Army of Mushrooms – Infected Mushroom

I can’t believe I’ve been posting about music for about 4 years without ever mentioning Infected Mushroom. Not only are they one of Israel’s best selling artists ever, but they stand out as possibly the best psychedelic trance djs out there. Psytrance, as it’s called, is composed of strange synthetic sounds layered into a complex arrangement. As techno, I’ve always admired Infected Mushroom’s ability to always be evolving the song, somehow keeping it from being boring without losing the hooks. On top of that they are very open to ‘mainstream experimentation’, love nothing more than hyping up crowds and getting them to dance their asses off, and were the first electronic dj duo I’ve ever seen to incorporate live guitars into their act a decade ago. Also, cool album art still counts for something.

Army of Mushrooms – Infected Mushroom

Drum N’ Bassa 
Drum N’ Bassa

Army of Mushrooms takes a step away from previous releases as if to refocus itself in its core psytrance roots. Gone are the poppy vocal efforts the previous 3 albums championed after the success of I Wish on Converting Vegetarians. Some of the melodies are definitely more weird but still the classic Mushroom you’d expect. Never Mind is a great way to open the album; it is a technical masterpiece of the popular and the strange yet catchy.

Here is introduced a noticeable and somewhat expected dubstep influence, a natural step for Infected Mushroom to get psytrance dirty into psystep. I didn’t find the one song that overtly pushed the style too appealing but it is a nice ingredient as a minor influence across the collection.

Overall I have to admit that this album seems to have a bit too many ‘just average’ tracks and falls short of previous titles, but only because Infected Mushroom’s catalog is so good. But don’t let a quick skim fool you. Spending the extra few minutes to hear Drum N’ Bassa out until the end is time well rewarded. As with all of their music, turn up the volume, notice the intricacies, and rock the fuck out.

Sun – Cat Power

After years of not releasing an original LP, Chan Marshall defies expectations and presses a great album. I don’t know where she’s been or what she’s up to- I’m not really the type to read about artist’s lives in Rolling Stone, but I am glad she’s back. I’ve previously alluded to the possibility that I would like this release based on the single Ruin, and while this isn’t going to light the world on fire, it certainly is nice to once again be listening to some good Cat Power.

Sun – Cat Power

Cherokee
Cherokee

The album opens strong with Cherokee, Sun, and Ruin- three tracks that are surprisingly upbeat and positive for the musician. The presence of percussion and electronic support are welcome and it’s clear that Cat Power is best with these elements. 1996’s What Would The Community Think made that clear long ago and it’s sometimes frustrating as a fan when Chan deviates from this style.

The remainder of the album is perhaps not as strong and there are a mix of hits and misses depending where you fall on the fan spectrum. I personally enjoy most of it but the songs probably aren’t a good way to showcase the best of the band. Still, if you’re looking for a slightly modernized, optimistic version of Cat Power 3.0, it’s here for the taking.

The Walking Dead

This article is about the 2012 videogame. For other uses, see The Walking Dead (disambiguation).

The Walking Dead is a funny title. On one hand, I didn’t expect much. It was created by little known episodic game developer Telltale and is based on a flavor of the month property with quick time event-y gameplay. At the same time, the game has a cool art style, is focused more on dialog than action, and has a good story and excellent voice-acting. So where do all these dominoes fall?

Let’s start with the most significant effort put into this game. The Walking Dead emulates a tv show and pulls off its 5 individual episodes nicely. The story is well-paced and contains a bunch of characters, all with their individual quirks and annoyances. The emotional beats are well complemented with driving, sad music, and the world feels believable and tragic because of it. These qualities alone make the game a success, and all the awards and financial gains are, I believe, well deserved. Doing something fresh in this industry is a big deal, and even Valve couldn’t pull off the episodic thing.

