(#4) The Mid-Year Bubdate
I'm still here. There will be consequences.
The year is halfway through and many things have happened! Too many things - to the point where the Text Length Police has come for me once again. If you are reading this per mail, click the blog link to read the full thing! And don’t forget to
Life
I’ve been busy as can be trying to balance the uh Everything At Once and while I am making nice progress on my now well outsized creative goals, I do not think I can show or talk about them as of now just yet - I hope the wait will be worth it for anyone involved, and I have wonderful people on my tiny little team now. We’re all very busy. In the midst of all that mess I’ve been learning a lot of things about myself, some nice, some not so nice, but I will not delve into this now - my overall conclusion here is that I’m not going anywhere. So you can count on that, at least. On the life end of things, I did stick to my promise to get some of my shit together. I’ve never been able to celebrate me or my partners birthday during my adult life until this year! Community is more important than ever to me these days and though it took some wrangling to get everyone into a room, it was worth it. I’ve also never been to a proper festival! You will read about this more extensively below.
Music
I’ve also been making somewhat of a concerted effort to not let the stereobub article die on the side of the road. Thus, I present to you: Two new stereobub pieces! One on the return of Stereolab (YEAHHH!!!) and one concerning an artist I’ve never heard of before in my life but has taken over in the span of mere moments. Jamie Paige. I was destined to be obsessed with her art, and I will go into an unhinged amount of detail as to exactly why down below. In this process, I’ve also been finally catching up with everything I wanted to hear from last year - almost through it - and will then finally hear some relevant music from this year that everyone has been talking about. I am trying to crawl out of my hole! Everyone clap. To document this, I bring you: The return of the Year List. I am not so fond of terms like “album of the year” anymore these days - why can’t I have several? - or trying to give a numerical ranking to albums I love beyond numbers, but many of my friends are still engaged in such a thing and want to hear my take, so I am trying to do it again, a little bit. For the purposes of this post, here is everything I loved since the last bubstack:
I am a bit late, but My Twee Monsters by Tracey Brakes has ruled my everything for a good while now. Not quite from this year but close enough. What was once the "Hyperpop" movement is now more of a buzzword; and out of these ashes comes Tracey Brakes. Tracey still believes. This is her debut album on which she puts together all of her favourite things about brostep and hybrid trap and other genres considered not cool anymore and MAKES them cool god damn it. The more energetic bits of this album are incredibly catchy, sound unlike anything else and are really unbelievable for a first proper album. But my favourite moments and the most resonant parts of this album to me are the slower tracks, especially in the second half, in which this album allows itself to be more vulnerable and explore some Real Ass Shit. Piecing together the lyrical themes on this record, My Twee Monsters tells a story about gender, self destruction, struggling to experience reality, and the horror of existing inside physical flesh. It’s a story I found really moving and makes me feel less alone, and something I’ve been listening to a lot while working on my own stuff. It also has an incredible community around it and the new Vylet Pony record that came out today seems greatly inspired by Ms. Brakes - cannot wait to hear what that’s like.
Bichillo by Rob Clouth: We're so back. This is easily my favourite project of his. It's like alien dance music and will fuck your shit up if you care about the genres at all - it's rare to hear a genuinely fresh take on this bass music stuff these days, and this is simultaneously a beautiful love letter to dance, but also a mesmerizing deconstruction of it that makes it all feel new, full of shifting mysteries and questions and trickery. If this is the direction of his new music, I'm so in.
The new Aminé is an incredibly comfy summer album that balances his braggadocio with his more sensitive side beautifully and often feels like crying at the club but also coming to the realization that everything will be okay. I don't know why people are saying this is his worst or fell off and I don't want to really find out. It's beautiful to me. Can’t wait to see him live again on this tour.
STEREOLAB!!!!! STEREOLAAAAAAAAAAB (full thoughts later down below. This is one of their best albums and beautifully fits into the picture painted by Sound-Dust and other post-Mary records).
You've heard of Music for 18 Musicians, now get ready for... one less than that. Music for 17 Musicians by Jameszoo with Asko|Schönberg. Also, one of them is a robot (specifically a self-governing disklavier). Did you ever want to hear a robot play the piano with mad dexterity, backed by the most beautiful orchestra, directed by a dutch madman that is mentally 5 years old? Here you go! This has nothing to do with Steve Reich at all but does feature some really gorgeous minimalism, tied into the ideas behind Jameszoos latest "studio" record Blind, one of the most unhinged and passionate records in the orbit of my music taste. This album is maddeningly beautiful, unhinged, disorienting, just one of a kind really. Listen if you wanna hear some Weird Shit that happens to be incredibly pretty.
Aes strikes again with a lyrical masterwork on which he loosely explores a theme but not really. Instead, he uses it as a launchpad to tell gripping stories revealing the magic in the mundane, weaves together some insane memorably rhymes and figures out more and more engaging ways to say the same things he has always said. It feels more like comfort food whereas ITS felt profound and complex in its best moments, but it's not anything like the cheap shit you'd find on the cover art. It actually warms your heart and soul and leaves you thinking about it weeks later. Aes is just so in love with everything around him and the creative process and if you're a rap nerd in 2025 this will be your shit.
Jamie Paige. Details below, but this is exactly what I needed to hear this year. Catchy emotional music to wring my gay ass heart out to. Perfect shower and cooking tunes as well, for the record. I believe everyone in the world should hear Constant Companions - the deluxe version - at least once.
I also really really loved the new YG song 2004 - wish I was listening when it came out because this stuff really needs to be in the rap mainstream right now. Underscores is also fully in her new era right now and making exciting things with maybe her first full heartfelt song about being in love?? I’m here for it. I’m also incredibly enamored by cute - a noise rock group from Ontario which I am aware of because I’ve been following their guitarist Ciarán Galati around on his various musical adventures. They seem to be cooking up a new record now, he says, but until then, definitely lend an ear to “she” if you want to hear mindblowing, deeply moving and expressive guitar noise. “orkids” is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard and I am chomping at the bit for more, salivating at the mouth like a feral dog, etc.
Finally, I lent an ear to Labi Siffre’s Crying Laughing Loving Lying, which is one of those albums I deeply wish I would have heard years and years ago. How did he do it…? The mans existence in itself is such a miracle to me. He’s a black polyamorous man living with his two husbands, and he was writing music about all those feelings in the early 70s - and you’re telling me I haven’t been listening to it for all of my life? So much of this album takes the world around him at the time, filtered through his lens, and finds love and adoration for it in every moment - something I imagine was not easy. And there’s songs like Cannock Chase and My Song that will connect with anyone anywhere, just deeply universal music that expresses something very simple so beautifully. This album will likely stay with me a while and I should definitely give the rest of the discography a go.
I also gave my -core picture the according update. So here is that.
Live
And so, before I get into my full-length writing on Stereolab and Jamie Paige, let me tell you about all the live acts I’ve seen - there are… a lot this time. Like a lot a lot. It was my first proper festival, after all. But before that - another, tinier festival. And more Stereolab. I saw them three times.
