Characterisation, Emotional Truth and "Battle of the Bastards" [WARNING; SPOILERS]

Image attribution: By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50876810

[THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 9 OF SEASON 6 OF GAME OF THRONES]

There's very little left to be said about the latest episode of Game of Thrones. It was an incredible spectacle in terms of production values; an episode which did not flinch at showing us the full horror of a medieval battle. It kept the suspense and pace at full volume at all times, making it arguably one of the best, if not the best episode of the series as a whole.

But for the purposes of this blog it was something a friend of mine said about The Battle of The Bastards which got me thinking. 

One of the pivotal moments in the episode was when Ramsay let Rickon run towards Jon's army in a cruel mockery of mercy, before shooting him dead with an arrow. Jon's reaction is to ride out in front of his forces to try and rescue him. Failing at this and seeing his half-brother die in front of him, he launches a one-man charge at the Bolton forces. Had his own cavalry not charged in behind him he would definitely have been killed by the oncoming horses. 

What my friend complained about, with some justification was this: Jon Snow is a trained commander, and a seasoned fighter. His charge toward the Bolton forces could easily left his army leaderless before the battle had even begun. Why would he ever do that? Isn't this just poor storytelling? 

I would argue, no, it isn't. 

In fact, from a characterisation point of view, it makes perfect sense. It's definitely true to say that Jon is an experienced leader and an intelligent character, but saying that doesn't tell the whole story. Jon Snow is a man who has spent the last few years losing everything that ever mattered to him; his father, his half-brother, his family home, his lover, his friends in the Watch, the old Lord Commander (and arguably the moral heart) of the Watch, his own life and ultimately his belief in anything he had ever done. 

Firstly let's sum up Jon Snow's character. He is a man who believes in duty, honour, and family. He has a strong moral centre and an understanding of the big picture. His position in society as a bastard means he is both insecure in terms of understanding his place in the world, and always trying to find ways to prove himself, becoming very disillusioned if he fails.

For this season, Jon Snow has been wrestling with his place in the world more so than previously. He came back to life, but so far has only expressed disappointment at this. Now this might simply paint him as an ungrateful person, but the truth, I think, is more complex than that. When Jon Snow was murdered it was not only a personal betrayal, but in Jon's mind the end of the Watch as a moral or honourable force he could place his trust in. With Sam gone and the leadership of the Watch under the command of shortsighted men, Jon had nothing left for him in the organisation he had sworn his life to. Even after he executes the people who betrayed him, it feels like a hollow victory. The traitors are dead, but none ever recanted their actions, and ultimately nothing is gained by their deaths. 

Jon's belief in his own leadership and the Watch itself has been so fundamentally shaken that he abandons his sworn duty and his mission. But also, in a very real way he abandons his own autonomy; from then on he is simply spurred into action by others, mostly Sansa and to a lesser extent Davos. Jon is a man who has lost all direction in life. As such he is clinging on to the only things left which give him meaning, firstly what's left of his family, and secondly his duty to the Wildlings (Sansa's new-found position of leadership in this dynamic is also very interesting from a characterisation point of view and I hope to tackle this later). 

For all Jon knows, Sansa and Rickon are the only family he has left. Not only is the killing of Rickon an extremely cruel act of violence on Ramsay's part, it's literally the death of half of Jon's remaining family. We know that since the Red Wedding Jon has been plagued with guilt for not helping Robb more, and for not being able to help find his lost siblings. Trying to save Rickon becomes his way of trying to end that guilt and piece together some stability and safety for his family. His failure to do so, for Jon, is the culmination of what he sees as a litany of failures on his part, not only for Robb and his family, but his inability to save more people at Hardhome, or his Lord Commander. At the moment Jon sees Rickon die, he is not only enraged that his brother has been murdered in such a cowardly way, but also, in that moment, in a battle he probably can't win, with a sister who doesn't believe he can protect her, Jon loses all sense of purpose. His suicidal charge into the Bolton lines is exactly that, he no longer cares for his own survival for those few seconds. His own cavalry charging in to save his life reminds him of his duty to his friends and the men he leads, or simply it switches his training on in his head and he simply fights because that's all he knows. Either way, it snaps him out of his impotent rage long enough for him to survive to the end of the battle. 

