iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 17/09/2026

BREAKING: Limozeen will no longer be opening for Ed Sheeran

Four musicians and a driver are crammed into a space bus that is flying through space (it's a Homestar Runner reference)

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 14/09/2026

The boomers who run McDonald's heard the kids like anime now, but the only anime stuff they know are Hello Kitty and Godzilla, so they're selling toys of Hello Kitty characters in Godzilla Halloween costumes, and I'm sorry to say they're kinda great. @ironspike.bsky.social your kinda thing maybe.

Pictures of either hello Kitty characters that I don't know well dressed up as Godzilla monsters that I don't know that well either sorry this is not the best alt text

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 20/08/2026

In Gatesville, West of Waco. Went to the Mexican restaurant next door. Ordered "bistec a la mexicana", a pile of shredded beef cooked with cactus and other vegetables. It was REAL good. I don't order stuff with nopalitos very often, but the sweet veggies did something nice against the savory beef.

Google maps image of New Rodeo Mexican Grill from Gatesville Texas

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 18/08/2026

This seems like a hispanic-owned Japanese stir fry place. Tried it out. Portions were huge, plenty of side vegetables. It justified the added price. But I forgot that Japanese fried rice is soaked in soy sauce, which is saltier than salt itself. I hope my kidneys don't completely brick up tonight.

Google maps image of El Tio Showgun, with images of a Hispanic man throwing beef and fish on a flat grill

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 15/08/2026

YouTube has served me two different ads for official merch for The Red Green Show. I'm not angry. I'm confused. Where did I get put on that target audience? Are @loadingreadyrun.com videos just so Canadian that they assumed I need more Canada?

Screenshot of YouTube of an older man with a green hat and a white beard. He's saying something very Canadian and pitching merchandise.

Screenshot of YouTube of an older man with a green hat and a white beard. He's putting glue on a pumpkin so he can rub gunpowder onto the pumpkin in the shape of a jack-o'-lantern face and then explode a face into the pumpkin.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 10/08/2026

I'm sure that "NO MORE BASE INTO SPACE" has some meaning for a furniture store but all I can think is that Zero Wing Guy will be very disappointed

A storefront sign for Sumara's Furniture with a placard below it reading "no more base into space"

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 10/08/2026

There's only the one masc dancer and I'm looking at his body sock and thinking LET 👏 BOYS 👏 WEAR 👏FRILLY 👏 DRESSES 👏

Picture of the same ballet featuring one woman with a flowing white ballet dress and a man in a skintight blue full-body cloth

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 10/08/2026

Does PBS need to run YouTube ads? Is it effective to run entire 90-minute ballets as an ad in the middle of an episode of MST3K? I mean, you got me to watch some of it. Interestingly, this means I get no ads interrupting the ballet since it's an ad already.

Screenshot of YouTube, several dancers in white dresses among a blue background, titles Great Perfromances PBS. A timer shows 1 hour 10 minutes remaining.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 21/07/2026

I'm gonna find the person who decided that 24-packs of 16 oz. of Pure Life shouldn't have cardboard bottoms to easily slide down slide rollers into the store, and I am going to gently hug them because lifting this pallet and pushing them down rollers in TX heat has removed my ability for violence

Two thirds of a tall wrapped pallet of small water bottles

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/07/2026

playing monster train 2 late? hyperfocused, but too sleepy to do math? try 3 to 4 apex imps 3 to 4 apex imps: an easy weekend luna hellhorned build stack them directly on the middle floor with your gravity you will certainly not regret stacking 3 to 4 apex imps

A screenshot of the game Monster Train 2. On one floor we have 4 Apex Imps, a Steelworker, the Luna Coven lady boss I forgot her name, and the Luna Coven thing that makes temporary moonshift spells. The back Apex Imp has 500 times 2 attack damage. The final boss of the game is dead in the face.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 27/06/2026

You know what? These green chicken enchiladas from Ernesto's in Sealy, TX? Pretty damned good enchiladas! Seems like they use the chicken that they'd use in any other meal, and the green sauce hits pretty good. It's been a long-ass week. Nice to see a good Mexican shop next to my last delivery.

Chicken enchiladas covered in green sauce, white cheese, and sour cream, with rice and beans.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 20/06/2026

I'm sorry, The Weather Channel, unpredictable and moody out there?

The weather channel hourly forecast showing thunderstorms likely from 10:00 to 12:00. It says: Today's Outlook, scattered storms possible today, high of 84, unpredictable and moody out there.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 19/06/2026

Hanging out at work, paused the unloading while waiting for a strip of heavy rain to pass. Something about this metal bridge in the rain seemed like a nice shot for a still life photo.

