iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 24/09/2026

I Big Walk, you Big Walk, we all Big Walk. Also happy anniversary Sable???? This month's Unwinnable Monthly has @kellymerka.bsky.social on Sable, plus our regulars on everything from big walking to penguins who have seen too much. Buy: buff.ly/IPrw7Fa Subscribe: buff.ly/PXHeLJe

The cover of the September 2026 issue of Unwinnable Monthly, featuring art of the main character of Sable sitting on the desert sands.

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Levi @rubeck.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

the truth is that half the time I don't bother to write about music because @bensailer.bsky.social beat me to all the good shit

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is either Burnout 3 hitting the PlayStation Classics lineup or I don't care.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Man, this is a band I haven't thought about in years, but they were probably the closest spiritual successor to Refused that we ever got and didn't appreciate enough.

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 05/09/2026

ICYMI: "Each of these records shows that while where you’ve been can be valuable for informing where you’re going, what matters most is where you happen to be right now." @bensailer.bsky.social rounds up albums from four bands who've returned after years-long hiatuses: buff.ly/5ZMPRLu

buff.ly

Four Albums that Find Stability in Aging with Punk and Metal - Unwinnable

While where you’ve been can be valuable for informing where you’re going, what matters most is where you happen to be right now.

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 05/09/2026

"Each of these records shows that while where you’ve been can be valuable for informing where you’re going, what matters most is where you happen to be right now." @bensailer.bsky.social rounds up albums from four bands who've returned after years-long hiatuses: buff.ly/5ZMPRLu

unwinnable.com

Four Albums that Find Stability in Aging with Punk and Metal - Unwinnable

While where you’ve been can be valuable for informing where you’re going, what matters most is where you happen to be right now.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Wrote about the new Turnstile remix album because I figured not enough people were doing that.* *everyone is doing that but NOT LIKE THIS

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 23/07/2026

The wind is rising. This month's issue of Unwinnable Monthly features @autumn-wright.com on The Wind Rises and terror plus our regulars on topics like Marathon, Alan Wake II and Silent Hill f. Buy: buff.ly/ci350lH Subscribe: buff.ly/2FiTW11

The cover of the July 2026 issue of Unwinnable Monthly, featuring art of a woman dressed in white with a white parasol walking among piles of wrecked planes.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

It's weird that, given how much time online gamers spend complaining, they hadn't collectively looked into this sooner.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Google News has become functionally useless for gaming news because its full of headlines like this, one after another, but this is fully entering "what are we even doing here" territory.

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Stephen Kallao @kallao.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

American Football is making the best music of their career. I talked with them about getting older and the perspective that comes with it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysy7...

youtube.com

American Football on World Cafe | Live Session & Interview

YouTube video by World Cafe

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 03/08/2026

Where does Stu even find these cover images? This month's Exploits covers media like the World Cup, Life Is Strange and OBEX. Buy: buff.ly/qEsgZtN Subscribe: buff.ly/XdxYOYQ Read @bensailer.bsky.social on console merch in a world without physical games: buff.ly/AoYqkoU

The cover of the August 2026 issue of Exploits, featuring John Steuart Curry's "Tornado Over Kansas" (1929), art of a farming family and their animals trying to get away from a tornado. Text at the bottom indicates that this issue covers the future lack of physical games, Converge, Cross My Heart Hope You Die, OBEX, the World Cup, and Life Is Strange.

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 31/07/2026

"Each of this month’s selections wrestles with an aspect of these tensions between artist and audience in ways that are inseparable from the stories we tell about the work." @bensailer.bsky.social shares four albums that touch on the duality between intention and reception: buff.ly/ECmOjJJ

unwinnable.com

Vision and Expectation - Unwinnable

Each one of this month's selections has, in some respect, an interesting relationship with the duality between artistic vision and critical expectation.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This month for @unwinnable.com, I wrote about *that* new Sleep EP and other fine records. Share, subscribe, etc.

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Stu Horvath @stuhorvath.com · 28/07/2026

@bensailer.bsky.social has some heavy tunes for you. Check your expectations. Or don't. He's not your dad. "Each of this month’s selections wrestles with the tensions between artist and audience in ways that are inseparable from the stories we tell about the work."

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Thought this new Zao sounded a lot like old Zao, and then learned that makes sense because its a collection of covers from old mid-90s Christian HXC bands. Some solid JNCO-era metalcore: officialzao.bandcamp.com/album/pillars

officialzao.bandcamp.com

Pillars, by Zao

4 track album

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 30/06/2026

"The more creative work and its distribution are ceded to computers, [t]he more I feel the need to return to less tech-mediated means of finding new music." @bensailer.bsky.social brings back the capsule review format to his Noise Complaint column:

unwinnable.com

Heavy Recommendations - Unwinnable

There’s something to be said for finding something new from sources that aren’t controlled by a machine crunching ones and zeroes.

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Stu Horvath @stuhorvath.com · 02/07/2026

In the columns, @bensailer.bsky.social returns to his original concept: recommending heavy riffs. On tap: Darkthrone, Flatliners, Converge, Blackbraid and Eluvium. Throw horns: unwinnable.com/2026/06/29/h...

unwinnable.com

Heavy Recommendations - Unwinnable

There’s something to be said for finding something new from sources that aren’t controlled by a machine crunching ones and zeroes.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Do I know anyone (or know someone who knows someone) who'd want to buy two Menzingers/Hot Water Music tickets for their Minneapolis show in October? HWM just announced a local (Fargo) date on the same tour and so I'm looking to sell the MPLS tickets for what we paid (or minus taxes and fees).

