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authorBill <bill@billserver.senders.io>2023-01-06 21:31:24 -0500
committerBill <bill@billserver.senders.io>2023-01-06 21:32:35 -0500
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+ <h1>Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022</h1>
+ <p>The hype is real. I only recently wrote last years, so I bet your hype
+ is nonexistent but for me I was writing that knowing full well there were
+ some bangers waiting to be unleashed in this year end review!</p>
+ <p>If you hadn’t read my previous post for 2021 the link is at the
+ bottom:</p>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>The winner was “KANGA - You and I Will Never Die”</p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <h2>The album pool</h2>
+ <p>As always the criteria:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>it was released in 2022</li>
+ <li>it wasn’t a single</li>
+ <li>if it was an EP it has to be substantial and intentional</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>And the albums are…</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Amining for Enrike - The Rats and the Children</li>
+ <li>And So I watch You from Afar - Jettison</li>
+ <li>Astronoid - Radiant Bloom</li>
+ <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li>
+ <li>Cult of Luna - The Long Road North</li>
+ <li>Dance With the Dead - Driven to Madness</li>
+ <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li>
+ <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li>
+ <li>Giraffes? Giraffes! - Death Breath</li>
+ <li>God Mother - Obeveklig</li>
+ <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li>
+ <li>Long Distance Calling - Eraser</li>
+ <li>Ludovico Technique - Haunted People</li>
+ <li>MWWB - The Harvest (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard)</li>
+ <li>MØL - Diorama (Instrumental)</li>
+ <li>Psychostick - … and Stuff</li>
+ <li>Russian Circles - Gnosis</li>
+ <li>SIERRA - See Me Now</li>
+ <li>Starcadian - Shadowcatcher</li>
+ <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li>
+ <li>Toundra - Hex</li>
+ <li>Waveshaper - Forgotten Shapes</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>2022’s playlist (+ 2 albums from bandcamp not on Spotify):</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2TCd910OyZcTjQ8l8Dc0Jy?si=efd0dc6286b84062">
+ [spotify] senders&#39; Releases 2022 Spotify Playlist</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp]
+ Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp]
+ Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <h2>The Top 5</h2>
+ <p>In alphabetical order:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li>
+ <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li>
+ <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li>
+ <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li>
+ <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li>
+ </ul>
+ <h2>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</h2>
+ <p>Some metal infused synthwave, Carpenter Brut managed to release a
+ catchy and heavy banger of an album. Featuring a few guest performers,
+ each of these tracks are unique and catchy in what I would consider a
+ very “same-y” genre. It’s nice having an infinite supply of retro synth
+ tracks to drive to, but sometimes it’s hard for one to really break
+ through into “oh shit yes!”. Typically, Starcadian is the one to do that
+ for me, as they add an extra layer to their tracks through their music
+ videos (each track being an “ear movie”).</p>
+ <p>Throughout the year I found myself coming back to a few tracks over
+ and over - especially when I was showering or doing some other short
+ activity and I just wanted something upbeat and fun as heck!</p>
+ <p>Some call out featured songs are The Widow Maker featuring Gunship,
+ Imaginary Fire featuring Greg Puciato, and Lipstick Masquerade featuring
+ Persha. I looped these three songs quite a bit. But there are quite a few
+ more to checkout.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>This is tough, as I looped those three songs quite a bit - each
+ bringing their own unique energy. So I’ll pick all three - my list my
+ rules:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>The Widow maker - feat. Gunship This track is representative of
+ the genre. It’s synthwave to the core.</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Imaginary Fire - feat. Greg Puciato This is a metal track with
+ synths. Greg Puciato (of The Dillinger Escape Plan fame) is one of my
+ favorite vocalists and is immensely talented. This is probably my
+ favorite because I can’t get enough of his vocal style - the screams
+ and the clean vocals!</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Lipstick Masquerade - feat. Persha This is a modern 80s track.
+ This is what retrowave was designed around and while tracks like The
+ Widow Maker are more typical of the genre, this is the song they all
+ are basing their sound off of. This is kill pop song.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Non Stop Bangers</h3>
+ <p>You throw this album on and it hits you with just banger after banger.
+ I can’t keep myself from dancing. Even as I listen back as I write this
+ gemlog I am grooving in my chair! Like Kanga last year, this is just a
+ series of tracks that just make you dance.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/37PW0ipoWcjx3APS1MN0ql?si=HE0-siOqTsqVlJrlL9MWTw">
+ [spotify] Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</a></p>
+ <h2>Elder - Innate Passage</h2>
+ <p>I toot’d a bit about this album, a later release in the year, this
+ took this year end review and flipped it on its head. I thought it was
+ wrapped up already with a separate release this year, but this makes the
+ decision so hard.</p>
+ <p>Elder came at us with what feels like a return to form. Having
+ previously released Omens in 2020 and a collaboration album in 2021,
+ Innate Passage takes the best parts of those two albums and builds on-top
+ of more “classic Elder” albums like Lore. Elder has carved out their own
+ niche in the genre making a blend of psych rock and stoner metal, with
+ each release leaning harder and harder into psychedelic realms. Innate
+ Passage has this almost ethereal feeling - especially in their opening
+ track Catastasis.</p>
+ <p>I think, however, they’ve left the doom and stoner metal behind. Dead
+ Roots Stirring and Elder (self titled) were certainly “Doomy” and in that
+ “doom/stoner” metal overlap. Lore, Reflections of a Floating World are
+ both still very “stoner metal”. But is playing psychedelic-metal with a
+ big muff automatically stoner metal? I think since Omens they’re
+ probably, as a band, firmly outside of the stoner metal field - and more
+ soundly in some psychedelic/prog metal genre?</p>
+ <p>They introduce themselves as such in their website actually!</p>
+ <figure>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>genre-pushing rock band&nbsp;that melds heavy psychedelic sounds
+ with progressive elements and evocative soundscapes.</p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <figcaption>
+ <cite>— <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/">https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/</a></cite>
+ </figcaption>
+ </figure>
+ <p>“Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra” is the track that flips this whole
+ argument on its head and shows that regardless, they’re still very much a
+ metal band and one that you’ll absolutely be head banging too, horn up
+ \m/.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>I think “Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra”. A nearly 15 minute track
+ that has everything in it you expect from Elder.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Excellent Vinyl Record Cover</h3>
+ <p>I LOVE their record covers when they do the circular inserts. You can
+ display this vinyl with having 3 separate views through the port, which
+ while purely aesthetic - it’s very nice!</p>
+ <p>The quality of the vinyl release was great, though I find any
+ non-black Vinyl has a 33% chance of being slightly warped upon arrival. I
+ am going to stick to traditional black vinyls from now on sadly. It’s too
+ freaking often</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/5XClGjeje4c3qPjbtT898K?si=PFgsT8S_TD6hu4dwbFp3Jw">
+ [spotify] Elder - Innate Passage</a></p>
+ <h2>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</h2>
+ <p>Her second album in her “Electric Guitar” series - Emma Ruth Rundle
+ (ERR from here on out) has released “Dowsing Voice” a haunting follow-up
+ to last years Engine of Hell. Holy holy HOLY hell, this album is an
+ impactful, artistic, just WOW. It’s hard to describe. I was listening to
+ it for this review and my partner, sitting behind me relaxing, said “What
+ the hell are you listening too, this is scary!”. And scary, emotional,
+ and difficult it is. ERR stretches the use of the “electric guitar”
+ title, as the focus here is the additional layers and voices added on-top
+ of the main tracks.</p>
+ <p>An experimental release that, at this time is only available on
+ bandcamp, is one I don’t put on frequently, but when I do am fully
+ captivated. If you like artistic records - please check this out.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>Probably: Keening into Ffynnon Llanllawer - I love the guitar(?) part
+ and the wailing/vocalization. It’s haunting. As a recording is
+ amazing.</p>
+ <p>Though “In the Cave of The Cailleach’s Death-Birth” is the /best/
+ track. Put some headphones on and give this a listen! Just amazing.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Album Art</h3>
+ <p>This album, IS ART, but the album art is just… really suiting the
+ music.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp]
+ Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a></p>
+ <h2>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</h2>
+ <p>This is an interesting pick. Having released JUST in time for this
+ year, this is an album I have been engaging with in many, many ways.
