Author: Jon

Best of 2020: Jon’s List

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Best of 2020

Since every minute of every day in this year of our Lord 2020 seems hyperattenuated to *gestures vaguely at all of this*,  you don’t need me to remind you of anything. If you are reading this, you survived, and I hope that continues. While I count mine (and my family’s) survival as the accomplishment of the year, other things I didn’t hate were the Domestikwom EP I put out in June titled Wallowing in Misery, along with launching a full fledged website for fellow Nine Circler Chris and I’s movie podcast Cinema Dual.

I was also able to pull focus long enough to check out some albums this year, and unlike the year that spawned them, I was pretty impressed. Hopefully you find something you like or even something new. Best of luck next year.   Continue reading →

Receiving the Evcharist: Primitive Man and Brewer’s Best Scottish Ale Homebrew Recipe Kit

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Receiving the Evcharist 2018

Hey all. It’s Jon, freshly cast out from the land of the employed, and finally ready to stare into the doom that awaits us. Drink from the cup of heresy.  This week’s offering: Immersion, the latest from Primitive Man and my first attempt using the Brewer’s Best Scottish Ale Homebrew Recipe Kit.

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Album Review: Intronaut — “Fluid Existential Inversions”

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intronaut2020

When you think of Intronaut, certain concepts come to mind. Psychedelic color patterns for sure, dolphins for some reason, and skeletal remains across a handful of album covers. In contemplating Intronaut’s career from the outside, what sticks in my mind is a sense of professionalism. Their proficiency in songwriting and performances across albums does not seem to come with egos to match, which is likely how you get their 2014 stint as the backup band for Cloudkicker. In a world where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, it was not therefore very surprising to hear in a recent recording of the Nine Circles Audio Thing that most people in that podcast weren’t previously aware of the existence of a new Intronaut album.  But indeed, Intronaut’s sixth album Fluid Existential Inversions is here.   Continue reading →

Best of 2019: Jon’s List

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Best of 2019

This past year for me was spent quietly tending to personal projects and family concerns. Most of the reviews I wrote were in the first half; the second half I mostly concerned myself with releasing another Domestikwom album, starting a movie podcast with Chris, and a YouTube channel with occasional Nine Circles contributor and Qoheleth noise man Jeremy Hunt.

When I finally lifted my head above ground, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had actually done a good enough job of keeping up with the year’s new releases that I could put together a list I could stand behind.   Continue reading →

Album Review: The Austerity Program – “Bible Songs 1”

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austerity program - bible songs 1

For anyone who has ever tried to dramatize Bible stories, especially for movies, the first and often most important challenge is how to fill in gaps from the text so it makes sense to modern audiences. Usually these are narrative gaps, but certainly as ancient bits of myth making, the psychologies of its characters are rarely, if ever explored. This practice of using, as Wil Gafney calls it, “sanctified imagination” goes back more than a thousand years to the rabbinic tradition of midrash. But what happens when the stories we explore are violent, unstable and predatory? Well, you get Bible Songs 1 from The Austerity Program.   Continue reading →