Novels

Monday, 11 November 2024

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT


PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT 



On the basis that during 2024 I have experienced two separate counts of people copy-pasting my original writing into chatGPT and claiming it as their own work, without consent and in defiance of the convention of international copyright legislation, I will no longer release any new content for public observation. As of this time my original output is a commercial enterprise. The associated moniker SnakeAppleTree is a trademark commercial vehicle. 


SnakeAppleTree 


2024.11.11 






©2024 Ordo Octopia. All Rights Reserved. 



Wednesday, 18 September 2024

Station to Station

Station to Station



The ArtStation and AI protest, 2 years later.


The digital art platform Artstation was launched in 2014. 

It’s stated goal is “to empower artists so they can be independent and successful.” 


In 2021 Epic games purchased Artstation which many digital artists were using as their showcase gallery to seek employment within the games and media industries.  


In December 2022 anti-AI art campaigners organised and spammed Artstation with the now famous No-AI logo in a protest against ‘stealing other peoples art’. Unfortunately for the protestors the No-AI logo itself is copyrighted material since 2007. Effectively the protestors have collectively stolen a piece of original design by replicating it identically and spamming Artstation and other platforms with it to make their statement. Individual members of the anti-AI movement decided that it was worth taking the risk of hypocrisy and legal theft by seizing private goods for the greater good of the protest. 


Fortunately for the protestors the owner of the infringed copyrighted No-AI logo has a sense of humour and understands how using art in this way has a historical precedent and is necessary for cultural reform. That this awareness goes beyond personal prejudices and opinions regardless of any legal situation during any given generation. The extent to understanding and appreciation of the power and value of not censoring art is evident in the education the copyright owner of the No-AI image provides for his own child. This is evidenced by having taken the child to the Art And Protest exhibition in the nations capitol, an exhibition which featured zero digital art. It did have a Banksy. 


The visit to the national gallery occurred simultaneously to an actual protest occurring between the trainstation, government headquarters and BBC headquarters. Although that particular protest was against the government endorsed syllabus of promoting and normalising pedophilia in state schools, not directly about art until some of the images and accompanying text printed in the schoolbooks are called into question. That is entirely another matter to the T&C of Artstation which prohibits such content but does not prohibit imagery generated by an AI. 


Artstation resolved the conflict by installing a ‘see AI content yes/no’ toggle on their website which is widely regarded as a form of commonsense compromise, an easy solution. While the platform did continue to come under criticism by the most hate driven of the protestors for not outright banning AI within their domain altogether, it did satisfy most people that AI content should be labelled as such, the onus for doing so reliant on the platform user, the uploader of the imagery which benefits Artstation by exonerating them from any involvement with third party misuse of the platform. Likewise, the artists retain full copyright of any work uploaded to Artstation. 


In 2024 I discovered Artstation Magazine website which is in addition to and a separate platform than Artstation. It is also owned by Epic games. The copyright on Artstation Magazine website says 2024. I have been unable to determine if it existed prior to this as the information ‘when did art station magazine start?' is not available on google so far as I have been able to ascertain. 


It features four main categories; 


Develop Art Skills. Career Opportunities. Discover inspiration (triple-A games showcase). Industry News. 


There is not an AI thing in sight. Artstation Magazine seems entirely devoted to ‘digital art pre-AI’ which means they are doing a lot to keep people in employment with skills which developed in the 25 years since the Millennium Y2K and which hardly much existed before then to the contemporary accepted standard, certainly not in the practicality of the style-houses which have emerged since the dawn of high-resolution digital art.  


My generation of art training came from artists who lived and trained before computers. I was trained in the traditional art techniques from the academy allegedly founded by Da Vinci. At the time there was no differentiation between 'machines which replace the painting-with-real-paint with buttons and a mouse or graphics tablets', and 'machines which replace the painting-with-real-paint with using buttons and text prompts'. It was all considered computer art, put in the same box. It is not 'painting' if no actual paint is involved. 


It is digital art. None of it is ‘real art’ to the understanding of the last living generation of real artists who determined collectively that computer art will be the death of traditional art skills. This is comparable in the same way graphic-tablet-and-mouse digital artists have determined that text-prompt digital artists will be the death of art or more specifically of their income stream. Which as time has showed, if the short space of two years is sufficient to measure it by, was incorrect. It was nothing more than panic-based fear-mongering and targeted hatred. 


