Many new watch brands enter the market daily, providing new angles and exploring the weird and wonderful. One of these brands is Geltier, a relatively new budget-friendly Swedish watchmaker that has embarked on developing watches that celebrate horology. In this Watch Spotlight, we’ll look at their Strider watch.
Design
Strider is certainly an eye-pleaser and comes in several dial options. For our review, we focused on the sunburst green dial, which comes on the Forest Gold and Forest Silver timepieces. The colour and metallic-esque aesthetic instantly catch the eye, making it an impressionable watch, especially for its budget, but without looking tacky. The dial is housed in a rounded steel and gold-plated case, which is one of the few downfalls of the timepiece but understandable given its price. As we know, genuine gold watches are costly.
The watch also includes an adjustable leather strap made from genuine leather. It certainly wears comfy and makes the watch feasible for daily wear. Talking about daily wear, you’ll be pleased to know it includes a sapphire crystal, rendering it durable even if you take a few knocks.
Wearing It
You don’t have to look far when choosing the right occasion for the Strider. In spite of its classy design, it can be worn with everyday outfits such as sweatshirts and half-zips. Moreover, its 40mm diameter makes it a suitable watch for men and women alike.
Movement
The watch uses a VK64A movement and a bi-compax chronograph calibre by Seiko. It’s an everyday movement found in budget-friendly brands like AVI-8. Here are more details about it.
Frequency
32,768Hz
Battery Life
~3 years
Functions
hours; minutes; seconds; 1/5 seconds; 60 minute counter at 9:00; 24 hour indicator at 3:00; date at 6:00
Hacking
Yes
Quartz Type
Tuning fork type quartz crystal
Final Thoughts
With a price tag of £146, it’s hard to challenge the reasons not to buy a Geltier Strider. It’s one of those timepieces that makes for a solid entry-level timepiece that aesthetically looks good bang for the buck. We’d like to see Geltier explore more advanced movements in the future, but as a starter watch, this certainly ticks the box.
Fashion house Hellessy returned to New York Fashion Week with their Fall Winter collection. Sylvie Millstein stayed true to her vision of a muted collection of refined separates that turn wardrobe must-haves into statement pieces.
By fine-tuning embellishment on daytime separates, Millstein continues to elevate denim, poplin shirts, and knitwear with crystal embroideries and Swarovski fringe, completing an event-ready wardrobe that is both practical and unusual enough to pass any dress code.
Here are the looks from Hellessy Fall/Winter 2024.
Welcome to the dazzling world of 2024, where jewelry isn’t just an accessory but a narrative of diverse cultures and fashion-forward thinking! As we journey through this year’s most captivating jewelry trends, let’s uncover the stories and influences that make each piece a conversation starter. From the streets of vibrant cities to the serene landscapes of ancient civilizations, our exploration promises a blend of modern flair and timeless charm.
The Resurgence of Art Deco Elegance
In 2024, we’re witnessing a glamorous revival, with Art Deco making a striking comeback in women’s jewelry. This trend, reminiscent of the roaring 1920s, is all about bold geometric shapes, sharp lines, and a tasteful use of color. Imagine necklaces with symmetrical designs, incorporating angular pendants and a blend of metallic tones. These pieces don’t just adorn the wearer; they transport us to an era of opulence and grandeur. This revival is not just a nod to the past but a celebration of the timeless beauty that transcends generations.
Embracing Cultural Diversity with Tribal Influences
This year, the fashion world has turned its gaze towards the rich tapestries of tribal cultures. Women’s jewelry has become a canvas for showcasing intricate craftsmanship inspired by the traditions of indigenous communities. Beaded necklaces, earth-toned bracelets, and ornate earrings reflect the heart of these cultures, bringing a story of resilience and heritage to the forefront. This trend is more than just a style statement; it’s a global conversation acknowledging and appreciating the beauty of diversity. And in this embrace of the world’s cultures, there’s a conscious move towards sustainable fashion, ensuring that beauty does not come at the cost of our planet.
The Bold and Beautiful – Chunky Chains
Bid farewell to the dainty and delicate, as 2024 is the year of the chunky chain. This trend, inspired by the street styles of major fashion capitals, has taken a bold turn with oversized links, heavy metals, and a fearless attitude. These chains, worn as necklaces or bracelets, are not just accessories; they are statements of strength and confidence. They echo the voices of those who wear them – powerful, unapologetic, and fiercely individualistic. As we adorn ourselves with these bold pieces, we don’t just follow a trend; we lead it.
Rings Reimagined – The Era of Stacking Rings
2024 has redefined the way we look at rings. It’s not just about a single statement piece anymore; it’s about layers, textures, and the art of stacking rings. This trend, at the heart of this year’s jewelry scene, is all about personalization and creativity. Imagine delicate bands interwoven with bold, chunky rings, creating a harmonious blend of styles on your fingers. Each ring tells a part of your story, and each layer adds depth to your personal expression. This trend isn’t just about wearing multiple rings; it’s about crafting a narrative that’s uniquely yours. The joy of stacking rings lies in their versatility and the freedom they offer to mix, match, and reinvent your style every day.
The Enchantment of Ethereal Gemstones
Gone are the days when diamonds were a girl’s only best friend. In 2024, the allure of gemstones lies in their ethereal, almost otherworldly, beauty. We’re seeing a surge in popularity for stones like moonstone, labradorite, and opal, each known for its mesmerizing play of colors and deep symbolism. These gemstones are not just visually stunning; they’re believed to hold healing properties and spiritual significance. Jewelry designers are crafting pieces that don’t just adorn the body but also resonate with the soul, making these ethereal gemstones a must-have in every woman’s collection.
The Revival of Vintage Charms
This year, there’s a heartfelt return to nostalgia with the revival of vintage charms. These small, intricate pieces, often imbued with personal or historical significance, are making a significant comeback. Whether it’s a locket from the Victorian era or a quirky charm from the 60s, each piece tells a story, connecting the past with the present. Women are collecting these charms not just as fashion statements but as keepsakes of memories, milestones, and heritage. This trend celebrates the beauty of storytelling through jewelry, bridging generations and keeping history alive in the most stylish way.
It’s clear that this year’s jewelry is more than just adornment – it’s a celebration of cultures, a nod to the past, and a bold step into the future of fashion. Each trend we’ve explored carries a story, a piece of art, a slice of history. From the bold statement of stacking rings to the mystical allure of ethereal gemstones, these trends are not just about keeping up with fashion; they’re about expressing who we are and connecting with the world around us. So, as you choose your jewels this year, remember that each piece is a reflection of your unique journey, a sparkle of your personal narrative. Let’s adorn ourselves not just with jewelry but with stories, memories, and a dash of magic!
Erin Jacobs might be a plastic girl in a plastic world, but this isn’t Barbie. The protagonist of Scott Guild’s dexterous debut novel, Plastic, must navigate her world of eco-terror attacks and climate change while her own past comes to haunt her — a dark look at the American future. After a terror attack at Tablet Town, where she sells wearable tech, she meets another figurine, Jacob, and the two form a connection while zipping through a virtual reality world to escape the horrors of the everyday. But Erin’s imaginative world keeps sending her signals back to her sister, Fiona, who joined a resistance movement named ‘The Conversation’ that attempts to bring attention to environmental destruction by any means necessary; Erin needs to keep unaware of her history, but also safe from possible oncoming attacks. Relentless, witty and truly heartfelt, Plastic is a dystopian satire much less stiff than the characters it details.
