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kobblefort · 1 year

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Rushsly: Final Preparations

Even if the "endgame" spoilers don't start in this episode, they are going to be talked about at length from this point on.

This is your last warning: if you want to find out what's at the very bottom of the world for yourself, do not read beyond this point until you have.

There are other valid reasons not to read this Let's Play, such as "thinking the author is a narcissistic maniac who spends more time trying to do bootleg therapy on themself than the actual game," or "being a bit weirded out by the whole kobold thing," or "just not wanting to read a novel-length stream-of-consciousness psychodramatic diatribe that is sometimes vaguely about a digital ant-farm." But I care far more about preserving the wonders of this game for the people who enjoy it than I ever will about appealing to the particularities of anyone who is already inclined to dislike me or my work, so one more time, endgame spoilers are just one click away here. If you want to see the bottom yourself, you should dig to the bottom yourself. If you like playing the game, I think it is something worth doing at least once. This will be my first time playing this content, but not my first time seeing it, and I kind of wish it was. Spoilers under the cut.

I guess I should apologize for how I ended the last episode. I had been feeling very weird and worked myself up acting like nothing had ever gone right for me. I'm feeling better now. I played a bit of the new Zelda game like everyone else - well actually I played it a bit before it released too, because I think Nintendo is evil and that pirating their games, even leaked ones, is ontologically good - that I refuse to financially support them by buying their products firsthand, even if I must get kind of a shitty 15-24fps version of the experience. I make no argument that their games are not good and fun and well-designed but I think many of their corporate practices are basically inexcusable, litigating a man into lifelong indentured servitude is some shit a pastor would make up a story about the devil doing, having a crack team of prosecutors called "Nintendo Ninjas" isn't cute or funny, it is inexcusably vile bullshit that speaks volumes about what kind of world we've built ourselves to live in, where our modern myths and fables are Intellectual Properties and Trademarks. I have been making lots of contraptions, none that particularly measure up to what you might have seen on the internet - some of them embarrassingly being made obsolete by the game's own built-in schematics just minutes after I finished devising them. I have also not been barbecuing the koroks or shooting them with lasers or blasting them off on rockets or anything like that. They are cute and funny little dudes and I have no particular interest in seeing them suffer. I read an article a while ago about how phenomena like the widespread Korok crucifixions are caused by the same sort of psychological response as how you kind of just want to bite things that are obscenely cute, because our human brains don't really know how to deal with the feeling of "this thing is too cute." At least, I imagine they have to be similar responses going on there.

Kerrik Perplexnightmares appears in the first cavern layer - clearly named by the ratfolk. It almost brings a smile to my face to think of it mauling the rat-bastards that so frequently besiege us, but just as soon it brings a frown to think about how its "deadly dust" might be able to slip through our fortifications. Fiva is also still fucking around on the second cavern layer, apparently still seriously wounded from its battle with the ant people; speaking of which, checking the "Creatures>Others" tab displays none of them, but none of them appear under "Dead/Missing" either. Whether they went back into hiding for another ambush, fled the caverns beneath Rushsly entirely, or were so thoroughly dismembered that whatever remains of them would not be recognizable as ever belonging to a sentient being is currently unknown, though the second option seems most likely and the third seems least likely. They did appear from the western-most edge of the second cavern, they could have just as easily left that way.

Its ability to stand and ability to grasp are apparently "somewhat impaired", and funnily enough, checking the "Treatment" tab lets us know that it needs diagnosis and a crutch. The only way the kobbles are giving the poor lobster bastard a crutch is by mauling it with one. Rushsly has truly become a violent fort, and I'll need to start designating a third military squadron as soon as this last window into the final cavern layer is completed. Which, in the tireless toil of kobble industry, it is.

We can see most all of it besides the northeastern corner, and still not a fucking trace of magma. If it does exist, it will be at the very bottom of the world.

