Darktime II

"All the Devils Are Here"

[This is one post in a series about my music mixes.  The series list has links to all posts in the series and also definitions of many of the terms I use.  You may wish to read the series introduction for general background.  You may also want to check out the first volume in this multi-volume mix for more info on its theme.

Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

There were a few tracks left over from the original Darktime mix after I trimmed it down to a proper volume length, but not nearly enough for a second volume.  So I’ve had to spruce it up rather significantly to flesh out this set.  Our top artists are probably Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Jeff Greinke, and Nox Arcana, who each have 3 songs between these first two volumes.  In fact, BTfaBG in particular is significant because they were almost certainly the mix starter.  It was from scouring the Internet’s early, primitive sharing sites that I accumulated the vast majority of my BTfaBG collection, and many of them inspired me to pair them up with other, equally tenebrous tracks, and that’s what eventually turned into Darktime.  You may recall that this is one of my “mood mixes,” which are the small set of mixes between the pre-modern and modern mixes.  And there was a lot of “stuff I found floating around on the Internet” involved in those.

Now that I’m bringing the mood mixes into line with the modern mixes, there’s less of that.  Most of the BTfaBG I own now I bought, because I wanted to have the full albums.  Take “Left, Unsaid”: it’s a meandering, ethereal, but still creepy track, and, when the vocals finally kick in nearly halfway through, they’re murky and provide more atmosphere than lyrics.  It’s a great example of what makes Sam Rosenthal’s personal project so perfect for this mix.  I’ve had a copy of “Left, Unsaid” for æons now, but I only bought This Lush Garden Within, their fifth album (and yet still considered one of the early ones), fairly recently.  Which is how I came across “Into the Garden,” another track off that album, which shares the gothic horns and murky vocals, but gets right into it much more quickly, and then layers on some female vocals for good measure.¹  As for Greinke, I’m returning to Cities in Fog, wherein I drew one of his tracks for last volume, because it really is the album of his that’s best suited for this mix.  “Moving Through Fog” is exactly what it says on the tin, complete with echoes that you can’t quite pin a direction to and muffled industrial sounds that could be machinery or equally could be restless spirits.  Nox Arcana also returns with its same album from last time, Legion of Shadows, which likewise is just too perfect for this mix.  “Spirits of the Past” is, as the name implies, pretty spooky, but also weirdly pretty, with its bell percussion and synthy, Phantom-of-the-Opera-esque melody; “Ancient Flame” is much calmer, giving a slight Middle Eastern vibe, like a night in the Arabian desert.

There are other returning artists as well: Amber Asylum is back with a short, bridge-like tune that begins the transition into the middle third of the volume.  “Ave’ Maria” is what you’d hear if you dared engage the old-time phonograph you found in the haunted house you were exploring.  Nox Arcana’s progenitor Midnight Syndicate² provides the “Epilogue” from their Carnival Arcane, which is here used as a bridge to transition from “Ancient Flame” to the closing triptych of the volume.  The new-age-y Angels of Venice also return with a quite long track, “Tears of the World (Lacrimae Mundi),” which I almost ditched several times; the first minute and a half is more reminiscent of Incanto Liturgica, but after that it settles into a solid, Halloweeny vibe.  Darkwavers Love Is Colder Than Death are also back, this time with “Tired to Death,” a synthy track with a funereal beat, though it does pick up a bit in the middle, and Susann Heinrich adds some ghostly vocals as well.  And we also return to the soundtrack of the original Dark Shadows for a “Seance” from from composer Robert Cobert, which sounds a bit like what the original Star Trek’s theme would have been if it had been a horror series instead of a scifi one.

This volume also reflects my newfound passion for gaming music.  Jeremy Soule provides “Aquarium of Alkonos,” a spooky, echoey track from the Icewind Dale videogame, and there’s a Jason Hayes track from the World of Warcraft game soundtrack,³ “Duskwood,” which is perfect for exploring creepy woods at night.  The newest addition to this volume—not added until I actually started getting organized for this post, in fact—was “Let Them In,” a track from the Candela Obscura soundtrack, credited to “Critical Role & Colm R. McGuinness,” though I suspect McGuinness did most of the work.  We’ve heard from McGuinness before, everywhere from Shadowfall Equinox VIII to every volume of Eldritch Ætherium except the first,⁴ and here he turns his penchant for dramatic, cinematic music to a creepier bent, as befits the Candela Obscura game.  Plus it flows so beautifully off the LICTD entry that I knew it was perfect here.

Like Greinke, Kevin Keller is usually found on Shadowfall Equinox,⁵, but “Chamber Doors” is a lot darker tonally than his usual fare, so I thought it worked well here.  And French soundtrack composer Xcyril closes us out with a weird, synthy track called “Organique.” The foreground gives insects-scattering-in-a-panic vibes, while the background is more howling-wind-on-a-cold-winter’s-night, but the whole thing works well here, and it fades into a muted something-else-entirely in a very satisfying way.