Our Culture spoke with Scott Guild to talk about Barbie’s culture shock, levels of morality, and infusing zingers within fiction.
Congratulations on your debut novel! How does it feel now that it’s so close to being out?
Thank you! You know, gratitude would be the number one emotion. This was an experience of working with a lot of friends who are readers, teachers who are readers through the years, the people who came up in the industry to help the novel be published who also gave me incredible feedback. It is my book and I wrote it, but there’s also a this sense of community of literature geniuses working with me where I could bring them things and we could have discussions, so the fact that it’s now in the world, and I love the way it looks, and my publisher is supporting me so much by putting an album out, there’s a sense that I’m an immensely lucky person to be in this position.
I read that the book around ten years, starting when you were in graduate school — what was it like to be working and thinking about this project for so long?
There were some breaks, so maybe in those ten years it was maybe six or seven years on the novel, which, as I say that, is not a short period. And it didn’t start out as a book about plastic figurines either, that came in around 2018. I worked on it from 2013 to 2016, and I kind of stalled out, and it felt like a somewhat generic speculative fiction novel about a grim future. I took a two-year break, and when the brainstorm idea came of making everyone talk in these clipped sentences, made them plastic figurines, pushed it into a stranger space, what would that be like? And suddenly myself and all the people who had been reading it before, it just gained a different kind of momentum and excitement.
We have so much to talk about, because alongside the book, you’re releasing an album full of original songs this spring that serve as the novel’s soundtrack. When did you first start to connect the idea of a novel with an album?
When the book was sold to Pantheon, it did not have songs in it. When I was working on edits, an idea of a song came to me that a character could sing. I just went with it and wrote some lyrics, and I hadn’t written a song in quite a while at that point. I sent it to my editor to see what she would think, and she was really enthusiastic. I started writing more songs, more moments for songs came to me. And this was late in the day in terms of working on the novel — it’s always weird when you’re adding something last-minute, when now it feels like a core part of the book. At the end of it, it was almost like there was an album’s worth of songs in the book, and that was the point where I started thinking about reaching out to musicians I really loved and see if they were interested in crafting an album around this with me, ad they were, which was really exciting. Part of it, too, was that I spent so long with Erin as a character, and when I was making the album, the book was done, so this was a way of spending one last year with her and finding her journey through song, a whole other form of creative expression. It’s been really magical and immersive in different ways.
What caught me so off-guard about Plastic is that it’s so sneakily smart and cutting. You think about plastic figurines and your mind goes straight to Barbie, but Plastic is actually a dystopian satire. Was this mislead intentional?
The whole Barbie thing coming up nine years into the process… I think I turned in the final draft either on ‘Barbenheimer’ day or around that time. I remember thinking it was the strangest thing, this book I’ve worked on for forever, that I thought was so odd, and difficult for anyone to get into the imaginative world of it — all of a sudden, plastic figurine worlds have become mainstream. It felt very serendipitous that one barrier to access this book is gone, because people will have the idea of a Barbie world in their minds. And then, the wonderful opportunity it creates, like you said, that it’s a plastic figurine world infused with these specific characters and humanism they have. I don’t think I intended it to be a twist, where you think plastic figurines, and your mind goes to sunshine-y Barbie, I think when I was starting it I thought of figurines as tonally stiff and alienated from nature. I think the way the Barbie culture moment came in created the opportunity to talk about a twist. I love that, and I love the way that something cultural happened that affects the reading of my book. That’s so wonderful and unplanned. But when I was writing it, I felt that these characters were in this grim, difficult future, and to capture that with the actual physicalities of their bodies had an emotional tone. But now the fact that it reads differently is wonderful. I’m so excited to see what readers make of things in ways that the author doesn’t intend.
Plastic is immediately heavy — our protagonist, Erin, sells wearable tech at Tablet Town, when one day a shooting erupts. We learn that a group of eco-terrorists called The Conversation constantly plan bombings and shootings in order to direct national attention back to climate change wreaking havoc, which is not too distant from the anxiety we live in now. Why did you want Plastic to go in this darker direction?
I think that was the space I was starting out from, even before they were plastic — trying to capture the feel of what our moment is right now. We’re in a climate crisis, the clock is ticking, we feel the disaster of this coming. Setting the emotional tone and backdrop of the story was something I was going for, and the plastic figurine-ness of it all was supposed to intersect with. Right from the start, it was a part of the book. What’s fascinating about your question of ‘Why’ — I think sometimes when you’re trying to tell a story that captures what it feels like to be alive in a certain moment, that’s kind of the end of itself — how do you wrap metaphor, language, characters, that are doing that work?
Someone very close to Erin actually left her in order to join this terror group, and it was so interesting to hear her perspective. As is the case in the United States right now, it seems like the people in control really have no plans to stop or halt climate change, but by killing people in the name of the environment, their message is finally being given attention, no matter how horrific their means are. What was it like to write about this dichotomy?
Yeah, how did you feel?
Well, I love morally different fiction, where you’re reading something you don’t necessarily agree with. It was interesting to hear this character’s perspective, where they talk about enacting these horrible attacks for the sake of the environment to finally get some attention. I found myself agreeing a little bit with both perspectives.
When that character tries to follow through on their beliefs and what makes sense to them, there’s a different, emotional, spiritual level where they don’t agree. And I think that’s part of the paradox of that character. Even in the song named after that character, it’s like, the environment is falling apart, in a moment that’s this drastic, you would think we’d do anything we can, that the ends would justify the means, to get the message out there. But also, killing people is wrong in a way that is transcendent and core. Writing those sections of that character finding out about the movement, as the writer, you also feel seduced, but then you go on the journey with the character, and by the end of it, you remember violence is horrific.
Plastic is not all-together bleak, and it’s peppered with the quippy jokes and products one might see in a George Saunders story. Erin’s anxiety pills are called SettleSelf, she has a one-year streak on her phone’s PrayZone app, she explores VR worlds like CityCity and Jungle Jam, frequents the Worship Wow! Arena, and in my favorite, a virtual assistant named Sally Survivor helps Erin during the shooting; she says, “Much sorry you in TERROR ATTACK. How I help?” How did you come up with these, and did you have any comedic inspirations in mind?
It’s almost like a continuous riff, once you find that strain of humor, a little smirk goes on your face, and then you just have the joy of each new situation coming up. It’s interesting to think of inspirations for that — I think an underlying one is how Dostoevsky, one of my favorite writers, at the darkest moments of his stories, suddenly things will get very weird and absurd. In The Brothers Karamazov, the moment you think everything is lost, one of those characters will start behaving in the most bonkers way imaginable. It’s the same way in Kafka — the darker something gets, the more strange and twisted it appears. George Saunders, like you mentioned, comes out of that tradition, too. That impulse to find humor or the satiric in the dark moments for the characters has always resonated with me as a reader.
