SV Stop 301: SubVersion End Of Year Chart by Muttley for 2017

3rd October 2017, 12:43

Looks like it'll be three to five key subverts this year end contributing a roundup chart. The best thing is there is no limit on amount of entries by one person. So that means you can add different unique things to your chart while I get time in listening to it and potter.

Since I posted my full chart just before Xmas Day, there's been a nice little wellspring of contributions from www.subvertcentral.com regulars, and some not so regulars too. Very nice of them.

Rest assured I found it difficult to make any definitive entries at all in 2017. It was a year of recovery, both for the media (Grenfell Tower anyone?) Hence the influence for this record: 

  Best LP of the year: Black Swan - Travesty Waves.

...And when I actually owned up to creating the frequencies, my Best record this year was "May Everyone Be Safe From Harm". Followed by "Warneford Hospital Wanderings". Followed by the magic alterations of mind of Leyland Kirby's "Everywhere At The End Of Time 3CD".

Food wise, I ate like a pig, spent like a spendthrift, returned to restaurants, and lost 2 stone in total!

Best food of the year eating out: The Beehive Asian Inspired Swordfish 12pm-230pm Tuesday lunch. Shouts to Big Steve Sal Kelly Chloe Liam (two of whom are no longer working) and others I knew from the local area. I go there for everything good, and I've never had a bad day there.

Best random moment: celebrating my Grandad's 90th birthday in Carterton with a meal at the Plough with tea and friends. The Plough has revamped itself as full of tradition and flavoursome food.

Best Indian meal eating out: the Aangon "excellence and expertise with a touch of brilliance" owned Dovecote Spice Indian English and Carvery in Burford, Minster Lovell. With: Indian Hot Pot. Chicken, Lamb, Green Chili, Peppers, Prawns, Spicy Sauce and all dolled up with a fancy ceramic pot topped with Nan pastry lid. Only available in restaurant. £10.95.

Now I've filled my boots, Best track confirmed. Which is:

Sub Loam - Elevation, A Map Unfolding And Simultaneous Apprehension Of A Pineapple Mayweed (Wist Rec. 2017)

Layering up, Best song is:

Cigarettes After Sex - Apocalypse

"Your lips my lips...apocalypse".

Best mix: Goldfrapp live at 02 Academy OX4. 20th March 2017.

Favourite book: Josephine Cox in the tradition of Catherine Cookson novels - Outcast.

Favourite lyrics: Tracks-wise, Im a huge fan of the partially unreleased Ric Gordon operation, "Despairs Lover EP". Particularly "Suddenly Single". The lyrics are really well voiced in a cool, fluid tone. "Hands in the air, nobody move / dangerous games make your spine tingle, when you're suddenly single".

Favourite upcoming artists: Calexico and Scanner also really got my attention with their latest album tunes. Im also really partial to Goldfrapps "Systemagic" and "Ocean".

Favourite computer game: Pokemon Moon Beta on the Nintendo 3DS XLR and friends Clubs.

Favourite 2017 Pokemon: Popplio.

Favourite SC thread: MMA.

http://subvertcentral.com/thread-62257.html?highlight=mcgregor

Fave ambient blog: a tough one, but Low Light Mixes never fails to calm my schizophrenia disorder down. I read a lot of http://www.ambientblog.net and http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk in the summer to spring of this year. Asip has been grand for features.

Favourite boxing fight: Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko.

Other good ones...too many to list. The big money McGregor stoppage was great to watch, as well as Canelo Alvarez draw with Gennady Golovkin. Editing tonight I watched the best bits of Billy Joe Saunders vs. David Lemieux. I was really impressed.

I tend to remember boxing fights more...more chess. Plus it's what I want to see. I've done Muay Thai focussing for years. I don't need to see the kicks; I can imagine them, in replacement or combination.

Favourite dedication concept confirmed:

"Utopia" CD by Bjork & Arca that I have a deluxe copy of. The "pearl inside the clam" poem inside joke notice made me emit a heartfelt lol.

My review of the year is this...

