I wrote a short piece for PopMatters about the iconic courtyard in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Also, please find current links, reading suggestions, and a more regular posting routine at dominicumile.com.

Brian Wood’s DMZ is a 72-issue work of extremes, but the parallels to reality are integral to the story. I wrote about this series of comics for PopMatters and highlighted specifically Wood’s characterization of Bush’s torture program in his work. Read my piece about Wood’s powerful response to our post-9/11 “national security state.”

PopMatters published a piece from me today about racial tensions in 1960s-era Houston and how the time period figures into a new graphic novel called The Silence of Our Friends. Sit-ins and marches in Houston, Texas back then meant enormous physical risks for volunteer activist groups like the Freedom Riders and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that were challenging the status quo. When tensions rooted in a heavily segregated community eventually exploded at Texas Southern University in 1967, the SNCC found themselves at the center of the pot. Creators Mark Long, Nate Powell, and Jim Demonakos explore this era in The Silence of Our Friends. Click to read my PopMatters feature.

I am excited to have been a contributing writer on The Best Electronic Music of 2011 feature from PopMatters. I spent a lot of time this year with fascinating techno outings — from BNJMN’s work, to a couple of things from Andy Stott, to a great free record from Legowelt — and found it difficult to whittle the list of my favorite electronic/beat records to a count of 20. At PopMatters, we put together a list of ten with additional recommendations and “best singles,” etc., toward the close of the feature. Go have a look, and thanks for reading.

Scott Hansen has been making wordless electronic music for years, building each piece with organic accompaniment that’s often treated to make it sound both warm and worn. As Tycho, Hansen’s inspired productions feel appropriately soft and weathered — listen to his “Adrift” here. They’re an aural embodiment of the affinity for late-’60s- and ’70s-styled color saturation that he so frequently demonstrates in his illustrative work. Read my piece in the December 2011 issue of The Brooklyn Rail.

Even as they’re busy with equally provocative electronic records in separate solo side projects, New York City producers Travis Stewart and Praveen Sharma dealt an aurally dense and lively full-length as Sepalcure in 2011. I wrote about their absorbing EP called Fleur earlier this year, and the self-titled LP follows strongly the ambient house/bass-driven beat sound they’ve been turning out since 2009. Read my PopMatters piece on Sepalcure’s debut LP.

I wrote about releases from HTRK, Walls, I Break Horses,  Tropics, Max Cooper, Balam Acab, and Martyn in my new Beats Working column/blog at Blurt Magazine. Don’t you want to read a bunch of words about electronic music today? Streams, downloads, and chatter here.