Taylor Swift

Previously: Reversing the technical interview.

Long ago, on Svalbard, when you were a young witch of forty-three, your mother took your unscarred wrists in her hands, and spoke:

Vidrun, born of the sea-wind through the spruce
Vidrun, green-tinged offshoot of my bough, joy and burden of my life
Vidrun, fierce and clever, may our clan’s wisdom be yours:

Never read Hacker News

But Hacker News has read of you, in their snicker-slithing sussurential warrens, and word has spread, which is why the young man offering you a smörgåsbord of microkitchen offerings looks mildly suspicious already. He whisks you into a glass shoebox of a conference room, which somehow manages to be claustrophobic despite the open sightlines. You make a mental note to avoid this conference room in the future, but reassure the room it’s nothing personal.

“So my name is Tim, and I’ll be your first interviewer today…” Tim is making every effort to be cheery. His ears stick out a bit, and in his dark-brown hoodie and cream shirt, perched expectantly at the table, he resembles something of a pine marten. You like pine martens, and therefore Tim as well.

“Before we get started, is there… anything I can tell you about the company?”

You would like to ask what kind of call Tim would make, were he guarding his cache of eggs and nuts against another marten–but instead, you just giggle to yourself, lean your sprig of cloud-pine against the corner, and settle comfortably to the floor. Tim leans in to get a clearer view of where you’ve gone. Definitely, you think to yourself.

“So, erm… Perhaps you could tell me a bit about your background?”

He hasn’t read your resume. No man can.

“In the winter,” you begin, “above the ice-locked fjørds, lies a creek, ash-white with the ghosts of glaciers–”

“You know what?” He interrupts. It was a beautiful story, but perhaps you can tell it later. “How about we do a little programming together? Just a basic exercise so I can get a sense of how you think.”

“That sounds nice, Tim.”

“OK, great.” Tim seems reassured to be back on track. “So let’s open up an editor. Would you… would you like to have a seat?”

“Come!” You pat the ground next to you. “It is safer this way.” Tim stares at the parentheses of salt with disbelief, shakes his head, and reluctantly sits by your side.

Tim retells an old riddle, though he does not know its origins, and has the words wrong. A group of travelers are lost in the woods, upon a winding mountain path, and worry that they have been traveling in circles. They must know: does their path lead to freedom? Or constrain them to wander forever in the wilderness?

Tradition sets down that the group must split: the fastest runner forges on ahead, while the rest continue slowly. If the runner ever catches them, the trail must loop back on itself.

“So we should start with a linked list?” You smile reassuringly.

“Yes,” Tim says, “but… um… just a regular linked list, please. I know you’re up on, well, functional programming, but we’re a more pragmatic shop here. Building real software. We want something practical.”

“Yes, of course,” you assent. “Practical. Got it.” One of your spiders–you can’t tell which–is picking its way carefully up Tim’s hoodie, and you scoop it up before typing.

(ns cycle-detector.core (:require [clojure.java.io :as io]) (:import (java.io DataOutputStream ByteArrayOutputStream)))

“We’re, uh, we’re not doing IO here. Just an in-memory list.”

Agree politely, but delete nothing. Never apologize for who you are.

; A simple mutable linked list (deftype MutableLinkedList [value next] clojure.lang.Seqable (seq [_] (lazy-seq (cons value (seq @next))))) (defn node [value] (MutableLinkedList. value (atom nil))) (defn link! [node next] (reset! (.next node) next) next)

“That’s… not what I was expecting.” Tim says. “No, no, it’s good! Straightforward and simple. I was just, you know, they said on the internet that you were…” He trails off, and looks to you apologetically.

Smile disarmingly and shake your wrists free of your wool shift. Then clap your hands, place them firmly upon the disk, and open a portal to the underworld.

(gen-class :name cycle_detector.core.ArbClassLoader :extends ClassLoader :state state :init class-loader-init :constructors {[ClassLoader String bytes] [ClassLoader]} :exposes-methods {defineClass superDefineClass resolveClass superResolveClass} :prefix "-" :main false)

“I’m sorry,” Tim comments over your shoulder. “I’m not really a Clojure expert. What’s this for?”

“Just boilerplate. Don’t worry about it.” Tim appears, if anything, more worried now. “We do this all the time.”

(defn -class-loader-init [^ClassLoader class-loader ^String class-name ^bytes bytecode] [[class-loader] {:class-name class-name :bytecode bytecode}]) (defn -loadClass ([this ^String class-name] (-loadClass this class-name true)) ([this ^String class-name resolve?] (if (= class-name (:class-name (.state this))) (let [bytecode (:bytecode (.state this)) c (.superDefineClass this class-name bytecode (int 0) (int (alength bytecode)))] (when resolve? (.superResolveClass this c)) c) (.loadClass (.getParent this) class-name)))) (defn class-loader [^String class-name ^bytes bytecode] (cycle_detector.core.ArbClassLoader. (.getClassLoader MutableLinkedList) class-name bytecode))

The color has begun to drain from Tim’s face. Perhaps winter has come, and his coat is changing.

(defn run-bytecode [bytecode class-name method-name signature & args] (-> class-name (class-loader bytecode) (.loadClass class-name) (.getMethod method-name (into-array Class signature)) (.invoke nil (object-array args))))

“Clojure is a dynamic language,” you explain helpfully. “So when we call back and forth with Java classes, there’s usually some reflection going on.”

“It looks like you’ve… built a classloader specifically to return a single byte array for a particular class? Is that… is that normal?”

“Yes,” you insist, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Why can’t you just write the algorithm in Clojure?”

“Performance.” You explain, wholly earnest. “Since cycle checking is going to be a tight inner loop, we don’t want to write it in such a high-level language.”

“O–Okay.” Tim stutters. “So you’re going to write the cycle detector in Java then? And call it from Clojure?”

“Something like that.”

(def racer (->> [0xca 0xfe 0xba 0xbe

“What are these?”

“Magic numbers.” You are, after all, a witch. “Every class begins with a babe, in a cafe.”

“What?”

“You know, a beautiful man–the kind like from the movies–relaxing in the afternoon by the promenade. He has his kaffe, and his orange glasses gleam in the sun, and perhaps some other nice men are jogging by. If they are lucky, perhaps he will lock eyes with one of the joggers, and they will smile, and find a brick-lined alleyway together. His lips press upon the other man’s skin, and he feels the heat of the sun infused there…”

“Excuse me?”

If you were to be honest, you’ve never understood Sun’s rationale for the story, or why the Java Virtual Machine specification, normally so prosaic, lapses into lustful rhapsody for so many stanzas in section 4.1.

0x00 0x00 ; Minor 0x00 0x31 ; Major

“We’re using version 49 because it doesn’t require stack maps, which keeps things simple. Now we need the number of constants.

Remember the future. This is a common trick for protocol wizards, many of whom live as Merlin did, writing constants and buffer sizes before (after) having written (unwritten) the buffers themselves. Recall that 22 sufficed then. Write that down.

0x00 0x17 ; 22 constants

"I’m sorry,” Tim blinks. “But isn’t 0x17 decimal 23, not 22?”

“Og én,” you recite, sing-song, “Til javanissen!”

“Beg pardon?”

“The javanisse. Surely you have heard of him! He is a small, magical man–something like a gnome–who inhabits every JVM. If you do not set out an extra constant for him, he can cause segfaults. But keep the javanisse happy, and your mutices will be fair.” It is a story from your childhood. You remember your mother, chanting offsets as she stirred the stew. “To byter for bufferen anvise / og ekstra én til javanisse.” It is a happy memory, and you lose yourself in it until Tim clears his throat.

“Ah yes. Constants. We’ll need our superclass, Object, of course. Ordinarily I’d use an existing class to save weight, but we’re only dealing with interfaces here so Object it is. And a class for ourself, I suppose.”

0x01 0x00 0x10 ; 1: A UTF-8 string of 16 bytes (.getBytes "java/lang/Object") 0x07 0x00 0x01 ; 2: The Object class 0x01 0x00 0x19 ; 3: UTF-8 string of 25 bytes (.getBytes "cycle_detector/core/Racer") 0x07 0x00 0x03 ; 4: Our class

We’ll take an Iterable, and call .iterator(), which means we need:

0x01 0x00 0x12 ; 5: UTF-8 string of 18 bytes (.getBytes "java/lang/Iterable") 0x07 0x00 0x05 ; 6: Iterable 0x01 0x00 0x08 ; 7: UTF-8 string of 8 bytes (.getBytes "iterator") 0x01 0x00 0x16 ; 8: UTF-8 string of 22 bytes (.getBytes "()Ljava/util/Iterator;") 0x0c 0x00 0x07 0x00 0x08 ; 9: Name and type info (7, 8) 0x0b 0x00 0x06 0x00 0x09 ; 10: Interface methodref for Iterable.iterator()

“And with that iterator, we’ll need hasNext and Next()…” The bytes are coming faster now. This is so much better than Old West Norse hexography, where both odd and even digits shared the same rune.

0x01 0x00 0x12 ; 11: UTF-8 string of 18 bytes (.getBytes "java/util/Iterator") 0x07 0x00 0x0b ; 12: Iterator 0x01 0x00 0x07 ; 13: UTF-8 string of 7 bytes (.getBytes "hasNext") 0x01 0x00 0x03 ; 14: UTF-8 string of 3 bytes (.getBytes "()Z") 0x0c 0x00 0x0d 0x00 0x0e ; 15: Name and type info for .hasNext() 0x0b 0x00 0x0c 0x00 0x0f ; 16: Interface methodref: Iterator.hasNext() 0x01 0x00 0x04 ; 17: UTF-8 string of 4 bytes (.getBytes "next") 0x01 0x00 0x14 ; 18: UTF-8 string of 20 bytes (.getBytes "()Ljava/lang/Object;") 0x0c 0x00 0x11 0x00 0x12 ; 19: Name and type info for .next() 0x0b 0x00 0x0c 0x00 0x13 ; 20: Iterator.next()

Tim has gone silent.

“Now you’d think,” you mutter, “that code would be a common thing to put in a class, and therefore it might have a dedicated byte tag–but instead, we have to put the word "Code” in every class and use it to identify our code attributes.

0x01 0x00 0x04 ; 21: UTF-8 string of 4 bytes (.getBytes "Code") ; String for code attributes

Finally, our signature. Take an Iterable, and return a boolean.

0x01 0x00 0x17 ; 22: UTF-8 string of 23 bytes (.getBytes "(Ljava/lang/Iterable;)Z") ; Our arg signature

“Now then.” Crack your knuckles, and inscribe the ancient sigils.