A shot from the inside of a semi trailer, wooden floors, black plastic crates around the sides. A series of metal rollers curves into the back of the brick store wall in front of it. A metal fence blocks the edge of the dock. A gray, rainy sky is in the background above a passenger bridge and a parking lot.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 12/06/2026

Huh, saw a black gecko with orange stripes and a blue tail. That's new.

Cement pavement, a small black lizard with three thin orange stripes and a neon blue tail hunting for something

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 28/05/2026

While unloading the truck at the store today, I spotted this box of BLGT+ reading glasses, which I assume are for people who can't see straight

A box of reading glasses labeled BLGT+FOLD DIA 2.00-2.75

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 16/05/2026

And to think they missed the chance to bring back the Hatsune Miku Secret Lair...

A YouTooz collectible figurine of Hatsune Miku wearing orange cat ears, orange mitts, and holding a drawing of Garfield the cat

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 17/04/2026

There's something really funny to me about seeing a Hatsune Miku poster for sale at an American dollar store

Picture of a store with $5 posters, the poster rack is opened to an illustration of Hatsune Miku in front of a concert atage

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 06/04/2026

Rolled credits on Slime Rancher 2 after a month or so of tinkering around, decorating a couple branches of the ranch, and getting lost trying to find the last (spoiler) thing. I think I'm going back in to hunt for 100% secrets. I think it's been a while since I wanted to 100% a game.

Screenshot of my cave in the Slime Rancher 2 cave. I've clogged up the cave with stone pillars and coral trees to looks messy and overgrown because I like not knowing where I'm going. I should probably have made a clear path between gardens instead. A couple phosphor-bat largo slimes floating around in the background.

Screenshot of my beach in the Slime Rancher 2 cave. I planted grass around the gardens to make it look like the water was getting out of the garden and getting some plants growing in the sand but I don't think I actually like the effect that much because the weeds are too overgrown. I do like how the ferris wheel and windsocks look on the overhead rocks. I maybe should have more beach lanterns and a row of swingsets instead of just dropping them in a few random locations. A couple pink-crystal slimes are hanging around looking hungry.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 01/04/2026

"This is not a mechanic. It shouldn't have been on here. It sucks to track. This is on James." @graham.loadingreadyrun.com @coachnelly.bsky.social Please make Nelson and James look at this simultaneously and tell us their reactions.

Nelson and Wheeler of LoadingReadyRun in front of a tier list of Magic mechanics, where they've just put gravestorm in the F tier

A new magic the gathering card called Ominous Harvest, cost 2 black, sorcery, gravestorm (when you cast this spell copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard from the battlefield this turn), target player draws a card and loses 1 life

DOES HE KNOW? meme, as if James knew that Gravestorm was coming back

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 22/03/2026

Flying is a rough experience even without the 90-minute line for check-in. But I caught some pretty cloud cover over Houston this morning.

Picture of an airplane wing over a thin layer of puffy clouds covering the entire horizon, and a light blue sky in the background above it

Picture of an airplane wing over a thin layer of puffy clouds covering the entire horizon, and a light blue sky in the background above it, with a lens flare from the rising sun

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 17/03/2026

• Tax prep companies are evil rent-seekers • Corporate pop jingles are cringe • Advertising like a kid's cartoon is manipulative This TurboTax commercial is my archenemy

A YouTube ad showing cartoon pop singers dancing across a red backdrop and singing about how TurboTak helps roughly 37% of filers qualify for free federal tax income filing

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 16/03/2026

The cat is screaming at me for attention. I lay down in bed, pick her up, set her on my chest, hoping she'll shut up for a while. She walks over to my legs and lays down on exactly one thigh. Number one, cat, what are you doing? Number two, you are chunky and that is all your weight on one leg???

