"Come on, celebrate" - A mix to bid farewell to 2020

 

Over at my Mixcloud page, I've put up a mix of 24 thematic songs from 2020 to send off this unfortunate year. Many tracks come from my 25 favorite albums of 2020.

#	Artist	Track
1	Seeming	Celebration Song
2	Pharaoh Overlord	Without Song All Will Perish
3	Holy Sons	The Loser that Always Wins
4	Ulver	Nostalgia
5	Tiny Star	Black Hole
6	Einstürzende Neubauten ‎	Zivilisatorisches Missgeschick
7	Deradoorian	Mask of Yesterday
8	Cocksure	Viral F.U.
9	Pig	Deliverance
10	Mrs. Piss	Nobody Wants to Party With Us
11	L.A. Witch	True Believers
12	Noveller	Pattern Recognition
13	Boris	Anti-Gone
14	Ganser	Bags for Life
15	Wire	Be Like Them
16	King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard	Minimum Brain Size
17	Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou	Monolith
18	Alva Noto	A Forest
19	Elysian Fields	The Indifference of Heaven
20	Feminazgul	Look Not to Erebor
21	Chris Connelly	The Heart Has To Ache Before It Learns To Beat
22	Special Interest	All Tomorrow’s Carry
23	The Soft Pink Truth	Grace
24	LINGUA IGNOTA	ABOVE US ONLY SKY

An Idiosyncratic Ranking of the Top 25 Albums of 2020

2020 might have been a slouching beast of a year in many ways, but I did grab a ton of great music, in large part due to Bandcamp Fridays, which will return in February 2021.

Would it really be the end of the year if I didn't make a list of my favorite 25 albums from 2020? Probably, but I'm not willing to take that chance...

 

Xmas Sounds Part Six... Low Key...

Apparently making mixes of Christmas music is what I do now? Anyway, here is a more mellow mix of Yule Tunes for a relaxing but still festive mood.

(Find all the other 2020 Xmas Sounds here... 1: Albums, 2: Tracks, 3: Discoveries, 4: More Discoveries, 5: Yule Tunes Mixes)

 

 

Xmas Sounds Part Five... 2020 Yule Tunes Mixcloud Mixes

 

I've put together two mixes of Xmas music on Mixcloud, selected from the albums I've included in Xmas Sounds Part One...Albums, Xmas Sounds Part Two... Tracks and Xmas Sounds Part Three... 2020 Discoveries and Xmas Sounds Part Four... More 2020 Discoveries.

The first, Yule Tunes is pretty family friendly, but eclectic...

Xmas Sounds Part Four... More 2020 Discoveries

pic.twitter.com/GdeVlwqJ5F

— Weird Christmas (@weird_christmas) November 18, 2020

Following up on my Xmas Sounds series, here are some additional Holly Jolly Discoveries I've picked up in 2020... This post will be updated through 12/25/20.

Enjoy finding some new Yule worthy tunes. Check out Part One...Albums, Part Two... Tracks and Part Three... 2020 Discoveries as well.

The Long 2019 - Films

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 I used to go see movies, in the before times... Apparently I saw 44 films in the theater from 1/1/2019 through 3/7/2020 when the world shut down. I've been thinking back on the joy of buttery popcorn and the rumble of surround sound in a dark theater, so I went back and reminisced about the movies I saw then on Letterboxd.

The Long 2019 – Saw it in a theater 1/1/19-3/7/20

Bandcamp Friday Recommendations (12/4/2020)

I am setting this to auto-post in the wee hours of the morning December 4th, 2020, which is the last Bandcamp Friday of 2020... but if you happen upon it afterwards, it will still be a great list of the many, many albums on Bandcamp that I recommend wholeheartedly... 

Firstly, you can find my twitter thread of Bandcamp recommendations from May through November below:

In order to support musicians, Bandcamp is waiving their revenue share for the first Friday of May, June and July 2020 (5/1, 6/5 and 7/3), making the first Friday a great day to buy music and support artists struggling with canceled gigs and tours.

— Mr. Zack (@thatwordyguy) May 1, 2020

And, I've already put together a list of 25 great charitable albums, Albums to be Thankful For... plus three posts of Xmas music (Albums, Tunes, Discoveries), most of which can be found on Bandcamp.   Over on my gaming blog, Antagonist Relations, you can find my series of 'Music to Game To' which features many albums that are on bandcamp that make good tabletop RPG soundtracks & inspiration.

As always, you can see my whole Bandcamp collection at bandcamp.com/schwarzz 

Xmas Sounds Part Three... 2020 Discoveries

2020 has been a hard year for most of us, to say the least, so I am stocking up on a ton of Xmas music to make the Holidays Bright... Here's the Xmas music I'm grabbing this year on the final Bandcamp Friday of 2020... You might say I made a list...