Needless to say Jon Snow's charge into the Bolton army was from the point of view of a commander and tactician, a foolhardy and irresponsible move. I can see why viewers would be asking questions of the writers about why exactly the felt this was an appropriate thing for them to have Jon do. However, a close look at his motivations and experiences will show us that this is entirely consistent with his character and his state of mind since being resurrected. What this moment shows, is, in fact, a very close understanding among the writers of the show of what kind of person Jon Snow is, and how he has been psychologically affected by several years of what can only be described as appalling emotional trauma. From this point of view, Jon's actions are those of a damaged man, with very little left for him. 

I'm Back!

New blog look, new blog name, new blog approach!

Hello, it's been way too long since I last used this blog (previously known as "Things I Have Written") so I decided to update it and try reviewing again. 

The purpose of this blog will largely be arts review, but I may well branch out to food if I feel like it. Mostly it's just so I write more often! 

So yes, I'm here again, let's see what happens. 

Album Review - Year of No Light: "Ausserwelt"

Good evening my special little snowflakes!

I've finished my masters dissertation! Here's an incredibly irritating gif to celebrate!

With that party atmosphere created I'd like to totally ruin it by reviewing a slow-paced, introspective post-metal album, in an introspective and slow-paced way.

Year of No Light are a French band from Bordeaux, originally with a sludgy vocal-driven sound. However, they parted ways with their vocalist, added a guitarist and a second drummer and decided to move in a more post-metal direction.


The result of this lineup change is the mysterious and utterly enthralling Ausserwelt. A sprawling, atmospheric   4-track instrumental album spanning over 45 minutes, this is not an album for people who lose patience with long songs, or indeed slow songs. The tracks here take a while to pick up pace, but for good reason. Once Year of No Light get the juggernaut rolling, the result is a thundering wall-of-sound which envelops the listener like an icy fog, and the behemoth-style impact is all the more forceful for the slow build ups. Keeping the track listing to a minimal 4 allows the band to make the album a whole experience for the listener; it all works extremely well together. The album artwork, monochrome and moody, is a perfect fit for the music, and with the band giving what I hope are tongue-in-cheek jobs for themselves in the credits (for example, "funeral hermeneutics" or "electrical geometry") the scene is set for a deep, dark album.

      "Nope, we don't know what 'heavy cosmogony' is either.

But it sounds cool, doesn't it?"

The first tracks are two parts of the same piece (suite? concerto? it's hard to tell with these things) named after the Greek goddess of the underworld Persephone. Beginning with faint strains of organ and feed-backing guitars, a shimmer of cymbals sets off the highly textured guitars, laying down powerfully melancholy riffs; tremolo picking abounds here, but not in an indistinct black-metal way. The heavy bass sections play off wonderfully with eerie guitar lines. Cymbals crash and almost sound like they're about to shatter throughout the heavier sections giving the track a shimmering quality, like mirages over a storm at sea. When the track suddenly drops pace, it makes way for a titanic doom-laden breakdown, all the while the guitars shimmering and gliding overhead, which is just joy to behold. Part one of Persephone, called in parentheses Enna, is a mournful track, almost with a sense of grief, but with a thunderous quality, like it is mirroring some natural cataclysm.


Part 2, Coré merges in perfectly as the feedback and organ-like drone at the end of Enna and fades into a pounding of what sound like war-drums, which punctuate with all the more force due to the double-percussion setup used. The guitars provide a textural fuzz and crackle over the top, as a melodic line more ominous than in Enna and an unashamedly doom-metal influenced chord progression cut through. If the last track was a cataclysm tearing through the land, this is the armies of the dead reclaiming it. Yet the feel here isn't the corny old doom we might expect, the shimmering, enveloping sound still pervades everything, making the melancholy atmosphere seem less "evil" and more inevitable, natural, awe-inspiring. This kind of post-metal tries to evoke the sublime; the awesome beauty of disaster. A spidery guitar line intersects the doomy riff, unsettling in slow-paced discord, yet utterly transfixing. When listening to Coré at its most intense you can almost hear rocks crashing and crumbling into a turbulent sea around you.


Coré melts away with a glimmer, but the peace only lasts for a second until the threatening fuzzy riffage of Hiérophante thrusts the listener straight into the underworld itself. Ausserwelt is German for "otherworld" and this album does feel oddly alien, like you have been transported to a place where destruction and calamity happen on a scale never before seen. The multi-layered riffing makes way for a faster, more treble-laden section, which always makes me think of river rapids, ending in a waterfall of terrifying proportions, as the thick guitars stomp back onto the scene like titans. The ever present and relentless drumming adds urgency and tension to the track and it eventually builds up to an almighty maelstrom of sound. All instruments speed up electrifyingly until it all ends abruptly to bow out in diffuse drones.