A thick black cat facing away from the camera while loaded up on a single leg in green plaid lounge pants

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 14/03/2026

One thing that sucks about the low-sodium diet: I can't really get chicken fried steak for comfort food anymore. So I tried making my own. The texture was pretty good, but without salt, it just tasted like flour. Not awful for a first try but needs more flavors. 🧵

Three slices of chicken fried steak on a paper towel on a plastic plate

Chicken fried steak and small white potatoes on a plastic plate

The same chicken fried steak and otatoes with cream gravy

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 09/03/2026

I'm not sure how I should feel about Universes Beyond, as someone who doesn't actually play much Magic anymore, but I gotta give them credit for making a card with sincerely thrilling artwork that made me immediately think "FUCK YOU" the first time I saw it

A Magic card titled "Electric Seaweed", featuring a ninja turtle simming through a group of pink leaves and reaching for a bomb. This is a reference to the swimming level of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game for the original Nintendo 8-bit system.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 05/03/2026

I haven't been on tumblr in years but apparently I'm still pretty tumblr-brained because I saw this new Macbook and my brain refused to let me do anything else this morning until I made this photoshop

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 05/03/2026

It does feel like it would've been less of a loss if they'd added or subtracted one column.

A version of the Macbook ad that feels like less of a loss

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 27/02/2026

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.

The cast of mystery science theater 3000

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 24/02/2026

I really should not read reddit in the morning if I don't want to get angry in the morning.

California Governor Gavin Newsom says: No doubt that the Democratic party needs to be, dare I say more culturally normal. I believe that. Less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity politics. More focus on table top issues, things that really matter.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 09/02/2026

I thought I had finally burned out on Survivors games, but oh no Deep Rock Galactic Survivors is on mobile and is pretty good so far. Something about "Survivors but you need to stand in specific places sometimes" is just enough to get the dopamine flowing again.

A red-haired scout dwarf from deep rock galactic survivors holding a gold hammer

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 30/01/2026

I usually don't directly comment on this stuff. I'm not the target of right-wing harassment, and there are better, more active voices that you should listen to. But in this moment I do feel like someone needs to ask "what the fuck did you just say"

Sam Healy says: Someone posted on Facebook last night, "How that boot taste, Sam?" My reply is simply, "It tastes like freedom." Ever since I made the decision to step away last night while sitting in church...

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

4. Los Bitchos • Talkie Talkie Surf Rock • Difficulty: Medium 3. Remi Wolf • Big Ideas Pop • Difficulty: Easy 2. potsu • STAR-CROSSED Lo-fi Jazz/Hiphop • Difficulty: Medium 1. Marigan (label compilation) • PSYAZI Psytrance / Hardcore • Difficulty: Niche

4. Los Bitchos • Talkie Talkie
Stop me if you've heard this one... Four women walk into a bar: an Aussie guitarist, a Swedish bassist, a British drummer, and an Uruguayan with a keytar. They decide to make surf rock instrumentals with bits of latin folk music and 80s Bananarama mixed in. This is the kind of band you would invent for a sitcom where a pretentious music snob says "It's Spanish for 'The Bitches,' you wouldn't get it." But it's four musicians playing perfectly off each other, with an unspoken sense of humor and a bit of hipster irony, and it's the coolest shit in the world.

3. Remi Wolf • Big Ideas
I'm not embarassed to love obnoxious hardcore techno. I'm not embarassed to love pretentious jazz and artsy EDM. I'm embarassed that my number 3 album is so HORNY. I don't mean like "We're the hottest people in the club" horny. I mean like a lyric that's literally "You're a bull and I can't help but saying 'Toro! Toro!'" There's a ton of variety here, a tour of different pop styles from funk to fusion to Lilith Fair pop and lots of stuff in between. The rhythm sections are thick and groovy, and the chorus lyrics are earworms. And even when Remi is introspective and worried about the aftermath of her hedonism, it's always goofy and playful. I'm a cynical aromantic, and even I gotta smile at this shit.

2. potsu • STAR-CROSSED
I feel like potsu does lo-fi jazz/hiphop like Caravan Palace does electro swing—like they're the only people in a lazy genre putting any work into it. I first heard potsu in a listener-request music stream, and I was immediately struck by the actual COMPOSITION in the beats, by the lack of static loops. potsu's latest album is a string of jazzy grooves, with jazz fills and solos on multiple instruments, and a few guest rappers that spit low-key rhymes about how they can't keep maturing and improving until they get rid of the toxic people in their lives, saying "fuck you and fuck all that". I'm surprised this album made it to number 2, but I love lyrical hooks, groovy beats, and solos played on actual instruments, and this was the only album that hit everything I wanted this year.