Running parallel to Erin’s storyline is a show called Nuclear Family, which gives a little bit of backstory to the figurines’ world, namely, that the nation’s president was an egotistical maniac who threatened enemies with violence, which resulted in disastrous consequences. Why did you want to introduce the show within the story? How was it like coming up with a world’s history?
Yeah, the show was really interesting — in the draft that sold to Pantheon, it was just a random TV show that didn’t really tell the story of the world that much; it was just a show Erin liked. It was a comedy, maybe like forty pages of the book. One of the comments I got from my editors was that if there’s gonna be this story Erin’s watching, let’s make it integral to her life and something that can push the story forward, deepen the world. I completely agreed and went on this journey of making a very different TV show for the book, and I wanted it to enrich the sense of how the world had come to be this way. Obviously the show we’re seeing, Nuclear Family, is a mixture of an actual show that existed and fan-fiction that Erin creates in her mind. I wanted something that deepened our sense of her father’s life, so the whole thing felt very personal and emotional to her.
I loved Jacob’s character too, this love interest of Erin that reacts in a kind of blasé way to everything. How did you develop their relationship?
In earlier drafts of the book, there was a little more of a sense that Erin was pretending, to a larger extent, that she was a different person, almost betraying him in that way. Because in the final version, Erin’s just not giving the full picture of herself to Jacob. I found that the more I dialed that back and really let them have more of a sincere relationship, the more he came alive and the more I could get his experiences onto the page, and he felt like a full person to me. But also the emotional stakes for Erin really increase; instead of it being a person with a dark background who is having trouble finding love, there was a sincere connection between them, and it really could be the thing that changes her life and allows her to find trust and meaning and hope in a way she hasn’t gotten before. I was compelled by the possibilities of their relationship, even though I knew what was going to happen next.
Finally, what are you working on next? Will you still run along a speculative, highly-detailed world like Plastic, or something different?
In all the breaks I took from Plastic through the years, I have some other novels I’ve started work on, so I do have a few projects that are a few years along. It probably won’t be another ten years of work. And some of those years were a bit of an apprenticeship type, learning the basics of craft and things like that. Even though I’ve been writing my whole life, it was in my mid- to late-twenties that I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my future and take it super seriously.
GTA V RP is the multiplayer mod for the PC version of GTA (Grand Theft Auto) V. It lets the players live a unique life of their own choice in Los Santos. It greatly affects how the players and NPCs (non-player characters) behave, making it different from the standard Grand Theft Auto (GTA) online mode.
Though GTA v RP was launched long ago, if you are starting it now and want to know every detail, we are here to assist you. Continue to read and get to know all you are looking for. Plus, here we also have some helpful playing tips for you. So, what are you waiting for?
What Is GTA V RP?
GTA is the abbreviation of Grand Theft Auto, and RP stands for roleplay. Here, GTA V RP is the latest game of the present time. In this game, the players create their characters and can become a personality of their choice. It is the same way actors choose a role or character for themselves.
Later, The characters can interact with other characters and create different stories. Remember that these stories can be short or long-lasting for months or years. The storylines also vary in tone, as they can be humorous or serious.
It may surprise you, but it is true that, like many other video games, there is no real goal in GTA V RP that you have to achieve, or you will not reach an endpoint. You play your role in the game. Therefore, you will notice that every character has an agenda and reason for doing whatever.
Though good role players will create amazing characters, the viewers can also interact with the streamers. It allows them to be involved in the community and invest in their favorite characters.
GTA V RP Playing Tips
Starting GTA V RP can be overwhelming, especially for beginners. We have some tips to follow to become a GTA V RP pro. So, let’s look over them:
When you play GTA V RP, familiarize yourself with key bindings to help you become a successful player. So, if you are playing on PC, press Esc > Settings > Key Bindings to get a list.
Looking over this list, you can easily learn how to make basic movements such as jumping, walking, and crouching. Besides that, you can also learn how to enter a vehicle, pick up something, or put on your seatbelt.
When it comes to GTA RP, there are certain do’s and don’ts that you need to follow while setting up for the game. It will not only make or break your RP experience, but it will also affect others. Therefore, you should use a good mic and avoid background noise and distractions.
You must have something for self-defense, as you can be robbed or held up at gunpoint. It does not mean you should have a gun; it should be something that can be used for self-defense. Look over the map, check if you can find a gun icon or something like that, and then pick it up.
Learning the lingo is crucial not only because you are new to this game but also because you are new, and it will help you understand the rules. For instance, if someone says, “Take a cough drop,” you will keep moving around all day and sound like a robot whenever you try to speak.
Learn how to share your contact information and add a new one, as it will be embarrassing when someone asks for your number, and you don’t know how to do so. But keep in mind that every server is different. Therefore, find which hotkey will bring out your phone and get familiar with it.
Also, get to know how to call the police. It will be of great help, especially when you are in danger.
What To Watch Out For In GTA RP?
Though the GTA roleplay servers are great fun, there are certain things you need to consider. It is a modded community game. Therefore, certain servers try to take advantage of the players. So, avoid the server that pushes the loot boxes, financial incentives, or donations.
There are several completely free servers. Many of them are better in quality than other pay-2-win ones. The servers will accept the standard donation as it is not cheap to run the servers themselves. But, if any of them pushes or asks for the money, it is not worth your time.
You need to understand that not all the players follow the rules. So, someone can join the server and can easily start attacking the players or may cause other problems. In that situation, you should use the clipping or recording software to report those players.
Conclusion
GTA V RP has become one of the most popular games of the present time, where the players take on the personality of a character they are playing. Plus, instead of achieving any specific target, you must act according to a scenario and communicate with others.
If you are new to GTA V RP, there are certain things you need to learn in advance, like key bindings, how to share your contact information, lingo, and how to call the police. Also, follow the game rules and have something for defense if you want to play like a pro!
On 2021’s CRAWLER, IDLES had no issue experimenting with their sound, finding ways to dial back the ferocity without giving up on the band’s core ethos. It was a surprisingly moody record that saw them continuing their collaboration with rap producer Kenny Beats, who co-produced its follow-up, TANGK, along with Radiohead associate Nigel Godrich and IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen. Eeriness was an oddly good fit for the band, not least because it coincided with vocalist Joe Talbot delving into his battle with addiction. But it was hard to imagine the album winning over too many skeptics; its minimalism also had the strange effect of highlighting the band’s more questionable tendencies, like the constant need to offer a playful reprieve, mantra, or explosive release for every moment of somber introspection. When Talbot said “Are you ready for the storm?” at the end of the opening track, inevitably, a storm ensued.
