Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks for the help this week, @Cleb!

88GLAM - 88GLAM2.5 (Trap Rap)

Aaron Lewis - State I’m In (Contemporary Country)

ALL TVVINS - Just To Exist (Alternative Dance, Indie Rock)

All Your Sisters - Trust Ruins (Industrial Rock, Post-Punk)

Anderson .Paak - Ventura (Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B)

Andy Black - The Ghost of Ohio (Pop Rock)

Astrid - Fall, Stand, Dance (Indie Pop, Pop Rock)

Band of Skulls - Love Is All You Love (Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock)

Bars Of Gold - Shelters (New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Beat Music - Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! (Jazz-Rock, Electronic)

Bibio - Ribbons (Folktronica, Hypnagogic Pop)

Big Business - The Beast You Are (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal)

Big Search - Slow Fascination (Indie Pop)

Black Flower - Future Flora (Afro-Jazz, Jazz-Funk)

Broken Social Scene - Let's Try the After - Vol. 2 (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Bruce Hornsby - Absolute Zero (Art Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

BTS - Map of the Soul: Persona (K-Pop)

The Budos Band - V (Jazz-Funk, Heavy Psych, Afrobeat)

Caskey - Black Sheep 4 (Trap Rap)

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography (Big Beat, Acid House)

The Cradle - The Glare of Success (Indie Folk)

Cris Jacobs - Color Where You Are (Singer/Songwriter, Acoustic Blues)

Damien Jurado - In the Shape of a Storm (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - 99 Cent Dreams (Soul, Rhythm & Blues)

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It (Indie Pop)

Emma Bunton - My Happy Place (Pop Soul)

Eric Reed - Everybody Gets The Blues (Jazz)

Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Post Punk Revival)

Glen Hansard - The Wild Willing (Singer/Songwriter, Electronic)

Gone Cosmic - Sideways In Time (Psychedelic Rock)

​iann dior - nothings ever good enough (Emo Rap)

Intellexual (Nico Segal & Nate Fox of The Social Experiment) - Intellexual (Indie Pop)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (Post Metal)

Jesse Rutherford - GARAGEB& (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Jess Ribeiro - Love Hate (Singer/Songwriter)

John Paul White - The Hurting Kind (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock)

Junodream - Terrible Things That Could Happen EP (Indie Rock)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul)

KSI & Randolph - New Age (UK Hip Hop)

The Leisure Society - Arrivals & Departures (Chamber pop, Indie pop)

Lloyd - Black Haze (Pop Rock)

Lowly - Hifalutin (Indie Pop)

LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD (Psychedelic Pop, Electronic)

Marshmello & SOB X RBE - Roll the Dice - EP (Pop Rap)

Melby - VCR (Psychedelic Pop, Indie Pop)

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show (Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter)

M Huncho - Utopia (Trap Rap)

MISSIO - The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man (Electropop)

MONKEY3 - Sphere (Stoner Rock, Space Rock)

Mystery Skulls - Back to Life (Electropop)

Native Harrow - Happier Now (Indie Folk, Folk Pop)

Norah Jones - Begin Again (Jazz Pop)

NUMENOREAN - Adore (Atmospheric black metal)

Odonis Odonis - Reaction EP (Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock)

Pixel Grip - Heavy Handed (Synthpop)

Reese McHenry - No Dados (Garage Rock)

RiFF RAFF - PiNK PYTHōN (Trap Rap)

Rory Fresco - True Story (Pop Rap)

Sara Evans - The Barker Family Band (Country Pop)

Sebastián Yatra - FANTASÍA (Reggaeton)

Shovels & Rope - By Blood (Alt. Country)

Sophie Auster - Next Time (Singer/Songwriter)

Tellavision - Add Land (Electronic, Pop)

Theories - Vessel (Grindcore)

Thomas Henley - Epoque EP (Electronic)

Through The Noise - Dualism (Nu Metal, Post Hardcore)

Tom Speight - Collide (Singer Songwriter)

Walking On Cars - Colours (Pop Rock)

Yours Truly - Afterglow EP (Progressive Pop)

Zvi - Deer Pink (Drone Metal, Experimental Rock)

Hi everyone.

Hello to all the new faces who don't know my name - (or how out of character it is that there are capital letters in this post!) This isn't really for you - or for anyone in particular I guess; I just wanted to write something to those who have followed my work on here.

So, you.

Howdy.

It's been a minute.

I just wanted to give you all a quick update; let you know that I'm safe. I've had a few of you reach out to me since my last post. I hope I didn't scare anybody.

For those interested - things... aren't all that better now, hahaha. Sorry.

But the good news is, they're trending up in a really good way.

