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  • Angine de Poitrine | Umm?

    22Apr26 | 18.55 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260422.1855

    Okay, YouTube has been at me for weeks to watch these guys (gals?), so I finally caved and watched the video.

    These folks are off the deep end of the spectrum. Not the most experimental I’ve ever heard for music, because it is still recognizable a rock-adjacent in sound. They do some neat tricks with loops and effects on top of a microtonal guitar/bass combo with polyrhythm drums. The whole, adjusting knobs on the effects with bare feet is an interesting trick.

    And they’ve cultivated their “weird vibe” very precisely between the phallic masks and eye-melting pattern clash. They also, apparently, have their own language for interviews for which their manager “translates”.

    Looks fun. And they appear talented (from what I can hear, but there is an emphasis on disruption and subversion, so I might not be hearing it quite right).

    But.

    For me, it started to sound clever but samey after a point. More gimmick than hook, if you know what I mean.

    I jumped to a song above, but feel free to start and the beginning. Give me your read on this. Is microtonal (other notes than the Western chromatic scale) the future? Do you think they’ll be around in three years? Or just a flash in the pan?

    Seriously, though, they make Zappa sound relatively grounded. Makes me long for Diamanda Galás and her Steak Knives experimental (opera-trained) vocal/screaming routine, honestly. Wait. Maybe don’t listen to that link. It may give you reason to judge me.

    Meh.

    Curious if you think they are good, bad or if you’re indifferent to the whole thing. Drop me a note.

    tagged:

    what did I just hear?, what did I just see?

    filed under:

    listening
    3 comments on Angine de Poitrine | Umm?

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  • Campfire Sessions — 22apr26

    22Apr26 | 13.30 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260422.1330
    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    We haven’t sat for a while, them and I.

    At first, it wasn’t for lack of trying. I would go to the usual place, sit down and wait for the fire to light itself. It remained stubbornly unlit. Without fire to draw them, nothing was drawn. I might have taken it upon myself to light the flames but, in the strange rules of the place when it comes to starting fires, I am entirely ignorant.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    betwixt and between, campfire sessions, campfires, rewilding

    filed under:

    writing
    2 comments on Campfire Sessions — 22apr26

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  • Episode 4: Elsewhen, Part 2

    22Apr26 | 12.00 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260422.1200

    Vengeance, My Heart is a work of serialized fiction. Jump to key story links to read earlier content.

    The dark within was unsullied by Dusk. It stood apart from the twilight standing without.

    The understanding was immediate and absolute. It came before her eyes drank in the faint bioluminescence rising from the stone walls beyond the entrance, casting a faint, ghostly cerulean into a dark that drank in light with a fullness. It came before the smell of water betrayed its location within the hollow space between the stone. The burden that rested on her neck since the shootout at the camp three or five days before, was simply absent. Not lifted. Gone — the yoke had never existed, never had been slung across her neck, never pushed her body to the ground.

    It was in stillness that she stood just within the threshold dividing the entrance between the gloaming and this new, fresh darkness, letting the feeling wash over her in waves.

    She crossed over in fullness.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    ash & thorn, episodic fiction, gothic western, serialized fiction, vengeance my heart, web novel, weird west

    filed under:

    Ash & Thorn — Vengeance, My Heart, serial fiction
    2 comments on Episode 4: Elsewhen, Part 2

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  • casting runes — 21apr25

    21Apr26 | 11.39 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260421.1139
    mannaz
    with eyes returning
    to campfire's flickering
    old grey relations welcome
    back without performance
    to sit without a word to say

    sharp skull the tap
    wake up wake up
    he croaks today

    A poem prompted by a randomly selected Elder Futhark rune.

    Today’s rune is mannaz, a rune that translates to “man” in the sense of “humankind”. The rune is associated with family and the social order, and in trusting the intuitive process or seeing clearly — both from within and from without. Mannaz influences relationships of all kinds, including those of a romantic nature, and encourages compassion, for oneself as well as for others.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

    tagged:

    mannaz, poetry, rewilding, rune

    filed under:

    poetry
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  • stones become doors

    21Apr26 | 10.15 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260421.1015
    strange days when a fiction
    confirms a reality and
    stones become doors in
    the heather on the heath
    and ravens give to crows
    on the edge of bedsheets

    there is not-song in head
    and not-fire between
    and everything's burning
    at the crux of the seams

    blink becomes stutter
    we give fat, we give bone
    we skin give to we

    tagged:

    betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding

    filed under:

    poetry
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  • Episode 4: Elsewhen, Part 1

    20Apr26 | 12.00 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260420.1200

    Vengeance, My Heart is a work of serialized fiction. Jump to key story links to read earlier content.

    It was with an explosive frantic fluttering that the quail broke from the scrub, barely registered before the gun’s thunder broke the twilight calm, before any thought of the bird came to the fore.

    Only after the bird had dropped to the twisting shadows of the mesa, had the stranger known she had made a kill. There was no magic in the act, although it might have seemed so had anyone witnessed the event.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    ash & thorn, episodic fiction, gothic western, serialized fiction, vengeance my heart, web novel, weird west

    filed under:

    Ash & Thorn — Vengeance, My Heart, serial fiction
    7 comments on Episode 4: Elsewhen, Part 1

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  • box

    20Apr26 | 10.52 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260420.1052
    too simple for words, and so
    i point towards the moon
    before gathering my heart
    folded into ink-etched bone and
    send it in a ribboned box
    to her

    tagged:

    betwixt and between, poetry

    filed under:

    poetry
    1 comment on box

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    box

  • wear my eyes blind

    19Apr26 | 14.08 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260419.1408
    we've the path of ashes
    bringing forth in reds & golds
    burning october in our summer
    etching shard ice in dreams

    soon i will shift under
    perhaps you bone stay—
    to the elsewhen all go
    in the eventual

    you will wear my eyes blind
    slipping to burning october

    tagged:

    betwixt and between, poetry, rewilding

    filed under:

    poetry
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  • The Milkman — Mice feat. Julianne Regan

    18Apr26 | 20.53 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260418.2053
    Hey isn't this neat
    But we've got to be discreet
    'Cause something this supercalifragilistic
    Can get sado-masochistic so quickly

    So if you want to know me
    Well you'd just better take things slowly

    Man, I sure miss the tongue in cheek saccharine-laced snarky sugar pop of albums like this. A little more over-the-top than Strawberry Switchblade (who were more polka-dot laced bubblegum goth), but I loved this shit.

    As you might recall from a few days ago, Julianne sang for the more folksy-hippie-goth All About Eve. Yeah, I’m in a J.R. mood this week.

    tagged:

    julianne regan, mice, saccharine-laced sugar pop

    filed under:

    listening, Towards the Within
    4 comments on The Milkman — Mice feat. Julianne Regan

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  • entanglements

    18Apr26 | 16.51 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 260418.1651
    no more fingers
    outstretched because
    we can see our
    only use is to please
    some illusion of touch
    arthritic entanglements
    become slender thorns
    pressed under tender
    skin

    tagged:

    melancholia, poetry

    filed under:

    poetry
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