Basically it's like this, but with less gospel music.

The final track, Abbesse is the culmination of everything that came before. Strangely chilled out, yet eerie tremolo guitars open the track, before being drowned out in an epic giant-paced riff, which speeds up to include the tremolo of before, before it all arrives at a piercing and almost regal sounding melody, as if the royal court of the underworld were in procession. This, however, is cut short with threatening minor chords (what else?) which build up to a an almost animalistic release, as if some gigantic mythical creature were in the throes of death. The shrill cries of the guitars sound melancholy and fearful. The drums pound to new levels of intensity, the double-kit setup allowing for almost chaotic sounding percussion over the increasingly hellish guitars. The energy has to give out sometime and with a crash it ends; a gentle feedback-based melody fades the album out.


In short then, Ausserwelt is melancholy, epic, mysterious, intense, awe-inspiring, enveloping and extremely cohesive. It's genuinely one of the best post-metal albums out there and I think it's a game-changer. The obvious influences from doom and black metal improve and are improved by the pacing and structure of the songs and the whole atmosphere is ominous, even a little scary, but sublime. Many listeners may be put off by the slow-paces, the oppressive atmosphere, the frequent use of feedback to end tracks and the lack of vocals, but for me it's an amazing musical experience and should be considered as important to post-metal as Isis's Oceanic or Cult of Luna's Salvation. Buy this album, stick on your headphones and enter another world.


I leave you with a live recording of Persephone. Watch for the duel drums, they're mesmerising to watch. Year of No Light are due to record another album next year and I cannot wait.

The Myth of Manflu

This article was originally written for the Dundee students' magazine The Magdalen and appeared somewhere in the middle of 2011. I thought it would dust it off as it's one I'm quite happy with, and (I think) is still very relevant. More up-to-date posts will follow soon. Promise. 

It’s become a mainstay of commentary on men in the media. Manflu, the woman in the advert says, rolling her eyes in a “you know what I’m talking about, girls” kind of way. As I have approached what society deems adulthood, I have been introduced to this term in what I can only describe as a very uncomfortable way. It was like turning 18 and suddenly realising that the adults always invited at least one alien to their dinner parties and being asked to shake its tentacle – I wasn’t sure this was entirely right, but I went along with it anyway. When I was younger, it was all fairly straightforward, if I was ill there were procedures to go through to try and get better, and people only challenged me on it if I was supposed to be doing a test that day. But when thrust into the adult world, I found myself starting to be told to “man-up” and found some people rolling their eyes at my illness in a sort of pathetic aping of the advert-people. I was all of a sudden being told from some quarters that I had manflu, and to begin with I honestly didn’t know what on earth they were on about. I was just… ill! What the hell did being a man have to do with it?

So what is manflu anyway? Wikipedia defines it as “the pejorative term that refers to the idea that when many men have a cold, they exaggerate and claim they have the flu.” That clears that up then I suppose, move on. Well, no, let’s not move on. As much as anything, this wouldn’t be very interesting to read if I just copied everything from Wikipedia, but also let’s take a closer look at what’s really going on here. The idea of “manflu” is an odd one, because it’s a male stereotype which seems to make men out to be in a position of weakness, a little pathetic. Woohoo! We all say. It’s a victory against gender roles! Men are equally as capable of whining as women, in fact, more so! Well, hang on; let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here. Manflu is defined as a deception on the part of the man, a way to trick the people around him into feeling more sympathetic for his plight. Wait a minute! He’s not being pathetic and whiny at all, he’s being sneaky! He’s a Machiavellian genius attempting to wring more than his fair share of sympathy out of his friends and family!

You see, far from subverting gender rôles, the myth of manflu tries to reinforce them. It’s all about trying to define what a “man” actually is. If there is the idea of there being this big generalised concept of manflu which can be attributed to a large section of the male population, there has to be an idea of fixed male attributes to begin with. If you’re going to try and make sweeping generalisations about a group, you need to have an idea of what that group is. You know, things like the Jews are all secretly loaded because they’re greedy and scrimping, gay men are always dressed well because they always pay attention to fashion and journalists always make stuff up because they’re lazy. If men have “manflu” it’s because all men have certain traits that make them likely to become such lying bastards.

