Just Detroit Don Kevin Saunderson dropping some hardcore heat in 1992 and prolly kickstarting jungle or some shit. #journalism
Squarepusher – Vortrack (Fracture Remix)
Tom Jenkins is back on his glitchy breakbeat bullshit. Yes mate. Bonus points for the visuals.
Polli Ji - Meant To Be (Original Mix)
Buried at the end of a recent Charlotte de Witte Residency show, this dark number has serious Miss Kitten, electroclash vibes. It's been 20 years already, let's get this electroclash revival going people.
Four Tet - Teenage Birdsong (Overmono Remix)
Everywhere I look I'm seeing Overmono. 2020 might just be OK after all. Especially as there's new Four Tet too.
Special Request - Spectral Frequency
Inject this in my veins. Absolute rip-snorting junglism. From an album called Zero Fucks. And free to download off Bandcamp. Get the fuck in.
Ever found yourself wondering what a Lemon Jelly album would sound like in 2020? Well, here you go. Fred Deakin, one half of said electronica duo drops a sprawling sci-fi concept album filled with playful psychedelia and climate change warnings. Think Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds but about the last family on Earth escaping to Mars… I think. It’s all a bit silly but kinda fun. The glam chug of Come To Me is the highlight. SE
And what got me is how weird it is. Weird and on BBC 1. In primetime too. And then it hit me that 50+ years on, we're not going to see something like this again anytime soon. Now, I know this isn't an original thought or observation, but are we missing something by not having a collective musical experience any more?
Any form of collective experience for that matter, with the possible exception of sport, and maybe Christmas. And both of those are pretty conservative. So, where's the mass weirdness going to come from? Would something like TV Interruptions by David Hall happen now?
Yeah, we have memes and shitposting now but you get them when you get them. You view alone and out of sync unless it's turning a phone around to show someone. Turns out that old man yells at cloud was me all along.
Reynolds highlights our fractured, kaleidoscopic cultural experience in a recent article for The Guardian - 'Streaming has killed the mainstream': the decade that broke popular culture. Despite all my hand-wringing over the loss of a cultural centre ground for weirdness to sneak in, he quite rightly points out, "There are worse fates than drowning in a flood of great entertainment and popular art."
Also, the old media mono-culture excluded many. I'm not saying we should go back to four TV channels and no catch-up or streaming. The choice is nice. Yet with so much available, I start to side with Devo and wish for freedom from choice.
Reynolds also writes "Significance doesn’t need to be universal to matter." Maybe so. Probably so. But I still feel like asking if we're missing something in this age of the LostStream.
And I feel like asking you, yes you, this question. Can you keep it weird in 2020?
Here are six meaty boys I've been enjoying this week, this dry, dry week...
Alec Ness - Meal feat. Dizzy Fae
As featured on Ghostly Swim 3, this has a Galcher Lustwerk feel, late-night spoken-word shuffly house vibes like. The whole compilation is tidy, though it's not a free download like the previous edition. For free downloads are dead AF. Ghostly Swim 3 as MP3s will cost you $5. Typical acid workout ggowwksstane by Bogdan Raczynski is another highlight here.
Oneohtrix Point Never - Chrome Country (KCRW Session)
Enjoyed Yokota's Acid Mt. Fuji album in work this week. In my head, he's always an ambient piano kinda guy, but this is proper throbbing techno. Lovely stuff.
Lynks Afrikka - Str8 Acting
Is... is electroclash back? Please say 2020 is the year it makes a comeback. Also, check out On Trend, which features top sampling of the Headspace guy.
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer feat. Arthur Russell
How did I make it to 2020 without knowing Arthur Russell featured on a Talking Heads record? His jagged cello sounds like it should've always been there. Also, it looks like this the first time I've talked about Russell on this blog, so there's a new year's resolution I might actually keep, blog a bit about Arthur Russell...
"a song that i never got to fully finish from IGOR sessions. didnt want it to sit on a hard drive. filmed with no music, with hopes that it would sync up, a success! ------filmed by: Wyatt Navarro"
A Llantwit Major-based music blog for things post-punk, electronic and a little bit left of centre, with second-hand cultural musings, third-rate sociological stabbings and very rarely the odd mp3.
I also write the odd album review for Buzz Magazine and used to present Amser Electroneg on Bro Radio.