0x00 0x21 ; Flags: public & super 0x00 0x04 ; Our class 0x00 0x02 ; Our superclass (Object) 0x00 0x00 ; No interfaces 0x00 0x00 ; No fields 0x00 0x01 ; One method

Every young witch in your clan was required to memorize these bytes. Such pride, you felt, when you first incanted a class without the training wheels of javac. Our method begins:

0x00 0x09 ; Flags: public & static 0x00 0x15 ; Method name (21, "Code")

“Method names start with lowercase letters,” Tim asserts. His voice rises like a question.

“Only by convention. Almost any string will do, and we already have this one in the constant pool.”

0x00 0x16 ; Method signature (22) 0x00 0x01 ; One attribute ; Method attributes 0x00 0x15 ; Attribute name (21, "Code") 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x48 ; + 2 2 4 bytecode-length 2 0 2 attribute-len 0x00 0x02 ; Maximum stack 0x00 0x04 ; Number of local variables

“Wait, wait, hold on.” Tim has seized upon a piece of flotsam in the storm. “Only four variable slots? For arguments plus locals?”

“Og to til javanissen!” You remind him. He sputters while you try to remember how many instructions you’ll have written.

0x00 0x00 0x00 0x3c ; Size of bytecode

Your method begins by creating a pair of iterators from a single Iterable argument.

0x2a ; aload_0 (take arg) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x0a ; .iterator() 0x01 ; 1 arg 0x00 ; unused 0x4d ; astore_1 (store iterator) 0x2a ; aload_0 (take arg) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x0a ; .iterator() 0x01 ; 1 arg 0x00 ; unused 0x4e ; astore_0 (store iterator)

“Did you mean astore_2?” Tim asks, trying to be helpful. “Variable 0 holds our first argument, right?”

“It did.” You agree. “But we won’t be needing it again.”

“But… those aren’t even the same type. That’s… that’s illegal.”

“If it were meant to be illegal,” you remind him sagely, “Sun Microsystems would have made it unrepresentable.”

One will be the fast iterator. Her name is Jorunn, and her legs are strong from years of skiing. She flies forward with powerful strokes.

0x2d ; aload_1 take fast iterator 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x10 ; hasnext 0x01 ; 1 arg 0x00 ; unused 0x9a ; ifne 0x00 0x05 ; jump ahead 3 if we have a next element 0x03 ; iconst_0 0xac ; ireturn (return false) ; Move fast iterator forward by 1 0x2d ; aload_1 (take fast iterator) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x14 ; .next() 0x01 ; 1 arg 0x00 ; unused 0x57 ; discard element ; Ensure fast iterator has next 0x2d ; aload_1 (take fast iterator) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x10 ; hasNext() 0x01 0x00 0x9a ; ifne 0x00 0x05 ; jump forward by 3 if we have a next element 0x03 ; iconst_0 0xac ; ireturn

Bjørn, in register 0, is fat and lazy. He ambles along like his namesake.

0x2c ; aload_0 (take slow iterator) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x14 ; .next() 0x01 0x00

Jorunn, not to be outdone, takes another stride. Her footing is sure.

0x2d ; aload_1 (take fast iterator) 0xb9 ; invokeinterface 0x00 0x14 ; .next() 0x01 0x00

With their positions on the path at hand, you check to see if they have run into one another, and if not, repeat the process once again.

0xa6 ; if_acmpne 0xff 0xd7 ; 0xffff + 1 - 41 instructions ; Return true 0x04 ; iconst_1 0xac ; ireturn

Your sixty bytes exhausted, you sigh contentedly, and inscribe the sealing runes upon your spell, before coercing each number to a single crooked byte.

; End of bytecode 0x00 0x00 ; No exceptions 0x00 0x00 ; No attributes ; End of method 0x00 0x00 ; No class attributes ] (map (fn [x] (if (instance? Long x) (unchecked-byte x) x)))))

Tim has been gently trying to steer the interview back on track. Bless him, but not too well, or he’ll follow you around on Twitter for years to come, asking for spells to soothe every computational malady that befalls him. Perhaps a ward against minor filesystem corruption would do.

Now shake the frost from your fingertips, drive your torus deep into the VM, and spin a tight-wound loop of serialization.

(defn write-class! [^DataOutputStream ds class-data] (doseq [x class-data] (condp = (class x) nil nil Long (.writeLong ds x) Integer (.writeInt ds x) Short (.writeShort ds x) Byte (.writeByte ds x) (.write ds ^bytes x)))) (defn class-bytes [class-data] (let [baos (ByteArrayOutputStream.)] (with-open [ds (DataOutputStream. baos)] (write-class! ds class-data)) (.toByteArray baos)))

“It rhymes with ‘chaos’,” you inform Tim helpfully. Nonplussed, he asks about unit tests. You weave a story of a path in the woods, which loops upon itself, in preparation.

(deftest cycle-test (let [nodes (mapv node (range 5)) list (first nodes)] (reduce link! nodes) (link! (nth nodes 3) (nth nodes 1))

Before casting the spell, you invoke the four cardinal directions, as scars around your wrist: H, J, K, L. Only the J wind answers to your kind, but it never hurts to be polite.

(deftest cycle-test (let [cycle? (partial run-bytecode (class-bytes racer) "cycle_detector.core.Racer" "Code" [Iterable])] (is (boolean (cycle? (seq list)))) (is (not (boolean (cycle? [])))) (is (not (boolean (cycle? [1 2 3])))))))) Ran 1 tests containing 3 assertions. 0 failures, 0 errors.

“Three hundred fifty-six bytes,” you declaim, and stretch in satisfaction. “Javac would have produced roughly five hundred eighty. We save a lot by omitting the stackmap and line mapping, of course, but we also cut the number of variables, and cut four superfluous astore/aload ops as well. And of course, since this class is never instantiated, we don’t need to generate an <init> method, or call super.”

Tim stares at you in mute concern. His hoodie gleams with quick-melting frost. Perhaps you have been hired.

Reach into your the pocket of your shift, and gently, with slow movements, so as not to startle him and send him scurrying back into his burrow, extend your hand, open your fingers, and offer him a walnut.

Next: Typing the technical interview.

a game for learning CSS Grid

eyes generated by DeepWarp; click to change character

Yuya is a 23-year-old who works in apparel. We spotted him on the Harajuku street dressed in a retro vintage inspired ensemble.

Yuya’s ensemble includes a 1950s vintage red and white striped button up shirt under a leather jacket, also a vintage piece from the 50s. Cuffed dark denims from Brycelands & Co and vintage lace up leather loafers complete his outfit. He accessorized with a purple paisley print necktie from Brycelands & Co, round-eye sunglasses, and vintage rings.

Yuya’s favorite brand is Brycelands & Co and he loves listening to jazz music from the 20s-30s era. He is active on Instagram.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

The engineer whose company launched the TR-808 and other legendary drum machines and synthesizers has died aged 87

Ikutaro Kakehashi died on 1 April, announced Tommy Sydner, former advisor at Roland Corporation, via Facebook. “Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of Roland, father of the TR-909,TR-808, Godfather of MIDI, and someone who I have collaborated with for 38 years, and also considered him as my second father, passed away at the age of 87,” read the post. “He was a super funny, wonderful and gifted human being, and his contributions to the musical instrument world, and music, touched millions of people worldwide.”

Born in Osaka on 7 February 1930, Kakehashi was an engineer and entrepreneur who founded Ace Tone and Roland Corporation. He’s best known for the part he played in the development of electronic drum machines and the MIDI standard.

In the 1950s Kakehashi starting working with electronic organs, eventually founding Ace Tone in 1960. Under that company he invented a hand operated electronic drum called the R1 Rhythm Ace in 1964. A few years later he created the preset rhythm-pattern generator, launched in 1967 as the FR-1 Rhythm Ace, which Hammond and other companies integrated in the manufacture of their instruments.

Roland Corporation was established in Osaka, with its first TR-33/TR-55/TR-77 Rhythm machines going on sale in 1972. A year later Roland’s first synthesizers went on the market; the company participated in the NAMM Show in the USA; and the electronic effects outfit MEG Electronics Corporation (now called BOSS Corporation) was established. In 1980 Roland created the TR-808 Rhythm machine, which made it possible for musicians to programme an entire track. In 1983 Kakehashi launched the MIDI protocol for which 30 years later he was awarded a technical GRAMMY alongside Sequential Circuits' Dave Smith.

In 2002 Kakehashi published his autobiography I Believe In Music; in 2014 he helped found the ATV Corporation.

Netflix will be streaming Final Fantasy XIV: Hikari no Otousan this April in Japan and worldwide this Fall.

Between playing Overwatch with bananas and Dark Souls with a Wii racing wheel, streamers are being increasingly more innovative with how they play games.

Square Enix kills the time limit on the game's free trial.

In the year of Monk’s centennial, Sam Records/Saga will issue his unreleased soundtrack to Roger Vadim’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960

The previously unavailable Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 gets its first-time release on this year’s Record Store Day. The mastertape containing his soundtrack to the Roger Vadim film Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 was discovered a few years ago in a collection of studio sessions. It features solo, trio and quartet performances of classic Monk tunes, as well as Monk works composed for the film.

Recorded at Nola Penthouse Studios in New York City on 27 July 1959, the music features bandmates Charlie Rouse, Sam Jones and Art Taylor, plus French saxophonist Barney Wilen guesting with them.

"In December of 2014 I was visiting Paris and received a very charming introductory email out of the blue from the head of Sam Records, Mr Fred Thomas, explaining that he and his friend, Mr. Francois Le Xuan of Saga Jazz (producer of the acclaimed Jazz In Paris series), had located master tapes of a previously unissued studio session of Thelonious Monk made in 1959 by a French producer (the one and only Marcel Romano: Miles Davis’s Ascenseur Pour L'Échafaud),” recalls the record's producer Zev Feldman. “I was obviously extremely intrigued, and I believe my eyeballs literally left my face upon reading the news. Are you kidding me?! A STUDIO album?!! This was an extraordinary find and I wanted to know more[...]

“Over the next two years,” he continues, “we worked with the Thelonious Monk estate and set out to assemble the cast of voices/words (and photos) to bring together and tell the story of this amazing event in Thelonious Monk's recorded legacy.”

It will be released as a limited edition double LP deluxe box set by Sam Records/Saga on 22 April (Record Store Day), and in CD and download formats on 19 May. It will also include a 50 page booklet with original artwork by Jerome Witz and essays by Robin DG Kelley, Brian Priestley and Alain Tercinet, alongside unpublished photographs and other memorabilia from the original recording session.

They’re @charisma_bot_co if you want to follow them!

