Muse-ick: Releases of 2020 part 1

Welcome to my first ongoing segment on this blog: Muse-ick!

muse¹

/mjuːz/

Learn to pronounce

noun

A source of inspiration, especially in an artistic sense.

ick

/ɪk/

INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN

exclamation

A sticky or gooey substance. 

Basically this is where I will be going headfirst into the slimey mess that is our favourite new music! Now that we're a quarter into the new decade I thought I'd give some reviews on some albums and singles of this quarter, most good, some a little bit less good.

ALBUMS/EPs

Haim - The Steps

As the years have gone on, Haim have progressively got more 70s sounding, with easy-going drums and twangy riffs, accompanied with sister Danielle Haim's effortless cool-girl vocals. If only we could still go outside, this would be great beach trip music. If I'm correct in saying, Haim's 4 track EP The Steps is a chunk of what will be their new album Women In Music Part III (or WIMPII, lol). It features already released singles Now I'm in It and and Summer Girl, along with new tracks The Steps and Hallelujah. I'm in love with The Steps - a lighthearted ballad about trying to make it work in a dysfunctional relationship. For some reason Hallelujah gave me counterculture folk rock vibes such as with Fleetwood Mac or Carol King. This is the kind of song you hear and think, hey, life's not too bad. The whole new sound oozes a mix of tough femme energy in a 70s daze.

Denzel Curry/Kenny Beats - UNLOCKED

I only have good things to say about this album. Although I have only been following Denzel since Triple J jumped on him in 2018, I can't reflect on his work as a whole, but holy moly I'm devoted now. The smooth, nostalgic production of Kenny Beats mixed with Denzel's assertive and passionate rap style is collaborative genius. The album was made in 3 days with 6 solid songs, and then Kenny took some of the unused recordings to make intro Track 01, and interlude Track07. From what I can grasp, the album takes sentimental inspiration from old-school hiphop and mixes it with our new technological age to create something different. The whole project makes me feel like I'm living in the grimy, neon lit streets of New York, full of fast changes and even faster-evolving music. Cosmic is especially magnificent, living up to its name in a sense that it feels like an extraterrestrial acid trip condensed into a song. DIET and Take it Back are the most high-energy songs of the album, and I'd definitely recommend if you want to go hard at the gym or just hype yourself up for an event. 

Also, can we talk about the fact that instead of just making a music video for one song, these two made a music video for the WHOLE ALBUM?? I guess thats the pro of having a 17-minute-long album, if only it were longer.

Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

I tried really hard to review this, but I don't think Grimes can be contained in a review. She's on her own level, and I don't know what that level is, but it's good. I recommend listening to Delete Forever, Violence, and We Appreciate Power before going diving into the rest of the album. Darkseid was the main reason I felt I couldn't confidently talk about this album, because it starts out sounding like a standard hypebeast track, and then there's shouting in Japanese with feature PAN's voice heavily dipped in synth. Leave your rationality at home before you dive into this cyber goddess' work. 

Tame Impala - The Slow Rush

As someone who's repped Kevin Parker since I first started growing an identity, I will always have a lot to say about Tame Impala. A producer for a handful of mega-stars and a popular sample muse for the likes of A$AP Rocky and Rihanna, The Slow Rush was always going to be a hard album for KP to live up to, especially with it's predecessor of 5 years - Currents - more than any other previous work. The Slow Rush was given the theme of time, mostly in the context of romantic relationships and personal growth, but also to losing a loved one, as Kevin opens up about losing his dad to cancer on Posthumous Forgiveness. Personally, I believe The Slow Rush is Tame's most different album in sound by far, although there is still somehow that signature sound that creeps in - the synths and falsetto voice of KP will forever be a staple to good music. This album felt more disco-pop than anything else, an upbeat project with plenty of flare to dance to, especially on tracks Breathe Deeper, Is it True and Lost In Yesterday. The updated Borderline is a million times better than its original single track, and provides a fuller and funkier sound. Not to dump on TSR, but it's probably my least favourite of all Tame albums, yet I'm not denying that it's still worth the listen.

