Katie Manners, catgirl CEO, is a hyperpop apologist. While raving on Zoom, she stumbled across the digital underground and never left, covering some of the scene’s most prominent figures along the way. As the founder of cat scratch magazine, she believes in the importance of community building and fat bass drops. She is currently located in one of the most boring cities in Canada.
whoTF is Wendy Carlos: trans-surrealism and the electronic divine
As tension builds, the world erupts into a static frenzy of CRT scan lines and strained vocals. And in this moment, nothing matters but digital color and electronic sound... Is this the world that Wendy Carlos created?
Zoom sex cult: please wait, the meeting host will let you in soon
You come to dance, and leave devoted. Soon you’ll be acting out small-time government and taking virtual yoga classes at a religious woman’s AirBnb in the middle of nowhere, Illinois. You’ll fall in love at one of the afterparties, and spend years chasing strangers from the Internet. But first you’ll witness the soft apocalypse...
jane remover radio: eyes off the wheel, i'm a star
I found Jane Remover on Lower Wacker, carving a space between Christian contemporary and Spanish talk radio. Hidden under ten thousand pounds of reinforced concrete, teenage apathy and processed vocals sound like Top 40 confectionery served on a speeding, metal platter. Radio rock melts into NPR news until jazz-turned-gospel disappears into a hiss of static and spits out a sound that can't possibly be what you think it is…
all wrapped in cellophane
You can’t sink into the carpet listening to cellophane forever. One day, the algorithm will cease its calculated shuffle and the gel tablet melting behind your tongue will enter and exit your bloodstream...
drive-by lullabies at the end of the world
Soon, the world will end; signaled not by the sound of trumpets, but by a fat EDM drop. With each electronic tremor, the earth's crust gives way. Seas boil, forests burn, and humanity retreats farther from the sun, looking inward as their walls close in. On the edge of rapture sits osquinn in her ergonomic gaming chair, alone save for the hundreds of thousands of disciples breathing down her neck...
underscores: siphoning their celebrity from the water tower
BROOKLYN, NY – It's the early 2000s, the future is fast approaching and with it, the new wave. Tabloid newspapers are drenched in celebrity scandal: sweet, musical children turned sour. Spoiled little brats and full-blown bozos command legions of devotees with just their voice — tastefully autotuned, of course. But the era of the pop star is about to take a turn...