ariich's DARK TO LIGHT roulette (v8) - Post-roulette updates (ongoing)

[lonestar]

I have no idea how you manage to not only listen to all that music, but also do the sheets and graphs and shit...I got 1 spreadsheet going to track people and songs and score and I'm borderline baffled, I'm way more at home with dead animals.

Well, I'm generally pretty capable with spreadsheets, which helps, but also I've built up and developed my approach to the spreadsheets over the past 3 or 4 roulettes such that a lot of it is semi-automated now, I just put in the scores and then sort things in the right way and occasionally update formulae.

Even your description made me feel stupid.

[King Postwhore]

Tim has important roulette graphs to work on. He slots 10 minutes for intimacy. 

[ariich]

I have no idea how you manage to not only listen to all that music, but also do the sheets and graphs and shit...I got 1 spreadsheet going to track people and songs and score and I'm borderline baffled, I'm way more at home with dead animals.

Well, I'm generally pretty capable with spreadsheets, which helps, but also I've built up and developed my approach to the spreadsheets over the past 3 or 4 roulettes such that a lot of it is semi-automated now, I just put in the scores and then sort things in the right way and occasionally update formulae.

Even your description made me feel stupid.

Love you, chef.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

So close. So does this mean Ruslan and I need to fight to the death for sole ownership of 2nd place?

On the more serious side. I almost made one of the greatest roulette come from behind victories ever. Going from 14th place in round round 4 to joint 2nd.

Anyways, congrats Crow!

[ariich]

So close. So does this mean Ruslan and I need to fight to the death for sole ownership of 2nd place?

I mean I don't think it's a legal requirement or anything, but I'm not going to stand in your way!

On the more serious side. I almost made one of the greatest roulette come from behind victories ever. Going from 14th place in round round 4 to joint 2nd.

It was indeed hella epic.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Oh and also

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

On the more serious side. I almost made one of the greatest roulette come from behind victories ever. Going from 14th place in round round 4 to joint 2nd.

It was indeed hella epic.

Now I need to know if the other EP I sent you would have got me the win. 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Congrats Crow!  You soared in this one.

I'd normally go for the album that the song I was sent comes from, but if you have an alternative recommendation I'm all ears.

Yeah, I'd go with Antares or The Pulse of Awakening, I think they're the strongest albums melodically. 

[nick_z]

Congrats, Crow! Basically, you sprinted and never looked back for this one 

[jingle.boy]

Wow. I’ve been in 34 rounds?  And I even got eliminated in 2 because f your roulettes!

Congrats blackbird. Solid work performance.

[Crow]

aside from dacul kissing me briefly towards the start, my lines are so lonely 
but hey i'm glad to have finally won one of these
and yeah if i had had the kevin devine song on here instead i think this EP would've been a perfect banger start to finish but at least my compromise didn't hurt me too much in the end 
can't wait to congrats ariich in my roulette in a few days. as far as you know 

also it's funny that birds in row is probably my overall least favorite submission of this entire roulette (except maaaaybe gospel?) yet turned out my highest scoring one - and like, don't get me wrong, i do still love the hell out of it, so  definitely recommend that album as well as victory over the sun, gang of youths, and really any of vylet pony's last three albums, the orville peck album's good too tho it wasn't my thing on the whole but, god, that one song, man.

[lonestar]

I have no idea how you manage to not only listen to all that music, but also do the sheets and graphs and shit...I got 1 spreadsheet going to track people and songs and score and I'm borderline baffled, I'm way more at home with dead animals.

Well, I'm generally pretty capable with spreadsheets, which helps, but also I've built up and developed my approach to the spreadsheets over the past 3 or 4 roulettes such that a lot of it is semi-automated now, I just put in the scores and then sort things in the right way and occasionally update formulae.

Even your description made me feel stupid.

Love you, chef.

Right back atcha 

[Evermind]

I'll take the second place! I agree, the second half of the EP could've been better. The shift from organic to industrial was obviously intentional but I couldn't quite make it smoother.

Yeah, I was saving Kalandra for the EP round, otherwise you would've gotten them in the first light round probably. Their debut album, The Line, is excellent.

Arstidir - you pretty much heard their worst album in my opinion  I really like Hvel and their debut album. If I didn't plan on using this particular song for the story, I would've also sent them earlier.

Currents - I whipped them out as I realized Black Peaks were banned. The Way It Ends or their latest, The Death We Seek, is a good place to start.

Congrats Crow!

[faizoff]

Congrats crow! Thanks again arrich for running this massive roulette and indulging my tastes. I'm just overwhelmed thinking of all the music you had to listen to with an objective ear and sit down to make observations and provide results. You ran this super efficiently and if I ever run a roulette I seriously doubt I can come anywhere near close.

