Review: Language Lessons

Language Lessons is a film about friendship and the kindness of strangers when you need them most. It’s a story about grief, and how it can sometimes be embarrassing, or mean, or make you feel like everything is suddenly out of place.

The movie begins with Cariño, played by Natalie Morales, who is also the co-writer and director, appearing on a video call screen, waiting for her student to arrive. She says hello to an empty, but large, living room. From the furthest point on the frame, which we discover is the bedroom, Adam, played by Mark Duplas, emerges. Confused, he asks “Why are you in my house?” She lets him know that his husband, who is off screen, has paid for 100 Spanish language lessons and that they are to meet every week. They immediately begin to speak in a kind of stuttered, mostly-right Spanish, thanks to Adam’s conversational Spanish classes in high school. But he says his morning routine is important to him, so they move to the pool, where he plunges back and forth from the cold water side to the hot tub. They begin to speak; they get to know each other. 

Two people find themselves in a peculiar situation, and then they talk a lot about interesting things. This is the Duplass Brothers way. In Creep, someone responds to a weird ad to hang out with a weird guy, then they talk a lot until conflict happens; in Blue Jay, two old lovers bump into each other in the grocery store of their hometown, then they talk a lot until conflict happens; and in Paddleton, the last movie I saw by Mark Duplass, two neighbors connect, they talk a lot, then something very sad happens for a long time. So I was primed, in a way, when things turned in Language Lessons.

The film is divided into titled lessons where the Spanish language word and pronunciation are set opposite the English word. In the second lesson, which is titled “Comprensión/Comprehension,” Cariño is having a hard time reaching Adam. She calls but he doesn’t answer. She leaves a voicemail. She calls again and he answers this time, but is extremely despondent. In bed, in a dark room, he looks like he’s been through an emotional hell - because he has. His husband has died the night before in a sudden vehicle accident, which he tells Cariño as part of their conversational “lesson.” The playful, strange situation of the first lesson is suddenly behind us. It’s dark and the world is real.

Language Lessons is beautifully acted. Natalie Morales, who co-wrote the movie with Mark, is incredible. Cariño is caring and reserved. She’s embarrassed by some of the situations she finds herself in, but she’s also defensive when Adam tries to help. Making a movie over video calls is challenging. The emotions are hard to portray, the timing is weird. Glitches in the video and audio were left in the film intentionally. But Morales’ performance easily cuts through. There is a scene in the middle of the movie where Cariño calls Adam drunk, at 2:30 in the morning his time. She’s just found out it’s his birthday thanks to some light internet stalking, so she wants to call and sing him happy birthday in Spanish, as a lesson. She’s jubilant in a way we haven’t really seen her in the film. She’s drunk, obviously. But she’s funny and assertive. She’s willing to open up to Adam about her life.

Then, the next day, she dodges Adam’s call. She’s embarrassed. We see her rehearse several video messages to send to him. She tries to tell him she can’t continue their lessons. Something personal has come up and she has to postpone, or maybe refund. But we don’t see the one she sends. He returns voicemails, but there’s no response from Cariño, which puts him at a loss because he thought they were finally able to say the things they wanted to say to each other about friendship.

What Natalie Morales brings to the film as a director is more than her own character depth. The film is expertly paced. From platonic rom-com, to heavy drama, the film flies by effortlessly at one hour and thirty minutes. Plan B, which was her directorial debut, felt very similar despite being much more of a buddy comedy. Although she did not write Plan B, I find it interesting that both films revolve around a platonic, but still almost romantic relationship between two friends. While this may be entirely coincidental, the ability to navigate emotionally deep, authentic friendships can be difficult, especially when there are so many tropes around it in media history, but in both films Morales nails it. 

Often media made during the COVID-19 pandemic feels too close or too soon to me, as if I have not accurately prepared myself to be mirrored by the creators I love. Going into Language Lessons, I was nervous about having to see people talk only through video call. But by the end of the film, I was so taken by the performances and the writing that I stopped paying attention to how the film was presented because the story was so strong. The characters were so realized and pure that it didn’t matter how or where or when they were presented. There is no romantic story at the heart of Language Lesson, only the love of new friendship, and that makes it more unique than the format.

