This came up as a Youtube suggestion so I thought perhaps from the artwork it was more Sovietwave and although it has the same DOOMER vibe, it’s something a bit different. MOLCHAT DOMA is a contemporary band from Belarus. The sound is… think Bauhaus, or Sisters of Mercy, or even Depeche Mode at points. It’s a total 80s post-punk sound. The dystopian anxiety is more to the forefront. It’s a nostalgia trip, but not with the same feeling of displacement as the Sovietwave fare. We’ll take them, for today.

I’m thinking this morning of how this space, What Rough Beast, has evolved in recent months. My needs have shifted in lockdown and the daily entries have made the left turn with me. Art, music and film and whatnot, might be considered distraction or diversion in a way, but they’ve been much more than that for me. These explorations have really been a large part of what could be called radical self-care. Something has to come out of all this weirdness in the world. The daily search for one thing of beauty or wonder, or knowledge, or even love and self-love is almost a revolutionary act when there is a world of ugliness reaching in and demanding 100% attention. This isn’t all distraction from that so much as it’s armor. It’s a reminder that all this is as much about what we are about as a species as the horror. It’s strange to think that we have both in us, this capacity for astonishing beauty and creation, and a bent for destruction.

Insert pensive face here.

So in the meantime, yes, still heat. Still torpor. Still exhaustion. This too shall pass. I’m going to repeat this thing that I’ve said in more than one entry here recently. So much in my life has changed with the knowledge that no matter how bad things feel, feelings are not facts, and this too in one way or another will pass. Then it’s done. It’s not going to last forever.

This is going to be a short one today. My thoughts are like tar today and my right space button is sticking anyway. Just remember, you only need to find one thing a day, or maybe two, to find wonder and fascination in. That’s all it takes.

Just one.