Les Nuits Botanique festival in Brussels, May
Still House Plants
cool show! unfortunately the vocal was buried in the mix compared to the guitar but especially the bass because i guess the festival sound engineer didnt quite know what to do with this band - unfortunate because the lead singers voice is so powerful and amazing (also she is so pretty??? sob). unfortunately this band feels like they only really got one song - extends to the recorded material too. like, i love the energy and the aesthetic but id love them to write a second song one day! maybe it needs another instrument for dynamics or a different pace or vocal idea, i dunno, but as it is they get a bit droning after half an hour as much as i respect and appreciate the show they put on
NINA
the singer from bar italia - bizzarre because the other two bar italia guys were also at this same festival (unfortunately was getting stereolab merch when they played), at a later show, without her! certainly wouldve preferred hearing em together... without the bands songwriting or sound, theres just not much going on here... she was also playing the piano for some songs which is nice but i got a bit taken out of it by just how squeaky her voice is sometimes. it was OK i suppose! did not make me very interested in her solo material. after the show, ppl around me were freaking out about how mesmerizing the performance apparently was and i do not see it. was more engaged by the lukewarm trail mix i smuggled into the festival in my cargo pants
WU LYF
stark, stark difference here between the old and the new tracks - old ones are kind of like the vampire weekend if ezra was shouting sometimes (i stole this description from merton) which basically just means kinda generic indie rock with somewhat pleasing and hooky chorus bits. there was actually quite a lot of people with wu lyf shirts and jackets and such and were really excited to hear those tracks which is cool bc i didnt know they had a strong core fanbase like that! must be exciting to see them back after so long. now the new ones though, the singer described them as "emo dad rock" which is definitely correct. these were a lot more compelling to me and felt like they were actually About something and emotionally potent! and still catchy for the record. might check out their new record, some of the new tracks were very nice live
Stereolab
THEY STILL GOT IT!!! god lets fucking go. i was quite tired by this point because it was the last show of the day for me and i already spent a while at the festival and worked earlier that day, and i was quite far back because i was getting merch - which, notably, contains silly things like a stereolab ice disk tray and biscuit cutter, a stereolab apron, a stereolab tea towel and oh of course, a stereolab colouring book including a stereolab pencil sharpener and stereolab coloured pencils! so OK but the show though. they of course played a bunch of the new record including my two favourites - immortal hands (though only as the last bit of the encore) and if you remember i forgot how to dream - which were SO AMAZING??? seeing laetitia play the trombone was hilarious and adorable bc its such a massive horn and shes just a little french lady. she was tootin away tho!! bless her. it does seem like shes still kinda learning the instrument but thats part of why i love about this band - its a real ass group of musicians playing unfiltered every time, ups and downs included, and the songs come out so beautiful every time anyways how do they do it!! insane. outside of the new stuff being the highlights of the show, there is of course a couple classics so nobody complains (flower called nowhere made my soul leave my body) and then they do the stereolab thing where they play a couple songs kinda just for themselves. id bet money that almost nobody in the audience recognized household names, or the way out. but they played the shit outta those tracks anyway!! that and peng'33, which fits so beautifully with the thematic arc of the new rcord (plus motoroller scantron right after aerial troubles which is such a beautiful parallel oh my god). i just love this band what can i say. another huge banger in the books to me - i would say this didnt have the same impact on me that their 2022 show did, mainly because they didnt play any of the noise rock bits or synth odysseys. instead it was more subtle, warm and celebratory. very comforting show and im glad i was able to see em again:-))
Stereolab, May (Cologne this time)
the next stop of the tour after brussels and i followed em along because i happen to live... reasonably close to both. few hours of travel each way but hey ill fucking do it again. was going to also follow them to berlin but didnt work out scheduling wise. oh welp. this time, i was much more awake and as close to the stage as it could get. took my partner with me + a college pal and spent the whole concert jumping around and waving my arms like an idiot because i could not contain my excitement. it was so wonderful! this is the show where my partner notified me that laetitia is holding the guitar the wrong way around and playing weird - did not realize at first to be honest but lmao. makes sense! a little story i forgot to include from last entry: some clueless festival girlie was complaining that the band isnt "playing like normal people", so laetitia went "that is right. i am not normal!" to which of course everyone clapped. laetitia responded by pointing at the audience and going "yeahhhhh thats right. FREAKS" and everyones like yeahhh woooo! that felt nice. anyways this show really continued that vibe for me - you can tell this band loves what they do so much and has such a pure, uncompromising approach to music its just incredible. bunch of weird nerds that figured out at some point there are no real rules to music, you can just sound like what you want to sound like. this limitless approach really just makes some super unique music. props to them for recapturing that energy with new people 15 years in - though the live band, as far as i can tell, is largely the same from 2022. this show has that energy of a band just playing for themselves, and anyone who happens to be into it is welcome. lucky for me!! i was so worn out afterwards lmao. also very funny crowd, lots of ppl who are now mellowed out and in their 50s ish but you could just tell they had a very rebellious youth. still rockin tho. kinda like this band i suppose. very optimistic and lovely atmosphere from this show, glad i was able to experience the setlist more properly! i think Melodie Is A Wound might be their best *live* song ever. having heard it twice now it just brings out the absolute best out of everyone and really allows the band in their current form to flourish. to me this sounded like a band in their prime! perhaps a second prime, or something. at this point, i wouldnt even be surprised if they had another album/tour in them some years in the future! for now, i am celebrating what we have and it is Wonderful
Manuela (opening for Stereolab)
neat lil performance! quite old school from what they played but lyrically intruiging and very varied. was a bit disappointed seeing them hand out a lyric card for a song that says ft. Laetitia on it, then play it at the end, but without Laetitia. like surely they couldve asked, no? in any case it was a fun time albeit nothing mindblowing, sounded very german but not in a bad way, just very recognizably so. cool vocals, amazing drummer, definitely might tune in if they cook up a new album. the new track seems more of a one off for now. i do think the lyrical meter can be awkward sometimes in a very laetitia kind of way, but where she makes that archaic structure work by leaning into it and giving it a certain melody, manuela seems more stumbley. still cool! wonder if theyll have a record on Duophonic?
