this entry may later become a proper 'essay' type thing. we'll see!

I try not to feel too high and mighty about my music / general 'indie' bona fides, and then I'll shazam a song at work and end up going 'shit, not another Coldplay song'. Which is to say I keep shazaming Sparks, and also, it turns out (been listening through my playlist of songs I've ID'd this way), Coloratura. Viva la Vida is good, which is to say that Coldplay can write a damn good melody.

Coldplay hits me in the same way as Chances, the song most famous (I feel, at least) for being the backing track to the Doctor Who ep with Vincent Van Gogh. Or at least, the Coldplay I've liked. Baroque pop you could also hear at a mall somewhere and not feel like, crazy about it.

Sometimes I do fall into the 'hipster' trap (do we still call them hipsters?) of 'I like this thing that is so obscure because it's obscure'. There are pieces of art and music that I might not have looked at with as much fondness if they hadn't come to me that way, but also that instinct, to root for the underdog, has led me to find lots of things I love.

So in the same way that I have to semi-grudgingly admit that Coldplay do make me feel things, even as I cloak that in 'yea but only because so many BBC Sherlock videos were scored with The Scientist so I'm like. Pre-programmed for Pathos with this fucking band', I do want to shine a light on art that I only gave a first chance because it was obscure^2:

²To be fair to all the figures on this list, I don't really know what counts as obscure / where you draw the specific lines. Me and my brother go back and forth which each other, jokingly: "this Spotify artist has > 1k monthly listeners", etc etc. But for me I'm going with, 'seems fairly under appreciated / unknown". It's a loose definition, I'll be perfectly honest about that right up front.

video

beige flannel I have recently gotten an apartment (first one where I'll be living on my own, without housemates). That's not the reason that beige flannel's videos hooked me, though, but it has put her decoration content further into the forefront of my mind. I love a 'craft' video, and her videos have really made me reevaluate the lines between art and craft, the ways we often value one and push the other aside, and also the value of just making things for your own sake and no one else's. I will likely be taking some inspiration from the way she has put so much of herself into her flat as I set about making my apartment my very own.

SPARKLE ON RAVEN was namedropped in a video, and I figured I'd give it two seconds to indulge me in its nostalgia for early 00s anime-inspired western youtube videos (which I actually don't have a ton of history with, I wasn't aware of neko neko sugar girls until like five years ago - I was instead wasting my time looking at Monogatari inspired openings using Orihime and the song 'cherry girl' by sana). But with its tongue in cheek yet sincere replication of a more or less lost art form and its music taste, I found myself actually really really enjoying what it was offering. In some ways I like a lot of 'sincere but kind of technically bad' art. Sparkle On also reminded me of one of my all-time favourite videos,

NOTHING MATTERS SINCE YOU LEFT THE WORLD... I was debating whether to put this into this section or the music section below, but hey, it's my list and I'm specifically talking about the visual elements here (though the music is a huge part of it for me). All the shirts in the video and the art are by Ivy Ruth Langely aka bloodsad, an artist I admire so so much. (Still so fucked mad that I couldn't make the femtynal show in Toronto since she was supposed to be there so it would've been a two for one of artists I love. Also Machine Girl but I was gonna be there for fem and bloodsad so.) But yeah look I'm a sucker for art that is more passionate than 'skilled', which ALL OF THIS FEELS LIKE A BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT it is NOT i swear. See Hazel's video on Toku, she gets into similar things there much more articulately than I am here (I like thing because thing looks like it was made from love, etc). Speaking of Hazel.

Kid Dracula If you have enjoyed any of the work of Hazel, ThorHighHeels, Aimee Doree, or the similarly inclined video essay crowd, I can't rec Kid Dracula highly enough. His work is awesome, thoughtfully put together and chaotically edited in such a way that scratches my brain so so good. I don't have too much to say here right now because I'm a bit scatterbrained at the moment but my real note here is 'watch this space'.

shitty kickflips Another in the 'video essay' grabbag but shortform, and good. This particular video gives me the same general energy as that girl at the anime con who didn't have citizenship because for Therian reasons, but the similarities are entirely aesthetic. As someone who has largely avoided 4chan altogether (whew, probably), I am always sort of fascinated by the way its subculutures work. I think I probably have a lot in comment with the netizens of /lit/ and /mu/, but I was raised on tumblr so my language and political opinions were curtailed in my youth by a volley of kys comments about like. Transmed shit. (I am normal now). ANYWAYS. Ms Kickflips here is great at talking, thinking, and climbing stuff. A+ from me.

Virtual Nightclub Longplay idk man, it's my list. It's the guy from the gifs and a great thing to have on in the background as you do other shit. Would look great on a CRT wall. Very very into it, vibes only.

