here comes yr deadline

icebergesque it looms. My work rate has increased ridiculously but like the man says "the palace of excess leads to the palace of axis" (or is it access? or both, probably). Here's him saying it and here's what I am:

The Fall "lost in music"
Get infotained

and just because, even though they cancelled on me that time:

>The Slits "I heard it through the grapevine"
Get Cut here

earth a run a red

yeah yeah, embedded youtubes old hat already I know.
But check Mala in Germany.
made me happy.

more four four (well...)

Andy Freer–'Super Galaxo'
Don’t know much about Andy Freer, never seen anything else by him since. I heard he was 19 when he went into the studio to do this. Maybe if I’d done this track I’d be happy just to draw a line and stop making music – this is p-u-r-e-j-o-y. I deny anyone not to envy the jigsaw-perfect drop. Get ready to whoosh…
From the Newtown comp on Ai.

Lightning Bolt - “f.f.”
And, well, not exactly 4/4 but kind of, in my mind. DFA would kill to get their hands on these hi-hats. So would I, actually. This is disco-krautrock via absolute rhode island lunacy.
From “ride the skies”

and also: big thank you to Tom Machinochrist for having me play at Corsica studios last night – my last chance to try out new stuff before the album is due (eek!)

D-R-O-N-E

Just a little closet-clearing today. Found this whilst going through some old masters, it's a live trombone'n'FX improvisation from a solo show in bristol's fine Here Gallery, september 2004.
rlf-improvisation

four to the floor - part one

Some 4/4 business today. First up my favourite UR track (not said lightly) the wonderfully-titled "abandoned building in mono" by Perception (probably Mad Mike’s auntie’s pseudonym or something) which strangely joins the dots with Leeds’ mighty The Remote Viewer, for me anyways.Here’s an amazing site of abandoned buildings (can anyone read this? or maybe on reflection I don’t want to know the whys and the hows, actually).
“Perception - abandoned building in mono”

Mr Carl Craig is getting a lot of internet TLC at the moment. Whilst I am very much enjoying his renaissance styles (minimal perfect kicks and swooshes and tangerined synths), I will always have a massive soft spot for his days as 69.
"Desire" has the awkward breakbeat he was so fond of bashing into the tracks whether they liked it or not, a lovely clumsy bassline, and the most delirious freewheeling washing-machine-on-detroit-spincycle topline synth. From the awesome sound of music album.
“69 - Desire”

a weekend in the echo chamber, using every wire and channel and adaptor and socket and pedal I have at the moment, everything is at it's limit...

Here's another one from 1994. I cannot underplay the impact this track had on me - dubwise but (at the time) ultra modern. I heard it out oh somewhere and then those phased trumpets were earworming their way around my internal jukebox for days. Of course I only had to sing about three notes to my polska friend on my way home from school. Of course he had it. on 10".
And that was how glorious Andrew Weatherall and the almighty Sabres of Paradise entered my life.
wilmot meets lord scruffage
buy haunted dancehall, you won't regret it



Rhythm & Sound - Queen version
"I'm like a burning fire..."
King Tubby - dub to the rescue
I'm no royalist, but he deserves the name.

and here's what happened when I left the tape rolling...
welcome to echo chamber bonus beats

"right about now, it happen to be, Appleblim, in full control..."

Oh, another wonderful wonderful FWD>>>
Tinged with a funny emotion, for me. Not even sure if it has a name. Kind of a part–reversed nostalgia?
Mixed with a not unpleasant sense of getting older?
Or whatever.
I used to go and see Laurie, what – 11 years ago or something, playing ridiculously good basslines with his then band, oh damn it they were tight. They made these complex time signatures and ghost notes and extra bars and missing beats and all that and more look so effortless and, well words fail me here. I had a big soft spot for them. They swung like some kind of twisted hackney funkadelic.

And then there I am, time passed, time passing, watching Laurie in the booth at FWD, still still still with the bass…
All those H.E.N.C.H. tunes – on that system – Pinch “punisher” - Girder, how huge did that sound? – how do you keep a level head when you’ve got mala and coki and scream and yunx and all walking past you, saying hi,?
Appleblim, mate.
what a set. It felt really like -
a moment.



But there was more.
Only the third time I’ve seen Youngsta in action, I think, but easily my favourite. More than anyone else he can take two tunes and create a third. He’s the one who really makes the most of all that space in dubstep. Just the way he takes two tunes where the snares fall in different places, keeping them mixed together for ages. It’s a bit dreamlike, somehow. Intangible. Like an optical illusion. A ghost tune that doesn’t really exist – only then and there whilst the crossfader is in the middle. I dread the rewinds – I just want to get lost in the Youngsta tunnel…



And Kode 9. Easily my favourite set by him, by far. Opening with the Congos, Lee Perry echoed boombox sounding great, and then we were off...
“got to find my way...far away from home” what the hell is that tune?
And then what, is this a Burial remix – Kode? Or by Burial himself?
So many slicing offbeat swingbeat otherbeat hi hats.
And 9 samurai just hit home for me, finally. That cavernous synth bassline, descending like it’s going down some basement stairs with a dark glint in it’s eye. Not coming back. Not coming back.