There’s less of that on TANGK, which is even more intent on, if not always successful at, dialing things back. It’s an interesting proposition in part because the subject matter isn’t as uniformly dark as CRAWLER – every bit of press can be reduced to the fact that TANGK is an album of love songs, which, yeah, no shit – and Godrich’s involvement suggests they might be more primed to embrace the nuances and contradictions within their songs. And there is, in fact, evidence of a band eager to showcase a different expression of its identity here, as opposed to one simply trying different tricks to amplify the same universal message that was more deftly captured on 2018’s Joy as an Act of Resistance. ‘IDEA 01’ opens the album with swirling, glitchy instrumentation that immediately points to Godrich’s influence, but there’s something to be said about the way Talbot sinks into it, too, singing abstractly about “the things we lost in the fire” and repeating the final word like Thom Yorke himself might have. The mid-album piano track ‘A Gospel’ retains the fractured melancholy that must have been there in Bowen’s original demo, and given Talbot’s fierce propensity for optimism, the resigned tone of his singing “Just tell me darling/ And I’ll be your past” is particularly striking.
It’s funny, then, that the next song barrels in with disco strings one could mistake for the next Dua Lipa single if it didn’t take less than ten seconds to announce itself as an IDLES track. As a preview of the record, ‘Dancer’, which features additional vocals from LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Nancy Whang, signaled TANGK as the band’s potential dance-punk record, and fun as it was as a single, its giddiness ends up drowning out the buzzing experimentation that takes center stage elsewhere on the album. More effective in that regard are songs like ‘Grace’ and ‘Gift Horse’, whose off-kilter synths warp the songs out of shape even as they adhere to the band’s thumping post-punk – although if you’re only mildly intrigued by the band venturing outside their comfort zone, you might be tempted to tune out as soon as Talbot spits the line “Fuck the king” in a song seemingly about his daughter. (If you’re wondering: “He ain’t the king, she’s the king!”)
While the vulnerability of Talbot’s vocals is admirable, especially since it’s a trait that’s always set IDLES apart in terms of their image, his lyricism is generally a step down from CRAWLER. The way he poetically improvises over ‘POP POP POP’ is compelling, the incongruence between his words and the ominous, dissonant instrumental actually matching his strange inversion of the German word schadenfreude. But the violent hypotheticals of ‘Roy’ ring hollow, and many of the songs, especially on the album’s weaker second half, feel underwritten, struggling to offer much to grasp onto besides the obvious motif of “Love is the thing.” You can’t question that mantra, of course, and Talbot’s delivery on the song ‘Grace’ does it justice. But when it’s so clearly at the heart of the album, one that stylistically tries a number of different things, you shouldn’t be left with the feeling of wanting that much more.
The title of Grandaddy‘s new album, Blu Wav, refers to the blend of bluegrass and new wave that Jason Lytle was shooting for while making it. The misspelling/pun is Grandaddytradition, but it could also be a winking acknowledgment that this is Lytle’s attempt at achieving this sort of genre fusion, which might not be exactly how you’d describe the end result – “an actual country music record,” according to press materials, a quote that feels insanely out of context without the qualifying “in its own Grandaddy way.” The follow-up to 2017’s Last Place was written and produced by Lytle, who drapes the songs – many of them ballads or slow waltzes – in tons of pedal steel (performed by Max Hart), its sweetness balanced by off-kilter electronics, over a foundation of acoustic guitars, piano, and lush vocal harmonies. The sound of Blu Wav feels both old-timey and timeless, if not futuristic, and its warmth is almost as pervasive as the melancholy. If a song title like ‘You’re Going to Be Fine and I’m Going to Hell’ makes it seem like Lytle is treating bouts of heartbreak and depression with a dose of humour, there’s no mistaking the haunting vulnerability of songs like ‘On a Train or Bus’ and ‘Ducky, Boris and Dart’. It’s a ride worth sticking to, all summed up in the first lyrics of early single ‘Cabin in My Mind’: “Well, it’s a long and lonely road/ But there’s a safe and loving glow.”
We caught up with Jason Lytle to talk about some of the inspirations behind Blu Wav, including a Patti Page song, pedal steel, long bike rides, and more.
‘Tennessee Waltz’ by Patti Page
The song is cited in the press bio as an inception point record and its country leanings. It says you just heard it on the radio one day. What was going through your mind at the time?
Sometimes it’s just the circumstances or the conditions when you hear something; you can listen to something staring at a screen in your room, and then you get it out in the real world, go for a walk, and it just hits you in a different way. I’m a big proponent of that. A lot of times, I’m problem-solving when I’m working on music, and I just I get so tied up and clamped up sitting in front of the gear and in front of the screen that I’m like, “I gotta get out of here.” I’ll go for a bike ride or a hike or whatever, and all of a sudden, these answers start arriving, the doors start opening. In this case, I was on a road trip. I used to do a lot of driving, a lot of getting from where I was going to where I needed to go – there was a lot of open roads, open highways out in the desert. That song came on, and I’d probably actually heard it a number of times in the past, but for some reason I was just like, “Holy shit, what’s going on here?”
It was something about the sweetness of it, and it was something about – who knows what it was that was making it hit me the way that it hit me. It could have even been the lighting that I was taking in as I was driving, or just the freedom of driving and being out on the open road. It could have been a number of things, the intersection of all these things. But I remember this seed of intrigue got planted. It was something about the simplicity of the song, and I’m a big fan of 3/4 or 6/8, waltz time music. It’s a very natural time signature for me. You have a lot of time to mentally riff on these ideas as you’re driving these long distances, and I just started getting intrigued by the idea of making my own version of this sort of music. It set me on the path for thinking there might be something here. I know it meant a lot because it because I carried that for years; I didn’t get right on it.
I was wondering if this ties into the next inspiration you’ve listed, which is “looking for a certain genre on Spotify and not finding it because it doesn’t exist.”
I know that I’ve heard this kind of slower, sweeter kind of waltz, dancing kind of bluegrass, but whatever phrases or keywords you’re supposed to use in order to locate that stuff, I just I wasn’t able to do it. And that’s where the impatience probably came into play. It probably wasn’t too long after that, I was just like, “Well, fuck it, I’m just gonna make it myself.” Because the version that I heard in my mind was a little bit more interesting, I think. It became intriguing to me to add some dense synthesizers – the combination of the dense synthesizers and the pedal steel alone was really intriguing to me. Since then, I’ve actually I’ve gone on to discover that this does exist. There are ambient pedal steel mixes that you can find on Spotify, and that’s led me into some interesting directions. But I wasn’t aware of that stuff until I was done making this record.
I should also add that I went into this album with that imaginary genre in my mind, and that set me off in the right direction, but other powers that are beyond me were pulling me here and there throughout the course of making the album. It’s almost presumptuous for me to say, “Hey, I decided I was gonna come up with this genre, and I successfully pulled it off.” Because I don’t think I did. I think that I tried, but also, a whole lifetime of listening to music and being influenced by other stuff and having certain default directions that I go while I’m working on things – that came into play as well. The album ended up becoming what it needed to become, but having that direction in the beginning, the focus of something that I was shooting for, was a good place to start. It ended up allowing me to arrive upon an album that had a certain feel to it; whether or not that sounded exactly like what I was after in the beginning is a whole other matter.
There’s a lot there about consuming and trying to classify music while making it, but you mentioned impatience – I’m curious how much that feeling, when you’re working on something of your own, drives inspiration for you, or whether you need to be in a different headspace to resolve things creatively.