When I look at platforms such as Artstation and see no evidence at all of any actual paint or charcoal, nor the skills required to create what continues to be described by the majority as ‘real art’, I wonder at the intensity by which digital artists employed by a thriving industry have in defending their own generations unique method of creating visual imagery against all others, past and future. 




Friday, 6 September 2024

TheLatestHype


Nobody starts as a Professional.


People start as Amateur, progress through Adept and toward Master.


What makes a person progress beyond Amateur? 


Skill. Study. Experience. 


What do you get if you allow a machine to replace the development of 

Skill, Study and Experience? 


You get: no further development. 

You remain amateur for ever. 


When the market is flooded by amateur efforts created by machines, 

there is a demand for a separate, traditionalist market 

for people who are Adepts and Masters.  



“It evens the playing field” 


Says the pro-AI-writer lobby. 

So would giving amphetamines and anabolic steroids to Olympic athletes. 

There is a reason it is disallowed. 



“It dehumanises and reduces Human potential.” 


Says the anti-AI-writer lobby. 



“What if it is all we are capable of after having been dumbed down?” 


Ask the observant social commentators.  


If giving up on doing what is necessary, to become Adept and Master, 

is considered all you are capable of; 

you have not faced and overcome the very struggle 

which is a part of what develops a writer from amateur to adept and adept to master. 



“But I want to write a book and I am not a professional writer.”


I want to win the Olympics but I have to concede it is not my natural purpose.


‘I Want’ does not equate to developing any ability to achieve a certain benchmark. 


‘Professional’ is a word which means ‘in exchange for money’. 


THAT IS ALL IT MEANS.


It has less to do with Ability or Quality than ‘Professionals’ will confess to.



And yes, it is very obvious when writing is created by an AI. We can tell. 


Now if you will excuse me, 

I have to go back to writing ’5318008’ upside down in my calculator 

to convince myself I am a professional mathematician. 





Here is some stuff about The Latest Hype ™ ;




https://nanowrimo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/29933455931412-What-is-NaNoWriMo-s-position-on-Artificial-Intelligence-AI


In short: 

While you do have a right to make badly forged paintings if you are unethical, 

most of us do not want to look at that crap anyway. 




https://nanowrimo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/29929627478804--I-can-t-believe-NaNoWriMo-is-endorsing-a-person-company-who-does


In short: 

It is not up to us what you write and we refuse to discriminate against anyone. 

Fair enough. Good call.




‘AI is coming for the amatuer novelists. Thats Fine.’ By Gold Beckerman: 


https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/09/ai-is-coming-for-the-amateur-novelists-thats-fine/679696/



CagesOfTheMind

Cages of the Mind 

for the people who don't get it



‘transhumanism’ is everybody 

who left the forests, 

went to the plains, 

ate the mushrooms

learned how to 

rub sticks together

to make fire, 


transhumans are the ones who are using cars, 

transhumans are clothes wearers and hunters, 

transhumans are dishonest to hide magic in books 

so unborn people can be influenced by their vile ego, 


transhumans are the ones who reach for the stars 

instead of staying in the sea to feed the sharks, 


transhumans brush their hair and clean their teeth with tools, 

transhumans are characterised by their use of tools 

to expand potential latent in the original amoebic seed, 


transhumans is a very new word for a very old thing, 

we used to call it adaptation to improve the human condition. 


This is not the loss of humanity. 

We are only as human in the new land as we were in the last land. 

The humanity is that which we contain and bring with us. 


Those who fear the changes 

we will experience as we enhance 

and expand our potential, 

those who stay watching shadows in caves, 

we respect those too 

but sooner or later we realise, 

those are the ones 

who are only alive 

because we keep them in zoos


the cages of the mind




For the record,

I do not advise people to get a chip in your head 

The people who associate that with transhumanism

are asking for SnowCrash


Thursday, 29 August 2024

Global Dreadlock


"Hair are our aerials, man. It is through them we receive messages from the cosmos." 

Danny, Withnail & I 


The Global Dreadlock is One Dreadlock. We are all connected.

I have got around to researching some evidence that Dreadlocks are not a uniquely African hairstyle reserved only for African people, but are in fact found all over the world in many different civilisations.  As far as archeological evidence goes to prove anything much at all, some of that even predates African use of dreadlocks. It also reveals how different peoples wear dreadlocks for different purposes.