It’s also not that surprising to see hardcore gothic representatives Faith and the Muse here; “And Laugh—but Smile No More” is a creepy little harpsichord bridge that takes us solidly into the center stretch of the volume.  And witchhouse project oOoOO winds down that center stretch with the short “Crossed Wires,” which wouldn’t really be out of place on Cantosphere Eversion, but I thought it was dark enough to work well here.  As for brothers and film composers Mychael and Jeff Danna, they’ve worked together on films such as The Boondock Saints, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and the animated version of The Addams Family, so they know how to do creepy and dramatic, and how to combine the two.  A Celtic Tale: The Legend of Deirdre is the soundtrack to an imaginary film⁶ about legendary Irish folk hero Deirdre, protagonist of a tragedy which could put any of the classic Greek ones to shame.  I’m not sure what part of the story “Druid” is supposed to represent, but, as it comes late in the album, it’s probably not a happy one.  This is the perfect song for meeting with a mysterious mage to seal a dark pact, and it flows beautifully into “Left, Unsaid.” Plus its slow boil makes it a great opening track.

Darktime II
[ All the Devils Are Here ]

“Druid” by Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna, off A Celtic Tale: The Legend of Deirdre
“Left, Unsaid” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off This Lush Garden Within
“Moving Through Fog” by Jeff Greinke, off Cities in Fog
“Aquarium of Alkonos” by Jeremy Soule, off Icewind Dale [Videogame Soundtrack]
“Chamber Doors” by Kevin Keller, off Intermezzo
“Ave' Maria” by Amber Asylum, off Frozen in Amber
“And Laugh—but Smile No More” by Faith and the Muse, off Evidence of Heaven
“... You” by DJ Food, off Kaleidoscope
“Into the Garden” by Black Tape for a Blue Girl, off This Lush Garden Within
“Spirits of the Past” by Nox Arcana, off Legion of Shadows
“Tired to Death” by Love Is Colder Than Death, off Teignmouth
“Let Them In” by Critical Role & Colm R. McGuinness, off Candela Obscura [RPG Soundtrack]
“Crossed Wires” by oOoOO, off Without Your Love
“Hell Is Empty” by Emilie Autumn, off Fight Like a Girl
“Psalm” by Koop, off Sons of Koop
“Tears of the World (Lacrimae Mundi)” by Angels of Venice, off Angels of Venice
“Ancient Flame” by Nox Arcana, off Legion of Shadows
“Epilogue” by Midnight Syndicate, off Carnival Arcane
“Duskwood” by Jason Hayes, off World of Warcraft Soundtrack [Videogame Soundtrack]
“Seance” by Robert Cobert, off Dark Shadows, Volume 1 [Soundtrack]
“Wandering Heart” by Xcyril, off Organique

Total:  21 tracks,  76:10

What’s unexpected here?  Not too much.  Classically trained violinist Emilie Autumn is usually more suited to Fulminant Cadenza, where we’ve already seen her, and Distaff Attitude, where we haven’t (yet⁷), but “Hell Is Empty” (which also provides our volume title), is a creepy little bridge that I thought perfectly transitioned us from the center to the back stretch.  And that back stretch kicks off with an even more unlikely candidate, Koop.  The electrojazz Swedes are perhaps the last folks you’d think would produce something dark and gothy, but “Psalm,” from their first album (which is the least jazz and the most electro), feels like a song from a black-and-white gothic horror movie—you know the kind: unsettling, but not really scary.

And, finally, DJ Food is Londoner Kevin Foakes, who we’ve heard before on Mystical Memoriam.  He’s an electronica artist who often ranges from upbeat electropop to downtempo chill, but ”... You” is a short, vaguely unsettling track with some muddled female vocals in the middle (and some similarity to “Psalm,” actually).  It was too perfect for this mix for me not to include it here.

Next time, we’ll start trying to achieve inner peace using electronica beats.

⇐ Darktime I

Darktime III ⇒

__________

1 The Internet seems disinclined to identify the female vocalist for me, but I’d guess it’s Susan Jennings, who did the artwork for the album, wrote some of the lyrics, and is credited with vocals on at least one other track.

2 I feel comfortable calling them that, because Joseph Vargo, who basically is Nox Arcana, got his start working with Midnight Syndicate before breaking off to do his own project.  And the MS guys have definitely credited Vargo with a lot of their vibe, such as their themed albums which seem specifically designed to be played during Halloween parties.

3 Which we’ve mostly seen thus far on Eldritch Ætherium, specifically on volumes III and IV.

4 So II, III, and IV.

5 Specifically, volumes II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII.

6 At least that’s how AllMusic described it.

7 Perhaps in the fullness of time.

Wake up and smell the catfood in your bank account

Hey, look: two microposts for the price of one!

