This week’s newsletter has some thoughts on new music from Anberlin, some computer projects from last weekend, and my usual commentary on entertainment consumed over the past week. There’s also a playlist of ten songs I think are worth your time, and this week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.
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A Few Things
- I’m writing a little later in the day today. This morning was spent running a few errands and helping Hannah hang some new art at her office, before getting a nice lunch and relaxing a little while watching some baseball. Not a bad way to start a three-day weekend. Quick heads up: next weekend is Hannah’s cousin’s wedding, so there’s a good chance I’ll need to skip the newsletter next week.
- Last Sunday, I got it in my head that I wanted to turn the Star Wars: Biomes clips, from Disney+, into my screensaver. They look so much like Star Wars versions of the Apple TV aerial screensaver shots; I thought it would be pretty cool to have them on my Mac as the screensaver. And this sent me down a rabbit hole. I was able to find the 4K version of the film online. It’s about 18 minutes long. And I wanted to cut it up into the individual scenes so that it could rotate through as a screensaver and not always start with the Hoth scene and never get to the others. I ended up using ffmpeg to trim the files and encode as an mp4 and then used Save Hollywood as the screensaver itself. It took a while to get the timestamps for the files perfect, but in the end, it worked and is a fun little screensaver that brings me joy when I see it running.
- I’ve also finally started transitioning to lossless for my music collection. For the longest time, I’ve just been listening to the same old mp3s I’ve had for years and then supplementing that with Apple Music. But the other day, I was listening to something and moved over to the lossless version, and there was a noticeable difference. I decided it was probably time to move away from the old files where I could. So, when I start listening to stuff now and see that I’m using my files, I’ve been removing it from my library but, and this is key, keeping the files on my hard drive. I’ve spent years collecting all these and am always worried they may be removed or go away. So this way, I can slowly move my collection toward streaming the lossless files while at my desk, the Apple Music version on mobile, but I still have all my mp3s as a backup and for all the various things not on the streaming platform.
Sponsor
Baby Got Back Talk have released their Wiretap Records debut single, “Model Minority,” to all streaming platforms. The track comes from the band’s forthcoming EP, Existential Shred, out September 9th. Vocalist/bassist G’Ra Asim says the tune is “a wry sendup of a classic hater’s lament, namely that marginalization is currency nowadays and social outgroups are fashionable. It’s a gripe that tends to reach your ears when you’re in a rock band that foregrounds queer punx and punx of color. We took that idea and ran with it: why not have a rallying cry [akin to Keri Hilson’s “Pretty Girl Rock”] repping all us twinkling tokens?”
Tuned Up writes: “The video is an homage to “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance, borrowing its juxtaposition of inspiring title cards between scenes of private school life. It’s not out of the question that “Model Minority” could become an anthem of similar importance for queer folks and POC in the punk scene today.”
In Case You Missed It
- Review: Coheed and Cambria – Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind
- Review: Linkin Park – Living Things
- Pale Waves – “Jealousy” Video
- Sufjan Stevens Shares New “Fourth of July”
- The 1975 Detail New Album
- Travis Barker Hospitalized for Pancreatitis
- Anberlin Sign With Equal Vision Records
- Anberlin – “Circles”
- Albums in Stores – Jul. 1st, 2022
Music Thoughts
- Anberlin released their new single “Circles” this week, and it comes from the upcoming EP Silverline. First, it’s just lovely to have new Anberlin in the world. They’re just a ridiculously good and consistent band. The new EP is awesome. It’s thick and layered and gives me big Cities vibes. My favorite is probably “Nothing Lost,” which has a fantastic chorus. I’d love an entire album in this vein, and I’m curious to see if these songs end up on one.
- I got on a nice little early Fall Out Boy kick this week as well. The sun’s out, and that keeps me in a pop-punk mood.
- I’ve also continued to have Coheed and Cambria in constant rotation. That album is a complete ripper, and I’ve liked seeing all the positive comments from fans and people discovering, or re-discovering, the band again. This album feels like the band’s found a new gear and seems reinvigorated. Now I need my vinyl to ship.
- There wasn’t a whole lot that came out this week that grabbed me. The new Camp Trash album was the best of the stuff I checked out.
- Fairweather’s new EP, Deluge, came out last week, but I forgot to mention it. It’s great if you’re looking for something in that Saves the Day realm.
- And something to keep on the radar: Armor for Sleep is releasing a new album this year. Yep yep!
The Stats: Over the past week, I listened to 25 different artists, 28 different albums, and 263 different tracks (333 scrobbles). My most played artist of the week was Fall Out Boy with From Under the Cork Tree being my most played album. Here is my Top 9 from last week, and you can follow me on Apple Music and/or Last.fm.
Entertainment Thoughts
- I was just sort of ho-hummed by the new Doctor Strange.
- Every episode of The Wonder Years so far has been a win for me. It’s a soothing balm of niceness that I have desperately needed with everything going on in the world lately. It, so far, continues to hit that same spot that the original did for me, which is making me think about growing up with my friends. The hijinks, the lessons, the march toward adulthood.
- Thoroughly enjoyed the last two episodes of Stranger Things. (Are we still calling stuff this long “episodes”? It’s practically two movies.) My lens for this show has always been that it’s a love letter to the kind of movies I adored as a kid, and it’s within that context that I think it continues to succeed. I got big E.T. and Empire Strikes Back vibes in this one, where our characters are separated and kicked around. Very much looking forward to the series finale.
- Our main show this week was We Own This City, which is equally fantastic and infuriating.
- And my love for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues. While the “dress-up/Medieval” episode felt kind of like a throwaway episode (or like a holodeck episode without there being a holodeck), the next was one of my favorites of the season. It was straight-up Alien in the best way.
Random and Personal Stuff
- My office revamp continues. My back wall is almost all completed, and now I’m just waiting for my new desk shelf to ship so I can get the new computer all set up. It shouldn’t be long now, and I’ll share a bunch of photos and stuff once I get it all done.
Ten Songs
Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.
- Coheed and Cambria – Love Murder One
- POP ETC – Heart Attack
- Camp Trash – Mind Yr Own
- MUNA – Runner’s High
- Bartees Strange – Heavy Heart
- Anberlin – Circles
- +44 – Weatherman
- Chief State – Out For Me
- Chris Cheney – Corner Shop
- The FAIM – The Alchemist
This playlist is available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Community Watch
The trending and popular threads in our community this week include:
- 2020 in music.
- Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (July 15, 2022, A24)
- PJ Harvey – TBA (Summer 2023)
- See How They Run (Tom George, September 30,2022)
- Slowly Slowly – Daisy Chain (November 4, 2022)
- Tour Prediction and Speculation Thread
- General Politics Discussion IX
- Nintendo
- Men’s Soccer (Football) Thread
- Video Games : Game Harder JFG Edition
The most liked post in our forums last week was this one by Elder Lightning in the “General Politics Discussion IX” thread.
Previous editions of Liner Notes can be found here.