Malk - Death From A Love

Can we really imagine death from a love? It's one of those rare things that happens all too often, painted into the fabric of
cotton goods promises and soft-hearted tenderness. Say a love leaves us unexpectedly, dies suddenly, and we are insatiable to
that love originally - that could be marked as death from a love. Like something inside us has died, ready to be replaced with
something else that we don't really want to replace at all costs. This is the "love" element, closeness, some would say clinging,
but I don't know about you, love never comes through death...

And I don't know either, whether you also feel how mental transmogrification turns the concept of "it" inside out, with fake
society, conceited people, counterfeit claims and all that negative mind-melting stuff that comes through death. Do some people
enjoy perverting the concept of death? Of over-dramatising what life is actually always eternal? Seriousness is seriousness, and
words are just that - dust in deserts of sound. It is only when we find material serious and mature enough to tranquilise the
sheer grief that non-psycopathic people feel that we find albums like "Death From A Love". It's a great title, a great album and
a great package. One that will last for all eternity in the eyes of those willing to use that oh-so important word: care.

You need patience, in other words, to tackle a concept like "Death From A Love". The weak-minded fall down and have no patience.
The creator of this recording has a lot of patience, I would wager. How else could one commit to things that are seen as trite
in the minds of the unminded robot-hybrids of our generation? Pedalling out the unreal at every turn - this album is real. From
the opening lines, where morose tones touch the back of the neck in a FareWell Poetry style, the anger that we all feel is self-
contained and instead of being left to fester, is expressed in musical, and here, reviewer language. It's the least trade-off a
true artist could expect of intelligent life, after all. As represented by electronic skeletons throughout the central coda.

In life, nobody is better than anyone else. We are all winners. And every album is a treasure, whether you choose to "like" it
or not? And what is like? We may as well be all self-defeatist - I'll tell you what; we may as well all be Franz Kafka. Never
finishing our stories properly - I've wrote a lot of those stories over the years. But the deciding factor on whether we keep
art in our collections (we are ultimately nerdy collectors if we are perusing this area of music by nature, after all) is if the
central concept is a successfully realised one. Come tune in to "Death From A Love" and find out why we have something special.

Fave streaming service: Spotify.
Fave streaming playlist: "drone music" 203 h Spotify continuous playlist.
Fave new music video app: Box Plus.
Fave longstanding Mp3/Mp4 hybrid: YouTube.
Fave app game: World Chef virtual restaurant manager.
Fave exercise: cardio kickboxing.
Fave virtual exercise: UFC brainstem endurance training.

Fave new channel sub: Boxnation.

Fave drink: hot chocolate.

Feel free to send your charts in to the usual address.

CHAPPY CHRISTMAS CURMUDGEONLY SNAXXOR CREW

Celebratory SV Stop 300: Unofficial 12' DATS from Squatch Lair Studios

hey all fl fan fam
here's a couple mastered at medium volume dats straight from my digital recorder

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2gnac1gil7c1umh/condensed%20milk-wanton%20suspension%2012%27.zip?dl=0

"condensed milk" is solo prepared piano, playing the melodies that have been in my head
guy fawkes day was sure inspirational
Inspiration continues into "wanton suspension", with repitched cheap tech house beats
really there's no better tag for this stuff than electronics

if you would like to show your appreciation for the free downloads, sign me up
either to your newsletter, a compilation would be nice, or offer a discount
i'm heavily into vintage emulator gear, you know, sts, analog synth vsts

"condensed milk" and "wanton suspension" can be previewed before dl

a flower bouquet for you <3 p="">love to all
Michael :)

289: Pseud's Corner

The preservation of an idea, musically, succeeds, for me at least, when it has become ambient music, with leaning to the flagship phrase "ignorable as it is interesting" counterbalanced with the thought that, when I listen to music, "it doesn't really matter". That means, basically, that it's an aperitif, not a main meal in the spice list of life.

Do you agree?

Tinsel Town In Scene Of A Crime

Poem – mrb

Tinsel Town In Scene Of A Crime; August 2017

Those woolly mammoth machines

The tanks on the horizon

Firing shells over the seashores

We’d hope they were extinct by now

Why won’t they let us be?