Language Lessons is available for rent or purchase on VOD services.

Review: Galen Tipton - “goddexx (deluxe edition”

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a more catchy and disgustingly composed collection of tracks in my life. Every track on goddexx is so wet and chaotic and, yet, there are parts of Galen Tipton’s songs that get stuck in my head for days. Fragments of tracks pass through whatever else I might be listening to; a gross glittering oil seeps into my resting brain waves to the point that I have no choice but to throw on the goddexx (deluxe edition) for the second or third time that day. Like Lauren Bousfield’s Palimpsest, the crashing electronic mess becomes a rhythmic meditation that I can lose myself in - voices on top of other voices, raised a few octaves, crushed and spit back out, too fast to comprehend; a music box chimes, and brings me back to clarity; a symphony of surreal choirs and flutes and strings lifts everything up, higher than you thought was even possible, always adding more layers. But then it breaks down and the chaos of voices stabilizes into deep base, and space, and I suddenly realize I’ve been banging my head hard enough to make myself dizzy. That’s what it’s like to listen to Galen Tipton.

The artwork for goddexx, which is how I found the album in the first place, is wild. It reminds me of the A.I. generated artwork that was being passed around for a while on Twitter, where the AI was fed a number of famous paintings, took them in, processed them all at once, and then created a gross and unsettling image - not quite right, not quite something tangible, but still somehow packed with the emotion of all the great source material. By Sam Rolfes, the goddexx cover is an ethereal being against a pastel cloudscape. Grey and green and pink and black, the body of the being is graceful (but also, in some ways, coming apart). It holds out in front of it a smaller, slightly more recognizable form, which has a pink bow and is heavily caked in makeup. As if presenting a child as it’s own face, as part of itself, but still holding the thing at a distance. There are swords, and a bulbous clown nose, and stubby fingers on swollen ball-hands. But it’s pastel. It’s shiny, in places. Why does it feel so gross?

While pitching this EP to a friend recently, I said that the cover art is an emotional replica of the music. It’s chaotic and beautiful and disturbing and otherworldly. It’s part rave and part glitch and part symphonic grace. The image is heavy with low frequency, but at the same time there’s a computer music quality to the visual and sonic atmosphere. The stereo mix is intoxicating. Every new track expands out and pulls in, like a low resolution screensaver of the ocean, jittering all around you. It’s transporting.

With seven original tracks and three remixes, the deluxe edition is just long enough to feel like a complete journey. The sound design is deeply consistent. For something so chaotic, it’s a little surprising how the tone of the original tracks flow so well into each other and still, somehow, remain distinct. I could see how this album would be grating for some people (there’s a lot of uncomfortable glitching), but for me the tonal consistency and the repetition of distinct elements (like the music box chimes or the flutes) tether the whole thing to a world designed solely for goddexx. The only song that takes me out of the flow slightly is “pixie ring,” which features Diana Starshine, N. Hell, and Junior Astronaut, because it has a very clear vocal section. For the first time, after about 20 minutes of highly processed, stuttered vocal segments, a voice appears. Upon multiple listens, though, this break is kind of welcome. It signals its own movement: we’re getting closer to the end. “elf fetish,” which is the next (and final) original track, feels more somber because of this change, where something like “courageous grieving” or “girl dick” would have felt too abrasive or chaotic to end on. 

For example, the Seth Graham remix of “girl dick” takes an atmospheric and moody approach to the otherwise very rhythmic and dramatic song - turning it into something closer to a soundtrack - wherein the samples are tied to an emotional movement rather than a driving rhythm. While these re-interpretations are interesting, and shine light on the depth and versatility of the sound design that went into goddexx, it is very clear that the EP came to an end when “elf fetish” was finished.