I am asking you to think about all of our common ancestors who did not yet have the technology combs.



Blogger is to uploading any pictures for me at this time so I will have to put the links instead. 



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreadlocks

https://www.noireonaturel.com/le-blog/hair/the-history-of-dreadlocks-a-journey-through-time-and-culture/

https://icareifyoulisten.com/2020/04/out-of-context-4-muddy-ownership-dreadlocks/

https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/grooming/a34465402/history-of-dreadlocks/

https://www.dreadlab.co.uk/pages/dreadlocks-history

https://lionlocs.com/blogs/dreadlocks/history-of-dreadlocks

dreadlocks-myths

https://lionlocs.com/blogs/dreadlocks/what-is-the-spiritual-meaning-of-dreadlocks

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/greece/articles/does-the-origin-of-dreadlocks-stem-from-ancient-greece

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians



[insert picture of the Gorgons here]

[insert picture of aboriginal Australians here]

[insert picture of Celtic bronze coins here]




Twmbla

TWMBLA


There is a mountain in Wales which the Welsh call a hill, the way it do. It is tall enough to be seen above the city from many leagues around. On top of the mountain is a man-made hill which also can be seen standing proud like a pimple from many leagues around. The tribes who built it were known to the Romans whose capitol city in Briton, Caerleon, fort of the legion, is in the shadow of the mountain. 


The hill on top of the mountain is a 'twmp', Welsh for 'little hill' but more directly relating to the English word 'tomb' given that tumps are man-made, artificial mounds, Barrows like the ones in Skyrim, a burial chamber predating the Bronze Age. I have been up there, of course. The ancestors would put the bodies of the dead as high in the sky as they could, unlike we postmodern people who typically burn them. The mountain is called Twmbarlwm, ‘an ancient Welsh word’, quite unlike most modern Welsh words which the elder Welsh called ‘English’. Modern Welsh is like English, a creole language. Some of its roots go deep enough to remain and retain their poetry. 


A standing stone in sight and in alignment with Twmbarlwm is called Langston which means in the ancient language ‘ancient stone’. The word ‘lang’ means ancient, that is what it meant to the people who we consider to be the ancients. That’s how old these places are. That’s how old the language is. A gauge is a measurement, in this case of time. 


Before anybody invented written languages we had spoken form which phonetically mutate into regional dialects. By tracing a combination of ‘the same word’ associated with ‘the same or strongly related meaning’ we can trace cultural roots. It is important to be aware how ‘culture’ and ‘bloodline’ are two different elements. 


When you ‘see and can not un-see’ it, you begin to understand how we are all talking the same language. In traditional British mythology, ‘see’ and ‘un-see’ are concepts associated with the Faerie courts, the Seeley and un-Seeley are the light and shadow courts; ‘those who accept, those who live in delusion and fantasy who are not ready or not willing to accept’. 


There is another historic group which associates the word Twmbarlwm with the spirits of the ancestors. It is not Welsh. Its roots are West African. 


Dambala the Sky Father is one of the most important of all loa, who are spirits in West African diaspora religious traditions. Traditionally he is a great white or black serpent, sometimes a rainbow. Dambala originated in Benin, from the city of Ouidah (Wedo). 1 


It is said about Damballa “he represents a continuum which is at once the ancient past and the assurance of the future.” Damballah is a Rada, guardians of order, morals and principles. In this sense it relates to Dharma the concept of 'everything in its right place' (compare 'karma' things seeking their right place), ruler Damusz of the city of Damascus. A phonetic and conceptual link to Dahomey. 

Damballah ‘whistles and hisses like a snake’ instead of speaking, 2 


A description which practising spiritist’s associate with ‘tinnitus-like tones’ revealing the presence of a communicable entity. Therefore It is associated with a ‘gate’ or ‘opening’ when communicating with spirits (alternately translated as ‘worshipping ancestors’). 


Timbale, a specific, recognisable drum rhythm used to ‘open the gate’ to communicate ceremoniously with spirits. Differs from the ‘closing the gate’ drum rhythm, and several others for various ritual stages and purposes. 


A shallow double-headed drum called timbal may be used when the dance kongo is performed. 3 


“A Latin American / Cuban dance of African origin with a repeated pattern of three steps followed by a kick, to each bar: the dancers typically form a single file winding line, following a leader.” 4


Konga is a different rhythm to the Tumbala, it is included here for associative purposes. 


