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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 1d

Packaging is an electronic duo from the Pacific NW that feels kind of Broken Bells adjacent if that’s your fancy. youtu.be/qqNmcq8V4sI?...

Running Through the Airport

YouTube video by Release - Topic

youtu.be

eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 1d

Long Fling is an indie duo from Amsterdam that gives me LCD Soundsystem vibes with their “drum and guitar driven computer anthems.” youtu.be/O23xBby9gb4?...

Cool Bottle Water Park - Long Fling

YouTube video by Long Fling

youtu.be

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 1d

Two really fun debut self-titled albums dropped today - PACKAGING and LONG FLING - plus a great remix album of one of my favorite 2024 releases.

open.substack.com/pub/ericstir...

New Music Friday! October 10th, 2025

Two self-titled debut albums and remix album of one of my favorites from 2024

open.substack.com

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 1d

I gotta give it up for these three - had such magical experiences playing all of them, and they were a huge part of opening my mind to the wider world of game development at a crucial point in my career.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 1d

I like that mercy is just as easy as killing in the moment, but has more burden afterwards. Yes i can non lethally skyhook ten dudes into the wild blue yonder, but then they’re my responsibility to clothe and home back at motherbase.

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Reposted by eric stirpē

Sam Benc 🐟 @nonvieta.bsky.social · 1d

People who think the idea of "give me ideas" is something genuinely creative people want have literally never experienced the absolute EUPHORIA of a brainstorming breakthrough, either solo or with a human collaborator. They don't understand what is happening when artists create, on a basic level.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Reposted by eric stirpē

Leah Miller @leahmiller.bsky.social · 1d

This was one of the coolest things about working on the Lord of the Rings Magic set. Need another setpiece? Well there's one sentence where Treebeard says Galadriel solo'd an entire orc army so let's depict that shit.

julie muncy @julie.radiantarray.io · 1d

one of my favorite lord of the ring-isms the movies carry over from the books is that tolkien isn't really an action writer, so we're always hearing about the coolest shit gandalf and saruman did that sorry you just missed it but it slapped it was real anime

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

A simpler time

youtu.be/0cnDMH2LIhQ?...

BIGGER THAN BEFORE

YouTube video by Best clips 2019

youtu.be

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

remeber when egg was bigger than before

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Oh wow what a stellar pitch. I am goddamn excited to read this.

Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 2d

My next book will be a biography of Jack Nicholson, written as an epic story of the transformation of the movie industry and modern masculinity from the 1950s to the present, with Nicholson as the main character. The title: Leading Man.

New York Times bestselling author and film & TV critic at New York Magazine Matt Zoller Seitz's LEADING MAN, the definitive biography of Jack Nicholson, casting Nicholson as the complex main character in an era of American culture spanning six decades, while shining a light on the actor’s crucial role in shaping modern masculinity, both on and off the screen, based on new interviews and original reporting, to Amar Deol at Grand Central, in an exclusive submission, by Ethan Bassoff at WME.

eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

And his cover identity, Spouse Loyale.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

This is also true for people talking about how they feel like they never find new music/bands anymore. The coverage and writing is out there; if you care about it, you just need to put in the work to seek it out!

Moo Yu (Mythmatch) @oneofmoo.bsky.social · 2d

HOT TAKE: Sometimes, I feel like the people saying this mean why isn't anyone with lots of power covering my game. When smaller folks ARE covering indie games and you're not uplifting them. You just want others to lift you up without giving back to the community.

Jennifer/Aster Unkle 🏳️‍⚧️ 🔪 @spookycutewitch.bsky.social · 2d

“Why isn’t anyone covering our indie games?”

1. The gaming press has been decimated by business suits, and the whims of an uncaring search engine behemoth
2. Doing the job means you get death threats and harassment
3. There are more games released in 1 week than there were in entire months in 2015

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

One of my big goals this past year has been trying to find and pay attention to smaller outlets and individuals doing interesting writing and coverage about games. Surprise surprise, it has resulted in me learning about lots more games than I might have otherwise!

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

He’s almost five, and this is still the only video game he’s ever played. All he does is run around the hub world checking in on all of Astro Bot’s friends and try on costumes and he loves it.

a cartoon character wearing an orange hat with a green frog on it

ALT: a cartoon character wearing an orange hat with a green frog on it

media.tenor.com

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

My son is home sick today so we’ve been playing some Astro Bot as a special treat, and good lord every time I play this game I just find new details to love.

a robot wearing a helmet with blue eyes

ALT: a robot wearing a helmet with blue eyes

media.tenor.com

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

I voted for him because it’s Right and True

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

God my roommate saw that tour when they came through LA but I was too broke and too proud to borrow money to go with him and I STILL regret it.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah! The energy of Jamie and Damon in these interviews and the cohesiveness of the story across both music and visuals is totally reminding me of the lead up to that album in the best way.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