1. Marigan (label compilation) • PSYAZI
As I re-listened to my best-of-year list, I kept moving this album higher up the ranking in disbelief. This nerd shit is my favorite album of the year??? But this was my only 10-out-of-10 album this year (STAR-CROSSED comes close). My other favorite albums had low points or lacked variety. This compilation is nothing but bangers all the way through, with each artist starting from the psytrance groove and adding their own flavors—some tracks have dark distortion, frantic NRG arpeggios, dubstep drops, footwork breaks, or dance club vocals. This album is the reason that I love the far east hardcore scene so much—it's effort, genre-blending, and creativity that I don't find anywhere else. I only apologize for it a little.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

8. Tigran Hamasyan • The Bird Of A Thousand Voices Prog Rock / Fusion • Difficulty: Hard 7. Caravan Palace • Gangbusters Melody Club Electro Swing • Difficulty: Easy 6. Yasmin Williams • Acadia Bluegrass • Difficulty: Medium 5. Floating Points • Cascade Techno / House • Difficulty: Medium

8. Tigran Hamasyan • The Bird Of A Thousand Voices
This instrumental album tries to wordlessly tell a Gilgamesh-like epic of a hero on a quest for a macguffin. Like, the first track is called "The Kingdom" and plays huge, sprawling arpeggios and frantic drumming to demonstrate the grand majesty of the setting. The second track is called "The Curse - Blood Of An Innocent Is Spilled" and starts with a soft, suspenseful piano that builds into a discordant mess of chaos. I only saved about half of the tracks to my favorites lists, but the less exciting tracks seem necessary for the narrative, like how an action movie can't be nothing but fight scenes. It's epic and thrilling and there's nothing else like it.

7. Caravan Palace • Gangbusters Melody Club
The vibes here are like walking through a crowded city, hearing music drifting from apartment and car windows—lonely and wistful but optimistic and energetic. And it has all the flaws of every other Caravan Palace album. "Mirrors", the standout single, buries the vocals underneath a basic snare drum beat—and it's one of the biggest earworms of the year. The lyrics often fail to rhyme or connect to the beat—and they're always fun and accessible. I wish there were more than a couple bangers, as the album keeps drifting into low-key grooves—and most of the low-key grooves are beautiful little dreams. There are good reasons why this album is on no other critic's top 10 list of the year, but I was already in the tank for Caravan Palace, and this album didn't change my mind.

6. Yasmin Williams • Acadia
Williams is a guitar picker with a maxed-out dexterity stat. I first saw her on her Tiny Desk Concert, where I spent the whole time thinking "how is she DOING that." This album is a series of instrumentals with a big cast of guest artists, including tight fiddlers, dreamy vocalists, and a house DJ with a surprising amount of restraint. The vibes are like doing psilocybin on a mountainside, connected to nature while fully mellowed out and drifting off with the melodies. I don't get lost in the pure skill of a musician very often, but this album feels like I'm watching a magic trick.

5. Floating Points • Cascade
I'm gonna call this PDM, short for "pretentious dance music." There's no lyrics here, but something here makes me imagine a DJ who thinks he's better than you because his dance music is """"smart"""". Each track is a progressive collection of ambient and techno synths, constantly building and changing, slipping from jagged to smooth and calming to bouncing and all back again. All of the pretentious indie music critics had good things to say about this album, and yeah, I can be a bit pretentious sometimes, too.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

12. LustSickPuppy • CAROUSEL FROM HELL Rap / Hyperpop / Hardcore • Difficulty: Dark Souls 11. BOLIS PUPIL • Letter To Yu Artpiece Dance • Difficulty: Medium 10. CHAII • Safar Rap / Pop / Dance • Difficulty: Medium 9. Meth Math • Chupetones Hyperpop • Difficulty: Difícil

12. LustSickPuppy • CAROUSEL FROM HELL
Arrogant, too-fast-to-decipher rap lyrics buried underneath obnoxious-on-purpose, hellishly distorted hardcore smash beats, demanding that you lay down and worship the venomous monster seated atop several tiny-length shitposts. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to like this. Maybe NOBODY is supposed to like this. (Wait, did I hear about this from Fantano???) But this is the kind of effort and creativity that I wish existed more in the American hardcore EDM scene. I must've really fucked up my music preferences at some point that I let this album grab me so hard by the collar.

11. BOLIS PUPIL • Letter To Yu
A Belgian musician with Chinese heritage visits China after his mother's death, and he makes an EDM album about the experience. The tracks feel like getting lost in a city, like it's the cheesy jingles of commercials, the thump of kids overloading the subwoofers in their cars, and the random bits of dialogue from the people you pass, all mixed into a bespoke dance track. A few songs have lyrics addressing the feeling of being in a place that you should know by heart despite knowing so little about it. It's touching, thoughtful, and surprisingly easy to dance to.

