The Republic Of Meteoric Woe
The Heat Inc. are signed to Republic Of Music, Severance's second season is spooked, and a meteor obliterates Mesopotamia...
I came to the beginning at the end but this time I did it to be absolutely certain, Dear Reader, that I wouldn’t be lying to you. I’ve kept it…more succinct for today and shan’t keep you from your très romantique endeavours overly long. I myself have a stupidly optimal Daddy/Daughter date to make and she will not be kept waiting. While I shall not expatiate here, the issue of timekeeping did come up this week and I decided to take my own sweet time to gather my thoughts on the subject before attempting to explain the importance of and nuances therein.
Time keeping is important because time is all any of us really have. One should not assume that one’s own time is more valuable than anyone else’s and while, yes, if you are “important” enough, people will wait for you, this should not be a given or taken for granted and doing so certainly does not make one a better person. It is beholden of us to respect the time of other people as we would respect their existence, as we would expect them to respect our own. That said: Everyone and I do mean everyone is five minutes late some days and everyone has had days where it is necessary to wait or work a little longer in order to make things happen for other people. Knowing this, understanding this and being understanding of other people when they and/or yourself are in this position, absolutely does aid in making you a better person and it’s within your power to choose that reality and that version of yourself on the daily…
So yeah. It finally happened. We are signed. The Heat Inc. have signed. We have signed with Republic Of Music and Album II (as it shall be known for just a little while longer yet) shall be with you…sooner than you or I might have thought. Well, I expect the singles shall at any rate. As for the wax itself…this year, he said, with some confidence. I include here, for your convenience, a little artwork in progress and please believe me when I say that I’m pushing my luck in doing so…
It’s a pretty poorly kept secret that this second record was actually recorded not that long after we released the first, ‘Asleep In The Ejector Seat’ back in (checks) the latter portion of 2023 and the master has been in the can for a good while after that now. I shall go so far as to say that we are very happy with it, enough so as to spend a good couple of years hunting for the right deal to bring it to your hands and ears. I think it deserves this much and I am incredibly grateful to my brothers Incorporated: V, Rigot, and Marco himself. Without you and your belief, your passion and dogged determination, none of this would have happened the way it is now happening and I would not have it any other way. You are all the band I needed, even if I haven’t always deserved it. I see ya.
we look forward to working with them in the extremely near future to bring you Rock ’n’ Roll as intended
That said, it takes someone special or someones special to come to the table for Rock music, the world being as it is and I would consider us blessed in this regard. Republic Of Music are a fantastic group, whose work is a credit to them and the artists/labels they have worked with and we look forward to working with them in the extremely near future to bring you Rock ’n’ Roll as intended; as the fun machine but only all the time. We can write the damn thing and record it and perform it but if it never gets a platform or a megaphone, you’d never be any the wiser and I think that would be a shame?
This, I hope and believe, is the deal that the record deserves and it is hopefully one that shall bring you so much more from both the past as well as the pertinent and ever nearly present future. As much as this was a deal for Album II, it’s also a deal to bring Album I to all of you, lifted from the sold out vinyl itself where a veritable half of that record has existed almost exclusively until now, to all ears everywhere and your platform of choice. In full. All of it and more. Soon.
If it’s at all possible, the second season of ‘Severance’ is several sideways steps more unilaterally unhinged than the first. And darker…or perhaps weirder. I’m around half way though, I think and have just hit the “And Now For Something Completely Different” episode of the season, ‘Woe’s Hollow’ and there are severe American Gothic vibes in the mode of ‘The Revenant’, Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ or even something like Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’. While it’s most likely an idiot statement to state that the middle feels very much in the middle and a good place to call the middle, that’s definitely what this is. The change of pace is a refreshing one and I’m excited to get back to the office, which is an utterance I don’t think I have ever uttered nor would contemplate IRL.
I had been enjoying this season and it had begun to feel a little like a job I did not want but felt compelled to return to
For clarification, I do not count The Studio, musical or photographic as “the office” for to do so in an at all pejorative way would be anathema. I enjoy my works plural but I would be pressed to say I had been enjoying this season and it had begun to feel a little like a job I did not want but felt compelled to return to, which I am aware is a job for many folk. It’s not that ‘Severance’ is not brilliantly written, more that I think I keep expecting it to not be as well written as it is which seems and feels both unfair and exhausting in equal measure. It’s suffocating which I could easily believe is the onus but Anna Ouyang Moench’s very special episode serves as an indelible palette cleanser and I am ready for seconds.
Stella and I shot this toward the end of last year but what with everything else, that session has been sat on my hard drive, admittedly waiting very patiently but gnawing at my cerebellum nonetheless. I love shooting for GNISSU because over the years, it’s taken on a semi-ritualistic process. There is always the same light and trusty reflector, there is always the same wall, and I always set out with the same camera and/or roll of film. There’s also one candle and you couldn’t convince me that it makes no material difference and even if you tried, I would insist until we were both blue in the face that it A. Definitely does, 2. You’re missing the point and it doesn’t matter and X. Shut up.
a solid hour swishing a black mesh dress around with wholly unrepeatable and markedly desirable results
On the other hand, Kodak Tmax (the real deal or simulated) is an integral part of the process and as core to the ethos of this project as my general preference for wardrobe sans brands or text, as well as an insistence on juxtaposed textures and high contrast lines. If I had to cop to it, I’d say that I know a shot that belongs in the collection, almost as well as I can spot one that doesn’t. The “b-sides” from a GNISSU shoot are often great fun (Freya and I once spent a solid hour swishing a black mesh dress around with wholly unrepeatable and markedly desirable results on every shot) but there is always one that’s It and It stays with you.
JD out.