Well, there’s there’s a very practical element that exists: I just don’t like sitting in front of a computer. I would rather be outside, I would rather be engaged in the world, I would rather be immersed in the outdoors. Even running errands, just doing normal shit. I feel like when it’s time to work, I want it to happen fast. And I also feel, by it happening fast, that I’m not overthinking things. Even when I was younger and I had a higher capacity for spending obscene amounts of time working on things, I would work in these bursts; they were these really bright, intense, concentrated periods of work. And then I’d be exhausted, and I’d stop; I’d take a break for a week or whatever. I’d wear myself out. Something happens when I work like that that that doesn’t happen when I just have time to lazily mull over ideas for extended amounts of time and overintellectualize things or discuss things – I’m not a big a discusser, a big overanalyzer [laughs]. I’m usually grabbing ideas, grabbing little nuggets and holding on to them, and when it’s time to work on them, I psych myself up and work really intensely for an amount of time that seems like a sensible amount of time, and then I stop and I take a break. I feel like that has been my method for capturing any kind of magic, something that I can’t quite put words to or call a certain something.
I feel like I’m lucky that I can still do that, because I feel like a lot of my favorite artists over time, you could just see that they lost the plot and it’s because too many other people got involved. Too many other voices, too many other people were chiming in, too many other people. And I still work the same way. I don’t have any pressure from anyone to do it in any different sort of way, so I guard that. I very much protect the way that I work, and I try to keep it the same way. In terms of honesty and purity or capturing the essence of certain things, that’s my way of doing it, so I’d rather not change that method of working.
Would you say you’re more mindful now about reaching that point of exhaustion and needing to step back?
Yeah, I’ve definitely gotten a little bit more responsible. And I have certain realistic factors, like my ears are shot, so if I work for too long, for too many days in a row, I have really bad tinnitus, and the more I work, the more fatigue my ears get. My ears always ring as it is, they’re ringing 24 hours a day – one ear is a lot worse than the other, but it amps that up big time. I’m falling apart, basically [laughs]. So I have to be smarter about things.
Long Bike Rides
How long ago did you pick that up as a habit?What’s your relationship with it been like?
In a lot of the bios, it mentions the fact that I was heavily involved in skateboarding. I was aspiring to do something with it when I was younger, like I was sponsored and skated contests. It was a huge part of my life; it’s still a big part of my life. But I had this pretty major, catastrophic knee injury, so I started riding bikes a lot to rehab my right knee. I realized that I had a pretty rich history riding bikes when I was a kid, so I started connecting with it on this whole other level. For a lot of people, it ends up being their first experience with freedom: getting on a bike, leaving the house and being on your own, having the wind rush through your hair, being able to extend your distances. It started clicking on all these other different levels, so I stuck with it.
Eventually, it took the forefront; skateboarding kind of took a back seat. Even to the point where Granddaddy would go on tour and I would bring a bike with me, just for the exercise element of it. But also, when you get into a city – it’s pretty funny, you can always see the band people wandering around, but they never wander any more than two or three blocks from the venue. It’s kind of pathetic, actually. I always wanted to see a little bit more of where I was, so that enabled that to happen. I’d look at the map and go, “Okay, great, there’s a trail along this river” or whatever, and then I would get home, and all the PTSD that came along with being on tour – getting on the bike would allow me to kind of flush all that stuff out and get healthy again.
And then it only seems to have accumulated. I started getting more into endurance events. I was curious to see what I was capable of, for the the fitness aspect of it, but I also find that something kind of takes over when I’m riding these super long distances. There’s something very meditative about it. And I like the pushing the boundaries of the body sort of thing as well, which I’m learning isn’t a very common nerdy musician thing. I have a very small group of people that I can share this with who also play music [laughs].
Even last weekend, I just I did a 103 mile ride. It took all day, but it was also super enjoyable and I saw tons of crazy shit along the way. And I listen to music, I listen to podcasts, so it’s a great way for me to catch up on listening to things and stay active at the same time and take in my environment. It checks a lot of boxes for me.
Is being in that meditative space, having this practice, something that also intersects with creativity or inspiration in a way that’s different from driving or riding a train or bus?
Even the night before, for me it’s a lot of fun studying the map, connecting the dots, like, “Can I even do that?” Usually that’s what I know I’m onto something good, when I’m like, “Can I even do that?” You know that phrase imposter syndrome – constantly judging one’s own sense of self-worth – I definitely suffer from some imposter syndrome. I can go a lot deeper with it, but it’s something that I’ve always carried around. And for me to semi-regularly do this sort of stuff, to start off on a journey and not even know if I can pull the thing off, and then to do so, to kind of do it with good form and with grace and not be completely wiped out and and demoralized or too traumatized when the thing is done – that is confidence-building, and the sort of confidence-building that I respond to. So the more of that that I have coming in, that actually carries over into me working on music. The more that I experience endurance in these other parts of my life, the more carries over into working on music.
If you could count the amount of times you just want to give up – in this case, hit save, turn off the computer, and fucking walk away – but it’s like, you gotta stick with it. You gotta chase down this idea. It’s constant, continual problem-solving. Like, “How do I not give up on this jigsaw puzzle?” You know how daunting of a prospect that can be, looking at a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, like, “God, I know this can come together. I know there’s an answer here. I just have to stick with it.” Endurance has a lot to do with that – I’m gonna go into old man rant mode here, but there’s something about the way the modern world is evolving, it’s moving away from that. It’s a little scary, and it’s a little sad, how justifiable it is for people just to give up on stuff a little bit more easily than maybe in the olden days.
When talking to artists, especially young artists, there’s always this implicit narrative of, “When did you discover your confidence?” Or, “When did you start taking this seriously?” When really, that enduring question, “Can I even do that?” – there’s some doubt there along with the confidence, and following it can be a motivating thing, because it doesn’t really go away.
It’s interesting, too – it may have something to do with more of an extended perception, because I don’t think it goes away with, like, “Oh, great, I stuck with that.” I think I need it from multiple sources. I need it from multiple, real – this is gonna sound crazy, but songwriting, I’ve regarded it as almost embarrassing. I need to be careful here, but I couldn’t call myself an artist for forever – there’s almost something not honorable or artsy fartsy about it. There’s something too precious, especially with people who are elevated and billionaires, and they’re so looked up to for these weird, artificial reasons. There’s something that’s always been kind of embarrassing to me about that, so for me to find inspiration, and for me to hone in on ways of finding the importance of endurance, has to exist in ways other than music.
I’m super grateful that I ended up here, because for me it’s been great to have found an artistic outlet that allows me to deal with my demons and figure things out; and the satisfaction I get from creating things, working with sounds, and then to share that with people, the stories within the songs – that has all been amazing. But there’s also something very delicate and precious about it that is just the opposite of like an auto mechanic or a woodworker or blacksmith. For some reason, I consider those more honorable endeavors or tasks. Those are my own hangups, and part of that may have to do with the fact that I grew up very blue collar. I’d find myself in situations where I wasn’t able to have these sort of conversations with my friends because my friends did stuff that was way different from what I did. You would come back from tour and it was almost like coming back from, you know, being in the military service or being overseas, and I had no one to share my stories with other than my other band members. Maybe it’s because we lived in Modesto and we were just an oddity. I picked a weird line of work, and somehow it worked out, but there’s something slightly alienating about it as well.