Be

Bees in a hive of sweet honey

Those furry sloths

Those tinsel town furries

The cuddly truth – life, lived and huddled

The negating slurry pile outside

We must avoid the drab somedays

To mention the futile is a nun day

Few like none say

Tiles on the church floor are all splintered

Let us keep our resistance, friends

Keep the resistance of machinery

And the warmth of the natural world

It’s tinsel town in scene of a crime

Roll up boys and girls!

Father Christmas has come to play with you

Sit on his lap for a present or two

Chuckle with mince pies and mum’s cookin’ stew

Far away from the mammoth tanks

And the slurry pile of everyday life.

Tinsel town in scene of a crime.

Life beyond feeling like a lost dime,

Thrown into the sea like a shell off a soldier;

Relaxing from conflagration of aggressive boulders;

A rolling bauble gathers no moss .

And a child of the world no unkindness to throw over the trenches

Why won’t they let us be?

We knew...

We lied to father Christmas once...

We didn’t put tinsel round the tree

We lost our faith in humanity.

Bandcamp and its editorial coverage of new artists

Bandcamp have been kind to me, Muttley SV, over the years, so I thought I'd do a little post on what SC forum regular DIB has alerted me to in my Ambient Lovers (search: FTAL) thread...The Best New Ambient Releases article, said to be a new monthly affair by Aurora Mitchell for the time being.

https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/08/17/best-new-ambient-june-july-2017/
http://www.subvertcentral.com/showthread.php?tid=56159&page=22

Starting to listen through the music, I'm impressed by its auteurship. But Bandcamp has always been "the best new music" for me since it started in 2008, because it represents DIY projects wholesale. Gone are the commercialisations of content, the trimming of untidy strands of hair, like the throwing away of the prog solo, and most of this music is ambience and ambient based, ignorable as it is interesting, so I'm satisfied. And most of it is pay-what-you-want, so the wider public are, too.

An extra good thing with BC now is they (read: most artists) got rid of the cap on plays, which would then bring up a screen reading "now is the time to open thy heart/wallet". Fuck that - I've disabled that function on my BC site. I want people to have the freedom to stream freely, especially when we become older and realise our music on this site is reaching any kid with an internet connection who, even if they have grown up a spoilt millennial, most of the time are riches impoverished because they are not as rich in mind due to life experience. Experience is perennial to being happy with oneself, a feeling we need to generate a bit more.

The easiest way to establish yourself a fan base these days, though I'm naturally biased, is to sign up to a forum like SC, get involved, don't spam the forum with any old crap, just get involved with quality posts, and slowly over time you'll be allowed like the chump writing this to post on the main forum regularly about all your music obsessions. Music talk is free debate on Subvert, but for the sake of content interest, money is removed from the equation. Making money doesn't really exist for artists these days, you get your wage from wherever - said as a true working musician - and you go buy your Maccy D. But it never changes. Only your costs reduce. It took me a while but due to the right mentoring, at under 30, I have now built a sustainable future for my music and as an advertisement from being a featured artist on Bandcamp, over 20 accounts have subscribed.

It was only natural for Bandcamp, as well, to render its content with the Bandcamp Weekly radio station, which I think is still going, and which I've listened to a couple of times. The editors have every angle covered, they keep the site grass roots with the fifteen percent revenue share - which is fuck all if you think of all the free web hosting and nicely boxed and ribboned promotion we all get.

The annihalation of life

Think of that a bit, just a bit. The annihilation of life. This is something I have been thinking about for the last few years. Keeping it all inside. Not even speaking in the comfort of my own four walls for fear I'll be heard by the neighbours who don't really care. And why should they? It's all my inane bipolar bullshit, the residue of my pre-schizoid diagnosis. What sets life apart from annihilation is the actual process of speaking about what is going on in the world. And that's what's been bugging me, not being able to do it. Well enough of that. Understanding I need time to expand and contract verbally day to day, and that life differs from day to day on our progressive evolution, I feel more in need of expressing myself than ever before. If I can't do it through one medium, I will do it through another. So if it's not music, it's training. If it's not writing about music, it's watching fights on TV. If it's not family meetings, it's journaling like this. And so this cycle will continue. Let's start it today, Mike.