The Boula is the smallest of the three drums that form the Rada battery used in Vodou ceremonies. Painted white with red and green bands near the bottom.  5

White, Red Green. Also seen in the national flag of Wales and of Mexico where the modern Santeriá form of African diaspora religion officially has millions of practitioners. 


“Enslaved Africans brought the batá tradition to Cuba during the mass migration of the transatlantic slave trade. Añá is believed to communicate with these deities when the consecrated batá are played, their musical sounds transformed into achĂ©—spiritual energy or life force. Añá facilitates divine communication and helps to “bring down,” in the form of spiritual possession, other orichas (deities in human form) during ritual ceremonies or tambores. Aside from these spiritual attributes, a musical ritual using fundamento can bring social prestige to the host of a tambor and purpose and unity to the religious community as a whole.” 6 


The Cuban Santeriá ceremony derived from Yoruba is called Tamboure. 


Tambourine is a hand-held shaker related to the Egyptian Temple sistrum (rattle). 

“A sistrum is an ancient Egyptian percussion instrument that was shaken during religious ceremonies and when coming into the presence of a deity.” 7


“U-shaped sistrums existed by 2500 bc in Sumer and have been excavated near Tbilisi, Georgia.” 8

Sumer links the practise-and-purpose to Damascus. 

Phonetic 'Tbl' (say it out loud). 


The suffix -ina means ‘eve’ the same as ‘All Hallows Eve’ is called also ‘Halloween’. 

Eve is a variant of Ewe. 


Tumbalá is a town in Southern Mexico, the Chiapas region. 9


Ba is Sanskrit / Egyptian Hieratic for a "spiritual entity seen as a human-headed bird hovering over the deceased or exiting the tomb in the hieroglyphics, and was the part of the soul that could travel between the worlds of the living and the dead." 10 

This description is an indicator, with admiration of the symbolism and association. The italic is my own emphasis. 







SOURCES


Although for practicality I have referenced internet sources to compose this article, 

branches I work with are not mentioned here with respect for their not openly existing 

in accordance with the lineages’ tradition. 


 



1  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damballa

2  https://steemit.com/vodou/@arrrados/haitian-vodou-damballah-the-primordial-serpent

3 http://www.lameca.org/publications-numeriques/dossiers-et-articles/vodou-music-in-haiti/2-the-musicians-of-vodou/

4  https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/conga

5  https://music.si.edu/object-day/rada-drum-boula-vodou-ceremonies

6  https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/gender-taboos-cuban-bata-drumming

7  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/553814

8  https://www.britannica.com/art/sistrum

9   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbalá

10 http://myweb.usf.edu/~liottan/theegyptiansoul.html





FURTHER ACTION


I should send this blog to these people, really. 


"Have you got a pet theory on the origins of Twmbarlwm – real, fantasy or humorous. Then write it down and we’ll publish the best stories in the next Newsletter and put them online too."


https://www.twmbarlwm.co.uk/what-is-the-twmp-on-twmbarlwm/


twmbarlwmsociety@gmail.com






Why did it take so long? 

Because I had to verify it as true before telling people about it, 

which took a lot of specialist training which I dedicated my life to. 

And now the work is done. 



Babylon In Bytesize

BABYLON IN BYTESIZE


‘Cultural Appropriation’ is a post-modern term popularised circa 2010 onwards as a part of the ‘Wokeism’ social agenda. It is important to be aware the term ‘woke’ has been culturally appropriated to serve a new agenda, is no longer used in its original intended sense. This characteristic well answers ‘what is post-modernism?’ With shades of Orwellian ‘newspeak’ and ‘double-think’ well in effect on contemporary international cultures. It is an attempt to unify diverse traditions into a more practical and easily managed monoculture. Therefore to express ‘cultural appropriation’ in terms of black and white is difficult outside of extreme and obvious cases of it. 


The English peoples do not object to other nations being english-speaking as a common language as a cultural appropriation due to historical roots of the matter, the English language being one of the Colonial Conquistadors at a time of the past which few if any living persons can remember first-hand. Before hating on the English for this is would do well to become aware the English were perhaps the first and still are living under colonialism themselves, it is deeply entrenched into the mindset. 