La Roux - Supervision

You bet La Roux came out with her first album in 6 years, and you bet I jumped on that shit immediately. Although La Roux has always been a bit of a retro dancepop artist, this album sounded heavily 80s inspired, with drum machines, funky basslines, and a ton of synth. Not denying, it did have it's standouts, but overall the album was a bit tedious. A lot of the riffs sounded very similar, and the style may have been a bit too 80s, making the project feel overdone. International Woman of Leisure is one of the 3 singles of the album, and I have skipped this song at every listen. A lot of the songs felt like fill-ins, 3 minute hollow tracks with no real grip. Guillible Fool is such a good song, but just too repetitive, especially with the almost 2 minute long fade-out at the end. Automatic Driver and Do You Feel save the album, with the classic La Roux sound we loved growing up done in a way that's unique and something new yet not forced. Sorry La Roux, I love you but I needed more!

Christine and The Queens - La Vita Nuova

The consistency of work for this LGBTQ+ icon is insane, and I can easily say that La Vita Nuova is a beautiful synth-driven, highly emotional body of work. The third project of Chris, and the first EP extends more into Christine's original heritage, with a mix of both English and French. Yes, I have no idea what most of the songs are about without the help of Genius.com, but just the accent is romantic. For me, I think the voice plays into more of a part of the instrumental than just words. La Vita Nuova itself translates to "The New Life" in Italian, which could be a subtle nod to the medieval text by Dante Alighieri (yes, I did my research) - a tale about the author's love and loss towards a muse, and individuality through crisis vs growth. There is an obvious suggestion of relationships gone toxic, with Christine mentioning a one-sided relationship through her melodies. The bass and synths in this project sound truly phenomenal when blasted through your car or earphones.  Would 10/10 recommend this EP if you're learning to stay vulnerable after a tough time, which could be finally accepting letting go of a toxic friendship, or even throwing away a fuckboy. We've all got to do it sometime in life.

Grouplove - Healer

Fair to say that Grouplove still sound exactly the same as they did back in the summers of the 2010s when you'd wear Supré and flower crowns unironically. They still sound like an indie meets pop-punk quirky summertime band. To be fair, who isn't still listening to Tongue Tied in 2020?? I feel like this album would be well-recieved by the 30-somethings that actually went through their dyed hair craft beer phases back when Grouplove was at their peak, and see less appeal for younger generations. It is somewhat refreshing to hear this kind of artsy pop again, such as on the tracks The Great Unknown, Deleter and Inside Out, but overall the album feels too late for what it is. If you're not big on indie, I'd give it a miss. 

King Krule - Man Alive!

I knew King Krule's Archy was talented, but I underestimated just how big of a fanbase he had until this album dropped and I saw it linked on every Instagram story of the cool kids I followed. It doesn't even feel like that long ago that The Ooz dropped in 2017, let alone Tumblr's favourite 6 Feet Beneath the Moon in 2013. Archy's recent work, Man Alive! gives off a new image of the King Krule sound. A lot of grunge in a lo-fi haze, while Archy's rugged crooner voice, as smooth as concrete, narrates the story. It look me a while to fully appreciate the project. At first it sounded rather lazy and thin in texture, with simple accompaniment and a cheaper sounding production. A few more listens had me really in the headspace of this concept. To me, Man Alive! sounds like an individual wandering aimlessly through a big and fast moving city, a part of the furniture, blending in as to be almost invisible. It was even stated in an NME review that the project "is lifted by Marshall's knack for hazy social observations and poetic metropolitan storytelling". I loved the cartoon imagery accompanied in Cellular's music video and across the album's Spotify presence as well, and felt it helped paint the concept. My personal favourite tracks were Perfecto Miserable and Energy Fleets. 

The Weeknd - After Hours

Not to shit on this already heartbroken man, but it always takes me a while to get into Abel's albums.  At first, I find them commercial and flavourless, then after a couple of turns it's a delicacy. I guess knowing that he's such a well-recieved artist as well puts a heavier burden on producing the same standard of work for listeners. Not denying, I actually really like the sound - I love the ballad-like 80s synth and heavy bass as seen on In Your Eyes and Blinding Lights. This album felt like the sibling of 2016's Starboy, with more upbeat tempos and Mr. stealyourgirl attitude. Abel really does know how to turn pain into profit.