It’s very telling that the term “manflu” is so often coupled with the equally odious term “man up”. The assumption being that if a male is complaining about being ill he is whining and needs to act more like a real man. A “real man”, you see, isn’t supposed to complain when he is ill. So wait, men pretend to have flu because they want attention, but a “real man” doesn’t act up when he’s poorly? There’s some difference between some men (who whine when they are ill) and “real men” who never whine? What’s a “real man” then? We’ve already seen he doesn’t complain about being ill, so what are his other traits?

Well, if you believe that annoying advert for male perfume on FX, real men wear pink. If you watch the ad, however, real men are also a number of other things, unattainably muscular for a start, hairless and constantly gallivanting naked around expensive-looking penthouse apartments with scantily-clad women. Now I don’t know about the men reading this, but personally, I’m not particularly fit, waxing me would take, well, weeks and frankly, I have more important things to do than show lingerie models around flats I could never afford, it’s just impractical. The website AskMen.com (which is always good for some good old fashioned gender rôle reinforcing) defines a “real man” as someone who “doesn’t moan, doesn’t complain, doesn’t get sick…” Seriously? A real man has Wolverine-like healing abilities?! When was this instituted? There’s not being a hypochondriac, and then there’s the moronic idea that nothing can ever injure you. AskMen goes on (and on, and on) claiming that “a real man is macho; a real man is tough; a real man doesn't show emotions. A real man is the backbone of his family and doesn't have time to be weak. If spiders scare you, you'll never be a real man.” Well, at least I’m not scared of spiders, wouldn’t want to be totally one of those, y’know, fake men. Terrifyingly, the article suggests to us that if life is being a “b*tch” (oh they’re so coy) one is advised to “slap it and move on.” I’ll be backing away slowly now.

Sadly the insane matchopocalypse of AskMen.com is not an isolated case. These ideas about the kind of person a man “should be” are still very prevalent in our culture, it would have to be, otherwise being able to say things like all a man’s “personal hygiene needs must be taken care of by a woman” (no really, they say that too, you can look it up) would not be acceptable, certainly not on a fairly mainstream site like AskMen. The fact is that this kind of batshit lunacy still exists and is still absorbed by so many men. The call of “manflu” is just another way for people to reinforce the idea that men shouldn’t be complaining about being ill, and if they are, they must obviously be exaggerating. This takes on a darker meaning than just purely in the realm of social power-relations when we realise that these kinds of ideas are detrimental to men’s health. Men are statistically far less likely than women to go to the doctor if they feel ill and routinely die years earlier than women. This social pressure for men to just “man up” and “deal with it” seriously effects people’s lives meaning men are less likely to pick up on something serious and, obviously, suffer for it. Let’s face it guys, we all get ill, and its not fun – obviously it gets annoying if someone’s complaining about it all the time, but we shouldn’t be telling people that just because they’ve got external genitals that they’re not allowed to feel ill. Basically my message for the men reading this is next time someone tells you to “man up” or that you’ve just got “manflu” – sneeze on them. Like really evacuate your nose all over them. Then call them a sexist. I’m all about the justice.

A Reaction to Muse's "Survival"

Alternate title: I'm Sorry Muse, but We're Just Looking for Different Things...

Evening all.

I shall start this post by explaining what Muse mean to me.

They were one of my first loves. After The Who, they were one of the first bands I got properly obsessive over. I listened to their albums all the way through more times than I can remember, I would peruse MuseWiki for hours, looking up obscure facts about the production of their albums (did you know, for example, that the percussion on Screenager involves llama bones and toenails?). I was one of the new influx of fans who came during the Black Holes and Revelations era, but wasted no time getting to grips with their older material, and waited in breathless anticipation for their next release, The Resistance (which is a whole other post in itself). One of the first things I did to test my compatibility with my current partner was to play her Absolution in its entirety (I'm just an old romantic I guess...). I watched their live DVD HAARP like other people watch their favourite movie. I have a list of my favourite Muse b-sides.

In other words I am an out-and-out Muse fan.

But something troubling has been happening in my relationship with the band. I feel like we're drifting apart. Like a couple where the fire has gone out, Muse and I just don't click in the way we used to.