[Video][Website]
[6.56]

Alfred Soto: Listening to a few Chuck Berry tunes persuaded me to give this riff-with-song a third listen, and insofar as it got me nodding by attaching its riff to the title hook. No reason it had to shimmy past the 3:30 mark, though.
[6]

David Sheffieck: The jittery energy is infectious, the rapping solid, the hook indelible. The production is an utter sugar rush, already too much at the intro and only doubling down from there; the climax reaches the kind of delirious, go-for-broke heights that few can attempt, much less pull off. I’m catching my breath, but I’m still ready for another go.
[8]

Katie Gill: Everything about this has the potential to be so dated, from the band’s name, to the sound of the guitars, to the fact that the chorus is based around the word “hashtag.” Thankfully, Charisma.com pushes RIGHT PAST THAT. The fun, funky sound transcends and pushes past the smaller, more dated aspects. Add in Itsuka’s insanely precise raps, and you’ve got a beautiful, bright, polished dance jam.
[8]

Ryo Miyauchi: Charisma.com’s top-notch delivery almost lets them off the hook but, sorry, a hashtag stinks of cheesiness no matter how prolific the musician. It’s a minor bug, though, for an otherwise bold statement of a chorus that plays as the centerpiece in a conversation about the IRL/URL divide.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: In the past, Charisma.com have made music that’s more exciting than 95 per cent of songs that grace these pages, but this is disappointingly tame. Maybe it’s too demanding to ask that everything they do be as frenetic as “Otubone Rock” or “Suppliminal Diet”, but “#hashdark” feels ordinary by comparison. Many of the ingredients are still there — the crunching, the growling, the spinning — but they’ve been brought to a simmer, and it doesn’t have the same effect.
[6]

Jessica Doyle: Both the chorus and the guitar line, separately, get repetitive mighty quickly. If I had a lyrics translation at hand I’d be able to appreciate the point better; without it, and without Itsuka taking control by sheer force of will, this feels poppy and empty. I’m excited for the album (complete with Cibo Matto collaboration!) but I won’t be at all surprised if this turns out to be its weakest track.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Charisma.com have voices cut from stone that pound like they’re being struck against an anvil. On “#hashdark,” one of their lesser songs, those voices carve paths considerably more brilliant than the lower-carat funk guitar and a papery beat. The addition of a vocoder perks it up into a retro workout fit for indie disco night, but the repetition of the title wears quickly, particularly since it sounds like it might have warped into “hashtag” while we weren’t looking and is now reverberating like a banal viral tweet that keeps reappearing in your feed. 
[6]

Mark Sinker: Half desolate, focused pragmatism, half tamped-down rage, Itsuka’s machine-gun deadpan so intuitively fused into Gonchi’s unrelenting plastic motorik you can’t tell which half comes from where. In an earlier jukebox Edward O invoked t.a.T.u.: and it’s true that when these two hit lift-off there’s a not dissimilar cruising ground-cam glide. Maybe the war they’re waging here isn’t as clear as it’s sometimes been before (unless it’s on being translated tidily); maybe that’s just my fault for not knowing Japanese.
[8]

Will Adams: “#hashdark” appeals to me in much the same way that Avril Lavigne’s “My World” does. Both couch a potentially corny concept — for Lavigne, hometown rapping; for Charisma.com, hashtag references — in an infectious guitar riff and an unabashed declaration of “this is me.” As is typical for them, Charisma.com bump up the electronics to 11, and as a result they maintain a consistent energy that is captivating to hear.
[7]

Allow us to tell you about our specials for today…

[Video][Website]
[7.25]

Alfred Soto: What is this? Vocal samples arranged as Greek chorus supporting a high-pitched dismissal, Grimes-esque. Until the 2:21 breakdown when the track becomes another eighties dance floor revival, it’s quite static. A most lissome racket.
[7]

Lilly Gray: Around minute two things start to unravel, the machine hitting an analog skid when you try to replay a vicious message left by that one ex. Every blurred edge and fuzzed noise does nothing to soften, only intensifies and sharpens. If I have to be tortured in a neon pink cage behind the bowling alley by the one person I maliciously bewitched, let this be the soundtrack. 
[9]

Maxwell Cavaseno: A record so acidic in bitterness, it pretty much sounds like its dissolving and its trail would probably look like the rainbow effect in parking lot car-fluid puddles. “Ho” has the vibe of a world where the girl next door finds out about the “Sexy Pygmalion” the protagonist made in an ’80s T&A comedy and tries to take her out in disgust. Sickly sweet because deep down it’s just mean, and leaves you with a weird taste on your tongue.
[7]

Will Adams: It’s hard to argue with frosty electropop, no matter how faux-sassy it can be at times.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Synth-pop reflux inaugurates this hazy concoction of contempt and robotics. The porny vocabulary is jarring (“kissy-kissy,” “she makes you horny,” “she’s such a hottie”), and not in the intriguing way that dialtone vocal does once it re-focuses its disembodied malevolence from the third person to the second. “You mean nothing to me and you know it” is delivered with the uncomfortable authority of a message delivered from your own mind, and it slips into an untreated, human tone only as it fades out, enhancing the unease. “Ho” coalesces when it becomes wordless, however; then the pastels come technicolor and the circuitry attains its own consciousness.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: That hook — “you mean nothing to me, and you know it” — sits like a shining prize at the end of a pitch-black maze, which X0809 encourage you feel out the texture of its architecture to get to the finish. They make you work for it as you walk in the dark, but once you hear them warp it in all possible dimensions, the crack at the mystery becomes so rewarding.
[6]

Brad Shoup: “When you are lonely, you ring the bell” — it’s a clever reverse, and the actual bell that following is just as listless as its owner. Funny stuff. Presented with the choice of scoring points and damage, they go for both: the words cut and the vocalizations haunt. Plus, the track knocks: doorbell bass over one-legged kick.
[9]

Jessica Doyle: Musically it ain’t much besides a finely held note of contempt. “Musically it ain’t much” is missing the point. (I especially like that the line that gets repeated is “Everybody knows and talks about it,” suggesting that the used has the power and the user is the one losing social capital.) Gotta say, nothing about this (or this) is going to change my newly default stance towards all-female experimenting-with-electronic doing-their-own-deejaying expressing-their-own-anger duos, which is: YES.
[8]

Rei and Beni are 16-year-old Japanese students who caught our eye on the street in Harajuku. Their looks are on trend for Spring 2017.

Rei – on the left – is wearing a resale velvet jacket with skinny jeans and Stan Smith Adidas sneakers. His favorite fashion brand is Tommy and he likes K-Pop music. Find Rei on Instagram.

Beni – who we have street snapped in Harajuku previously – is wearing an oversized jacket from OpenTheDoor with a Spinns front zipper skirt, fishnets, and vintage platform creepers. Her shoulder bag is from WEGO and she’s also wearing striking orange socks. She told us that her favorite fashion brand is the Korean streetwear label More Than Dope. Follow Beni on Instagram for more Harajuku fashion photos.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Hey kids! We're about to have a good time. I've got my strong arm and a bag full of mail. See these letters? They're all yours so long as you sit cross-legged and wear a smile. Let's go!

There aren't enough exclamation marks in the world to convey the joy and enthusiasm on display in MORNING POST. You can see it in the bold outlines of the pre-school art that quivers at you with excitement. You can see it in the faces of the kids spread across carpet and cupboard as you march into their home and endlessly fling mail into their laps. It launches from your chest with a boing and they absolutely love it.

It's rare to find a game this happy. Even rarer is how it achieves such high levels of delight. Many games that could be described as 'happy' wear it as a technicolor coat over a nest of strict systems hidden underneath. Look at the happy-go-lucky characters of PaRappa the Rapper dancing around and you could be convinced the disc it's delivered on is pressed out of pure joy. There's a Jamaican frog that wears sandals and tropical shirts for crying out loud.

But the experience of playing PaRappa the Rapper is quite different to the one its visuals express. You slam together a series of button prompts that run across the top of the screen. You have to focus on them so much you're hardly able to pay attention to the sweet moves of the characters below. Most crushing is the fact that frustration comes easily if you fall out of rhythm, and you probably will.

There are exceptions among these superficially happy games that are exemplified by the work of Keita Takahashi. His games Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy function as playgrounds. There's space to mess around and explore without a disapproving rap teacher berating you for your performance. It's telling that the title Noby Noby Boy is derived from the Japanese word "nobinobi," which means "carefree." That's exactly the ethos that runs throughout Takahashi's games. The freedom of these digital wonderlands make for a joyful play experience.

MORNING POST shares this sentiment. It would have been easy enough for its creators to slap a scoring system and timer to the game. But they don't even go so far as to tell you what to do. The result is a game that feels closer to a piece of interactive children's theater. You play the role of mail person who arrives to bring people joy.

As an adult, you might have forgotten how exciting it is to be a kid and receive mail. In those young years you associate it with birthdays rather than bills. Playing MORNING POST should bring memories of that association flooding back. But this time you're dishing out the happiness, one letter at a time, or 15 at a time if you fancy.

There are no limits as to who gets a letter in the game and how many they should get. Everything from doors and trees to tennis balls has a smiley face drawn onto it, encouraging you to spread the love far and wide. Make sure you don't miss the orange squidge hiding in the back yard.

You can download the game for free, or name your own price, on itch.io.

Best known online as Gaijinhunter, Adam Evanko is the guiding force—the Yoda, if you will—for many a Monster Hunter fan, whether they're just starting with the games or already many hundreds of hours deep. He creates YouTube tutorial videos to help players of all levels find their footing, or improve their game, in a franchise with a notoriously steep learning curve.

And this craft, this career, has become an obsession for him.

Developed and published by Capcom, Monster Hunter has long been a success in Japan, the original game coming out there in 2004. It's since come to English-speaking territories in earnest, and received great reviews, most recently with the 3DS-exclusive Monster Hunter Generations of summer 2016 (which receives an expanded XX update in Japan on March 18th). It's gradually grown into one of its maker's most-important assets, selling 38 million units across all titles, putting it level with Street Fighter and ahead of Mega Man.

"YouTube is just a venue for me to geek out with other Monster Hunter people." — Adam Evanko, aka Gaijinhunter

And Evanko's passion for everything Monster Hunter has led him to something most fans only dream about. He's been brought into the world of the game, appearing in the English localization of Generations.

"He's a great figure in the community who likes to help hunters out with things like learning a new weapon," Marco Bombasi, Generations' localization director, tells me. "There are a few nods in the game to him and his help towards Western hunters, including a reference by name and a hint to see his videos. We thought it would be nice to give him a nod in the localization, since he's done so much for the community."

