, though the find and use puzzles are a common staple of the point-and-click genre, I do genuinely think they’re becoming too common place in gameplay in these games. I would rather see more of the kind of puzzles that diverge from the well-treaded design. In The Darkside Detective these worked well to a certain extent, but it was the puzzles that didn’t have them, that really stood out for me, even if they were ones not completely original.

I much prefer adventure games with clear, simple, logical puzzles rather than the extremely obscure moon logic puzzles the “classic” adventure games present me with, and you know why? Cause that’s not what I playto adventure games for. I come to them for enjoyable, entertaining stories as well as characters with clever dialogue, colorful plots, and interesting worlds to explore. That’s exactly what The Darkside Detective gives players.

If you enjoyed this review be sure to read more with our latest thoughts on action shinobi Sekiro Review: Shinobis Die Many Times. Or you can check out Capcom’s demon hunting title Devil May Cry 5 Review: Ssstylish Perfection.

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The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

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thomasroach · 5 years

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The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages

The post The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages appeared first on Fextralife.

The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages

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Story & Setting

If my mother had that much storage space in her closet, she’d still run out of room by the end of the month.

Audio & Visuals

There are no words to describe how I feel about this.

Sound Effects

Soundtrack

The Darkside Detective Soundtrack by Ben Prunty

Gameplay

The answer to this conundrum is easier than you think, though it does require extensive understanding of fourth dimensional quantum physics.

Puzzles

Final Thoughts

The post The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages appeared first on Fextralife.

The Darkside Detective Review: Occult fun for All Ages published first on https://juanaframi.tumblr.com/

0 notes