Childish Gambino - 03.15.20

Everything about this album felt ambiguous, from the lack of cover art to the numbers as song titles and not to mention Donald Glover dropping the album as a livestream at a random time without giving ANY notice. I was lucky to catch some of it under the link donaldgloverpresents.com, but was so shellshocked that I couldn't fully tune in. A few days later the official album dropped on streaming platforms under the title 03.15.20: the 15th March that month. This project gave me the same feeling as The Summer Pack - nostaglia for a highschool summer I'd never had - full of sunsets and glittering water on lakes and lying in the grass with a lover. This stood out the most on the song Time, which appears to reflect the uncertainty of moving forward, and the fear of developing tunnel vision. Yet at the same time, tracks such as Algorythm and 32.22 sounded more like Black Panther soundtrack assertion. Its evident that there is a lot of tribal and gospel inspiration, with Glover going ever-deeper into a soulful expression. There's a lot of speculation that this is the last Gambino album that Glover is dropping, but whos to say considering how many talents that man can fit into his schecule. 

San Cisco - Flaws

I feel like I've grown up with San Cisco in a sense. They've always been a classic Aussie band to fall back on. Flaws came as the most recent release of this article, and appears to tell the tale of a cracking relationship. If anything, this is a great album to help you see the red flags as told in the track Flaws, and let go, as heard in the chorus of 2nd track Reasons. The 3rd track Skin sounds like the guilt you get after leaving a broken relationship - the days, weeks, or even months after where you're left missing the what-could've-beens and the potential. The EP ends with Gone, which is pretty self-explanatory. You've gained acceptance as you know it's over. Skin and Reasons had already been released respectively as singles a few months prior, and triple J really took to these two. I even had a period where Reasons was played in my car on repeat for the start of March. Solid EP. 

SINGLES

Diddirri - Raw Stuff

If I'm being 100% transparent here, I had to go lie down for a good 10 minutes after I heard this song because it genuinely stopped me in my tracks. Australia's favourite sadboy, Diddirri has made what I'd say is one of his most beautiful pieces yet. I've cried to this piece, and it wasn't even on my sad boi hours playlist. That piano could give the Beatles a run for their money, and Didirri's vulnerable yet powerful voice soars beautifully among the simple instrumental of piano and strings.The song is an open letter to an old lover, one who's found another man. Somehow Diddirri manages to catch the essence of reflecting on the end of a relationship and the start of a new chapter. Life has some raw stuff, in other words, shit happens.

Methyl Ethel - Majestic AF 

I've found that Methyl Ethel is like wine. It's an acquired taste - something you have to try a few times before you really adore it. This single just didn't stand out a whole lot to me at first, perhaps it just slipped through the cracks of my playlist. But once you're going through a nervous breakdown, once you've been through some shit, then it really connects with you ("I don't know why I'm sad for no reason"). Majestic AF - what a great name - is a slowly evolving sound from it's predecessor album Triage, still containing those layered synths and untraditional double harmonic major scale. Gone from the days of Twilight Driving, Methyl Ethel has developed a darker and more existential sound - a looking glass in to the triumphs and downfalls of the human condition.

The Strokes - Bad Decisions

I didn't think I'd hear a new Strokes song ever again, let alone see them on a setlist, but here we are with both.  I'm a bit confused though - does this still mean the Voidz are around as well? Is Julian going to be a 2-band man? Anyways, it has literally been 7 YEARS since the last Strokes album Comedown Machine, and it is 100% confirmed that we are getting a new album -The New Abnormal - this year! The first and only new single of the album so far, Bad Decisions, has a 90s sounding guitar riff accompanied by Julian's iconic and slightly muffled vocals. The chorus sounds like the Strokes we grew up with, but the song as a whole is something reinvigorated. This sounds like the song you'd hear around the end of a coming of age day-in-the life movie, when all has been said and done and you're walking home in the afternoon thinking que sera, sera. I'm glad that the boys could come together again after all this time.

Langva - If I Had To 

Langva is probably the underdog of this entire list with only 4 tracks on Spotify and shy of 6300 listeners each month. This artist has a lot of potential, and maybe his newest single could be the start of something bigger. If I Had To just oozes psych-pop on vacation. It's so catchy and the production sounds amazing. For some reason it sounds like Miami Horror meets Tame Impala. The song seems to tell the tale of breakup regrets, but in an uptempo synth daydream that makes you forget the dude's heart is even broken.

