9limmer

Mixing music and metaphysics, sludge/post-metal band POTHAMUS takes you on an enchanting trip. Based in Mechelen, Belgium, this three-piece ensemble formed in 2013 and has been captivating audiences with their unique blend of repetitive riffage, floating drones, tribalesque percussion, and abrasive bass lines ever since. In Pothamus’ enigmatic world, the search for meaning stands central. Whilst blending eastern philosophy and western esotericism into a unique ontology, the band returns to the fundamentals of music: coming together and drifting away. Pothamus’ sound is a sonic exploration, creating an immersive experience that transcends the ordinary and delves into the profound.

The trio released their first full-length album ‘Raya’ in 2020 through Consouling Sounds, marking a significant milestone in their journey. The debut was an immediate testament to their unique sound and dedication to their craft, garnering praise from both fans and critics alike (MetalHammer, Decibel Magazine, Rock Tribune), whilst paving the way along some well-known Belgian venues (Ancienne Belgique, Trix, Vooruit) and international festivals (ESNS, ArcTanGent, Motocultor, Alcatraz). In 2025, they are set to release their highly anticipated second album ‘Abur’ through Pelagic Records, promising to take their listeners on yet another spellbinding odyssey. The recording, mixing and mastering of ‘Abur’ was done by Chiaran Verheyden (a.o. Psychonaut, Hippotraktor).

Pothamus’ live performances are nothing short of mesmerizing. Their trance-inducing shows are an irresistible invitation to explore their unique universe, as the band weaves their intricate soundscapes and philosophical themes into a powerful and immersive live experience. Pothamus is more than just a band; they are a conduit for connection and contemplation, offering a sonic and otherworldly journey that invites audiences to explore the depths of both sound and meaning, and share together in a grasp towards collective catharsis. Be sure to catch this captivating trip live.

https://pothamus.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/pothamus/

https://pelagic-records.com/artist/pothamus/

cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/post/539098

Filmed on 5/20/2025 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.

About the speakers:

Meredith Whittaker is Signal’s President and a member of the Signal Foundation Board of Directors. She has over 17 years of experience in tech, spanning industry, academia, and government. Before joining Signal as President, she was the Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and served as the Faculty Director of the AI Now Institute which she co-founded. Her research and scholarly work helped shape global AI policy and shift the public narrative on AI to better recognize the surveillance business practices and concentration of industrial resources that modern AI requires. Prior to NYU, she worked at Google for over a decade, where she led product and engineering teams, founded Google’s Open Research Group, and co-founded M-Lab, a globally distributed network measurement platform that now provides the world’s largest source of open data on internet performance. She also helped lead organizing at Google. She was one of the core organizers pushing back against the company’s insufficient response to concerns about AI and its harms, and was a central organizer of the Google Walkout. She has advised the White House, the FCC, the City of New York, the European Parliament, and many other governments and civil society organizations on privacy, security, artificial intelligence, internet policy, and measurement. She recently completed a term as Senior Advisor on AI to the Chair at the US Federal Trade Commission.

Stéphan-Eloïse Gras is a researcher and entrepreneur specializing in the geoeconomics of AI. An assistant professor at CNAM-Paris, she explores AI technologies through the lens of software & critical data studies. She also serves on the board of Probabl, an AI company built around the popular open-source library scikit-learn. With 15+ years in the digital sector, she has led initiatives at the intersection of innovation, research, education, and emerging markets. As CEO of Digital Africa, she oversaw a €130M initiative supporting African startups. She also co-founded Africa 4 Tech and led OpenClassrooms’ strategic expansion in Africa. Her doctoral research traced the rise of AI through a music recommendation algorithm acquired by Spotify. She teaches at CNAM, Sciences Po, NYU, and Sorbonne and is currently writing a book on the geoeconomics of AI, describing LLMs as “belief-making machines.”

