once bitten, twice shy: the buddy list (2024)

Nine of my friends (and me) reflect on the year, bleed out emotions, and turn an eye to the future.

Dec 31, 2024

*Ladybirds’ Requiem* (dir. Akino Kondoh, 2006)

Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today on the anniversary of my birth, and as you can probably see, things have not quite gone according to plan. The newsletter has gone pretty quiet, with only one post separating this year’s buddy list from the previous one. I thought about calling it off this time, but ultimately decided I’d be disappointed in myself if I did that. Above all else, this thing is for me. I love my friends and want to hear more about them, and this is my selfish window into their lives. If you happen to enjoy reading it too, that’s a lovely bonus. I’m sure you will.

To get any newcomers up to speed: this is my annual tradition in which I invite friends to reflect on their most recent trip around the sun and share the things they spent their time on. You’ll see that not all of them felt up to getting personal, and that’s fair; it hasn’t been the best year in recent memory, has it? Despite that, they all made the time to give a bit of themselves. Our free moments are precious currency, and it fills my heart that they were willing to spend some of them for me. I’m grateful.

As usual, there are some familiar names if you’ve read the previous installments and some you won’t recognize. This little yearly shindig is both a way to strengthen bonds with close friends, and to build bridges to people I want to get to know better. If you’ve contributed to this list, last year’s, the year before, or one yet to come: thank you. I love you.

(As ever: I didn’t tell any of them to mention me. Please stop. 😭)

—Shy Clara Thompson

Kei

Looking back at my 2024 conjures to mind the eighth episode of 1959 science fiction horror anthology television series The Twilight Zone, in which a man simply wants more time to read books.

In 2024, after far too many years of making it a habit, I began to pull away from spending time on social media, and it still felt like there was a constant pressure to take all the time I could get whenever I could get it. Much like the aforementioned story, where the bookworm dodges the effects of a nuclear war going on outside by circumstance, I may have dodged worst of it by logging off, but it wasn’t all fun and games after that.

This pressure I put on myself wasn't without benefits though. In January, I installed Ableton Live and began learning about music production. I had entered my anime music obsession just over 10 years ago and it wasn’t long after that I discovered the anime remix community active on sites like SoundCloud and Twitter. I felt inspired by breakthroughs I’d had with understanding song structure and production through DJing to pursue making my own remixes in similar styles to what I’ve listened to for years. Which basically came down to learning music production period.

In pursuing different musical references, I found that working on music is actually an extremely peaceful place for me to retreat to, and it provides an incredibly interesting challenge every time I approach it. Even if I were never to put a single thing out into the public, I would still be happy to pursue it in private, as that’s how much I get out of it on a personal level. It does make me happy even just seeing small numbers on the few things I did put up online though, I admit. The only unfortunate part is how much that time comes at a premium.

Anyway, between practicing DJing on my own, seeking out new music to discuss with friends, and learning to make it, music was an even larger part of my year than it has been before. My list has 10 songs that meant more to me this year than most everything else.

DiverDiva - “Fashionista (Galbae Cider New Jack Swing Remix)”, which is just one of Galbae Cider's remixes that inspired me to learn how to make music like it. Very directly responsible for me learning what the Korg M1 was. Turns out New Jack Swing has been having a revival in South Korea, but honestly, Galbae Cider was way ahead of that.
“Glorious Moment！ (Matitann HC Bootleg)”, for m4titann's incredible Note post series which helped me grasp how to structure a remix better than any tutorial I have found yet. Such a key part of me getting fundamentals down, I cannot state my thanks enough.
“Ready!! Steady!! Derby!!” from Uma Musume: Pretty Derby - Beginning of a New Era , which I got to hear live at Uma Musume 5th Tour Event New Gate Day 2 as a member of the crowd for its debut performance. Those horses blew the roof off of that place. Likely the only time I’ll ever hear calls so loud that were made up on the spot.
“Heart Beats” by emon(Tes.) featuring Himawari, which I found searching for virtual singer/vocaloid dance videos to work out with. I subsequently became obsessed to the point that I threw together my own remix of it just weeks before the Goblin Bunker Public Access 4 event that I definitely needed to already have been assembling music and video for. No worries though, it made the cut.
“Empty Box (VOID)” by Diamond Dust, covered by Iseri Nina, for introducing me to Iseri Nina. It stands for everything I love about Girls Band Cry, a perfect show for me.
“Shini Yuku Kisetsu no Kimi e” (To You, In Your Dying Season) by Yanagi Nagi and Jun Maeda, for being the centerpiece of the best sequence I experienced in a video game this year. Every comment on this song from players reads something like “this part of the game made me think ‘I’m happy I’m alive’” and that says it all to me, really.
“Hino Sasu Mukoue” (Beyond the Sunshine) by She is Legend, for allowing Tomori Kusonoki to directly express how I feel playing Heaven Burns Red for several years now.
“回層浮” (Kaisou/Reminiscence) by MyGO!!!!!, for allowing me to hear Youmiya Hina scream in real life.
“Medicine” by Haraguchi Sasuke. Seeing him perform this for YouTube Music Weekend 8.0 as my formal introduction to his music was truly like witnessing lightning in a bottle. This tune did not leave my head for weeks and became my gateway drug to Kasane Teto.
“Otsukimi Recital” by Jin, for being a hopeful song that gave me something to latch onto when going through rough times this year. I got back into virtual singers in a big way thanks to artists like Haraguchi Sasuke, but for me it all started way back when with KagePro. If virtual singers believe in us, we have to keep believing in them too.