10. CHAII • Safar
This is the usual sort of "I'm a bad bitch" modern female rap album, except that the singer grew up in Iran and wanted to mix that modern rap sound with Persian beats and melodies. Most of the songs are 12/8 triplet beats stuffed with hand percussion and punctured with lyrics that spit tightly onto the beat while bouncing all over the time signature. Some of the songs have a single verse at the front, then spend the next few minutes just repeating the hook and playing with the beats, and the hooks and beats are so damned good that it works. Please try blasting this out of your car speaker.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

16. Little Simz • Drop 7 (EP) Rap / Techno • Difficulty: Medium 15. Keygen Church • Nel Nome Del Codice Castlevania Prog • Difficulty: Medium 14. Callasoiled • EMTE Techno • Difficulty: Medium 13. Charlotte Wessels • The Obsession Metal • Difficulty: Easy

16. Little Simz • Drop 7 (EP)
This is a garage rapper who's getting a lot of buzz lately, but this short album might lean more into the EDM production than the rap. The verses sometimes fall apart to become vocal samples for the chunky techno, freshened up with Brazilian rhythms and sampled percussion, then naturally swinging back into playful rap verses. The worst I can say is that the album seems to end just when it gets going, but I love what I got so far.

15. Keygen Church • Nel Nome Del Codice
I listed the genre as "Castlevania Prog", because that's what it is. It's haunting pipe organs and latin chorales matched with sampled metal guitars and double-pedal kicks, seemingly created to convince Konami to let the guy produce some video game soundtracks (and since then, he's produced music for a few indie games). The composition can sound a little cheap and samey here. I may have scored this album in the top 10 if it used real guitars, and it was hard for me to pick a favorite moment out of an extended playlist of similar songs. But this is peak nerd nonsense, and I can't help but think FUCK YEAH every time it comes up on shuffle.

14. Callasoiled • EMTE
I found this album from the artist's work on compilations of far east hardcore, but this album is more like something you'd hear on a Pure Moods compilation between Enya and the X-Files theme. It's drifting and ambient, full of reverb and supporting melodies hiding under the surface, but with space-filling bass and kick drums. The tracks are titled after natural phenomena like "cell" and "to sky", suggesting solitude and meditation in dark, unseen spaces, with a lot of effort in the flowing, evolving composition.

13. Charlotte Wessels • The Obsession
This album is led by a siren-voiced woman cooing and howling over haunting tales of longing for connection and the failure of old loves. It's soft and romantic and backed up by thrashing guitars and heavy drums. That's a combo that sounds gimmicky in the wrong hands, but the singer and band know how to play off each other and give each other space. It's usually not my kind of thing, and some of the songs don't land because the lyrics are too generic. But it's less thrash and more accessible, like late-90s Metallica, and some of the lyrical hooks are clever and thrilling. I'm surprised at how much fun I had with most of the album.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

20. No Mana • I Contain Flashing Images House / Techno • Difficulty: Medium 19. Omar Souleyman • Erbil Dance Pop / Dabke • Difficulty: Medium 18. Connexio (compilation) • ARTIFACTS:ATMØSPHERE Fantasy EDM • Difficulty: Niche 17. Ibibio Sound Machine • Pull the Rope Disco / House • Difficulty: Easy

20. No Mana • I Contain Flashing Images
I was listening to a dance compilation from the Canadian label Monstercat, trying to find some American beats that I could get into (is western hardcore all so lazy or do I just not know where the good stuff is?) No Mana stood out on the compilation, and his solo album surprised me. His tracks were formed like standard club dance tracks, with some basic boots-and-pants beats and "I love to dance!" lyrics. But some harmonic lines seem imported from low-res chiptunes, spacy synthpop, and dark oldschool techno. This feels like an album that I could recommend to dance club normies AND rhythm game nerds, and that's a solid accomplishment.

19. Omar Souleyman • Erbil
It's fun to stumble onto a unique EDM sound, only to find out it's some guy with millions of YouTube views who's toured the world and collaborated with multiple popular producers. Souleyman's backstory is that he was a wedding singer in Syria who ended up adding synthesizers to the local acoustic sounds. Imagine a swinging, frantic Middle Eastern flute solo, but quickly tapped out on a squeaky electronic keyboard. I read a review of this album that said the singles are better on their own than together, because the beats and riffs tend to blend together, and I kinda agree with that. But when the album hits, it's a blend of accessible club dance music that's way outside of the American and European mainstream, and it can hit hard as hell.

