the Four: November '24

thanks nov.

Dec 11, 2024

DJ, skater, and friend of the Four Lord Rockwell (@lordrockwell) with a snap that kinda wraps up 2024 for me. catch him spinning in Chicago and ask him his SOTY thoughts after the set. photo by Logan, a genuine neuroscientist.

an explanation for the sluts:

Look, let’s address the obvious q’s you’re gonna have first and foremost: where is be-curled barbarian Braden Hoban and slicked-back slayer Elijah Berle down below? Two strong SOTY candidate/killers didn’t make the fucking Four? And that’s a perfect moment to cut your rhetorical rant off and explain that the Four isn’t always the best parts — just the ones I most want to share with you or lend themselves most to writing about. (Plus I couldn’t decide between the two, plus-plus Berle’s double-barrel entry into the race has one shot in December.)

It’s also a perfect moment to debut a new idea: Fucking Love Them, 4tS’s knockoff of SOTY. Yes, the Frauda to Thrasher’s Prada, the recipient of the coveted Fucking Love Them award — of which there is no corporeal version — will be announced at the end of the month. It’s my own personal SOTY, and I’m going to try to highlight someone outside of the usual suspects with the only criteria being the eponymous: did I fucking love them? So next big post’s gonna be a bit different. Don’t pass out, I know you’ll be waiting on bated breath.

I’m a smidge too down for a nice long lede (hence the long lead time on this one), so let’s get on with it, yeah? November saw a return of some seriously traditional murder, with big names and big production values and big tricks making big eyes and moments I literally choked on big pulls from my big bowl, cloudy exclamations, dope for dope. If you wanna know why I chose what I did, click here; otherwise, time to drop in!

Four the Sluts: November ‘24

zero, ‘heaven’s gate’

First to die is the epidermis, which in a way is always dying, sloughing, but also renewing, so maybe its less-so ‘die’ and more-so ‘hustled along;’ no one is quite sure if the burn — that’s what road rash is, medically speaking, a burn — is from friction mechanically eating the flesh away or from heat, but that doesn’t really seem to matter, right? And as the surfacer grates away, leaving debris for debridement lest it leaves a traumatic tattoo and a new map like a glacier, what’s left is deeper, red, raw — and with that, we’ve come to Zero. Long associated with the vicious side of skating, Heaven’s Gate feels like Thomas’ team is in vintage form, but adapted for a different age, still burly but with a spin; hippie jumps and handrails, blood and thank yous, Beowulf with a paintbrush.

The early aughts AK-47 editing — clipclipclipclipclip — is out, but the brutality is most definitely in; witness Vinny Dalfio’s mortal kombat with the legendary Mt. Encinitas leaving him ass aflame, as my medical tangent explained, or Kanaan Dern’s rooftop drop in, which has me reaching for Laird Hamilton comparisons, simply fucking jet-ski-sized shit. (Quick aside: Dern’s now easily the gnarest YouTuber alive, right? By a country mile, right? Like & Subscribe!)

Parting shot: The commenters talking about how these new guys don’t stack up is a shock; thinking you know Zero better than the Chief is some wild hubris, and heaven isn’t for all.

santiago valduga/rémi chautant/yannis ketfi /louis meeûs, ‘morongueta’

Valduga skates with idiosyncrasies on full flare. He will slam his nose into ledges only to whip around or up like test biting bull sharks; will push mid crooks; will throw literally a nothing down the set, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen. Rémi Chautant, Yannis Ketfi and Louis Meeûs’ lenses following him around Paris, Lisbon, and their suburban surroundings, a backdrop that suits Valduga just fine with its array of surfaces and textures to play on and off of. Valduga vacillates wildly from loose verse — shuvs saved from the brink, shoulders snapped into a balance-saving lean — into grinds and slides tight as prose, a fascinating blend. Go into this one expecting a little oddity, a little wabi-sabi, and you’ll be fine.

polar, ‘i don’t even know how to f***ing airwalk’

People find this team polarizing [sry] for reasons that elude me; sure, there’s some ‘24 tropes in here but more than enough creativity and hammers for the gatekeepers. Ignore the discourse and enjoy Emile Laurent charging spots like a linebacker, low and mean and explosive and taking it to all comers and then look me in the eyes and tell me they can’t gleam a cube. (Commenter @YohtaroShimozawa hit it better than I can: ‘emile skates like he can respawn.’) Absorb the artier side as Oskar assassinates Europe, and for god’s sake don’t let a roll on grind define an entire form.

new balance numeric, ‘intervals’

Each one slides across like a surrealist shutter, color and curve, some holes and smoke and a black mirror, all flashing across the road like a Mondrian gobo, and all through that is laced Lemos moving switch, snatched between the cars so you see a trick in fits, left in secrets and it is a moment, one I really haven’t been able to shake despite the — because the — skating isn’t the point. Which is funny, b/c the skating is most definitely the fucking point of the video in whole; a holy triptych, three icons, handled with the purpose and care of those around an altar with Bible pages scattered throughout, a triple-A kind of event video (let’s not call November a revival, but the form echoed for sure) that feels less common now than before, when the beast needs feed. (And you don’t feed icons to a beast!)

Fat blunt, biggest TV, and lights out for this one.

Oh and Foy for SOTY.