ivy

What an insane one, this year was. Essentially, I went through three interlocking character arcs spanning several months each and now stand before you today, after all of it, feeling… uh, relatively normal, I guess. Outside of all of that noise, I personally accomplished a lot of things I have been trying to accomplish for the last decade, namely releasing an album and playing a live show of all original songs. Yay! I couldn’t have done any of it without my friends convincing me that I can and should, so thank you to all of you! :,)

But enough about all that friendship, let’s fweaking talk shop. In general I find this kind of year-end reflection really tough to do, not so much in an emotional sense, moreso in a… physiological? Sense? I don’t know how else to describe it, but I so rarely take stock of my year that I’m entirely out of practice on it. Attempting to dig back through the memory banks with nothing to prompt them out of their elusive little hovels takes about 200% of the brainpower I have. That all being said, I’m gonna try my best to bring up some things I saw or experienced or viewed or heard or even that I played in the last 12 months that have stuck with me, but I will PROBABLY forget something. Maybe. We’ll see. Transgender WatchMojo vocal fry voice:

Top 4 Things I Watched/Read/Played in 2024 that Someone Specifically Recommended to Me

Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash (1992) (rec’d by Lucie, and just about everyone else ever) — Starting my lists off with the most basic shit possible so when I mention Buffalo ‘66 later, you’re caught completely off guard. Anyways, if Billy G’s Neuromancer is computer anxiety by someone who knows nothing about them, Stevey’s Snow Crash is computer anxiety by someone who knows way too much about them. In a lot of ways, this thing reeeeally is a product of its time, but it is actually insane reading this book and having it evoke extremely specific emotions and scenarios that I’ve experienced while playing VRChat.
Baby Assassins (dir. Yugo Sakamoto, 2021) (rec’d by golok about 50000 times) — Saori Izawa in the Weezer shirt.
Suckdog: Drugs Are Nice - A Suckumentary 1988-2005 (2005) (rec’d by Lynn Minmei) — Using this as a general spot to talk about and mention Suckdog since who tf else is gonna?! Suckdog!! I was recommended this after bringing up sinkdog unprompted for the 100th time, and I’m glad I was. Suckdog.
Lil Hyvää - 応用夏学 (rec’d by shy! (hey girlie!)) — I’ve listened to this more times than betrayed by my last.fm profile. Seriously one of the most gorgeous collections of music I’ve had the privilege of hearing in a while.

Top 4 Things I Watched/Read/Played in 2024 that I Ignored All Attempted Warning Signs Steering Me Away From It

Subarashiki Hibi (Wonderful Everyday: Down the Rabbit Hole) — This thing has a Reputation, and for myriad good reasons, but oh my god. If I had to give just one thing the “Favorite Media” crown for this year, it would easily be Wonderful Everyday. So utterly mind melting in every conceivable way, and so singularly committed to every piece of work that inspired its writer.
Coquette Dragoon — It feels almost unfair to put this on a 2024 list given its status as a Work In Progress, so I’ll compensate by not going into too much detail about it. I love it!
Kingdom Hearts I.5 & II.5 Final Mix: HD — It’s probably well known amongst my friends that I absolutely adore these games, but to everyone else who didn’t already know that, yeah I’m a fangirl. I replayed these games for the first time since Kingdom Hearts III released back in 2019. Yeah. 2019. Jesus. And so I was really worried that I would butt up against something on this playthrough that would make me realize that these games suck. AND THE RESULT? Look what list this is on and figure it out for yourself!! ;P
Buffalo ’66 (dir. Vincent Gallo, 1998) — See? Anyways, by all counts this thing should suck, and it does, but it completely accidentally captures something that really stuck with me, and that I refuse to go into any detail about. Maybe don’t watch it! (Reverse psychology) (Double reverse psychology)

Jinhyung Kim

Free Palestine banner in Gwanghwamun Square, Seoul, August 2024

You can read my reflection for Tone Glow here if you're interested in how things went for me in 2024. For the buddy list, I wrote about seven albums/mixes not from 2024 that I had on repeat this year and kept me company through it all.