Thundercat - Dragonball Durag (w/ B side Black Qualls + Fair Chance)

It's refreshing to hear something new from Thundercat, and honestly this was unexpected. After releasing something as funky and dramatic yet fun as Drunk, it's a change of scenery to hear Dragonball Durag. Don't get me wrong, I've got good things to say, but following a 23 song full- length album with A and B side tracks felt.. kind of underwhelming. This one almost swept under the radar if it weren't for me checking out his Spotify page. As of recently, Thundercat has gone and turned this into a 3-single release with the addition of Fair Chance, so fingers crossed this quarantine is helping him churn out a new album for us. As for the songs, Thundercat remains that same level of toe-tapping shoulder bopping funk accompanied with light-hearted goofy lyrical storytelling. It was cool to see a collaboration with Steve Lacy on Black Qualls. Fair Chance felt more of a ballad, accompanied with Ty Dolla $ign and Lil B. It is what it is. 

Gorillaz - Song Machine series

This is okay. Obviously you do get some amnesty after releasing stuff  as great as DARE, Feel Good Inc and Dirty Harry, but yeah, this was average.The series featured mostly ad-lib tracks, which must be progressing the story of the Gorillaz cartoon universe. Momentary Bliss is violently British, which could be explained by the addition of big attitude Slowthai and punk band Slaves. It's actually not too bad though, reminds me of both skateboys and chavs - a big 'fuck you' to societal norms. Desole is... ehhh. Thats all I can really say about it. Overall there wasn't much of an impression left.

Glass Animals - Your Love (Deja Vu)

God is this catchy. Even my brother who solely listens to rap and edm enjoyed the fuck out of this. Something about that woodwind accompanying melody mixed with the simple but heavy bass and snare mixed with Dave Bayley's cooler-than-you voice is just - ugh (in a good way). Along with last year's Tokyo Drifting, Your Love (Deja Vu) could be a stepstone on the way to a new album, hopefully in time for their Splendour in the Grass set.

Surviving a Music Festival

 I've always been attracted to the colourful performances and psychedelic atmosphere of a festival; a field of people enjoying some of their favourite music, their heads lazily propped up and their jaws knocking in sync, a pulsation of bass and a haze of fluorescent smog spilling over the barricade. It's truly a wonderful feeling, but can alternatively be ridiculously stressful if not approached right. As someone who's been enjoying the punter life since 15, I thought it might be helpful to pass some of what I've learned on to those making their way into the festival-going hobby.  

First and Foremost: No one cares whether you're lit or not

If you're not a fan of the drugs and alcohol scene and feel like an outsider at a festival for being a sober partier, theres really nothing to worry about. You're one person in a sea of young people and good portion of them are also sober. Being high on life is a real thing, I spent FOMO Festival completely sober and still had a blast. 

Keep the set times as your phone's lock screen

This is such an underrated move!! Sure, saving it to your photo gallery saves data, but making the set times your lock screen saves you that little bit more time and battery, and you can look at it as much as you want without repeatedly opening up your phone. 

Take a lighter with you. Even if you don't smoke

This might seem like a bit of a pointless objective if you're a non-smoker like myself, but it's actually a really great way to get on a punters good side. Lending a single $2.99 lighter to a random in the crowd is the modern-day equivalent of Jesus giving a couple loaves of bread and some fish. You'll have gained respect from an entire crowd. Not to mention, you can also pay respect to the tradition of lighters in the air rather than iphones for that sentimental song in a setlist; an old-school move.

Get the money and tickets onto your phone BEFORE you leave home

I've personally found that at both the RNA showgrounds and the North Byron Parklands that the reception can be very temperamental, especially if you're not rich enough for Telstra. Service can cut out at one spot and be perfect at another, but best not to risk it because nothing is more painful than needing something on your phone instantly and not being able to access it. Also make sure your data is topped up before you leave home as to not run out of data during the day. Losing friends at a festival and not having your texts go through is something I've experienced, and it can really put a damper on your day.

Arrange a meeting point

Have you ever really been to a festival if you haven't lost half, if not more, of your friend group numerous times during the day? One person is always speeding from set clash to set clash, another needs to pee every 3 seconds, one can't control their liquor. You might be right next to your friends and still somehow lose them. Like mentioned above, reception can sometimes make matters worse, so the best last resort is a universal meeting place. If you're one of those sneaky friends that somehow disappears for the whole night, take solace in knowing your friends will always be waiting for you at the end of the night.

