[a record of reading] PHALANX

 

Third book of 2025, PHALANX by Scott Sigler, collected in the Complete Aliens Collection: Living Nightmares. A new read, started after I got a third of the way through an unnamed book that I just couldn't get into.

A take on the Alien franchise by way of a fantasy style novel rather than the classic dark sci-fi. It was very enjoyable and well worth the time of any Alien fan, though I wish the ties to the Alien universe had been handled a little less explicitly at the end. 

Still, it was a great, fun read and an interesting take on xenomorphs outside of the usual cramped corridors of spaceships and colony stations.

Mittwoch Mix - The Swiftest Blade - hwæt! Nerd Mix Volume I

 Another long percolating mix that I've finally compiled, The Swiftest Blade features a collection of songs outright inspired by TTRPG, fantasy literature, RPG video games and other songs that are at least nerd adjacent. 

Going ahead and labeling this as Volume 1 as I'll certainly be able to assemble other mixes of nerdy songs in the future...

#	Artist	Track
1	Wizard Tattoo	Wizard Knife Fight (At a Bar)
1	Loot the Body	Against the Cult of the Reptile God
3	Castle Rat	Dagger Dragger
4	Big Lich	Superfluous Mana
5	Cara Neir	Shady Blades
6	Dungeon Crawler	I Still Have That Potion I Looted In The Last Dungeon. I'll Keep It For Later!
7	Magic Sword	A New Quest
8	Bog Wizard	The Rogue
9	Acid Mammoth	Berserker
10	Book of Wyrms	Meteoric Dagger
11	King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard	Polygondwanaland
12	Loot the Body	Caught in a Gelatinous Cube
13	Wizard Tattoo	My Second Knife Fight

A point of pride for this mix is that when Loot the Body was planning out Hex Volume 2 he asked for suggestions of classic D&D modules for inspiration and I was one of at least a few who suggested Against the Cult of the Reptile God, which is undoubtedly one of my top five D&D adventures.

Alien Pop Monday 00.4 - Kaum noch erkennbar ist

 Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the fourth track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Es könnte sein." With a cover of a Nick Cave song, tracks from Björk, Sonic Youth and the Cure, this is probably the most terrestrial pop of the Gelb mixes, but hopefully it's balanced out by some more esoteric tracks and fits together cohesively for others and not just me.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Es könnte sein
2	Camille O’Sullivan	god is in the house (live)
3	Pauline Oliveros & Randy Raine-Reusch	Whispers In The Ears Of Night
4	Rudolph Moser	Metronia
5	Björk	Possibly Maybe
6	Alan Vega	Why Couldn’t it be you
7	X-TG	Mütterlein
8	The Young Gods	Speak Low
9	Sonic Youth	Shadow of a Doubt
10	The Cure	If Only Tonight We Could Sleep
11	Scott Walker	A Lover Loves
12	The Legendary Pink Dots	This Could Be The End
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Abstieg & Zerfall

The whispering thread through these tracks is pretty obvious, but there were other connections that drew the songs together for me that I'd like to think will shine through for others as well. Also, I cannot recommend METRONIA enough to other fans of Einstürzende Neubauten.

I had been at a loss for the final closing track for this mix until I read Kromhout & Nieuwenhuis write about Abstieg & Zerfall in their book on KOLLAPS... "Noise is the connector, the medium of choice. Without it, there would be no music, no message and no relation." I had been listening to Kollaps as I read and I went back again and listened to the song and it found its place here on this mix as I kept those words in mind.

6x6 - February 2025

 

Going back through an old document from 2020 I found a cryptic reference to "6 by 6," and notes that reminded me that I had grand plans to publish recommendations. From my fragmented scrawlings I think had meant to have six stable categories that I would return to again and again, with six new recommendations but always the same types.

Since I've lately been wanting to force myself to focus on sharing positive things, I decided to revive this castaway blog feature, but I decided against locking myself into six fixed categories and instead just recommend six different kinds of things each month. 

Paradoxically, despite my often esoteric tastes, I tend to imagine the things I seek out and enjoy are widely known, but I suspect that is less the case than I assume, still hopefully even for readers with wide-ranging and capacious tastes there will be something new to discover.

I've also realized that in my delay in composing this first installment, I've missed the perfect chance to have these 6x6 recommendations to be published on the sixth of each month, which I'll try to rectify in the future.

With all of that ado laid out and addressed, here then are six things immaterial & material that I recommend heartily... For February 2025 I've decided that they will be listed arbitrarily in reverse alphabetical order...

Alien Pop Monday 00.3 - Just give me the missing ingredients

 Another Alien Pop Monday...

This mix builds off the third track from Rampen (apm: alien pop music), "Pestalozzi." Also, it's not really Monday anymore. I did not set myself a reminder and with all of the *gestures vaguely at rapidly deteriorating world*, well, I ended up finishing work yesterday and playing Zelda Tears of the Kingdom while my snuggling with my cats instead of posting this mix, though I have since set myself some reminders to stay on schedule in the future.

#	Artist	Track
1	Einstürzende Neubauten	Pestalozzi
2	Extra Life	Haven't Learned a Thing
3	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Dear Carlo
4	Shirley Collins	Hares on the Mountain
5	Lankum	On a Monday Morning
6	Mick Harvey	A Suitcase in Berlin
7	Chris Connelly	The Heart Has To Ache Before It Learns To Beat
8	Nina Nastasia	I Write Down Lists
9	Mario Batkovic	QUIS EST QUIS (feat. Colin Stetson)
10	Sister Machine Gun	Call It Mine
11	Seeming	Learn to Vanish
12	Coil	Departed
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Alles

Re-listening to this mix, it ended up being a little bit melancholy which I didn't expect, but which seems to fit to me. Perhaps important to the mix is that "Pestalozzi" references a 20th century Scottish educational reformer. Also, both "Haven't Learned a Thing" and "Dear Carlo" are exactly 5 minutes and 21 seconds long, a fact that is probably only interesting to me and that I only noticed after I had finalized the track order. The alternate title I considered for this mix was Anything that isn't crap, but I decided against it as these thirteen tracks are decidedly not crap and I did not want anything to even hint at that association.