2025

2025 was a year of big life changes. And it feels right to say I felt baseless creatively. Ultimately, I feel positive about change, but I haven’t yet been able to turn that into anything exciting beyond feeling vaguely positive that something is down the road. And for some reason not yet worried that I don’t even see any roads.

Music

There’s not much on my music blog from 2025. Can’t remember how much of that is just because I couldn’t be arsed.

  • Got obessso with I’m Talking in April, and that lasted half a year. Faves are Trust Me and especially Someday.
  • Also with Learning How To Swim by Eurogliders, the B-side to Absolutely, which would have been in one of my previous summary posts. Oh yeah, Maybe Only I Dream too. Just saw the Bernie Lynch, who wrote all my fave Eurogliders songs, died last week.
  • Never actually tried anything more by them, but I like this Monologue song by Parade.
  • Love Oily Girls by Period Bomb, but not really anything else of theirs.
  • Not new to me, but listened to the album Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris a bunch. It was played a bunch when I was a kid, but had never sat down and heard it deliberately.
  • Oh yeah, and this local fundraiser comp. came out, which I just feel like mentioning. A bunch of it is kinda meh, and a lot just sounds a bit flat, but this was a funny little song that stood-out: Who’s Hungry by Olivia’s World.

Otherwise it was just stuff I’d listened to a bunch before.

I started going to gigs again. Some bands I like:

  • Clit Split [ yt / bc / ig ]
  • Whip! [ yt / bc / ig ]
  • Kristol Pisstol [ yt / bc / ig ]
  • Billiam and the Split Bills [ yt / bc / ig ]

Films

Ahhhh too many.

  • The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On and Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 by Kazuo Hara.
  • Tender by Lynette Wallworth. Did I watch the related doco on the ABC that year too?
  • Highlights of MIFF were mostly the Chantel Akerman films I saw: Je Tu Il Elle, Saute ma Ville, Portrait of a Lazy Woman, The Day When…, The Man with the Suitcase, From the East, plus rewatching No Home Movie and appreciating it much more. Also loved her book My Mother Laughs.
    • Also really liked Youth (Hard Times) by Wang Bing (but not the third part of the trilogy so much, Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat by Philip Brophy, Mistress Dispeller by Elizabeth Lo, and Silvesterchlausen by Andrew Norman Wilson.
  • Loved a bunch of Tsai Ming-liang films: The Wayward Cloud, The River, I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, The Hole,
  • And a bunch of Aki Kaurismäki: The Man Without a Past, match…, Fallen Leaves,
  • You Hide Me by Nii Kwate Owoo.
  • Keep meaning to watch more Sergei Parajanov, watched Kyiv Frescoes.
  • Same goes for Trịnh T. Minh-hà, watched Shoot for the Contents.
  • Watched two different version of Black Lizard (Kinji Fakusaku‘s and Umetsugu Inoue‘s), liked them both for different reasons, especially the Fakusaku one.
  • Surprising had a great time watching Freddy Got Fingered by Tom Green.
  • A few by Shinji Somai: Typhoon Club and Love Hotel.
  • Binged on noir stuff, highlights were The Seventh Victim and The Ghost Ship by Mark Robson, Out of the Past by Jacques Tourneur, and Baby Face by Alfred E. Green.
  • Actually liked a South Korean film (the secret is cats–): Dancing Cat by Yoon Gi-Hyung.
  • Watched another good cat movie: Nyanko the Movie 2 (no director credit).
  • Celia by Ann Turner was neat.
  • Hanagatami by Nobuhiko Obayashi.
  • Maybe Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda was the highlight? I think this was the one I gushed to the most people about, at least.
  • Had lots of fun with Lam Nai-Choi‘s Her Vengeance, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, Men from the Gutter, and The Seventh Curse.
  • The Mad Fox by Tomu Uchida.
  • Lady Battle Cop by Akihisa Okamoto.
  • The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan and Killers on Parade, by Masahiro Shinoda.
  • An Actor’s Revenge by Kon Ichikawa.
  • The Sea of Genkai by Juro Kara.
  • Samurai Cop by Amir Shervan sure has some hair.
  • Guinea Pig: Mermaid in the Manhole by Hideshi Hino.
  • Wandering Ginza Butterfly by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi.
  • The Demon of Mount Oe by Tokuzō Tanaka.
  • Liked another Johnnie To film: Drug War.
  • I Am Keiko by Sion Sono was charming.
  • Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight by Teruo Ishii.

Perfume

Calmed down a bit with the perfume exploration. Wore Azemour Les Orangers by Marc-Antoine Corticchiato / Parfum d’Empire, but have gone off it a bit. Really nice orangey opening.

Got some Aesop samples I really like and wear a bunch, especially Karst (warm and spicy, cumin and sandalwood) and Tacit (warm and fresh, yuzu and vetiver).

Also couldn’t be arsed with the perfume blog so can’t remember what else, mostly wore old faves and went through the backlog a bit?

2024

I thought I’d start a draft and do this over a few days, but I puked it all out in one go.

✾

I don’t think any films really impressed me. I guess The Look of Silence got to me. Plenty of films were good, but that’s it. I watched a lot of cat docos.

– –

Music: I spent a lot of time in the first couple of months making a holiday playlist and then trying to get it into a proper order, so burnt out my tolerance for some of these songs, but I’m enjoying going through them again. Like 2023 some of these have become all-time faves.

Links go to Youtube.