Get the App
About 3 quarters of well-known Australian festivals come with apps now!! Technology isn't so bad after all!!  These apps usually provide a map of the venue, info on each of the artists, FAQs of the event, and a schedule planner. The schedule planner lets you pick the artists you actually want to see, and then chronologically organises them. The app will then alert you about 20 minutes before a set starts, so you can think less about set times and more about getting smashed.
The following festivals have their own apps:
- Bluesfest
- Download Festival
- Falls Festival
- Festival X
- Good Things
- Splendour in the Grass
- St Jerome's Laneway

Don't go too hard at pres
Lucky for me I've never been guilty of the following, but I can recall numerous times when my mates have gone too hard too fast, and in all instances they've ended up either puking or in the medical tent. As a result I've evolved into the perfect mum friend from such experience, but my friends have looked back on it rather roughly. Get tipsy, not drunk. You want to remember at least some of the festival, alright? A good stopping point is when everything starts becoming funny. (This also applies for drugs).

Don't take all of your goodies at once before getting in 
I understand the logic behind this if you don't want to sneak stuff in, but this is still the dumbest idea I've ever heard. If you take it all at the beginning of the festival you're gonna start hitting rock bottom before you leave. It's the quickest way to end up in the medical tent. Before taking anything mind-altering, you should at least 1: get familiar with your location including the first aid tents and the free water pumps 2: eat, and 3: have your friends phone numbers before you begin. If I'm being completely honest here, it reeeeally isn't that hard to sneak stuff in. Most of the time drug and alcohol searches are more effective as a scare tactic.

NSW Festivals: Know your rights
New South Wales is slowly gaining a new reputation as a "nanny state" due to its harsh new legislation on live music, lock-out laws and an updated music festival bill in 2019. Festivals such as Falls and Splendour now come advertised with sniffer dogs, bag checks, and random strip searches (yay! totally humane!). Usually festivals come with a "know your rights" email or website page to help you safely approach this scenario if it were to happen. Not to scare you, but a 16 year old girl was strip-searched at Splendour last year which is highly illegal, so it's worth a read. Links on security procedure can be found below. As someone who went to both festivals within the last year, I didn't find getting in to the festival that stressful, so don't fret too much - you'll get through in no time.

https://musicfeeds.com.au/news/splendour-want-you-to-know-your-rights-if-youre-stopped-by-sniffer-dogs/#/slide/1
https://fallsfestival.com/lorne/plan/police-and-security/
https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/know-your-legal-rights-tips-for-music-festival-attendees/

L.ove S.ex D.reams - A short piece on psychedelic thoughts

Meaning.

What does it mean what does it all mean what does all this mean

What is the meaning of life?

What’s the point? Whats the purpose why are we here to do things and then leave?

Acid fills us with questions that are too big and we scurry around asking why why why. We’ve figured it out by now, have we not? Why this endless loop of wake up and think things and then go back to sleep. We’re like robots that haven’t been updated yet. Someone is still tinkering with us. We try to understand what we’re doing but we don’t know and they haven’t figured it out yet either. It all comes up slowly and without tunnel vision. There is no end goal.

But there has to be. People know, but it can’t be revealed.

History is a beautiful thing. Wow. Guns and planes and coloured television and automobiles and ayahuasca and tea and writing words formed from hieroglyphs. Hiroshima, cold war, vietman, keep the americans happy!

They know. They already know.

Psychedelics were first bought up in American culture through LIFE magazine where an issue mentioned a businessman with a terminal illness consulting (what they called mushroom tribes??) a shaman to receive a magic mushroom treatment.

A substance like that has to mean something. It can’t simply just be the brain releasing chemicals; the brain gets something out of it. If humans weren’t supposed to have a purpose then why are our brains so complicated? How can neurons and atoms possibly create something so complex on their own considering how long humans have been on this earth (which isn’t very long).

My mind just switched off for a sec. It’s like the acid wasn’t there and I was back to normal. Like a switch. Ego came back and I remembered where I am.

Did someone else do that?

I wonder about mirrors a lot.

Why do humans want everything to mean something so bad. We crave purpose. We want everything to mean so much more than just being and doing and enjoying.