It started with The Resistance. Now I am not a detractor from that album. It's good, there are many good tracks there, not least the fine examples of MK Ultra and United States of Eurasia. But that's it, it's just good. Not amazing, not mind-blowing, just decent. None of my top five favourite Muse tracks are from that album. I liked it, and I happily bought it, but I felt like it was an album from a band who were beginning to lose their touch. I mean come on, Undisclosed Desires? Really guys? With an unfocused track like I Belong to You and the slightly underwhelming Guiding Light and title track, it felt like the start of a downhill climb.

But I am nothing if not a loyal fan, and my optimism held out. I was prepared to accept it as a minor blip, with a view to a refreshed Muse for their next release. Even the slightly wobbly Neutron Star Collision couldn't quite diminish my hope.

But now...

Now I feel like it may be time for Muse and I to see other bands.

Listen to this track, Muse's official release for the Olympics:




It's just...

Just... weird.

Don't get me wrong, I can do weird. I love Micro Cuts - and damn that's a weird track - but there's weird and there's weird. 

The song just doesn't work for me. It's just a mess. Each section of the track is pretty decent in itself and would make a great backbone to a Muse song; the bombast, the epic scope and paranoia are all in place. But all mixed in together, the result is unimpressive. Clearly a lot of work has gone into the composition, but it's incoherent as a song. The string section at the beginning is nice, but instead of being developed, it just disappears to make way for that strange chanting bit, which again is ok, but never goes anywhere, being quickly replaced by a guitar solo coming out of nowhere, which again is good, but doesn't mesh. The solo, over seemingly random bursts of choir singing, finally makes way for, admittedly, a pretty awesome riff, but it still seems out of place, like someone changed track mid-song.

The main problem with this track is that I want to hear more of each section, preferably in separate songs. It's like someone's inexpertly mixed together a bunch of Muse tracks from across their career, without putting any thought into how they'd sound next to each other.

And then there's Matt Bellamy's vocals. As with the rest of the song, they are good. He sings well, he always does. But they just don't sound right. For some reason he's decided to go for a deeper tone in his voice, which wouldn't be a bad thing, if the rest of the song wasn't so bombastic. What a track with that huge a sound needs is Bellamy's signature falsetto shriek, not this relatively restrained low tenor.

The most galling thing of all for me is that this song represents my worst fears about where Muse have been going over the last couple of years. It seems there will really never be another Absolution or Black Holes. The golden age is over and like so many aging bands before them, Muse are descending into releasing increasingly average songs. The raw energy of Origin of Symmetry doesn't seem to be there any more, and we're left just with the ridiculousness, which is fun, but it's not brilliant.

If there's any positive to be gleaned from this release it is that making a song for such a mainstream event as the London Olympics will get more people interested in the music of Muse, and the many more amazing tracks they have to offer. Though when a band like them have been featured on the cover of NME more times than I've had hot dinners it's hard to imagine how much more mainstream success they could have.

I still sincerely hope that Muse will have a return to form at some stage, but unlike before, it's more a vain wish than an earnest expectation.


Happy guitar noodling and when the apocalypse comes, let us hope that it is something biblical.


Gabe

EP Review: Jen and the Gents

Good afternoon omnivores!

You find me posting something with a level of embarrassment. You see, I had told myself I was going to review this EP about a year ago, having been given it by a friend of mine. Regardless, I have finally got around to it by virtue of having a dissertation to avoid doing.

On to the band themselves then. Jen and the Gents have been a fixture of Edinburgh busking for a while now, notable for being one of the rare full band set-ups to play on the street and their brand of folksy pop-rock has garnered them a modest but surprisingly international following, having gained fans amongst Edinburgh's seasonal tourist population. This first recorded offering from the band comes across, first of all, as a very approachable collection of songs. The tunes seem uncomplicated, based on the very good theory that if you have a good, catchy melody it's best to let it speak for itself without too many embellishments.

Having said that, on repeated listens, Jen and the Gents are clearly very capable musicians. One of the most nicest surprises about this album is the voice of the eponymous Jen Ewan. Once you hear her vocal tone, you  will recognise it anywhere - a warm melodic mezzo soprano range drifts across the listener, with a a nice 1920s style warble to lend a little colour. On the face of it, Ewan's voice may appear a little cutesy, but this EP has enough lyrical intelligence to express more than just a romantic ditty. The first track, "Can't Look Back" tells a tale of someone confused with their life and surrounded by people who don't care, eventually leaving it all behind; the mournful refrain "felt it in my heart" is a good example of how this EP manages to provide both brilliant singalong choruses and some real emotional depth.