ARIE GOGON - DJ AKU TERTIPU KEDIAMANMU X PAMBASILET X SAKITNYA TUTUTU VIRAL TIKTOK JEDAG JEDUG FULL BASS.mp3 (self-released, 2023) — Thanks to my friend from Tone Glow billdifferen, I got super into Jungle Dutch. To quote him:
[It's] called either Breakbeat or Jungle Dutch[—]it's a offshoot of Funkot music that's more EDM-focused. [It] got popular off of TikTok due to these Jedag Jedug edit videos in Indonesia…
Mixes are often tagged with "Bass Boosted," "Jedag Jedug," or "Terbaru"/"Terlalu" (the latter of which means "active" in Indonesian). There are enough mixes of this stuff on SoundCloud to sate any living soul for a thousand lifetimes. I typically just follow the algorithm, chipping off bits of the tip of the iceberg. The first mix I found that I really loved got taken off the platform, so I've learned to rip and save the ones I dig. Some of this year's best mixes came from bennni10—a prolific account that uploads 2-hour-plus Vinahouse, Breakbeat, Jungle Dutch, and Manyao mixes almost every other goddamn day; I like to imagine that it really is just one dude. I love how Jungle Dutch is indissociable from the ABG thirst pics that permeate the genre’s social media presence; you'll see this for yourself if you choose to fall down the SoundCloud rabbit hole. It’s self-consciously memetic stuff in both musically and in iconography, and in due course, you’ll hear a bunch of pop songs you know (and some you don’t) churned through the 10,000-volt electric transmogrifier that is this genre’s sound. The mix I chose for this list is pretty short and sweet: just over 20 minutes of pure adrenaline via one rush of tonal whiplash after another. Imagine a world where EDM festivals make top 40 way cooler, instead of even lamer…
Jun-Y Ciao - Learning from Insects 师虫 (whereisthezeitgeist?editing office, 2019) — There’s a long and storied history of music that lies at the intersection of electronics and nature sounds; their timbral adjacency is something people picked up on almost as soon as electronic music became a thing. The same is true for brass instruments, in a different way; while pitched brass was one of the last parts of the traditional orchestral palette to be effectively imitated by synthesis, free jazz players were quick to realize how noises they could make at the limits of their instruments’ capacities inhabited a continguous realm of waveform fuckery. Learning from Insects completes the triangle by exploring resonances between Ciao's saxophone playing and samples of various insect sounds. While the sense of a direct mimetic relation between, say, a soprano sax and a cricket is perhaps less immediate than the one either might possess with respect to a high-pitched oscillator, the affinities emerge in a sense of rhythm: the little variations of pulse in a cricket’s chirp invite a similar mode of listening as the cracked squeals, vacillating flutter tones, and slide effects that Ciao coaxes in periodic repetition from his instrument. Conversely, hearing the saxophone affects how we hear the insects: as with any reed or brass instrument, one can hear the breath that undergirds the sound, even when the performer is “silent”; Learning from Insects encourages the listener to hear insect noises in the manner of respiratory cycles. No other album I heard this year provided a more open space for meditative attention than this one.
DJ Screw - Chapter 74: Mash for My Dream (Screwed Up Tapes & Records, 2004) — My current favorite “Diary of the Originator” mix. I played this while cruising around town in a car for a few weeks in July—something I normally don’t get to do; I was housesitting for a friend, so I was driving theirs. I live in Houston, which is 95% sprawl and linked together by a web of cracked pavement resting atop fickle swampland. Hearing this through overblown car speakers while lolling around the vast suburban expanses was deeply fulfilling in a way I probably don't need to explain; the dank, warm breath of the Houston summer night heat whipped through the windows as I let the warping and lurching of the road and the beat both stretch my sense of time. Could not recommend a better way to feel at one with this city.
Luciano Maggiore - 18 Rhythmic Studies for a Pen, a Cassette Case and a Korean Cassette Deck (Hideous Replica, 2016) — The stutter is a unit just below the threshold of legibility; almost semantic, straining toward it, but not quite. I reread Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee this year and was captivated yet again by its stutter, its constantly getting caught in its throat. The inability to communicate, or the refusal to, or somewhere in between—all this can say so much. The ambivalence is key; the stutter of Dictee often gets read as abjection, or its protest. That's definitely a part of it, but there’s more: there’s also a ritual satisfaction in taking words as forms, sounds, or elements for perpetual recombination. One can play with the building blocks of language in a condition of prelapsarian, pre-egoic joy; even the encounter of a stoppage throws one into the mesmeric state of negative space. To my ears, 18 Rhythmic Studies sonifies this joy of the stutter, the stopping of the throat, and the compelling silence that honors it and suggests the unspoken depths it points toward.
