lost time incident 39
Still working this rainy weekend on my top secret writing project. The weather’s been a great help, enabling me to not even feel remotely guilty about not stepping outside. Instead I can stay in front of a computer every waking moment, listening to music and occasionally adding a few sentences or paragraphs to the work in progress.

I did, however, put some stuff on Twitter this week, so we’ve got that. The election was a big creative driver. Obviously.

 

stuff from Twitter

 

playlist
While I’m doing all this writing, I’ve been exploring soundtracks that work for me. I’ve been finding that my current project goes well with vaporwave and retrosynth. With vaporwave, I have hints of the familiar, with R&B structures washed out and pitched down, so my brain has some rhythms it knows. And when I need energy, the retrosynth propulsive sound sets a good pace.

VA-31 – “A Night On the Town” – With this album, I can listen to Michael Jackson’s PYT slowed down over 15 minutes, the vocals pitched down a soul singer’s romantic baritone.

In Love With a Ghost – “let’s go” – Last night, when I ran out of steam, I went digging through Bandcamp’s tagging system, looking for subgenre names that sounded interesting, or checking geo tags. This is how I found myself wondering what was going on musically in Slovakia. Turns out someone there is running a cassette-tape label where they put out bedroom pop artists, which is how I found this little EP of domestic sound-sampling.

ending theme song
Anyway. That’s something. Gotta get back to that other waiting browser window that still needs more words in it.

—Michael Van Vleet

lost time incident 38
Not much going on this week on the lost time incident front. This is because I have another writing engagement that’s taking up my time and attention this week. Considering that I started this weekly writing project as a placeholder until I had a writing project, I must be on the right track.

Anyway, here’s a few things from Twitter, featuring my Halloween pseudonym:

twitter stuff

 

retro retro retro
Since I don’t have much for you this week, maybe you could be entertained by some of the retro-80s music corners I’ve been spending time in.

FORÊT DE VIN – “Another Dimension (feat. SAY)”
It’s so hard to believe that this track is from two Swedish guys, produced this year, because if you told me it was on the soundtrack to, say, Mannequin 2, I would have believed you. It’s a perfect recreation of the 80s synthpop sound. And not necessarily the cool stuff that everyone wants to pretend they were listening to in the 80s.

New Retro Wave
And here’s a label that’s doing its level best to bring back the synth musical landscapes that used to accompany movies about kids who find alien best friends, or rollerblade across the desert looking for water, or other films found in VHS clamshells.

Division – “Lost in Time”
The artist who records as Division was one I first knew under their Timecop1983 identity— and to date, that’s one of my favorite band names, as far as names-as-mission-statements go. They’re based in the Netherlands, so maybe northern Europe is where decades go to retire.

 

ending theme song
Anyway, I’ll be back on here when I’m out from under my other writing project. Even though I’m not doing original fiction for here, do you guys still want a weekly check-in with Twitter nonsense and notes about books/music/films/etc.?

Otherwise, I’m happy to go quiet for a while. Let me know, or leave feedback in the Facebook page.