Stereolab, June
final stop of this tour i saw them on and the best of the three stops on this tour ive seen, easily. the sound at dornroosje was perfect, so much so that laetitia had to remark on it and compared it to the barbican. this was also a bit further into the tour now so they were able to mix everything super well and made little fixes from the previous stops, especially with the drum machine and trombone which now come through much better. they somehow seem to have gained even more vigor too, or maybe just got bored playing the same stuff again, which means the noise jams at the end of some of the more progressive songs were especially electric - i think this performance of melodie is a wound might have been the best thing ive heard them do live, and they played refractions in the plastic pulse when i saw em in 2022! thats crazy. now since i have a special nostalgic place in my heart for that show + it was my first time seeing them and around the time i properly got into this band, that show and that specific performance are unparalleled in my mind, but given all that, this did parallel it pretty damn well. like, i just cannot believe this band is still this passionate, imaginative, and driven now. how did we deserve it? they even played one more encore song than usual with percolator, which wasnt in the setlist the first two times i saw em this tour! i love percolator! i left a very very happy bub
Astrobal (opening for Stereolab)
funny little french drummer that introduced himself as being "from france, but also from the universe" - implying, then, that there are parts of france outside of the universe. a sort of extradimensional exclave. now thats a stereolab song title if ive ever seen one. but yeah this guy was cool, very creative one-man performance where he plays a bunch of different instruments using loops, playback, multitracking and also just playing different things at once nate wood style, always with his singing and drumming being the main focus. some of the synth odyssey stuff is giving jarre while his drumming is quite eclectic and all over the place influence wise but always very intentional and almost theatric. definitely quite fun and ill make sure to check out his new record. good sense of humor, plenty cosmic vibes, loved it
Down The Rabbit Hole festival in Nijmegen, July
Amyl and the Sniffers
THESE GUYS ROCK. as expected. i unfortunately missed some of the set because getting into the actual festival was quite confusing and labyrinthian, but as soon as i made it there they kicked so much ass. though im familiar with this band ive never listened to a whole studio album of theirs which is something i definitely have to change now - though i have the feeling that this band is built to be a live act honestly. their energy and spunk for lack of a better word is off the charts and its just really pure, vibrant, catchy music that feels very vital in a year where you hear so much cynical, post-post-post-whatever, grey mass with pseudo philosophical undertones. now, i do get why such a thing is especially on the rise now, but man sometimes i just need to hear an act like this to feel like everything is worth going through. plus, the audience had tons of palestinian flags out and the camera guys were having fun creating a feedback loop by pointing the lens at the screen its sending to, which created a fun visual for amy to play and dance around with. awesome live act!!! id see em again in a heartbeat
Jameszoo
so they didnt actually plan jameszoo in for this festival but someone called emma dj got sick and they called him bc hes from not far away in 's hertogenbosch. so they gave him this insane setup in the middle of a forest - which is just part of the festival somehow - basically a tower of speakers and a booth in the middle with some stone benches on the lawn in front. jameszoo pulled up with a sampler, some kind of midi situation, a collection of beats, a turntable, and just went ham. shit was insane. the rhythms he was able to create were mesmerizing and the setup was perfect for it, i felt that shit in my bones. i was sitting on the front bench with my friend like a nerd just looking at him go the entire 2 hours bc i was transfixed. he also created some sounds to loop and those ranged from beautiful foresty synth warbles to frog and tractor noises to insane vocal chops and just so much stuff i wouldve never thought works but then does perfectly. the transitions were sometimes buttery smooth and sometimes breakneck and he had an incredible mastery of the flow of the whole thing and then eventually he went into br funk territory and played some ramon sucesso and the crowd went fuckin WILD lmao. all in all just beautiful and really rounds out my image of this guy as an artist - he can go from avant garde nu jazz and minimalist classical to this in moments and it all just works. he has this beautiful naive (positive) view of music and it really came out in this set. loved it, beautiful, special
Massive Attack
this set was genuinely horrible and made us go home after a couple of songs. no energy, no presence, entirely carried by collaborators, pseudo philosophical bullshit on stage. why even bother showing up. i understand that mezzanine is a classic for a reason - they curated a very influential Sound and Vibe and had a great ear for features. i also love their political work and though the whole Ceasefire thing last year went sour for me (they released it before a ceasefire) i still think theyre great people. i just dont think theyre great musicians
Royel Otis
nice lil set and i can definitely see them becoming mega famous in the next couple of years. they seem very aware of how to write a lil tiktok hit and are tuned in to the point where they were actually playing a viral tiktok song (my friend had to explain this to me) and EVERYONE knew it and was doing the according dance except for me. rarely have i felt more out of touch with reality on earth but i like em! neat tunes and my main wish for them is to get a second song topic - most of these songs seem to boil down to "i met a girl and shes so pretty". which is an understandable talking point but not for a whole album. ill give their studio stuff a listen though. what tells me this band is good is that all the reviews on here are like "oh they sound exactly like indie pop band x" but x is a different band every time. that is the best thing you can really wish for as far as critical reception for a new mainstream pop record
Pa Salieu
loved this dude and will check out what little studio stuff there is bc ive not heard of him before. the whole live band was locked in together and it was beautiful! this is a very cheesy thing to say but you could feel the love in the air that these guys have together. the rapper himself is just an incredible performer above everything else and had lots of fun w the crowd which is the most important part :) the african drums were sick and the dude with the trumpet and synth was on fire the entire time, i wonder how his studio stuff is and if theres an album on the horizon bc his voice is incredible and as far as i could tell some of his writing is very unique so im tapping in
Model/Actriz
so i tried getting into this band when dogsbody came out and couldnt bc it felt so monotonous and exhausting, and while the music was definitely still like that at this show, i can appreciate the frontman putting on a damn show. the flamboyancy of the whole thing kinda adds something that i didnt get from their studio recordings and put some much needed sass into the equation. ill give their new album a go but im not sure that i vibe with the rigidity and "industrial"-ness of it. i love industrial music but not when its used as an excuse to be gray and cold (i know thats kinda the point but i get distracted and disaffected when that happens)
Wet Leg
at worst this band seems to be pleasant pitchfork-core crowd pleasing indie slop, and at best more like punky pop that is just a bit too relaxing to carry the energy it needs. i dont entirely buy their thing at the moment but i also dont mind it, i just feel like this band sounds indecisive right now. like which one is it? id like to see them actually commit to a sound and carve out something in it - right now this is a little of everything and not much of anything. was nice to chill on the lawn to but im not very enthusiastic about it either
Joey Valence & Brae
this is the best rap show ive ever seen. not because they are very good at rapping or because it felt personal or artistically meaningful in a direct sense, but because these guys know how to work a crowd. like holy shit. these two rolled up to a festival where almost nobody knew who they were and tore that shit DOWN. im convinced at this point that their music is really built for live shows first which changes my whole perspective on these guys because god damn they know how to party. like the energy in the building was so crazy that at some point people were circle moshing when there wasnt even a song playing. just inbetween moments cus everyone was too hyped to sit still. it was actually feral. these two can channel the energy of a rabid dog on the mic and still be on point. its crazy. theyre like their own hypemen, which sounds silly at first but gains some kind of profundity when you realize thats because these guys are best friends just overflowing with passion for their art. they were also really good about directing the mosh pits and making sure everyones good, one time stopping a song to make sure everyone is good and the person that fell down is ready to go again. and as if thats not enough their dj was a fucking machine and threw in a bunch of classic 2010s brostep to give the boys a break which is really the secret key to my heart. i finally got to lose my shit to scary monsters and nice sprites in a crowd of people and my heart is healed. it just makes me feel warm inside to know that the cringy shit i was into as a kid is appreciated and loved now by a new generation of artists and theres still people making it just for the fun of it. i actually feel better about life now that ive been to this show
