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doorjamb

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Posts posted by doorjamb

  1. Fair enough. I love Windowlicker, despite the iffy second half—but that's partly because I understand it to be thoroughly tongue-in-cheek (especially given the MTV satire of the video & the similar vibe of Come to Daddy). But I don't actually get the sense that Syro is meant to be taken that way; it feels more like a serious comment on, or refinement of, a lot of trends in the bland, mainstream edm & dubstep that Marco Rubio listens to.

     

    Which is fine, but a big aspect of Richard's appeal for me is his ear for melody. Some of his most minimal, uncomplicated tracks are also the most melodically hard-hitting, & he's always been great at inserting micro-bends & tweaks that can totally change what would otherwise become monotonous. I find Syro underwhelming in that respect.

     

    This album seems closest in many ways to RDJ Album, which I've always had a love-hate relationship with because it's so melodically saccharine. But RDJ Album makes up for it with psychedelic weirdness like Logan Rock Witch & digital children singing about feet, arms, & ears. Syro lacks that druggy vibe, & often ends up just being sickly sweet & overly invested in the sonic-palette-du-jour (viz. the Piezoluminescence breakdown).

     

    It's not smooth or inoffensive enough to be a genuine classic like the SAWs/Analord/ICBYD, not mental enough to rise to the level of Drukqs/HAB/Classics, & not weird enough to be fun as are Windowlicker/CTD/RDJ Album. It's got bits & pieces of each aesthetic, but it falls short of any of them.

  2.  

    There is some silly stuff on this album. Some of it is even borderline embarrassing.

     

    Do tell?

     

    Philistine though I doubtless be, I would point to the ~4m breakdown bit of Piezoluminescence and honestly all but the last 30 seconds of Circlont6a. Still crisp and lush in terms of production, but disappointing and, as I say, silly insofar as tone and melody.

     

    ¢2.

  3. Dunno, fellas. I am distinctly unenthused. OPN's stuff through Replica is largely solid & interesting. I found R Plus Seven rather spotty, but overall not bad. This one, on the other hand, isn't doing it for me at all. There aren't even many of those redeeming "split second of lush" moments. FWIW, I've given it three goes with healthy breaks in between.

     

    The last three tracks are definitely the best of the lot, but frankly by that point I'm sick of it.

  4. Does anyone else hear the super-secret barely there dubstep stabs on "syro u473t8+e [141.98][piezoluminescence mix]" @ 4.41..... ?????

     

    dunno why but i love em!

     

    sorry, but that track is all well and good right up until ~4 min; after that it's just silly crap like the majority of CIRCLON-syrobonkus.

    Scrap tracks 6 & 9 and album gets 10x cooler. Replace with Night Train for best results.

     

    edit: I concede that the Mont St Michelish bit in track 6 is admittedly groovy. Unfortunately, track on the whole simply fails to moisten.

  5. Holy Motors 9.8/10

    Can you (or someone who agrees) elaborate on why you liked it? I went in expecting to enjoy it, and superficially it seems like my kind of film, but honestly by the end I was thoroughly bored. As far as limousine films go, Driving Miss Daisy > Cosmopolis > Holy Motors imo.

     

    Also watched Repo Man again, and Night of the Hunter, which is damn near perfect. Gonna watch Irma Vep soon, and Mad Max at the $1 theater by my house tomorrow because the first time I got there late and missed the first half.

  6. Beau Travail (Denis, 1999): Subtle, raw, very enjoyable. I turned off the subs, so I didn't catch all the dialogue. Trying to get ahold of 35 Rhums.

     

    Riddles of the Sphinx (Mulvey, 1977): Hypnotic, if preachy. Picked it after reading "Visual Pleasure . . ." & being intrigued to find she'd directed a film. Not unpleasant, but definitely not entertainment.

     

    Ravenous (Bird, 1999): Third time around with this one. I love it. Carlyle is great, & the soundtrack is integrated very cleverly at times (e.g., cheerful when it seems inappropriate, but in a good way).

     

    Is Inherent Vice out on disc yet? That's one I need to watch again. Also Birdman (note to self).

  7. Watched Vertigo, excellent! Probably my second favourite Hitchcock film next to Rope. 8/10

     

    Edit: no, that's wrong, Rear Window is my favourite. This comes in third. FYI

     

    [voyeur/exhibition fetishist identified]

     

     

    The Lady Vanishes would be my pick, though I'd have a hard time explaining properly why.

  8. oh, also

     

    Looper: 5 laziest time-travel effect evers / 10

     

    Django Unchained: 8 think I actually like Leo Dicaprio plus KKK-is-dumb jokes / 10

     

    Wolf of Wall Street: 3 nah Leo just had a good role in Djangos / 10

     

    Cosmopolis: 7 better as a novels / 10

     

    Bringing Up Baby: 6 jaguars in Connecticuts / 10

     

    A Bout de Souffle: 8 nouvelle vagues / 10

     

    Her: about to watch it heard it's good don't spoil it for me / 10

  9. I'm trying to find a movie, I saw the trailer here within the last year or so

     

     

    black & white, dudes with swords riding horses across british-looking moors, some camera weirdness going on too...

    dammit all I really remember was thinking I wanted to see it

  10. I'm not saying a hallucinated object is equivalent to an actual one. I'm saying that you can't discount subjective mental experiences/phenomena simply because they aren't amenable to objective observation and measurement.