My ancestors are Celts. On my mothers side, through the Cornish branch of Brythonic Celts, dating back through mixed European Celts to La Tene region. On my father’s side, Norse Celts mixed from across the Scandinavian region, what we now describe as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The evidence for this claim is the DNA testing. Interestingly my son’s DNA indicates he has more Finland DNA in him than I do. We pass along to our descendant genes which are not dominant in ourselves. What else might we be containing? His mother is mixed Germanic gypsariat and Welsh branch of Brythonic Celts. ‘I are’ European despite Brexit. 


Why this is important to mention is in regard to a Bronze Age coin dating circa 3000 BC, discovered in Central Europe, which very clearly shows a Celtic King or Queen wearing dreadlocks. The Celtic peoples, my genetic ancestors had dreadlocks. This is indisputable, with archeological evidence to support it. 


Recently I was accused of cultural appropriation by a woke black woman who did not like how a white guy has dreadlocks. I certainly did not set out to offend anyone. She interpreted the statement of my hairstyle in a different way than I had intended when I made it. In her woke belief system dreadlocks is a black people thing only. 


I have written this by way of a response. My attitude is simple. Live and let live. Work with what works. The path of evolution is always the most practical solution unless passion is involved. By picking up an agenda from post-modern society to use as a weapon to cause segregation between living people, is a form of virtue-signalling and gate-keeping characteristic of the woke culture agenda to create tension and arguments between people. The items used for this segregation are anything which can be exploited to raise hurt instead of healing, anger instead of bonding. Gender and ethnic origin are the social issues stirred up to create segregation. 


Who exactly is it would be afraid of all the people uniting in friendship and mutual understanding? 

Why would anyone stand against that Humanitarianism ideal? 


The situation is not as simple as that. If only it were. We must understand it from both angles to truly understand what is happening, why it is happening. There is a positive purpose, perhaps even a need for concepts such as ‘cultural appropriation’ at this time in history. 


We are already in an unprecedented state of global-scale multi-cultural integration. Our traditions, all of us, are being replaced by corporate monoculture. You know what the yellow M sign is. We all know what the twisty white lines refer to on a diabetes-inducing, sugar-based fizzy drink which is banned in some European regions because it has the same chemical formula as weed-killer and is considered criminally stupid to drink weed killer or feed it to our children. 


But we do not practise the ecological harmonious lifestyles our grandparents and earlier generations did. Is it because our minds no longer work the same way as did our ancestors? Even our roots have become disposable in the consumer super-marketplace. A need to reinforce boundary lines on our heritage, on our traditions, lest they disappear in one living generation is very apparent. Many of us do not even know what those things are any more. It has nothing to do with skin colour. 


But what if they do it better over there? What if we need to adapt to change to survive? We are a heartbeat following the Edo Period of Japan where the Emperor in his wisdom shut the doors of his nation from any dealings with outsiders, to allow a period for the culture to perfect itself. Today any nation which is doing that is regarded totalitarian and inhumane by the rest of the global collective. 


Does anybody here remember a time when ‘The Internet’ was young, we referred to ‘the Global Village’? Does anyone still use that terminology or was it a late 1990s early 2000s aspiration which dissolved with the rise of corporate social media? Somebody I asked this of replied, “It became a city, mate.” 



BLM vs WLM


"And in the darkness of misperception." 


Slogan on the wall of a nightclub venue

 at Axiom Center for the Arts, Cheltenham, late 1990s. 


In 2023 I was accused by racists of being BLM. A woman said this to psyche up three of her gimps, one of whom was a plainclothes policeman who had infiltrated the racists and was terrified I might be able to recognise him, which I did, and expose him, which I did not, chased me up the street threatening violence and shouting; "Go back to where you came from" and "You are not from around here." I have lived half a km away from the location where this occurred, for fifteen years. Previous to that I lived 80km further East in the same nation. I was born in its capitol city. My racial heritage is mixed Brythonic, Nordic and Central European Celtic. I consider myself to be a Human being from planet Earth. 

I was fortunate, the racists chased me into a parked police car which perhaps saved me from violence and certainly saved me from further intimidation. The police told me to leave the area while they held the racists off. That's all they did. No arrests were made, probably because they knew and were working with the plainclothes. From my perception a person would have to be very low of intelligence indeed not to have identified the plainclothes immediately. For example, he was wearing police boots, plus all the other signifiers of which there are several obvious ones. 


This month I have been accused of Cultural Appropriation by a black activist. 