In an interview with Paste Magazine, Tipton said writing goddexx “was imagining myself as this type of [shonen anime/manga] character, able to take on anything from internal struggles to social constructs that want me and others like me dead.” I feel this imbues the sound design with triumphant defiance. Many times throughout the album, I felt like a struggle was finally breaking into something comprehendible, something safer, and lighter, and more understandable. To read that this EP was written in a time of great stress in Tipton’s life is unfortunate, and something I wish she never had to experience. But the emotion comes through. It bleeds pink and purple and orange and dark heavy liquid onto the catchy, rave-like elements and makes them punch harder. Often when I think of cathartic music, my mind immediately gravitates towards the raw, traditionally heavy, guitar-based, drop-A-tuned metal. Or sad shit like Lingua Ignota or Miserable or Our Lady. But goddexx fits this catharsis to its own tuning. A brighter and catchier mess. “That sometime[s] healing is ugly and can happen at a much slower pace than you want,” Tipton says, when asked what people should take away from this release. “That it's just as important to [lose] yourself and mosh in the club as it is to dance.”

Galen Tipton has been releasing music, at least on Bandcamp, since 2016. goddexx, for my money, is her best work to date and is on heavy rotation for all the reasons I’ve mentioned in this review. The tonal consistency and the sound design is just on a different level. It’s so good. She also releases music under the moniker Recovery Girl. goddexx (deluxe edition) is available now through unseelie records.

Review: Ryou Minenami's "Boy's Abyss"

Content Warning: This review, and the manga it highlights, deal directly (and often) with the subject of suicide. This manga is also sexually explicit and not safe to read at work.

What stood out to me about Boy’s Abyss (Shonen no Abisu in Japan) in hindsight was that every character the story interacted with was haunted by the legend of their town. Up the road, not far from Market Street, or the school, or the bridge that becomes the centerpiece for many chapters of Ryou Minenami’s Seinen manga, is a place called Lover’s Abyss. Made popular by the novel Spring's Coffin (a fictional novel famous within the story), Lover’s Abyss is the location of a lover’s suicide that happened a generation before our main cast takes the stage. Throughout the six volumes currently available – through tumult and peril, life and death, escape – nearly all of the characters are burdened with the mystery, or in some ways the seduction, of Lover’s Abyss, which not only connects all of their stories in a meaningful way, but builds their foundational drives. 

Small towns are the settings for many dark stories because they easily embody a relatable seclusion from what a majority of readers may currently be experiencing. In Boy’s Abyss, the small town is introduced as Reiji, the main protagonist, takes the very attractive and secretly pop idol famous Nagi Aoe around on the back of his bike. He’s amazed that she has decided to live in their small town after not only being famous, but also living in Tokyo (a place he dreams of going, but feels very far from ever living in). Reiji, who has many challenges to his home life and with his self esteem, is easily swooned by the story of Lover’s Abyss and the idea that a lover’s suicide might actaully be a way to escape his life; while that is a very obvious and emotionally charged journey for the main focus of the story, it is not what I’m talking about when I say the characters are haunted by Lover’s Abyss. Nagi Aoe knows the story – she’s read it– saying at one point, looking over a bridge at night with Reiji, as they both dwindle into apathy, “I kinda felt jealous [after reading Spring’s Coffin]. It’s the happiest way to die, after all.”

But Boy’s Abyss is not a loveletter to suicide, despite its repeated motifs and direct mention of the act. Reiji goes through many iterations of the outcomes of his own death and, repeatedly, finds reasons to live (even if they are, sometimes, for the wrong reasons). Most of the characters are confronted by it. The dreary, rainy small town. The poverty of Reiji’s family and why they feel stuck in their situation. The bridge, ominously between Market Street and home. As Reiji tumbles to the edge of the bridge and back to the safety of the grassy hill just to the side of it, he is embraced by the different characters in his life. His best friend, Sakuko, who introduced him to Nagi’s idol group, not to mention the novel Spring’s Coffin, fills him with hope that they can both escape to Tokyo and be happy together. Yuri, a well meaning homeroom teacher, interferes to give Reiji some financial and housing assistance – although, at points, this is to his detriment and serves to amplify his depression and hopelessness. As you get further into the volumes, Boy’s Abyss becomes a deeply connected story that often pays off things that were thrown away early in its serialization in Young Jump magazine. The characters shift and push against each other, always leaving room for new realizations and perils. Reiji goes from hopeless high school senior, stuck in the endless cycle of his family’s life, to someone with profound life experience stuck in the endless cycle still. 