285: Goldie - The Journeyman 3 CD Synopsis (Metal Heads / Cooking Vinyl Ltd. ) by Andy Popin

...official SubVersion review of Goldie - "The Journeyman 3CD", by Andy Popin

It's fine to comment on whole triple albums...and if you are reviewing for publication purposes other than self, it is just the kind of sheet you do, implicitly. But for me, there's something extra extra special about the closing (read: not bonus) third CD that concludes Cliffy 'Goldie''s best work since "Timeless" in his triple disc mother lode, "The Journeyman" on Metalheadz. Not only did it manage to make this hefty rockhead shed a few tears at recent exterior memories on my favourite piece of his whole album, the totally friggin terrific "Run Run Run" piano focused piece (yes it has piano, go figure) but "The Instra Suites", as this ascending journey disc spanning nearly eighty minutes and no less is titled, confirmed to me what I love best about Goldie - when he "actually finishes a tune".

Insult? No way. 

For anyone who knows Ciiffy, whether it's just journalistically from afar like me and the average Joe, the ethic of putting the kitchen sink in good and proper - on each tune - is clear, and that dialectic genius he has of one of the precious few which too much weed didn't mess up musically from the 1990s is as clear as day on, for me personally, and to agree with Goldie for once, a better opus effort than "Timeless", the album that garnered so much acclaim. 

Let's dispense with the long-winded verbals for a moment, and just appreciate the scene. Goldie has been around. God, is that an understatement? James Bond's assasin in The World Is Not Enough; the two left-footed Dad on Strictly Come Dancing; faux-thug on soapy depressant Eastbenders (pardon no pun); first-year psych workout Celebrity Big Brother glam points on a career spanning over three decades from the foundations of B-boy graff, Reinforced Records graft and London street seller grit and grime. It really shows on the closing dnb-turned-Detroit-tech cut "Redemption" at the end of disc three, a fiercely inventive swipe at the hangers-on of Jeff Mills, Frankie Knuckles Chicago-an House, Laurent Garnier acid techno Eiffels; his 'ardcore Rufige Cru life. Meanwhile as on the opener to this journey, "Natalie's Truth", "tomorrow lies in a sculpture", which points towards the Body Of Songs project "Electric Abyss" paradox-psychology of concept construction. 

Speaking of more close-to-home, hearty influences, the sounds of "Timeless" engineer Rob Playford (Omni Trio) are dotted all over the analog bass balm and early club warming up sounds of "Horizon". The bass pattern plays a simple trajectory; minor 7th addition to major 7th subtraction but the drum counterpoint reverses and kaleidoscopically explodes the flow. In addition, musically so, glimmers of light piano and Rhodes points to roads untravelled by liquid funk since Lincoln Barret and Dom of Calibre subtracted the stepper breakbeat multi-match and doused in the rinse-and-repeat club putty of rolling percussion. These sounds speak of the unspoken divide between the liquid funk sub genre and atmospheric techno, rotating their influences like a heart-on-sleeve pallbearer passing out pamphlets of multi-faith worship at a parish. In lesser terms, that does not normally happen. 

The next chapter takes us down into a Massive Attack and Portishead style meander - and a great one, with utmost focus - called "Mountains". It's too heavy for a strictly chill station; too light for a jungle tearout station. The best kind of description for stuff like this is "saturated hip hop", that Photek tune of the same name. This to me is better, and not just because it's more musical, it also has production balls, not saturated fat. "Ballad Of Celeste" takes that blueprint and adds violin, reducing (or rather transducing) the overall granular convolution that comes with forgetting memories on a journey as they start to happen. The album is low on lacular amnesia, to borrow from The Caretaker's titles; everything fits into place nicely, and is recollected as a memory pure, as it should be. Nice rice-grained harpsichord irons out the attention tenets of the time listening to "Celeste", which is "Mountains" romantic candour and counterpoint suggestion, also bookend with baby chuckles and samples of twinkling Poinsetta prettiness. "Castaway" ups the pace to around 162bpm by my internal heartbeat. 