Organ Tapes - Hunger in Me Living (Tobago Tracks, 2019) — I didn’t really hear anything special in Hunger in Me Living when it came out; the music and Tim Zha’s vocals felt uniformly understated. I didn't bother revisiting Organ Tapes until this year; I’m not exactly sure why, but I hear so much more soul in this album this time around. It might be that my appreciation for music with an ostensibly flat affect has grown considerably since 2019; maybe I have a distance from singer-songwriter music now that allows me to listen to the album as something different; hell, it could just be that I found out Organ Tapes is Asian, and for some reason, I just get where he’s coming from. Whatever it is, I found Hunger in Me Living to be chock-full of tiny yet animate flourishes that had slipped my ears the first time, floating past like little buoys amidst its gentle melancholic ebb and flow; the thick AutoTune that had previously masked emotional specificity now exhibited a willful anonymity, like layers of a veil fluttering gracefully in the persistent breeze. It’s perfect winter music: a bit cold to the touch, but deeply warm and intimate nonetheless.
Torture - 4 - “Enduring Freedom” (self-released, 2023) — 4 - “Enduring Freedom” confirms that zoomers have grown into and codified their own brand of patriotism: a condemnatory consensus on American empire. It’s odd how this record feels as if it’s straddling two eras—Bush-era protest against the Iraq war on the one hand, but also a broader understanding of American global and domestic hegemony impressed upon young folk today on the other. It’s not as if the geopolitics have changed fundamentally over the last twenty years, but in the media consciousness, military might and the diplomatic theater of foreign policy are now just the tip of the iceberg. People on social media saw videos and got live feed updates from Ferguson to Gaza—all the anger and suffering of the thousands and millions actually on the ground, bearing so much direct violence with their bodies, eyes, and voices; there’s innumerable threads detailing all the industries and channels of capital that fuel that violence. Given the frequency of state brutality and the exponential multiplication of the witnesses to its production and use, it’s become harder for anyone who claims to be against it to not connect all the dots.
Of course, there are plenty who refuse. But among people who are online, the centrist middle has been steadily destabilizing over the past several years; to comment any further on this (especially the “online” part) would take this blurb way too far afield. Suffice it to say that 4 - “Enduring Freedom” taps into a political mood that feels very much in line with the 2020s, despite the iconography of its cover. The covers for the three Torture albums that preceded it are gruesome images of American cruelties of the Iraq War, which really ought not to have been embedded as the main album image on Bandcamp; some sort of content warning would have been advisable. But their use follows the ethos of zoomer anti-imperialism: you cannot deny what is put before your very eyes. The music on 4 - “Enduring Freedom” is blunt, but not in a mode of direct address, a la the ’90s to ’00s tradition of heavy music in protest. It’s slow and thick, all sputtery low end; it’s viscous and errant in its rhythms, with a vocal delivery that rarely departs from a steady, menacing bullfrog croak. The album’s sound is of a piece with its politics—maybe protest shouldn’t be catchy or anthemic; maybe it should be as fucking nasty as the thing we’re protesting. That doesn’t stop it from being really good music, though.
Trang Hạ - Đừng Nhớ Người Xa (Giọng Ca Để Đời, 2021) — I first got into Vietnamese bolero a few years ago when I was introduced to Hà Vân's Tiếng Hát Hà Vân. A lot of records in the genre, even some of the classics, can be a little heavyhanded with their production, but the good stuff conjures a subtle and soulful yearning of an ilk that’s hard to come by. Đừng Nhớ Người Xa is my favorite Viet bolero album that I found this year—the Spotify algorithm threw “Người Đã Nói” my way one day, and it blew me out of the water with its delightful staccato guitar hook, which lands with a forceful duh-duhn from the piano on the downbeat and sharp, synthetic string trills on the upbeat; each element, in its restraint, makes the breadth of the mix pop. “Lửa Mùa Hạ” opens with an overdriven guitar lead that sears atop a crashing cascade of drums, punctuated every so often by what sounds like a triangle player tinkling their instrument as if it were a school alarm bell. But this is all far from overwhelming—the distinction between lyric and ornament persists, creating a throughline between the more raucous instrumental sections and the more discreet accompaniment during verses, which play off of each other well. What impresses me overall about the album is how it integrates a large variety of synthetic sounds and novelties into its palette while still evoking the magic and warmth of a small ensemble. For a genre whose forms and tradition stretch back nearly a century, these soft modernizations push the envelope with great ingenuity.

