Arggh

Play this loud. Really fucking loud. Because this is how happy I am right now. I'll tell you why in a bit. Right now my brain feels like John Fogerty's throat. In a really, really good way.

La Lucha Del Funky Brujos

Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh, Köhntarkösz and Üdü Ẁüdü. Three albums which prove that my theory that the brilliance of any Magma LP is in direct proportion to the number of umlauts and whatnot in their given titles. But, towering citadels of idiot genius those LPs may be, sometimes you need funky, moogy Magma. Specifically, you need Attahk, the most foolish of the 70s albums, and within its Giger on a spliff-break cover art* you will find this beauty, probably the only piece of cyberdiscoprog about wizards battling a demon sung in an invented language**...



*Which, disappointingly, is the only 70s Magma album not to feature their distinctive logo, which shares its font with two of the other most 70s things ever, The Goodies and Spangles.

**Details here

El Tejedor

This is fucking brilliant. I can't overstate how much of an influence John Martyn has had on my guitar playing. This may surprise some people, but bear with me, this will make sense when you've seen this fucking fantastic version of Skip James' I'd Rather Be The Devil, from 1973.



Bastard. That's just so fucking good. It doesn't matter how many times I hear that song, I'll never, ever tire of that echoplex guitar. And I'll happily and shamelessly rip it off wholesale when I'm in the mood, because unlike so many echo/loop pedal fiends who (consciously or otherwise) use the Göttsching/Hillage/Fripp/Pinhas style of looping and layering, John Martyn never wasn't much of a looper, preferring to use the percussive nature of the dying echoes along with what is possibly the greatest left hand of any guitarist I've ever seen to create a shifting, pulsing forward motion that has more in common with a conga player than the usual billowing tonefloat associated with heavy delay abusers. And that, in a nutshell, is why I love his guitar so much, he took the same tools as so many other contemporary musicians, went completely his own way with them, and in the process created a whole new perspective with them, one which was decidedly not ambient and slowly evolving, but simultaneously driving and fluid, so you don't hear the tapestry, you hear the shuttling of the loom, and trust me, that's way fucking harder to do.

El Aeroembolismo

Takehasi Kosugi - Catch Wave (Phoenix)
Richard Youngs - Amaranthine (Mie Music)
Richard Youngs - Core To The Brave (Root Strata)
Rrose - Artificial Light 1969-1909 (Sandwell District)

C.C. Hennix - The Electric Harpsichord (Dieschatchel)

Up-Tight & Anla Courtis - Hamamatsu Power (8mm)

Matsuo Ohno - I Saw The Outer Limits (EM Records)

Henry Flynt - Purified By The Fire (Locust)

Henry Flynt - Glissando No.1 (Recorded)

Cut Hands - Afro Noise EP (Artecnico)

Function - Ember (Sandwell District)

Majutsu No Niwa - Sylvania 7027 Live (8mm)

Temporal Marauder - Makes You Feel (Spectrum Spools)

Joan La Barbara - Voice Is The Original Instrument (Lovely Music)

F.C. Judd - Electronics Without Tears (Public Information)

Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho - Paêbirú (Shadoks)

Dominique Grimaud - Les Quatre Directions (Locust)

KPLR - Untitled (Digitalis Recordings)

Marijata - This Is Marijata (Gapophone Records)

Chief Brigadier Olu Oni & His Marathon System - Juju Marathon System Vol. 1 (Klimt)

Inspiracións Uno

Still not really in the mood for writing properly at the moment, even though there's a fuckload of ideas whirling around my head that I will somehow have to get into some coherent form to make room for the next load of weird shit to fill the space again. In lieu of anything sensible from me, I'd like to present two wonderful programmes (which, admittedly do occasionally draw on the same material, but seriously, don't let that put you off) on one of the greatest non-musical inspirations and influences on my warped little mind*: Richard Feynman; iconoclast, prankster, safe cracker, strip club afficianado, bongo player extraordianaire, and, oh yeah, the greatest physicist of the second half of the twentieth century...