The phrase “Mars is a dust bowl”
A lot of times, when I’m starting a new project or an album, I have a notebook and it’s just a lot of stream of thought, giving myself guidance; little mantras, little words of wisdom, quotes from people or just ideas, things that will keep me in check. The sci-fi element of Mars and the Dust Bowl being about as old-timey and dirty and country-like as I can conjure up in my own mind – somehow combining those two, I saw a bit of a sci-fi element happening with this album as well. I think I was trying to get that across a bit in the synthesizer, electronic element, I thought that would give it just enough of a twist to help counter the elements of the lap steel and the occasional mandolin and acoustic guitar.
Did that phrase precede your general idea of what the record would sound like?
Yeah, I’m usually trying to build up as much of this stuff as I can, and this stuff helps me get excited about it, too. If I’m too rudderless at the beginning, I need focus, I need direction. As a matter of fact, the sequence of the album was pretty intact from the very beginning, and that gives me focus. If a certain song is sounding too much like this, that’s going to dictate – this checks and balances system of what the next song is going to sound like. Because I’m still adhering to what is sadly becoming an extinct idea, which is viewing it all as an album, the album as a whole having a good flow to it. I don’t like the fact that that’s going away, but from what I hear, that seems to be going away. The concept of an album having the beginning of it, this journey that exists, and coming to an end – I love that. I’ll never go away from that.
Even with that as the goal, it’s interesting how much of it starts with these disorganized notes or observations that you have to then glue onto a singular vision.
I’m actually looking at – I have my cheat sheet here, I’ve made a folder, and all the songs have individual notes and scraps kind of taped together. Like this one says, “Vocals never forceful, annoyed, or cynical. Going for sweet, innocent, kind, sentimental, and calm. Even if it gets rough and dark in subject matter, keep it sweet.” I’m just giving myself advice, and it’s usually because I know that throughout the working process I’m going to hit all these roadblocks, so in order to refocus I go back to all these notes that I wrote myself when I was in another frame of mind. It’s almost role-playing, having multiple versions of myself working on the album at the same time.
Why was keeping things sweet important to you?
Because I feel like that’s what I was hearing when that occurred, hearing that Patti Page song. I feel like that’s what was coming across, almost in an old-fashioned kind of way. If you spend any time on the internet sorting through comments about current events, people have just gotten so mean and cynical and snarky and just rude and terrible [laughs]. This old-fashioned concept of just being polite and pleasant and sweet to one another, I think I was just feeling some of that of that. If I’m gonna attempt to make this sort of music, the thing that’s really going to drive it home, even if it is whiny, self-analytical subject matter – I gotta try to keep it sweet and simple. I’m not even sure if I adhered to that, but that was definitely one of the guidelines I gave myself at the beginning.
Pedal steel
I’m curious if it started with wanting to incorporate it into one song, or if you had the idea early on of it being there across the album.
First off, I find it hilarious that there hasn’t been one note of pedal steel that ever existed on a Granddaddy album. So it’s like, go big or go home. But I knew it was going to be a crucial element, and it was a little stressful, too, because I didn’t actually know anybody personally who played pedal steel. I got a couple of recommendations from friends, and I was slowly profiling people in the process. One of the recommendations, I reached out to him, and it was key for me that he understood what I was after. In a nice, lighthearted way, I explained to him what I was going for, emphasizing the fact that I wasn’t making a country-sounding record here, and I was trying to find the sweet spot, messing with genres a little bit here. And he was up for it.
We did the first one remotely, and that went well. But then I realized I did such an extended amount of editing, and I was left to my own devices to the point where I realized it was going to work a lot better if we’re in the same room together. He was on tour with Melissa Etheridge, of all people, and he had a day off in the Los Angeles area. He was nice enough to meet me on that day off, and we recorded most of the parts that ended up on the album together, with lots of in-depth discussion before each pass for each song. That was best best-case scenario for me. I did have a pretty active hand in the editing as well, but I had such great stuff to sort through that it was an enjoyable process. And then it was getting the sound right; there’s a lot of different ways that the pedal steel could have been presented, so just giving it enough dreaminess and just enough down-to-earthness as well.
In a statement about ‘Long as I’m Not the One’, you said you struggled with the arrangement being “too folky and/or too country.” Was that a challenge you ran into with other tracks as well?
That’s an enjoyable challenge for me. Anytime I got into that situation. I felt like that’s what I was supposed to be doing. I was supposed to be cramming these seemingly incongruent elements together and somehow making it work. That was the challenge that I accepted at the beginning of this project. Even identifying that, it’s like, “This is maybe going to start sounding a little too twangy and hokey, so how can I make it weird?” I like that checks and balances system of trying to make things work that might not look right on paper, but somehow it’s working as you listen to it.
A work schedule dictated by the weather
My most used function on my phone is probably still Weather. I don’t know why, I just like to be outside so much. It’s not even a cop-out – even when I’m working on stuff, my working capacity for working on music is not limitless and it’s only going to exist within a certain window of time, so if I can fit that around the weather, that’s a day well spent. At summertime, it gets pretty gnarly here, and even at the beginning of this album, I had everything set up out in the garage, and I could only work from about 8:00 in the morning until 10:00 or 11:00, and then it got so unbearably hot in there. At some point, my computer actually fried the power supply because it was so hot out there, I had to take it to get it repaired.
Actually, this is hilarious – look at this right here [points to the cover of the notebook]. This was the deadline for the album: August 1, 2022. So I realized I wasn’t making the progress I needed to be making, and it was because my time was so limited with my setup out in the garage, but that made the most sense the way the house is set up here. So I tore everything down, which was no small undertaking, and I relocated everything into my bedroom, about three feet away from my bed. My bedroom actually ended up becoming the main overdub studio location for the second half of the album. In that case, the weather didn’t end up being such a factor in terms of comfort, but I still like to be outside as much as I can. There’s something natural about that too, it’s just the way animals function. And taking naps at certain sensible times, that’s what animals do, and I’ve been known to do that as well [laughs]. It makes a lot of sense to me, working with the weather.
It’s almost a cliche, but were you conscious of the weather affecting the mood or tone of the songs, in a way that became apparent when you were revisiting them?
It’s almost a problem how influenced I am by the weather. Right now, I live in a pretty sunny environment. The days per year of sunshine here is way up there in terms of cities, and I love it. I don’t take one pleasant day for granted. I lived in a state here, in Portland, Oregon, I was there for reasons – I was trying to make other people happy other than myself, and it was fucking miserable. I was going through a divorce. It was rainy and cold and wet and moldy. I don’t recommend going through a divorce in wet, rainy, and cold Portland, Oregon. I got stuck there, and all I could do was escape. And now I’m here [in California], and I’m happier. It’s like night and day. It’s a little bit more expensive, but it’s worth it in terms of retaining one’s sanity.