Evanko sees himself as a shy person. Describing himself as an actor pretending to be social, merely mirroring the people around him, he says he's the type of person who would hide in corners at parties before slipping out. Not qualities one might expect from someone in the personality-driven online world.

"YouTube is just a venue for me to geek out with other Monster Hunter people," Evanko says.

His winding path to the center of the Monster Hunter community started back in 2002, when he moved to Tokyo at the age of 21. He left employment in the hotel industry at home for no job in a foreign land, and had only taken one Japanese language class before heading across the Pacific. He was set on chasing the dream of working in Japan's video game industry.

His money soon dried up, though. Not wanting to teach English to get by—"I didn't feel confident in my language ability, even in English," Evanko says—he had to find another way to both immerse himself in the local tongue and make ends meet, financially. So he started working at McDonald's. From there came a return to hotel work—and manning the bar provided him with the opportunity to learn "very formal" Japanese, leading to a significant next step in his career.

From putting his language skills to use on localization work for the Capcom-published Ōkami and titles in the Yu-Gi-Oh! series, Evanko moved onto a producer role at a major gaming company, where he remains today. And it's this position that he credits with first giving him the idea of creating Monster Hunter tutorials, "after I became obsessed with it".

"The thing about Monster Hunter in general is that it is not a game that is easy to play, and it's hard to master." So says Steven Gloyd, one of Evanko's many thousands of YouTube subscribers. "The games are so fun, because of their element of discovery; but also, that can be the most alienating factor.

"Gaijinhunter's videos have been, for many people like myself, the thing that has opened up the Monster Hunter series and brought it out of the cult video game scene and into a more accessible form."

Accessibility was an issue for Evanko though, to begin with. It was a Monster Hunter feature on the 8-4 Play podcast that convinced him to give the series a crack, around the release of Monster Hunter Tri G—aka Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate outside of Japan.

"I bought the 3DS pack for it, started playing, and I hated it," he says. "And I was about to sell the game after a week of really trying to get into it." Enter a co-worker, who guided Evanko over that notorious entry barrier. "By the end of the month, I'd become a fanatic," he continues. "I just started playing like a madman."

Above: At the time of writing, Evanko's video on the Ultimate Kinsect is the most-viewed upload on his YouTube channel.

In May of 2013 Gaijinhunter was born, but not in the video form people know today. Evanko started writing a blog, one that he admits he doesn't think anybody ever read. After sinking a thousand hours into Tri G, he saw the blog as an outlet for him to dig deeper into the game's various weapons.

"And I've always found that to really learn something you have to teach somebody, right?" he says. "So, if you're forced to write it out or to explain it to somebody, that's when it really clicks for yourself, as well."

Come September of that year, Evanko switched to Tumblr. But growth was still slow—by March 2014, he had amassed only 250 Tumblr followers. But it was that same March, following the fall Japanese release of Monster Hunter 4, when Evanko decided to make the jump to YouTube. Using his iPhone rather than anything more sophisticated, he cut together some videos, something that he had no prior experience of.

Then, on December 11th, 2014, he published his first tutorial video, explaining the Charge Blade—this time with some proper production. A grand total of 300 subscribers, very early adopters, got to see the start of his exploration into the series' minutiae, his quest to see under every metaphorical rock, to turn every proverbial key.

"I worked really, really hard, and I didn't sleep at all for months. I was getting by on literally two hours of sleep a night." — Adam Evanko, aka Gaijinhunter

Features on IGN and Polygon helped to push his YouTube subscriber count above 50,000 by April 2015—and, obviously, Monster Hunter players couldn't get enough, sharing his videos and learning new tricks of the trade on a regular basis. At the time of writing, Evanko's Gaijinhunter YouTube channel is closing in on 150,000 subscribers.

"I rode the wave," Evanko says. "I worked really, really hard, and I didn't sleep at all for months. I was getting by on literally two hours of sleep a night."

And he's still absolutely fixated on the series, with meticulous attention to detail on each production (a far cry from the iPhone days). Scripts can take 20 hours of preparation before anything's been recorded, and Evanko estimates that an average weapon tutorial video takes him 38 hours to turn around.

"I'm addicted at this point," he freely admits. "I would call it an addiction. When I'm not making videos, it kills me."

"Gaijinhunter is kind, and enjoys welcoming new players just joining the community," Shintaro Kojima, producer on Monster Hunter Generations, tells me. "Generations introduced new gameplay mechanics that let hunters discover a very personalized play style, unique to each player. Hunters don't always stick with just one style or weapon, so it can be exciting to hear or see what someone else's style may look like, like in Gaijinhunter's videos, before you experiment and try something new."

Yuri Araujo, Monster Hunter's community specialist, is also grateful for Evanko's work.

"When someone gets into Monster Hunter and is looking for more information or to further improve their skills, if they watch Gaijinhunter's videos, they tend to leave with knowledge they were looking for and then some," he tells me. "I think that an existing fan is more likely to stick around longer, and get even more passionate about the game, through watching the videos—and then, with added confidence, they can look to recommend the game to their friends, to play together."

"It's so surreal to think that I made someone's day by, you know, crappy old me coming into their room to play with them." — Adam Evanko, aka Gaijinhunter

Subscriber Gloyd says that without Evanko he might not have even stuck with the series, and credits the YouTuber with making him a fan.

"I once showed a friend of mine Monster Hunter and he was so intrigued by the game that we went to the store and he bought a 3DS and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate," he recalls. "We went to stay in a beach house that weekend, but spent every night watching Gaijinhunter's videos and trying out all of the moves that he showed off in his weapon tutorials. I think that if we hadn't watched those videos, we wouldn't have been able to get into the game to the extent that we did, and we would have probably stopped playing shortly after."

Despite his high standing in the Monster Hunter community, Evanko still joins random online hunting groups. He'll purposefully not pick people that he knows, that he's played with in the past—and if anyone realizes who's in the room with them, that's never a bad thing.

"It's so surreal to think that I made someone's day by, you know, crappy old me coming into their room to play with them," Evanko says. "That's kind of weird. But I mean, as a human, it's also very nice. To get that type of recognition, it feels good. And it makes you want to help more people."

And, somehow, you can't see that help slowing down any time soon.

Follow Willie on Twitter.

Mark Danner, responsible for my morning read:

It seems plain now that in the near term the emoluments clause has in common with these norms that it requires political animation: that it has life only to the degree that those in power are willing to enliven it. Thus far Republicans in Congress, still stunned to find themselves enjoying an undreamed-of monopoly on power and struggling to craft a workable political program not based solely on ressentiment, have shown themselves uninterested in pressing Trump on his business entanglements and seem willing to stand by and let the presidency become a source of great wealth for the Trump family. Thus do sacred cows perish, not with a bellow but with a whimper.

Ours is famously said to be a government of laws, not of men, and yet we find in the Age of Trump that the laws depend on men and women willing to step forward and press them and that such are not to be found in the dominant party in Congress. Republicans are too divided and too focused on the main chance to move to protect what suddenly appear to be abstract principles. In an age when their party cannot muster a national popular vote majority they find themselves unaccountably in full possession of two branches of government and face the task of mastering their divisions sufficiently to pass a political program that won’t further doom them to the wilderness. This means adopting policies of opposition designed to cultivate and harvest resentment, such as repealing Obamacare, which provides health insurance to more than twenty million Americans, while somehow shaping them into a positive program that they can present to constituents as having improved their lives. It is a daunting task and thus far they show few signs of being up to it.

Builds nicely, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile while people goggle at the spectacle here is another but less sexy one:

Giants in telecommunications, like Verizon and AT&T, will not have to take “reasonable measures” to ensure that their customers’ Social Security numbers, web browsing history and other personal information are not stolen or accidentally released.

Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will not be punished, at least for now, for not collecting extra money from customers to cover potential losses from certain kinds of high-risk trades that helped unleash the 2008 financial crisis.

And Social Security Administration data will no longer be used to try to block individuals with disabling mental health issues from buying handguns, nor will hunters be banned from using lead-based bullets, which can accidentally poison wildlife, on 150 million acres of federal lands.

These are just a few of the more than 90 regulations that federal agencies and the Republican-controlled Congress have delayed, suspended or reversed in the month and a half since President Trump took office, according to a tally by The New York Times.

As much as the Russia and Jeff Sessions stories please me and distract an infuriated Congress, I know these deregulatory moves won’t make the lead but nevertheless require no less vigilance. Keep the calls to congressmen coming.

A hopeless list, especially if you lived in South Florida. Using crossover hits as guides for drawing hard, bold, lines, it’s difficult to distinguish hi-NRG (Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round”) and Italo disco (Baltimora’s “Tarzan Boy”) from fellow travelers like Stacey Q, early Taylor Dayne, and Lisa Lisa + Cult Jam, not to mention Nu Shooz’s “I Can’t Wait” and “Point of No Return.” Matters got more complicated went house hit American clubs; its pop crossover coincided with freestyle’s, therefore listeners had to deal with a bunch of Black Box singles and The Adventures of Stevie V,  and CeCe Peniston’s “Finally” sharing space with Lisette Melendez’s “Together Forever” and Corina’s “Temptation” at the same time that Stevie B, Timmy T, and the Cover Girls followed the Lisa Lisa (“All Cried Out”) and Expose (“Seasons Change”) template by scoring their biggest hits with slush. To add to the confusion, on WPOW 96.5 I’d hear what in 1987 and 1988 we called bass, which wedded orchestral blasts and the Roland TB-303 to Triassic Era declamatory rap: Dimples T’s “Jealous Fellas,” JJ Fad’s “Supersonic,” early Six Mix-a-lot (“Rippin'”), and anything — anything — by 2 Live Crew. Meanwhile the Stock-Aiken-Waterman remix of Debbie Harry’s “In Love with Love” and Samantha Fox’s “Touch Me (I Want Your Body)” insisted on airplay.

“You can listen to this record as many times as you want and still not have any strong impressions that human beings actually made it. In other words, it’s the perfect disco record,” the great John Leland rhapsodized about Nu Shooz in SPIN. The perspicacity of this insight, however, doesn’t include most of the tracks below, sung by amateurs who could no more suppress their humanity than they could the swelling of their hair (assume this phenomenon was limited to the women and please goggle at Google Images’ supply of Stevie B photos circa 1988). There’s a reason why “Let the Music Play,” the urtext of freestyle and eighties disco, tops this list: the fluidity with which Shannon ducks from hysteria to detachment. I’ve written about dance floors as spaces where desire and fantasy call a delighted truce — until the next hunk of hotness ponies up at the bar.