However, there is a decent counter-point to all these praises. The story, while well scripted and much better than most videogames, is basically just a rehash of The Road. A grown man watches over a little kid in a post apocalyptic world, they run into bandits, they run into cannibals, and as sick as the man gets his entire goal is to protect the one innocent thing around him. There are more parallels but you get the idea. If this was a movie it would receive the same criticism more publically, but in general people are plenty happy with the mature subject matter because ‘this is just a videogame.’ So while I don’t think The Walking Dead is setting back games as a medium, it is still just playing catch-up to cinema instead of doing something truly unique.

There are other small problems, and since it’s easier to fill a page with negativity than praise, I’ll take a couple more paragraphs to explain. The characters aren’t quite as consistent as I would like. The ‘best friend’ is heroic at first, then turns cowardly and useless, then turns heroic again. The conversations are often disjointed and there were times when a reference to a previous event was said in a generic fashion as if to avoid the trouble of recording separate lines to reflect what specifically happened. And while it should be obvious that this is a game for those interested mainly in story, the gameplay and controls of some sections are certainly lacking. This is not a deal-breaker and is to some extent excusable for this type of game, but Telltale could’ve done a better job.

This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.

But with all the nitpicks about The Walking Dead, the ultimate criticism must come down to the meaning of choice. In a tight narrative, story branches are a big problem. Often the illusion of choice is better than actual game changing events. But if the player sees behind the curtain- if it is obvious that pressing X or A or B all end with the same result- then the idea of interactive fictions breaks down. Early portions of the game had moments where one character or another could die but the end game still played out the same. I would’ve hoped that, with all the reminders about how the game "adapts to my choices", that I could’ve created more diversity with my inputs.

All of that said, in the end The Walking Dead is a great thing for this industry. It’s a surprise hit that feels very different even from other quick-time games like Heavy Rain. It is supposed to give you the experience of ‘playing a tv show’ and the amount of time and thought commitment nail it. There’s some dark humor, there’s some tragedy, and there’s a whole lot of entertainment.

The Road

I mostly wrote the draft of this post in 2008, when I first read the book. In trying to reference it in a recent post, I realized I never published it, so here it is with minimal clean up.

This is a great book, mostly because of the fact that it is casual reading for the cultured. It is one event leading to the next in a simple train of thought style but it works well for the subject matter. Meaning from moment to moment is not something Cormac McCarthy presses, evidenced by his other famous work No Country for Old Men. The Road is likewise violent, tragic, miserable, but next to all that is the beauty in caring and protecting a child. The novel is direct yet introverted, deep and shallow at the same time.

The writing style is composed in a way that would have made you flunk 7th grade English, but I love it. The disregard for syntax creates a dirtiness about the story that belongs in the world. It is as if no more educated people remain to properly document the sad struggle. While film directors use many camera techniques like desaturation and jumpy movement to convey form on the function, so too do McCarthy’s words frame the atmosphere of the dying world.

The Road is not a long read. I got through it in less than 6 hours. The movie, if you’ve seen it, does an excellent job capturing most of the scenes and desperation, and if that’s your sort of thing, you should read the real thing.

Leftovers

Maybe I’m an old man, but I caught myself thinking deeply about leftovers today. I remember my mom always pushing leftovers on us kids and the strange joy she would get when we obliged the meal. I can totally understand that now.

I’ve eaten more than my fair share of Taco Bell and Arby’s. I am not ashamed to concede that I need a regular Mexican Pizza or Mozzarella Sticks fix from these fine vendors. But it is enormously satisfying to be able to cook a good, large meal and pack containers of leftovers in to the fridge. It’s just good sense- money well spent on home cooked food and another meal in waiting to boot.

But if there’s one thing more pleasurable than packing up a refrigerator with delicious leftovers, it’s the immense satisfaction I get when I actually eat that food and get to throw the empty leftover containers into the sink. I don’t know what it is. It’s like a beautiful virtuous cycle of culinary habits. And if that makes me an old man then I will wear that badge with pride while I continue deciding on what window shades to buy.