For the first time in this CD, wind instruments are ferociously introduced, darting all over the beat like a moth caught in a circus lightshow. Echoes of the synth used on Seal's "Killer" ("solitary brother, is there still a part of you that wants to live? Soiitary sister, is there still a part of you that wants to give?") sprinkle in the background like a kind of confetti-coloured moss; a disguised past. And that's exactly what "The Journeyman" feels like, on the whole...and a "glorious future past". The transition from hardcore to dnb reimagined for a less nascent, more grown up audience. It's an absolute mind killer of a journey, to use that dnb buzz word; it takes me to spiritual and heavenly palaces of the eye andear without moving a finger, except those on the hand to put this in the CD player with. Everything fits into place, as I have stated throughout. 

It's like "The Journeyman" just came to show us that in tomorrow, and even yesterday, lies a sculpture of optimism...and that the journey of life never ends. 

Andy Popin

284: Pseud's Corner

There is a horrible projection in all of us, yet we do not always see our own faults as the worst cracks in the mirror at that particular time.

283: FR Retrograde Reviews - Mick Buckingham - Chihei Hatakeyama - Mirage (Room40, Kranky)

Chihei Hatakeyama, after a healthy decades good exposure in the ambient field as a torchbearer of peaceful drones and sibilance should he strike the strings of his delayed electric guitar, presents “Mirage”, an album in the vein of classics like “Saunter” from 2003 and “Light Drizzle” from 2009. Generally focussing on the possibilities of decay trails, Mirage moves with an unearthly abandon. Field recordings of industrial action and children’s play recalls Chris Dooks, while the ambience is alike to Tom Honey’s Gòod Weather For An Airstrike project.

A summary does never do Chihei Hatakeyama due justice. For all this time I have spent collecting his albums, since his major label releases (Room40, Hibernate, Nomadic Kids Republic I believe were sent demos when BVDub picked up the wings of underexposed drone exports and jet-packed them into real ambient consciousness). Wherever you picked up on Chihei – maybe even as mainstream as Wire magazine and Fluid Radio on the web...I have to assert he’s one of my top 10 droners. That list includes big names like Hakobune, Liz Harris (Grouper), Oophoi, Steve Roach, Stars Of The Lid, Simon Scott (Slowdive), Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Hammock...mmmhmmm...some of my fave “others”.

Opening with the bereft breath of “Sad Ocean”, one immediately realises this is simply breath taking music set to scenic views of ambient scenes. Car windows being opened; cool breezes blowing in; or an early morning 5am walk. Thus quality is athletic styled lather, and the soft emotional heft is rendered like real leather interior design, here lies the elasticity principle of Chihei’s sound. What is supple and you get lost in it just as you would the focus of this sentence if it curved into discussion about fabric only. I’m to question how this music collection is so important that it will soundtrack my entire life comfortably. And it does, it will, it can. This sense of comfort and familiarity one feels when taking a listen to these serene wafts of new ago atmosphere is the opposite of new age kitsch.

The answer to why “Mirage” works so well, lies in a somatic response slowness yet paradoxical freedom. Attitudinal its an escape from life’s stasis field – take the lighthouse beacon sound of “Starlight And Black Echo”. Chihei sounds like he was searching deep within when making this. The strange echoing surfeit calms the nerves and puts pay to the hauntological idea of our memories being captured and left to bounce between the speaker system. Like ghost code, it is an aural monologue...is that the meaning of the mirage, we wonder? Pulsing tones reach a refrain then ebb away into comparable dark matter. It is time to see the light, the gut feeling, the mirror; of really belonging.

Indeed this is an lp conjuring mainly lighter shades on the colour wheel of life. With a fine Eton Mess of strawberry creamed texture cranking the cooker DC until the electronics have buttered us up completely, “Distant Steam Train Whistle” introduces a atmospheric harpsichord to lay the table and create a conversation portal for less hazy, more smoky guitar. The whole thing stands up to criticism of going on too long, as to me about an hour is the perfect length for a drone fest. Given the subtle placations throughout, it is amazing the music sounds so peaceful. I’m truly in awe of its warmth.