Xmas Sounds Part Two... Tracks

Having already shared some of my favorite Xmas albums, here are some Holiday tracks that I quite enjoy. These songs might not be on a whole Christmas themed album but they are still very much in the yule-time spirit...

Xmas Sounds Part One... Albums

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You might not imagine that I enjoy Christmas music, but I do, though several winter seasons working retail/food service has given me a hearty allergy to the lowest denominator pop-Christmas schlock.

What I do love though, is unexpected and eclectic Christmas music that both subverts and celebrates the season. Here are some albums that will spice up your Yule season...

Lego Xmas has begun...

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 Lego Xmas has begun over on my Instagram... First up is the Xmas Wreath and then  on December 1st, I'll start posting all figures and builds from this year's Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar.

Come To Daddy! Far Beyond Frodo...

Elijah Wood has excellent taste, from helping to produce mind-bending films like Mandy and Colour Out of Space to voicing Wirt on Over the Garden Wall, post-Hobbitsing, Wood has gone in interesting directions.

Come to Daddy is an off-kilter, suspense thriller that takes full advantage of Elijah looking much younger than his age. Even with Norval’s mustache and bowl cut, he looks like a mid-20s hipster, especially when contrasted with an extremely grizzled looking Stephen McHattie, who radiates pure menace from the first moments of the film.

With a slow build and moments of dream-like violence that come interspersed in long uncanny sequences. The film builds an odd world that seems like a time out of place despite Norval’s name-dropping and the presence of smartphones. Everything works together to create a experience that feels unexpected and specific; showing off a juvenile machismo that haunts the men of the movie and using the unique location, dated set dressings and soundscapes of the house and its isolation in nature to create an ambiance of dread and barely contained brutality.

Even on a second watch, there were still delightful surprises to be found and it was satisfying to see how bits that I missed the first time through connected to and built up the movie's climax. If you can handle a bit of gore, I cannot recommend enough this movie, which at its center, chronicles the dangerously earnest attempts of Norval to connect with his daddy, even if it means he must push past his comfort and perhaps life itself...

5/5 Nightgoers

 

 

Come to Daddy is currently out on DVD/Bluetooth/Digital and available to stream on Amazon Prime Video (11/25/20)

Albums to be Thankful for...

This is special. pic.twitter.com/1b3jeu71WY

— Weird Christmas (@weird_christmas) November 23, 2020

I am a big fan of Bandcamp, as amply demonstrated by my collection there—I make about 90% of my music purchases there, occasionally buying direct from an artist or from Amazon when the black hole of american capitalism is the only place an album is available, but for the vast, vast majority of my purchases, I use Bandcamp.

More a music and merch store for artists and labels than a streaming service, though Bandcamp does offer some streaming—Bandcamp seems, from what I have heard and can tell, to actually pay artists! So, when you make a purchase you don't have to worry about the musicians only making fractions of fractions of a penny. Plus, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, they have been doing Bandcamp Friday, where they waive their fees and funnel that money to the artist instead.

And, in this turbulent year, there have been a bunch of bands and labels that have put out albums on Bandcamp where the proceeds went to a worthy cause, so without further ado, here are a slew of albums you can pick up on Bandcamp that I both heartily recommend and that also will pass on some of your money to a cause worth supporting! Plus for almost all of these albums, you can stream one or more tracks for a taste before you buy.

25 albums that support worthy causes & are worth checking out!

 

hey! another blog?

 Yo! Behold! Hey?

So I start another blog, to have a place to put up some wordthings about stuff immaterial and material. Occasionally, I find myself wanting to write about music, books, movies or other things that don't seem to belong over on my Tabletop RPG blog (antagonistrelations.blogspot.com) or my even more neglected poetry blog (underatvsky.blogspot.com) and so, lo and behold, furthermore, et cetra, now there is this: hwæt! a blog.

 

some things, perhaps to be written about...

 

 So, what to expect from hwæt! a blog? Book, music & movie reviews (or at least recommendations, or at least what I'm currently enjoying or pondering), digressions, tangents, ponderings and way too many parentheticals...

 

A WARNING! I have every intention of putting up a post after Thanksgiving of Xmas music that delights me.

 

A glimpse of the future! I need to rewatch Come to Daddy and shall unburden my delighted opinions about it here probably.

 

Upcoming! A list of recommended albums to purchase on Bandcamp Friday (or any day).

Potentially? Reviews of cocktail recipes, to give myself an excuse to fancy up my boozing occasionally.

What else? Who knows? We shall see.