Arrodillarse

Agathe Max - This Silver String (Xeric)
Demdike Stare - Elemental (Modern Love)
Astral Social Club - V.E.N.U.S. (ASC)
Boddika - 2727 (Swamp)
Loop Haunts - Ark (Black Acre)
Pinch & Shackleton - s/t (Honest Jon's)
Ashtray Navigations - Dedicated To The Sensory Armarda (Memoirs Of An Aesthete)
Jonas Reinhardt - The Prime Revealer (The Great Pop Supplement)
Land Of Kush Egyptian Light Orchestra - Monogamy (Constellation)
Distance - Repercussions (Planet Mu)
The Necks - Mindset (ReR Megacorp)
Charalambides - Exile (Kranky)
Elektro Guzzi - Parquet (Macro)
Skullflower - Carved Into Roses/Infinityland/Singles (VHF)
Flower/Corsano/Hejnowski - The Count Visits (Hot Cars Warp)
The Last Hurrah - Spiritual Non-Believers (Rune Grammofon)
Renegade Scanners - Hands On Future (Lal Lal Lal)
Forma - Forma (Spectrum Spools)
Jenny Hval - Viscera (Rune Grammofon)
Robert Lippok  - Redsuperstructure (Raster-Noton)

Bestia Excelente Dieciséis

The rare transcendence-seeking coypu* contemplates the nature of vegetable before eating.

*Or nutria, as you insist on calling them in America. Nutria is a fucking stupid name for an animal. Sounds like a fucking energy drink or some sort of revolting dietary supplement.

Bolas De Colores

Right. I'm back. Again. I should have known that would happen. A week or so after the 'flu fucked off, my immune system kicked seven bells of shit out of me. Not the full-on fucking evil of a few years ago, but enough unpleasantness to require some serious fucking painkiller/trank administration. Now I've never really hidden my fondness for temporarily rewiring my brain, but tramadol and temazepam is not a recommended combination. Not if you want to hang onto yr grip on reality anyway. I spent a week or so in a deeply weird state, bordering on hypnopompic* at times, and it wasn't nice**, not really able to think coherently, thoughts (such as they were) sliding out of my grasp like eels, the weird disassociated feeling that my conscious mind was just about alert enough to watch, but too fucking knackered to do anything, content to let the reptilian part of my brain take over unless absolutely fucking necessary. Not nice people, not nice at all. But I am properly better (and conscious) now, just in time for the appalling levels of gluttony and debauchery the next week or so will hopefully bring forth. And now I'm going to roll a fucking huge reefer and listen to Coloured Balls*** very, very loud. More shit later...

*I specifically mean hypnopompic here too, not hypnogogic. No matter what anyone says, they're qualiatively not the same. For as long as I can remember, I've experienced really long periods of both on many, many occasions, and nothing on earth, with the possible exception of DMT, can compare with the sheer fucking weirdness I've experienced getting stuck between being asleep and waking up. Getting stuck going the other way is nowhere near as strange.

**Ok, it was occasionally enjoyably mongy, but most of the time it was fucking unpleasant. Not as unpleasant as the pain and a complete inability to sleep tho.

***Early 70s proto-punk, proto-metal hard psych Aussie lunatics featuring Lobby Lloyde, one of the meanest fucking guitarists you've never heard, and a man who, like me, has a penchant for ring-modulating his guitar into oblivion. Not all their stuff is good, but when they got it right (the early shit), they got it so fucking right. Check out G.O.D. from Summer Jam with it's fucking magnificent Hawkwind vs Stooges riff and you'll get the rough idea. Oh wait, here it is:

Bajó Las Chimenea

Come to this good people, and revel in the excellent earfood served up by two of the Kosmische Krewe's finest whilst imbibing freely from The Mucky Pup's rather excellent selection of quality ales and other marvellous alcoholic treats. It's got to be better than the office party...

La Música De Diablos

I've found the perfect accompaniment to the whiskey. Go here, and feast yr eyes and ears upon four episodes of the BBC's landmark late-70s series, The Devil's Music. I don't really need to tell you what it's about, do I?

Oh, and Alexis Korner's* sideburns are really quite something...

*Thankfully he's presenting, not singing.

La Gripa

I've been a bit slack as far as posting goes. So it goes. I've been really fucking ill and in a right poxy mood (the two often skip along hand in hand, you may have noticed), too much stress and worry about stuff that I'm not going into here took it's toll and left me somewhat discombobulated*, but now I'm in a better frame of mind and body and capable of more than going to work, sleeping and being sick, I thought I'd pamper myself a bit. Which is why I'm sitting here with a very large tumbler of Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban, a single malt which has spent 10 years in white oak bourbon casks, then another couple hanging around in ruby port pipes, and judging by the outrageous levels of depth and deliciousness this has imparted, it's certainly enjoyed it's time in the wood almost as much as I'm enjoying it slipping down my throat and filling my nose with spicy wonder and my belly with extremely boozy warmth. This stuff is fucking heavenly, sweet fire for the soul and a very good match for skunk and Skullflower, not to mention the epic bastard of a steak I devoured a little earlier, all of which are adding to my much improved mood no fucking end. Well, that and something that happened on Thursday which I'm not going to tell you about yet.

So yeah, I've had a really shitty month or so, (in fact this year's been pretty fucking hard work to be honest), but things are improving. I think. At least I fucking hope they are.

*Without a doubt, one of the finest words in any language, ever.