Iggy Pop
i appreciate that this guy is still alive and rockin out. shoutout punk music. to be 78 and still this locked in is just a beautiful thing. i appreciate that. since im not very familiar with the original songs this wasnt the best introduction to them and a lot of it felt a little flat and old to me, which could be in part because thats just how it aged, but also probably because hes not exactly in this prime. what surprised me is that dutch people fucking love this guy because of the lalala singalong bits. mfers were sitting there with a beer staring at iggy pop waiting for the lalala and then going ape mode when it hits. nice show and legendary guy but im lacking some context here and i might have to tap into proto punk and the stooges a bit more to really get it
Fat Dog
this show was absolutely feral. i know that this band has a reputation for their chaotic live energy but i wasnt quite prepared i think. by the end when they played Running there wasnt exactly a mosh pit and more of a mosh everything. like nobody was safe. there was one girl with clown makeup who knew all the words, and 90% of the rest was just dutch festival goers looking for a reason to go ape shit. and that they got. i think the sound guy was slightly drunk because the bass eclipsed everything and the poor saxophonist was barely there for most songs except king of the slugs (holy shit that one was beautiful though) but honestly it kinda worked in the bands favor because their songs are kinda built to be played by a sound system that shatters the earth and makes you feel that shit in your bones. i had a wonderful lovely time and all the new songs from lp2 were incredible as far as i could tell. joe was just kinda waddling around downing beers and doing his football chant thing and it kicked ass. these guys are fuckin weird and infectious and im very happy that they exist. also their bassist is so hot its not even fair
Underworld
only caught some of this set because it was very crowded and late but it was quite unexpected for me after only having heard dubnobassetc. like they seemed... enthusiastic for lack of a better word and it felt like a really solid 00s techno set by some real veterans of the game, which is always much appreciated. the album i heard was very cold and wet and this live set wasn't like that at all. i definitely gotta give one of their later albums a go some time
Ichiko Aoba
im not an aoba head yet but maybe i should be because god damnnnnn. like actually wow. im not sure how much there is to say that hasnt been said better by people that are more into her work but dude. her voice is out of this world. i just wish i understood japanese so i could really follow better but even as is this felt quite magical to me. this was a quite early morning show with rainclouds brewing outside the tent and we had this little inbetween space where you could just dream a bit and it was so nice. im also very happy she told her lil stories in english to give at least some context
Hang Youth
these guys fuckin rock and i was not ready to see how much dutch people love their hardcore punk. like at one point the frontman just had to say One word and then the crowd would just do the song. crazy shit. now its true that i dont speak the language yet but this band is VERY easy to understand, and then if you dont quite get it yet - and sometimes i dont because live spoken dutch can be a challenge for me - they usually just put the message of the song on screen in comic sans. this bands politics are very big and obvious and i think this kinda alternative ish queer ish leftist ish festival was the perfect place for em. maybe if i was really into nederlands politics and was fluent in it id have my hangups or demand subtlety or find out that to my shock and horror this is just dutch Idles, but because none of that happened, i fucked with their set. also, they ended the show by crowdsurfing the singer across the whole tent and outside. how badass is that
Geordie Greep
at this point in the day i was entirely soaked in rain and escaped into the tent where this guy was about to play an hour early, and turns out, the whole band was just already there tuning stuff and twiddling around. there is a lot to get right after all with how chaotic this band can get when they really get into a jam. and then, to my surprise, the actual show started and while its clearly not a sound check anymore its also not a world of difference? the first track was bongo season and took up like a fourth of the entire thing, and generally the way this show worked was they play some familiar fragment from the new sound and then lock into some extended groove and riff and jam until greep says stop. since they only had an hour i heard maybe 5 songs in total. also they played this insane mutant version of holy holy thats not quite like anything ive seen live before. probably my least fav of the 3 times ive seen greep now but certainly intriguing! i have to wonder whats next for him and if this absurd jamminess is just where hes going with his music now or if theres somethin going on i dont see. in any case very fun and unique and unpredictable as usual tbe
Viagra Boys
they're OK. i like that there was a guy with a flute in what seems to be mainly a punk band. i think i dont get their sense of humor and the songs seem too basic but what do i know, the crowd loved it
belmont girl
timid little ambient set in the forest, there was not too much going on that i could really identify or be grabbed by outside of when it seems like some free trial ran out at the end of the set and she had to restart for the final song, which was an ambient vocal cover of losing my religion. very interesting choice! i feel like she was just playing straight from soundcloud though which uh. sure. but then it turns out that she has a song with skrillex? howd that happen?? i would never have guessed from this set. what a curious thing to experience
Alex Kassian
this guy was playing a tribute to e2 e4 by manyel göttsching, probably using this release E2-E4 to build a dj set around, but besides being a nice gesture and a generally good vibe and idea i dont think it does anything significant with the source material. the best parts just sound like e2 e4, which is admittedly a classic for good reason, and the worst parts are like if you took the hypnotic repetitive minimalism out of e2 e4 and replaced it with... just some kinda generic tropical thump kick stuff. i dont think this improves upon the record or highlights its strength or does anything fun and alternative with it - its just there. but sometimes thats enough for an ambient set and this was certainly a nice backdrop for looking at some birds in the trees and eating mediocre vegan egg salad on a wet belgian bread
Beth Gibbons
at this point in the festival my attention span began to waver a bit, but i loved this set. her voice is so ethereal and the band for this new record is just perfect for it, every little thing is put together with so much passion for detail and its just. mmmm. someone cared. she actually played a lil bit of portishead at the end but i thought her own songs were even better - especially the last one she did which was seemingly new. it just suits her a lot more, especially with this band. it takes a lot of restraint to create an atmosphere like this and the tension is awesome. i do think the lyrics arent always exactly my speed but i can appreciate the simplicity sometimes too. definitely need to check out the album yesterday
Nothing But Thieves
the singers voice is insane but why are all the songs so samey :[ he deserves better songs imo. i do think that this is far more passionate and likeable than most rock radio core that ive heard, and a lot more danceable too which is an important thing for me. but i usually feel like i know exactly how a nothing but thieves song goes once ive heard 10 seconds which makes it hard for me to like pay attention and get into it. certainly not my favourite british falsetto boy. but i do think that for being tasked to replace a headliner last minute, they were great and fit the bill as a crowd pleaser type act with a lot of character. i feel like im not very excited to hear new music from them though given that i can just auto generate it in my mind instead
Floating Points
this set had nothing to do with his usual music at all, which i welcome because i do not like crush and elaenia. for someone who liked promises and went in, this mustve been a rude awakening because he basically played a techno set on his mod synth and threw in some lil sample bits here and there and just fucked around with the bass for an hour. it was very dynamic and fun but what really sold this performance for me is the visual bit, where he had two visual artists on stage with two cameras pointed at their work, plus some effects tied to his synth setup that produced some truly wacko mode imagery to go with the set. eventually, they also started pointing the camera at the setup and the crowd and start stacking stuff and generally going meta and unhinged with it, which was really fun to watch even if the strobe lights were too much for me and i was very tired by then. as simple as this set was in comparison to his studio work, i think this is a genius way to play to a crowd who broadly has no clue who you are and it was a fun last set for me n my buddy
And there ya have it, folks! Lots of shows I’m looking forward to, so next entry shall cover those for u :-)
Full texts
Without further ado, here ya go. Your two new stereobub pieces. I hope I am moved to write more until next entry.
Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
There is life before and after Stereolab. For me, at least. This account is literally called stereobub; I named myself that after listening to Sound-Dust for the first time, my now favourite album ever created. So if you want to hear some kind of unbiased critical take on this new Stereolab record from rym.com/stereobub - go away. In fact, I have not written a RYM review for ages because I just don’t exactly have the time anymore, but more crucially, I rarely feel like I got something to say about new music - and when I do, it is no longer new. But this Stereolab comeback…? Guys. I’ll be honest with you here. I was expecting to be given sloppy comfort food on this one, like visiting your grandma for the first time in a few years and being served a meal that reminds of that thing you used to love, though it feels kind of reheated and stale. I have grown to accept this fate with most bands, and in fact, that is one of the better fates you can hope for as an aging group of musicians. Let’s face it: This band has been going for well over 30 years. Now is not the time for their best work. And so, I was expecting Groop Gloop. That is what I’ve been calling their two most recent records, Chemical Chords and Not Music, in my head whenever I have to think about them. Groop Gloop carries the essence of Groop without any of the excitement or novelty, making up for the somewhat cardboard-y taste with a hefty dose of nostalgia. And could you blame me for such a thought? You and I, we’re both alive in the age of slopification. All good ideas must eventually become gray screentime goop. Media feeds, streaming algorithms, AI-generated content and bots - all of the popular mechanisms that we use to engage with art promote this ideal as a result of the values our society is built on at the moment. I’m not going to rant about capitalism in this paragraph, if you’ve heard Laetitia Sadier sing before you’ve probably had enough of that. Especially this album. And to be clear, I am not even really that opposed to dopamine via slop circus. If you’re not gonna build a society where good food and healthy living situations are affordable and trying to have time for good habits and exercise is laughably futile, at least give us the dopamine button on the phone. I may not like it, but I understand its necessity. Stereolab is not playing that game on this album, though. It was I who got too comfortable. These guys are fucking BACK. So back. Somehow, they managed to make something deeply moving again - something that actively yanked me out of the autopilot schedule of my daily life and made me consider a new, brighter future. That’s something they’ve only previously achieved with Sound-Dust one single time - now my favourite album ever made. So you’d imagine I have a few things to say about it.
Before I can do that, I would like to quickly address something. Now, some of you little rascals will be quick to bring up the fact that the promotional video for the big first single has in fact been made using AI, and so doesn’t that play into the whole circus described above? I was also admittedly quite miffed upon seeing that, but a couple of things to remember here: That video is the work of one Laurent Askienazy who has been a photographer for over twenty years and who recently began playing with AI in a “dialogue” (just means you iterate between human and AI input) to manipulate some images. So this isn’t some kind of Instagram hack who has learned “the art of prompt engineering” - more just some old guy with questionable artistic choices, using ethically questionable technology like it’s a toy. Tim Gane has been aware of this man since his early days as a photographer 20 years ago and has now gone to contact him for this horrifying moving picture kind of situation (I hate it too, don’t worry), which was probably the band’s alternative to having no music video at all for their big comeback single after 15 years of no new original tracks. I don’t imagine this actually reflects or has anything to do with the band’s artistic ambitions for this record - especially because none of the actual music or cover art has been touched by AI bullshit. We got 100% pure undiluted Lab here. They just hired a weird guy one time for a promo video and will probably not do so again.
Anyway, back to the topic. The main theme of Stereolab has always been defiance. From the start, Stereolab has defied belonging to any specific time or place, always making their own, always revolting against categorization and stepping out of any music box journalists would conjure up. They’ve always defied the music industry, retaining full artistic control over every part of the process throughout the decades. Later on, they’ve also started to defy the falling apart and death of the band itself - old synths falling apart, losing Mary Hansen, reaching the logical end of their original ideas and powering through to a new, brighter moment. This album is, in my mind, the most explicitly defiant the band has ever been. Maybe they haven’t changed much in spirit, sure, but that spirit has never been more urgent than it is now in the context of the contemporary music industry and political climate, and coming back after 15 years to double down on what I think are the most powerful elements of their sound and lyricism is just a power move. Now Ms. Sadier has never been one to mince words but she goes IN on this record. While a lot of even my all time favourite beloved Sound-Dust gets lost in dusty philosophical alleys and astral excursions, Instant Holograms could not be more in your face in terms of its messaging and feels like this is the record this band had to make right now - it actually manages to recapture the timeless urgency of their best 90s music, only now they find themselves in a new world that has to hear this even more than back in this bands “golden days” (whatever you define those to be).
Stereolab defies artistic stagnation on this record and comes forth with something genuinely invigorating once again in a way they haven’t for 20 years. In terms of pure sound, this sits somewhere between the neon chaos songwriting of Margerine Eclipse and the cloudy melancholia of Sound-Dust, which is either great news or “ugh not again” depending on who you are. I am someone who happens to believe that those two records reframe the Lab sound in an especially emotionally potent way and so could not be happier to see them bring out some new facets of that sound because, as it turns out, there was much left to explore! That saxophone dance freakout and subsequent synth odyssey on Melodie Is A Wound brings a certain frenzied noise back to their newer work that went somewhat missing since Cobra and Phases, and the melancholic journey through psychedelia on Immortal Hands is not quite comparable to anything this band has ever made before!! There’s touches of old funk and soul all over this record in its flute and organ lines in a way the band has never been quite able to conjure up, and some of the ambient post-rocky moments like Flashes From Everywhere are also not something I ever truly expected to hear from these guys. Electric Teenybop is a funky fizzy Nu-Lab callback to their motorik days and might as well go on for 10 minutes - in fact, a lot of these songs sound like they should be transitioning into a whole extended live jam, which I imagine is what they do on stage these days. This whole album is just full of new little wrinkles and alleyways this band has had yet to fully indulge in. I’m going to say right now that this easily has some of my favourite Stereolab songs on it - I’d specifically pick out Immortal Hands and If You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Pt.1. In short - we are so back. I am still processing the magnitude of how back we are, but if this is not defiance against stagnation, I don’t know what is. I sort of knew they could do it after seeing them live in 2022, but I could not have expected a record like this in the year of our lord.
And it’s more than just about artistic defiance too - like Stereolab always has, this album strikes right through to the heart of political and philosophical issues that should have been alarming in the 90s, but are inescapable now. They go back to a question posed on Emperor Tomato Ketchup: “What’s society built on?”, answered on that record by “It’s built on words, built on work”, “built on bluff, built on trust” and other contradictory human concepts. It’s become maddeningly clear that, whatever it is built on, it is rotten. On the opening track, Laetitia announces: “We can’t eat our way out of it / We can’t drink our way out of it no more / The juncture invites us to provide care / Dying modernity”. It is no accident that this is the lead single, as this is the exact thing the band has been banging on about for years and years and years now, pointing at the absurdity and open wounds of a society that have only become more obvious and unavoidable in the decade plus since their last record. Sound-Dust came out in the wake of 9/11 and was able to draw from that context of unprecedented political times - and by this point in time, I think anyone reading this must be tired of hearing the words “unprecedented political times” over and over again. Like, how many once-in-a-lifetime recessions have you lived through? How many do you have to live through before everything goes “Kabang”?. On my beloved Sound-Dust, Laetitia prophecises “Then life will become / So intolerable that perhaps / Our senses will wake up / WOOAY!”, pointing at a time not so far away back when that record came out - we appear to be living in that time now. This is where Stereolab strikes. And it is where we need to know what to do with the ash and rubble once we are surrounded by it - where we relearn how to dream. The band is not subtle about this - “If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream” is one of those rare moments where time the band has had a two-parter on a record (the only other one is Kyberneticka Babicka).