There was a stairwell in the old Cartoon Network building filled with drawings, including some by MAJOR animation legends. One of the most admired was a pencil drawing by the creator of Cowboy Bebop until, in 2014, an intern drew an amateurish self portrait over it in sharpie prompting HUGE backlash

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

This tweet was for exactly me and I’m here for it.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah! It seems like both of the guys found a TON of inspiration and amazing collaborators during their time in India and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Gorillaz has always been at its best when doing high concept albums fusing music + art. But from 2010 til this past year you could barely find any interviews of Jamie & Damon together and that seemed to reflect the similarly disjointed/misaligned nature of where Gorillaz was at. This time though-!

a cartoon character is playing a guitar on a cliff

ALT: a cartoon character is playing a guitar on a cliff

media.tenor.com

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Love this Apple Music interview from Damon Albarn & Jamie Hewlett about the next Gorillaz album.

I’ve been following Gorillaz for over twenty years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about where they’re at artistically since maybe the Demon Days/Plastic Beach era.

Upcoming 8-minute long hand animated Music Video, computers and Al.
Jamie: All the album artwork I'm delivering next week.. And I'm on the video, we're doing a very long video this time. We're doing an 8 minute long video which is hand animated. Not using any computers or any bullshit, old school!
I've been looking at stuff like the original "Jungle Book" by Walt Disney, or "101 Dalmations".
The old school 60's style. It's kind of a statement about Al and computers, how everything is so saturated these days. I like the idea of something that's human made, right down to the point where you do it by hand.
When I proposed this to the animation company, they got very excited, all the animators Because no-one does that anymore! It's more expensive and takes twice as long, but it's a statement. I want to do something that's real, not done on computers. It's great and exciting, we're using old techniques, looking for old cells to animate on. These things don't really exist anymore.
It's amazing how you go on social media and how many fans say "Is this Al?" "Did they use Al?"
"Is it an NFT?" No, No, No. We don't do that shit. It's got to the point where people can't tell the difference now, which is kind of worrying.
Releasing the album on their new Independent Record Label
Kong.
Damon: It's a lot more work, that's for sure. I'm paying attention to things I have been criminally negligent of over the years. Small things. What you spend on one thing, the consequences, it's interesting. More grown up. But the upside is you're really invested in what you're doing. Not that you're not with other guys but, you really have to make your best decisions.

Recording with the JEA band in Jaipur
Jamie: It didn't start in Argentina, it started in Jaipur in the pink city with the JEA band of Jaipur.
The brass band, which was an insane experience, maybe the most insane experience I've ever had in my life.
A tiny little room on a terrace overlooking a busy marketplace, monkeys everywhere. It was about 40 degrees with 40 guys in costume with their brass instruments in the tiniest room ever playing this tune for about 4 hours. The smell of petroleum, because there was a leak across the road
Damon: They were all learning their parts simultaneously. So you have 40 brass players learning their individual parts not in unison, it's the maddest cacophony. You don't worry about it too much, you just have a decent microphone and work around it later. It's like quilting.
Discovering Trueno
Damon: I have to give credit to my daughter for introducing me to Trueno. She was onto it way before me. We were in Buenos Aires and we invited him to do Clint Eastwood with us because he's a brilliant freestyler. He's amazing, I'm jealous. I'm trying to make my first rap record../ know. I won't release it.
Jamie: Don't go there. Please.

Proof, Loss & Posthumous features.
Damon: I got the impression he was a great guy. I only hung out with him twice, maybe three times? He was lovely every time.
I wanted to meditate on loss with this record, Jamie and recently lost our fathers. So how do we do something in relation to Gorillaz that has that resonance? Looking through out-takes from people we've had the privilege of working with seemed good, in a sense animate it and animate something that's lost.
Jamie: The voices of everyone we've worked with who's no longer with us are all on the album.
Bobby, MarkE Smith, Dave. We've got Black Thought talking to Dave.
Damon: It's really mad because he knew Dave, he's part of that family. I think everyone gets in within our musical family. It was in our original manifesto we wrote on the back of an envelope in
2001; one of the points was that Russel would be able to re-animate dead rappers. On day one.
LA Kong Exhibition & Mountain Show
Damon: Hopefully we're going to come to LA and, fingers crossed, bring the exhibition over and play a Mountain show in the new year.

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eric stirpē @stirpicus.bsky.social · 2d

Fascinating story about a “ghost” concept car that was designed in 1939 but possibly/maybe/probably not actually built at the time, and only discovered when the sketches were found in a barn decades later.

“The Dusenberg Coupe Simone”

www.hagerty.com/media/automo...

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Reposted by eric stirpē

Paul @bingowings14.bsky.social · 7d

[My first day as a detective]
Me: It's one way glass he can't see you. Just point at the killer.
Witness: All I can see is our reflection.
Me: Ah, ok. Everybody swap rooms.

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