#fear talk

[osophobic]

I declare war

Clowns suck, but out of aLLL clowns, MIMES suck the most.

They don't speak, they move all around all goofily, and their expressions. They scare the living shit out of me.

I will bring a taser just in case I ever get murdered by one.

[lilac-den]

This is random and unrelated but-

I was bored and morbid thoughts sneaked into my head, Now I can't yeet away the image of a human centipede crawling around my room in the middle of the night screeching and flippin' `round xD. (Don't search if you wanna keep your eyes or whatever's left of your morality, lol-) ಥ‿ಥ

The fact that I'm gonna have to write the centipede scene at some point in the book is disconcerting and unsettling for my entomophobia. . .

[thanatophobia-thoughts]

What if we can’t get rid of thanatophobia?

It’s an odd thing to consider for this page, and no doubt, for your life, but let’s hold space for that thought: what if you can’t rid of your thanatophobia? Can you learn to live with it?

Let’s consider comparing it to another common fear, and one I have, and have continued to live with: arachnophobia, or the fear of spiders. I am afraid of them, all sorts of them. I have learned all I could about spiders in my area, I know which ones can harm me, and which ones cannot harm me (the vast majority cannot harm me). Does this change my initial reaction when I see a spider?

Absolutely not.

I still freeze, or scurry away.

I watch it carefully, and try to assess my options to get rid of it.

Then, I try to take action to get rid of it – by calling someone nearby to handle it, by reaching for my Spiderkiller quarter staff, by alerting my cats, grabbing bug spray – unfortunately I’m not at the point where I can live and let live with most spiders, nor am I at the point where I can just take them outside. The thought of them being alive and that close to my body with the potential to escape would cause me to freeze up again, or throw them, and make things worse.

Yet, I live with this.

It only comes to the front when I see a spider, and I don’t know when I’m going to see a spider. It lingers after. It ESPECIALLY lingers if I lose sight of the spider, but it goes away again, and fades.

Most people with thanatophobia, from what I’ve seen, experience this at night or going to sleep. They experience it when other people pass away, or fall ill. It’s a far more frequent event then arachnophobia. Of course, arachnophobia doesn’t end my life, or even entirely ruin most of my days, even when it is triggered.

So perhaps, if we cannot overcome thanatophobia, the goal should be to learn how to live with it. Thinking in these terms may assist some of you who read this, and I would advise you to consider what you do about other fears that you have – and to consider fears you’ve overcome, at least partially (I have a fear of flying, but I still plan to take flights in the future, and have done so in the past).

Perhaps the fear won’t go away – but we can learn to work through it, and push on, and make the moments smaller, and smaller, and more manageable.  

[findasongblog]

Find a #electropop song

Xul Zolar - Fear Talk

Title track of the debut album to be released this Friday (January 19th).

[system-of-a-feather]

I am deathly afraid of looking into mirrors, windows, and dark doorways at night.

During the day it’s fine! But as soon as it gets dark I have to close the blinds and cover the mirror in the bathroom, and I have to leave a couple lights on in the house so no doorway is completely dark. If I don’t I can get terribly scared and anxious and sometimes have a panic attack.

I don’t know why I have this fear, or what I’m afraid of seeing in these spaces at night, but it is quite serious.

Oh dude I need to mark this for possibly inspiration for drawing but I had to reply and say we used to have the SAME fear. We kind of out grew it but I think its a combination of 1) dissociative people's adversion to seeing themselves thats not uncommon 2) a lot of the horror trope of horrifying things either appearing or coming out of mirrors when you least expect it 3) darkness / night makes it harder to make things out with the human eyes and mirrors themselves reflect a lot of the blank darkness you can't really see and so the brain likes to either see things that aren't really there when it tries to make sense of uncertain stimuli or it likes to think about what COULD be in there 4) there is just a lot of cultural superstitions about mirrors, especially at night

I still do get kinda spooked out by them if I'm not in the best mental state but man, I really get you on that. We had that one for a while to the point that the Haunted Mansion ride in Disneyland we literally had to cover our face at the end where they have you looking at a mirror with weird shit in it.

[iheartmoosiq]

Fear Talk opens like a surreal dream rising from the darkest chasms of the sea. Then its wavy synths and funk curls break wide open lavishly, thrusting us into a dreamy flushed hypnosis. The song is the title track from German four piece Xul Zolar’s just released debut album. The indie electro band douses us with atmospheric electronica and muggy sweltering R&B pop on their song. It’s a swift reminder why we’ve been sharing Xul Zolar’s finely crafted music for the past three years. TENDER meets Wild Beasts on the feverish yet ruminative track. Their debut album is available from major outlets, here.

[burlveneer-music]

Xul Zolar - Fear Talk

Xul Zolar was founded in Cologne in 2011 by Ronald Röttel and Marin Geier and discovered their mutual taste for bands like The Smiths and Talking Heads. They released a couple of 7“-Singles, the latest being their track „Hex“, which was picked up by several Indie-broadcasting stations and made them one of Germany’s most talked about new acts in the underground Indiemusic scene.   

Perhaps it is no accident that a painterly quality can be found in the music of Fear Talk, the debut-album of Cologne-based band Xul Zolar, given that their name is borrowed from a famed Argentine painter and sculptor. Constructing imaginary worlds is as central for their music as it was for the artist’s works. But whereas the latter is best known for his surrealist watercolours, the band’s craft tends more towards impressionism. Much like the paintings of the Impressionists, their music conveys a feeling of nostalgia and immediacy, an aura of romanticism. 

Fear Talk was recorded and produced by Marvin Horsch (Woman, Keshavara) in the summer and autumn of 2016 at Gottesweg, Cologne. It was mixed by Marius Bubat (Coma) and Jan-Philipp Janzen (Von Spar, Cologne Tape) and mastered by Robin Schmidt. Additional vocals by Tiana Wagner and Franziska Kusche. Artwork by Düsseldorf-based artist Peter Vincent Causemann. Fear Talk is released on Asmara Records and distributed by Rough Trade.