There will be maybe two crappy rainy, cloudy days here, and I feel it so deeply. When my gear was still out in the garage, I was a little worried because there was thunder, and the rain was so loud that I thought it was going to creep into the microphones. It didn’t really, but it ended up picking up all these thunderstorms, which is pretty cool. There’s a song on the album called ‘East Yosemite’, and there’s one line in it where I mention something about the sound of crashing waterfalls or something like that. [The line is: “If they knew I slept next to their famous waterfall/ Glad to rest where I can’t text or accept any calls/ Though that wall of sound would drown it all out thankfully/ Deep in the interior of East Yosemite”]. If you listen to the background of that, there’s these real low rumbles, and it was these distant thunderstorms that were happening. I was super excited to catch that on the recording, and then I looped it towards the very end. I have this breathing sound of my voice and the thunderstorm is on loop. I think half the time I don’t know how it’s affecting me, and it probably affects my relationship with other people, but weather – man, I’m definitely tied into it.
Mount Baldy, California
The only reason I mentioned that is because I was on a hike, I was doing a little miniature snow mountaineering trip, and I still hadn’t had the lyrics for the first track, ‘Blu Wav’. Within twenty minutes to what ended up being this all-day adventure, all those lyrics started coming to me on that hike. As it turns out, it was also at the same time, it was big news at the time – there was a British actor by the name of Julian Sands, who I guess also dabbled in mountaineering, and he got lost up there in the snow and died. He had gone missing from January to June, and eventually they found his remains when the snow was cleared, but that was around that time. I don’t even know why I wanted to mention that, but it was a little spooky, knowing that he was up there, lost somewhere in that vicinity at the time that I was coming up with these lyrics, hiking up that same trail.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
As promised, Vampire Weekend have shared their first new songs in five years. ‘Capricorn’ and ‘Gen-X Cops’ are lifted from the band’s recently announced albumOnly God Was Above Us, and they come with music videos utilizing footage of New York in 1988 from Steven Siegel, the photographer whose image serves as the album cover. The ‘Capricorn’ clip was directed by Drew Pearce, while ‘Gen-X Cops’ was helmed by the band’s longtime creative director Nick Harwood. Ezra Koenig produced and wrote ‘Capricorn’ with Ariel Rechtshaid, and he co-produced ‘Gen-X Cops’ with Rechtshaid and Chris Tomson. Watch and listen below.
Along with the new songs, Vampire Weekend have announced a North American tour running from April through October. Openers include LA LOM (aka the Los Angeles League of Musicians), the English Beat, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Mike Gordon, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Princess (featuring Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum), Cults, Mark Ronson (doing a DJ set), the Brothers Macklovitch, and a Billy Joel tribute band called Turnstiles.
Only God Was Above Us arrives April 5 via Columbia.
Vampire Weekend 2024 Tour Dates:
Mon Apr 8 – Austin, TX – Moody Amphitheater (Solar Eclipse)
Sat April 27 – New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival*
Fri May 10 – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Block Party*
Thu May 30 – Barcelona, Espana – Primavera Sound*
Thu Jun 6 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
Fri Jun 7 – Irving, TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
Sun Jun 9 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
Mon Jun 10 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
Wed Jun 12 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
Sat Jun 15 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek Theatre at U.C. Berkeley
Sun Jun 16 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek Theatre at U.C. Berkeley (Matinee Show)
Tue Jun 18 – Burnaby, BC – Deer Lake Park
Wed Jun 19 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
Thu Jun 20 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
Sat Jun 22 – Bonner, MT – KettleHouse Amphitheater
Sun Jun 23 – Bonner, MT – KettleHouse Amphitheater (Matinee Show)
Fri Jul 19 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Mon Jul 22 – Kansas City, MO – Starlight Theatre
Tue Jul 23 – Lincoln, NE – Pinewood Bowl Theater^
Thu Jul 25 – Maryland Heights, MO – Saint Louis Music Park
Fri Jul 26 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
Sat Jul 27 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
Tue Jul 30 – Minneapolis, MN – The Armory
Thu Aug 1 – Milwaukee, WI – BMO Pavilion
Sat Aug 3 – St. Charles, IA – Hinterland*
Thu Sep 19 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH – Blossom Music Center
Fri Sep 20 – Cincinnati, OH – The ICON Festival Stage at Smale Park
Sat Sep 21 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
Mon Sep 23 – Rochester Hills, MI – Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
Tue Sep 24 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage
Wed Sep 25 – Laval, QC – Place Bell
Fri Sep 27 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
Sat Sep 28 – Philadelphia, PA – TD Pavilion at The Mann
Mon Sep 30 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
Wed Oct 2 – Charlottesville, VA – Ting Pavilion
Sat Oct 5 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Sun Oct 6 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden (Matinee Show)
Tue Oct 8 – Wilmington, NC – Live Oak Bank Pavilion
Wed Oct 9 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater
Fri Oct 11 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheater
Sat Oct 12 – Atlanta, GA – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park
Sun Oct 13 – Asheville, NC – Rabbit Rabbit
Tue Oct 15 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre
Thu Oct 17 – Austin, TX – Moody Center
Similar to any other subject, astrology has its own set of terms. With so many words to learn, it can be overwhelming for beginners. This guide provides an overview of the popular words in astrology. Whether you are analyzing a natal chart or trying astrology psychic reading, this guide will help you establish a strong understanding of the subject.
A Glossary of Astrology Terms
The Sun Sign is widely known and frequently talked about. It represents the zodiac sign that the sun was in when you were born. It characterizes your emotions and represents your true essence. However, it is just the beginning of comprehending your astrological chart, as the other positions also impact and refine your personality.
The moon sign refers to the position of the moon during your birth, indicating your emotions, hidden desires, and subconscious. It relates to things that happen beneath the surface and may not be obvious, even to the individual. Additionally, it shows what makes someone feel loved and their behavior in private settings.
Rising Sign, also known as the ascendant sign, refers to the zodiac sign that was on the eastern horizon during your birth. It determines the beginning of your birth chart, which is divided into 12 sections. The rising sign offers insight into the initial impression people have of you when they first meet you.
The concept of modality categorizes the zodiac signs into three groups, providing an understanding of their behavior and functioning. These groups are known as cardinal, fixed, and mutable, with each group including four signs.
The Cardinal Sign, also known as Cardinal, refers to one of the modalities in astrology. These signs are known for their ability to start things and bring about changes. They are characterized by being proactive, resilient, and assertive. Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn are the four signs that fall under the category of cardinal signs.
One of the categories in astrology is the fixed sign, which refers to people who prefer stability and are resistant to change. These persons find comfort in a structured routine and value loyalty and consistency. The zodiac signs associated with this modality are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius.
Transit refers to when a celestial object passes directly between an observer and a larger celestial body. From a specific viewpoint, the object in transit seems to cross over the surface of the larger body, blocking a small part of it.
Retrograde refers to the phenomenon where a planet appears to be moving in a backward motion, specifically when observed from Earth. This occurrence is generally viewed negatively as it is believed to disrupt normalcy. However, not all retrogrades should be dreaded, as they can often bring about necessary changes, help personal growth, and stay on the right track.