18. Connexio (label compilation) • ARTIFACTS:ATMØSPHERE
You know when you're watching some cheap isekai anime, where some modern hero has fallen into a fake Tolkein setting and needs to save the universe, and the soundtrack needs to highlight the mix of high fantasy with modern problem solving, so it mixes tender, nostalgic orchestral instruments with dramatic, synthetic beats and arpeggios? Yeah, this is an entire album of that. It's a little more cringe than my usual niche EDM selections, but the artists sometimes add heavier jungle and dubstep beats to counteract some of the cringe, and it's got enough effort and production values to just make it feel good.

17. Ibibio Sound Machine • Pull the Rope
I've seen other house EDM acts that pull beats from old disco and funk, but this album seemed like someone took the classic rap tracks of Grandmaster Flash, pulled out their sampled beats, and then re-engineered the original house music out of them. There's an urban block party vibe to this album, with the vocals doing a sort of call-and-response with a hidden audience, dropping sampled horns and Casio keyboard riffs around it. The beats are a little thin sometimes, but it's all warm and breezy.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

24. Justice • Hyperdrama House • Difficulty: Medium 23. Ardolf (various artists) • Dungeonbound : Conquest Fantasy EDM • Difficulty: Niche 22. Jamie xx • In Waves House • Difficulty: Easy 21. Teddy & the Rough Riders • Down Home Country • Difficulty: Easy

24. Justice • Hyperdrama
This album has 13 tracks. Four of the first six tracks are some of the hottest beats of the year. "Neverender" is an amazing earworm, "Generator" is a grimy cyberpunk anthem, and "Afterimage" is a slow, sleek banger. Zero of the last seven tracks are the hottest beats of the year. There's a lot of dry fluff on this album that did nothing for me. But I've put a few six-song EPs on this list, and the first half of this album counts as one of them.

23. Ardolf (various artists) • Dungeonbound : Conquest
This short compilation from a Hong Kong artist feels like a techno remix of some forgotten 16-bit JRPG's soundtrack. It's got Celtic-ish flutes and fiddles playing lilting melodies, leading into happy hardcore synths and psytrance bass thumps, suddenly dropping into tiny chiptune lines like that's where it always belonged, and then tying it all together with soaring string sections and drum-and-bass breaks. There's nothing super special here, but it's a bunch of epic, well-produced nerd-bait.

22. Jamie xx • In Waves
It's the indie music critics' favorite club album of the year—and justifiably so! I feel like most good house music lately is backward-looking, looking through disco and funk to reignite the old sounds. This album feels like the best forward-looking house music in a while, trying to find a new rave sound among chopped-and-diced vocal samples and the simple joys of big band sounds. Some of the experiments felt bland, but the big roster of guest DJs and singers adds a lot of variety, especially the surprising return of The Avalanches.

21. Teddy & the Rough Riders • Down Home
I don't like mainstream country music. This sort of fiddle-and-slide-guitar honky-tonk country is not my thing. But this album is a perfectly crafted not-my-thing. The lyrics are clean, laid-back poems about living a chill, joyful life. There's lots of sharp, speedy solos from the players. I usually hate the gimmicky sound of slide guitars, but even the slide guitars sound light and tasteful here. And the boom-chick drums add a bit of dance-beat sound that keeps it all from sounding like just another pop album. If you like country music at all, then you may completely love this one.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

28. Lip Critic • Hex Dealer Hyperpop / Punk • Difficulty: Hard 27. Snakehips & EARTHGANG • SNAKEGANG EP VOLUME 1 Rap / House • Difficulty: Easy 26. AAAA • X Scroll Era Techno / IDM • Difficulty: Hard 25. JSWISS • You Never Really Know Rap • Difficulty: Easy

28. Lip Critic • Hex Dealer
I want to like hyperpop. I recognize the creativity behind it, but it's like I keep hearing a critic saying "Oh, it's so dumb, it's brilliant!" and my brain keeps answering "(Glass Onion voice) No, it's just dumb!" I recognize that this Lip Critic album is crazy as hell. I get that the nonsense, nihilistic lyrics are challenging your sense of self. I get that the mistuned drums and swallow-the-microphone vocals and samples of squealing pigs are haphazard on purpose, like the real punk aesthetic of doing what sounds good without worrying about good composition. But this album is EXHAUSTING. It takes so much energy to decipher the lyrics and push through the discord. I adore this album, and I want to kick this album down the street.