The next track is an unashamedly optimistic folk-pop tune provides a response to the previous track, telling the tale of life getting slowly better and the joy of having something to plan for and something to look forward to. This oscillation between confusion at life and optimism for the future is the common feature of this EP; the message seems to be that the problems of poverty and lack of direction are real and difficult, but there is always hope for the future, and the EP leaves the listener feeling like their problems are universal and their hopes are valuable.

Whilst this EP is very good, I'd like to hear more of the rockier elements higher in the mix next time around. The musical styles here are however, quite varied and go from the Hawaiian guitar licks and mandolin strumming of "A Little Bit Longer" to the flamenco rhythms of "Can't Look Back" and the melodic REM-style rock of the stand-out track "Flyaway". One of the few weaknesses here is that the pacing doesn't vary a great deal here, and the guitars are a little under-emphasised for my liking. These aside, it's almost impossible to dislike Jen and the Gents' music, it's infectious, and I'd be shocked if their fanbase didn't grow massively on the strength of this EP.

The musicality of the band members is to be applauded - the drumming provided by Stuart "Pockets" Crout is spare and understated, but effective and skilful, the guitar playing from Jen Ewan herself provides a good melodic line and some neat little licks from time to time (for example on "A Little Bit Longer"), the violins and mandolins by Ben Errington provide a very nice fullness that the songs might not otherwise have. However it is Marin Beer's bass playing which deserves the lion's share of the adulation here as he manages to provide good unobtrusive backing bass lines, at the same time as filling out a counter-melodic role and some added rhythm. His bass playing is incredibly fluid and underpins the melody of all the songs on this EP; like a folk-pop John Entwhistle he ties the various elements together and makes the bass sing.

With a new album on the way this summer, a new guitarist and a number of gigs under their belts, including a set at Eden Fest, I seriously look forward to hearing more from Jen and the Gents.

On Music and Emotion

Hey there hominids!

Recently I've been thinking about emotions and music. I haven't yet read Musicophilia but I'm interested in the themes it brings up. Like many people I didn't really get into music in a major way until my teens, when I suddenly discovered that melodies and sounds could make me feel emotions completely detached from the situation I was in at the time. I first felt this when I was still going to church - at the time I thought that, perhaps, something spiritual was happening to me. During the time when I was beginning to seriously question the religion I had been raised in, one of the last things that made me believe in some kind of supernatural realm was the effect music started to have on me. Even when I knew I no longer believed in god, music still had the effect of making me feel like I did.

Of course later on I discovered that the same effect could be gained from secular music as well. The songs didn't have to be about god to make me feel this way. However, still, to this day, the only feeling I would ever (and only hesitantly) describe as "spiritual" is the one I get from listening to music. Obviously not just any music, many songs, normally the kind of dross you see in the charts, have no effect on me whatsoever, but there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern in terms of genre for what does make me feel this way. My tastes in music seem to vary wildly from folk-pop to obscure black metal, to electronica, to prog rock to whatever genre Radiohead is. I have yet to really discover what it is about certain songs which has such a profound effect on me.

I should probably try describe this feeling. When I am listening to a piece of music which I love, like the solo from Comfortably Numb, it makes me want to move in odd ways, not really dancing, just as some kind of cathartic release of this kind of electric tingling I get all over my body - the hair goes up on the back of my neck and I get shivers up my spine, after particularly intense songs, I sometimes feel exhausted. From what I've been told it's pretty close to the feeling that people get on Ecstasy. I have no idea why this happens, but I'd be interested to hear if any of you have any similar reactions to especially intense music. How does it make you feel? How do you feel afterwards?

A friend of mine linked me to the website of an app which is currently under development called Emotional Music, which will allow users to arrange their music collections into emotional playlists, depending on the emotional effect they want to feel. I really like this idea, as for me, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to arrange my music alphabetically or chronologically. Usually I'm looking for music to put me in a certain mood, or more often to act cathartically to release feelings or tensions I myself am only dimly aware of, it makes sense to me because to emotional impact, that cathartic release is what music is all about, and so why organise it any other way?

Not the most clear-headed post, but a fairly murky subject to begin with. Please do comment if you have anything to share about this. I'm going to try and move my posts more towards cultural subjects, and less about the politics, so expect more stuff like this, only better.

Peace and ear-gasms.

Gabe