Please send me the urls only. I find out who wins live, with you. You can PM them here or via Discord, but if you send them via Discord, please use the ``` formatting tag or else it will auto-spoil.
Category 1 is due June 7th. If you can try to have the first three to four to me by June 10th, it would be much appreciated. Hard deadline for the full list is June 22nd. But in general I would rather you sub late than not at all. One batch of subs per participant this year, sorry. I was anticipating 35+ subs before the short submission window became a factor, so I still might end up with a lot.
My reveals are a bit different from a typical Walrus. I like to make an event of it. There will be no reveals until I'm pretty much 90% finished with every category, whether that takes me one month or three, at which point I will reveal all 8 categories over the span of about two weeks.
What to sub -- I would highly recommend sampling the tracks I provided. Beyond generic enjoyment, I'm usually looking for whether a tune captures a particular aesthetic I've laid out. The samples should hopefully flesh out a lot of vagueness in my descriptions. I'm known to rely heavily on category relevance for scoring.
Tastes -- I enjoy fuzzy, harsh, and complex sounds that blur together. I enjoy extremes of intensity and meditative calm. I like music that feels organic without trying. I like music that feels willfully inorganic. There's a conventional middle ground that doesn't pass as easily for me. I am more inclined to queue up albums or discographies than individual songs, though the extended mood appeal doesn't factor as heavily in the context of a walrus. On a related note, while I am an avid collector of vgm, individual vgm tracks tend to fair middling when I run these. I struggle to submit to walruses without sending at least one 10+ minute track, and I won't veto anything to mine under 20. Here's some genre preference copypasta from years ago:
Onward to the categories, which for better or worse I am extremely satisfied with this time:
This year we're getting the crew together and going on a world tour. I just got around to fumigating the van from 2020, so there won't be any dubious odors and we can all get along for at least the first category.
1. 8am on a Delaware boardwalk
We're kicking off our tour in the sun and sand with a warm ocean breeze. There are some boats on the horizon, but we aren't on them, and we certainly aren't defending the coast from space pi-borgs. Even the mutant squids lounge peacefully this morning. We're just chillin'. I am an adrenaline junkie and prefer a bit of pep in my step, but this is not the place for Alestorm.
Samples:
Chon - No Signal
The Decemberists - Billy Liar
Khruangbin - People Everywhere (Still Alive)
2. 10am beneath the arch of a submerged Atlantic grotto, but humans can't breathe under water so this might be bad
Hours of lying out in the sand fantasizing about adventures beyond inspired us to take the tour to sea. But as it turns out, the ocean actually kind of sucks. It's incredibly lonely, and there's water everywhere and not really anything else. Send me something with an oceanic or nautical vibe. It doesn't have to be bleak or forlorn necessarily, but that's the feel in my head. Drowning, adrift, succumbing to something vastly beyond you. Reflection comes with an acceptance that you might never return. Fancies are esoteric and uninviting. It goes beyond mood though. There's something tonally or rhythmically aquatic echoing the scene. That's the perfect cat fit, but you can play around with it. The samples might be above average informative here. They helped originate the idea and capture it in, I think, very different ways.
Samples:
The Ruins of Beverast - Ropes Into Eden
Isidore - The Privateer
Isis - Hym
3. 11am at a MIDI street performance in Renaissance Spain
I'm not quite sure how we washed up here, but nothing inspires art like the stench of human waste baking in its shallow street-side grave. A wizard tips his hat and plagued vermin scatter off a cadaver resting casually against a dusty stone wall as we set up the Casio next to a nude figure in stocks who laughs maniacally any time we make eye contact. The rabble quickly assemble--ragged bodies dancing to St. Vitus under a filth-blotted sun. Send me something rough and medieval.
I don't mind whether it's holistically positive or negative, and you can sub a poppier tune if you're really stumped, but a perfect cat fit ought to have something harsh, bleak, primordial about it. I'm going to offer a lot of samples, but medieval metal, dungeon synth, neoclassical darkwave, and European folk that's rough around the edges have a home here.
Samples:
A Compendium of Curiosities - Hope Never Dies Forever
Sangre Cavallum - Barbara Carmina A.C.
Mystras - The Zealots of Thessaloniki
Stary Olsa - Drygula
Obsequiae - In the White Fields
Dwarrowdelf - A Pyre For Our Fallen Kin
Dead Can Dance - Xavier
4. 4pm gargling sand at a gas station in post-apocalyptic Nevada
Everyone's a used car salesman in this town. Whether we're staring in awe at the natural stone monoliths on the horizon of the vast emptiness that brought us here or bartering for black market implants next to the Shinra company store, the desert is a harsh and cynical environment with none of its urban counterpart's mechanical pulse. Motion here is a dry-mouthed, sand-blasted fight for survival. No home for the sentimental; nostalgia would require fond memories to look back on. We've never known a world outside of this hell. Similar to cat 2, an ideal fit aims beyond mood and captures the scenery. This is not an urban space. We're the outcasts from that shelter.
Acid Mothers Temple - Blue Velvet Blues (NSFW album cover)
MF Doom - Cellz (Born Like This)
Krallice - Wretched Wisdom
5. 9pm at apparently every Tokyo nightclub
Time to leave the slums behind and jam for the higher casts. We should probably rent suits for tonight's set, but let's face it, none of us have enough class to make it through the door. If you want to keep your jeans on and go for a hybrid, that's fine, but top shelf entertainment is the ideal. I want to hear something that swings.
Samples (No, it doesn't have to be Japanese):
Mamoru Miyano - Last Dance
Ringo Sheena - Meisai
Yoichi Murata - Jump Up, Super Star!
6. 11pm in a Barbi world
Viking warriors waging eternal intergalactic battle to save the anime catgirl race. Unicorns farting rainbows over a pink glitter moon. Category 6 has gone by many names, but it's never really changed. Entertain me immediately and completely. I want ironic aural ecstasy.
Things to send me:
Eurobeats
Speedcore
Meme bangers
Touhou remixes
Kpop/Jpop
Things to not send me:
Moody music unless the mood can be described with the word "squeeeeeee".
Last year I encouraged people to recycle songs I'd been sent before. Going to veto that this time. Samples:
NOMA - Brain Power
Dragostea Din Tei Eurobeat Remix
Red Velvet 레드벨벳 '러시안 룰렛 (Russian Roulette)
Kobaryo - Cross the Finish Line
7. Beyond time at the peak of a mountain worshipped by anthropomorphic bears
Constant touring is the true realization of non-self, and our journey is nearing a close. We unload the yaks and levitate to the height of serenity to perform as one with the gods, eternity stretching out all around us from our transcendent pillar to heaven. Send me a song for mountains. A song that takes in everything and rises with it. A sense of wind and nature and vastness drawn together into a singularity.
Jambinai - Onda
Alcest - Les Iris
Panopticon - Chase the Grain
8. 2am at a dive bar in Cincinnati
And we're finally back. But you didn't save the best for last. You've been going all out since the opener. Your bassist looks like he's in a coma and your drummer's already kicked over half his set. You light your last cigarette and absent-mindedly tug at the volume knob that's already maxed out. One final rush of adrenaline. One final moment of clarity before you fuzz out into half-conscious oblivion. It's closing time.
Engine Kid - Mountain High
Boris - 枯れ果てた先 -Ka Re Ha Te Ta Sa Ki – No Ones Grieve- Live at Wolf Creek
Marble Sheep - The Interval of Recollections and Memory