27. Snakehips & EARTHGANG • SNAKEGANG EP VOLUME 1
Some English funk-house producers hook up with some funky Atlanta rappers and drop a few funky earworms. If you want to hear a thick four-on-the-floor beat anchoring soulful saxophone samples and feather-touched keyboards, while a gentleman repeatedly tells you that he loves when your booty bounces as you move, all in laid-back jazz timing, then you can't do much worse than this.

26. AAAA • X Scroll Era
I didn't listen to much new music in the 2010s. So whenever I hear an experimental, crunchy techno album, I always want to be like, "(guy who hasn't heard any other album but Aphex Twin) This reminds me a lot of Aphex Twin." But no, this one really DOES source from Aphex Twin and other year-2000-ish rave and IDM. I don't remember much about this album when it's over, partly because some of the softer tracks don't hit my interests as hard, and partly because the album just wants you to sink into a stupor and feel like you're sitting in front of Napster hunting for old techno again. It's good vibes, man.

25. JSWISS • You Never Really Know
This is a smooth, simple rap album, without many big swings or big flops. The beats are jazzy and bouncy, apparently sourced fresh from local jazz players. The rapper's flow is crisp and friendly, creative without sounding brainy. The lyrics are sweet and optimistic, to the point that I started thinking this was a Christian rap album. It's well-treaded ground, including a song called "Superman" with basically the same lyric that's on every song that's called "Superman", but it still deserves a spot on the album. It's rap for depressed nerds who went to college, and I'm a depressed nerd who went to college.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

32. Peggy Gou • I Hear You Dance Pop • Difficulty: Easy 31. The Polish Ambassador • Vista Hunter Techno • Difficulty: Medium 30. Fcukers • Baggy$$ (EP) House • Difficulty: Easy 29. Chelsea Wolfe • She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She Goth Rock • Difficulty: Medium

32. Peggy Gou • I Hear You
The bottom half of my best-of-year list has a bunch of pretty-good dance albums and EPs, most of which are reviving some sort of oldschool EDM sound. This Peggy Gou album set itself apart by reviving 90s club hits, borrowing from Amber, Robyn, and C+C Music Factory crossed with far east citypop. There's even a vocal feature from Lenny Kravitz. It's cheap and disposable in the best way, like being nostalgic for Blockbuster Video, but with much more effort put into the energetic production.

31. The Polish Ambassador • Vista Hunter
The Polish Ambassador seems to be EDM's answer to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. He drops three albums a year, always exploring a different oldschool style. And like with King Gizz, I'm not a fan of most of those old styles! But Vista Hunter feels like a love letter to Kraftwerk, YELLO, and other early artists who wanted EDM to be art while still having a beat. The synthesizers and drum samples here are low-tech, and the tracks feel like little "journeys into sound!" I would've liked to hear more beats than the standard four-on-the-floor, but my head was bobbing was more than half of the album.

30. Fcukers • Baggy$$ (EP)
I looked up reviews of the albums on this list. One critic knocked points off this album for not having any "ambition." But the vibes of this album are very "fuck you, ambition is for losers." The six tracks here feature a bratty, shoegazey female vocalist repeating the same hooks over and over like you're wasting her time to ask for more. The tracks have gigantic garage bass lines and trippy drum beats. It's near the bottom of my list because there's not much here, but it's on the list because, yeah, shit, whatever, it's what I want.

29. Chelsea Wolfe • She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
I don't get into much poetic music, like how this album got a lot of praise for its deep, introspective journeys into the singer's soul and reflections on her life, but I think the poetry here is kinda thin and adolescent. But something on this album feels like MY 90s-era adolescence, with stripped-back guitars, pounding industrial drum samples, and dark whispers of the demons inside your own brain. There's something sincere about the gothy emo vibes of this album, and really refreshing somehow.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

36. Nubiyan Twist • Find Your Flame Jazz / Funk / R&B • Difficulty: Easy 35. Kenny Garrett & Svoy • Ascendance Jazz / EDM • Difficulty: Hard 34. Eidola • Eviscerate Metal • Difficulty: Medium 33. Jlin • Akoma IDM / Footwork • Difficulty: Hard

36. Nubiyan Twist • Find Your Flame
This album is a series of cheery songs that sample from funk, jazz, reggae, latin fusion, and a dozen other styles. The singers have sweet, optimally crafted voices. The lyrics are optimistic and self-affirming. If I'm being cynical, then this sounds like sweet mush, like the Kids' Bop version of reggae. But it's so good to hear catchy melodies played on real instruments, instead of formless improv jazz or looped samples. Maybe it's less like Kids' Bop and more like campfire songs, like a bunch of people making pretty music together just because it's nice to make music, and I can still dig that.