What Kamala Should Have Said

I’m sure by now everyone’s seen at least clips of Kamala’s Fox “News” interview with Bret Baier.  Several excerpts have been replayed ad nauseum, but the one that interested me was this one:

Bret: If that’s the case, why is half the country supporting him?  Why is he beating you in a lot of swing states?  Why—if he’s as bad as you say—that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States?  Why is that happening?
Kamala: This is an election for President of the United States.  It’s not supposed to be easy.
Bret: I know, but ...
Kamala: It’s not supposed to be ... it is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone.
Bret: So, are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid?  What is it?
Kamala: Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people.  And, in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean, and belittle, and diminish the American people.  He is the one who talks about an enemy within: an enemy within—talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.

Now, Kamala is currently getting credit for not “falling for” that “trap” (although it was so clumsy and obvious that I can’t really believe that anyone would have fallen for it), and I understand that she had her talking points that she needed to get out, and this was a score for her in that department.  But here’s what I wish she would have said instead:

Imagine there’s a user car salesman.  And he sells a lot of cars.  But the reason he keeps selling those cars is because he keeps telling lies: he makes claims about the cars that just plain aren’t true.  And people keep believing him, because they assume that he wouldn’t be allowed to outright lie like that.  Surely, they think, surely if he were completely making shit up, someone would come along and stop him, because that would be bad.  Probabaly illegal, even.  So he keeps conning people into buying the cars.  Now, in this situation, we wouldn’t blame the victims of this con job ... we wouldn’t say that the people buying these cars are stupid.  We have to blame the conman, right?  He’s the one doing the lying and cheating.

(And we could also blame the TV station who keeps showing ads saying how great this criminal is even though they know he’s lying.  But that might be too subtle for a Fox audience.)

So that’s what I wish she’d said.  And, I know, she needed to get her point in about the Nazi quotes Trump keeps spewing (quick, who said this, Hitler or Trump? “Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within. Then they will join us in a combined front.”^*), and also there’s no way she could have gotten through an answer that long without Baier interrupting her.  Multiple times, even.  But, still ... that was the right answer, I think.

Beetlejuice Redux

This weekend we rewatched Beetlejuice, in preparation for watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice next week.  Here are the the things I had to explain to my children:

• This movie is so old that the “little girl” in this movie is the mom in Stranger Things.  (And you should have heard the gasps of disbelief.)

• Who Ozzie and Harriet were.  And, looking back on it, that was an outdated reference at the time: the only reason I know anything about The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is because of second-hand stories from my parents.  Not sure what Burton was thinking on that one.

• The sandworms look like they escaped from The Nightmare Before Christmas because of Tim Burton’s involvement in both.

• Why the concept of a “talking Marcel Marceau statue” is dumb (and therefore funny).

• That’s a Johnny Carson impression, which is totally wasted on the youth.

Despite all that, they really enjoyed it (again/still), and are now sufficiently refreshed on the story to watch the sequel.  Just in time for spooky season.

__________

* And are you willing to admit that you only knew it was Hitler because Trump isn’t that articulate?

Actual Play Time, Part 2: Depends on How You Slice It

[This is the second post in a series.  You may want to begin at the beginning.  Like all my series, it is not necessarily contiguous—that is, I don’t guarantee that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

[Last time, we talked about my discovery of actual play and my realization that it was a whole new medium.]

You know, for writing about novels there’s the language of literary criticism; for writing about movies, the jargon of movie critiques is also well-established.  But actual play is new enough that the terms haven’t evolved yet.  Which means I get to make up my own.

In examining the burgeoning actual play medium, there are a few different ways to cut it up, but the most useful one, in my opinion, is by length of story arc.  For this purpose, I think of actual plays as falling into one of three categories: short form, medium form, and long form.

Short form content is your typical one-shot.  A “one-shot,” in TTRPG parlance, is a short adventure designed to be played, start to finish, in a single session.  Of course, a session of D&D (or any TTRPG) can last several hours, so even short form actual plays are often 3 – 5 hours long.  And, sometimes, you just can’t fit it all into one session after all, because things always take longer than you think they will, and the “one-shot” ends up becoming more of a two-shot (or even three-shot).  So a short form actual play is typically one episode, but up to 3, and it’s typically anywhere from 2 – 10 total hours of viewing time.  That doesn’t seem particularly short, if you’re comparing it to a sitcom, or your average comic book.  But trust me when I tell you it’s short compared to other actual plays.