1. Shannon – Let the Music Play
2. George Lamond – Bad of the Heart
3. Debbie Deb – When I Hear Music
4. Expose – Let Me Be the One
5. Stevie B – Spring Love (Come Back to Me)
6. Dimples T- Jealous Fellas
7. Company B – Fascinated
8. Cover Girls – Show Me
9. Seduction – (You’re My One and Only) True Love
10. Nayobe – Please Don’t Go
11. Will to Power – Dreamin’
12. Shannon – Give Me Tonight
13. Information Society – Running
14. Nolan Thomas – Yo Little Brother
15. Corina – Temptation
16. Trinere – How Can We Be Wrong
17. Noel – Silent Morning
18. New Order – Shellshock
19. Sweet Sensation – Sincerely Yours
20. Nice And Wild – Diamond Girl
21. Lisette Melendez – Together Forever
22. Johnny O – Fantasy Girl
23. Judy Torres – Come Into My Arms
24. Jellybean feat. Madonna – Sidewalk Talk
25. Stevie B – I Wanna Be the One
26. Cynthia – Love Me Tonight
26. Giggles – Love Letter
27. Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam with Full Force – I Wonder If I Take You Home
28. Nayobe – Please Don’t Go
29. Expose – Come Go With Me
30. Nocera – Summertime Summertim

People probably don't remember, but when reviews for Grand Theft Auto V hit, the biggest criticism was that players weren't allowed to dress Trevor, one of the three main protagonists and a general fuck up, in anime t-shirts. It was an odd oversight by Rockstar Games, a studio known for being detail-oriented, but the modding community has since stepped up to fix this.

35 Anime T-Shirts for Trevor, created by modder Tsukasa Hiiragi, lets you adorn Trevor with form-fitting clothing sporting references and imagery from everything from Sailor Moon to Aria the Scarlet Ammo. (I definitely thoroughly understood that Aria reference immediately, and definitely did not resort to a Google search to determine whether that was made up.)

The modders' name, Tsukasa Hiiragi, is a reference to the main character from the anime Lucky Star, which has been given the gaming treatment a few times. Hiiragi has made a ton of mods for Grand Theft Auto V, most related to anime. One mod adds anime-themed cell phone wallpaper, another swaps the game's weapon textures with images of different vocaloids. It's even possible to make sure Franklin's house is full of anime posters, manga, and, yes, hentai.

His most popular mod, downloaded 563 times, adds anime billboards.

What drives a man to add this much anime to Grand Theft Auto V? I had to find out, and fortunately, Tsukasa Hiiragi was willing to chat with me about his passion.

(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Waypoint: We're gonna start off with a tough question: what's your favorite anime and why? Take as much time as you need.

Tsukasa Hiiragi: Yeah, that is always the tough question for anime fans the world over. Picking that single favorite show is nearly impossible for most fans, especially with new anime coming out every season. For me, however, after taking some time to seriously think about it, even though I'm more well known for being a huge Lucky Star fan, I'd still have to say that perhaps Clannad is my all time favorite.  The storyline, the characters—just everything about it is amazing and quite a tearjerker. It's just a masterpiece of animation.

Now that we've gotten rid of the elephant in the room, how does modding fit into your life? What's your day job?

Does being a neet [not in education, employment, or training] count? I'm actually a home husband—does that surprise you?  I can cook and clean. It isn't glamorous or anything, but it does provide me with extra time for my hobbies, which is obviously gaming and anime.

How long have you been a fan of anime? Was there a particular series, manga, or movie that converted you to the church of Japanese animation?

Oh, I've actually been an anime fan since I first saw the Westernized version of Battle of the Planets, which is also known under its classic Japanese title Gatchaman. Back in the late 70s/80s period though, the West didn't really know what anime was, until the breakout hits of Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball educated us. That is also the point where I started to become much more interested, and that hobby just grew and grew.

I found you by stumbling upon a mod that adds 35 anime t-shirts for Trevor. Why does Trevor need anime shirts? Do you think he's into anime?

Ah, Trevor, he's such a character. He really is a mess but an hilarious one with some interesting cut-scenes, one even having him crossdress?  While his personality is so out there,  I think Trevor could be into anime actually. Yeah, I know what you're thinking: hentai. But also, I think he'd probably be into the dark stuff, School Days, for example. I can really see Trevor watching that. Just don't insult his waifu 'and' husbando, otherwise he just might shoot you in the face.

The mod technically has 35 anime t-shirt options, but let's say Trevor could only wear one. Which is it?

Out of that bunch which I added in that particular mod, I'd say the Hello Kitty T-shirt, for some reason that seems to fit his personality,  I don't know why but I guess it's similar to some of the outlandish clothing options he already has.

As far as I know, the GTA series doesn't really acknowledge (or lampoon) anime. What's up with that? Maybe we can ship them some DVDs.

The early GTA series didn't acknowledge it at all, I think mostly because of how old the series is. That did change with Liberty City Stories and the birth of the Princess Robot Bubblegum shorts which I personally think is a great parody of anime in general.  Who knows what the future holds for the franchise though....Grand Theft Auto 6: Tokyo Drift edition perhaps? I think a GTA game set in Japan would totally work!

With some rare exceptions, the vast majority of your mods involve adding anime things—posters, skins, clothes, billboards—into Grand Theft Auto V? How'd that end up being your niche?

For the most part, this is how modders usually work, we make something for ourselves, that we enjoy and would like to see in the game and if other people also enjoy that concept for the mod, then great! Being a classic otaku, it's only natural I would head in that direction, but that doesn't really mean I'm only in that niche. I often asked if anyone had any suggestions or requests, and for the most part the requests were all anime related too with a few exceptions being someone requesting a Killer Instinct reskin for one of the arcade machines. I have no real problems in taking any requests provided it's within my ability and skill to make the mod halfway decent.

"It bothers me, especially when people automatically assume you're some weeb trash, but for the most part, if they want to deny themselves of classic anime without even considering the possibility that they just might enjoy it? Then, it's pretty sad."

How'd you get into modding in the first place, and what'd it take to learn the ropes? Were you just screwing around?

I got into modding way back in the mid-90s with Unreal Tournament. I tried to learn the basics, but back then, the modding scene was still young and it was hard, so for a while I enjoyed the fruits of all the talented modders out there, I think my first mods were messing around trying to learn how to reskin for GTA 4 and I managed to create a few basic mods for that.

It was only with GTA V's release that I became more interested in making some interesting mods, but I was actually surprised how many people actually enjoyed my first mod, which added tons of billboards for the downtown area.

I've actually been asked this question before by a few people trying to learn the basics, and honestly, the best learning process is to screw around. OpenIV has evolved into a powerful tool now, and has given the community far greater power to mod the game without damaging the core files, so if something isn't working or even crashing the game, it's an easy fix to remove the offending file and try again.

Do you have all your own anime mods installed at once? Have you turned Los Santos into some kind of anime paradise?

I did, and it was glorious! I had even changed the cinema movies into actual real anime trailers! I only wish I had the abilities and talent in blender to make my own 3D models, which is the next step for me. Simple texture reskins are something anyone can do with time and practice, but actually creating brand new 3D models? That is something I would really love to be able to do.

Anime fans sometimes get a bad rap online, like the way people talk about folks with anime avatars on Twitter. Does that bother you?

It's the internet, so you're always going to get haters and trolls no matter what. I've had my fair share of problems. I haven't had any problems on Twitter, but I've had my Steam account targeted before, which caused me to change to a private profile.

As for the bad rep? Sure, it bothers me, especially when people automatically assume you're some weeb trash, but for the most part, if they want to deny themselves of classic anime without even considering the possibility that they just might enjoy it? Then, it's pretty sad. After all, there are so many different genres these days, there really is something for everyone.

It seems like you're still making anime mods for GTA V. What's next?

I made a couple of mods for Fallout 4, but lately its been a busy time, and I've just been a regular gamer instead of modding. That doesn't mean I don't have my eyes peeled for new projects, however. It's only a matter of time before I go back to updating the mods for GTA V.  Let's not forget that it's a safe bet that GTA VI is most likely on the horizon, and any new GTA game is something that I'm sure I'm going to mess around with.

• A Q&A With the Creator of the Controversial Duct Tape Mod for 'Doom 3'
• A Q&A With the Creator of an 'Oblivion' Mod That Ditched Boob Armor
• A Q&A With the Creator of a 'Fallout 4' Mod That Flips the Toilet Paper Around
• The 'Witcher 3' Modder Who Gave Geralt a 'Shredded Steel Body'
• The 'Stardew Valley' Modder Who Added Jerk Off Schedules For Every Guy

Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email here.

And the Bollywood beat goes on. Every time I compile one of these mixes I wonder if I'll ever find enough great tracks to later on make another. Inevitably, I always do. So here's the 11th volume. Almost a decade since the first, and each one as good as the next. Download or stream them, your call, but don't give them a miss!

Track listing:
1. Title Music (from Hamraaz)
2. Love Me Love Me Tonight (from Maze Le Lo)
3. Roz Roz Roz (from Khilona)
4. Chumma Chumma (from Pataal Bhairavi)
5. Parde Men Pyar Kare (from Teen Eekay)
6. Punkh Hote To Ud Aati (from Sehra)
7. Lab Tak Aai Hai (from Tumhaare Bina)
8. Main Hoon Chhui Mui (from Chhupa Rustam)
9. Pyar Chhalke (from Sumbandh)
10. Sha Shangrila Sha Shangrila (from Kala Dhanda Goray Log)
11. Is Raat Ke Sannate Men (from Do Chehere)
12. O Meri Lara Loo (from Dil Daulat Duniya)
13. Yaar Badshah Yaar Dilruba (from C.I.D. 909)
14. Peechha Karro (from Peechha Karro)
15. Meri Bagiya Ki Kali (from Do Raha)
16. Sajna Saath Nibhana (from Doli)
17. Bheegee Bheegee Raat Suhani (from Dhoop Chhaon)
18. Zulfon Tale (from Maut Ka Saya)

Listen on Mixcloud.

Cover star: Vimi (from 'Hamraaz', 1967)


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One of biggest through lines in Nintendo’s promotional hype for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has concerned its connection to the original Legend of Zelda, which debuted in the U.S. almost exactly 30 years ago. That’s a spiritual connection, mind you; the new game looks nothing like the primitive pixels of the NES classic, and if the story shares a direct link (or, perhaps, Link) to the older adventure, Nintendo’s keeping it under wraps.

I’m always a little leery of publishers making too much noise about how a new release gets back to a franchise’s roots. Generally it creates a too-obsequious air of apology for the direction of a franchise, throwing a lot of hard-working contributors’ hard work under a bus. And while it’s not unheard of for a long-running series to go off the rails and somehow right itself again further down the road, it doesn’t happen as often as one might wish.