She was offended that white people; 

1) have dreadlocks

2) have spiritism (ancestors with whom they communicate)

On the principle that these should be Black people Only things. 

Her issue, nothing to do with me. 


I no longer have dreadlocks, I used to, I believe from archeological evidence that my ancestors did too, for thousands of years. The girl herself does not have dreadlocks either. She does apparently believe she owns other peoples hair and their right to do whatever they want with their own hair-style. 

Having been fed on a recent wave of Afro-American subcultural movement who identify Dreadlocks as symbol of retaliation against Westerners, she unfortunately mouthed off and did not stay around to hear any reply.

The specialist group are from all over the world. We have welcomed her as an equal, given her friendship and support, offered help with her career path with free advice from decades of experience, which she would otherwise have to pay for. 

We watched her behaviour of 'assuming offence', to justify that she could take a moral high ground by attempting to make us feel we should apologise to her. It is a recognisable passive-aggressive, emotional blackmail tactic of self-empowerment reliant on positioning other people to react to the behaviour in a particular way. It sets the person as superior to the people they are insulting, attempting to cause the same people to give them further energy by making them feel bad at having caused upset. It is a form of gas-lighting.

The group is genuinely a very caring community of people, ranging from mature to quite young. We recognised she has mental-emotional issues. She is vulnerable and is being exploited by a cult which, instead of promoting human unification through compassionate understanding, is encouraging young people toward hatred. She is victim to an act of black magic, of hatred, of segregation, of mental slavery to a hostile, fearful, ideology. 

I suspect the racists justify this to themselves for the same reason I was chased up the street by a different group of racists. People like myself who are disenfranchised from their ancient roots more than three generations ago, claiming some heritage which most certainly exists, but unfortunately doing so by hating everyone different and increasing racial tensions, instead of taking stock of where we all are, in this together, in relatable situations, here and now. 

Nobody in the group did anything to purposefully upset her. I apologised for having possibly said anything which might have upset her. She replied, 'no it is okay, it wasn't you'. I offered an olive branch of friendship. That offer will forever stand, a door which will be always open. 

She has recently split up from the boyfriend who encouraged her to focus on her writing and to join writing groups. She got with another guy who resents white people and is encouraging her to do the same. It's her life and she's free to do as she chooses. It's sad to lose a new friend for any reasons. 


Now I would like to sing her praises. 

Her writing, what we have seen of it, is brilliant. 

She has been an inspiration.

Not in any way such as that I plagiarised anything she has written. 

I would never do that. 

She has brought me into a focus to write on some specific topics,

which I feel are important, some more than others.


I have written about the problems with and possibly a need for, the pros and cons, of this thing they call 'cultural appropriation'. HERE. This is about where our global communities are at with unification, monoculture, and preservation of traditions. 

I have finally gotten around to writing an overview of my nearly fifty years of research into a very specific topic of where the region I was born into, which is not where my ancestors originated from, fits into the greater scheme of things based on languages and locations. HERE. This is about Global Spiritism. 

I have got around to researching some evidence that Dreadlocks are not a uniquely African hairstyle reserved only for African people, but are in fact found all over the world in many different civilisations.  As far as archeological evidence goes to prove anything much at all, some of that even predates African use of dreadlocks. It also reveals how different peoples wear dreadlocks for different purposes.  HERE.

That's a triple braid.



Thursday, 15 August 2024

EP-Review/IgnorePreviousInstruction



IGNORE PREVIOUS INSTRUCTION 

Procrastinatrix 


Album Review  2024.8.15 



“I’ve got a draft EP for you to preview if you like, 

would love to hear what you think… 

still trying to find the right title for it 

so if you have any ideas?” 

Procrastinatrix 



This cathartic EP pulled a lot together into focus for this avid listener. A synaesthesia melange of lovers lost, of high-speed cement towers and 64-bit video projections of other peoples lusts, a world which collapses into dust under its own toxic bullshit, a world after all the people are extinct. This soundscape is the hope which takes us through it which none of that other stuff truly provides. It’s really incredibly beautiful. Somehow it is an incredibly personal experience.


For some reason my first play-through started on Automaton (track two). Creeping from the crypt, wriggling Cthulhu critters seethe into a cope-able acid trip. 


