The TRAPPO Town Gazette!
Vol. 1, Issue 4: September 25, 2024
Hello, Dear Reader!
Welcome to the latest edition of The TRAPPO Town Gazette! My name’s Dustin, and I’m your humble host on this bizarre and at times nonsensical journey through the less traveled realms of the pop culture multiverse! How are you this fine day? I’m genuinely asking. I’d love for you to tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods this week. Just leave a comment and we can get this conversation started. In fact, let me make things easier for you…
See? I can’t wait to hear from you. In the meantime…
New Music Showcase!
Allow me to introduce you to the haunting and confrontational darkwave of Night In Athens. Tina Boleti used to play keyboards for various bands in London’s DIY punk scene before the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns struck, and she spent all her new free time experimenting with electronic music production techniques while isolating in her small flat. Tina liked what she was doing so much that she later decided to pursue this new musical path full-time, and Night In Athens was born.
The clear evolution from her earliest works as Night In Athens (The Epitaph, Metropolis) and her most recent release, Wasted Reflektions (released July 1) is quite striking, with this new album feeling much more cohesive and polished, while still retaining Boleti’s punk attitude and independent appeal. It’s a beautiful and often harrowing gothic sci-fi phantasmagoria. The title track is a real standout, but I think my personal favorite track is the album’s closer, “Words Unspoken”. You can check out the music video below.
I’m really digging the fearful symmetry of those gorgeous snake tattoos across Tina’s clavicles, by the way. I highly recommend this latest challenging work of art from Night In Athens. You can follow Night In Athens on Instagram here, or check out her Bandcamp page right here, if you’re interested.
You won’t be disappointed.
Other Business!
The season three finale of TRAPPO drops this Friday. Three seasons in the can already? It feels like only yesterday when this crazy journey began. Okay, sometimes it feels like it’s been twenty years. Either way, our third season wraps up in two short days. It’s not that big a deal, I suppose. After all, season four begins literally next week, so it’s not like we’re taking any time off. But we didn’t miss a single week this season, which is a first for us. New episodes every week for an entire year. We even dropped a few bonus episodes here and there, so I’m pretty proud of that.
But this finale… it’s something else.
I’ll level with you, Dear Reader, this episode is a complete mess. We’ve been pumping out New Music Showcases pretty regularly over the past few years. We’ll pick a few recent musical offerings and try to discuss them in one recording, then I’ll cut them into separate episodes for release. Easy, right? Usually, yes. But the energy in this last recording was off. That’s the kindest way to put it, I suppose. I didn’t like the album my co-host chose, he didn’t like the album I chose, and the whole endeavor just sort of fell apart.
So as I later began the process of editing these episodes, I just abruptly decided to do something else. It’s an experiment of sorts. I allowed myself the freedom to try whatever I wanted to try while working my way through the recording, which resulted in a very extended and laborious editing process, but ultimately a very fulfilling one. The end result is essentially the podcast equivalent of Musique concrète, or perhaps something closer in spirit to William S. Burroughs’ Nova Trilogy. I enjoyed the journey I took while stitching this monstrosity together over the sweltering hot final week of August.
Is the actual episode any good? That’s up for debate. This stuff is all subjective, anyway. What started out as a well-meaning critique of art has become, for better or for worse, a work of art itself. I call it TRAPPO’s New Music Meltdown, and it goes live this Friday afternoon. You can find it via this handy link when you feel like you’re ready to destroy your fragile psyche with fifty minutes of confusing madness. I hope you enjoy it. At the very least, I hope you respect the craft.
That’s it for this week, Dear Reader. That’s also it for this, the first full month of The TRAPPO Town Gazette. It feels like September really just zoomed by, didn’t it? Are you enjoying the Gazette thus far? Do you have any friendly suggestions for things you’d like to see me cover in future editions? Tell me what’s on your mind! Leave a comment, send me a message, follow TRAPPO on Threads, all that good stuff. Next week is the beginning of spooky season around here, the most wonderful time of the year here in TRAPPO Town. See ya then!