Aug. 2, 2022
Today I tried to load a lot more soap with the goal of yielding (1) more lather and (2) a more luxurious, hydrated, cohesive lather. Yesterday was more sudsy than I'd prefer. I added a bunch of water while loading, a dip of the brush at a time, and picked up about 4.5 grams. If you're counting, that's about 1.5 grams more than yesterday.
Unfortunately, this just created more of a mess, and made it even harder to fully hydrate my lather. I lost globs to my t-shirt and the bathroom floor faster than I could add water in. I ended up with about the same amount of lather leftover after the second pass as yesterday, and the quality wasn't any better either.
It doesn't help that I'm used to spending most of my lathering time in the bowl, adding water slowly, and then only moving to my stubble when I'm about 80% of the way there. Maybe I'm just out of practice face lathering.
The tips of this knot really need to split and develop a little bit of give; when I see those distinctive broken-in-boar feathery tips, I'll know we're getting there, but it's going to be a few more shaves at least. This is not an easy brush to break in without the assistance of a hair dryer. However, it's gonna be a gem by the end of the month.
My shave was harsh again, but I avoided any nicks, and the weepers were sparse. I find new GEM blades to be a bit scratchy, but my lather is the more likely culprit. Usually my lather be drippin', and I'm just not getting there with this brush, which at the moment reminds me of a tool I'd use to clean a grill. No problem though. I've got all month and will try the Full Marco tomorrow. (Without any bowl lathering, of course.)
#GEMsOfWisdom / #RawHoggin
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#sidetracked u/Teufelskraft
I'm going to try to cover a lot of genres, vocal styles, and eras with my selections this month. I started with a neon-lit, mid-Aughts cover of a jittery '80s pop classic, featuring a male vocalist with decades of performance under his belt, so I thought it fitting to go with a female vocalist today. This song is a completely different genre and centered around a fundamentally different vocal style, though the BPM and pacing aren't too far off (and it was coincidentally released the exact same year).
Portland's Witch Mountain had something special with their 2011 lineup, after guest-vocalist Uta Plotkin joined the band permanently in 2009. Witch Mountain would record three terrific doom metal albums with Plotkin's bellowing, raging pipes absolutely stealing the show, each release a bit weirder than the last. The last of the three, 2014's Mobile of Angels, flows from one lengthy dirge to the next. "Can't Settle" manages to showcase what this Witch Mountain lineup did best: patient, decidedly-retro guitar riffs; an unstoppable, building tension plunging us into the abyss; Plotkin's voice first bluesy, then layered in a ghostly choir, then a chainsaw death growl, then a bloodcurdling wail, and finally soaring above (or is it below?). It's a terrific song on its own, but even more impactful in the context of the album's uncompromising descent into despair.
Bandcamp: Witch Mountain - "Can't Settle"
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