I’m getting distracted again. I can’t think on a clear path like I was. I’m being pushed back to the normal. I think a lot about science. How amazing are the chances of my birth. Me being the winning sperm and egg out of thousands. Where do all those organisms go when they die? Isn’t there some rule in science where you can’t create nor destroy matter?

The conversation of reincarnation makes sense then. I often feel like I’ve been here before.

I was talking about the US government, that’s where I was. LSD became banned and the whole counterculture was crushed because it threatened American life and scared the older generations, but psychedelics have been around for ages and have been used in various religions (especially South America).

If god was real, why would he put such a powerful plant on this planet? Maybe the plants that psychedelics come from are seen as like the forbidden fruit from Adam and Eve. And when we eat them maybe people believe that is hell. What does it all mean? Maybe that’s our hell – not knowing but constantly asking, never getting any closer.

There is definitely something else out there. We know we’re responsible for a lot of the actions on earth right now but we also know that we’re weak and frail and stupid. Climate change is our punishment for being bad dogs. We try so hard to impress our owner but we just don’t know how to fetch or roll over. We try though, we do. We think we’re doing it right until it comes back to us.

People watch us through mirrors. I take mine off the wall at night because I don’t feel at ease to let down my guard when its looming over me, my view exposed. Culture has commonly thought that mirrors are portals, often to people on the other side.

What if heaven and hell is so much deeper than that? What if this is just one level?

This is a side, and the portal is the other side. People don’t die, they leave.

It’s thought that what’s through the mirror is evil, but isn’t our dimension evil enough.

It has to mean something, we wouldn’t come up with this shit for nothing. Why the fuck else would we make physics and drugs and buildings and science? What, are we just uselessly churning around stuff, spending our lives building these things to make us feel righteous? Is it just stuff? Does it mean nothing? What if it’s all wrong and we’re just building up our society on more and more usless shit and its all wrong and the mound of flesh and feces just keeps stacking and oozing over the sides and we try to bottle it up and it just keeps coming because we don’t change.

If god hated this planet so much why wouldn’t he just crush it? Maybe he wants us to feel in control when we finally bring this planet down. Maybe that’s worse than him curhsing us and us not being able to do anything about it. It’s knowing that if we’re in control, we die slowly knowing that we did this. We did all of this.

I feel calm again. It’s easier to not be a part of it now. To separate myself. Things don’t actually mean much. They’re just to look at, to make us feel useful for keeping them.

I keep leaving this on an open ending.

A Week Without Instagram

A Sunday night. I'm face-down on the bed, a bit of alcohol in me, feeling downright miserable. It wasn't a particular event or a person. I hadn't had an angry phone call from my boss, or failed a uni assessment, or even spilt a $7 coffee on myself. I was just... a blob. I just felt like I wasn't achieving anything. It was uni break and I had friends laughing over misty apricot skies in Singapore and the Himalayas and Dubai. The popular girl from my high school had just started a lash tech business and received a PR deal for a popular festival brand. A vague list of other model girls in my area were now getting real full-time jobs and going away with their partners.
I had spent the last 4 days at home watching Netflix. My self-esteem was just soaring, thanks guys.

But who's to blame here? It's not anyones fault for living a good life, is it? After all, I know that when I have a new achievement or cool outfit or travel somewhere new, I'll definitely be having my community of friends and followers knowing about it. Why is it so different when someone else is doing good for themselves? With our society becoming increasingly accustomed to social media, its becoming harder for us to realise we're looking through someone else's rose-coloured glasses. I decided I wanted to live life without filters for a bit, and deleted Instagram.


When deciding to take time apart from my good friend Instagram, I didn't leave a "I'm on a mental health break, call me if you need me", I went cold-turkey. Within the first hour of deleting the app, I found myself aimlessly scrolling back and forth through the home screen of my phone trying to find ... oh, that's right... Instagram. It wasn't even a purposeful need to utilise the app. It was unconscious. I've often found that I like to use Instagram when I'm thinking, perhaps to avoid just sitting there, like scrolling a photo platform really makes thinking more concise and worthwhile.