+ Firstly, I am a patron of this performer via Patreon. They make music
+ videos (audio only performance videos of the songs) that they compile
+ into albums. Last year’s album is probably my actual favorite and likely
+ SHOULD’VE snuck into the top 5 because of the final track alone, which
+ was an emotional and just epic banger of a track (Linked at the bottom of
+ this review).</p>
+ <p>Celestial spheres is a compilation of 8 synth jams. Jay bills these as
+ semi-improvisational, and while the YT channel is a synth nerds dream of
+ these informative performances, the songs stand on their own. This one is
+ no exception. Using various different pieces of hardware synths,
+ grooveboxes, drum machines and traditional instruments - each track is
+ unique while still carrying this /energy/ and style. It’s so easy to hear
+ Jays tracks and know it’s him.</p>
+ <p>I’ve been following him for years and really enjoy the music he makes,
+ and the community he’s built up around his music. Due to the disconnected
+ nature of the singles (releasing effectively as YouTube videos prior to
+ the album drop) it’s difficult to ultimately rate these in these lists
+ since I don’t get a chance to really enjoy them /as an album/ until the
+ end of the year (the past two times happened like this where they came
+ out around the end of the year). And on my playlist “Future, Tense” is
+ present as it’s a “2022” album according to Spotify, but was out on
+ bandcamp in 2021, and that’s when I was gifted it by Jay.</p>
+ <p>So yeah - this whole section is like “disclaimer disclaimer” but if
+ you like groovy, typically instrumental synth music - check it out.</p>
+ <h3>The various other releases</h3>
+ <p>This year Jay released a few albums actually which I didn’t want to
+ include separately. If you enjoy this album (which was mostly comprised
+ of 2022 music, so was the primary focus) check out the other albums:</p>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works</a>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day</a>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day</a></p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>Without out a doubt it’s Nychthemeron. It’s truly a wild track, with
+ so much happening in it. I suspect it was his favorite too since he made
+ an actual music video for it:</p>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka-xE3Qo3dA">[youtube] Jay
+ Hosking - Nychthemeron (Official Music video)</a></p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Each track has a live performance attached to
+ it!</h3>
+ <p>If you enjoy videos - these each have a corresponding YT video linked
+ at the bottom of the bandcamp page.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp]
+ Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a></p>
+ <h2>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</h2>
+ <p>Tina Dickow (sometimes credited as Tina Dico, depending on the
+ release) is a fantastic Danish singer songwriter. Since her first solo
+ album she’s really found a way to elevate what is just folk indie pop.
+ Her songwriting, arrangements, and performances are always so rich. She
+ knows when to strip the song back - like Chefen Skal Ha&#39; Fri - while,
+ has certainly a lot happening beneath the lyrics - mixes them back a bit
+ to let the layered vocals cut through as the song builds. Each song has
+ so much to listen to! Picking out various instruments, layers, yet every
+ song would work performed just her and her acoustic guitar. I find her
+ style of pop music to be very engaging for that reason. I don’t often
+ listen to this style of music, but the production behind each track is so
+ good it hooks me in. That and her beautiful voice - which drew me in
+ first.</p>
+ <p>It’s a bit harder to talk about this album given the language barrier
+ (I do not speak Danish!) Which is a shame, since her lyrics are often
+ what I love about some of her previous albums. I’ve read the translations
+ and done my own as a learning exercise, but there is a layer missing
+ which is a shame given how strong this album is as whole.</p>
+ <p>I’ve spoken about Tina before in two previous gemlogs (<a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-04-27-music-spotlight-awesome-eps.gmi">Music
+ Spotlight: Awesome EPs</a> and <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-05-18-5x5-playlists.gmi">5x5
+ Playlists</a> (both gemini:// links)) and is one of my absolute favorite
+ artists of all time. I’ve been slowly collecting her entire discography,
+ which can be tricky, given a lot of copies are out of print and the
+ remaining stock/used copies are often in Europe. (And that 5x5 playlist
+ is very telling given most of those artists have been featured in my top
+ albums lists and were winners! Is this foreshadowing?!)</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>I shouldn’t have introduced this section - it has been so hard each
+ time! I think the title track, Bitte Små Ryk. It’s got everything there,
+ and is representative of the albums sound.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Lovely</h3>
+ <p>This whole album is lovely. There is emotion here too, and while I
+ don’t speak the language its often very clear. But I love Tina and her
+ music. It’s lovely and hits this spot in me thats just warm.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/6YV4Gomk4iy0dUyVqPDN7T?si=e3wO7G3XTI-ZIwhOSCswJA">
+ [spotify] Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</a></p>
+ <h2>My Top Pick</h2>
+ <p>This year has been especially hard, since I spent so much time
+ listening to 2021s releases which are some of my favorite of all time.
