u/dwbridger

https://preview.redd.it/62jpnj7m41jh1.png?width=1912&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a177c4605a205973448e4377264fa9fe799c1ae

The Game Owls - Pulsations in the Organic Engine is a blend of psychedelic, trip-hop, metal, punk, folk & general avant-garde madness. it's on all streaming platforms as well as my bandcamp page: https://thesidewaysdoor.bandcamp.com/album/pulsations-in-the-organic-engine

feel free to explore the other stuff on that page, there's a few other Game Owls albums, and there is also my dungeonsynth project The Sideways Door. Many of those can be found on streaming services as well.

A criticism, or sometimes just an observation, that is often made about The Return is that it doesn't have the "coziness" or charm or sense of love that the original series had. But in my current rewatch, I'm finding evidence of this sense of love associated Twin Peaks all over the The Return. The symbolism TP has always had, importance of sharing food and coffee, the sincere connection between family and between lovers, the awe of nature, the "quaintness" and delightful quirkiness -- I'm going to share a hot take and say that The Return has no less of this quality than the original series had. If anything it drives the point even further home.

Twin Peaks, in all of its iterations, has been about the balance/war between love and evil, the forces constantly interacting, the beautiful quaint town and its dark underbelly, and how this setting becomes magnified into a full on supernatural conflict. The Return stays completely true to this.

I'd even go as far to say that the common interpretation of The Return being an indictment on nostalgia and a depiction that you cannot go back home, while maybe those themes are tangentially there, this is like not the core intention of The Return at all. On the contrary The Return appears to be fervently true to the original vision of Twin Peaks.

Janey-E, Dougie, Sonny Jim, the Mitchum brothers, the FBI agents, the characters of the Twin Peaks sheriff station, Norma and the RR, Dr. Amp and Nadine, etc. -- if this isn't exhibiting the sincere poignancy of, not that you cannot go back home, but in fact you ARE home and the sense of home (the word Dougie longingly repeats) is clearly defined in The Return... what is it that people are saying are absent in The Return with all of this present?

I will agree that the horror is profoundly amplified in The Return, this is true for sure. The dark underbelly is on the surface now. Everything that was bad is much worse and more grotesque. I won't argue that. This is a quality that The Return has for sure. But it also seems to be clear, that even with this in mind, you can still choose goodness, you can choose to bring a cherry pie to your execution or to brush the dandruff off the shoulder of the person trying to poison you. You can choose to become a police officer and become the person your late father envisioned you to become. You can resolve which chair to buy with your wife. You can shovel yourself out of the shit with a golden shovel. You can fix your heart instead of die.

anyway, I just wanted to share this alternate opinion because I'm finding this current rewatch of The Return to be very comforting and full of cozy vibes. Yes it shows time has passed and that age is a reality and often horrible things happen. but is it really saying you can't go back home? I think it's saying to recognize home when you see it even if it looks a little different than you remember.

I'm just curious if this is a pisces thing. There are some people who perceive me as someone who is just in his head and as experiencing life in a purely intellectual way, when how I feel about myself is that this couldn't be further from the truth. Maybe I'm a little intellectual, I do like to read and watch art films and stuff, and I get that I choose strange words to describe things sometimes, but I feel like I'm navigating life through intuition, feeling and instinct more than anything else. So I'm baffled when I'm accused of being too cerebral. I don't know how to express to people that I don't mean things in a heady way.

I think my all-time favorite is always going to be the one in Boot Soup. but Black Snow is a close runner up and, "never let me die on a regular hill" in Pizza Alley will always be a classic.

but to deeper dive, the opening title track to Bazooka Tooth has a pretty dope beat switch too.

Aaron's ambient work in House of Low Culture, Jodis, ISIS' ambient interludes etc. have all been great. Now that he's part of the Neurosis fold a new Tribes of Neurot would be incredible.

just trying to help a friends' band get on a bill on short notice.