The official first day of the cleanse, Monday, already showed some sort of improvement. I had left the house; I'd bought some christmas gifts and grabbed lunch with my cousin. Two birds one stone. Once I got home I started sewing again. Sewing! Something I had been putting off for months. I wrote an article. I was regaining some sense of self. Originally deleting Instagram was just a spur of the moment action so I wasn't feeling worse about myself, but it was doing more than that, so I kept going. I decided I'd give myself a full week without the app. All the way to Sunday night at 9pm, I would be semi-offline. I still had my other two favourites Facebook and Snapchat, but I knew Instagram was my biggest weakness.

By Wednesday I personally found the magic of no Instagram wearing off. Like the Internet junkie I was, withdrawals were now taking place. I felt that I was starting to spend more time on Facebook and Snapchat and even Depop to make up for the void in my mind and home screen. I was feeling a little bit bored with being disconnected, even though it was doing so much for me. This appeared like a step in the wrong direction; was I really that dependant on an app? This helped me realise the positive perspective of Instagram in a sense that it was a useful resource for inspiration. I often got style cues, cute little quotes and holiday ideas from the platform. The shift off of the platform just left me a little bit drained of stimulus, but all things must be taken in moderation. Perhaps the key to this was balancing. Like Pavlov, perhaps I needed to work at this from the angle of training myself to have some self-control and use the app in mild doses, not overdosing.

The weekend came along and I had moved past the cravings to normalise my life without Instagram. No, I had not turned into some productive monster eating up ideas and chugging out work and I wasn't "cured" of anything, but I did feel different in a way. I felt purposeful, and truthful to myself and what I wanted to do. I didn't have to kid myself, and it didn't matter what other people were doing differently. By Sunday night I didn't even feel the need to have it back. In fact, I even waited until midday Monday to re-download the app, and well, life didn't feel any different. My energy was still there.


Screen Time Summary

My screen time before the experiment is slightly embarrassing now that I look back on it. To be completely fair, I have been on holidays which has given me too much time to endulge. I was averaging 6hrs of screentime a day. I ended the experiment averaging 4.5 hours. It's been almost a month since my experiment now, and I've still managed to keep my time down from its original average. 


Outsider Opinion
Like I said, I removed the app from my phone without telling anyone - and I decided that this circumstance would extend to even my closest friends who I talk to almost everyday. Although I wasn't always evidently online on the platform, most of them I tagged in memes pretty frequently and vice versa. I told my 3 closest friends, and this was the response.
Friend 1: Found it weird I hadn't replied to their memes, but just thought I was busy.
Friend 2: Did not notice at all.
Friend 3: I found out this friend finished a mental health break from Instagram halfway through my experiment. She agreed with me that deleting the app definitely made a difference to mood and self esteem. Didn't notice I was offline.


It's kind of funny, isn't it? We're inhibiting our own growth and productivity to awe at other people's perceived productivity over the internet. Although at the same time it can be a queue for inspiration and our creative movements. From the subject of comparing the lives on Instagram, I've come to the conclusion that the less we know about a person, the more likely we are to take the fabricated story of their life on Instagram and other social media platforms more literally. All of us have our glorious fairy-tale experiences, but we also all have those shitty days where we don't leave the bed and live off of 2-minute noodles. Everything is in moderation, even social media.

It Might Be Time

You ain't as cool as you used to be.
You ain't as young as you used to be.


Why did I ever give up on my creative outlets? Sure, I'm not the sixteen year old I was the last time I published on this blog; I'm a full-time uni student, I've juggled and dropped numerous jobs throughout the year, gone through my first real heartbreaking breakup and second boyfriend, went vegan, developed an addiction to green tea, retired from gym for a couple of months, nearly dated several more boys, went to music festivals, came close to alcohol addiction, and now here I am at the brink of the new decade. And I feel like I've accomplished nothing.

A few things made me refocus to writing, my original career pathway before taking a slight turn to Psychology after a shoddy highschool English teacher. I attended a Graduation Ceremony of my cousin's last week. My oldest best friend barely looked a day over 16, and now had a Bachelor of Fine Arts under her belt. Shit. It really puts into perspective how short but precious the university years of your early life are, and I'd already completed a year with nothing more than 1 good friend named Caleb, a favourite spot in the QUT library (2nd & 3rd floor, window seats next to the toilets),  and an unfulfilled need to see the university counsellor. One day that would be me on the stage with a degree in hand and onto full-time work. I hadn't acknowledged that with so much flexibility in my schedule with university and casual working, I could take on any new skill I wanted and turn it into something that's mine. Why waste it all stalking other people's Instagrams?