I've decided to stop drinking for awhile; I figured that isn't really helping my cause at this point. I'll pick that back up when there's something worth celebrating, when I'm in better company, and when I'm back in control of myself.

I've started getting a lot more interviews for work; shouldn't be long now until I have a position landed and I'm back to being a functioning adult.

And uh - I started therapy. Been about a month now. I like my therapist, they're very sweet, very weird in a fun/eclectic kind of way. (My kinda person.) And that's been going well.

In fact, that's part of this.

It's not just Tildes I abandoned.

I've let a lot of very important people to be fall to the wayside lately - total isolation. Tonight, I started calling them back, apologizing, letting them know what was going on. And that's gone well so far.

Now I'm here doing the same for you.

I don't know if I'll be back on Tildes all too frequently. There's a lot on here I might just need to let rest.

So I just wanted to say that I'm here. I love you. I'm sorry. And, bye.

For now.

eyes crackle open

half past three

stomach on fire and

my body feels meek

i stumble out my chair

and here the creak in my knees

you're only in your twenties

and you're living ninety

.

my head feels funny

and i'm tired of the numbing

and there's too much week

at the end of my money

a little bumblebee lost

wishing for his honey

beat my head against the hive

until the world starts buzzing

and it falls.

.

and i

set

foot

down

on that unpaved road

step

forward like an orphan

on a search for a home

walk

forward hand to God

if he answers my call

honey (i'll) be

leaving for now

hope it won't be long

.

soul

full of gravel and

a heart made of gold

imma

face my music and

play my song

send

me down to hell

if it rights my wrongs

honeybee

i'm leaving for now

hope it won't be long.

I'll start: Hessian 'Tater soup. Maybe not very exciting, but I just love the stuff.

Start off with a diced onion and about 1 - 1.5 kg of peeled, sliced potatoes. Throw into a big pot on high heat with some oil and let it develop some color. Meanwhile, get peeling and chopping on this stuff - carrots, celery root, leek, parsley, parsley root. Amounts as desired, but I like to use a lot of parsley - root or leafs. If your taters get enough color, cover with water and add the rest of the veggies. All that in place, cook until soft. Blend. Add 200ml of sour cream and season with nutmeg, pepper and salt. Consistency should be thick, maybe slightly chunky.

When serving, fry up a few slices of old sausage to throw in there. This one is a traditional north hessian sausage, but any only lightly spiced and smoked, coarse ground, fatty hard sausage will do. Add a sprig of parsley if you feel like upping the presentation.

I thought it might be cool to get a random slice of people's music libraries, musical knowledge, and how they relate to songs that aren't necessarily standouts or favorites. Don't worry about the five tracks being a representative sample of your tastes or anything--I just think it's a fun exercise!

Also, if you get a bad list of five, it's okay to re-roll.

This is going to be a bit of a ramble.

I'm not even sure where to even start.

Browsing r/egg_irl has me confused. Am I trans? What does it mean for someone currently living as their birth-assigned-gender to be trans? Would I be happier as a woman? Or non-binary? I don't feel major bodily disphoria. I don't dislike my body. I am curious what it would be like to have a female body.

When I was a teenager I read Commitment Hour, by James Alan Gardner. It's about a village where young people switch back and forth every year (go to sleep as one, wake up as another), until they turn twenty and have to choose one or the other. I loved it. I fantasied about what it would be like to quickly switch back and forth. I liked the idea of finding out what it's like to have a female body without having to permanently commit to it. That fantasy has tempered a bit since then, but I wouldn't say it's completely gone.

I've been growing my hair out, but I've also grown my beard out. Both started as laziness. I didn't feel like bothering to get my hair cut or mess with shaving my face. I hate shaving. Now it's something of a security blanket. I feel exposed without them. Another reason I grew my beard out was because there were a couple of times when I was a teenager that a stranger thought I was a girl and it made me uncomfortable. I grow hardly any chest hair and I like it that way; but I have a lot of leg hair, and I like that too.

I've never been the macho type or had much use for machoness.

I don't know If I would like being female, or if I just like the idea of it. There have been other things that I liked the idea of but not the thing itself. How can I respond to others seeing it as a phase if I'm not even sure myself if it's a phase.

I don't like the social stigma around it. I come from a conservative family. I don't know how they would react. I live in a small predominately Mormon community where everybody knows everybody and gossip runs rampant. I don't know if being female is what I really want, but I at least want the space to experiment and find out.

I don't know what I want and I hate not knowing. Even deciding whether or not I should even type this out, let alone post it, has been a major mental battle.

I've been on Tildes a while, but I created a new account because my main account could be connected to my real identity and I'm so not ready for that. Even putting this out there anonymously has me terrified.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!