  • Notte Che Verrà by Loredana Bertè.
  • Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac. This guy’s drumming is so daggy, the little fill he does at about 2:15 still makes me laugh. I think I listened to Seven Wonders a bunch too.
  • 将冰山劈开 (Break The Iceberg) by Anita Mui. Still listen to this at night some times. I keep trying to find more Chinese music to listen to, but haven’t had much luck finding stuff I really like.
  • Cruel Summer by Bananarama. I knew this one before, but I don’t think I’d heard it since whenever the last time was that I watched Karate Kid.
  • Absolutely by Eurogliders. This is just sunshine sparkling on clear blue water.
  • Looking for Clues by Robert Palmer. Good live version of a song I wasn’t that into before.
  • Tonight by Tina Turner & David Bowie. Another one I didn’t like much when I heard it at first.
  • Bring Me Closer and Don’t Talk To Me About Love, by Altered Images. Singer’s pouty baby voice bugged me at first, but these songs really grew on me.
  • Swimming Mix by Hariyo. Started cleaning up some old bookmarks and rediscovered this music blog: Fond/Sound.
  • ねらわれた少女 by Chiemi Manabe.
  • Aimer D’Amour by Boule Noire.
  • Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat. Somehow never paid attention to this one before. Got really intrigued by his delicate falsetto. Good head too.
  • Tell It to My Heart by Taylor Dayne. GOAT.
  • Saturday Love by Cherrelle & Alexander O’Neal.
  • No Lies by Tina Arena.
  • Who’s Your Boyfriend by Eric. Oh yeah, I went through lots of HiNRG stuff. 23/24 conspiring to get me to buy an old sampler. A lot of it has a great DIY kinda vitality to it.
  • IOU by Freeez.
  • Run To Me by Tracy Spencer.
  • Mažytė by Soniclove. Listened to a bunch of Lithuanian songs like this: big techno beat, weedy singing.
  • I Never Dance by Crysalis. Egregiously unrelatable.
  • I Don’t Want To Talk About It by Pamala Stanley.
  • 你就是你 (You Are Who You Are) by Kay Huang. This was meant to be my Spring playlist song, but I never made the playlist. I was really excited for some Spring/Summer last year.
  • 水晶球 (Crystal Ball) by Kay Huang. I liked this song by her too.
  • 影子，請我跳舞吧 by Li Ping Lan. This is about as far as I got with Chinese music. It’s been like 50 bland ballads for every fun song.
  • Coffee by Waterfall Person.

Maybe this year I’ll listen to some music that’s not from the 80s~

– –

In the 2023 post I said ‘2024 is the year of perfume so far, look out.’ I tried a lot of things. I feel a lot clearer about what kinds of things I like, mostly citrus when it’s hot; sharp, smokey, mediciny things when it’s cold; pink and powdery and musk sticky when I’m alone. I never seem to like leather, vanilla, nor white florals, but I think I’ll be able to find something flowery I like eventually.

  • Cedrat 37, Limette 37 and Bergamote 22 by Le Labo are my fave citrus smells so far, Bergamote especially I love (and I got a little bottle for Christmas). I miss the cheap bergamot soap from my hotel in Florence.
  • Musk by Lorenzo Villoresi and Musc Ravageur by Frédéric Malle are two very pink perfumes I like a lot. Their vetiver ones are kinda similar to each other too. Powdered Veil by Miller Harris is my fave of these though, has a bitter rhubarb smell in there. I got a bottle cheap because it’s been discontinued :( I liked Divin’Enfant by Etat Libre d’Orange too.
  • I got some samples from the Lorenzo Villoresi shop in Florence, and apart from Musk I really like Spezie (really nice cardamom smell), Vetiver (really vetivery and sharp), and Piper Nigrum (strong black pepper). The shop was so pretentious though—
  • I tried a lot of boozey ones before Winter: 1270 and Bonne Chauffe by Frapin, Gris Charnel by BDK, Pardon by Nasomatto. I thought there were more—
  • Really love Black Calamus by Carner Barcelona, smells like a medicine cabinet. Ended up ordering a bottle on sale. Still need to try more from them, some of the other black bottle ones sound good. Didn’t like the Fig Man one, have Salado and need to try it again.
  • I tried lots of local ones, like ordered complete sample sets from every house that sounded interesting, but I think Wood Infusion by Goldfield and Banks was the only one I liked, and there were none I loved.
  • Was looking for a good fig leaf perfume at the start of the year.

Going through all these samples I haven’t smelt in a while, smelling the bottles, getting me all excited.

– –

I always forget games. But I really liked Cape Hideous by Jake Clover. Otherwise I think I played Earth Defense Force 4.1 and Earth Defense Force 6 a lot. I was enjoying Yakuza 0, but it killed my computer’s motherboard somehow. I swear last time I got into a Yakuza game it fucked my computer too.

– –

I made a little tap/click-on-things game when I was away: Sea of Earth. But that’s it for me and games.

I’d wanted to make an album last year, but only ended up finishing one song, and that was made in a few days for someone else’s game. And it wasn’t even really complete, I wanted to make a longer edit but then my computer broke. Still, I’m feeling pretty comfortable with the process with the gear I have here, and made plenty of bits of songs. This year . . .

Five songs from my holiday playlist

Absolutely, Eurogliders
Everywhere, Fleetwood Mac
This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), Talking Heads
Cruel Summer, Bananarama
Ain’t Nobody, Rufus & Chaka Khan

I never managed to settle on a set order for my holiday playlist, but the first three songs here are locked-in as the opening.

Also never managed to fit this in:

Vacances à Deux, Kira