Happening Again #32
It's a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way
Hello!
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and brought in 2025 with a suitable bang. Although all that feels like years ago now - I’m not quite sure how we’re 20 days into January already.
Today would have been David Lynch’s 79th birthday. There’s a wee tribute to him at the end of this issue. There’s nothing more that needs to be said, I will miss his contributions to art and the wider world.
Anyway. Here’s what I’ve been spinning recently…
Are you a musician? Do you have a certain band or artist you think I should be listening to? Drop them into the Happening Again inbox: wearehappeningagain@gmail.com
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Saffari
ANTARCTICA
Bandcamp
Saffari kick-starts the year with an icy blast of melodic synthwave. The Mexican artist, who by day is Hector Armando Herrera, has been beavering away since 2015, and is a name that has consistently cropped up throughout my traversals through the synthwave scene. Taking cues from its title, ‘Antarctica’ twinkles with cool synthlines, bright chords, and has that classic synthwave melancholy; the yearning for a time forgotten. There’s even a slowed and reverbed version for the TikTok kids (which isn’t half-bad, and adds another layer of nostalgia). Do also check out ‘Virtual Realm’, Herrera’s single from August last year.
Crisp electronics and that stutter, float, and evoke 1970s fantasy. What a great way to start 2025.
Mitch Murder
SALARY MAN SIMULATOR: EXECUTIVE EDITION
Mitch Murder
Johan Bengtsson is a stalwart in synthwave. The musician, who was somewhat of a pioneer when the scene was burgeoning back in the late 00s/early 10s, has been knob-twiddling since 2009 and is inspired by 50s bossa nova, 70s motown, and 80s pop. ‘Salary Man Simulator: Executive Edition’ started life as three separate EPs: ‘Salary Man Simulator’ from 2019, and ‘Salary Man Simulator 2: Corporate Retreat’ and ‘Salary Man Simulator 3: Remote Business’ from 2021. Collated here in full ‘Executive Edition’, Bengtsson has his tongue firmly in his cheek as he takes us through the bright, joyful day of an office worker. A fantasy, of course, but Mitch Murder is skilful in evoking the nostalgic ideal of 1950s of corporate capitalism, and the rose-tinted view of the 9-to-5. The delicate pipes of ‘Morning Commute’ are an almost wry rejection of the drab tedium that comes with travelling to work; buoyant synthlines flutter with excitement throughout ‘The Presentation’; and it’s very hard not to nod along to ‘Team-Building Exercise’, especially with that bass and synth combo. Good work: annual review passed with flying colours.
Doechii
ALTER EGO (WITH JT)
Top Dawg
With thanks to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ for giving me the kick up the arse to finally investigate Doechii. It’s the alias of singer and rapper Jaylah Ji'mya Hickmon, and a name I’ve heard in passing for a while now, with certain corners of the internet absolutely raving about her. It wasn’t until a lip sync on ‘Drag Race’ that I finally understood what all the fuss was about. Whip-smart in both structure and delivery, ‘Alter Ego’ is like a one-two punch that goes on for three-and-a-half minutes, Doechii firing on all cylinders. Comparisons to Azealia Banks feel too cheap and easy, but this is a rap track that makes you want to dance. Her mixtape from August last year, ‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’, is next on my list. And for those interested, here is the lip sync in question.
Park Jiha
WATER MOON
tak:til/Glitterbeat
Korean composer and multi-instrumentalist Park Jiha creates gentle, meditative soundscapes by employing a number of traditional Korean instruments in her music. The checklist here includes the piri (a double reed made of bamboo), the saenghwang (a wind instrument), and the yanggeum (a sound board composed of metal strings). Deftly combining the three, Jiha moulds ‘Water Moon’ into a beautiful, contemplative panorama - gorgeous neoclassical textures that drift and twinkle around sombre strings. This is sonically meticulous stuff, and with fourth album ‘All Living Things’ on the way, it looks like I’ve got some catching up to do. And that’s before we’ve got into her scoring work with the likes of Oliver Coates and Agnes Obel. Don’t let this one pass you by.
Ethel Cain
PERVERTS
Daughters Of Cain
I was excitedly told by two people that “Ethel Cain has made a drone album”. Like Doechii, Ethel Cain is an artist I’ve been meaning to explore for a while now. But unlike Doechii, Cain is not a rapper. Nor does she make hip hop. She deconstructs the United States through her own gothic lens, touching on themes such as religion and trauma. She drifts from folk, to rock, to shoegaze, with dips into country. But ‘Perverts’ is her first ambient album proper, and it’s a doozy. Devised as a side album alongside her main trilogy of records, it’s a dark drone of an elegy, Cain chopping and fogging her vocals, pitting them alongside crackled gasps, unnerving whines, reverbed strings, and swirling sonic vortexes.
In the words of David Lynch, “ambient whooshing”. The title track, ‘Housofpsychoticwomn’, and ‘Pulldrone’ should be your first ports of call, but don’t overlook the gentler moments like ‘Etienne’ and ‘Amber Weaves’. It all calls to mind Throbbing Gristle, which I have no complaints about. Similarly to Doechii, it seems I’m long overdue a root through Ethel Cain’s back catalogue, and I’m rather looking forward to it.
That’s it for this time. As always you can find my ramblings elsewhere in both print and online in Electronic Sound. I am going to tentatively dip into the world of microblogging again, so follow me on Bluesky if that’s your sort of thing.
Some Stray Thoughts
// Every time I open Bluesky to post something, I start asking myself why I’m even bothering. The recent decision by Zuckerberg (I wonder how his rat penis transplant is taking?) to repeal fact-checking on his platforms has put social media in a very dark place. I think I’d be happier if all of them were zapped out of existence, and we brought back MSN Messenger only.
// It is extremely funny that the outcome of the US banning TikTok appears to be a chunk of users deleting their Meta profiles and migrating to Chinese-language Instagram competitor RedNote. (and it was all a propaganda farce anyway).
// On that note, the Dead Internet Theory is becoming a reality. Check the replies to the top comment on this video from the ‘QI’ YouTube channel. Click further onto that commentator’s own channel and it’s completely made up of generative AI videos. Reddit is not immune either (ChatGPT-generated comments are becoming incredibly easy to spot). What this implies for the internet going forward isn’t great. But what with everything going on at Meta, it does feel like the final death knells of social media as we know it are slowly starting to ring.
// Butlerian Jihad 2025.
Keep Your Eye On The Donut
RIP to the great David Lynch, whose contributions to the world of music and film I can’t even begin to quantify. Regular readers, and anyone who knows me in real life, will know how much of Lynch’s work informs my tastes and world view, particularly ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Mulholland Drive’. He’s possibly the last great American artist, and the world has dimmed since his passing. Mourning someone you never knew always feels strange, but it serves as a reminder of what we value. And to quote the titan himself - “Music, painting, cinema: this is the art of life.”
