Oh hi. I didn’t see you there. Welcome to Cool Stuff for Cool Lifeforms, where every month, I’ll be recommending some cool stuff I’ve been into lately because there’s nothing cooler than sharing the art you love. If you love it, share it.
This month on Cool Stuff for Cool Lifeforms, we have some music, a book, and a videogame. This is primarily a music site, so we’ll start with the music first:
Music
Cool Sorcery – With Love, Maggie
I am obsessed with this band, especially this album. It’s garage rock on acid, taking the immediacy and fuzz of garage and running it through a filter of weirdness. I’m not sure if post-garage is a genre yet, but fuck it, that’s what this is. If you want something fun that has a lot of layers to uncover and explore, this is a cool album for that.
Plus, the band’s name is kind of perfect to kick off the first edition of this column. And their first album is awesome, too. I’m hoping that the more I talk about Cool Sorcery, the more likely it is they’ll do a split with my band. Call me if you’re reading this.
Momma – Household Name
Calling this a dope summer album would be a disservice to this album as it’s a work of near-perfection in any season, but I will say that this is an album you’re going to want to play for the entire rest of your summer. It will heighten your summer experience, whatever that may be. Everything shimmers here, from the brain worm vocal melodies to the pristine guitar and bass tones, but a special shout out to the drummer, who drives every song here, adding a level of urgency not always found in 90s indie-inspired bands (which I assume Momma is because there’s an awesome Pavement reference in the fantastic Speeding 72). I love this goddamn album.
Books
Sequoia Nagamatsu – Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone
This collection of short stories has it all, from kaiju to instruction manuals for varieties of ghosts to any manner of mythical absurdities. It all feels like modern folklore, like a series of stories uncovering a universe parallel to ours. Instead of describing this universe to us, each story lives in it, pulling us readers in until we become fully immersed in this strange, alternate world.
Videogames
Bastion – Supergiant Games
A month or two ago, I picked up Supergiant Games’ flawless Hades and absolutely loved it. Lucky for me, their other games were on sale in the Switch eShop, so I picked up this little gem of an RPG as well, and wow. The combat is not as smooth as in Hades, but that’s my only complaint. The weapon and upgrade system is surprisingly deep and flexible despite being rather simple. The art and sound design are both breathtaking.
But the real hook here is the amazing storytelling, which is some of the best in a videogame. I have a pet peeve for video games fucking up the play experience by making me watch cutscenes or read/listen to a bunch of dialogue that requires me to, ya know, wait until the dialogue is done before I can play again. Videogames are not movies, are not TV shows; are not books, and developers need to realize that and tell stories in a way that actually works for the medium.
Bastion nails that. While you play, a narrator gives you background on the world you’re discovering. He tells you about yourself and your back story. The writing is beautiful and at times heart breaking, yet never lacking humor and levity. And best of all, I don’t have to stop fucking playing to experience the story because it’s all happening while a play. What a cool and obvious solution to videogame telling, huh?
This puts it up with Bioshock: Infinite and Portal 2 as one of my favorite videogame narratives. It’s not just about how good the writing is. Great videogame storytelling doesn’t get in the way, it enhances the gameplay experience. This is a flat-out fuck you to every developer that relies on cutscenes and dialogue boxes to tell a story. That sucks, and Bastion doesn’t do it. Bastion nails its shit.
Okay, that’s enough cool stuff for this month. Check out this cool stuff and tell people about cool stuff you like. It’ll make the world a better place.