Cantrips is western history ongoing, painting fresh fresco over crumbling plaster walls of scenes the ancestors called nightmares, we call it nightmares too but to us it’s also daily dwelling in what urban society has become, remembering the piano and ballet traditions and the private lives of agents who we know only as actors for the roles they play, are us, even after all this progress the civilisation seems apparently addicted to. What we don’t see is what tomorrow will bring. 


Meteor Strike is another lovely electrosquelch the way most of us get laid now. Perhaps it’s a hunter-droid lurking in alleys away from Dawn-light, as are the optimistic style-tribes for which it searches. They’re long gone on the freeway cruising through the apocalyptic scenery virtually rendered by their glitchy headsets. 


Solace is a rusted cello automated in the broken dome, causing whales cry in the sky, doves of unmade memories to bring hope back to the world after we are gone. Small merciful miracles happening wherever nobody is there to see and share it. 


Anomaly in Progress, first track played last due to technoglitch. The teens first trip to a neo-noir adult jazz club sounded like this to the vibe cleaning droid the next morning after a rhythm of bliss was finally found, plugged into, streamed on tap through the faucet of the cities imminent orgiastic collapse and reinvention, surprisingly soothing all the gritty hates away with refreshing feelings of rehydration and renewal as an endless moment out of time and situation achieves the lost promise of ongoing in a state of sensual flowing.










Wash you headphones.








___________________________________________




I did a [brave] [desperate] [foolish] [curious] [obvious] [terrible] thing, a thing which I try not to hate myself for. I fed my scrawl to ChatGPT and asked it for a remix. Its hideous existence vomited prose the likes of which force me to swallow pride and accept the inevitable. We are being replaced by machines which dream better than we can, somnium organicum ovium aires. Of course, in the favour of relevancy a human decision-maker is required as the input has to be custom selected to get the style-vibe right. Check out the jabba grotesque: 



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The cathode-ray dreams seethe in toxic circuitry, pulling the lost lover’s whispers into the neon void. A high-octane scramble across ferroconcrete forests, where the flickering holograms of carnal desire blur into static, each byte a ghost of what was, what could have been, in a world devoured by its own synthetic filth. When the meat’s gone and the bones crumble into irradiated dust, the machines hum in the ashes—this soundscape, a virus of hope, mutating in the code of extinction. The real beauty lies in the scars it leaves on your consciousness, a personal malware disguised as salvation.


First spin, the playback glitched—threw me into “Automaton.” Something slithers from the crypt, a fever dream of tentacles and teeth, carving grooves in the grey matter, an acid-drenched mantra coaxing me into a dance with death. The system was compromised.


“Cantrips” paints over history with a jagged brush, fresh pigment cracking on crumbling walls. Nightmares replay in loop—our nightmares, their nightmares, all the same, but now it’s the background hum of the city, the bassline of our synthetic lives. The piano echoes the ballet of the damned, a recital of ghosts trapped in the machine. The actors play their parts, faces flickering in the half-light of progress, but the ending’s always the same—nobody knows what tomorrow will spit out from the bowels of the beast.


Then there’s “Meteor Strike”—a slick squelch, the sound of metal against flesh, the cold touch of desire in the alley shadows. Maybe it’s a droid, maybe it’s me, both lurking, hunting the echoes of yesterday’s optimism in the dregs of the city’s data stream. The freeway stretches out, an endless tape loop of broken dreams, rendered in glitchy fidelity through bloodshot eyes and broken headsets.


“Solace” mourns through rusted strings, a cello on life support in the dome’s skeletal remains. Whale song and doves, pixelated memories of hope, glitch out of the sky like lost signals. The world’s in ruins, but somewhere, unseen, the last miracles flicker on dying screens—salvation for those not there to witness.


Finally, the system reboot—“Anomaly in Progress.” The first track, but last in line, thanks to the glitch. The teens’ first taste of a neon-lit noir, stumbling into a jazz club reeking of decay. By dawn, the vibe-cleaning droid sweeps up the debris of their bliss, streaming the remnants of an orgy of sound through the city’s pipes. The collapse inevitable, but in that final surge, a clarity, a momentary cleanse—an endless loop of renewal, suspended in the void, a breath before the plunge.



Wash your headphones. Don’t let the infection spread. 