The serialized nature of the story works for a large part of the six volumes that have been translated, but towards the end (as new chapters are released weekly, then later translated and put online) the story begins to reach further than its core premise. At a certain point it became obvious the manga was popular and the demand meant the story would need to continue much further than it might have been originally planned. Side characters are given front-facing motivations and storylines that feel slightly out of place next to the pitch-perfect mood of the first five or so volumes. 

Popularity, while good for the manga and for reaching a larger audience, can often lead to unreasonable (and dangerous) work conditions. An ongoing conversation about burnout and health risks related to the timelines and expectations of manga and anime are a topic that I have only recently become aware of, but see as a parallel to conversations about game design crunch, wherein a smaller number of people than necessary are rushed and bullied into completing tasks through extremely long work periods, despite the evidence being high that this practice does not produce quality work or longevity in the industry. This is all to say that I do want this manga to blow up and become popular, but not at the risk of the creator’s mental or physical health and, while I think it’s within the means of this review to be slightly critical of the story spreading thinner than it may have been originally planned, I’d like to note that this is definitely not a commentary on how the creator should just “work harder” or “plan better,” but instead a commentary on how we should treat creators with patience, time, and the money they need to live productive and healthy lives doing what they love to do. 

Boy’s Abyss is the best manga I’ve read so far. After consuming six volumes, I started over because I knew there would be minute details I missed and couldn’t stop thinking about them. The characters and the writing are deep wells of human insight and drama. At no point, even now, do I feel like I would be able to tell you where their lives would go or in some cases where they’ve been. But I feel like I know all the characters so well. I think about Reiji and Sakuko’s friendship. I think about Nagi Aoe and why she made the choice to leave fame to live as an anonymous person in a small town. I want to read Spring’s Coffin, which we get small excerpts of in the later chapters. Ryou Minenami reaches into the dark, small town of Boy’s Abyss and finds a cast that can not only act as the shadow facets of a relatable psyche, but also shows his audience where people come from and how they’re built; how escape is misguided by youthful angst, and how a home can be shaped around the survival more than the unit of a family. 

More people need to read Boy’s Abyss so I can talk to them about some of the elements I wasn’t able to spoil in this review. Unfortunately the only place to read the English translations legally right now is through Kindle. A physical edition has not been produced yet in English.

Review: Dreamwell - "Modern Grotesque"

I have always been a person who judges books by their covers and Dreamwell’s Modern Grotesque is no exception. Running orange and white and black, diluting to yellow, almost burnt in some places, bubbling – not quite a shape, not quite nothingness, but the swell of colors melt together to visualize emotions. The album title appears in a square of letters that don’t quite match up – MOD ERNG ROTE SQUE. Back in February, during the pre-order, I wishlisted this album but never listened to it, which seems to be the only way I can find anything at all in 2021.

Modern Grotesque begins with soft guitar and reverberated pads. Then, screaming – far away – for a minute and a half. While this is a very apt mood setter for the album that follows, and a track that leads seamlessly into the next, it could have easily been in the middle of the album (or at the end, for that matter).

My introduction to screamo/post-hardcore was the My Fictions / Aviator split, which Wes thought I would like. At the time, I was straddling Boston hardcore acts like Have Heart and deathcore beatdown bands like Emmure. But Aviator was different. Longtime readers/listeners will be very familiar with how we both feel about Aviator (a seemingly annual mourning ritual we both parade out for our listeners whether they like it or not!), so to say that Dreamwell accurately captures the feeling I had when I first heard Aviator is extremely high praise. It would be hard for me to describe the sense of excitement with every new track that came on as I ticked through this album.