When I consider drone benchmarks, I think Budd & Eno – The Pearl is comparable here. Nothing borders on creating non-environmental tuning – the music is subtly weaved, controlled, and never totally knockout visceral. The pastoral essence is bottled and releases in places like a effectively placed land mine...a gaseous land mind, excellently perfumed and fighting the bad odour of cheap petrol-heavy streets where everything gets recorded (unless Chihei really lives far out). Indeed, if made in the 60s, hippies would be getting high around a bong to sounds contained here.

With most of the morass a lost-phase, a haze-dream, a bushy-nature-reserve of ambient logic, the ambience throughout “Mirage” is ripe when viewed through the first year psychology topic of reverse psychology. Why is this? Because the drones are: dense, thick, organic, unfiltered, healthy and extremely nutritious in the context of the drone music lovers palette. Like the aforementioned comparison of Tom Honey’s work, “Anatolia Mirage” hums a short poem of tones – tone poetry, a melodic haiku, with drones that are rather not long-winded, instead they are carried by the wind.

The a plus transcendental introspection created by the soliptic stress-straining slipstreams cajoles the listener’s expectations like kale being filtered through a sieve. Or pillows before bedtime laid out for a siesta or long snooze. Perfect for night and day time, but cornerstone logic is for weightless contexts, in a nutshell. There needs to be music like this made, for certain. I would not mind betting Hatakeyama has a third life from production and field recording for nature program music.

If there is any weakness of “Mirage”, it is as such that it is not very energising. Some would say it is too samey. To me though, when you have mood music as classy as this, sideswipes like that become irrelevancies. It becomes meaningless. When the music is this inspiring and meaningful, on the other hand, your perspective changes. The little man in your head vanishes. At least it does mine. I’m tired of half-assed critics who don’t know what a good opus sounds like. Mark my words, there is no way any educated listener of taste could describe this music as bland.

May we see more fantastic mirages from Japanese artist Chihei in future. The lps on the Kranky repped Room40 imprint after all – it had to be something special. This to me is Chihei Hatakeyama’s most realised work to date – never disappointing, never ghostly...this time, the mirage is permanent.

282: Pseud's Corner

Express something to its literal end. Fluidity is crucial, and capturing things only makes us long term keep them.

The great thinkers of the world have always been critical of self, and i like to imagine genial concepts running through from person to person, like an olympic torch.

In philosophy genius has always been seen as a fluid not mathematically minded construct. It lives and breathes on whats happening, on the moments spur, on creativity.

Blink and you miss it, capture and its lost. This is my point for discourse. The memory is the only place i keep lots of experiences, they can be forgotten, so what!

281: Boxing Retrospective By Muttley - Audley "A-Force" Harrison

Audley 'A-Force' Harrison, the 6 foot 5 black athlete turned boxer from London, UK, often became dismissed as a novelty celeb act by armchair journalists, but as a prizefighter champion after his olympic gold and holding the european title against, lets face it, always outclassed opponents, it was inevitable. Growing a nascent worrying fascination for picking his fights before frank warren picked them for him, he is known inside the ring to real boxing pugilists for a ramrod jab and staggering power in his southpaw-stance left hand. Notable wins for audley:

1. Obv. Olympic gold. And like all olympic athletes, nicola adams right now on bnation etc, they rely on boxing rather than volume and/or punching power. Science. Its hard to pick notable clips from "a - force" harrison in the olympics, because the best fights are boxer vs. Fighter, as shown in harrison's crippling (but not catastrophic) defeats against david price (ko1), david haye (stoppage r3, for the wba world title) and the most brutal; deontay wilder's wild head shots in the first round for the commonwealth title which probably ended his career at the right time. These losses stopped audley in his tracks specifically; more on that later.

2. Danny Williams KO r3. The man who knocked out Iron Mike Tyson in 4 rounds creating his descending 2000s spiral into early retirement, and lennoxs best comparison uk wise at least out of the limelight (is meant to shred leather in the sparring drills). Cuts ensued against audley and audley it should be noted took williams out of there six rounds earlier than wladimir klitschko in 2002.

3. Michael Sprott Ko 12. A very memorable fight this one, the underrated domestic titan Sprott causing audley early adversity mentally but gave the old sorcerer enough time to suck up the punches and press on with outscoring- and finally- knocking out, sprott.