     

    I'm really just responding to a few posts back about money and politics not being real. Such things are real phenomena. They're socially transmitted concepts—viral ideas—which produce real, objectively measurable results. One can even often predict those results as one can predict the behavior of metals near a magnet.

     

    I imagine even a realist like yourself would agree that gravity is a real force. But "gravity" really just describes the behavior of matter. Isn't money just as real as gravity?

  11. Yes, but subjective experiences are real phenomena.

     

    Say Ted Nugent misses breakfast and hallucinates a knife in his neighbor's hand as a result of low blood sugar. If Ted shoots his neighbor, then his unreal notion of the actual state of affairs has produced an entirely real result. And the nature of Ted's (again, unreal) hallucination will determine his real response (e.g., had he hallucinated an icecream cone instead, he and his neighbor could still go bear hunting together).

  12. P.S. The word "psychedelic" itself comes from psyche (mind) + delos (reveal, make clear).

     

    Psychedelic substances are designated as such because they allow for exploration of the mind. There is no etymological suggestion of learning about "objective reality," except perhaps via learning about the nature of the mind and consciousness.

  13. I don't think anybody's saying we should all gobble acid everyday, or that what is to be gained from psychedelic experiences will always trump the benefits of other experiences. Why need it be an either/or, all-or-nothing proposition?

     

     

    I've experienced the park near my parents' house countless times. Very quickly, the park itself became mundane and static in my mind. I had gathered what sense data there was to gather there, and the park lost its novelty. The people and animals changed, and remained interesting, but I ceased to gain any new insights or experiences by engaging with the space itself. Adding psychedelic substances to the mix, however, allowed me to interact with the park in completely new ways once again. The space hadn't changed, but I had, and so I gained additional novel sensations and insights from what would otherwise have been just another unrewarding experience of a familiar environment.

     

     

    tl;dr While I wouldn't deny that psychedelics can facilitate one's apperception or comprehension of genuine truths, mostly I think of them simply as unique exponentiators of experiential possibility.

  14.  

    The question of whether the condition of consciousness is "hallucinatory" in nature or not strikes me as irrelevant.

     

    It's hardly irrelevant if it's something most people don't realise, and realising it helps provide a deeper understanding of what's going on inside our heads, and failure to realise it with some people may lead them to jump to erroneous (and sometimes dangerous) conclusions about the nature of reality in response to their psychonautical adventures . . .

     

    I guess. But aren't you really just observing that people are easily misled? Folks reach bad/unjustified conclusions as a result of all kinds of experiences, not just psychedelic ones.

     

    For my part, the radical disruption of my quotidian state of being via psychoactive substances has only augmented my keen awareness of the inherent limits of my perspective, my sensory equipment, and my rational faculties. I have become more skeptical of my beliefs, more expressly agnostic in every sense of the word. This is precisely the opposite of the concern you mentioned (of people developing unjustified certainties about the nature of reality).

  15. These substances temporarily introduce fundamental shifts into the user's experience of being. Whether mild or severe, the nature of these shifts are essentially unique &, for many users, singularly affecting. One's ontological experience is in constant flux: we shift from wakefulness into sleep, from passive disinterest to active focus. We physically move from one spot to another, observing new facets of the objects around us & modifying/enlarging our notions of reality accordingly. Any shift or alteration in one's relation to the universe of which one is a part cannot but enrich one's existential experience.

     

    The fact that you can probably intuit what the other side of a particular tree is like doesn't mean there is nothing to be gained by going round to have a look. You may have a good idea what a cat would feel like just from looking at it, but you augment your awareness by actually stroking it; you add dimensions to your experience.

     

    The question of whether the condition of consciousness is "hallucinatory" in nature or not strikes me as irrelevant. And whether these substances "teach" one anything about some objective external reality (or lack thereof) is beside the point. Being is what we are Doing. These substances offer special ways of diversifying and texturizing one's life enterprise, which is simply to Be. Be colorfully!

  16. when syro were released, i listened it every day like 3 moths through. and not just one time, many times in a day. there were times when i got home from work, i would listen syro to the end of the day. when i would go to sleep. i was preatty obsessed of it. i even talked to my fellow workers of: that how i found a new layer from a track or some hidden trick. and they didn't have any idea what i was talking about. haha i just needed to talk about it with somebody.

     

    and now i'm back on syro. gotta say, it's a good album. could it be even better than last times.

     

    I loaned my mom my cd & had to ask for it back

     

    said she liked track 2 best. I said I like that one too & our bond was strengthened

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