+ And between 2021 and 2022 (and mentioned in my 2021 spotlight) nearly
+ every one of my favorite artists released an album. So I have been
+ blessed with a lot to listen to.</p>
+ <p>Anyone following me on mastodon may have seen Tina Dickow just owning
+ my entire wrapped campaign, but with Elder releasing their album after
+ the data collection stops for wrapped, that certainly isn’t telling the
+ whole story.</p>
+ <p>And it wouldn’t be a top album list if I didn’t mention Starcadian
+ being consistently in the top 10 year after year, just narrowly missing
+ the top 5 - though technically, this release was in my 2020s list, as it
+ was available then, but had since been pulled, and was released
+ “officially” in 2022. Looking at what I can see it’s the same tracklist,
+ but the “inspired by” credits are entirely gone from the 2022
+ release.</p>
+ <h3>Elder - Innate Passage</h3>
+ <p>Each year picking the winner is hard. Part of the reason I do this is
+ I don’t really add stuff to the list I don’t like. A LOT of music comes
+ out each year, and I add what I listen to. I don’t listen to music I
+ don’t like - so by nature of the process - each album is a “top album”
+ for me.</p>
+ <p>But the top 5 is usually a mix of “omg obvs” and “yeah turns out I
+ threw that on way more than I expected” (Carpenter Brut). But its really
+ always a fight between those “obvs” - this year was Elder and Tina
+ Dickow. Their releases were seriously top tier and repeat listens.</p>
+ <p>Tina came in with the advantage of releasing in April, and Elder JUST
+ released theirs at the end of November. But I did some math on my
+ mastodon breaking down the comparison. Elder came at us with a longer
+ albums, under half as many tracks, and over 2x the average song length
+ (about 10min/track).</p>
+ <p>They didn’t waste a single second (neither did Tina) but just being
+ such an accessible album - just direct pure energy and power - BOOM! It
+ was great.</p>
+ <h3>This should’ve been a tie</h3>
+ <p>Honestly, I was ready to call it a tie. I am actually writing this
+ minutes before posting it, because that’s how undecided I am and how
+ close this is.</p>
+ <p>Tina Dickow deserves the number one slot any other year, and both her
+ and Elder’s albums I hope to see more of in the next few years! Both are
+ classic albums in their discographies (both albums of which I own and
+ spin regularly). I forced myself to pick, and just knowing me, my tastes,
+ and all the stuff I said above - I went with Elder. But seriously, listen
+ to this record - Tina manages to pack so much musicality in carving out a
+ unique sound and just amazing style. I love her &lt;3 :)</p>
+ <p>And if her music isn’t your jam - check out her guest tracks on the
+ Zero-7 stuff - angelic voice.</p>
+ <h2>Conclusion</h2>
+ <p>I am REALLY disappointed I had to choose between Elder and Tina Dickow
+ this year. Similarly, last year I had Raised by Swans, ERR, and Kanga!
+ And our winner in 2020 was Bell Witch. These ARE my top six favorite
+ musical artists currently active.</p>
+ <p>I’ll talk about music trends and my tastes later on. But I just wanted
+ to emphasize how much of a banger these last 3 years have been musically
+ and I am grateful I get to share these with you here.</p>
+ <p>I am really excited for 2023!</p>
+ <h2>This year’s playlist (2023)</h2>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4zgdFBZslkcEq0xYFyME7U?si=4bc2bf7d015c4254">
+ [spotify] senders&#39; Releases 2023 Playlist</a></p>
+ <h2>Links</h2>
+ <p>If you use gemini:// you can check out my previous posts (until/unless
+ I decided to port those over too)</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-11-30-music-spotlight-top-album-2021.gmi">
+ [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2021</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-03-21-music-spotlight-top-album-2020.gmi">
+ [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2020</a>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>Thanks for reading! I don’t always crosspost - I am trying something
+ out :)</p>
+ </article>
+ <div id="footer">
+ <i>January 03, 2023</i>
+ </div>
+ <div id='copyright'>
+ © 2023 senders dot io - <a rel="license external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>
+ unless otherwise noted.
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+ href="https://github.com/s3nd3r5">github</a> <a rel=
+ "external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://git.senders.io">cgit</a> <a rel=
+ "me external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://mastodon.online/@senders">mastodon</a>
+ </nav>
+ </div>
+ <div id="body">
+ <article>
+ <h1>How I Generate My RSS Feed</h1>
+ <p>I only just now started supplying an RSS feed to you fine people! You
+ can subscribe to it at <a href=
+ "/blog/feed.rss">www.senders.io/blog/feed.rss</a>!</p>
+ <p>I decided rather than manually generating the file contents I’d hook
+ into my pre-existing publish scripts to be able to generate the RSS
+ file.</p>
+ <h2>Publishing blog posts - shell scripts ftw</h2>
+ <p>In <a href="/blog/2022-11-06/">My Markdown -&gt; HTML Setup</a> I
+ touch on how I publish my markdown files into HTML for this blog. But
+ what I don’t <em>really</em> touch on is the shell scripts that tie the
+ whole process together.</p>
+ <p>What I have is two, now three, scripts that feed the whole
+ process:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li><code>publish-blog.sh</code> - the main script</li>
+ <li><code>compile-md.sh</code> - generates the HTML output</li>
+ <li><code>update-feed.sh</code> - generates/appends the RSS feed</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The <code>update-feed.sh</code> script is the new one I just
+ added.</p>
+ <p><code>publish-blog.sh</code> is the primary interface, I supply the
+ date of the post and the path to the md file and that calls compile and
+ update to automate the entire process.</p>
+ <p>Without going into TOO much detail you can view the latest versions of
+ the scripts at <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/</a>.</p>
+ <p>But the gist of the scripts is I parse out the necessary details,
+ find/replace some tokens in template files I have setup for headers and
+ footers, and concat the outputs into the final output HTML files, and now
+ RSS feed.</p>
+ <h3>update-feed.sh</h3>
+ <p>Source File: <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh</a></p>
+ <p>This script is pretty interesting. I didn’t want to deal with any XML
+ parsers and libraries to just maintain a proper XML rss file and push
+ items into the tree. Rather, I just follow a similar setup to my markdown
+ generation. I leverage some temporary files to hold the contents, a
+ static temp file for the previously generated content, and at the end
+ swap the temp file with the real file.</p>
+ <p>I take in an input of the publish date (this is the date from the
+ publish script), the title, and the HTML file path. These are all already
+ variables in the publish script, but also something I can manually supply
+ if I need to publish an older article, or something I wrote directly in
+ HTML.</p>
+ <p>The core of the script is found here:</p>
+ <pre><code>PUBDATE=$(date -d &quot;$1&quot; -R)
+TITLE=$2
+FILE_PATH=$3
+PERMALINK=$(echo &quot;${FILE_PATH}&quot; | sed -e &quot;s,${TKN_URL_STRIP},${URL_PREFIX},g&quot;)
+LINK=$(echo &quot;${PERMALINK}&quot; | sed -e &quot;s,${TKN_INDEX_STRIP},,g&quot;)
+
+# Generate TMP FEED File Header
+
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_HEADER &gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_BUILDDATE}/${BUILDDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Generate TMP Item File
+
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_HEADER &gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s~${TKN_TITLE}~${TITLE}~g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s,${TKN_PERMALINK},${PERMALINK},g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s,${TKN_LINK},${LINK},g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -n &quot;/&lt;article&gt;/,/&lt;\/article&gt;/p&quot; $FILE_PATH &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_FOOTER &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+