Joshua Minsoo Kim

For the last two buddy lists I wrote down goals that I had for myself as I was heading into the new year. I appreciate how much the goals don’t actually matter beyond being a form of record keeping; they’re a way to reflect on what matters to me now, and seeing how much that changes over the course of 12 months. Seeing that evolution is crucial. My goals for the year are pretty simple this time around: keep Tone Glow afloat, organize more stuff IRL with people in Chicago, read more, write more, and eat more good food.

Favorite Concerts of 2024

Toiret Status, Koeosaeme, CVN, Tentacle 229, and Dawn Division at DADS in Chicago, 10/11
Still House Plants at Co-Prosperity in Chicago, 9/25
Roméo Poirier at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, 11/6
Charli XCX at Radius in Chicago, 6/12
Model/Actriz at Pitchfork Musical Festival in Chicago, 7/21
Tinashe at Radius in Chicago, 2/15
Foodman, Jana Rush, EQ Why, DJ Hanks, Toxic Yuri Love Triangle, and Mukqs at Archer Ballroom in Chicago, 12/14
Chuquimamani-Condori at Prosper Skate Shop in Chicago, 2/23
Tyla at Thalia Hall in Chicago, 7/31
Rafael Toral, Daniel Wyche at Elastic Arts in Chicago, 10/22
The Softies at PhilaMOCA in Philadelphia, 10/3
Astrid Sonne at Co-Prosperity in Chicago, 9/26
Kim Gordon, Irreversible Entanglements, and Drew McDowall at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago, 6/8
MJ Lenderman at Thalia Hall in Chicago, 10/16
Eiko Ishibashi at the Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, 5/11
ML Buch at Thalia Hall in Chicago, 12/11
Wendy Eisenberg, Big Bend at Constellation in Chicago, 11/15
Ice Spice, Cash Cobain at The Met in Philadelphia, 8/2
Jessica Pratt at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago, 9/13
Laurel Halo with Leila Bordreuil at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago, 11/8
Amina Claudine Myers at the Chicago Cultural Center in Chicago, 8/29
Sour Spirit at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia, 8/4
Nilüfer Yanya at the Metro in Chicago, 10/7
Agriculture, Porcelain at Thalia Hall in Chicago, 11/5
Jan Jelinek at Constellation in Chicago, 11/13
Kevin Drumm at Constellation in Chicago, 2/8
Asa-Chang & Junray at the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia, 10/26
American Football at Thalia Hall in Chicago, 9/27
Sachiko Kanenobu at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia, 10/5
SahBabii at Avondale Music Hall in Chicago, 12/22

maría ilmutus

DEAD BUT DREAMING.

i love this phrase. i like to put it under everything i make. but what does it actually mean? while i’d love to act mysterious and hint at some deeper significance, the truth is that it means nothing. i just like the words. in reality, i’ve never had a guiding philosophy behind my art—i just create for creation’s sake. i love ideas and i dream a lot: big dreams, little dreams, sweet dreams, dark dreams. in them, i sense my calling... to explore unmapped emotions. deep down though, i’m still searching for meaning.

unfortunately, it’s gotten harder and harder to hit my personal milestones due to some really brutal circumstances. the last few years have taken, what feels like, everything from me. i’m only 24, so i know how silly that sounds—this is all just part of adulthood—but it can be so devastating to lose basic resources, your financial stability, your family, your pets... when you never had any structure to begin with. really, i’ve been improvising ever since i dropped out of high school! i guess that’s why i keep making things. because it’s the only thing i can do. i’m just learning new tricks in hopes of finding some solace... and some money.

having said that, i think my art hands were pretty idle in 2024. i overworked myself last year and really needed a breather so i spent more time admiring craft than honing it. i watched like a hundred movies/anime, read dozens of manga and listened to a bunch of albums. i realized some years ago that i had become quite passive about my media engagement so i tried to seek out new experiences. i’m tempted to say this was inspired by the youtube channel i started, but i’d much rather thank my friends. the kind people i befriended this year really opened my eyes. not naming any names, as to not embarrass anyone, but you know who you are!

despite the money troubles, the grueling winter cold and being stuck in this shitty haunted town... i’m still here! i made some goofy-ass videos, wrote some bad poems, laughed with my friends, met some amazing people (who are all way cooler than me) and finally let myself be. but as the year comes to a close i realize just how much i’ve yet to learn. i need to piece my life back together, for one. but i also need to pursue music seriously again! it was such a huge passion yet i stagnated so hard. i’m gonna start analyzing songs critically again, and speaking with other musicians (locally & online). on top of all that, i need to keep searching for the "maría" in my heart. funny as it may sound, i know there's a very strong person inside of me—a beautiful person—and i will find her. her shape and intensity keep changing, like a flame in the wind. but i can change too. i’ve done it before and i’ll do it again.

realistically, i can’t guarantee that i’ll survive whatever B.S. life decides to throw at me next year… but i’ll try!... promise. ♥

some manga

sing “yesterday” for me by kei toume — i finally finished it. the manga that got me back into comics, slowly and over the course of several years. i’m thankful to have shared it with one of my best friends, who showed it to me and said “hey, seems like your kinda thing.” she was right!
river’s edge by kyoko okazaki — this one’s very visceral for me. i tend to feel strongly about things which remind me, distinctly, of high school.
yokohama kaidashi kikou by hitoshi ashinano — the whole thing. lovely, terrifying, essential.
the caterpillar by suehiro maruo — it do be like that sometimes!!!
reading about gekiga (activity) — a rabbit hole i wasn’t expecting to fall down. shoutouts to ryan holmberg and thecomicsjournal!
drawing manga studies (activity) — yep, with screen tones and everything. i got some cool digital illustrations out of this!

meaningful things that were enabled by having internet access:

sharing WIP music files with certain musicians i met online this year.
streaming weird anime and movies to my old friends on discord — i’m glad i upgraded my internet, i’ve been able to show them so many questionable things!
sharing/encoding/downloading/subtitling video files.
joining the “goblin bunker public access” stream.
being invited to write for this list — i really don't think i belong here but if shy says it’s okay, then i guess it is! thank you dear :-)
listening to the “human insects” podcast — i put it off for years but i finally listened to all of it. very fun. great music discussions!

