Ashley Maximillian

Queer futurist. Cosmonaut at Cosmic Cry Productions  cosmiccry.tumblr.com

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I got a new sticker!

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Update: I did it! I smashed the cis-tem and started hrt in October

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We’re offering a 15% discount off everything in our store from now until the start of the new year! Use code THEYEARAHEAD at checkout.

To prepare for the new year, we’re introducing the 2021 Year Ahead Tarot Reading. The reading is a personalized twenty-one card spread looking at the entire year ahead done by the house witch of Moonstone Magic, @moonstone

This spread builds off of our Tarot for Looking Ahead offering, while also offering guidance around the following calendar year, based around zodiac signs and seasons and can be done via email or video chat.

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Support a small queer business today! We offer tarot readings, space art, and even music.

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I tried to play this record but it’s too avant garde even for me

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Guayaba Presents: Fantasmagoría, by Guayaba

10 track album

I’ve been following Guyaba online for several years, but I never got around to listening to their music… shame on me. I made time to listen to this album and fully expected a weird, dark, and lofi rap album but this is so much more and so not lofi. Guyaba explores bossa nova through horrorcore and a psychedelic filter with super tight production. This album has a dark atmosphere, catchy and haunting melodies, beautiful vocal harmonies, and an eclectic instrumentation. Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), Mariposa Mala, and Sanguijuela are songs where Guyaba raps and sings in equally excellent quality about the intersections of being a queer fat afrolatina weirdo within the context of horror, both real and “film” type, and existentialism.  And Thus, I Remain Crepuscular…, Guyaba imitates the sounds of nature with haunting music that would fit perfectly in any horror movie ending the track with intense metal vocals.

I feel entirely unequipped to do this album justice with words. I hear something new with each listen, the music is dense, but not too thick that anything is lost in the mix. It’s beautiful and dark, it’s grounded in common genres but takes them to experimental territory. 

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Pony, by Orville Peck

12 track album

I have a knack for being completely oblivious to anything popular. I was turned onto to Orville Peck by a friend on New Year’s Eve. We watched the videos for the songs Dead of Night and Turn to Hate and I was pulled in by the whole aesthetic of it: the slightly altered but undeniably classic country sound, the mask, the videos that seemed to be filmed in strip clubs or brothels in the desert. I listened to the whole album the first chance I had and I was not disappointed. The production on this album is incredible. The album puts you alone in a dreamy desert, every instrument drips with a little reverb while drones play on in the background of a classic tremolo guitar sound with an often low voice serenaded you in tales of loss. 

Orville Peck manages to pay great homage to country legends while sneaking in heavy doses of 90s Alt Rock influences. Buffalo Run is a particularly interesting song in this regard in that it closely follows the structure and build up of Velvet Underground’s Heroine. The song slowly builds up, getting faster as it moves towards its climactic finish which would fit perfectly in a punk adjacent 90s Alt Rock song.

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Blacklisted, by Neko Case

14 track album

I first listened to this album sometime in 2019, I Wish I Was the Moon came up on my spotify discover weekly. I saw Neko Case and I remember seeing her name around the internet a lot through the years so I decided to give it a listen. I immediately fell in love with the album. It’s Country, but not quite, the arrangements on each song inform some other influence. Runnin’ Out of Fools feels, to an uninformed country listener like me, to hark back to classic country songs. Meanwhile, Lady Pilot, has more of an Indie feel (for lack of better terms). The way she delivers her lyrics feels so personal. Deep Red Bells and I Wish I Was the Moon hit particularly deep and I cry nearly every time I listen to them. Every song is a journey, exceptionally composed and exceptionally produced.

On a more personal note, I’ve slowly but surely been gravitating more towards Country music. I’ve been really into 16 Horsepower for years, and there’s some “freak folk” I still love, but I listened to Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around during the summer of 2018 and it put me in such a mood. I dug for anything I could find that was similar, some sort of biblical apocalypse country folk jams. I hovered around some almost satisfying Outlaw Country but eventually found my way back to an old favorite, Martial Industrial Neo Classical act, Puissance. Their album, Grace of God is a trip through christian slanted misanthropy draped in a beautiful and terrible synth drudged martial classical landscape. This is the music I want to make and perform: deep personal songs about the hell of growing up queer and friendless over vaguely country music accompanied by synthesizers, samplers, and symphonies.

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I’m gonna try blogging about music again, y’all

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Some years ago, I can’t find the tumblr “happy birthday to this blog” email for it, I made a tumblr called Terminate the Space Program. It was originally supposed to be a place where i could post and reblog stories, thoughts, and art relating to post apocalyptic themes. Then I thought that didn’t make sense and decided to use it as a place to write an alternate history story where instead of the Space Race, the United States and Soviet Union sought to explore the ocean floor. I drafted and then deleted a few posts.

In the time that has passed since I originally made that blog to now, I have grown to be a very different person. The world has grown, rather, degraded into an increasingly stressful and frightening place. I am at a loss as to how to top reality in terms of a scary world. 

I should go back to the ocean floor story. But I’m going to embrace the horror of the near future and build the blog in some way around that.

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New release out on Halloween, “ASHES”, a short horror audio story/zine with full soundtrack. Preorder the tape, cd, or digital copy on our bandcamp.

ASHES, by Ashley Maximillian

18 track album

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This is the first of a couple announcements! I originally recorded this and made all the art 2 years ago. Then I discovered none of the art scanned well, so I picked it back up this year and salvaged what art I could and made new art for what I had to.

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The love never ends

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The full set

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We got new business cards

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A nice, warm cuddle puddle

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Social Media and Store

We’ve spread to instagram, facebook, and twitter now. There’s also a patreon and a store. 

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We’ve added a more affordable physical version of Into the Black Void. The “standard” cd comes in a hand painted cardboard sleeve and includes a hand made insert.

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After years of being too nervous and worried to burn out circuits that I paid for. I dove into circuit bending this toy gun that I found in the trash somewhere. It’s going well. I’m waiting on more parts to finish it.

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Malice Nebula - “Into the Black Void” CDr available limited to 12 copies, each with high quality double sided prints and information insert.

Order here

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INTO THE BLACK VOID 12/24/18

“Requiem”

All things eventually come full circle appearing the same, yet changed.