+# Prepend Item to items list and overwrite items file w/ prepended item
+## In order to &quot;prepend&quot; the item (so it&#39;s on top of the others)
+## We need to concat the tmp item file with the existing list, then
+## we can push the contents over the existing file
+## We use cat -s to squeeze the blank lines
+cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+cat -s $FILE_TMP_ITEM &gt; $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT
+
+# Push items to TMP FEED
+cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Push RSS footer to TMP FEED
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_FOOTER &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+echo $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Publish feed
+cat -s $FILE_TMP_FEED &gt; $FILE_RSS_OUTPUT
+
+echo &quot;Finished generating feed&quot;
+</code></pre>
+ <p>Some key takeaways are:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li>sed lets you do regex with delimiters that AREN’T <code>/</code> so
+ you can substitute something that shouldn’t actually ever show up in
+ your regex. For me that is <code>~</code>.</li>
+ <li>I always forget you can use sed to extract between tokens - which
+ is how I get the CDATA for the RSS: <code>sed -n
+ &quot;/&lt;article&gt;/,/&lt;\/article&gt;/p&quot;</code></li>
+ <li><code>mktemp</code> is really REALLY useful - and I feel is under
+ utilized in shellscripting</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The obvious cracks are:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li>I rely SO much on <code>sed</code> that it’s almost certainly going
+ to break</li>
+ <li>I don’t have much other flag control to do partial generation - so
+ if I need to do something either starting partway through or not finish
+ the full process, I don’t have that.</li>
+ <li>Sometimes things can break silently and it will go through, there
+ is no verification or like manual checking along the way before
+ publishing the feed.rss</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The final two can easily be managed by writing the feed to a location
+ that isn’t a temp file and I can manually do the <code>cat -s
+ $FILE_TMP_FEED &gt; www/blog/feed.rss</code> myself after I check it
+ over.</p>
+ <p>But for now I’ll see if I ever have to redo it. I don’t think anyone
+ will actually sub to this so I don’t really need to care that much if I
+ amend the feed.</p>
+ <h2>Where to put the feed URL</h2>
+ <p>I never intended to provide an RSS feed. I doubt anyone but me reads
+ this, and from my previous experience with gemini feed generation was a
+ bit of a headache.</p>
+ <p>A quick aside: I really only decided thanks to Mastodon. I was
+ thinking during the Twitter meltdown “what if twitter but RSS” (I know
+ super unique idea). But basically like a true “microblog”. And some OSS
+ tools to publish your blog. This got me reading the RSS spec and looking
+ into it more - which then lead me down the using the RSS readers more (in
+ conjunction with gemini, and Cortex podcast talking about using RSS
+ more).</p>
+ <p>But I’ve decided to just put the RSS feed in the blog index, on my
+ homepage, and that’s it. I don’t need it permanently in the header.</p>
+ <h2>Conclusion</h2>
+ <p>I didn’t have much to share here, it doesn’t make too much sense to
+ write a big post on what can be explained better by just checking out the
+ shell scripts in my git source. The code speaks better than I ever
+ could.</p>
+ <p>I really, really like shell scripting.</p>
+ </article>
+ <div id="footer">
+ <i>January 06, 2023</i>
+ </div>
+ <div id='copyright'>
+ © 2023 senders dot io - <a rel="license external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>
+ unless otherwise noted.
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/www/blog/feed.rss b/www/blog/feed.rss
index f41185e..f929be1 100644
--- a/www/blog/feed.rss
+++ b/www/blog/feed.rss
@@ -7,8 +7,562 @@
<copyright>2023 senders dot io - CC BY-SA 4.0</copyright>
<language>en-US</language>
<ttl>60</ttl>
- <lastBuildDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2022 20:55:34 -0500</lastBuildDate>
- <pubDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
+ <lastBuildDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2023 18:56:10 -0500</lastBuildDate>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
+ <item>
+ <title>How I Generate My RSS Feed</title>
+ <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-06/index.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
+ <description>
+ <![CDATA[
+ <article>
+ <h1>How I Generate My RSS Feed</h1>
+ <p>I only just now started supplying an RSS feed to you fine people! You
+ can subscribe to it at <a href=
+ "/blog/feed.rss">www.senders.io/blog/feed.rss</a>!</p>
+ <p>I decided rather than manually generating the file contents I’d hook
+ into my pre-existing publish scripts to be able to generate the RSS
+ file.</p>
+ <h2>Publishing blog posts - shell scripts ftw</h2>
+ <p>In <a href="/blog/2022-11-06/">My Markdown -&gt; HTML Setup</a> I
+ touch on how I publish my markdown files into HTML for this blog. But
+ what I don’t <em>really</em> touch on is the shell scripts that tie the
+ whole process together.</p>
+ <p>What I have is two, now three, scripts that feed the whole
+ process:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li><code>publish-blog.sh</code> - the main script</li>
+ <li><code>compile-md.sh</code> - generates the HTML output</li>
+ <li><code>update-feed.sh</code> - generates/appends the RSS feed</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The <code>update-feed.sh</code> script is the new one I just
+ added.</p>
+ <p><code>publish-blog.sh</code> is the primary interface, I supply the
+ date of the post and the path to the md file and that calls compile and
+ update to automate the entire process.</p>
+ <p>Without going into TOO much detail you can view the latest versions of
+ the scripts at <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/</a>.</p>
+ <p>But the gist of the scripts is I parse out the necessary details,
+ find/replace some tokens in template files I have setup for headers and
+ footers, and concat the outputs into the final output HTML files, and now
+ RSS feed.</p>
+ <h3>update-feed.sh</h3>
+ <p>Source File: <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh">git.senders.io/senders/senders-io/tree/update-feed.sh</a></p>
+ <p>This script is pretty interesting. I didn’t want to deal with any XML
+ parsers and libraries to just maintain a proper XML rss file and push
+ items into the tree. Rather, I just follow a similar setup to my markdown
+ generation. I leverage some temporary files to hold the contents, a
+ static temp file for the previously generated content, and at the end
+ swap the temp file with the real file.</p>
+ <p>I take in an input of the publish date (this is the date from the
+ publish script), the title, and the HTML file path. These are all already
+ variables in the publish script, but also something I can manually supply
+ if I need to publish an older article, or something I wrote directly in
+ HTML.</p>
+ <p>The core of the script is found here:</p>
+ <pre><code>PUBDATE=$(date -d &quot;$1&quot; -R)
+TITLE=$2
+FILE_PATH=$3
+PERMALINK=$(echo &quot;${FILE_PATH}&quot; | sed -e &quot;s,${TKN_URL_STRIP},${URL_PREFIX},g&quot;)
+LINK=$(echo &quot;${PERMALINK}&quot; | sed -e &quot;s,${TKN_INDEX_STRIP},,g&quot;)
+
+# Generate TMP FEED File Header
+
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_HEADER &gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_BUILDDATE}/${BUILDDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Generate TMP Item File
+
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_HEADER &gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s~${TKN_TITLE}~${TITLE}~g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s/${TKN_PUBDATE}/${PUBDATE}/g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s,${TKN_PERMALINK},${PERMALINK},g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -i -E &quot;s,${TKN_LINK},${LINK},g&quot; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+sed -n &quot;/&lt;article&gt;/,/&lt;\/article&gt;/p&quot; $FILE_PATH &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_ITEM_FOOTER &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+
