The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
I’ve been a fan of Gold Dime‘s music ever since I came across them playing at the 2014 edition of Basilica Soundscape. Do you enjoy your music intense and rhythmic yet pushing towards transcendent moments of bliss? Well then. The group’s third album, No More Blue Skies, arrived on the scene last month, and it pulls off the impressive feat of retaining the group’s core sound while also finding intriguing ways to expand it. I spoke with Gold Dime founder Andrya Ambro to learn more about the album — and the band’s recent tour.
At this point, it feels safe to say that Sean Michaels is fond of big ideas in his work, whether he’s telling stories of starcrossed lovers during the Cold War or asking big questions about technology’s ability to create art. The latter concern is at the heart of Do You Remember Being Born?, in which an acclaimed late-career poet named Marian Ffarmer is offered an unexpected and lucrative job: collaborating with an algorithm on a new literary work. Michaels’s novel never goes where you’d expect, and in doing so raises a host of bold and thrilling questions about creativity, identity, and intelligence. I chatted with him about the novel’s origins and the challenges of writing a book that echoes emerging technology.
There’s a bespoke feeling to “Shadows,” the new video from Sonny and the Sunsets’ new album Self Awareness Through Macrame. There’s a reason for that — namely, that the video consists of a series of 180 paintings by the band’s Sonny Smith. The whole record abounds with bittersweet and understated pop numbers, indicative of Smith’s impressive discography. As Jennifer Kelly wrote at Dusted, “He’s a master of twisting realism into gentle fantasy, so that it’s hard to say where the grit leaves off and the fairy dust starts.” I spoke with Smith about the process of making the video — and that interview, along with a closer look at some of his paintings, follows.
It’s hard to find the right words to discuss James Reich‘s new novel The Moth for the Star. Is it a haunting tale of excess and murder in Depression-era New York City? A bizarre story of metaphysical warfare? A psychological study of generational trauma and repression? Arguably, it’s all of the above — along with some astronomy thrown into the mix. I spoke with Reich about his new novel’s genesis and the thematic concerns at its heart.
Jody Hobbs Hesler’s debut story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better is set in Charlottesville, Virginia — not academic or tourist Charlottesville, but working-class neighborhoods, convenience stores, motels. Risk, heartache, betrayal and failure are common experiences for the author’s characters.
For many writers and artists, spending time at conventions is a regular part of an annual routine. It’s not surprising, then, that some have opted to use genre and comic book conventions as the setting for stories, including one of Evan Dorkin’s Eltingville Club stories, Nick Mamatas’s novel I Am Providence, and Paul Cornell and Marika Cresta’s Con & On. Now, in the new series True Believers, writers Joshua Viola and Stephen Graham Jones teamed with artist Ben Matsuya for a tale of cosplay and horror set at the Colorado Festival of Horror.
Next year will see the release of Intermundia, the new album from pianist and composer Olivia Belli, on XXIM Records. For the song “Valadier,” Belli drew inspiration from the Temple of Valdier, a building that’s stood for almost 200 years in the Italian town of Marche. In her own words, here’s Belli on the physical spaces that have shaped her immersive, haunting music…