Rachel Donadio, the Library’s Curator of Cultural Programs, is a Paris-based writer, journalist and critic, a contributing writer for the Atlantic, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former European Culture Correspondent and Rome Bureau Chief of the New York Times.

This event was part of Ways of Seeing, a special series exploring the connections between storytelling, creativity, and the visual world.

The show has been suspended as cultural history more broadly faces erasure at the institutional level. What should be built in its place?

...

Apparently, the show's TV ratings had been on the decline. The year after celebrating hip-hop's golden anniversary in 2023, the show's annual viewership fell off a steep cliff — down nearly 50% in 2024. The network hasn't pulled the plug outright; "suspended" is how BET's CEO Scott Mills described the current state of both its hip-hop and Soul Train award show franchises in an interview with Billboard. Yet, the announcement couldn't have come at a more precarious time. The shelving of the show just so happens to coincide with the sale of Paramount Global, BET's parent company, to Skydance Media — a merger cleared by the Federal Communications Commission after Paramount agreed to pony up $16 million to settle President Trump's lawsuit against CBS' 60 Minutes. Skydance also made a few concessions in the run-up to sealing that FCC deal, including a pledge to eliminate all of Paramount's DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives: No more Office of Global Inclusion. No more aspirational goals "related to hiring female employees and employees of color." No more annual bonus incentives for meeting said DEI goals.

...

Truthfully, the BET HHAs were never hip-hop's holy grail. The Source Awards had a legendary crack at that in the '90s; the Vibe Awards also gave it a respectable go. Both ultimately met the ill fate of print media. But BET's 18-year run is deserving of some sort of recognition. It consistently beat all the so-called industry arbiters when it came to crowning rap's up-and-coming. Now that it's shelved, there's a conversation worth having about why hip-hop has not been able to sustain a longer-running award show and why more public institutions haven't flourished in its honor.

...

The lasting strength of an award show isn't found in its overnight ratings. It's in the power it has to shape cultural memory long after it airs. A TV award show is just another popularity contest defined by a narrow slice of the zeitgeist. But what it becomes in the aftermath is a public archive that can shape, and even warp, our cultural memory. There's power in that, the power to own the narrative. The power to write, and in some cases rewrite, history. We're witnessing, in real time, the extreme lengths those in power will go to wrest away control of the historical narrative. The Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, have come under attack for focusing too much on "how bad slavery was," according to President Trump. The Kennedy Center's programming and board got taken over for programming "woke culture."

...

cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/post/527513

Much of the federal government is now shut down after Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to agree on a pair of dueling funding bills to keep the government open.

Much of the federal government is now shut down after Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to agree on a pair of dueling funding bills to keep the government open.

bellweather's Bandcamp page:
https://bellweatherva.bandcamp.com/

Original by A Flock Of Seagulls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOK3rqVgN2I

I saw your eyes
And you made me smile
For a little while
I was falling in love

I saw your eyes
And you touched my mind
Although it took a while
I was falling in love

I was falling in love

I saw your eyes
And you made me cry
And for a little while
I was falling in love

I was falling in love

Falling in love
Falling in love
Falling in love
Falling in love

cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/post/504071

https://www.sealemonmusic.com/

The new single from Sea Lemon, taken from her debut record Diving For A Prize out now on Luminelle Recordings.  

Lyrics:
Outside a treehouse is a home
Who lives in there you’ll never know
At night the blinds are falling off the wall
You find a light careening from a hole

Once twice
You look inside
All just to roll the dice
Nobody noticed
So go ahead
To see the rest
Once twice
You say you're fine
Not scared to tow the line
Of good intention
So go ahead
And be obsessed

Wake up, you're listening to the cars
So what will be if you go off the road

Once twice
You look inside
All just to roll the dice
Nobody noticed
But go ahead
To see the rest
Once twice
You say you're fine
Not scared to tow the line of bleaker endings
So go ahead
And be obsessed

I thought
The no one was there at all
I thought that no one was there at all
Give in to something I can't control
Give in to something I can't control
Something I can't control

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/49663451