+# Prepend Item to items list and overwrite items file w/ prepended item
+## In order to &quot;prepend&quot; the item (so it&#39;s on top of the others)
+## We need to concat the tmp item file with the existing list, then
+## we can push the contents over the existing file
+## We use cat -s to squeeze the blank lines
+cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_ITEM
+cat -s $FILE_TMP_ITEM &gt; $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT
+
+# Push items to TMP FEED
+cat -s $FILE_ITEM_OUTPUT &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Push RSS footer to TMP FEED
+cat -s $FILE_RSS_FOOTER &gt;&gt; $FILE_TMP_FEED
+echo $FILE_TMP_FEED
+
+# Publish feed
+cat -s $FILE_TMP_FEED &gt; $FILE_RSS_OUTPUT
+
+echo &quot;Finished generating feed&quot;
+</code></pre>
+ <p>Some key takeaways are:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li>sed lets you do regex with delimiters that AREN’T <code>/</code> so
+ you can substitute something that shouldn’t actually ever show up in
+ your regex. For me that is <code>~</code>.</li>
+ <li>I always forget you can use sed to extract between tokens - which
+ is how I get the CDATA for the RSS: <code>sed -n
+ &quot;/&lt;article&gt;/,/&lt;\/article&gt;/p&quot;</code></li>
+ <li><code>mktemp</code> is really REALLY useful - and I feel is under
+ utilized in shellscripting</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The obvious cracks are:</p>
+ <ol>
+ <li>I rely SO much on <code>sed</code> that it’s almost certainly going
+ to break</li>
+ <li>I don’t have much other flag control to do partial generation - so
+ if I need to do something either starting partway through or not finish
+ the full process, I don’t have that.</li>
+ <li>Sometimes things can break silently and it will go through, there
+ is no verification or like manual checking along the way before
+ publishing the feed.rss</li>
+ </ol>
+ <p>The final two can easily be managed by writing the feed to a location
+ that isn’t a temp file and I can manually do the <code>cat -s
+ $FILE_TMP_FEED &gt; www/blog/feed.rss</code> myself after I check it
+ over.</p>
+ <p>But for now I’ll see if I ever have to redo it. I don’t think anyone
+ will actually sub to this so I don’t really need to care that much if I
+ amend the feed.</p>
+ <h2>Where to put the feed URL</h2>
+ <p>I never intended to provide an RSS feed. I doubt anyone but me reads
+ this, and from my previous experience with gemini feed generation was a
+ bit of a headache.</p>
+ <p>A quick aside: I really only decided thanks to Mastodon. I was
+ thinking during the Twitter meltdown “what if twitter but RSS” (I know
+ super unique idea). But basically like a true “microblog”. And some OSS
+ tools to publish your blog. This got me reading the RSS spec and looking
+ into it more - which then lead me down the using the RSS readers more (in
+ conjunction with gemini, and Cortex podcast talking about using RSS
+ more).</p>
+ <p>But I’ve decided to just put the RSS feed in the blog index, on my
+ homepage, and that’s it. I don’t need it permanently in the header.</p>
+ <h2>Conclusion</h2>
+ <p>I didn’t have much to share here, it doesn’t make too much sense to
+ write a big post on what can be explained better by just checking out the
+ shell scripts in my git source. The code speaks better than I ever
+ could.</p>
+ <p>I really, really like shell scripting.</p>
+ </article>
+ ]]>
+ </description>
+ </item>
+ <item>
+ <title>Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022</title>
+ <link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.senders.io/blog/2023-01-03/index.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
+ <description>
+ <![CDATA[
+ <article>
+ <h1>Music Spotlight: My Top Album 2022</h1>
+ <p>The hype is real. I only recently wrote last years, so I bet your hype
+ is nonexistent but for me I was writing that knowing full well there were
+ some bangers waiting to be unleashed in this year end review!</p>
+ <p>If you hadn’t read my previous post for 2021 the link is at the
+ bottom:</p>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>The winner was “KANGA - You and I Will Never Die”</p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <h2>The album pool</h2>
+ <p>As always the criteria:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>it was released in 2022</li>
+ <li>it wasn’t a single</li>
+ <li>if it was an EP it has to be substantial and intentional</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>And the albums are…</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Amining for Enrike - The Rats and the Children</li>
+ <li>And So I watch You from Afar - Jettison</li>
+ <li>Astronoid - Radiant Bloom</li>
+ <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li>
+ <li>Cult of Luna - The Long Road North</li>
+ <li>Dance With the Dead - Driven to Madness</li>
+ <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li>
+ <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li>
+ <li>Giraffes? Giraffes! - Death Breath</li>
+ <li>God Mother - Obeveklig</li>
+ <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li>
+ <li>Long Distance Calling - Eraser</li>
+ <li>Ludovico Technique - Haunted People</li>
+ <li>MWWB - The Harvest (Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard)</li>
+ <li>MØL - Diorama (Instrumental)</li>
+ <li>Psychostick - … and Stuff</li>
+ <li>Russian Circles - Gnosis</li>
+ <li>SIERRA - See Me Now</li>
+ <li>Starcadian - Shadowcatcher</li>
+ <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li>
+ <li>Toundra - Hex</li>
+ <li>Waveshaper - Forgotten Shapes</li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>2022’s playlist (+ 2 albums from bandcamp not on Spotify):</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2TCd910OyZcTjQ8l8Dc0Jy?si=efd0dc6286b84062">
+ [spotify] senders&#39; Releases 2022 Spotify Playlist</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp]
+ Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp]
+ Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <h2>The Top 5</h2>
+ <p>In alphabetical order:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</li>
+ <li>Elder - Innate Passage</li>
+ <li>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</li>
+ <li>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</li>
+ <li>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</li>
+ </ul>
+ <h2>Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</h2>
+ <p>Some metal infused synthwave, Carpenter Brut managed to release a
+ catchy and heavy banger of an album. Featuring a few guest performers,
+ each of these tracks are unique and catchy in what I would consider a
+ very “same-y” genre. It’s nice having an infinite supply of retro synth
+ tracks to drive to, but sometimes it’s hard for one to really break
+ through into “oh shit yes!”. Typically, Starcadian is the one to do that
+ for me, as they add an extra layer to their tracks through their music
+ videos (each track being an “ear movie”).</p>
+ <p>Throughout the year I found myself coming back to a few tracks over
+ and over - especially when I was showering or doing some other short
+ activity and I just wanted something upbeat and fun as heck!</p>
+ <p>Some call out featured songs are The Widow Maker featuring Gunship,
+ Imaginary Fire featuring Greg Puciato, and Lipstick Masquerade featuring
+ Persha. I looped these three songs quite a bit. But there are quite a few
+ more to checkout.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>This is tough, as I looped those three songs quite a bit - each
+ bringing their own unique energy. So I’ll pick all three - my list my
+ rules:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <p>The Widow maker - feat. Gunship This track is representative of
+ the genre. It’s synthwave to the core.</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Imaginary Fire - feat. Greg Puciato This is a metal track with
+ synths. Greg Puciato (of The Dillinger Escape Plan fame) is one of my
+ favorite vocalists and is immensely talented. This is probably my
+ favorite because I can’t get enough of his vocal style - the screams
+ and the clean vocals!</p>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <p>Lipstick Masquerade - feat. Persha This is a modern 80s track.