Rist

Before this year, I had never really had a stable sense of community. I think there’s an insecurity at the heart of why that is, something to do with me feeling too inadequate or too afraid to ask people to pay attention to me long enough to maybe like me. It’s still something I struggle with, but finding online groups and meeting people like Shy has been the best thing in my life so far for getting over that.

I’m constantly reflecting on just how vast the difference is between where I am now and where I was before. 2023 feels like a lifetime ago, and in a lot of ways it is. I’m having new experiences with art at about ten times the rate I used to. I’ve met people who have seen all the shit I thought were deep cuts and who’ll recommend stuff I never would have found without their help. I’m finding that I can just make stuff whenever I want and I have others that I can show it to. I never realized how much I could care because I never had the right environment for that enthusiasm to reflect back onto me. Spending time with everyone I’ve met this year has made me want to try harder and harder to be someone I’m proud of. I can truly say that I’ve met my people.

There’s a lot of ways that I’m trying to make 2025 even better, but this is the first time in my life that I have a strong sense of who I am and who I want to be, and I owe it all to the people who have made me feel welcome in their home.

Top Ten Best Things I Got To Do in 2024

Fujo out over Bang Bravern, Like a Dragon, and Kamen Rider Kuuga
Join a zine group where I can write about my love for Sonic the Hedgehog
Get bullied repeatedly into having transcendental experiences with art
Start a game club as an excuse to talk about why cute anime girls are the best
Share a secret about myself in the chatroom of a virtual DJ set
Stream increasingly shitty movies to people I care about
Fall in love with the sport of sumo
Find out that I actually do enjoy roguelikes, I just had never played one before
Realize that Boredoms contains the best collective of musicians to ever exist
Make a bunch of new friends

dicegame uchiha

My 2024 began with me staring down the barrel. I lost my job in early 2023 and took the opportunity to coast on unemployment and go “All In” on a video game I prototyped in 2020. By the end of the year, my savings were packed into shotgun casings and aimed at the rental agency. The video game could probably never be published—unless there was a publisher who suddenly became Really Fucking Cool. So the beginning of 2024 started Serious. Near the end of February, after about 4 months of searching, I secured a job and retreated to a life of eating, sleeping, and working.

Throughout this lull period something interesting happened. Without the pressure of an all-encompassing long term project (The Video Game), I fell back in love with making music—something I’ve been doing far longer than making video games. Enter: my roommate and new friends. It’s understated how ephemeral making music with other people is. I’m not the type to actively advertise or publicly seek people to play with. I prefer to let it happen naturally between friends; thanks to some cosmic luck, that happened this year. We Learned To Rock Again. And We Did Rock. This changed my listening greatly. I settled back into the “Old Me,” raising my love for rock music back from the dead. I present below my own “Buddy List” encompassing the attitude of our basement studio and the friends who have come by to play.

Camberwell Now - “Working Nights” — The Band After This Heat. Another avant-prog / post-punk epic. We’re trying to actively rip this one off.
Massacre - “Killing Time” — I saw this record in one of Portland’s strangest independent bookstores recently and have been kicking myself for not picking it up. Bill Laswell · Fred Frith · Fred Maher. Y’all know about that “egg-punk” shit every smelly guy with a mustache, carabiner, and beanie seems to like? Try this one out and then we can talk.
Free Kitten - “Harvest Spoon” — What can I say, this song is effortless. 2 chords.
Saboten - サボテン — 80s post punk oddity. This has been a comfort-food listen for me. Something about the vibe always breaks me out of the post-work malaise. This and a CBD soda.
Throbbing Gristle - “Hit by a Rock” (At The Highbury Roundhouse, London) — This is what the basement sounds like after we’ve all had a rough ass day.
Scientists - “Human Jukebox” — The dynamic range on this recording is inspired. You really gotta turn it up and let those blown out vocals grow, some hair on your shoulder. Hair of the Dog.
Pengo - A Nervous Splendor — Blind bought this at a record store because of the rip-off “Actuel” design. Went down a rabbit hole on the military bands under Ugandan president Idi Amin Dada Oumee. Experienced raw ego death.
Dead Moon - “Spectacle” (Eindhoven, Netherlands 1992) — Another 2-chord scorcher. You can see god to this one.
The The - “Flesh and Bones” — This one is for my roommate Jack <3
Lez Rallizes Denudes - “俺は暗黒 / I'm the Darkness” — This CD has been in my car for months and I don’t see it leaving anytime soon. Nothing like driving home late to this song.

Ryan Waller

At the school where I teach, my students became obsessed with a meme last month where a guy attempting to shoot a basketball into a hoop covered in spikes misses his shot, then says “I understand it now!” and immediately sinks the next one. I can’t think of many videos I relate to more these days. Despite the hardships I’ve faced this year, life has finally started to feel like it’s making sense.