Our newest crop of migrants brought with them quite a lot of kobbles who were already adequate in some form of fighting or another, if not competent or even accomplished. With 211 steel bars in reserve, and a whopping 1475 iron bars and 61 bricks of coke (not the kind that makes you scheme to start a massive Wal-Mart return-scam scheme that spans four states, lasts for six years and results in a net profit of over 868,000 dollars - the cool kind) in case we run through that, outfitting them is only a question of time, not resources. And yes, Kody wanted to call them "The Frigid Knots." Go ahead, make your furry porn jokes. But for what it's worth? I'm anti-knot. I'm anti basically any "animal style genitalia" besides hyena girls with huge dicks or like, shark furries with double dicks, but they should still be recognizably human. I guess maybe a little frond here or a little flaring there is fine but I don't know, don't get carried away man. Like you know when you see one of those artists who just draws dicks as little red or pink triangles? I can't stand that. And hell while we're at it, no feral shit for me either. I'm in this furry shit for definitively humanoid bitches with some animal aesthetics I'm not trying to jack off to an actual dog dick, that's gross to me. I'm not a cop but I'm allowed to be grossed out. Us old bastards call that "squicked." I'm allowed to be squicked. You can go back over my earlier posts for evidence of my arguably "weirder" fetishes if you want but I'm not going to give a shit because weird is subjective and I think you can obviously tell just from this paragraph alone that I'm kind of unconcerned with joining any sort of larger consensus on "normality." I've got my own "normality" going on and it works for me. I am incredibly normal: I am, after all, the average of all my traits.

The mine shaft that will lead us to glorious adamantite starts right here, just outside The Curled Pepper, but it won't start going too deep without some serious fortifications and a contingency plan in case we dig right into the final layer instead of hitting an adamantite vein. I have a plan for safely digging out the adamantite - as safely as one can dig out adamantite anyway - but before that step can begin, I want steel hatch covers and a backup set of steel doors in place. Though I'm completely prepared for Rushsly to fall on an emotional level, I would like that to simply not happen - being able to retire the fort once I feel I've had as much fun with it as I'm going to have would be a blessing. And what do we have to lose, should I carelessly fuck up?

Well, for starters, I haven't even begun on Dralas' Beast Slayer quarters lol fuck whoops!! Not that he's discontent with his four-tile chamber in the awkward set of bedrooms that I have been going out of my way to show because I hate them. And what sort of things go on in Dralas' life? Well, of his many passing acquaintances, being not even particularly close to other members of his squadron, he has made a friend:

Gatr Leagueknowing - Maybe he should know a better fucking game, LOL!!! Why are you playing an RTS where you only get to control one guy!?! Sorry - the Holy Fish of the Goldenrod Creed, who leads ceremonies in the Pale Chapel, actually has many friends, perhaps as a result of his liturgical duties, but...

He himself only considers Dralas a "passing acquaintance." Ouch

But there's not too much time to ponder the minutiae of kobbles' social lives - a third Forgotten Beast appears, this one joining Fiva on the second cavern layer. Wow, an eyeless lizard and an eyeless lobster. They're so similar I'm a bit worried they're going to fuck instead of fight.

But no lol obviously they fight. They fight hard, they fight fast, and then it's over. One must wonder how it would have turned out if Fiva managed to recover from its scuffle with the ant people, but that's not what happened. Ancoji Necroshafts the Fated (holy shit) escapes with a single bruise on its rear right foot. Fiva is the one I made that badass little intro graphic for, isn't it? Sorry to see you go out like that, Fiva, though I wonder if this might be a little more honorable than getting sniped through some fortifications by a kobble who doesn't even care about doing the deed. The 462-year-old lizard scratches right through the lobster's brain and it's all over.