+ This is what retrowave was designed around and while tracks like The
+ Widow Maker are more typical of the genre, this is the song they all
+ are basing their sound off of. This is kill pop song.</p>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Non Stop Bangers</h3>
+ <p>You throw this album on and it hits you with just banger after banger.
+ I can’t keep myself from dancing. Even as I listen back as I write this
+ gemlog I am grooving in my chair! Like Kanga last year, this is just a
+ series of tracks that just make you dance.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/37PW0ipoWcjx3APS1MN0ql?si=HE0-siOqTsqVlJrlL9MWTw">
+ [spotify] Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror</a></p>
+ <h2>Elder - Innate Passage</h2>
+ <p>I toot’d a bit about this album, a later release in the year, this
+ took this year end review and flipped it on its head. I thought it was
+ wrapped up already with a separate release this year, but this makes the
+ decision so hard.</p>
+ <p>Elder came at us with what feels like a return to form. Having
+ previously released Omens in 2020 and a collaboration album in 2021,
+ Innate Passage takes the best parts of those two albums and builds on-top
+ of more “classic Elder” albums like Lore. Elder has carved out their own
+ niche in the genre making a blend of psych rock and stoner metal, with
+ each release leaning harder and harder into psychedelic realms. Innate
+ Passage has this almost ethereal feeling - especially in their opening
+ track Catastasis.</p>
+ <p>I think, however, they’ve left the doom and stoner metal behind. Dead
+ Roots Stirring and Elder (self titled) were certainly “Doomy” and in that
+ “doom/stoner” metal overlap. Lore, Reflections of a Floating World are
+ both still very “stoner metal”. But is playing psychedelic-metal with a
+ big muff automatically stoner metal? I think since Omens they’re
+ probably, as a band, firmly outside of the stoner metal field - and more
+ soundly in some psychedelic/prog metal genre?</p>
+ <p>They introduce themselves as such in their website actually!</p>
+ <figure>
+ <blockquote>
+ <p>genre-pushing rock band&nbsp;that melds heavy psychedelic sounds
+ with progressive elements and evocative soundscapes.</p>
+ </blockquote>
+ <figcaption>
+ <cite>— <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/">https://beholdtheelder.com/elder-bio/</a></cite>
+ </figcaption>
+ </figure>
+ <p>“Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra” is the track that flips this whole
+ argument on its head and shows that regardless, they’re still very much a
+ metal band and one that you’ll absolutely be head banging too, horn up
+ \m/.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>I think “Merged In Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra”. A nearly 15 minute track
+ that has everything in it you expect from Elder.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Excellent Vinyl Record Cover</h3>
+ <p>I LOVE their record covers when they do the circular inserts. You can
+ display this vinyl with having 3 separate views through the port, which
+ while purely aesthetic - it’s very nice!</p>
+ <p>The quality of the vinyl release was great, though I find any
+ non-black Vinyl has a 33% chance of being slightly warped upon arrival. I
+ am going to stick to traditional black vinyls from now on sadly. It’s too
+ freaking often</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/5XClGjeje4c3qPjbtT898K?si=PFgsT8S_TD6hu4dwbFp3Jw">
+ [spotify] Elder - Innate Passage</a></p>
+ <h2>Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</h2>
+ <p>Her second album in her “Electric Guitar” series - Emma Ruth Rundle
+ (ERR from here on out) has released “Dowsing Voice” a haunting follow-up
+ to last years Engine of Hell. Holy holy HOLY hell, this album is an
+ impactful, artistic, just WOW. It’s hard to describe. I was listening to
+ it for this review and my partner, sitting behind me relaxing, said “What
+ the hell are you listening too, this is scary!”. And scary, emotional,
+ and difficult it is. ERR stretches the use of the “electric guitar”
+ title, as the focus here is the additional layers and voices added on-top
+ of the main tracks.</p>
+ <p>An experimental release that, at this time is only available on
+ bandcamp, is one I don’t put on frequently, but when I do am fully
+ captivated. If you like artistic records - please check this out.</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>Probably: Keening into Ffynnon Llanllawer - I love the guitar(?) part
+ and the wailing/vocalization. It’s haunting. As a recording is
+ amazing.</p>
+ <p>Though “In the Cave of The Cailleach’s Death-Birth” is the /best/
+ track. Put some headphones on and give this a listen! Just amazing.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Album Art</h3>
+ <p>This album, IS ART, but the album art is just… really suiting the
+ music.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://emmaruthrundle.bandcamp.com/album/eg2-dowsing-voice">[bandcamp]
+ Emma Ruth Rundle - EG2: Dowsing Voice</a></p>
+ <h2>Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres (and various other releases)</h2>
+ <p>This is an interesting pick. Having released JUST in time for this
+ year, this is an album I have been engaging with in many, many ways.
+ Firstly, I am a patron of this performer via Patreon. They make music
+ videos (audio only performance videos of the songs) that they compile
+ into albums. Last year’s album is probably my actual favorite and likely
+ SHOULD’VE snuck into the top 5 because of the final track alone, which
+ was an emotional and just epic banger of a track (Linked at the bottom of
+ this review).</p>
+ <p>Celestial spheres is a compilation of 8 synth jams. Jay bills these as
+ semi-improvisational, and while the YT channel is a synth nerds dream of
+ these informative performances, the songs stand on their own. This one is
+ no exception. Using various different pieces of hardware synths,
+ grooveboxes, drum machines and traditional instruments - each track is
+ unique while still carrying this /energy/ and style. It’s so easy to hear
+ Jays tracks and know it’s him.</p>
+ <p>I’ve been following him for years and really enjoy the music he makes,
+ and the community he’s built up around his music. Due to the disconnected
+ nature of the singles (releasing effectively as YouTube videos prior to
+ the album drop) it’s difficult to ultimately rate these in these lists
+ since I don’t get a chance to really enjoy them /as an album/ until the
+ end of the year (the past two times happened like this where they came
+ out around the end of the year). And on my playlist “Future, Tense” is
+ present as it’s a “2022” album according to Spotify, but was out on
+ bandcamp in 2021, and that’s when I was gifted it by Jay.</p>
+ <p>So yeah - this whole section is like “disclaimer disclaimer” but if
+ you like groovy, typically instrumental synth music - check it out.</p>
+ <h3>The various other releases</h3>
+ <p>This year Jay released a few albums actually which I didn’t want to
+ include separately. If you enjoy this album (which was mostly comprised
+ of 2022 music, so was the primary focus) check out the other albums:</p>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/cinematic-works</a>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/away-music-for-a-productive-day</a>
+ <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day">https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/home-music-for-a-productive-day</a></p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>Without out a doubt it’s Nychthemeron. It’s truly a wild track, with
+ so much happening in it. I suspect it was his favorite too since he made
+ an actual music video for it:</p>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka-xE3Qo3dA">[youtube] Jay
+ Hosking - Nychthemeron (Official Music video)</a></p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Each track has a live performance attached to
+ it!</h3>
+ <p>If you enjoy videos - these each have a corresponding YT video linked
+ at the bottom of the bandcamp page.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com/album/celestial-spheres">[bandcamp]
+ Jay Hosking - Celestial spheres</a></p>
+ <h2>Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</h2>
+ <p>Tina Dickow (sometimes credited as Tina Dico, depending on the
+ release) is a fantastic Danish singer songwriter. Since her first solo
+ album she’s really found a way to elevate what is just folk indie pop.