The back-to-the-roots approach can work, but it demands a tricky balance. Sometimes developers take an overly literal approach, as with, say, Mega Man 9 — which I love, don’t get me wrong. But I do think Capcom could have taken Mega Man back to his roots without actually turning back game and graphical design two decades. And sometimes you have the Tomb Raider series, which has its ups and downs but (despite its overlords’ promises to return to the spirit of the original game with every sequel to come along since Tomb Raider III) never quite seems to recapture the sense of isolation and grandeur that made the very first Tomb Raider so captivating.

So, I’ve taken a cautious, if hopeful, approach to managing my Breath of the Wild expectations since playing it (and coming away deeply impressed) back at E3 last summer. Would Nintendo really get back to the spirit of the NES, or would this be another example of game creators promising to go back to a long-ago, cherished standard without quite grasping what it was its fans really loved about the older game in the first place?

Surprisingly, so far, the answer is: Yes, they got it.

I say “so far” because I haven’t even hit the 10-hour mark in the game. For that matter, I haven’t even left the opening area, which demands players complete a set of minor challenges spread across a fairly expansive area that nevertheless appears to comprise only a tiny fraction of this version of Hyrule. I mean, I could have moved along by now, but I’m more interested in testing the limits of what I can accomplish straight away. These early hours have already given me confidence that Nintendo really is looking back to the oldest Zelda here by deliberately breaking from the Link to the Past formula that has been the foundation of nearly every sequel beginning with Ocarina of Time.

A Link to the Past set a lot of standards for the Zelda games, but the greatest of these was in the way it locked down the dungeon-and-tool formula. In each sequential dungeon, Link would acquire a new tool or weapon to allow him to overcome specific obstacles throughout the game, with that dungeon serving as a sort of training course. Nintendo designed each labyrinth as a spatial puzzle that could only be solved by mastering the tool within, with the dungeon boss serving as the final exam of sorts. For instance, you needed to collect the Hookshot in order to traverse gaps in the dungeon that contained the Hookshot, and then you had to defeat the boss at the end of the gauntlet by using the Hookshot to reveal its weak point. It was a deft, thoughtful approach to game design… and after being reiterated in half a dozen different sequels, it’s become stale and predictable.

In the opening hours of Breath of the Wild, I’ve already acquired what appears to be the bulk of the main gadgets I’ll be using throughout the adventure. This is not a case of sequence-breaking; you literally can’t move beyond the opening area until you round them all up. And while you acquire each one in a purpose-built dungeon, those dungeons are small and simple — smaller than any story dungeon in any 3D Zelda to date. I don’t know how the dungeons and shrines in later portions of the game will work, precisely, but it could be that the 1:1 ratio of gadgets and dungeons won’t be the case with this game. More likely you’ll need to complete each shrine or lair by combining and applying your permanent tool set in increasingly complex ways.

So yes, in this sense, Breath of the Wild really does feel like a reversion to the original Zelda. You acquired a number of tools and upgrades in the dungeons there, as well, but in only a handful of cases did you actually need the item in question in order to reach and defeat the boss. And even then, you’d usually need a treasure from a previous area of the game in order to complete a task, e.g. the bow from Level-1 in order to beat Level-6’s boss, Gohma.

Nintendo experimented with breaking from the Link to the Past cycle with the most recent single-player Zelda, which somewhat ironically was the direct sequel to A Link to the Past: 2013’s A Link Between Worlds. There, you could simply run out and rent (or buy) the tools you needed; the challenge became managing your finances and knowing which tools were needed for each given dungeon. Worlds didn’t suffer for separating tool acquisition from dungeon solutions, and I suspect now that it was something of a dry run for what Nintendo hoped to do with Breath of the Wild.

If the Zelda games were finally extricating themselves from the very classic but very familiar rut into which they had worn themselves, Breath of the Wild would deserve praise. But Nintendo has reached back to the franchise’s origins in an even more meaningful way: They’ve given players the freedom to go about the quest however they like.

Make no mistake: Breath of the Wild still has a certain linear path of quest progression to observe. As I said, the task of moving beyond the isolated plateau on which the adventure begins requires you to complete several shrines… but once you’ve cleared the first one, you’re allowed to tackle them in any order. Now, you’re likely to complete them in a particular general sequence simply as a matter of expediency, as two of the shrines sit in areas covered with frost. This time out, Link has to be mindful of the temperature of his surroundings; stray too long into the cold and you will freeze to death. But you don’t need any special quest item to venture into the frozen wastes — you just need to know how to prepare food and potions, and have an eye for the botanicals and fauna that will result in warming recipes to temporarily insulate Link from the elements. So if you really want, you can head to the shrines in frigid areas first.

This freedom begins literally the moment you set foot outside the cave in which Link awakens after his hundred-year sleep. The game gives you several prompts to nudge you in the proper direction to get the story rolling right away. Once Link surveys his surroundings, the camera swings around to a mysterious old man keeping vigil near Link’s Shrine of Resurrection… but nothing is forcing you to speak to him right away. In fact, you can ignore the old man until you run out of things to do (which is quite a lot, and can allow you to stock up on some pretty useful collectibles and weapons).

A couple of minutes after you spot the old man, Link hears a disembodied voice and gets a waypoint marker on his in-game map. The action freezes as this plays out, and my first thought as this transpired was that the game was going to railroad me back to the main quest and constantly hound me with a bossy voice, a la Navi/Midna/Fi. But this turns out not to be the case at all. Once the waypoint appears, you’re free to go back about your business and do as you please. And the voice rarely intrudes, content to allow you to take the quest at your own pace.

It’s a pleasant surprise in a series that has demonstrated an almost pathological need to hold players by the hand for the past 20 years, but producer Eiji Aonuma has said that he’s spent a lot of time taking notes from open-world games, mostly produced outside Japan. Perhaps those games’ willingness to sit back and allow players to do as they will helped Nintendo’s designers to realize, at last, that people who play video games really do have the deductive reasoning to sort things out for themselves and don’t need or want to be constantly nagged back onto the critical path.

So just how much freedom does Breath of the Wild give you from the outset? Well, I’ve put together a slightly goofy dramatic recreation here of my initial experience with the game (pardon the pantomime). This is footage from a single session from the beginning of the game, slightly edited for time, and it simulates my initial reaction to being given obvious and obtrusive guidance… as well as the disastrous nonsense I got up to after I decided to blow it off.

What ultimately makes Breath of the Wild feel like such a change of pace for the Zelda series — almost like a spiritual reboot — is not that it offers an open world, or that you have the sort of freedom that comes with an open world, or that it contains a huge number of undocumented systems (like recipes and temperature), or any other single element. It’s that it does all of these things at once. Nintendo probably could have put out two or three Zelda games featuring one or two of these changes in incremental amounts, but by taking the time to create a game that does all of them at once, they’ve created something that — at least here at the start — feels like a massive and much-needed leap into modernity.

The most impressive connection Breath of the Wild has to its 30-year-old ancestor is that it improbably recaptures that game’s sense of the unexpected. The original Zelda was like nothing we’d ever seen in 1987, and by definition it’s practically impossible for a sequel to reproduce that sensation. What made Zelda amazing in the early days is that for its first decade of existence, the series alway brought you something new and unexpected. Zelda II was somehow a side-scrolling action game as well as an RPG. A Link to the Past existed as this intricate puzzle box of a game whose convolutions somehow spanned two dimensions of time and space. Link’s Awakening gave us a Super NES-sized adventure on Game Boy, while adding in Mario elements. And Ocarina of Time reinvented A Link to the Past as a game that spanned decades and whose added unique, dimension was the third dimension.

Breath of the Wild has hit me with an urge to explore and discover, to figure out what possibilities await, that I haven’t experienced so profoundly since Ocarina of Time. Yes, a lot of the concepts here come straight from open-world action games we’ve all played over the past decade; but here, those elements have been framed within the workings of the Zelda series. Breath of the Wild moves and sounds like Zelda, which means it’s far more polished in its movements and interactions than your average Elder Scrolls adventure (which, again, I love, but the phrase “Bethesda jank” exists for a reason). And its structure already demonstrates a certain thoughtfulness characteristic of the series. In short, it’s a modern sandbox action RPG, but crafted with the world-class care we’ve come to expect from this franchise.

It would be easy for this Zelda to fall flat on its face, to feel like some wannabe attempting to bite off the most successful games of the generation. So far, though, it hasn’t. And fair enough: Zelda basically created this style of game, and it’s only reasonable to think it should be able to reclaim a place and make a mark on the genre on its own terms.

And perhaps most importantly, Breath of the Wild gives the impression that its open design and many systems have purpose. I half-expected the need to forage for resources (including replacements for Link’s oh-so-fragile weapons) would be a drag, but it, too, gives a the impression of purposefulness. I think carefully about each and every arrow I loose at an enemy, because I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to replace it. And thorough exploration is its own reward. Take as an example my proudest free-roaming accomplishment yet: Stumbling upon a den of bokoblins, including a moblin chief, living in a massive skull-shape cave. My first encounter with them went poorly to the point of fatality… but eventually, I stumbled upon a cache of fire arrows elsewhere on the plateau. With those in hand, I returned and detonated the explosive barrels (yes, they even exist in Zelda) inside the cave, instantly clearing out all but the moblin. The wounded chief rushed me, and I had to defeat it in melee combat. This was hardly a gimme: The flames I sparked ignited his spiked wooden club, upgrading a single successful blow from it from “painful” to “instantly fatal.” But I dodged, persevered, and survived. It was even more exhilarating than the moment in the video above in which I crept up silently to steal a bokoblin’s discarded weapon only to have the bad guy hear me at the last second and snatch his weapon away a split second before I could grab it myself.

These little moments have happened throughout the time with the game so far, and while you can definitely see the video game logic and limits working beneath it all, Breath of the Wild might actually combine freedom and dynamic systems as well as Metal Gear Solid V. If my time so far have been a true preview of the experiences that lie ahead once I get on with the plot and descend from the Great Plateau, Breath of the Wild should be 100 or so hours of pure pleasure in the style of the original Zelda, but with modern scope and style. That sounds like the greatest link to the past I could hope to ask for, really.

2012 was a strange year for video games. Peter Molyneux convinced everyone to prod at a giant cube in his Curiosity—What's Inside the Cube? (it ended up being less than spectacular). Dear Esther's full release totally wrecked our collective Valentine's Day. The Walking Dead Season 1 was blowing minds across the world month-to-month. 

It was a strong year for games that have left a lasting and deep impression on the player audience and the development world alike. It was a banner year, and that's due in no small part to the release of Paradox's quirky and strange Crusader Kings II, which celebrated it's 5-year anniversary on February 14th.

