pls listen to the now now and never - what is your name? if you haven't yet i want to hear what you think about it
ive been wanting to listen to it for some time, so now i had a reason to actually do it :) i really liked it! i think it‘s awesome how the album combines all of these different rock subgenres with electronic elements. and im the biggest fan of sampling in shoegazey albums. my favorites were heartache st., youthful days, you can‘t turn back time and hella old. all of them have this really blissful wall of noise you can get lost in. but it‘s difficult to properly review it after just the first listen, at times I felt that the album doesn‘t really know what it wants to be and that the sound is all over the place. i guess this will probably change when i let the songs grow on me a bit. thanks for the rec :)
I can‘t remember the last time I felt this positively about life. The past year has been bullshit from start to finish, there was always something to tear me apart from the inside. It feels gratifying that I was at least able to learn a couple things about myself in the process. I enjoy the feeling of loving myself and not needing to seek verification from others to be happy. But I‘m worried that this feeling of freedom will start to fade again when I let my emotions take over. I used to find it difficult to balance loving myself and wanting to care for others at the same time, and even though I now know that it is totally possible, I‘m still afraid of falling back into old patterns. I have a clear vision of who I want to be, and all I have to do to achieve that is to continue loving myself. If I can‘t do it, it feels like I wasn‘t able to learn anything from me being at my lowest.
After the Magic is extremely Your Lie in April coded. I love the theatrical instrumentation and the intense bursts of emotion, almost like explosions. I think that the jump from TSTNPOTD to After the Magic is just as elusive as the jump from OK Computer to Kid A. I mean, it‘s still shoegaze, but Parannoul somehow got rid of all the loserness. It‘s like a heartfelt love story with some tragedies here and there.
A Hommage to the Ether: To See the Next Part of the Dream
I believe "I Can Feel My Heart Touching You" was most likely intended to be a bad ending to the album with the lyrical I committing suicide.
This analysis contains major spoilers for the movie "All About Lily Chou-Chou"
The samples from "All About Lily Chou-Chou" that Parannoul uses in "To See the Next Part of the Dream" always have a direct correlation with the meaning of the songs:
Beautiful World (Sample: "What are you listening to?" "Lily Chou-Chou."):
This sample originates from a conversation between Shiori and Yūichi. Both of these characters have very tragic plotlines marked by emotional and physical abuse from Shūsuke. In a world full of pain, Yūichi‘s only source of happiness is Lily Chou-Chou. Her music turns into his reason to live. The gray and hopeless world he lives in suddenly turns beautiful when listening to Lily.
White Ceiling (Sample: Yūichi‘s screams after the Lily Chou-Chou concert):
Similar to the concert being the climax of the movie, "White Ceiling" is the climax of the album. The last three minutes of the song are an emotional outburst with many different sounds layered on top of each other. When listening to it for the first time, I remember being severely overwhelmed by the many sounds playing at once. This is exactly how Yūichi must have felt when being betrayed by Blue Cat as he turned out to be Shūsuke.
To See the Next Part of the Dream (Sample: Conversation between Yūichi and Shūsuke):
This scene took place before Shūsuke turned into a bully. It‘s a slow and calm conversation that establishes a close bond between the two. The atmosphere is very dreamy as they talk about personal topics and speculate about outer space. The song reflects this dynamic by being relatively calm in comparison to the rest of the album, especially "White Ceiling".
I Can Feel My Heart Touching You (Sample: "I want to fly in the sky."):
These were Shiori‘s last words before committing suicide. Considering Parannoul used samples from the movie to reinforce the message of the songs, there is just no way he used Shiori‘s last words while also having a good ending for the album in mind. The hopeful atmosphere of the song is intentionally misleading because it reflects on the moments shortly before Shiori‘s death. The movie also seemed to take a more hopeful turn near the end with Shiori enjoying kite flying and finally experiencing a happy moment. But the damage imposed by Shūsuke was far too great to be undone at this point. In the song, Parannoul also described a scenery that is very similar to Shiori‘s place of death (e. g. "On the green grasslands" or "Under the blue sunset").
In my opinion, "I Can Feel My Heart Touching You" must‘ve been directly written from Shiori‘s point of view. In the context of her death, I think these lyrics are self-explanatory:
"I wanted to fly one day, just like those birds."
"If I take another step forward, don‘t I need to try hard anymore?"
the best therapy is still aggressively riding my bike at night pretending to be chased by some evil guy. the street lights are so pretty. i made it home alive, exhausted, but very content
i only started reading nana because i thought it would be a cute romance story but now im actually so fucking invested and its the greatest thing ever with my favorite characters in all of literature??? (((im talking about yasu and nobu, obviously))) like i genuinely didnt have so much fun reading something in years
if you don't suffer from misophonia genuinely count your blessings bro. I'm not kidding take a minute to thank God the universe Buddha or whoever the fuck. I'm literally in hell rn
person with misophonia when they’re being triggered to the point of feeling suicidal: i just can’t bring myself to say anything because i don’t wanna be a bother…
person without misophonia who is triggering them, on the rare occasion that they ARE asked to stop: but i don’t wannaaaaaaa :(
misophonia is like one of those curses from greek myths. there's no way to accommodate for this. i'm in physical pain and on the verge of screaming because people around me are *checks smudged notes on hand* chewing their food & breathing
having one of my misophonia triggers being certain types of voices is Hell like even more so than eating is (and that's the Big One). there are two people in my second class that bother me So Much and they're both so chatty.
and also i so desperately wish ppl would just go and blow their nose. don't sit there with all the gross sounds of your breathing i'm going to commit a crime.