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Every time I think I can speedrun an article I'm writing, I re-learn the lesson that no, I can't. There's no shortcut to bypass the necessary processes of thinking and revising, and it's essential for the craft to allow time and space for that work.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Wrote about the new BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies in this issue, because I love "entertainment" that makes me feel awful and haunts me for days. A+ material, would recommend.

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 28/05/2026

"The world that Neurosis professes to love didn’t know it needed another record from them. Despite all odds, it got one anyway." @bensailer.bsky.social explores Neurosis's surprise album An Undying Love for a Burning World:

unwinnable.com

Staring Into the Void With Neurosis - Unwinnable

Neurosis has some things to say about [gestures broadly at everything].

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Not enough people wrote words about the new Neurosis record, so I put some together for this month's issue of @unwinnable.com.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Nobody liked my joke about doing a fast-food At The Drive In parody band called At The Drive Thru.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

TIL that the first American Football album was recorded with a Marshall Valvestate and that is just incredible. So many Fender Deluxe Reverbs have been sold to get that tone.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

shut up and listen to this if you like music that rules: pigeon-uk.bandcamp.com/album/outtan...

pigeon-uk.bandcamp.com

OUTTANATIONAL, by Pigeon

10 track album

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I would read a 10,000-word deeply reported investigative piece into why the American Midwest is a hotbed for small guitar pedal builders. I will write it myself if I have to.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

feels like "French powerpop crust" could either be a band or a kind of bread, but either way you have my attention.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I think it says something that Have a Nice Life, a band whose reputation was built by the internet, decided to build a new website and not rely on social platforms to maintain an online presence. Websites, they're the wave of the future: haveanicelifeband.com

haveanicelifeband.com

Have A Nice Life — Official Website

The official Have A Nice Life website. Nothing Will Ever Go Wrong Tour 2026: official dates and tickets.

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 08/05/2026

ICYMI: "If there’s a parallel between Final Fantasy and Rage Against the Machine, it may be that the political content of their messaging is often misunderstood." @bensailer.bsky.social breaks down how Tom Morello's collab with FFXIV reveals the political nature of the series:

buff.ly

Tom Morello Knows Final Fantasy Is Political - Unwinnable

"'Everything Burns' is both a reflection of the world that we're seeing and a warning, irrespective of anyone touching a controller."

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Leor Galil @imleor.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

why read a navel-gazey hamfisted jacobin essay that misreads the recent cultural legacy of rock when you can read a more intensely reported essay about a rock subgenre with “gaze” in its name

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

hey everybody new reality tv series just dropped

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

The Packers social media sphere is going nuclear over some Bad Analysis of Our Team and I think we all need to remember that egging on one of the world's largest sports fanbases is a great way to get the attention everyone is giving the Bad Article.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Do you love incredible niche content that's fantastic? Prove it with your money by subscribing to @unwinnable.com!

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

For @unwinnable.com's Final Fantasy x Politics special theme issue, I wrote about how Tom Morello writing a song for a Final Fantasy game is less weird than what's implied by the sentence "Tom Morello wrote a song for a Final Fantasy game."

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

it is a grave injustice that no one will give me $1,000 to buy this and make the most annoying sounds you have ever heard

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

it's never too late to close all your browser tabs and start over

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

happy nfl draft day to all whomst observe

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Someone needs to commission an investigation into how the Twins are managing to be good after selling half the team last year. I don't want have to hand it to the Pohlads but I'm afraid I have to hand it to the Pohlads.

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Ben Sailer @bensailer.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

It's remarkable how transparent the marketing company responsible for Geese blowing up are about their tactics here. Feels like 5 to 10 years ago, they'd deny everything they've owned up to doing (mostly spinning up accounts just to game algorithms and push the band into social feeds).

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Unwinnable @unwinnable.com · 01/04/2026

It's no joke -- the April 2026 issue of Exploits is here, chock full of microcriticism from a variety of voices. Buy: buff.ly/5AFr7mz Subscribe: buff.ly/QxiJSb4 Read Beatrix Kondo's essay on romance novels: buff.ly/11rAfPx

The cover of the April 2026 issue of Exploits, featuring “A Shipwreck in a Storm” by Jean Pillement from 1782, a painting of people clamoring onto a rock in the stormy ocean as a ship sinks in the background. Text at the bottom indicates that this issue covers romance novels, Mitski, Half His Age, American Psycho, Alone, and Minecraft paintings.

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dan ozzi @danozzi.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

can't think of anything more distinctly dillinger four than the band dropping their first song in 18 years on april fools day. i dug my 2015 profile on the band outta the archives for the occasion. open.substack.com/pub/danozzi/...

open.substack.com

In Dillinger Four We Trust (Revisited)

From the archives, in honor of D4's first song in 18 years.

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Stu Horvath @stuhorvath.com · 01/04/2026

This issue is so nice I am in it twice! No foolin', go get it!

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