Adam Green's Aladdin Hey. You should watch Adam Green's Aladdin.

dennis prager has opinions on the minions This video only exists because of a Tall Bart livestream edit, where he made a single joke. Then this absolute legend sentence mixed the best of all possible ytps. I don't know if DP is really easy to sentencemix or if this person is some kind of hidden ytp savant. Either way, it's great.

HTTPoetics Lecture I have become vaguely obsessed with the work of Chia Amisola. Her approach to the internet as art is a principle I've seen here (neocities) time and time again, and I find it nice (though that word feels weak here) to see this approach validated and expounded upon in a Fine Art and Academic format, such as this. Even if this particular lecture doesn't hit you, I would highly recommend checking out some of Chia's work.

Weather Lexi I've been doing this thing where I like and subscribe to whatever low viewcount videos YouTube shows me about gaming or music and that has made my recommended videos much better, including the time it rec'd a livestream of someone emulating WeatherSTAR 4000. turns out that is what this person (Lexi, one can only assume) does. Thank you, Lexi! I love it so much. Maybe I'll look into emulation WeatherSTAR myself. If you, like me, find this possibility neat then here is the program Lexi uses.

music

Brennan Wedl My time spent scouring Spotify for low-listen count artists is spent less fruitfully than the same search on YouTube often is, but sometimes I stumble across something so so beautiful I'm just struck by a feeling that is simply: why don't more people know about this? With weirdo Japanese artists who only released two albums in the 90s the answer for 'why' is simpler, but for a modern artist like Brennan Wedl I have no excuses. I don't know why she's not like, genuinely well-known. The first song I found of hers was Dogs of Hell and it broke my heart, also reminded me of a Jim Guthrie song (see below) in title alone. The second song I found was Fake Cowboy. Huge recommend for all her work.

Jim Guthrie I'm biased here. I'm only alive because of Jim. (Slight exaggeration) But my parents are friends of his and he babysat me once, and kept me from following a ball or toy or somesuch into traffic. The Canadian music scene is somewhat small. Aside of that, his music is excellent. Lots of people learned of him from his video game work but I know his indie music better, mostly because my dad always had CDs around. I took his copy of Morning Noon Night (special, because it had a misprint that IDed the artist as Sam Guthrie) mostly so I could listen to Houndz of Love on repeat. This whole album is great, so if you've heard of him at all, check out some of his non-soundtrack music. Also this album is coming out on vinyl soon as I write this, so a great time to get obsessed with a 20 year old Canadian indie album.

lexycat I am so so sure we're on the edge of a total lexycat takeover, so sure that there may be a Danny Brown collab in the future. Found her through Spotify rec'ing glitter to me (an excellent track) but it was the way she reinterpreted Porter Robinson's song Musician on into petals that really sealed the deal for me. This is a Girl To Watch. Also, in the world of 'd+bish remixes of beabadoobee's A Perfect Pair', spiral by lexycat comes out on top for me (there are like four of them, no idea why. they're all good! but lexycat's reinterprets the material the most).

Pan Amsterdam I'm gonna sound extremely stupid and white here for a moment: I don't really know as much about rap as I probably should. There's plenty I like, but my education has huge gaps (and for example includes a lot more Arrested Development than it does Biggie). My genres of choice are typically indie / altrock or hyperpop / d+b. My brother is far more into rap and hiphop than I am. So just like, take whatever I say here as a complete layperson's take. I heard the Pan Amsterdam song Rigatoni in an episode of Heartbreak High (look, hey, however you find it - I got into Metallica after seeing a shirt in a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie as a kid). I fell in love. There's something extremely skilled but also goofy / playful about his verses. My dad listens to a lot of Aesop Rock who is another rapper with a lot of like, whimsy in his verses. EAT, the album I've had on repeat for months, also reminds me of early Cibbo Matto, the same playfulness with a rough food association (another artist I got so so deeply into this year, though I don't think they in any world count as 'obscure. Even so, watch this live performance from Viva Variety, and I'm so so with Janeane Garofalo, I love them) All of this is to say, I've been loving the amount of wordplay Pan Amsterdam packs into every single song, and also this interview he gave led me to this site which seriously download a midi player for whatever browser you're using and experience the joys of midi jazz.

Peachy CC I really loved CBC's I Hate People People Hate Me but I think Peachy CC aka Bobbi Summers' music stands on its own. That's it! Hoping while knowing it's almost a zero possibility that we'll get a second season.

redman's lament This is for me in the same camp as the work of Ivy Langley / bloodsad, but I'm putting it down here because while I liked the gmod stream video (more than it sounds like that would be) that this comes from I think I've gone back to this more than the gmod video itself.

compilation: Free On my hunt for music to use in the background of video essays (soon to come, I am always saying) I found this album of doujin tunes. All good. Need to seek out more doujin music.

other