The third track, “Sayaka,” reminded a lot of reviewers of La Dispute, but I feel that misses a far more interesting aspect of both the vocal performance and the song writing. There is a moment, at 1:38, where I am convinced Tool’s “Sober” was expertly slipped in for twenty seconds. What the fuck? I had backed the track up many times. It’s not the same. But it feels the same. It hits me so hard in the back of the head that I am back at a childhood friend’s house watching the Tool music video collection after his parents went to bed. The bass runs with the drums as the guitar pushes out ethereal single note melodies. But then the groove breaks down and the guitar melody gets faster. The vocals, too, remind me of Tool in that moment: “I need someone to believe in, because I need someone to betray.” What is amazing to me about this section of the song is that, without feeling awkward or messy or out of place, what follows both reminds me of La Dispute and AFI. For a moment, a characteristically similar Davey Havok-like, high-pitched section takes us to the edge of the breakdown, to a one-word turn. The emotionality of the vocal style is never lost as it twists and turns through the different moments in the song (or throughout the album). They become a part of the vulnerability in a way that feels natural.

The album progresses, effortlessly, like the art of the album cover. Influences spill and blend into each other, burning at the edges – creating something new. While I find the listed influences for Modern Grotesque truly fascinating (thanks to this extensive IDIOTEQ.com article, where vocalist Keziah Staska reference Daughters’ You Won’t Get What You Want as a massive influence on writing and vocal style), they can only be a vessel for what makes this album bleed emotional depth. Like so many of the bands they credit, Dreamwell isn’t here to hide deeply personal elements of their life. Sometimes it is steeped in metaphor, like in “Plague Father, Vermin Son,” when Staska sings: “This anxiety’s a black stone you vomited out when you swallowed your children. You must have engraved the worst parts of you in my bones.” But sometimes it is more direct, like in “Painting Myself A Darker Day,” in a long line of screaming comes: “I'm just nervous for the future. Exhausted by the present. Hands are shaking and always on the verge of beating myself into the ground where I can get some sleep. I'm so desperate for sleep.”
Wes and I only made it to one Aviator show before they disbanded. If shows ever return in a real way, and Dreamwell somehow makes it from Rhode Island to the West Coast, I will not be making that mistake again. Modern Grotesque, played start to finish, gets me so amped to bang my head that it's hard for me to even imagine how wild the live experience will inevitably be.

Dreamwell managed to capture everything about my favorite bands and distill it into a release that feels both nostalgic and progressive. From riff-heavy bangers like “Painting Myself A Darker Day” to the peak-Aviator meets Our Lady sad chaos of the titular track, Modern Grotesque is an album that greatly rewards multiple listens. While a lot of the core members worked on their debut album, The Distance Grows Fonder, Dreamwell has made something entirely new with their sophomore release. I would have been perfectly happy with a very competent screamo album (which I think their debut album is), but Dreamwell have shown us that there’s more to be made of the genre yet.

Modern Grotesque was independently published by Dreamwell. You can find it on Bandcamp.

Review: Oneohtrix Point Never - "Magic Oneohtrix Point Never"

Magic Oneohtrix Point Never is a study on change and seeking meaning in the unwanted. Drawing from pop, new age, and easy listening, with a thoughtful and curious experimentation, Magic… turns simple sounds into lush compositions that pull you in and carry you through an unforgettable album.

Magic... is built on a constant sensation of change and transformation. Instrumental or sample heavy interludes appear between many songs, giving a sort of tonal context to be interpreted through the following track. Some, like “Bow Ecco”, provide a raw musical framework for what will come next. Others, like the four “Cross Talk” interludes, exude a chaotic energy that is reminiscent of a Lizzie Fitch & Ryan Trecartin film.

