The Weeknd does it "Often," but not often enough

Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd) has been relatively quiet on the new material front since last year's Kiss Land, but a few hours ago he surprised fans with a salacious new track.

"Girl, I do this often / Make that pussy pop it / Do it how I want it," he boasts on this latest development. Despite its fascinating, liquid smooth production and Tesfaye's irrepressible air of nonchalance, "Often" is underwhelming after the wait and falls inches short of audio storms "Live For" and "The Morning." At the very least, one can appreciate his honesty and hope this is an indicator of more to come.

Zola Jesus celebrates upcoming fifth album with lead single "Dangerous Days"

Nika Roza Danilova (aka Zola Jesus) is 50% of the reason I would like to visit Wisconsin. (The other 50% has to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series.) The deep, almost guttural timbre of her voice; the sparse, isolated accompaniments; and the perfectly-syncopated percussion parts that follow make me wonder what's out there (or what's not) to inspire such a distinct, contemporary, and operatic sound. The self-made songstress has just signed to Mute Records and is due to release her next album on October 7th.

Taiga is Russian for "boreal forest," and if the album is to fall in line with its lead single, "Dangerous Days," released today, it's going to be pretty boreal--majestic, dark, and cold but insulated. Which is what we'd expect from Danilova (Jesus?), after industrial-sounding The Spoils (2009), neo-Gothic Stridulum II (2010), curiously Scandinavian Conatus (2011), and horror symphony Versions (2013). "Dangerous Days" sees the singer in a more optimistic-sounding light; it's a fist-pumping, foot-stomping victory for Danilova.



“For me, it feels like my true debut, because it is the first time I have felt so open and liberated," she says in an official press release from the record label. I can just imagine her belting the song from the top of a snow-covered mountain: "You never were the one for us / You never were the one for us / And then I just lay here open [...] It's a dark, dark day."

But it's only a dark, dark day for those who have grown too attached to her eerie-er past ventures; "Dangerous Days" is bursting with joy and the feeling of success in comparison. In terms of musical and career progression, Taiga comes at Danilova's prime and therefore has every right to be approached with a no-fucks-given attitude. This is Zola, "letting it go" and building her mountaintop fortress. This is Zola, standing assuredly at the prow of her ship as it sails through the fjord. THIS. IS. ZOLA.

Oh yeah, here's the trailer.

Nothing happens and then everything happens

It's days like these when the news puts a damper on my ability to write something funny and sardonic. I can't even hide in my usual optimistic naive tone. It's days like these when my face drains of colour and my mind empties of thought. It all seemed to have been going so well, when, like a caffeine high abruptly stopping, the bubble bursts and a million shards of glass flutter down around your head, defying all logic. Glass does not flutter, confetti does. But confetti does not have the same piercing effect. The effect is more sobering than it is painful. Moments like these, I am mentally paralyzed.

Forced to think before I act, and quite frankly, I think too much, I fail to act. Like my fellow companions, I appear impassive and remain a bystander. Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. We are good people, right? Are we good people hereafter?

It's been such an upsetting, tumultuous week. Photo source and news.

Hostage negotiation: teachers' union ups the ante

Conveniently enough for me, a week after the completion of my third NaNoWriMo challenge, and the day after I decide to reboot this log, I am presented with a most unavoidable topic. Unfortunately, it is far from "fresh"--actually, it's spoiled and repugnant, but someone has to pick it up and hold it at arms' length before tossing it another 30 feet away to be reassessed at a later time.

Earlier today, it was announced (with a glaring typo, Globe and Mail) that "Ontario’s high-school teachers are stepping up their job action, signalling that they won’t participate in sports clubs or extra-curricular activities". For those active in the student body, this was the decision they had dreaded. This was the decision that everyone had planned for, that no one had really expected.

Whatever happened to the no-touch policy?

I'll admit to using school authority to my own advantage in the past, but lately, I feel as though we students are being used as a leverage object. I protest to being simplified and typecast, not used. I can deal with being used, but I cannot deal with being expected to submit to an dissolution of the primary methods which allow teenagers to avoid being typecast.

Certainly I'm not the lone student who invests an equal amount, if not, more effort in extra curricular activities than class. (Equally so, it could be argued that I don't invest enough time in class.) Most students would side with the union in a heartbeat, due to the common dislike for our infamous ex-premier, but for now, I will refrain from vilifying either party.

Shamefully, the immature child in me who lacks understanding of this issue at large is subduing her giggles. I can't help but think of this as the perfect case study of a workers' rights battle for Gr. 12 Canadian Law classes, as if it weren't real, and as if it weren't happening right now. I'm still viewing it from an outside perspective, thinking, "those poor kids". Putting myself back in my own shoes, students must think this is an abomination.

Whether sports teams and clubs were withdrawn at the start of the school year or not, it just "isn't fair". If they were withdrawn in September, job or college applicants have minimal merits under recent school involvement. If they were not withdrawn in September, students have lost three full months of invested time, effort, and planning. Athletes may have a substantially more difficult time impressing scouts or qualifying for scholarships, and music students in the Greater Toronto Area have already had their regional Musicfest competition cancelled.

But the union knows this action is at a risk. We're the sort of hostage with the short little knives, stowed away in our pockets next to the weed and attitude they failed to confiscate in our first eight years of school. If they are not already, teachers could very well find themselves taking the heat from both sides: the students and the politicians.