I know I keep tying this back into Sound-Dust, but it is unavoidable to notice that the themes of Duality and Change from that record - read my text on it to know exactly what I mean - come to fruition here and get developed further in a new political and social context: “Eternally entwined, mirage of separateness / Meeting with a stranger, a lost part of myself / It's because I am you, it's because you are me / Two halves of one / Union, compound”. And if you know me you know I have a lot of earnest thoughts about the interpenetration of souls and empathy (expanded upon in my async text) - here reinvisioned as a political tool. Where Duality in Sound-Dust was a more abstract concept, here it is specifically about the division and radicalisation of your neighbours, and where Change was mainly about personal and spiritual change, here it is political change as in a re-start of modern society. It’s not like this is something nobody has ever said before - I just believe that, on this record, in Laetitia’s words, set to these wonderfully bittersweet and hopeful tunes, it is one of the most warm, compelling and human ways I have ever heard it said. Where Sound-Dust merely tries to find comfort in an uncaring world and gets lost in the tides, Instant Holograms on Metal Film actively defies the disunification of everything around us and imagines a world built on different values. And that is actually my favourite part of the record. Everything comes together here. This is Stereolab’s proposal for our way out - because they firmly believe that there is a way out. These are songs of pure hope; Realistic about the absurdity of our current climate, but not yet consumed by grief for humanity. They managed to bring back the overt philosophical themes from my favourite album ever made, turn them into something much more current and biting, yet at the same time more hopeful and headed into a more human, more alive future - how could I not be deeply moved by this? The immediate effect that this album had on me was to get up, trust in myself, and continue working on my novel. And as long as I got art like this to inspire me I am glad to be a part of this whole society thing. And that doesn’t happen very often, so thank you Stereolab! Very cool. Laetitia’s most important words on this album might just be these from Vermona F Transistor: “I'm the creator of this rеality”.
Jamie Paige - Constant Companions (Deluxe)
Hello. My name is stereobub, and I am here to tell you why Kasane Teto is transgender. Nothing new in itself - her official lore gender has always been “Chimera”, randomly selected from a 2chan thread and meaning a mythical being made of many parts, intentionally leaving the rest up to fan interpretation. And that they did: Always using she/her and nothing else. A tale as old as time. So transgender woman it is. Though I have seen some other pronouns and even some xenogender persons waddling around online using terms like Tetogender and Chimeragender, these seem more like a niche curious fascination when contrasted with the widespread interpretation that Kasane Teto is a trans woman. Now this raises some questions - mainly, how does this concept even apply to a vocal synth, and why??
This question is on my mind because I’ve recently become incredibly obsessed with Birdbrain, a song for the deluxe edition of this Jamie Paige record that also features Machine Love, both songs exploring and celebrating Kasane Teto as a character in a grander story about identity and acceptance. Devouring the rest of the album in an instant like a rabid animal in the days since, I have gathered Some Thoughts on it all, presented to you here in as organized a manner as I can manage while there are 500 copies of Teto singing out of tune in my mind. So let’s just pretend that this is a review for the album. We good? Alright. Now let’s talk about some themes.
Constant Companions centers on a key phrase coupled with a leitmotif: "Baby, do you know what you wanna hear?", its melody sung by many vocal synth characters and also played by Jamie and her companions on various instruments. The fact that there are so many interpretations of this phrase is built into the sentence itself: What do you wanna hear, as in, what do you wanna interpret into these songs? It’s a good question to ask because writers like me try to pretend like we don’t ask it. You can use the words and lingual aesthetics of rationality all you want - any interpretation such as the one you are reading now is always an expression of desire. Much of the time when interpreting the words and art of others, we start with a feeling and try to validate it via some logical construction superimposed on top of it in order to hide the true form of the article. Like, actually, do you know what you want to hear? I know what I want to hear. I probably know what you want to hear - or at least, I know what the main character of Constant Companions wants to hear. It’s “I love you”. Every time a robotic voice on this record sings that melody, it is deeply longing to hear back that answer. And tragically, that never seems to happen on the actual album. Liaison kind of gets there, but really the 11 tracks on the record (in its original form) are a masterclass in capital Y Yearning. But it’s not just any kind of Yearning - so let’s get specific (spoilers: it’s gay).
As I mentioned previously, I will be mainly focusing on Teto’s songs on the album, but there are also other vocal synths featured - prominently Anri and Gumi - each carrying their own symbolism which I’m not going to explore too much to keep this post somewhat focused. The album also features Jamie’s own voice, right from the introductory track Dyad, a story of two parts, a duet love ballad between Jamie and Anri. In it, Jamie positions herself as one half of a whole - the dyad - and evokes both a romantic longing but also a creative one, embodied by a robotic voice that can stand in for a person, but also something deeper and more abstract than that. The concept is nothing new: Remember Sad Machine by Porter Robinson? I do. I heard him play it live two times this year and it made me cry like a child. In fact, I believe that Constant Companions asks a daring question: What if Porter Robinson was a lovesick lesbian? That should give you an OK idea on what this album is like and if you would rock with it. It also raises a question: If Anri is meant to stand in for some vital part of the artistic process - the spark, as one may call it - how exactly are you supposed to ever hear “I love you” back? What on earth does it mean to be loved back by your art? I am reminded of Musician by Porter Robinson here which goes to some length to investigate this feeling, but it seems markedly different here. It also doesn’t quite explain why there is robots everywhere. So let’s get into that. To discuss this, I would like to be a little careful with the term used here. Vocaloid is a brand name and a specific software for vocal synth but there's a variety of them out there - meaning that not everything that sounds and looks like a Hatsune Miku type situation is indeed a Vocaloid. Still, for the purposes of this review and because readers are familiar with the term (and another thing that will become hilariously important later), I will just call them Vocaloids here.
While Vocaloid music contains many silly memey ravey songs about nothing in particular, it is also very often about self-awareness and about robots making note of their own technical form, singing their little songs about it, exploring their identity and their relationship to the world. Recent examples of this are videos like Mesmerizer and Anonymous M, which I will not go into too much here to not sidetrack myself into an entire second essay. But they do serve to highlight how, in the Vocaloid folklore, the Vocaloids have access to the outside world and internet, can read and think and perceive, and feel and know themselves. This sets them apart from just a tool and has always been part of both the content of the songs and the discussion around them. It is often faced as a tragedy or struggle, with the robotic singers viewing their purpose and construction as a limitation to overcome. Just by itself, this already opens the way for freaks like me to read entirely too much into these funny little pop songs: As a transgender person, I am DEEPLY aware of my earthly form and already spend so many of my days taking it apart. Tinkering with it physically, pondering it philosophically, imagining a future. In that sense it should be no wonder that transgender people are often so obsessed with Vocaloids, or why it intuitively makes sense that there is a transgender Vocaloid. But wait: There’s more. This album takes that theme and runs with it, delivering what I think is the most deeply impactful, fascinating, fully fleshed out exploration of this aspect of Vocaloids that I’ve heard.