+ Her songwriting, arrangements, and performances are always so rich. She
+ knows when to strip the song back - like Chefen Skal Ha&#39; Fri - while,
+ has certainly a lot happening beneath the lyrics - mixes them back a bit
+ to let the layered vocals cut through as the song builds. Each song has
+ so much to listen to! Picking out various instruments, layers, yet every
+ song would work performed just her and her acoustic guitar. I find her
+ style of pop music to be very engaging for that reason. I don’t often
+ listen to this style of music, but the production behind each track is so
+ good it hooks me in. That and her beautiful voice - which drew me in
+ first.</p>
+ <p>It’s a bit harder to talk about this album given the language barrier
+ (I do not speak Danish!) Which is a shame, since her lyrics are often
+ what I love about some of her previous albums. I’ve read the translations
+ and done my own as a learning exercise, but there is a layer missing
+ which is a shame given how strong this album is as whole.</p>
+ <p>I’ve spoken about Tina before in two previous gemlogs (<a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-04-27-music-spotlight-awesome-eps.gmi">Music
+ Spotlight: Awesome EPs</a> and <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-05-18-5x5-playlists.gmi">5x5
+ Playlists</a> (both gemini:// links)) and is one of my absolute favorite
+ artists of all time. I’ve been slowly collecting her entire discography,
+ which can be tricky, given a lot of copies are out of print and the
+ remaining stock/used copies are often in Europe. (And that 5x5 playlist
+ is very telling given most of those artists have been featured in my top
+ albums lists and were winners! Is this foreshadowing?!)</p>
+ <h3>Favorite Track</h3>
+ <p>I shouldn’t have introduced this section - it has been so hard each
+ time! I think the title track, Bitte Små Ryk. It’s got everything there,
+ and is representative of the albums sound.</p>
+ <h3>Special Commendation - Lovely</h3>
+ <p>This whole album is lovely. There is emotion here too, and while I
+ don’t speak the language its often very clear. But I love Tina and her
+ music. It’s lovely and hits this spot in me thats just warm.</p>
+ <h3>Album Link</h3>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/album/6YV4Gomk4iy0dUyVqPDN7T?si=e3wO7G3XTI-ZIwhOSCswJA">
+ [spotify] Tina Dickow - Bitte Små Ryk</a></p>
+ <h2>My Top Pick</h2>
+ <p>This year has been especially hard, since I spent so much time
+ listening to 2021s releases which are some of my favorite of all time.
+ And between 2021 and 2022 (and mentioned in my 2021 spotlight) nearly
+ every one of my favorite artists released an album. So I have been
+ blessed with a lot to listen to.</p>
+ <p>Anyone following me on mastodon may have seen Tina Dickow just owning
+ my entire wrapped campaign, but with Elder releasing their album after
+ the data collection stops for wrapped, that certainly isn’t telling the
+ whole story.</p>
+ <p>And it wouldn’t be a top album list if I didn’t mention Starcadian
+ being consistently in the top 10 year after year, just narrowly missing
+ the top 5 - though technically, this release was in my 2020s list, as it
+ was available then, but had since been pulled, and was released
+ “officially” in 2022. Looking at what I can see it’s the same tracklist,
+ but the “inspired by” credits are entirely gone from the 2022
+ release.</p>
+ <h3>Elder - Innate Passage</h3>
+ <p>Each year picking the winner is hard. Part of the reason I do this is
+ I don’t really add stuff to the list I don’t like. A LOT of music comes
+ out each year, and I add what I listen to. I don’t listen to music I
+ don’t like - so by nature of the process - each album is a “top album”
+ for me.</p>
+ <p>But the top 5 is usually a mix of “omg obvs” and “yeah turns out I
+ threw that on way more than I expected” (Carpenter Brut). But its really
+ always a fight between those “obvs” - this year was Elder and Tina
+ Dickow. Their releases were seriously top tier and repeat listens.</p>
+ <p>Tina came in with the advantage of releasing in April, and Elder JUST
+ released theirs at the end of November. But I did some math on my
+ mastodon breaking down the comparison. Elder came at us with a longer
+ albums, under half as many tracks, and over 2x the average song length
+ (about 10min/track).</p>
+ <p>They didn’t waste a single second (neither did Tina) but just being
+ such an accessible album - just direct pure energy and power - BOOM! It
+ was great.</p>
+ <h3>This should’ve been a tie</h3>
+ <p>Honestly, I was ready to call it a tie. I am actually writing this
+ minutes before posting it, because that’s how undecided I am and how
+ close this is.</p>
+ <p>Tina Dickow deserves the number one slot any other year, and both her
+ and Elder’s albums I hope to see more of in the next few years! Both are
+ classic albums in their discographies (both albums of which I own and
+ spin regularly). I forced myself to pick, and just knowing me, my tastes,
+ and all the stuff I said above - I went with Elder. But seriously, listen
+ to this record - Tina manages to pack so much musicality in carving out a
+ unique sound and just amazing style. I love her &lt;3 :)</p>
+ <p>And if her music isn’t your jam - check out her guest tracks on the
+ Zero-7 stuff - angelic voice.</p>
+ <h2>Conclusion</h2>
+ <p>I am REALLY disappointed I had to choose between Elder and Tina Dickow
+ this year. Similarly, last year I had Raised by Swans, ERR, and Kanga!
