Tag: val venis

27 El Perro Del Mar: We Are History

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

We are all history now. Me writing this is creating an (unimaginably minuscule) part of history. When you read it and go on Twitter to gush to all your girl mates about how darn adorable I am, you’re creating history. Even when you hold your nightly WhatsApp reading group to debate the day’s findings on the Necessary Evil blog you are, in a small way, writing history. When Sarah Assbring (El Perro Del Mar’s guiding force) got tired of me direct messaging her with the latest “I’d like to bring your ass” play on words that I’d managed to think up, and successfully applied for a restraining order online, she became a part of history.

 

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This is a fact. It has many positive consequences- I like making history all up in that prick Jamie’s face whenever he’s such an indefensible noob at COD- and many negative ones. For an example, I had to cancel my planned Christmas trip to Scandinavia because it would bring me within twelve hundred miles of Sarah Assbring’s Gothenburg home. I have also thought of exactly twenty seven new plays on her name that she might never get to hear. Oh! Twenty eight!

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29 The Age: House Become Tombstones, Cities Become Graveyards

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

“Everyone is artificial/But that doesn’t mean they’re fake“

I’ve mentioned ‘kayfabe’ an ungodly amount of times on this blog for the last few years, despite the fact that I know extremely few of the people reading will know what it means and my writing becomes borderline unreadable as a result. Well, because it’s Christmas Eve as I write this I thought I’d actually go to the trouble of explaining what it actually is. Don’t let me hear you say I never get you any presents.

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Kayfabe is ‘reality’ that professional wrestling creates. In WWE’s kayfabe, Dean Ambrose hates Seth Rollins because he feels that Seth’s partnership prevented him from truly reaching his potential as a wrestler, and anyway Dean still holds unresolved kayfabe issues with Seth because of him breaking up their amazingly successful tag-team The Shield in 2014. In the kayfabe, we can only possibly put an end to this bad blood if the two were to have a fight. A wrestling fight.

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31 Robyn: Honey

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

I freaking love ‘Honey’. I just thought it important to let you know before I complain about it for 693 words.

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(*I intentionally left that number blank until I’d written the piece. 552 words: boom! Unfortunately, I then had to write this completely superfluous parenthesised section here, so I had to then check the new word count and log that in. 590. However, I then chose to write this little extra bit on the end, which further enlarged the word count. I just wanted you to let you in on the artistic process. It’s fucking exhausting, isn’t it? Then I remembered I wanted to write a ‘past glories’ bit. Then I had to write about that bit here. Had to)

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32 Saba: Care for Me

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

When I was ‘reviewing’ the extremely impressive and undeniable Noname album a few dozen entries back, her close musical conspirator Saba guesting on one track gave me an uncomfortable feeling all of a sudden. I had placed her compatriot’s album a full thirty five places higher on the list. Was it really that different and that much superior? Was I guilty of the ‘male glance’??

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I’m sure I’ve talked about the ‘male glance’ on numerous occasions before, because it is something that I wholeheartedly believe exists and am extremely wary of being guilty of it myself. I’ll explain it again, because I can’t remember if I have before, and anyway this is the first post of this blog you’ve ever read, isn’t it? You’re only here because I added ‘keira knightley rim job’ as a tag. Not what you expected, I know, but still awesome, yeah?? Don’t forget to hit subscribe. I will explain what the ‘male gaze’ is after the jump, because bah gahd I need dem clicks:

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34 Santigold: I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I went to Marrakesh last Christmas. Don’t believe me?? Then what do you call this??

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Yeah, that’s actually just a photo of my brother Johnny talking to a suirrel. I really thought I’d be able to find photos he took last Christmas, but I couldn’t. Admittedly, it’s getting late so I quit the search relatively quickly, but the chances are this photo is far better than any shit he took in Morocco. You’ll just have to take my word for it, OK? Or don’t believe me, who cares? We live in the post-truth era and this post is still going to exist whatever you believe.

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38 Equip: Synthetic Core 88

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

I think we can say that we are now living in the post-truth era. If we’re not, we should still say it. That would make the statement untrue, which would actually prove that we are living in the post-truth era, Which would make the statement true. Though, since we’re living in the post-truth era, the usefulness of saying that we’re living in the ‘post-truth era’ is debatable, as the truth is no longer what we deal in. However, if I say WE’RE LIVING IN THE POST TRUTH ERA really loudly and marry it with whatever’s trending on Twitter right now (Josh Gordon, whoever he is) then perhaps you’ll decide this post is worthy of note.

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Eugh, he’s an American football player?? I thought he was a real person

But when did we enter the era of post-truth? When were we pre-truth, when were we resolutely amid truth, and at what point did truth become a rapidly shrinking figure in our rear view mirror. Some say that the era started with that last paragraph I wrote. This is definitely a minority view however, as at time of writing I am the only person who’s seen that paragraph, and I certainly don’t believe that. Me stating that, however, is another good example of the post-truth age. What do you think of when you think of post-truth? Donald Trump and Brexit? Was 2016 the end of our often fractious relationship with reality?

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39 Ariana Grande: Sweetener

~ Lex Leeson ~ 9 Comments

“Once I have you, I will never let you, never let you”

I feel quite sorry for Ariana Grande. ‘Sweetener’ is an absolutely brilliant album, and the jokes about my ‘TDE’ (Tiny Di… yeah, you got that joke, didn’t you?) would write themselves. It sees Grande finally locate an identity for herself, and honestly contains some of the best and most subtly experimental mainstream pop music released this year. I’m just going to use this review to talk about Hejjy again though. First ISIS, now this: poor girl just can’t catch a break.

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Buckle up!

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40 Chris Al3x: Sonicwave

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Ho-ho! Remember a while back when I joked about fake Vaporwave subgenres? Yeah, I know, it was fucking hilarious, wasn’t it? Absolute, first class satire, sending up the entire Vaporwave industry so mercilessly that it no doubt sent shivers throughout Ilidža*. The genre will likely never be the same again.

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(*yeah, I’ve decided that Ilidža, a small municipality near Sarajevo in Bosnia, is the cultural capital of Vaporwave. It probably isn’t, but I’ve not really got time to do much research. If you’re reading this, Chris Al3x, feel free to correct me. Ashton-under-Lyne hasn’t got much going for it, can we be the capital of Vaporwave?)

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41 The Men: Drift [CANCELLED DUE TO JOSE MOURINHO]

~ Lex Leeson ~ 5 Comments

I’m really sorry, Men, and I really do honestly love your album. I’d probably hypothetically put it as forty second or maybe fortieth best album of the year, if I was into stuff as bizarrely obsessive compulsive as only even enjoying art in order to list it at year’s end. And- ho-ho!- I had a straight fire bang up the elephant entry planned! It would have been so funny it would have literally blow all your collective arses out through your collective eyeballs. Literally. Literally. It’s unfortunately had to be shelved, much like my editor told me that it ‘wasn’t a good time’ to publish my ‘Top 100 Boeing Aircrafts’ on September 11th 2001. Especially as I’d planned to hold the launch party in Times Square. While dressed as Osama Bin Laden. It’s really hard to judge the mood at times like that.

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Besides, let’s face it, I’ll just write the exact same piece I was planning later on an album I’m struggling to think of what to say about. I’m looking at you, El Perro del Mar!! Erm… ‘spoiler’… I guess…

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