The songs often feel like vignettes, sliding and morphing through their time. “Auto and Allo”, for example, starts with a chaotic, arhythmic scattering of chimes and vocal sampling before melting into a cascade of synths, strings, and effected singing. Similarly, “The Whether Channel” spends its first half oscillating between a soft melody built by swelling synths decorated with a rhythmless bleeping, and a buzzy, chaotic mash of saws, plucked strings, and pads. Seamlessly, it moves from these contrasting tones into a disconcerting mash of distorted vocal samples before giving way to a rap section which pulls apart at the seams, the vocals disintegrating into a bit mashed buzz.

This micro-movement approach to composition keeps the fabric of the album cohesive, even when tonal shifts between individual tracks are enormous. “No Nightmares” feels almost like it could have been pulled from a radio hit, but tonally smashes into “Cross Talk III”, a collage of disconcerting and highly processed vocal samples, which in turn leads into the chaotic introduction of “Tales from the Trash Stratum”. Despite the wildly different tones and instrumentation, these shifts feel right - they serve to underline the thesis of transformation and change that carries us through the album.

As infatuated as I am with these shifts, it’s easy for me to imagine someone unfamiliar with Oneohtrix Point Never’s work being overwhelmed - it’s certainly not a deeply accessible work. While I find myself carried by the rapid shifting not only from song to song, but even within individual tracks, I can imagine hearing the album and becoming frustrated and anxious from the lack of closure. This lack of closure, though, is integral to the themes of the album. Change is often anxiety-inducing and uncertain, and it happens faster than we can be ready for it. Magic Oneohtrix Point Never embraces the uncertainty of change, and revels in both the anxiety and beauty of it.

Magic Oneohtrix Point Never is available now from Warp Records. 

Review: Lauren Bousfield - "Palimpsest"

As 2020 comes closer to its end, I find myself returning to an album that says it was released in July, but feels solidified in my “this has been my favorite for years” list. Out from Deathbomb Arc, Palimpsest by Lauren Bousfield is perfectly attuned to how I’ve felt on most days this terrible year. A single song can swing so wildly from erratically noise-driven breaks to hard thumping, soul-driving rhythms that it lulls me into a kind of messy trance-state. 

“Adraft,” the second track, is where I recommend people start when checking out this album for the first time. The song’s moody, soft bass drives through many stages of buildup and teardown to construct a deep, foundational atmosphere that holds the rest of the album together. The voice is a rhythm element that often drives into brilliant epochs of breakbeat modular madness. But it never feels out of control or, perhaps more importantly, out of character for the album’s palette. 

The precision of Palimpsest’s tone is impressive. Even the end of “Clean Strategic Narratives. . .”, which is a slow and overdriven decline into a full wall of chaotic noise, leads to the calm and reliable bass rhythms of the next track, “Another World is Possible - Presented by US Bank”. Familiarity lulls you in and you’re bobbing your head, and the next track after that starts, which is also beautifully rhythmic and soothing in a way, and then the wheels fall off the car, and the boards break loose from the floor you’re standing on, and the windows shatter all around you – but you kinda like it. It feels comfortable. Like a blanket of saw wave chaos.

Palimpsest is an album that creates images. Cinematic and orchestral, rage and chaos. The thrashing breaks fall away, shifting almost to the back of your mind, and the violins of “Crawling Into A Fireplace Cackling” come to the front of the album, preparing you for the title-track end. For a moment you’re running through a rainy night, out of breath with freedom, and when you stop the entire world unfolds in shattering trance gates above you. Life flashes, it’s quick, and everything collapses into chaos again, but the voice is an anchor and you make it through to the next track.

The images, the cohesive (but broken) drum work, and the album’s carefully designed sound palette all come together to make this album work. In previous releases, like 2017’s Fire Songs, a similar chaos is used, also to great effect, but at the core of Palimpsest is a more considerate maximalism and expert sound design. 

Lauren Bousfield is a composer and sound designer. Palimpsest was released in 2020 on Deathbomb Arc. For more of her releases, check out her Bandcamp page.