I will focus on the plight of Teto, because that’s what the album does (and also because writing about the other characters would send me into writing a second essay). She is, after all, the main character (she is on more than half of the songs on the original album, and 4 of the 6 deluxe edition tracks, also the only voice on the three biggest viral hits of the record). There is one big obvious Teto moment on the album: Machine Love. Much has been said about it already, including on this page, but let me summarize by giving some background on Teto herself. Teto was invented as an April Fools joke to troll people: Something that looks and sounds a bit like Miku, but was secretly randomly shuffled together on the 2chan imageboard with “hilarious” traits like her age being 31 and her gender being Chimera. But of course since then, especially because of those traits, the very people inventing her as a joke loved her a little too much and made her an actual voice bank in the UTAU software, which was used to make little bangers like Fukkireta that you’ve heard online - though the popular version is a human cover of it, but more on that in a bit. In the 15 years since, she has become something far too real to ignore. In 2023, she got “solidified” with an outfit change and an introduction to SynthV, something considered a far more established and professional vocal synth software and also what is being used to make her sing on (most of) this album. So of course given this backstory, people have created lore about her wanting to become a “real Vocaloid”, sing on stage with Miku, and be seen as an equal, not a joke. This feeling of wanting to be seen as an equal, not a joke, is deeply familiar to you if you are a transgender woman, and so it should be no surprise that Teto is in fact actually a transgender woman - beyond the stupid, possibly transphobic 2chan joke in her original lore. The whole thing reeks of gender. And so of course eventually a transfem musician got deeply obsessed with Teto Kasane and made this song about it. Machine Loves celebrates Teto’s story and gives her everything she has been Yearning for her entire life: Performing at a concert, falling in love, and becoming not just a “real Vocaloid”, but also a real person… right? That’s the big celebration here, no? This would be exactly in parallel to transitioning and experiencing gender euphoria, feeling “real”. But it does raise some lingering questions, at least for me.
Question number one: Isn’t Vocaloid just a brand name? How did it become this significant? Since Vocaloid is just a technical category, Teto has never been and still is not a “real Vocaloid” at all - she used to be an UTAUloid and is now a part of SynthV. But still, there is something about her Yearning to be a properly brand-recognized Vocaloid that seems to resonate with fans of her so much. And that is because “being a Vocaloid” has far transcended its technical meaning in the way that people use it - it has become more of a cultural, social category. This is also the difference between sex and gender. And I’m not exaggerating when I say people talk about Teto’s recognition as a Vocaloid in the exact same way that people talk about transgender women. Like, one time I put on a video about Teto’s history and the guy straight up said “come on, she looks like one, she sounds like one, and she is as dumb as one”. Does that ring a bell to you? This is how people perceive passing transgender women, though it is often not said out loud. I'd like to highlight the last bit of that statement - she's as dumb as one. Let's put a pin in that for now, shall we. So following this allegory, Teto’s journey isn’t really inherently about running on a specific kind of software, but rather to be able to express herself freely and connect with an audience and be widely recognized for who she is. Something that she’s able to do on Machine Love. Miku, in this case, being the archetype of a “real woman”. But that brings me to my second question.
Question number two: Has Teto not always been real? Following the transgender allegory present in Machine Love, it seems unreasonably mean to suggest that Teto has only become real in 2023 with her outfit change and new software. People have always loved her, she has always expressed herself through song and had iconic dances, what makes her more of a real Vocaloid now than she was in her UTAU days? And indeed, Machine Love recognizes that and uses her old UTAU voicebank for the bridge, which to my mind sends a clear message: Yes, Teto has always been real. Giving the UTAU voicebank this time to shine in the spotlight and humanizing it in a sense is of far more importance than just a cute little bridge would make you think - especially because Teto’s arguably catchiest most viral hit, the Fukkireta video, has found fame in a human vocal cover version in an unwitting expression of “you’re not real enough yet, this is ugly, let me fix it”. Machine Love revolts against that idea. In the allegory, you are a real woman from the moment you’ve grasped and expressed your Yearning and started acting on it - not from the moment that society turns its tides on you. Because that might never happen to the degree that you wish.
This is how Machine Love ties into the album, by the way. Constant Companions is a record about Yearning and Machine Love centers on the ultimate, essential Yearning, the Yearning to end all Yearning: The Yearning to be real. The desire to feel real love, not just for the world and for others around you, but also for the most elusive object of affection of all: Yourself. As a queer and especially as a transgender person, that is the central desire governing almost everything I do, and the main character of Constant Companions expresses it more deeply and beautifully than I’ve really ever heard or seen in a piece of art. It also comes back to a question I asked about Dyad: What does it mean to be loved back by your art? Tracks like Machine Love and the resulting analysis and feedback have the answer. Once you express yourself truly and honestly in a song, a story, a painting, once you bear your heart and freeze it in time, it may tell you something about yourself that you haven't quite been able to put your finger on yet. This is what I believe Jamie is trying to do here - I don’t usually try to truly figure out the intent of an artist but come on. I know it too well myself. I’d even say that I am real life transgender as a direct result of my art loving me back: My whole journey towards figuring out my current nonsense started with writing a long cyclical poem in 8 parts, where after part 4 the protagonist figures out a certain truth about herself, one that I in turn had to realize about myself. This is as close as you can get to a two-way relationship with something more abstract than a person, and Constant Companions is a deeply moving attempt at entering such a relationship - though I can only speculate on if it worked or not.
But as effective as Machine Love is, somehow the main song my friend circle has been talking about regarding this release is this other track called Birdbrain, which is on the deluxe edition. This song exists in a reality where we already know Teto is trans - she even yells OH NO MY PENIS in the song - and explores some of the consequences. And this is also where I need to start talking about the deluxe version of the record because I believe that is where we really get the full picture of the album - intended or not.
The deluxe does three important things, on top of bringing back and reinterpreting some of the themes and sounds of the original tracklist in an absurdly catchy way.
1) Include Cloudfall in track 10, a pop epic that was meant to be on the original and serves as so so many things: An expression and realization of Jamie’s longing for the artistic spark going back to Dyad, a reiteration and conclusion of the themes of so many preceding songs, a perfect missing moment in the emotional arc and story of the record, a bringing together of all of the vocal synths characters and leitmotifs so far, and, most importantly, a declaration that the answer to all the struggle these characters are facing is to keep living, giving yourself another chance. It’s Jamie’s Russian Roulette, basically: “Don’t kill yourself, you idiot”. I think Cadmium Colours tried to express this towards the end, but it was not quite this effective and well placed, especially because there are several more songs inbetween the two to really make the payoff make sense within the record. I think this makes the album much thematically stronger, more hopeful, and slots in perfectly sound wise too.
2) End on Dance Delightful, which also introduces something really, really important, maybe most important of all: Requited love. There is actually a resolution to the longing of the first 11 tracks on Dance Delightful, on which Teto and Adachi Rei, another UTAUloid, fall in love and make out: “I dance delightful, it feels so right / To be moving freely with gay abandon / Inefficient and free from time / I'm a convoluted amalgamate / I dance delightful the whole damn night”. Note that in contrast to the OG Constant Companions, there is no “I want to dance”, “I long to dance”, “I Yearn to dance” - no, I am dancing NOW. I am gay RIGHT NOW. There is no longer this barrier where you need to feel complete before you can do something - just do it now and embrace the chaos and imperfection and violence. I think this is what the album really needed thematically. Hardest shit I’ve ever heard.