Thanks everyone for checking out my song submissions, I do want to listen to everyone's submissions. Hopefully in the coming weeks.

[ariich]

Oh and also

Great film. But no I'm afraid you don't get another shot.

Now I need to know if the other EP I sent you would have got me the win. 

It'll definitely in my post-roulette listening, so I'll report back, but are you sure you really want to know?

Yeah, I'd go with Antares or The Pulse of Awakening, I think they're the strongest albums melodically. 

I'll try and remember to come back to this post when I get to EP artists in like 6 months. SO MUCH MUSIC.

I'll take the second place! I agree, the second half of the EP could've been better. The shift from organic to industrial was obviously intentional but I couldn't quite make it smoother.

Yeah I know the feeling. Also I think your idea was almost too big to quite squeeze into 35 minutes. But anyway it was still a great EP!

Arstidir - you pretty much heard their worst album in my opinion  I really like Hvel and their debut album. If I didn't plan on using this particular song for the story, I would've also sent them earlier.

Well that's exciting to hear. A good example of why I like to only ban albums I already know rather than whole artists.


I love this roulette community, you all rock.

[twosuitsluke]

Now that the roulette is over it’s high time I share my EP story. Beware all ye who enter…



So here it is, the most work I’ve ever put into an EP story. It’s ridiculous but hopefully you get a kick out of it and it increases your enjoyment of the actual music…


Have you ever had pizza so good that it transports you to another plane of existence? Our protagonist just so happens to take such a journey after eating the best damn pizza he’d ever had, whilst at a Pizza Death show.

The combination of a stuffed crust, full of psychedelics, and riffs that cause you to pledge allegiance to the pizza gods, transported our hero. Who is our hero you ask? His name is Blasser, and in his head he very much looks like this…

*Disclaimer, any character's resemblance to real, living persons is purely coincidence.



Upon tasting this delight, and feasting his ears on the greasy riffs our hero ascends to a world of love, and pizza and reflection on their very existence.

Riding the Cybernova, pizza guitar strapped to his back, Blasser searches for someone to share this experience with. He is in a state of cheesy ecstasy and his love is overflowing. In the distance he sees a silhouette of a female form and starts to serenade her. She nears a distant mountain and ascends it, beckoning him on. He longs to share his experience with another and slinging his pizza guitar over his back he climbs. The mountain is a magenta mirage and as he climbs he questions how real it is, and a distant memory bubbles to the surface. Was he once somewhere else, a dank basement show, with strange instruments and stronger smells? What does “thrash” mean and why are these invasive thoughts obstructing his pursuit up the mountain to his destiny.

As he crests the mountain he sees her, truly sees her. His state of mind splinters and cracks. Wait, is this real, is she the one I was following? The deity before him is none other than The Scarlet Woman, the Babalon herself, astride her beast. She his lured him here to feed of his endorphin filled state.



Blasser soon realises this fight is for his life, his sanity, and his pizza. The only weapon he has is the pizza guitar he somehow manifested upon arriving in this strange place. Is this real, or was what came before real. “I need to find a constant to hold onto” he thinks, something linking these parallel worlds. He has no time to follow this train of thought however as Babalon’s beast charges him.

With each attack Blasser barely dodges or deflects, pizza axe spinning wildly, knowing he can’t hold on for much longer. Time seems to slow and his vision blurs. Simultaneously he can see the fight for his life with the Babalon, and the greatest band of all time converge. There is a flicker of understanding, of a way out, a way to win. If he can only grasp it with his greasy fingers.

Babalon taunts him “The only way to defeat me is through purity and virtue”. Blasser stares in despair. He has never been pure or virtuous, how can he ever win? He feels the fight in him start to slip away. He knows he is moments from death.

As his mind admits defeat he again sees a convergence of realities. That band is there once again, in front of one set of eyes. He doesn’t know which one he is. Which is reality. One thing is clear though, Pizza Death fucking rule, and they are neither pure nor virtuous. In his final moments he accepts who he is as a final attack from Babalon is about to obliterate. “Everybody sins” Blasser thinks to himself “and damn it, that’s ok”. In that moment something shifts and Babalon’s attacks are rendered ineffective. She shrieks in frustration and anger.

Blasser sees clearly. Everybody sins and this is what makes us human. “You are a liar and a deceiver” he bellows. As he fights back he feels like his strength is being amplified in some way, like the strength of everyone who’s ever been downtrodden is bolstering him in this fight.

He realises that he is going to win, he was always going to win. With a final swing of his pizza guitar he beheads the mighty Babalon.

Falling to his knees he knows now that this world is false, and his reality is that dark basement show. But how to get back? Will I have an intact mind to return to? The visions converge once more and he solidifies his thoughts on the power of being a sinner. As he feels himself slide back to that reality, or that reality reclaim his very being, everything seems to make no sense and perfect sense at the same time. He decides to enjoy the ride and rest easy knowing his fight is over, for now.