All the way up top-side I notice these rabbit merchants and their guard have just been... stuck chilling in the trade depot for at least a month after their supposed departure. I pull up and then pull down the drawbridge to try and reset their pathfinding, I run dfhack fix/stuck-merchants a couple times, no dice. Also right after doing that I find out you're not actually supposed to run fix/stuck-merchants when you have merchants on the map, but ahh whoops I dunno, live and learn I guess. I should really read command descriptions before I make assumptions based on their name but to be fair like when merchants are stuck on your screen it really feels like that's what the command "fix/stuck-merchants" is for, how would I even actually know if merchants are stuck off my map? Well I really don't know what to do about that. It would be funny to just fucking kill them but they're cute little bunny people and I need to be minimizing the amount of enemies I have at any given time if I want to survive the dig for adamantite.

We commission Agcu Riu: "the Fall of Beaks" for Dralas' bedroom. It doesn't look like we'll be able to find aluminum any time soon, but one with iron walls, billon floors and a gold "welcome mat" seems more than well-appointed enough.

Our Hammer Lord On decides to name her shield "The Confusing Famine." I kind of wish she'd grown attached to a steel one instead, but I suppose the tools you're comfortable with are always better than the more expensive, flashier ones. Right? Well I don't know because steel is literally stronger than iron, but oh well. This is the second object a soldier has named, after Ace Steel's steel battleaxe "Styletongues." Looks like things are going well for them, and they'll soon have company in their barracks: even though no training orders have actually been given yet, some members of The Frigid Knots have already grown antsy enough to pick out their weapons and armor.

Quite a few masterworks have been created in the new batch of weapons, and checking who made them makes me realize that Orml really ought to be appointed to the military: she's a legendary fighter, legendary observer, and master spearbold after all. The Frigid Knots will do well to have a master among them to learn from; it should hopefully bring the less skilled of the group up to speed a bit faster.

Ancoji has been sitting perfectly still this whole time after finishing off Fiva. Up on the first cavern layer, Kerrik just slowly swims around. Menacingly... as menacingly as a giant frog can get.

Training finally begins for TFK.

The final shaft is almost ready. A tight security protocol will be enforced whenever any adamantite mining operations are going on. The outer steel doors, inner steel doors, hatch covers on Z-90 and hatch covers on Z-91 will all be sealed for the entire length of time that a mining team is in the shaft. This is to buy a construction team enough time to wall off the shaft entirely if it becomes necessary. As I've already stated, if we break through at the wrong spot, we have a matter of single frames to react accordingly, and two or three miners' lives are, unfortunately, a fair trade to keep the other 100+ kobbles safe from the possibility sudden violent and painful death. In the event that we are not able to seal off the bottom layer for any reason, we will have no choice but to draw up the above-ground and below-ground bridges to cut off access between Rushsly and the greater world entirely. What we find down there could literally doom the entire Dimensions of Portent if we do not immediately take the proper cautions to contain it. Maybe I'm being overdramatic. Maybe I'll wish I was even more dramatic later. All I can know for sure is the general gist of what lies at the bottom of the earth, and how dangerous it can be. -114 is the deepest depth of the pools in the third and final cavern layer. From -115 to -129, anything could happen. Vast and impossible riches guarded by incredible beasts. An ocean of magma to spew forth, a relatively painless and uneventful adamantite-and-diamonds mining experience.

In interest of not taking for-fucking-ever and having the group awkwardly split up, miners will be moved to these admittedly quite shit barracks on -90, and the burrow system will be used to keep them from fucking off all the way up to near the surface until such a time as the final layers are exhausted. The marksbold squad are training hard just below The Curled Pepper, ready as they'll ever be for whatever comes next.

Through me you enter into the city of woes; through me you enter into eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss. Abandon all hope, you who enter here. "Inferno" is actually very funny for a lot of different reasons, but that quote still goes hard as fuck, you can't not like it. I know this has been kind of a shorter episode, maybe you're glad about that, but this seems like a good place to cut it. I want to have as much room as possible to let whatever might transpire next breathe.

#dwarf fortress #kobblefort #df spoilers

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bluiex · 1 year

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Part 4 of Children of The Night

Note about the first 3 parts, they had all been made in the same 24 hour, before and after the time I was streaming. So being as they had been made in one day, I'm a few days late having to recharge my creativity.