I have accomplished about 25% of what I wanted to accomplish this year. This is natural and not surprising. I think everyone falls short of what they intend to do every year, but one thing I was able to accomplish was deepening my understanding of my creative process. Through the art I consumed, the conversations I held, and the choices I made, I truly feel like I’ve grown immensely as a person. Of course, I couldn’t do that without the patient people who keep caring for me and making space for me in their lives. Shy, thank you so much for letting me be your friend. You have taught me so much about being curious, being open-minded, being honest, and being emotionally vulnerable. I only hope I can offer you even half of the kindness you show me.

Below are some albums I really really love from this year. I hope you find something worth listening to.

Able Noise - High Tide — The moment the first DJ Screw-esque reload launches seconds into this hypnotic record on my first listen, my brain literally drooled out of my ears. Rock music free of dogma.
E L U C I D - Revelator — BREAKING NEWS: Greatest rapper alive makes another perfect record: millions are shocked the world over.
Paco Panama - Southside Sopranos — The benchmark for good rap music. Gorgeous, rich beats and solid bars filled with a cool, easy humor.
HavinMotion - MOTION — The other end of the DMV rap renaissance. Cloudy yet melodically active crank beats with a rapper who, despite all of his claims to the contrary, seems to enjoy getting his silly and funny bars off.
Chuckyy - Tweak Till the End — A new frontier for the depths of contemporary gangsta rap. Chicago drill reinterpreted via Philly and the UK, a leap forward for horrorcore. Beats reimagined as massive yawning caverns of echoing pianos and animal sound effects, with the slipperiest, most abstract quantum triplet flowers you’ve ever heard weaving in and out like hyenas devouring a dying antelope.
Nídia & Valentina Magaletti - Estradas — Two of the most brilliant sound workers in the world going rhythm for rhythm and producing a magnificent canvas of sound in the process.
Richie Culver - Hostile Environments — Like a Subtext artist doing dub poetry. Crushing, lonely and massive, just like 2024.
Red Hot Organization - TRAИƧA — This has been an amazing year for compilations, anthologies, and charity records. TRAИƧA is one of the best, and most important. It’s amazing to get a new Sade song, and such a beautiful one at that, but there are amazing collaborations all over this. Lucy Liu and Grouper? Moses Sumney and ANOHNI? Niecy Blues and Joy Guidry?! Rachika Nayar and Julianna Barwick?! Kelela and Nsámbu Za Suékama?! SEVERAL BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND APPEARANCES?!? This album is important for a thousand reasons, but it’s also a genuine joy to listen to. Considering how many cooks were in the kitchen, that’s amazing to me.
RESIST COLONIAL POWER BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY — An equally crucial and amazing compilation by one of the greatest labels around, PTP. Everything and everyone here is incredibly important if you care about art PERIOD. Peace to Griff Spex, Malik Abdul-Rahmaan, YATTA, and everyone on here.
Outer Spaceways Incorporated : Kronos Quartet & Friends Meet Sun Ra — Another Red Hot masterpiece. Kronos Quartet teaming up with pretty much almost all of my heroes to take Sun Ra even further into space.
Darius Jones - Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) — Jazz as it should be. A raw black scream of power, vulnerability, and love. Along with the أحمد [Ahmed], Space and Sly & the Family Drone albums, this is the best jazz is gonna get all year.
Ghostmass - Improvisation for Dusty Ballz & Ghost Meditation — Two of the pinnacles of music for me this year. Chinese noise metal mastered by the god Lasse Marhaug? Engineered for me at this point. Shouts out to Yan Jun.
Klein - Marked — Klein has been the best musician in the world for like seven years now and she clearly is not interested in taking her foot off our necks yet. I’m happy to stay where I am, personally.
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton - Estrella Por Estrella — If you make music with guitars, you have a moral obligation to study the shit JCC is doing on this record. There is guitar music before and after this record, in my opinion. Get on the right side of history if you ain’t already.
Endon - Fall of Spring — The best currently active Japanese band is finally back, and they have unleashed an incredible elegiac current of pure noise hell. Incredibly cathartic. RIP Etsuo Nagura.
more eaze and Kaho Matsui - computer and recording works for girls — If you listen to any ambient music this year, make it this. Absolutely essential record. Calling it ambient is a disservice honestly. Just listen!

Patrick Lynn Wilson

2024, much like the years immediately preceding it, was a bit rough.

But let’s not dwell upon that. Rather, we’ll recall one of the best things to bechance 2024: Shy gifting me Masato Saito’s Fragment of Tomorrow, a collection of 10 cover songs recorded over 10 days during the thick of the Coronavirus lockdown in April 2020, and only released through Japan’s great Galaxy Train label this past February.

Masato is a purveyor of that varietal of Velvets-like strummy, folk rock cross-pollinated with ‘90s twee tape-pop and slowcore dynamics that drive a particular set of music nerd into Devils of Loudun-like convulsions. Masato’s old outfit Pervenche have a brilliant 2001 debut record, Subtle Song, followed up by a second album, quite small happiness, released 20 years later but carrying the exact same torch at the same lumens—some people are truly gifted with the musical goods to really get the heads hopping at the sock hop.