As I was working on this article, I had some conversations with people who aren't necessarily into PC-based strategy games. When they asked me what I was working on, I told that I was very excited about covering the five-year anniversary of Crusader Kings II. "What's that?" they would inevitably ask, and I couldn't ever really get it out in a cogent way. It's a simulation of an entire medieval world. It has grandeur. The stakes of each game session are nothing less than the stakes of empires; you can watch your heritable line fizzle into nothing or bloom into a powerful dynasty.

It's also the game of petty actions and jealousy. You rule your kingdom, but you find out that your only son is plotting against you. You jail him, but that makes your vassals angry, so you put him on house arrest instead. Then you realize that he's still trying to kill you, so you banish him from your kingdom. Then he becomes the spymaster of your rival, plots against you from afar, and wages a secret war across the border for the next thirty years.

There's no other game with that kind of scope, scale, and specificity. It's a unique and strange project that zooms into the most intimate levels of character interaction. As designer Henrik Fåhraeus explains it, the impetus for the game was based on a feeling:

"I had this feeling that if you create a complex enough simulation and if you throw in a lot of AI characters in there with personalities and opinions of each other and different ways they could act out—so a backstabbing-type character would have a way to perform intrigue and assassinations and stuff whereas a warlike, straightforward, honest guy would just declare wars. Sort of like a game of life, you know? If you have this simulation with rules then interesting, weird stuff would happen and stories would be told by the simulation if a player was around to experience it."

In the age of "[game genre] + [roguelike elements]" game design that we live in now, that might not seem like such a radical statement, but it is worth remembering that Crusader Kings II is still a pretty singular experience. Few, if any, other big-budget games take the risk of creating an entire world of individual actors whose weathervane opinions change the very shape of world politics.

It makes sense that CKII remains unique. After all, as Fåhraeus explained to me, higher-ups at Paradox initially shipped the design of the first Crusader Kings off to a Russian developer rather than spend in-house resources on it. "It didn't turn out very well," said Fåhraeus, "so we brought it back in-house and finished it up in insane crunch mode in two months or something."

Ultimately, those unique character-to-character connections are what make the game "work" (both on a literal game systems level and in the sense of what gets players excited). Fåhraeus describes the relationship of figures such as King Robert the Fat or the Duke of Aquitaine to players as a "personal grounding," a kind of connection where we recognize ourselves in these historical rulers.

"They're people. They are clearly people, and people have been instilled with a sense of what that is, not just from old Errol Flynn movies but also fantasy shows and books and so on—knights in armor and all that stuff. It resonates, I think, with us. The clear fact that it's a person who has a personality: it's a drunkard, or a paranoid lunatic, we know what that is."

Creative Director Johan Andersson had similar thoughts about the enduring legacy of Crusader Kings II:

"It has to ebb and flow. No matter how powerful and big you are, it's all tied to humans. Your great kingdom can be destroyed by your powerful king suddenly dying, and everything's being inherited by your random cousin who is completely incompetent, and everything falls apart. . . . Humans are imperfect, I think. That's the philosophy."

This imperfection of humanity is part of the attraction to the entire Crusader Kings format. After all, there's something fascinating about watching a let's player like Arumba unite the Kingdom of Israel during the early Middle Ages against all odds. In the same way that it is empowering about taking on the role of an archaeologist or a super-soldier in the future, there is a distinct feeling of grinding it out when you can live your life as a ruler of a small-but-perseverant kingdom. Crusader Kings II is a humbling, atomizing experience; you can feel truly alone and against all odds while playing it, and that make the act of winning so much more indulgent.

Clearly that resonates with an audience. Crusader Kings II was a turning point in game development at Paradox, a company that Fåhraeus describes as being in "pretty dire financial straits" on release: "[ CKII] didn't have very high initial sales, so it was kind of surprising that by word of mouth or something it became the hit that it was."

We can attribute that success to players' attachment to characters and to the philosophy of openness toward the mod community that allowed for creations like the complete Game of Thrones conversion mod. "We've always been on the forefront of supporting mods," Andersson explained. "I'm a firm believer that you should not try to hide data files, and you should try to expose as many things as possible to the modding community so that they can mod the games because that prolongs the shelf life of the game and makes more people play."

That life of Crusader Kings II, from player engagement to modding support to actual, released expansion content, doesn't seem to be drying up half a decade into development. Paradox has sold more than a million copies of the game proper, and DLC content has stretched the numbers into the multiples of millions. In many ways, the network of communities and developers around CKII has grown to resemble the vast, weird networks of the Medieval Era that the game is modeling. It's a big world, but it's all connected, and each modder, LPer, and piece of DLC pushes and pulls at the massive web of relationships, affecting hundreds of thousands of fans.

Will it ever stop? Andersson is hopeful about the future: "As long as people buy the expansions, we will keep making them. Of course, we still need to have ideas, but as long as we have good ideas and people keep buying them, we're going to keep doing it."

Modders are known for adding all sorts of features, but we're usually talking design tweaks, new characters, additional clothing, etc. I nearly spit coffee at my computer monitor when I discovered a Stardew Valley mod called Horny Bachelors, which promised to add "jerk off schedules to ALL of the bachelors."

You might remember a line from last week's modder interview, where I said "the amount of horniness hiding in the mods for Stardew Valley [had] left me shaken." Now, you finally get it. I've been sitting in this crucial information for days.

Horny Bachelors is one of several erotic mods from a modder named Girafarig. He's also responsible for one where you can have sex with his favorite Stardew Valley character, Alex, and he built another mod that allowed Sam, Alex, and Sebastian to masturbate. Horny Bachelors is a natural evolution of his work, which began with Nude Bathing, which replaced a character's swimsuit with a penis.

"I had the previous mod installed and checked back on a whim recently and saw that you made this new one, so naturally I downloaded it," said one satisfied user. "I really enjoy finding out the schedules for all of the bachelors and I had thought I found all that the mod had to offer when I got a ... shall we say 'gift' from Elliot."

I had to know more, so I got in touch with the modder behind Horny Bachelors. We discussed his approach to modding, why he wanted to build stuff for folks looking for deeper interactions with the men of Stardew Valley, and more.

(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Waypoint: The only mods you've uploaded on Nexus Mods are for Stardew Valley. What is it about Stardew Valley got you interested in making your own material?

Girafarig: Making mods for Stardew is fairly easy—easier than making mods for Minecraft or The Sims, for example. Also, Stardew, ever since its release, has been one of my absolute favorite games, so being able to make things for it was something that was interesting for me.

When you were playing Stardew Valley, did you start thinking about what the people were up to? Did some of that drive your curiosity?

Girafarig: When I first started playing Stardew, no, I didn't. It was only until I really got into modding that I began to think about stuff like that.

There are a lot of different mods you could have made for Stardew Valley, but this one adds "jerk off" schedules for the various characters. Was there a specific inspiration?

Girafarig: There wasn't really too much inspiration. There were a lot of lewd mods for the bachelorettes, so I thought "Why not make some mods for people who like guys?" (AKA me). So I taught myself how to mod and made it a reality!

How'd you come up with the different schedules? Did you think some characters might be more inclined to jerk off at different times? Talk us through your process.

Girafarig: For the schedules, it wasn't anything too specific. There would be a chunk of time where they would just be standing on a tile for multiple in-game hours, so I thought that would be a good time to spice things up. As for the marriage schedules, it was a similar thing. For characters like Alex and Sam, they would only ever go out once a week, so I added another day and decided to make them masturbate for good measure.

What's the response been to the mod. Are you finding that other people take to it more than a joke?

Girafarig: Most people really like it, and I've received a plethora of ideas and suggestions from people that have downloaded it. It's amazing to think that so many people in the Stardew community have downloaded and are enjoying the mods that I've made. It's very humbling.

Do you think the characters in the game are already masturbating in private, but you're just making it an event the player can view? I guess what I'm asking is about the lore of Stardew Valley . Did people jerk off before you made this mod?

Girafarig: It started off with just Alex and Sam, as I felt as though those two, out of all the five bachelors at the time, would be the ones most likely to jerk off. I'd assume the characters jerked off before; what young man hasn't? I was just bringing to light the hidden habits of the young men in the town.

Some call it jerking off, others call it masturbating. How'd you decide on calling it jerking off?

Girafarig: The reason I called it "jerking off" is because I felt like the word masturbating was almost too formal.

"The reason I called it 'jerking off' is because I felt like the word masturbating was almost too formal."

For folks who aren't familiar, how difficult is it to mod Stardew Valley ? How long did this take you?

Girafarig: Modding Stardew is actually very easy, granted you have the right tools. Once I know what I want to do it takes almost no time at all—the longest part is making the sprites and testing to make sure it works correctly.

Based on the other mods you've worked on for Stardew Valley, you clearly have an interest in adding erotic content to the game. Where'd that come from?

Girafarig: I felt as though Nexus was lacking in erotic content for the guys of Stardew; it was literally only bachelorette stuff. There was perhaps one solitary erotic content [mod] for Alex before I joined the modding community.

Stardew Valley has romance and love in it, but no sex. That said, lots of mods have done that work for the developers. Why do you think there's such a huge interest in having this explicitly in the game?

Girafarig: I think there's a big interest because it isn't in the game; I guess sex and things along those lines make the game almost more "real." Some people, however, like the modders making nude portraits for all the bachelorettes and other female characters, are probably just horny.

It's pretty common for erotic mod content to favor sexualizing women. Why do you think that is?

Girafarig: I think it's as simple as the majority of video game players are young straight guys. Young straight guys—at least the stereotype of them—are horny and like to see women naked and fantasize about having sex with them. It only makes sense that a lot of mods are tailored to them.

The most important question of all: who would you actually have sex with in Stardew Valley?

Girafarig: Alex, definitely; he's been my favorite since the beginning. He's attractive, muscular, sweet, and seems like a guy who'd be well endowed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email here.