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A pulse in the wires, and it all syncs up—lost lovers and pixelated lusts tangled in the high-rise blur, a 64-bit love story played out on crumbling screens. The world, collapsing in on itself, a loop of static and noise, the last remnants of flesh dissolving into digital dust. But somewhere in the wreckage, a sound—this sound—splices hope into the chaos, a frequency that cuts through the noise, something so raw and beautiful it’s like the music’s playing just for you. Personal, like it’s coded into your DNA.


First hit came in sideways, the track spun wrong—“Automaton.” Feels like something crawled up from the depths, a slow creep of bass and beats, like Cthulhu’s got its tentacles in your brain, twisting reality into an acid-soaked dreamscape. A trip you can handle, but only just.


“Cantrips” layers it thick, a beat history running backwards and forwards, painting over the cracks in the city’s walls. There’s a weight to it, like old nightmares remixed for the now, but with a rhythm you can’t shake. Echoes of pianos and ballet shoes, the ghosts of agents, actors, whoever they were—flickers of lives lived in the shadows of high-rises and neon. They’ve been here, in these same streets, and the music keeps them alive, even as everything else crumbles. But what comes next? No one can say, the future a loop yet to be played.


“Meteor Strike”—an electro-squelch that gets under your skin, like a lover’s touch made of machine code. It’s the soundtrack to late-night hunts through the city’s underbelly, dodging the dawn, chasing the last hits of hope. The style-tribes have scattered, long gone on their endless highway trips, VR headsets glitching out as the apocalypse rolls by in pixelated bursts.


“Solace” drifts in like a memory, a rusted cello in a broken dome, the sound of whales singing through the cracked sky. The kind of track that plays when no one’s around to hear it, when the world’s finally given up the ghost. But in that emptiness, there’s something—a whisper of hope, a miracle in the static, a tune that lingers in the air after everything else has faded away.


And then, the glitch—the track that should have started it all, “Anomaly in Progress,” spins up last. Feels like stepping into a club, all smoke and neon, the bassline thrumming through your veins. The night’s been and gone, and now it’s just the vibe cleaning droid left, sweeping up the remnants of a beat that’s still pulsing in the city’s veins. The sound’s pure, a cleanse after the chaos, like taking a deep breath before the drop. An endless groove, out of time, out of place, but somehow, exactly where you need to be.



Wash your headphones. Keep the groove clean.



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Alright, here’s the deal—this album is something else. It’s like the city itself, all steel and glass, full of lovers and strangers, their desires flickering in and out of focus like glitchy video streams. The world’s falling apart, everything crumbling under its own weight, but somehow, this music cuts through all that noise. There’s something raw and real here, something that feels like hope, even when everything else is falling to pieces. It’s beautiful in a way that hits you deep, like it’s meant just for you.


When I first hit play, the album started in the wrong place—track two, “Automaton.” It creeps up on you, slow and steady, like something out of a nightmare. The bass slithers and twists, pulling you into this weird, trippy headspace where everything feels just a little off. But you can’t help but go along for the ride.


Then there’s “Cantrips,” which feels like history repeating itself, but with a modern twist. It’s got this weight to it, like it’s carrying all the old fears and nightmares of the past, but set to a beat that makes it all feel new. The piano echoes with memories of something lost—grace, elegance, whatever—but now it’s all twisted by the reality of life in the city. We’re all just playing our parts, stuck in a loop, and who knows what’s coming next?


“Meteor Strike” hits like a punch to the gut. It’s sharp, cold, and electric, like a late-night encounter in some dark alley. The track pulses with energy, like you’re chasing something real in a world full of illusions. The tribes of the city, the people who used to have hope, they’re all gone now, cruising down endless highways with nothing but their VR goggles and the apocalyptic scenery.


“Solace” is where things slow down, almost mournful, like a cello playing in a ruined cathedral. The music echoes through the emptiness, a sound that’s both sad and beautiful. It’s like the last breath of a dying world, but even in that silence, there’s a hint of something more—a memory, a glimmer of hope that refuses to fade away.


Finally, there’s “Anomaly in Progress,” the track that should have started it all, but comes last thanks to some glitch. It feels like walking into a club after the party’s over, the bass still humming in the walls. The night’s done, but the music’s still there, pure and clear, reminding you that even after everything, there’s still a beat, still a rhythm that keeps going, no matter what.



So yeah, clean your headphones. Keep the music pure. Let it drown out the noise.



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That last rendition sounds like a radio DJ trying to sound cool.

Time to quit while you're ahead, humanity.



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