Finally he is home, with his buddies, his mind still intact and what he can only describe as a higher power. He has an understanding of what makes this universe tick and the beauty in the chaos. “That was a hell of a trippy pizza, and one hell of a show” I guess Pizza Death really are the best band on the planet,  and god damn it Rise of the Anchovy is a great song!

And here’s the EP playlist…

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OWZT2vRfRs6w1hLIGk7fo?si=t4Fx4TRyQfaWy1pDGAcxXw


Congrats Crow and thanks again for having me Rich, this one has been a blast.

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

[nick_z]

It's been an absolute pleasure participating - thank you for having me and for being such a gracious host 

(...)
As for The Gathering: at the very least, you should check out their first two albums with Anneke, Mandylion and Nighttime Birds. In fact, there were a couple of tunes in the running for the EP from Mandylion. That album was such a revelation when it came out - Anneke's amazing performance on it was certainly a big component, but the whole thing is, to this day, so unique.

Anyway - thanks again, this was a ton of fun!

And finally, The Gathering. Not the only stuff of theirs I’ve been sent in a roulette, or indeed even in this round. I’ve always liked Anneke as a singer, but my previous experience with The Gathering has not been that exciting. I don’t know that this is vastly different, but the main themes in the song - especially the chorus - are really engaging. I guess I should explore them a bit further this time.

Incidentally, as I was looking back at the write-up: If I remember correctly from your RYM, the only thing you've heard from The Gathering (on your own, I mean) is How to Measure a Planet, right? That one, when it came out, was quite a departure for the band. A double album with much mellower, trippier songs (not to mention the super-long title-track, with a bunch of clearly improvised parts). While I like it a fair bit, I wouldn't say it's my go-to for the band...at least not on a frequent basis. If_Then_Else was the album that followed (Saturnine is on it) and that was a bit of a walk-back from the band - at the time, it felt like they came out with a relatively harder-hitting record even though it wasn't fully in their hearts (although, again, Saturnine is probably one of their best tunes).

Then...well, they truly started doing what they wanted  I believe they started releasing albums on their own label - both Souvenirs and Home (the last two records with Anneke) continue on that more mellow vein, and they are very, very good.

But, as I said above, you should really give Mandylion a try, as it might surprise you (given your experience with the band so far). At the time, it was lumped with other "gothic metal" bands, but even then their sound was different.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Yeah, The Gathering is not a band you can really get a good sense of from any one particular album.  They're all quite different, and that doesn't even mention the earliest or later albums, which hardly even sound like the same band if you hear them together.  Mandylion and Nighttime Birds are definitely my favorites though, there were nothing like them at the time, and not nearly enough artists latched onto them afterwards. 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

@Luke & Ruslan's stories:

[twosuitsluke]

@Luke & Ruslan's stories:

More like…

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Everyone else listening to it was more like:

[twosuitsluke]

Everyone else listening to it was more like:

As long as they all entered into it with pizza.

[Evermind]

@Luke & Ruslan's stories:

I'm not sure if that's good or bad

[Lonk]

Everyone else listening to it was more like:

That episode! 

[soupytwist]

Congrats Crow and Thanks Ariich.

Happy with 11th, no idea why I ended up going so cheesy in this roulette - but it worked OK 
Glad you enjoyed 'Gods of Debauchery', tis a great album - their previous one 'Emerald Seas' is also as good.

[Sacul]

Congrats Crow! Thanks for running this ariich, it was awesome.

[ariich]

Happy with 11th, no idea why I ended up going so cheesy in this roulette - but it worked OK 

Round description: "Heavy"

Soupy: "Cheesy you say? Cheesy it is!"

Glad you enjoyed 'Gods of Debauchery', tis a great album - their previous one 'Emerald Seas' is also as good.

It is indeed. Their debut is also great, only a small step below the latest two. Great band, thank you for sending them!

[twosuitsluke]

Happy with 11th, no idea why I ended up going so cheesy in this roulette - but it worked OK 

Round description: "Heavy"

Soupy: "Cheesy you say? Cheesy it is!"

Probably all the talk of pizza.

[ariich]

Thanks to those who have sent me a few post-roulette things to check out (including Crow who sent me literally a full roulette's worth!). Got a bit of listening in last week but am away on holiday now so probably no updates for a couple of weeks.

[Crow]

(including Crow who sent me literally a full roulette's worth!).

i have so much music all the time. i have like, twenty five or so albums lined up just from my roulette to check out now aaaaa
edit: just checked, it's 26 not including the like, 4 or 5 i've already checked out

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

 

[lonestar]

Rich's next roulette...

[King Postwhore]

 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

You linked to the wrong graph, that's to the current one.