Creativity is key. I needed it back into my life. As a 16 year old I wrote articles for a music blog, created my own stories, journalled, wrote songs, played drums, ran a successful fan account, and actually had a personality worth something to me. I even made this blog to start my own music journalling and create the next Pitchfork or NME. I was going to write. I was going to publish novels. I was going to make albums. I miss being that ambitious.

So here I am again, ready to try and reunite with some of my old passions, and take on some new ones such as becoming a pro bass player, sewing my own cool clothes, and film photography. Hopefully I can get better at writing again, since it's been a while since I even wrote a diary entry. At least now if I keep regularly writing about stuff, I can have something purposeful and autonomous to just me, and maybe other people can read these hot takes of whatever the heck I end up doing with my words.

Catch ya for the next one,
Em

NEWBIES : BOAT SHOW

Ass kicking is something all girls should be participating in nowadays, but now there’s a band that provides you with some ass kicking music to go along:

BOAT SHOW is the denomination of a 5 piece garage punk band from Perth. You may recognize some of their members from other great sound creations, with lead singer Ali Flintoff having background in Dream Rimmy and Gunns, guitarist Jenny Aslett from Gunns, as well as guitarist Stella Donelly, who has launched her own solo work. For a recently budded band, they’ve definitely got chops.

As of February this year, their debut album Groundbreaking Masterpiece –props to whoever fabricated the name – was released, going on to receive acclaim from The West Australian, and Triple J with an average ranking of 4-5 stars.

The album features a perfect total of 10 songs that contain grungy, belligerent vibes, yet also tackle both the ability to relate to everyday emotion, and to address bigger issues such as gender roles and sexism that is still present in modern day society.  *sighs*

The band have released a new single as of Friday, entitled “The Big Smoke” in which Ali, in shrill fashion, sings about Victoria’s capital Melbourne and whatever must be so much better about the city than Perth that makes all her friends want to move there (heads up, Perth has better music by far). Another hit, the song is already copping a good 4+ stars, and with the rate of work in a year alone, perhaps another album may be on the way.

As far as live shows go, the band has their schedules filled in quite regularly. Earlier this year they toured as an opening act for Freo band San Cisco, as well as following with a number of ‘world tour’ shows across Perth and Fremantle.The band have also found the time for retaining frendships with other musos such as POND, GUM, Cam Avery and The Murlocs to name a few.

This August and September expect to see them branching out to reach cities Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to promote their new single “The Big Smoke” as well as the Groundbreaking Masterpiece album.

*Pictures sourced respectively from Conniption Hammerlessnail and Cam Campbell

Article written by Emma Newbury for SOUNDCHECK on August 18th 2017 (Was not published :/ )

THE RETURN OF THE GORILLAZ: 4 NEW SINGLES AND 1 HIGHLY ANTICIPATED NEW ALBUM

After laying low from the public eye for a good 5 years, British duo and virtual band Gorillaz have finally placed their sunglasses back on, match in mouth, ready to re-light the flame.

It was clear that this was serious business when on March 23^rd, the band chose to name-drop and then release whopping four new songs from their new album Humanz, which is set to drop at the end of April. The songs were released first to radio and now to Spotify, which include Andromeda (ft Broccoli Rapper D.R.A.M), Saturnz Barz (ft Popcaan), Ascension (ft Vince Staples), and We Got The Power (ft Savages singer Jenny Beth).

Saturn Barz came with a short-animated film to spread the release, featuring the brainchild of Jamie Hewlett and our favourite band members 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel, along with some other truly chilling new characters that follow them around in a haunted house.

Including the phenomenal collaborators mentioned above in the release tracks, the album is said to also feature the vocals of other stars such as De La Soul, Mavis Staples, Grace Jones, Kilo Kish, Danny Brown, Carly Simon, and Pusha T, as well as of course the voice of the Gorillaz and the singer of Blur, Damon Albarn.

Humanz, the 14 track album, will be released to the public on the 28^th of April, so save the date, dare to listen to the 4 new tracks on Spotify, and prepare to feel good again.

*The following article was written for the blog SOUNDCHECK in April 2017