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The journey Grian is about to imbark on, requires him to enter "The Castle on Zero." He had only been in the castle once, on it was to astablish citizenship in the city. Now though, he enters to reach the gateway to the end.

Grian and Scar are walking up to one of the castle check points. Normally people would have to check with the guard posted there to gain access. But being with Scar, Lord of The End. Grian has pass this time, quite obviously because they both are holding hands. Once inside the castle, Scar and Grian are 5,000 block away from 0,0.

The Castle is so big, that it is known fact that what ever created it was able to build past the hight limit. The first floor of the castle has alway been a very well known trading hall, nether highway, and Grand Festival Hall. On some of the upper floors, it is rumored that there are massive farming plots to supply the food in the city. As well as housing for Admins, Angels, Dieties, and Gods. With other floors having other things going on.

Grian has never needed to know if what they say about the upper floors are true. He is an Admin Watcher and isn't allowed up the floors. So he feeds into the rumors to keep people curious. He only cam guess Scar does the same, as this place is a mystery to everyone. Scar even said it himself, when they had been a hundred blocks out, that "No place had more rumors about it then The Castle on Zero. My family doesn't even know where this came from, and My Father has been around for almost as long as the world we live in." Makes you wonder if this place was ment to be here at all.

Scar finds Grian is dosing off again as he tries to ask him a question. So gently squeezing his hand, bring him back from his thoughts. Like he has commonly done for the past few hour, when thing had gone quite for to long. Asking Grian once again, "I was wondering if you would like something from one of the vendors as we head to the portal. Just something to keep close when we're apart in the future."

Scar is a sentimental fool, having something from each member of his family to keep them close. He'll be so happy to have something to represent his little bird, the ever watchful eye Grian.

Grian thinks about it briefly, and leans on Scar with a loopy tired smile. "Thats seem like a good idea, it'll act as a charm of protection. If you need me I'll be there, and if I need you you'll be there."

Scar beams hearing his angel say yes, but purposely ignores what else was said. It wasn't time to address it.

They soon enter one of the major corridors, and see vendors of all kinds. Walking along they talk about all the things they saw. Never agreeing on something for eachother. Just every little thing was plain to both, never having the energy of the others personality. They spent so long there, looking for something that they had seen it all. Walking on with a heavy disappointment for coming up with nothing.

They soon decend the stairs leading into the caverns many call the castles basement/dungeon layer. When looking at it from the stairs, it looks natural and very much man made. It is a beautiful, in so many ways, but Grian finds it to be oddly dull for something with some much color, gradient and design. It just got on his nerves.

Scar shared the others sentiment, but didn't know why, it never bothered him in the past. Maybe because he's always rushing in and out before, now he's really looking at it, and bored of it quickly. While Grian, is visibly glaring at the pillers and walls, like he see something others don- exssue me, like it's not made by the same being that made the castle above. Will you take a Teller's word for it Listener.

Reaching the bottom of the stairwell the mob vendor seem to be buying tickets to use the nether highway for a few years to make it easier for their trade. Some look to be selling thing while waiting in the lines. Scar quickly takes with the mobs down here to see if they have anything better then the vendors upstairs. As Grian spots a endermen making little bird pins, keychains, rings, earrings and necklaces. Seeing one that is a necklace of a purple bird carrying a map. It was perfect to give to Scar, so Grian asked to buy it from the small ender. Paying only a diamond for the work of art.

Scar however, is still unable to find anything for Grian. Who runs into Scar's back laughing in a gleeful way. "Scar I found you a necklace that fits perfectly." Grian says as he's already putting the necklace around Scar's neck. He takes a look at it and grins seeing a detail about it Grian didn't. It has a red belly, and a proud glint in it's visible eye. It really is Grian made into a charm.

