R. Davis et al. // LEVITATOR

A picture of a white turntable with a blue vinyl record for the album Touch by the band Tortoise. The album cover is a scorpion that blends into a sketched face…honestly don’t know how to describe the album cover any better than that

New Tortoise arriving just in time for the mood boost I really needed! The blue ‘seamount axial’ vinyl is even better than it looked online. Another gem from Tortoise and IARC

Lotta big sentences bleak house lol

What George Saunders did you read? Worth checking out? I’ve never read one of his books honestly

That book is wild. Haven’t read it since HS but you inspired me to make it my next one

I love games like this only when I don’t care a whole lot who wins (which I don’t in this case, just mildly rooting for the mariners). Otherwise it’s too stressful lol

Five LPs lined up in front of a shelf.

A picture of a row of LPs at Stinkweeds, Phoenix with a divider labeled “International Anthem”

Travels took me through Phoenix, so I stopped at @stinkweeds.com and the In Groove, two of my fave record shops in the country. Picked up some gems from Low, Charles Tolliver, Angel Bat Dawid, Marc Johnson, and Morton Subotnick.

@intlanthem.bsky.social has their own section at Stinkweeds now!

Flur: Plunge Read Dash Lewis’ review of the album.

Shoutout @gardenerjams.bsky.social for this excellent review and for clueing me into this beautiful album by Flur, the London trio that “fuses composition and improvisation in a vaporous, polyrhythmic style somewhere between astral jazz and cosmic minimalism”.

pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Let’s get Tesla on this! With their ingenuity, they’ll come up with something super efficient and innovative that clears up the road and keeps motorists safe. It won’t be anything stupid like keeping the semis on the road but just automating out the driver.

And since they usually go to dedicated transportation centers without making any detours, maybe they could even be on some kind of track until they get to the city they’re going. We could call it a trackroad.

Huge opportunity to do some innovation here!

A picture of an interstate road with hundreds of semi trucks. The semi trucks outnumber passenger vehicles roughly 5:1

Seeing all these semi trucks jamming up the road, burning a bunch of fuel makes me wonder if there’s a better way to transport cargo? Like maybe a single truck could pull a bunch of the cargo containers?

And since there’s so many of them, maybe give them their own road.

When I saw the album announcement I dropped everything I was doing and raced to order the vinyl. And I still missed out on the coolest color. It’s wild realizing that there are so many people as nerdy/ obsessed — or even more so — as I am about it

To celebrate the announcement of Mercy — the new collaborative album from Armand Hammer and the Alchemist — I am spinning my pride and joy. My deluxe edition of Haram with an alternate cover (thankfully)

I made a move 2 hours after the album announcement and still missed out on one of the vinyl variants. I was bummed to miss it but happy to see AH got people hyped like that

Right!? It looks so good! One of those rare instances where it looks even better than the marketing pics.

Coincidentally, Hyperglyph just landed on streaming platforms. Go run it up!

A picture of a vinyl copy of Hyperglyph on a white turntable. Amber colored vinyl. The record cover shows two men in front of a restaurant

Up close of the vinyl.

New arrival: Hyperglyph, the excellent new album from Chicago Underground Duo.

Via @intlanthem.bsky.social, the label that doesn’t miss

A dumped chair in the dry river bed of the Rio Grande

Up close image of cracked clay in the dry riverbed of the Rio Grande

The eastern slope of the Sandia Mountains. Circled in red are large areas of brown pine trees, indicative of dead or dying trees

A dead cottonwood tree in the Rio Grande bosque

Here’s how summer 2025 has gone in New Mexico. In Albuquerque, the Rio Grande is entirely dry in spots. In the Sandia Mtns, the east slope — the side that gets the most rain — has acres of dry, dead/ dying pine trees.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but this doesn’t seem good.

THIS FRIDAY -
Join Rob Mazurek & Chad Taylor --aka Chicago Underground Duo-- in the chat along with the IARC crew as we listen to their new LP, Hyperglyph, in its entirety ⚡⚡

RSVP: tinyurl.com/8k48xnpj

This is making me wish I still lived in Southern California. Gonna be an incredible show 😍

This was outside my typical lane of environmental physical chemistry, but it was cool to make an impact on health and safety in a completely different way than usual.

The article discusses what we did with an eye towards “how could others do better”.

Of course this article might be of interest to ES&H personnel, but it is also an example you could use with undergrads of applied analytical chem and the importance of lab safety, so use in teaching also please!

I recently did some field work for the 1st time in >10 years. It wasn’t atmospheric chem field work like you’d expect, tho.

My group was tapped to assess risk after an accidental lab explosion. Wrote up what we did & lessons learned.

Consider using it in teaching…

pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

The Flow soundtrack vinyl on white record player. The vinyl is blue and green swirl. The LP jacket is a painting of a cat face

Up close of the flow soundtrack vinyl, showing the blue and green swirl

I am sooo happy with how the Flow soundtrack vinyl turned out. Well worth the 5 month wait. The wax is beautiful. The styling on the sleeves is cleverly done (you can change the cat eyes by rotating the inner sleeves). Nice touches all around. This is epitomizes the appeal of vinyl. Via Mondo.

It’s so good!

Thank you for all the excellent music. 2025 has been an epic year

Untitled/Dreamweapon, by Daniel Bachman 1 track album

@danielbachman.bsky.social does it again. Each new release is as exciting or more so than the last

danielbachman.bandcamp.com/album/untitl...

A picture of isotopes park baseball field from behind home plate, first base side. Sunset is shining in between the left field wall and the bottom of monsoon clouds, with the Sandia mountains in the background over right center. The stands are sparsely populated

Beautiful night for some baseball

Man what a good idea. My fave minor league hat here. The Albuquerque Isotopes have an alt identity, the Green Chile Cheeseburgers, and within that one of the alt logos is a chile pepper roaster. Super niche regional reference

That’s amazing!

And I you! 🫡

Screenshot of a discord exchange showing one user posting pictures of various vinyl, including several from International Anthem and Backwoodz, with another user commenting “[those record labels] should put you on their street team, your pics always make me consider copping”

Put me in, coach.
@intlanthem.bsky.social @backwoodzstudioz.bsky.social

s/o @evbotcutest.bsky.social for recognizing game :)