Fragment of Tomorrow is a bonnet deserving of the headiest of heads; a mixtape assortment of ’60s and ’70s cuts covering the suspecting usuals: Eno, Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, Television, Can, and, of course, the Velvets’ “Sunday Morning.” The vibe is appropriately early morning—hazy, reverbed, languid—with each song growing more gorgeous than the last, their subsequent rhythms resembling the comfortable rocking of a rowboat adrift off the breeze. My favorite track is the cover of Kraftwerk’s “Neon Lights,” which envisions the German automatons’ metropole fanfare into something more akin to a liturgical hymn sung ‘round a campfire.

I spent so much of 2024 listening to Fragment of Tomorrow, either tucked away in reading or hurtling down the street working, the lightness of the music buoying me and sparking mutual love for this sort of record nerd music—-from Shy, Masato, and myself—as well as for that love located in the friendship between Shy and myself. 2024 will forever be marked as the year that Shy had me listen to Fragment of Tomorrow, and that more than makes up for most misgivings about a bit of bumpiness along the year’s path.

Lynn’s Top 10 Albums of 2024

Itasca – Imitation of War
Space – Embrace the Space
Masato Saito – Fragment of Tomorrow
Niboowin – giving in
bulletsbetweentongues – The Lights Never Lie
ivy synthetic – meaningless off-screen death
PAS TASTA – GRAND POP
The Fiery Furnaces – Stuck in My Head
Cancer House – demos
Joshua Chuquimia Crampton – Estrella Por Estrella

+1: Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (Already timeless album, so it needn’t be ranked. Must a lonely astrologer graze a star just to prove they exist?)

Shy Clara Thompson

*Gauche the Cellist* (dir. Isao Takahata, 1982)

Something I’ve come to appreciate about writing these yearly reflections is that it will inevitably become a thread that connects me to a future self. I referred to my writing from previous years while trying to figure out what I’d like to say this time, and I’m sometimes struck by my own revelations. In the inaugural issue, I wrote about how honoring my loved ones has become so important to me that I changed my own name a little to remind myself of the mission. The following year, I astutely predicted that it would be premature to declare 2024 to be the start of a comeback. (It absolutely was not.) This year, if there’s any message I would like to impart to an older and wiser version of myself, it’s: I dunno. lmao.

I feel like I know less about myself than last year, and that’s equal parts exciting and terrifying. My social life has shuffled around in small, but significant ways; I’ve gotten extremely close to people I didn’t even know six months ago, and some of my longest-lasting friendships have changed in ways I never thought possible. I’ve lived in the same apartment for the past thirteen years, but I don’t know if I’ll still be here next year. I have fallen into career opportunities that I would have once said were outside my skill set, but I’m gonna see where they take me. I’m more uncertain about how tomorrow will look than ever in my adult life, and I’m not sure if I like it.

To be perfectly honest with you, I’m afraid. As I navigate unfamiliar relationships and make myself vulnerable to people whose responses I can’t predict, I cringe. Working with people I have no rapport with, I’m bracing myself for the inevitable disappointment I’m going to saddle them with for placing their trust in me. I like to take things slow. I need time to deliberate my next move. An unfortunate truth I’ve discovered, though, is that with enough time I can craft an airtight argument why I shouldn’t bother doing almost anything. I’m tired of having those arguments with myself, so I’m trying to have less of them. I know I won't always succeed. Fear is a powerful inhibitor, especially when you’re as skittish as I am. But I’m also afraid of accumulating too many scenarios where I’m upset at myself for not giving something a try. I’ve got far too many weighing me down already.

Ten albums I loved that didn’t come out this year

Dream Dolphin - Visions/Rebirth/Underwater (1997)
Facundo Cabral - Facundo Cabral (1971)
Jewel Akens - The Birds and the Bees (1965)
Hanali - Rock Music (2013)
Kiyoshi Kobayashi - Pacific Swing (2006)
Mar-pa - Rimland (1989)
Meadowdale Middle School 8th Grade Jazz Band - 2005-2006 (2006)
Satellite Lovers - Sons of 1973 (1996)
Usushioshisuu - Crazy Salt Rock (2014)
Yuka Umezawa & Tomoko Tsuyama - Fishes’ Dream (2004)

Top five guys I hugged when I got sad

*Flaring Night* (Akino Kondoh, pencil and acrylic on paper, 2004)

Thanks for reading this eleventh installment of once bitten, twice shy. This would normally be where I apologize for not posting more and make big promises for the future, but I’ll spare you this time. I would simply like to thank my friends for making life worth living. Below, I have compiled a list of past and present buddy list contributors’ other projects. They all do fascinating stuff, so please have a look.

I’d also like to make a small housekeeping note that I have updated my about page with the most current information, if you’d like to find my socials and such.

If you appreciate the newsletter, consider hitting the Ko-fi link and donating. It’s my birthday, so that’s another good reason to toss me some change. Don’t ask me how old I am! I’ve been seventeen for as long as I can remember.

I’ll be seeing you. Happy new year. Give your friends a hug and your sweetheart a kiss.

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