3) Birdbrain. Let’s talk about it.
Birdbrain is, on the surface of it, a very silly song. Teto does a little dance and hops around and compares herself to a stupid little bird. So I’ve asked around and gotten some responses as to why people relate to it. I got back some good ones:
A) “The fact that its a song about having no idea what you're doing / And the i don't know how to stop and delusion etc”
B) “Oh boy, there's a lot. But mostly [...] the wish to be a creature and in a very genuine way admiring it. The other is more about the pain and the negative thoughts she experiences”
C) “A desire of turning away from the sources of frustration being intelligent has been giving me / Like, the expectations of my intelligence / Those led to a lot of anxiety and anxiety to a state of being constantly blocked / I like to see that anxiety feeling as a magpie or a chicken that constantly pecks at my head / I need to calm down a creature that can't reason [...] Me getting scared because I think everyone is gonna hate me for ???: I suppose I'll have to eat less because I literally can't eat right now”
D) “i realised i relate to it a lot actually, i think it's the idea of feeling inadequate (especially w struggling to express yourself) but still reaching out for connection ("can you take a look and say you like what i've got inside") that resonates with me”
E) “it does strike me sideways a little how the lyrics go back and forth between conversational language and cedric bixler zavala speak [...] maybe it makes me tilt my head sideways inquisitively”
So, let’s try to get at the bigger picture of what my friends have said. The first thing that you pick up on is that Teto is in a state of panicked anxiety, unable to sit still, constantly fucking up song queues and literally not knowing when to stop - she even misses the end of the song and keeps going. I’ve never heard a Vocaloid yell or belt or curse with such conviction before and nothing has even really happened. She’s just scared about… existing. As someone with a debilitating anxiety disorder, I get it. But where does that come from and what does Teto do about it? The source of her anxiety seems deeply tied to the whole Tetogender business discussed above: Longing for true expression, for a cherishing other whether that be another person, yourself, or the creative process. But there’s more. Specifically, why does Teto call herself stupid while simultaneously saying Aesop Rock esque shit like “apathetic aching argonaut”? At this point, remember I told you to put a pin into the guy saying “she’s as dumb as one” in trying to validate Teto as a real Vocaloid? Well, unpin it. Let’s talk about that. No really, let’s talk about it. Why do we play dumb to receive validation when there is so much intelligence clearly hidden inside waiting to burst out? In fact, why do we find comfort in pretending to be stupid? This is what Birdbrain is truly about to my mind and I have some answers that tie back into the rest of Constant Companions.
1) Women - especially in academia, but that’s just what I know - often pretend to be ditzy and silly because they don’t want to be harassed. Remember that in the year of our lord 2025, people still pull off the whole “did your husband write that for you?” shtick. I’ve been told that this is better in something like linguistics and what I’m seeing is more of a STEM problem, but regardless, it is there. Playing stupid is an easy way to fit into a feminine stereotype and if you’re transgender, it is a card you can play to appear more like a “real woman” in the eyes of old cis men. So if Teto’s quest on this record is to become real, also from specifically a transfeminine perspective, this is one terrible way of going along that quest. One that I find myself trapped in, intentional or not, too many times. In my field I do see a great increase in women at conferences and talks and on important papers, but this is a movement that might only really show its effects in decades. Until then, some of us feel made to play stupid.
2) Heard of puppy girls recently? That was a thing back when I was still on social media, and I’m told now it’s all about bunny girls. Point being, therians - persons identifying as a non-human creature, previously sometimes noted as otherkin - turn on animal mode and reduce themselves to silly noises and rolling around as a way to escape the pressure of their professional and sometimes personal life. I know this because I do it. I come home from my PhD research and bark at my partner. And Teto, in this song, appears to be explicitly an avian therian: “I wish that I could c-c-c-c-c-c-c-caw-” is a funny flip on I Wish That I Could Fall from the original album, but also expresses a genuine wish to be a creature. There’s no joke here. The whole album has what I would professionally describe as a she/it vibe, but outside of the cover art depicting a feline, Birdbrain is the first explicit reference to therianism and goes to some length to explain why Teto is pretending to be stupid: Escapism and dissociation via making animal noises and identifying as an actual bird.
3) Autistic people mask using very simple and neutral expressions of joy to intentionally hide away all the obsessive crazy stuff that goes on in their head all the time to appear more human. Look at the “tbh” autism creature. Look at that face. What goes on in there? Constant Companions talks about executive dysfunction (notably on I Wish That I Could Fall), struggles to understand the world and yourself, and so on, all neurodivergent concepts in the sense of your brain having a fundamentally nonstandard way to perceive the world. And especially pluralism - there are several songs about pluralism on this record! “Constant Companions” can be read as being Jamie’s alters! This is a form of neurodivergence. I have it. My names change all the time - at the moment, I’ve collected Sonja, Lucia, Hunter and Featherweight, but the voices that make up my actions shift with time and having a friendly conversation between them is key to making myself work. If you really listen closely to the record, it’s everywhere. Teto, in this song, appears to have all sorts of neurodivergent nonsense in her mind, so much that it spills out unwillingly, and needs to dumb herself down to present more “normal” in a societal context.
In this sense, Birdbrain is almost more significant in expressing Teto’s struggle than Machine Love: It questions what life looks like once you’ve settled some of your big questions and became “real”, what you do to cope and exist, and what it feels like to lose your marbles in the midst of it all. Fucking banger.
So, that’s the post. It’s not just about the specific experiences I mentioned, by the way, this is just what I know. I know trans men that rock with Machine Love and Birdbrain too. So the caveat to all of this is that not only am I a neurodivergent transfem therian myself (so of course I would say these things), my polycule even has the nickname “triple baka” and in it I use the symbol of Teto. Like, this shit gets serious. One of my partners is Neru and just recently wrote a little song about it. And then this whole Tetogender stuff just kind of happened to me afterwards. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or the real reason I was originally subconsciously drawn to Teto in the first place. So if all of my analysis reeks of self-insert, that is why. Still, I hope that something can be gained from my unhinged rant about this vocal synth. I’ve certainly gained at least one thing: The process of writing this article and drawing parallels has inspired me to consider the fact that a huge part of the charm of Teto is that her writers and animators have been embracing her jokey nature and quirks all along - in fact emphasising her surreality instead of trying to hide it. Her brand shift in recent years has been a step in trying to escape existing in the shadow of Hatsune Miku, but still acknowledges the bizarre nature of Teto’s whole thing. This is why people love her. And yet here I stand, Teto’s age in just 5 years, having spent so much of my life trying to look and sound exactly like a boring cis woman, all under the guise of trying to ‘become real’. Perhaps I should take a hint here and embrace my surreality, or at least acknowledge that in my quest to becoming real, my past present and future will always be burdened with some sense that there is something wrong with me, and maybe that is fine. If Teto has found real love for herself in this process, so can I.