Aspects are the correlations between planets, measured about the zodiac wheel. These connections can be determined by calculating the angular distances between the degrees of two planets. To recognize the signs of fate and not miss an important moment, you should use the services of live psychics
A square occurs when two celestial bodies form a 90-degree angle. This specific alignment is notorious for causing tension among the planets involved, as they oppose and clash with each other.
Trine is a word that typically indicates “threefold” or “triple.” In astrology, however, it signifies a positive connection between two celestial bodies, forming a 120-degree angle. In this configuration, the planets involved are also in the same element. This alignment is generally seen as a harmonious combination that allows energy to flow smoothly.
An opposition occurs when two planets are positioned directly opposite each other, forming a 180-degree angle. This alignment suggests a struggle between the energies of these celestial bodies, potentially leading to conflict unless equilibrium is established.
Why is Astrology Terminology so important?
If you are unaware of the position of the stars during your birth, you can use a complimentary natal chart tool to discover your various astrological positions. Once you become acquainted with your birth chart, consulting with a knowledgeable Astrology Psychic can provide insight into how these phenomena (and others) can impact your life.
Astrology plays an important role in your everyday life. The movement of planets is responsible for influencing your emotions, experiences, and much more. This is why it is recommended to seek a reading on psychic astrology. Nebula’s team of astrological psychics can analyze your birth chart and provide information about important dates in your life that have, are, or will have a huge impact on you. If you want to know more about our psychics, you can read real reviews and check out our astrology and numerology blog. Perhaps you want to get a deeper understanding of your birth chart before diving into a reading! Are you ready to contact an astrology psychic with psychic websites or just want to gather more information about the astrologer?
Jason Lytle is back with a new Grandaddy abum, Blu Wav, out today via Dangerbird Records. The follow-up to 2017’s Last Place is billed as the band’s “first foray into true country,” with Lytle noting that “there’s an inordinate amount of pedal steel” throughout. Ahead of its release, the LP was previewed with the singles ‘Cabin in My Mind’, ‘Watercooler’, and ‘Long as I’m Not the One’. “I wanted people to be kind of surprised,” Lytle said in press materials, “And thrown off a little bit.”
IDLES have returned with their fifth album, TANGK, out now via Partisan. Nigel Godrich, the band’s Mark Bowen, and Kenny Beats produced the follow-up to 2021’s CRAWLER, which was preceded by the singles ‘Gift Horse’, ‘Grace’, and the LCD Soundsystem collaboration ‘Dancer’. Speaking about the album, vocalist Joe Talbot said: “I needed love. So I made it. I gave love out to the world and it feels like magic. This is our album of gratitude and power. All love songs. All is love.”
Friko – the duo of vocalist/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger – have released their debut album, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here, via ATO. The band previewed the 9-track effort with the singles ‘Where We’ve Been’, ‘Crimson to Chrome’, ‘Crashing Through’, ‘For Ella’, and ‘Get Numb to It!’. “One of the main things we want to do as a band is talk about what’s happening right now and everything we’re feeling, with an honesty and directness that gets through to people,” Kapetan said. “I hope that our music helps everyone feel more deeply, but in a way that goes beyond just reacting to the songs. I want it to pick people up, so that they can actually go out and do something with whatever they’re feeling.” Check out our Artist Spotlight interview with Friko.
serpentwithfeet has released a new LP, GRIP, via Secretly Canadian. The follow-up to 2021’s Deacon features the early singles ‘Safe Word’ and ‘Damn Gloves’, as well as collaborations with Ty Dolla $ign, Yanga YaYa, Mick Jenkins, and Orion Sun. Speaking about the inspirations behind the album, the Baltimore, Maryland-born singer-songwriter said: “Going out while working on the album and seeing how people stood at the bar when ordering a drink, Are they on their phone trying to disappear from the scene? Are they flirting with the bartender? Are they writhing slowly to the music? What does it look like when a guy runs into his ex and that ex is with someone new? I’m curious about all of this.”
Lime Garden have come out with their debut album, One More Thing, via So Young Records. “I feel like you can hear us growing up in the songs,” vocalist and rhythm guitarist Chloe Howard said in a statement about the album, which was produced by Ali Chant. Drummer Annabel Whittle added, “I think because we’re so close it creates a very open environment to make music where we can say whatever we want, and we won’t be judged.” The singles ‘Nepotism (baby)’, ‘Love Song’, ‘I Want to Be You’, ‘Mother’, and ‘Pop Star’ arrived ahead of the LP.
Laura Jane Grace has dropped a new album, Hole in My Head, her first solo release since 2021’s At War With the Silverfish EP. Previewed by the singles ‘Dysphoria Hoodie’, the title track, and ‘Cuffing Season’, the LP was recorded at Native Sound in St. Louis with producer David Beeman, and over half of it features Drive-By Truckers bassist Matt Patton. “St. Louis really opened its arms to me and I just have such a great time when I’m there,” Grace shared in a statement. “It’s a really special city. To me, it feels like the way every city in America felt when I first started touring in the late-‘90s, and this crazy mix of fun and adventure, but danger and possibility.”
Omni – the Atlanta trio of guitarist Frankie Broyles, singer/bassist Philip Frobos, and drummer Chris Yonker – are back with their first album in five years, Souvenir, via Sub Pop. The Networker follow-up was engineered by Kristofer Sampson, and features a guest appearance from Izzy Glaudini of Automatic on the early single ‘Plastic Pyramid’. The singles ‘Exacto’, ‘INTL Waters’, and ‘Compliment’ also preceded the record.
Adult Contemporary, Chromeo’s first proper LP since 2018’s Head Over Heels, has arrived. It spans 14 tracks, including the previously shared singles ‘Words With You’, ‘Replacements’, ‘(I Don’t Need A) New Girl’, and ‘Personal Effects’. “On this album, P and I we’re like, ‘Let’s take it back to the days of being your mom’s basement, let’s just do everything ourselves and go back to how we used to do it’,” Dave 1 said in an interview with NME. “I was able to find my voice again but it’s different now because I’m more comfortable singing and I’ve had more experience. What came out of that were just these songs about relationship topics that people our age deal with.”
Other albums out today:
Jennifer Lopez, This Is Me…Now; Molly Lewis, On the Lips; Heems & Lapgan, LAFANDAR; Danielle Durack, Escape Artist;Prize Horse, Sound Under; El Perro del Mar, Big Anonymous; Middle Kids, Faith Crisis Pt 1; San Fermin, Arms; William Doyle, Springs Eternal; Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes, HIGH LIFE; Paloma Faith, The Glorification of Sadness; The Obsessed, Gilded Sorrow; Shambolics, Dreams, Schemes & Young Teams; Talk Show, Effigy; Nouvelle Vague, Should I Stay or Should I Go?; Mother Mother, Grief Chapter; Crawlers, The Mess We Seem to Make; Sean Ono Lennon, Asterisms.
Jason Lytle is back with a new 
serpentwithfeet
Lime Garden have come out with their debut album, 
Laura Jane Grace has dropped a new album, 
Omni
Adult Contemporary