I firmly believe that every fucking anti-science luddite fuckwit on Earth should be sat down and forced to watch these programs, if only because I'd enjoy watching their comforting stereotypes of science and it's practitioners slowly and carefully dismantled by a man whose intelligence, compassion and all-encompassing, outrageously open-minded worldview is a lesson to us all. Oh, and he has almost as much time for philosophy as I do.

For more Feynman-oriented awesomeness, go here.

*I don't really do heroes, but this is about as close as I get.

Condenado

The last few weeks have been bloody hard work, for the usual (and a few unusual) reasons. But instead of moaning at great length, I'm going to watch this fantastic early Sabbath gig for about the 86th time. You should too, as not only is this probably the fucking finest Sabbath gig I've ever seen or heard, and, and this is important, it sounds a damn sight fucking better than their records of the same era*, and, all you Sabbath geeks, quite a few of the tracks from Paranoid have vastly different (and considerably nastier) lyrics compared to their studio counterparts.



*I love Paranoid to death, but it does have one of the shittiest drum sounds in the history of recorded music. Bill probably wasn't wearing his lucky pyjamas when they recorded it...

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.

Club De Jazz

I suspect most of you out there are familiar with the Jazz Club sketches from the Fast Show. For those of you aren't, go and look it up on youtube and then come back, otherwise you may not giggle as much at the following as you might. Last weekend, on Radio 3's Jazz Line-up programme I heard the following announcement, delivered in the traditionally hushed Radio 3 jazz presenter style:

"...and tonight, we feature performances from Empirical, Trish Glove's Tangent, and Aquarium."

Nice.

Bestia Excelente Quince

The geometric llama with the very tiny head. Excellent for wool and checking yr shelves are level.

Siniestro

Goth. The influence that dare not speak it's name. I'm not talking 90s-onwards gloomy sub-metal bollocks here, but the proper stuff, yer Bauhaus, Nephilims and, most gloriously of all, The Sisters Of Mercy. I may have mentioned my penchant for the Sisters before, but I'll say it again; when they were good, they were fucking brilliant, a lo-fi concoction of equal parts Suicide and Hawkwind with a dash of early Stooges for bouquet, which is a damn fine cocktail in my book. The reason I mention this is that the latest, and possibly greatest, Robedoor LP, Too Down To Die (Not Not Fun) is pure, unadulterated proper goth worship*, and yet not a single review I've read picks up on this. Maybe because the reviewer doesn't want to damage their hipster credentials, or maybe they're just too young to remember when goth was actually a vibrant, musically distinct offshoot of post-punk less concerned with a certain look and attitude than creating a (then) modern reconfiguration of psychedelia, a darker vision which nevertheless sought to offer some escape from the rotten, decaying state of Britain in the early 80s.

But, just for a change, I've wandered off my own point, which is that Too Down To Die is the best goth album of the last 25 years, bar none. Imagine crossing Blood On The Moon/3rd From The Sun-era Chrome with early Sisters and you've got a pretty fucking good idea of what this record sounds like. Spindly, endlessly flanged guitars coiling round a super-mechanical rhythm section, icy synths slowly rise and fall, creating an ever shifting landscape of bad-trip dread, minor-key spacerock bass leads you by the hand through this shifting, monochromatic haze as the low, deadpan voice whispers and croons things in yr ear you don't really want to know. Beautiful, epic and happily, wallowingly world-weary in a way I haven't encountered for a very long while.

Note to hipsters: If y're gonna rip off the 80s, at least try to do it as well as this.

*See also the latest Religious Knives album, Smokescreen (Sacred Bones). I think they should just be fucking blatant about it and cut a split 7" with Robedoor doing "Lights" and Religious Knives doing "Kiss The Carpet"** (both from The Reptile House EP, the greatest goth record ever). Just a thought...

**It's always good to see the penny drop when an over-serious goth finally realises what this song is about.