Chicago DJ brings the house, and the controversy…

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[6.22]

John Seroff: Lyrical, enticing and carefully paced, “He Is the Voice I Hear” is densely packed with live instrumentation and deeply considered house beats. There’s a gentleness and a fire at play; an ecstatic exuberance at the level of Levan. The Black Madonna has captured the spirit of the modern moment without words, offering disco as a stand-in for the phoenix both dying and reborn. It’s pretty much the best thing this year’s yet had to offer; here’s hoping that “Voice” is the beginning of a grander manifesto ahead.
[10]

Maxwell Cavaseno: If I wanted a parade of “proper” house/techno, there are a bunch of Ron Hardy mixes on YouTube. The last thing I need is to be lectured by 10 minutes of self-important tribute to things originally done not in reverence of what’d been left behind, but in searching to find a now and a future.
[1]

Alfred Soto: This hybrid of New Romantic fodderstompf and Jacques Morali kitsch has a promising start but is never quite fast enough or schlocky enough to tell the keyboardist to shut the fuck up.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Elegant, classy, 10 minutes long, piano-based: this is what I want my house music to sound like.
[10]

Iain Mew: It’s got as careful and anticipation-forming a buildup as I would hope for when it takes seven minutes, with nice use of strings. When it turns out that what it was building up to was just some mannered piano tinkling, though, it feels like a practical joke at the listener’s expense.
[3]

Katie Gill: Look, I love this. That jazzy opening leading right into some sort of pseudo-disco DJ nonsense is my jam. I am all for a reoccurrence of the 1970s, especially if it’s disco, which has been unfairly shat upon for far too long. But 10 minutes is waaaaay too long, especially when repetition is heavily featured throughout the song. I’m sure this is marvelous as a DJ experience, but as a single, it’s tiring.
[6]

Joshua Copperman: I’d definitely listen to that piano intro for 10+ minutes, but I’m cool with the rest of the song too. The best part for me was the violin riff halfway through, the kind of sample that could back an entirely different piece of music. (Davide Rossi also contributed the strings for Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, which 1. explains why that hook is so catchy and 2. is amusing, considering Coldplay wouldn’t even make its hidden tracks 10 minutes long.) This culminates in a section when all the parts join together around 6:00. The only part that doesn’t quite work for me is the piano solo at the end, but the fact that it can hold attention purely as a listening experience is impressive.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Perhaps because of other artists in her city taking it back to church last year, the “He” of the title strikes me as a religious calling as The Black Madonna aims for transcendence throughout her track’s grand 10-minute length. Her patience with the music hinders it from reaching the rapture of the Chicago classics to which she pays homage. But that piano sweep is so gorgeous, you can’t help but to try to touch the sky.
[6]

Crystal Leww: The Black Madonna cleaned up on dance publication year-ends last year, a welcome sign that dance music was finally starting to embrace someone who didn’t look exactly like a deadmau5 type. So much about what’s made The Black Madonna a compelling story is Marea herself — a vocal feminist in the world of dark, sweaty rooms dominated by dudes who have grown to prioritize technicality over feeling. The Black Madonna is a technical whiz, sure, but to boil down her rise to “Hey, here’s a chick who proves she really can really spin!” is to do her a disservice. The Black Madonna cut her teeth in the dance scene in Chicago, grinding it out while still refusing to give up the heart and soul of dance in the city that built house music. She is open about how central God is to her work. I saw The Black Madonna play on Saturday night, and what struck me the most was the energy of the room. There is a joy she has behind the decks that few have, an atmosphere that she creates. I saw old ravers go wild. I saw a Swiss dude who said he loved deep house go wild at the legendary Chicago club Smart Bar for the first time. I saw young folks who looked like they were at their first house music show. I’ve not been religious in a long time, and it’s such a wild cliche, but that tiny little room at Smart Bar felt spiritual to me. I get why someone would make God and music intertwine; sometimes, the only thing I can believe in is the thump of the club.
[9]

For the past couple of days, I've been taking my breakfast with a bunch of hidden folks. I hear them, sometimes, sneakily creeping behind hay bales and shuffling up tree trunks. Some zip themselves inside tents, while others chase butterflies in the tall grass. Some of them aren't folks at all—there are snakes here, spiders and tortoises and, every so often, monsters.

Hidden Folks is a new game for iOS, also available on Steam and Apple TV (with Android to follow), which takes the Where's Waldo principle of discovering needles in haystacks (sometimes fairly literally), presenting sprawling black and white screens populated by all manner of busy life. You prod at it with your finger, on iOS at least—I've had my iPad beside me as I've noshed down my muesli—ticking off a set number of "targets" per stage. Get enough, and you can proceed to the next screen of highly detailed and delightfully drawn fauna and flora.

What sets this game apart from other find-all-this-hidden-stuff puzzlers is its handcrafted feel. Made by a pair of Dutchmen, Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg, every piece of art in Hidden Folks is drawn on paper (by Tegroeg) before being scanned in and layered (by de Jongh), so as to create multiple layers of animation in each screen.

Above: 'Hidden Folks' release trailer

More impressively—and, perhaps, annoyingly, if the cuteness of it doesn't click with you—every noise in the game is made by the two developers, from the rush of the wind as you swipe from one side of the area to the other, through a host of animal and mechanical sounds and the dripping and flowing of water. There are bloops and plops and hisses and gulps, and it's all just a bit aww. (But it's a Pingu-like aww, which I know will drive some people right up the wall.)

Many touches will trigger a reaction of some kind—tap a camper van and its door will swing open; poke at an "X" marking a spot and you'll dig into it, revealing who knows what. A crocodile might spit out its lunch if you tickle its back, something that's really not recommended IRL. Plenty of what moves, shakes, rumbles and trickles in every does nothing to progress the game, but that's not the point; it's just fun to mess about, to see what will get a reaction.

A rope swing, sure, obviously—it swings, with the branch above creaking like only a branch voiced by a young Dutchman can. Sticking your forefinger into the opening of a rabbit hole might usually result in a nibble at best, a lost digit at worst; but here, it'll flush out the furry critters, and you'll want to keep your eyes out for the black one. He's on the list.

There's no scoring, no against-the-clock pressure to contend with. Hidden Folks is just a lovely little plaything, something to have beside you as you're doing something else, like scoffing a bowl of cereal, as much as it is a crossword-replacing coffee-break pursuit. It has no deeper meaning. It tells no real story. It's just nice, you know? And that's all you need, when you need it.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

We’re fairly “crazy crazy” about everyone involved in this, but TOGETHER isn’t quite the same story.

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[5.91]

Will Adams: An important aspect of Nakata’s work is precision. Every piece of his compositions sounds purposefully placed and manicured to maximize its potential, and “Crazy Crazy” is full of examples of this. The AutoTuning on Charli’s voice turns her runs into right angles, snare fills fit neatly between sections, and the post-chorus sequencing creates in-song level-ups. The genius of Nakata is pairing these polygonal productions with infectious pop songs. The chorus is a wonder, recapturing the heart bursts of “Boom Clap” with even more technicolor, and as such, it’s Charli’s best song in years.
[9]

Ryo Miyauchi: Charli’s intuitive hooks make a fine match with the whimsy of Yasutaka Nakata, a songwriter not at all new to playful, often nonsensical choruses. The happy-go-lucky boot-up noises also make me miss the producer’s older creations. Oh yeah, and there’s also Kyary, but it’s hard to notice with her uttering no more than five words. Given the mutual love they each have for their works, there could’ve been a better sense of dialogue.
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Crystal Leww: At this point, I’ve accepted that Charli XCX is a top five curator in music right now, and that even if the immediate reaction is not joy, I will grow to like just about everything she does. Luckily, “Crazy Crazy” is pretty great on initial listen, with Yasutaka Nakata providing a pretty uptempo backdrop for the euphoric shouts of Charli XCX and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. “Crazy Crazy” sounds like the kind of spring fling to look forward to at the end of the winter. 
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Iain Mew: I feared Charli XCX coming off a bit too knowing to really suit a Pamyu Pamyu Revolution-style toybox banger, but no, turns out she can bring the right kind of sunshine energy. If Nakata’s production isn’t up there with his most anything-goes exciting, Charli’s performance provides some of that essence instead, and the synth bubbling in the chorus is an intricate delight. The main thing bringing “Crazy Crazy” down (apart from the video) is what happens to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu on it. I can understanding doing anything to get her on a better 2017 song than the limp EDM moves of “Harajuku Iyahoi,” but her minimal presence and the way that dual vocals morph into Charli mid-line give the whole thing a sad underlying feel of Kyary being muscled out of her own song.
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Alfred Soto: The synth bubbles are delights in themselves, complementing the bubbleheaded lyrics. Still, that’s a lot of talent put in the service of ephemerality. 
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Jessica Doyle: There’s a whisper of something inviting and sparkly in the chorus, but that’s preceded by lyrics so aggressively banal as to come off as misanthropic. I feel like a sucker even trying to identify something worth listening for.
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Katherine St Asaph: Charli XCX’s terrible PC Music tangent seems even worse in retrospect, now that it looks worryingly like it might be her idea.
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Jonathan Bradley: Charli XCX’s cynicism wasn’t created by PC Music, but it is exemplified by it. Her lazy and pouting input on “Crazy Crazy” seems pitched as deliberate mockery of Kyary’s more sympathetic reading — and even if it is not, she proves herself unable to give herself over to the chaotic joy of the production. Nakata deserves exposure in Eigo markets, but not via guest stars who treat him as accoutrement.
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Maxwell Cavaseno: How is Yasutaka Nakata and his cohort Kyary Pamyu Pamyu always so seemingly lost in translation? When Perfume or Kyary occasionally leak into America, yes, among music nerds, it’s because of fascination with their ultra-vivid form of pop. But whenever they filter out to the general public, it’s always through that ‘wacky Japan’ lens that frustratingly undermines the work. Charli’s eternal career inconsistency, forever caterwauling from pose to pose in desperate desire to find the ones that work: rock-edged alt-pop star, ethereal princess, super wink-twitch cyborg glitch cynicism… The only consistent thread is she cites Hannah Diamond’s “Pink & Blue”, a reflection of both her friends in the PC Music camp’s supposed fascination with Nakata & Kyary and perhaps a linger from her brief dalliances with the Vroom Vroom period but… “Crazy Crazy” instead feels really put-on and sort of sugary, with a lot less effort into giving the song a character and more into being a character. It feels as if the song doesn’t bridge between oddballs of pop and instead is falling victim to the lingering stereotypes of J-Pop in ‘Western Eyes’ (while not a major consideration, the video’s antics don’t necessarily dissuade this impression). It’ll be nothing more than another pit-stop in Charli’s eternal voyage for the thing that works, but it cheats the other parties the chance to get some of the respect outside of their home that their work should have earned.
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Leonel Manzanares: While he’s praised for using layers upon layers of hi-tech sounds in his tracks, the secret to the genius of Yasutaka Nakata is his complex songwriting. You can hear the frantic start-stop rhythms and the super-busy synthwork in countless Asian Pop concepts or in the Soundcloud scene in the West, sure, but only a master architect like him adds structural wonders like the chord progressions in the post-chorus and the bridge.
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Thomas Inskeep: Perfect, upbeat pop. Made with electronics but not the dreary brand of EDM-pop currently ruling the world, this is all sunshine and danceable and a singalong and I fucking love it and WE NEED MORE OF THIS. 
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