The Substatic Monthly: January

A round up of all the nonsense I've put myself through in the last 30 days

January. Famous for being six times longer than any other month of the year. A space of supreme temporal liminality for many. For me, a tiring period of work-related crises and a struggle to find the time and energy to do anything. I have started learning to play the piano though!

I did watch, play and listen to a fair few things during this month, however, and although not all of it is necessarily interesting enough to be worthy of comment, I thought I’d write about the stuff that did strike a tone with me. To save your sanity and mine I’ve limited myself to three apiece. Enjoy!

Games

Aka

This was a title that intrigued me following an impressive Steam Next Fest demo. It felt like a peculiar take on the life sim, built around exploring an island and ruminating on life after war, an explicitly post-violent game. Sadly I found the full experience to be not quite what I wanted. It repeated itself a bit too much, the storytelling was a bit meagre and the mechanics were a bit fiddly in places. I appreciate what it was going for and I can’t say I had a bad time with the game, but unfortunately it just didn’t quite blow me away in the manner I expected it to. Something in there about managing your own expectations, I guess.

Eastward

Probably my favourite Zelda-like, for the reason that it understands that Nintendo’s flagship franchise doesn’t just rest on it’s structural identity, there’s always something more going on. In this case, PixPil’s post-apocalyptic adventure draws on inspiration from all over the place, at times feeling like Minish Cap, other times like a classic point and click adventure game. It relishes downtime in a way that some might bump up against, but there’s a reason for everything it does, and it results in a really compelling story with a brilliantly colourful cast of characters and solid gameplay. A real winner.

Haven

A complicated thing to talk about. It’s nowhere near as tight and memorable as the devloper’s previous game Furi, and the quality of its writing leaves a lot to be desired, but I found myself appreciating the tone it went for and the conversations it attempted to have with the player. Fundamentally an RPG about a single romantic relationship between two people stranded on a deserted planet, there’s the bones of a much better game in here, but it’s just not quite up to snuff.

Films

Men

A bad time, if i’m being completely honest. A frustratingly all over the place offering from Alex Garland, you get the requisit fucked up imagery and creepy atmosphere that you come to expect from him, but its leads seem to be starring in two very different films alltogether: Jesse Buckley’s tender portrayal of a traumatised woman coming to terms with her abusive husband’s death, and Rory Kinnear seeming to channel Royston Vasey in a range of performances that are an absolute clownshow. Still reccomend watching it, however, as the ending is so bizarre and disgusting it needs to be seen.

The Menu

A lot of fun. I’ve seen a lot of chat in the last few weeks that people are getting weary of the ‘rich people suck’ genre, but I could happily devour a hundred of these and never get sick. I’m the guy who loves the Purge films, after all. It’s a brilliantly funny film that captures a lot of different snapshots of the way society fetishizes haute cuisine.

Tár

A bit of a baffling film. It’s like five Act Ones followed by a hasty retreat at the conclusion. Individual scenes, specific moments I really loved. Acting is top notch, and the set design and camera work values intimacy over impression, which I really appreciate. The film as a whole, I don’t think I like, and probably part of that is because not being particularly musically literate there’s a whole chunk of the story that I just didn’t get. My mother, the professional musician who knows Mahler like the back of her hand, seemed to like it though.

TV

Andor

Something I really love about Tony Gilroy’s work on Star Wars is that he implicitly understands that the most dangerous people in the world are more like Ben Shapiro than they are Ed Gein. Andor is a show full of these people, simpering pathetic cowards who buckle at the slightest pushback from the people whose lives they are ruining. It’s brilliant TV, the best Star Wars has ever been, and not a fucking lightsaber in sight!

Copehagen Cowboy

Nicolas, Nicolas, Nicolas. Come onnnnn! You can’t make a show about vampires and not have any vampires in it! That’s just not cool, man! All things aside, I found this supernatural crime drama weirdly compelling. It has an absolutely glacial pace, much as all of Winding Refn’s work does, but its like looking at a series of beautiful paintings, even if the context is nonsense, the beauty remains.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 6: Stone Ocean

I haven’t quite finished this yet but I’ve been absolutely blown away by how much I love it considering that I didn’t get on particularly with Part 5. It feels like an amalgam of everything that’s great about the show so far: The pacing of Battle Tendency, the stakes of Stardust Crusaders, the sense of place of Diamond is Unbreakable and the wild galaxy brained implications of Golden Wind. Above all else, a really compelling set of characters, Jolyne Cujoh is easily my favourite protagonist so far.

Music

Schvitz - Vulfpeck

I feel like a jammy bastard for only discovering Vulfpeck last year because it means I haven’t had to wait as long for this album, but it’s the band on fine form as always. Really nice to see Antwaun Stanley have a more prominent presence on this album, he’s a great singer. Would have liked Joey Dosik to have more to do. A couple of basic sax solos feels like not the best use of his skills. Yes this has been the subject of a yearlong hyperfixation why do you ask?

Disco Elysium - Sea Power

Powerful, powerful music for a brilliant game that sadly has been marred by capitalist nonsense. Sea Power offer up a great folksy vibe, this feels like a complete masterwork that cannot be divorced from the material it supplements, even though a lot of the leitmotif work predates the game by quite a bit of time. Jacob Geller said it best in his Disco Elysium video, it’s diegetic music even if it isn’t. It’s the sound of the city, what it’s inhabitants hear when they go about their lives. Brilliant, brilliant music.

Five Easy Hotdogs - Mac DeMarco

I’m not particularly familiar with Mac DeMarco’s work or where he stands in the zeitgeist but I have a certain fondness for his brand of Tom & Jerry Cruise Ship Calypso vibes. His new album is great, a really chill collection of tunes that for me personally got me through some absolutely demonic commutes this past week.

And that’s January. What’s tickled your pickle this month? Tell me in the comments.