Erica

lena is in the other room playing star ocean and i sorta miss the era of myself that would sink however many hours those games take. i bought the new (and ostensibly pretty alright) Disgaea game and haven't cracked it open and I'm not really finding the motivation to because I'm just sorta exhausted by the general structure of JRPG games but also like... I miss not being exhausted by them.

the only time i made for anything close to that this year was Final Fantasy 16 and I can't think of a thing i regret doing more than that

I really love all of Pendulum's new era stuff (Elemental EP and beyond) where it's them sorta revisiting the previous "eras" of their sound and toying with new ideas in that space. They released Anima EP today which is a bit of a graduation from that, meaning it's more firmly planted in their modern style of working with vocalists/instrumentalists from other groups to bring a unique flavor to each track. They released 3/4 of the songs as singles already so the remaining track premiered with the EP and like... dude if this is any indication of a new era for Pendulum I am 100% fucking there for it. Insanely cool.

Although I don't, like to be clear.... I think they're past that. The "era" thing. Hold Your Colour / In Silico / Immersion are so distinct, purposely so, that it makes sense to think of them that way but Pendulum as it is now is clearly them returning to a project that let them explore music in a way that's inspiring to them no matter where on the compass it points to. The variety on deck from Elemental and Anima I think sorta proves that but "Silent Spinner" specifically sounds so different that it has me really excited for what's to come. They're clearly in a really good creative space and that's fucking awesome to see for a band that went through the roughest creative patch possible.

i think it's stupid in the way i think most far-forward thinking concept cars are fuckin stupid because the things they far-forward think about are lame as hell. the vision 100 car is precisely that where it's shifting body panels thing is just a sort of gimmick. it's a neat gif, it also means nothing for the future of cars. it sits in the same category of irritating to me as those dumb Mercedes ones where the inside of the car has seats that can all independently turn to face each other like you're having a nice couch conversation as your car self-drives. dumb. DUMB. concept for a future nobody needs.

"creative" people can mean a pretty broad set of things and idk if i have anything that would universally apply. a lot of the people i met at the earliest in my career happened because of circumstance at various events or trade shows that i was lucky to attend in various capacities and friendships that grew out of that did because i enjoyed their presence as people.