Hey, let me drunkenly animate your photos in about 25 to 60 days!

lol @ showing up those soft drive chumps by being even softer \m/ “oh, you think you’re soft, huh? that’s cute. check this out”

for a minute, medium drive was also in the mix, and i was preparing to check softest drive if necessary!!

:D

https://i.imgur.com/7U3AEAD.png

https://i.imgur.com/9DfymZV.png

https://media2.giphy.com/media/GHc1i70ZAUBcA/giphy.gif

J-card

https://i.imgur.com/fQRWU2j.jpg

🐎🐎🐎🐎!

ok, we finally have our bandcamp set up and ready to go! there is a preview track up on there now

https://softerdrive.bandcamp.com/

bro!!!

that is some dreamy horsecore, i like it

lol thank you! i just told my musical partner that you said it was "dream horsecore", and she replied

HORSESCORE and seven dreams ago

she is the one that came up with 3 1/2 of our 4 horse puns, obviously

horse pun savant & musical badass, the makings of a superhero right there

can the next release be the soundtrack to the movie based on her exploits please

well i’m getting ahead of myself, shld probably let this one get released first. congratulations!!!!!!

but for the follow up tho, i’m picturing a blade runner 2049 with cyborg horses

wait no, CENTAURS

cyborg centaurs, in case it wasn’t clear

oh IT WAS CLEAR

all i can say is we will have to see where the ____ puns lead us. but to me a centaur is an obvious next step from ____

it's pronounced "Centorgs"

i think before we go any further with this, we need to think about the origin story of the centaurs. and i'm talking about a human having sex with a horse, the real deal, and how their relationship affected other humans and horses that knew them at the time

zoophile mad scientist and her cybernetically augmented offspring, their dynasty controlling the grim near future with iron hooves. literal iron hooves!

just checked, preview track still slaps

thanks cat! you are very encouraging :)

i calls ‘em like i sees ‘em, bub 🕶

i am hoping that we can sell 33 tapes. that's my breakeven point with cassette tape costs, and plus i want a good excuse to put out another release and do more recording with carrie.

carrie is a funny person, and would be amazing on ilx. i'm in a low-key long-term campaign to get her to join

https://twitter.com/TheGnarrator/status/1466511663151079424

alright, the horse puns are out for real today! no more bullshit!

https://softerdrive.bandcamp.com/album/four-of-horses

i saw your message cat, thank you so much! i hope you are ZONIN now

https://c.tenor.com/kuSoD0BPiMIAAAAC/meow-trance.gif

i'm starting the first of 2 small sales on my instagram (@Zach_TBD, in a few minutes. the first will be 10 drawings, all pencil on paper, most on 9"x12", each $50

first positive music review of my life i think?

I really hoped to have time to write about this album before the end of the year, but ran out of time (maybe in January!), but this Softer Drive (@TheGnarrator & @weinventyou) is excellent. I've been listening to it quite a bit the last couple weeks. https://t.co/7tfsJ0GWWa

— Foxy Digitalis (@foxydigitalis) December 17, 2021

Sometimes I try to put myself in a state,
call it Loose Control, for now,
where expressive results are bent into javelined roads,
thin and slivering lines which get all covered up
and forgotten under relentless waves of new stuff.

Imagine automatic writing but more visual,
thin and slivering lines instead of language,
the brush’s residuals replacing the text.

When I Loosely Control my hand starts to move
on its own, independently,
thickened water sloshingly flying
up and around the edges of a bucket
which is swirling in elliptical orbits,
the inverse of my motions,
the effects of my causes becoming
untethered from their origins,
and yet I know that I am part of it all.
It is from me and yet it doesn’t see me.

A forgotten mark gets scattered up,
reforms as a ladder and tips
in new directions,
one of many landing strips,
loud movement then stillness,
a flood and then a covenant.

I make my bed and then I sleep on top of it.
My heart beats uninterrupted.
It makes me live so I listen,
five liters of blood in a circuit,
all sustained without a rhythm.
I don’t understand but I trust that I will wake up safe.

safe at the end, whoops

or actually, i'll replace the last line with

I don’t understand but I still wake up.

https://i.imgur.com/edNHfhP.jpg

fuck, i accidentally left in "thin and slivering line" twice. how embarrassing.

thin and slivering lines which get all covered up
temporary paths getting covered up

it's important to me OK

https://i.imgur.com/DR4ctnf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/apQ6dlg.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/mfU6VaC.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ZFksfnt.jpg

Karl <3 if i weren't drowning in a bucket of shit right now i could maybe offer more substantial appreciation, but i can at least say that's a beautiful poem and your art is evolving fascinatingly

cat, the fact that you would say that even when you're in a bucket of shit says a lot. thank you <3

4 dayo:

https://i.imgur.com/JrtN1k4.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3R4PYKq.jpg

those are pretty great

Thanks! The one on the bottom is just a detail from the one on top. I should probably have more detail shots, in general. Usually I just post the full zoomed out version but there’s more going on close up

https://i.imgur.com/Ov9KNQu.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/KZzHKVR.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2O1esnH.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/oNGMATo.jpg

cassettes are finally done!

https://www.discogs.com/release/21231103-Softer-Drive-Four-of-Horses

COVETING

speaking of, i'm FINALLY mailing them out today! I just got the final supplies on Christmas Eve so I've been busy assembling and waiting for the post office to reopen :)

out of this tape hiss comes some light

my wanderings have dropped me off here,
old train running on a fresh sea,
with fingertips all cut up and worn down from
constant use, my newer skin turns rough

I wanted someone to talk to but instead I had a beer
or two and I wrote. it’s only more water pushing against my barricades.
we build ourselves back up and see each other off at the door.
I wonder who is watching who.
I wonder how long I can keep this up.
I think about what it would be like to see you stop.

I broke your locks but fixed your door sweep.
Your car was fine but I brought it to the shop.
I made your day easier and that was enough.

Tough love, that’s kid stuff.
I’ll clean the dirt off, don’t worry.
Your hands are blistered.
Mine are sweating. My glasses fogged up.
I drop off the kids at school.

Two-step around the room.
The drums and the singing
and I’m feeling warm again.
I’m stretched out and dry.
crushed in, drawn tight
I haven’t touched skin so soft in years,
my knuckles pop like firecrackers,
My hands are stupid bricks.
My WPM is 96.
The words pile up and I keep writing.

There’s a ship that sails back.
1I can still see it.
I think about my humanity.
I think about my spirit
Dancing with the one thought
brought me out of town and sideways,
a long nap in the evening
unwarned
unearned
walking on air, enchanted.

That’s beautiful, KM. Love it.

thank you lavator! sorry for delayed response!

should have stopped here, maybe?

https://i.imgur.com/YCcGOzk.jpg

but instead finished here

https://i.imgur.com/23SEwF1.jpg

pastel and charcoal and pencil, not paint, just to be clear!

although i am trying to finish a small oil commission ("clouds") tonight as well

https://i.imgur.com/H0P9FlZ.gif

i finally finished this last night. the commission was for "clouds"

https://i.imgur.com/Ef7hWNU.jpg

also i finally finished making my basic-ass website at zachtbd.xyz, so that's a better permanent spot with my own full-resolution and thumbnail images and all that