[music] PICNIC - Plug EP (Waaah!)

Downloadable from the Waaaaaaah! memorial site owned by the label's erstwhile owner. It originally came out as a 7" in 1994.

I first heard of Sarah Records in 1991, but the DJ who played St. Christopher and Even As We Speak late at night on Madison's community radio station didn't explain who or what Sarah Records was. I asked after them at the local indie record store and the clerk shrugged.

In 1996, I discovered not just Sarah but the countless labels and bands they had helped inspire (which must include Waaah! and Picnic, though I hadn't heard of the latter until a week ago). It was clearly over, whatever "it" was, but the internet hadn't yet made knowing everything about everything as easy as it is now, so I had a little time to pick through the rubble on my own. I think the radio tape I'd been carrying around for five years vaccinated me against the post-hoc nostalgia that seemed to strike other people getting into indiepop around the same time; Field Mice albums weren't a thing only the coolest people owned, they were a thing nobody owned, but the music existed anyway, just like with thousands of other LPs I discovered in my college radio station's library.

So unfamiliar records of that era are still alien artifacts to me, but beautiful ones. Makes them hard to talk about, because on its face the music seems like it might not be interesting to folks who don't have this history; I'm never sure. And I mean, the last song ("Home") on here appears to be unironically and uninsightfully about Jesus, and I don't even mind. How did THAT happen?

[games] Grow Cube (web - free)

Life is good. "On", the designer of Grow and Grow RPG (not to mention the mind-warping reflex games Hatch and Tontie) has a new Grow game called Grow Cube and a new blog where he's already posted two small toys, with a third you can get by donating a few dollars.

I love games that self-document; games with oblique iconic instructions are almost as good. The new Grow doesn't quite seem done (it's version 0.1j), but that just means it'll be worth playing through twice: once now, and once when all the flourishes are in.