Medium form content is usually around 5 – 20 episodes, which can be 50+ hours of viewing time.  These are longer stories, often corresponding to a longer adventure in TTRPG terms.  You can think of it as roughly equivalent to a season of television, just with more hours and more likely to be wrapped up at the end.  For some people, this is such a massive investment that it hardly seems possible, let alone worthwhile.  Yet there are several medium form actual play shows that are well worth the time investment.

Finally, long form content is a full TTRPG campaign.  For regular people playing TTRPGs, this is often a multi-year proposition, and we rarely get the opportunity to wrap them up neatly.  Somehow actual play shows manage to polish them off on a regular basis, with there being far fewer actual plays that peter out mid-storyline than there are TV shows cancelled mid-season.  (There are reasons for that, which we’ll dive into shortly.)  But we’re talking about anywhere from 50 – 150 episodes here, with the total time investment often ranging into the hundreds of hours.  Which means that the shit’s got to be pretty damned good to get people on board for a time expenditure of that size and scope.

But it also begs the question: why are there so many of these, when each one has the potential to produce hundreds of hours of content?  Surely there can’t be that much of an audience ... right?  Well, a number of factors in our entertainment landscape have conspired to change the way we think about these sorts of things.

When I was a kid, right on up to the point where my children were born, the landscape of entertainment, but television in particular, was moderately simple.  There were movies and novels and so forth, but those were seen more as one-off time investments.  You could produce a book, but you had to think about how long it was: readers might be intimidated by an overly large tome, and they might also have a big backlog of reading material, meaning that your longer novel might be less attractive than a short book that could be knocked out with a smaller time investment.  Same for movies: people were willing to sit still for maybe two hours, if you were lucky, but often the major studios shot for an hour and a half, tops, with many stories of crucial cinematic scenes getting “cut for time.” All of that eventually changed, of course: Harry Potter proved that people would gobble up multiple near-thousand-page novels, and Titanic proved that you could make people sit through 3+ hours of a movie if it was popular enough.

But television was a bit different.  We had 3 major networks, because creating a TV network was a gargantuan task that took a huge amount of money, and the existing networks didn’t much care for any more competition.  We had PBS, sure, and the occasional indy TV station, but, in general, 3 networks, and each one had 24 hours in the day, and that was it.  The attention span of the consumer was no longer the limiting factor.  No matter how much content people might want to put out, there simply wasn’t room for any more than 72 hours of it every day.  Where would it go?  As a result, a lot of great ideas never got made, and sometimes you’d even get great ideas that were made and then never saw the light of day.  Television shows were cutthroat, and they lived and died by ratings that purported to tell how many people were watching, and any show that didn’t appear to be garnering a big enough following was swiftly replaced by what they hoped would be the next big thing.  Even after we (finally) got a couple more networks in the 90s, things didn’t change all that much.

But then there was cable, and suddenly there were dozens of channels.  And then along came streaming, and suddenly the number of hours in a day was no longer relevant at all.  The Internet can play as many shows at once as there are users (at least theoretically), and suddenly the race for more content was on.  Of course, the audience was completely fractured as well.  In the “golden” era of television, every show had to appeal to the broadest possible audience to justify its existence.  And it meant that, on the consumer side, you often had to settle.  But now you can demand—and usually find—the exact sort of content you want.  I recall that, 10 years ago, I used to work upstairs from the offices of the Tennis Channel and, every day I would walk past their door on my way to the elevator and think to myself, do we really need a whole channel for tennis?  But then again I am not a tennis fan, so of course I would think that.  Other people who are tennis fans no doubt think the Tennis Channel is a great boon.  So we ended up with channels for just about everything, and streams for even more things, and a huge raft of content.

But of course content takes money to produce, which means that folks are always looking for cheaper and cheaper ways to put out more and more content.  That’s how we got reality TV: with no need for scripts—and therefore no need for script writers, script editors, script supervsiors, etc—and with most performers being non-union, unscripted TV is often significantly cheaper ... and, in an often overlooked aspect, significantly faster to produce.

And actual plays fit this mold.  You can make an actual play with minimal equipment, zero scripting, and whoever wants to be a player at the table.  You can crank out tons of content with only a modicum of effort, and there is apparently a hunger for it.  As with any new medium, more and more people are discovering it, and discovering what it can do.  So they’re willing to watch a wide variety of options.  Now, of course it is the case that the low-effort actual play shows will likely be the least popular, with the really well-established ones having full crews these days: directors, producers, sound engineers, editors, etc.  But you can make it cheaply and quickly, especially when you’re first getting started, and that’s the key.  It’s not really that surprising that a show can put out hundreds and hundreds of hours of content when the cost of doing so is moderate at worst and the appetite of the audience is continuing to be expansive.

Next time, let’s look at some of the big names in the space and see how they got that way.

Bugs in my ears, their eggs in my head

This week, I’m sick.  You’re lucky I’m cogent enough to write this much.