They walked away from the nether highway ticketing booths, once again to the end. Scar maybe able to find the Charm he's looking for some where in the end if not will he be able to give Grian one? He is about to worry, when he remember that will do no good, he'll just take his time finding one that shines for his Cartographer Bird.

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Man this took longer to make then I wanted, but still so worth it when once it's shared.

I ment for this to be the part that jump to the end but I had remembered that the castle is big and I'd never be able to build it's full hight.

For any who is wonder where and what I stream.

It's minecraft on twitch at P1nkBl4ckH34rt, I talk about just about anything with people willing to listen. I do suggest bugging me more about my story if you decide to pop in. This will be the only plugging I do about my channel.

This is fun to share and write

*cheers* watchers!!!

Omg lovely amazing. This is coming along so GOOD. Love the castle, it sounds really fucking cool and in my head it's massive and dark

Ayo twitch! I followed you! my twitch is Bluieluv :D

#bluie gets an ask poggers #scarian children of the night au #long post #yes this is queued so it's posted at a responsible time

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the-firebird69 · 2 years

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Sherry is researching something in the United Kingdom and for some reason it becomes huge and massively famous. And she does look like Celine who does cut Trump's head in half as anyone would after this idiot session.

But she's talking about a shade of pale and the song and the concept and whether or not people occupying the white locks and also the obelisk if they might just be sick people who got together with a plan and trying to keep themselves cool

It's a theory a lot of people have and it's Saint Mary's that she goes to that's in the video. And she's in Wulshum. And they're on the cranmore farm and there's two connections when is Kramer which is spelled differently and so member of the nuclear bomb party crew was created it and there's another group which is the ski mountain in Maine it has the tram. And it's the same family. And they are gone a long time ago before they even had the mountain in Maine named after them and they died from plague. They also died before relocating the United States and it was for crimes against our people we sent units in and we pulled them out and they were never seen again. And the area is known to be haunted because we used to attack almost anybody that went there and it's because of what's underneath that area and it's not a diamond and it's not a shatteredome and it could be an entrance. A lot of it has to do with St Mary's and the gargoyles that were on it and that's what led them there.

Some people knew about the area and why it was haunted and rumors about a secret entrance so they put in the tram as a hint and not many people picked up on it hardly any place is almost empty and it's a place of death mostly right now tons of people are going there though

Thor Freya

It's a part of our history too and we were there and there are a lot of people that knew it these people don't know and we were seeing quite often and it was a curse they said you're not supposed to be here this is only here for a day or two and they laugh and say that's really good enough and we'd ask why and they tell us the town is known for people disappearing so we went home and they knew where we lived and it was annoying just as it is now.

This is how it goes you have a few characters and they trace you down and try and figure out who you are all the time now they made all these clones and practically nobody can tell who anyone is cuz the clones are faceless and nameless we can be almost anywhere and anytime

Zues Hera

Prince of course was very close. It's around 50 mi away but you can't walk there

So nothing to bring up is brewing beer cuz it's not good for you during play a lot of people here are drinking tons of beer right now because the storms coming and they think they're doomed and we can't stop them and they end up dead and this church also looks like it's from the movie van Helsing, but it's probably just said the same architect

Or similar construction this church is very ancient and important I have secrets in it. It is usually from radiation and we are after Trump he's notified us again so we're seeking his out I'm going to attack him in a large way tonight not just Australia which commences momentarily. We already hit New Zealand and he can't even tell he's so stupid. But yes Jersey uranium mine below it and the cranmorrs stumbled and fell and got sick. I used it to kill people too and they fought in that way too but really they miss handled the product and got sick. You forgot the use of lead and they really needed to use it a lot more I found sitting on it to hide it and stupid things like that those people died their ass turns black and it falls off. But uranium is not the only thing there that's legendary it's supposed to be an entrance to a vast tunnel Network and cavern system it's very large and it's supposed to be something down there that was ours. It might be accurate it's very old and very deep and it's one of our son's bases and daughters