compression / decompression

seefeel-tied

I'd love to hear this on the big system at FWD or DMZ. often thought of Seefeel whilst there. My polska friend mentioned it, too. But then we both had a bit of a thing about this track. I think we ended up with three or four copies of this on 10" between us.
oh, there's probably an embarrasing mixtape somewhere with us playing all of them haphazardly & unsynchronized on a random selection of record players without pitch control.
happy days.

clipped drums, sub bass. and d-e-p-t-h. submarinesque.
1994 I think, this came out.
still sounds so fresh to my ears.
buy succour here

on an unrelated note: hello dad!

bird on a wire

"birds are singing in the trees but my lover won't come back to me"

what happened to the selector?
(I know this isn't recent - I just always hoped they'd be back)
This makes me feel like I am in some wondrous but slightly jarring wong kar wai daydream...

south of the river

on stage at the stroke of midnight.
remember kids, monday night - start of the weekend...

Venn report

After a slight detour to Gloucester (I got on the wrong train at Parkway - fool) I finally rolled into sunny bristol early afternoon. Met up with friends, dropped off bags and equipment, marvelled at mechanical/electrical musical hybrids in the Here gallery. Got some beers and we were off to King's square to lie in the sun, arriving too late to catch Appleblim's radio show, but luckily running into the man himself-

After plenty of faffing, drinking, meeting babies and all sorts of expected and unexpected reunions I managed to head to the Bell for some Big ting. Puffin Jack was spinning -

Then a rush off to soundcheck, Dissident system was both MIGHTY and HEAVY. Those guys have built something truly beautiful.
I met Scion as they set up their laptops but couldn't really speak to them because I was a)in awe, and b)somewhat drunk.
Then to Casablanca to meet up with some more friends

and to be pleasantly baffled by Volcano the Bear and just baffled by Ariel pink.

After a nostalgic visit to Rita's that was more touching than actually tasty, I was down to the blue mountain to catch the last half hour of Pinch's set, awesome as always. I had a LOT of fun playing through the big system, even though Rob had managed to topple the monitor with one of his tunes! Trombone playing could have been better, and I've still not found a good running order for the set - so much new material, I don't know how it all fits together. Not a bad position to be in though...
Here's me mid-theremin sweep, looking demented.

And then the mighty Scion, with a really varied set ranging from a dubbed-out intro to a blistering, rumbling, chest-shaking 4/4 finish, almost no hi-hats at all, very on beat but with some majestic glacial filter sweeps and swoops, and some serious richter scale basslines.
Can't wait for next year....

3 recurrrrring

Boredoms last monday was a treat. I'd built it up in my mind too much, probably, I've been waiting a long time to see eye and yoshimi, and I knew they were touring with a three drummer line-up, which was frankly an irresistable prospect. Shepherd's bush is a trek and I couldn't really see a lot, and b couldn't see anything, really, but still...
I always thought that I didn't really like toms. The refuge of unimaginative rock drummers. Floor toms sometimes, maybe, detuned and mournful, but otherwise no. The dream drumkit of my mind, I always see as Kick drum, snare drum, hi-hats. Maybe a ride with some chains attached. But on monday I changed my mind. I dunno, maybe it was the fact that there was no bass - no bass sounds on eye's samplers either, just swirling pitchshifting chords, flanging like sunshine, there was so much room in the sound for those Toms. They were much more rehearsed than I imagined too. "seadrum" always sounded like some epic hours of brutal beautiful improv condensed into twenty minutes. But eye conducted with some snake charmeresque hand movements, tempo's were changed and chopped, drum and bass and proto-house and shinto temple ritual all battered together by the god damn tom tom toms...


anyways
not really related except for their japaneseness...
KIIIIII!
like you dreamt two japanes girls were covering salt'n'pepa with a heavy heavy drummm mmmachine:
the world according to

and takako minekawa
with 7 minutes of cornelius-wrapped sunblissss
milk rock

why haven't you learned anything?

urgh. 4 hours sleep but it was worth it. Another great night at >>>FWD, took my polska friend, danced like a fool and managed not to get drunk or throw a whitey. How I love to be in that dark little room full of bass. Mala and Loe on great form, Pokes too ("this one come straight out of a wheelie bin"). So many good tunes still to come out. Learn, shattered, oh all the ones I don't know the names of. Something that sounded like a loefah remix or a VIP mix of Pinch's punisher. An amazing new Loefah tune with the heaviest thickest liquid weight 808 kicks that pummel you like leaves in a gale force wind. Mala bouncing around. I do like their almost nice cop / nasty cop routine. Not too many rewinds, not too many of the tunes I don't get / like. These are the good old days someone'll be reminiscing for...


oh yeah you can download some live sets from FWD here hatcha benny ill youngsta