35. Kenny Garrett & Svoy • Ascendance
Ever since The Comet Is Coming broke up, I keep wanting more jazz that integrates with EDM rather than just getting remixed over house music. This short album is more of an EDM remix of jazz. A saxophone plays melodies over a DJ's frantic house beats, and they don't quite mesh together. But that saxophone is slick and catchy, and the trippy beats have a lot of personality. The album isn't more than the sum of its parts, but the parts are so lovely that the sum can still be pretty high.

34. Eidola • Eviscerate
I respect metal more than I like it. Modern metal doesn't have a lot of hooks, so I mostly only like the most accessible stuff. I liked this album the most when it veered into prog rock and emo, which it did a lot, and that variety helped me appreciate the growling hardcore verses. I'm usually not into the destructive, vengeful lyrics that metalheads are into. But I listened to this album in 2025, during a year of ICE raids and billionaire bribes. It turns out that I do have space in my heart for music that prays that the wealthy will lose everything they own and face the pain of all that they've inflicted on everyone else.

33. Jlin • Akoma
On my 2023 list, I said that I'm not into IDM unless it's the good stuff, and Jlin is the good stuff. While her last album was full of big beats, this album is more like what I expect from an artpiece album, with soundscapes to roam around in rather than beats to dance to. It's not the kind of art project I'm usually into, and the tracks' rhythms blur into each other. But this is still the good stuff, with a creative mix of different messy synths slapped against chaotic beats, with big empty spaces in the production that leave room to meditate.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 11/01/2026

Honorable Mention: tUnE-YaRdS • Nikki Nack (Deluxe 10th Anniversary Reissue) Hyperpop??? • Difficulty: Hard Honorable Mention: Beat Mario & Upgrade & Neo Tokyo • Studio Album Psytrance • Difficulty: Niche 37. Iglooghost • Tidal Memory Exo Jungle / IDM • Difficulty: Hard

Honorable Mention: tUnE-YaRdS • Nikki Nack (Deluxe 10th Anniversary Reissue)
This was going to be a contender for my album of the year, but it's 10 years old. It popped up in my algorithm as a 2024 album, and I thought it was some fantastic new form of hyperpop that blended gospel and jumprope rhymes for an album that felt creative and social like a kindergarten playground. But it's from 2014??? I need to listen to more of these people.

Honorable Mention. Beat Mario & Upgrade & Neo Tokyo • Studio Album
Half of this psytrance album was a mix of high-effort tracks that borrowed from hardcore and NRG to make sparkly, boss-level music. The other half was more traditional, low-key psytrance that focused on simpler beats and basslines. I liked the high-effort stuff enough that I listened to the album a couple times and put it on the bottom of the list. When I started listening to my best-of-year list one more time to make the final rankings, I realized I didn't want to listen to this whole thing again, and "don't want to listen to the whole thing again" is a good cutoff for the list.

37. Iglooghost • Tidal Memory Exo
I'm gonna struggle to explain this one. It's dominated by energetic, distorted drums, as the artist speaks incomprehensible lyrics in a grumbled tone, with occasional bits of melody floating around in the top of the mix. The production feels empty and saturated at the same time, with all sorts of broken, multi-sample beats crowding out your senses, but with a huge sense of something missing around the edges, giving post-apocalyptic vibes. It's on the bottom of my list because it's a bit too exhausting and empty, but it's still some of the most fascinating production of the year.

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 01/01/2026

I've been sleeping about 2000–0400 lately. Can't stay up to scream at the clock with y'all before I fall asleep, but I'll beat you to seeing the first sunrise. Stay safe~

A sleepy bald white man with black glasses and a frumpled chin (is frumpled a word) with highway signs for Love's Travel Stops and Arby's uhhhhh food I guess in the background

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪ @boardgametextbook.com · 19/12/2025

Occasionally the Slay the Spire subreddit is good www.reddit.com/r/slaythespi...

A reddit post by user SuddenlyCake: shows three characters from Slay the Spire, demonization of the only male character (the ironclad), female character not allowed to be feminine (the silent), non-binary and disabled representation (the defect)

More slay the spire monsters: girl bosses (three elite or boss monsters), vilification of traditional marriage (the knight and cleric monsters)

Non traditional family structures (pictures of gremlins), trans representation (I think this monster is called the transient), destruction of historical monuments (big head elite monster)

Picture of Jesus with the caption Pray for the Spire?

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