Thor Freya

Olympus

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futuresandpasts · 5 years

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Futures & Pasts | MRR #426

So you’ve probably heard by now that Maximum Rocknroll is going to be ceasing its print publication very soon (there’s two more issues left as of this month). Thirty-seven straight years of putting out an all-volunteer-staffed, internationally distributed punk zine EVERY MONTH is completely mind-boggling & I feel genuinely honored to have been a small part of that history for the past four years. They’ve given me a really important platform to write about all kinds of weird & obscure music on the fringes of DIY from all points in time, where I had a page or two in every issue to slip in feverish praise for forgotten Messthetics geniuses and early ‘80s one-single femme-punk wonders and contemporary mutant disco tape freaks in the midst of interviews with, say, any number of D-beat bands.

I'm hoping that if you’ve ever read my column, you’re not among the (many, many) people who dismissively say things about how they haven’t picked up an issue of MRR in years, or like to argue that MRR doesn’t cover anything interesting or relevant anymore, etc. If by chance you are, I’d like to recommend throwing MRR a couple of bucks for their final print issues as a small acknowledgement of the fact that I’ve made all of my columns available to read online free of charge, without you ever having to touch the smudged newsprint pages of an actual copy of the magazine. You can also still pick up back issues, including #426 (November 2018), where this particular column first appeared.

I was struggling a little bit to figure out what truly new (as opposed to newly reissued) music to write about this month, but I got an email completely by chance from my friend Aubrey in LITHICS as they were passing through the UK on their European tour, and she recommended that I check out this band called HANDLE that they had just played with in Manchester. Totally serendipitous, because their six-song demo collection Demonstrations is so completely my thing—all sharp, clanging incantations built from bass, drums, keyboard, and voice, with rhythm at the forefront even as everything else is collapsing around it. “Rubber Necks” and “Step By Step” both lock into propulsive grooves from mutant disco beats and harsh metallic percussion that intersect with a deep, menacing bass throb and urgently yelped and chanted vocals to skirt the line between the deconstructed danceability of early ‘80s New York groups like LIQUID LIQUID or BUSH TETRAS, and the more abrasive, confrontational scratch and scrape of their No Wave cohorts in DNA or THEORETICAL GIRLS. HANDLE somehow manage to be disjointed and tightly-wound at the same time (think of the delicate balance that TRASH KIT and SHOPPING pull off, if you’re looking for reference points from the 21st century), crafting truly anxious sounds for uncertain futures. Can’t wait for them to take the steps toward a proper physical release, because it will absolutely set things on fire when they do. (Absolute Fiction, absolutefiction.bandcamp.com)

After a handful of cassettes that appeared over the last few years, Canadian oddballs TOUGH CUSTOMER recently made their vinyl debut with the four-song Darlene EP on Sweet Rot, in the “slightly less new by the time y’all read this” category. Their austere-yet-playful, bass-driven vibe recalls the effortlessly cool minimalism of early ‘80s art-schooled heroines like OH-OK and Y PANTS, with flashes of KLEENEX-esque free-associated absurdism—“Mash” seems to follow a fairly standard post-punk combination of needling guitar, steady bass pulse, and kinetic drumming, until you start to wrap your head around the fact that lyrics are basically all about potatoes. Each song ends up subtly bending itself into similarly unexpected forms and sometimes more than once, whether it’s via the band hopscotching through the sneaky, shifting rhythms of “Drum Farm”, or the structure provided by the significant negative spaces between sparsely struck notes in “Clean and Clear” (the highlight of their 2015 debut tape The Worst, presented here in an even more tightened up version), or when a legitimately wailing guitar solo in “Soul Patch” breaks up the otherwise taut push/pull that’s been constructed. I can’t really think of many other modern post-punk adjacent bands who are this deep into their own self-defined and uncurbed musical universe, and that’s definitely to TOUGH CUSTOMER’s credit. (Sweet Rot, actualtoughcustomer.bandcamp.com)