+ And our winner in 2020 was Bell Witch. These ARE my top six favorite
+ musical artists currently active.</p>
+ <p>I’ll talk about music trends and my tastes later on. But I just wanted
+ to emphasize how much of a banger these last 3 years have been musically
+ and I am grateful I get to share these with you here.</p>
+ <p>I am really excited for 2023!</p>
+ <h2>This year’s playlist (2023)</h2>
+ <p><a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href=
+ "https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4zgdFBZslkcEq0xYFyME7U?si=4bc2bf7d015c4254">
+ [spotify] senders&#39; Releases 2023 Playlist</a></p>
+ <h2>Links</h2>
+ <p>If you use gemini:// you can check out my previous posts (until/unless
+ I decided to port those over too)</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>
+ <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2022-11-30-music-spotlight-top-album-2021.gmi">
+ [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2021</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a href=
+ "gemini://senders.io/gemlog/2021-03-21-music-spotlight-top-album-2020.gmi">
+ [gemini] Music Spotlight: Top Album 2020</a>
+ </li>
+ </ul>
+ <p>Thanks for reading! I don’t always crosspost - I am trying something
+ out :)</p>
+ </article>
+ ]]>
+ </description>
+ </item>
<item>
<title>RSS - A Follow-up</title>
<link>https://www.senders.io/blog/2022-12-31/</link>
diff --git a/www/blog/index.html b/www/blog/index.html
index 75870e7..4615f50 100644
--- a/www/blog/index.html
+++ b/www/blog/index.html
@@ -33,6 +33,14 @@
<h1>Blog Index</h1>
<ol>
<li>
+ <a href="/blog/2023-01-06/">2023-01-06 - How I Generate My RSS
+ Feed</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
+ <a href="/blog/2023-01-03/">2023-01-03 - Music Spotlight: My Top
+ Album 2022</a>
+ </li>
+ <li>
<a href="/blog/2022-12-31/">2022-12-31 - RSS - A Follow-up</a>
</li>
<li>
@@ -72,8 +80,8 @@
</article>
<div id='footer'>
<a href="/blog/feed.rss"
- target="_blank"
- rel="noopener rss">RSS Feed</a>
+ rel="rss noopener"
+ target="_blank">RSS Feed</a>
</div>
<div id='copyright'>
© 2023 senders dot io - <a rel="license external noopener noreferrer"
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+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+ <meta charset="utf-8">
+ <meta name="generator"
+ content="HTML Tidy for HTML5 for Linux version 5.6.0">
+ <title>senders.io - PAGE_TITLE</title>
+ <link rel='stylesheet'
+ type='text/css'
+ href='/index.css'>
+ <meta name="viewport"
+ content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+</head>
+<body>
+ <div id='header'>
+ <a class='title'
+ href='/'>senders.io</a>
+ <nav>
+ <a href="/blog">blog</a> <a rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://github.com/s3nd3r5">github</a> <a rel=
+ "external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://git.senders.io">cgit</a> <a rel=
+ "me external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://mastodon.online/@senders">mastodon</a>
+ </nav>
+ </div>
+ <div id="body">
+ <article>
+ <h1>Music Blog?!</h1>
+ <p>I wanted to make a little blog section to just talk about my music
+ making. Mainly, to save my friends from enduring my thinking out
+ loud.</p>
+ <h2>Reworking my THR100HD</h2>
+ <p>I have a <a href=
+ "https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/amps_accessories/thr100hd/index.html"
+ rel="external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank">Yamaha THR100H Dual</a> which is a nice modeling amp
+ with two &quot;amps&quot;. Typically, I run these in parallel so I am
+ running through BOTH at the same time. As of late I am actually
+ considering moving to dialing in separate tones, and using my <a href=
+ "https://www.joyoaudio.com/product/88.html"
+ rel="external noopener noexternal"
+ target="_blank">Joyo PXL-Live</a> to act as a &quot;channel&quot;
+ switcher.</p>
+ <h3>Dual Amping</h3>
+ <p>Honestly, dual amping is my <em>favorite</em> thing. And I would hate
+ to give it up, as it gives my tones SO much depth. But I find when I try
+ to mix my guitars that extra depth just makes mixing a bit more of a
+ hassle than need be. But Mick of &quot;That Pedal Show&quot; on YouTube I
+ feel feels similarly, considering in <a href=
+ "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMvhraRDvDs"
+ rel="noopener external noreferrer"
+ target="_blank">one of their &quot;use less&quot; challenge videos</a>
+ he used two amps for maximum tone shaping - which I feel adds some
+ justification to my efforts!</p>
+ <h2>Results after one night</h2>
+ <p>I spent an hour or so tonight messing around with my setup and came
+ out with the following high gain tone:</p>
+ <figure>
+ <figcaption>
+ &quot;Rezzed&quot; - Hi-gain dual amped Baritone guitar
+ </figcaption><audio controls=""><source src=
+ "./audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.mp3"> <source src=
+ "./audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.ogg">
+ <p>Download <a href="./audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.mp3"
+ rel="me noopner"
+ target="_blank">MP3</a> or <a href=
+ "./audio/rezzed-senders-io-audio.ogg"
+ rel="me noopner"
+ target="_blank">OGG</a></p></audio>
+ <figcaption>
+ <em><small>No copyright</small></em>
+ </figcaption>
+ </figure>
+ <h3>Thoughts</h3>
+ <p>I feel its a bit... boomy still. There is some extra weight coming
+ from the &quot;clean&quot; channel that I think is causing this to lose
+ some clarity. I don&#39;t think if I wanted to add a mix around this
+ I&#39;d even end up keeping it. Or I would do some heavy EQing to that
+ channel. Here is what I have dialed in so far:</p>
+ <figure>
+ <img src="./img/thr100hd-settings-senders-io-img.jpg"
+ alt=
+ "A photo of the front face knobs of my Yamaha THR100HD. The top amp is set to the clean setting, the booster is turned off. The gain is roughly at 3 O&#39;Clock, Master at 9 O&#39;Clock, Bass at 10 O&#39;Clock, Middle at 2 O&#39;Clock, Presense off, Rever off, and Volume at 11 O&#39;Clock. The bottom amp is set to Modern, with the booster turned off. The gain is set to around 2:30, Master at 10 O&#39;Clock, Bass at a bit below 9 O&#39;Clock, Middle at 2 O&#39;Clock, Treble at 1 O&#39;Clock, Presents at 1:30, Rever off, and Volume a little above 9 O&#39;Clock"
+ role="img"
+ width="100%">
+ <figcaption>
+ <em>Current dual amp settings</em>
+ </figcaption>
+ </figure>
+ <h2>Future</h2>
+ <p>In the future I plan to setup different profiles between each the 5
+ channels per amp - so they&#39;re all useable and I can just do single
+ amping - as that provides me the FX loop until I setup a proper stereo
+ board. But until then - this is the setup I&#39;ve been using and I
+ rarely touch the back!</p>
+ </article>
+ <div id="footer">
+ <i>January 06, 2023</i>
+ </div>
+ <div id='copyright'>
+ © 2023 senders dot io - <a rel="license external noopener noreferrer"
+ target="_blank"
+ href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>
+ unless otherwise noted.
+ </div>
+ </div>
+</body>
+</html>