The one-off 1979 single from the HAND GRENADES was self-released and packaged in a minimalist sleeve with no personnel credits or identifying information, which posed all sorts of questions as to who was behind the record and where exactly they had come from. Going strictly from audio cues, both sides of the 7” showcased a ramshackle post-punk sensibility in line with the DESPERATE BICYCLES, the HOMOSEXUALS, or SWELL MAPS (not to mention some nasal and vaguely British-accented vocals that sounded kind of like a bedroom-recorded Peter Perrett of the ONLY ONES), which lead many people to understandably reach the conclusion that the HAND GRENADES must have been a product of the same “it was easy, it was cheap, go and do it” school of late ‘70s UK DIY. In reality, they were actually from Long Island, and by the early ‘80s, they’d transformed into the new wave/power-pop group the SPONSORS, abandoning any hint of scratchy Messthetics aesthetics to write songs with skinny-tied titles like “In and Out of Love” and “Love I Can’t Wait”. Truth is stranger than fiction, but despite geography, the lone HAND GRENADES record has rightfully been regarded as a touchstone of UK-minded shambolic late ‘70s/early ‘80s art-punk and also one that unfortunately tends to fetch collector scum prices these days, so praise be onto Last Laugh Records, who just reissued the single as a 12” EP (Demos to London) with the addition of two previously unreleased tracks. “Demo to London” and “Coma Dos” from the original 7” tick off seemingly every box on the UK DIY checklist—charmingly fidelity-challenged, treble to the extreme, shaky single-note guitar, BUZZCOCKS hooks thrown slightly off-kilter, plenty of FALL-worthy repetition. On the unreleased side, the scrappy pop of “Cocoon” could almost pass for the TELEVISION PERSONALITIES stripped of their more psychedelically mod leanings, while “Murder” repeatedly cycles through the phrase “murder in the U.S.” over some wiry econo-punk to a biting and almost RONDOS/early EX-ish effect. Beyond mandatory! (Last Laugh, almostreadyrecords.com)

With each new vinyl reissue sourced from the first half decade or so Flying Nun’s back catalog, I’ve been holding out hope that Auckland’s darkly angular post-punk poster children THIS SPORTING LIFE would be the next in line to have their long out-of-print records brought back into circulation. And this summer, at long last, it finally happened… well, sort of. We’ll have to settle for the new Alms for Children CD anthology, which collects the group’s two proper Flying Nun releases (1982’s Show Me to the Bellrope LP and 1983’s In Limbo EP), the debut 7” from 1981 that was issued under their original name of ALMS FOR CHILDREN, and a number of previously unreleased live tracks—digital is definitely better than nothing at all in this case. Along with Stratford’s NOCTURNAL PROJECTIONS and Christchurch’s the GORDONS, THIS SPORTING LIFE were a part of the early ‘80s New Zealand underground faction that fell more in line with the serrated nihilism of bands like the FALL and JOY DIVISION, in contrast to their jangly, SYD BARRETT/VELVET UNDERGROUND-worshipping peers. The FALL influence is particularly apparent in the tracks drawn from their mid-period, like “Wasting My Time,” where a rickety keyboard line fights for space on top the sort of stripped-down and flipped-out rockabilly rhythm that Mark E. Smith and company continuously revisited for a good forty years or so, with Gary Charlton’s vocals wavering between deadpan and desperate in equal measure. Other highlights of an already stacked compilation: the otherwise-unreleased “Suspicious of You,” with cavernous, razor-edged bass heightening the paranoid tension suggested by the title and lyrical content, and the frenetic, jagged pop sensibility of “Total Loss,” which features some unexpectedly chiming acoustic guitar that almost adheres to the general conception of the whole “Flying Nun sound”. I don’t think I’ve ever recommended a CD-only release in over three years of doing this column, but there’s a first time for everything. (Failsafe Records, almsforchildrenthissportinglife.bandcamp.com)

#handle #tough customer #hand grenades #this sporting life #futures & pasts #maximum rocknroll

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