These excellent wins are the reason i rated audley up there with the 21st century greats like the klitschkos, haye, fury, and deontay, the problem is with audley technically is he has a suspect chin - hit right, he quickly collapses- and like an articulated lorry takes ages despite usual early covetous sharpness to get going.

I never liked the "fraudley" and mocking of him back then and i still dont now, yes he can talk, but he has not lost his marbles, hes just content and hes opinionated. Id rather have a gentle giant like him on my bbc tv in the formative years of training as a middleweight muaythai fighter than some crap spouting rubbish role model. As much as i love david haye he does come out with some bollocks before his fights, in fact i have him down as one of the founders of noughties trash talk...sadly, because hes always great to watch, one of my faves of all time.

I will never forget the aspects of scale and ratio, volume and size, power and precision and paradoxical entertainment - over sheer blitzkrieg novelty - that an audley harrison fight brought to me as a teenager.

i have no idea what im doing out of bed

280: FTAL, FTEL, FTCL June 2K17 Round-up (Rapture Witney Oxon CD Buys, Last 6 Months)

FTAL, FTEL, FTCL (explanations of the acronyms at http://www.subvertcentral.com by inputting these terms in the search engine) records round-up, June 11th 2017. By Muttley.

Ez, hey, wassup all readers, fans, acolytes (don't set fire to my sofa!). Thought I'd do a little SV Recommends compendium, because I've been saving ravenously to spend on therapeutic gold as ever.

Here are my CDs bought from Rapture, Witney, Oxon UK In the last 6 months.

M83 - Junk
Ministry Of Sound - The Chillout Session 2CD Mix
This Is Chill 2CD Mix - Various Artists
Warpaint - Heads Up
Cigarettes After Sex - S/T
Slow Club - One Day All Of This Won't Matter Any More
Goldfrapp - Silver Eye / We Are Glitter (Import)
Ministry Of Sound - Oldschool Anthems 3CD
Xiu Xiu - Forget
Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm - Trance Friendz / Loon OST
Mala - Mala In Cuba

Generally all good stuff, well written and interesting. The Goldfrapp material is some of the strongest stuff I've heard from Alison and Will. The MOS CDs are welcome additions, full of classic proper electronica. Mala is cool. The real winners for me though are the art rock of Xiu Xiu, M83 French synthpop, and the very Slowdive-y Cigarettes After Sex. Slow Club's newest does not touch "Complete Surrender" personally, and the Nils Frahm collab is kinda stilted, but I love them all. Go and explore will you.

Love
Mike xoxo

279: Half Sycophant Half Narcissist

Half sycophant, half narcissist

you'll find the wasters raising a fist

they don't have anything else to say

so they get frustrating, grating

taking the heart rate off the spectrum

playing the sycophants heart with a plectrum

also becoming a narcissist in their own right

"I am right and I use my might to talk you down"

hey, at least the sycophantic narcissists have

something in common?

Seems that way, doesn't it.

Oh well, you're a red blooded spanner and you

put your foot in it, didn't you?

That's a way to destroy a relationship

for people who are sycophantic and narcissistic

like you and me, it would come to find out you blew it.

278: Drumfunk Opacity

Here's one for ya. Drumfunk, the buzzword for drum-driven drum and bass, percussive dance of sorts, as Chris Inperspective of the Technicality label would like to term it, once upon a time (2007). How does it gain its environmental opacity? By opacity I imply the “right ambience”. The right ambience is something we look for heavily in gentrified “mood music”, specifically music for setting a scene. Indeed much “mood” in shorthand is ideal for scoring films, movies, whatever you call them.

Much success, I would think, comes down to the “time bomb ethic” of the drums. The “timbre” of the track. These two things, qualities, et al, are not separate, rather they compliment each other in the “right ambience”. You see where I'm going with this? What I am simply saying is “drumfunk needs the right ambience for its potential to be fully realised, and I think we can all agree what we once hated can turn into things we love”.

Take Paradox Music. To some the drums might sound like washed out cardboard rolling down a hill. To the trained ear crunchy crisp percussions are the order of the day, and for once there's no unnecessary filler side salad; flights of fancy. The discombobulation Nucleus & Paradox turn on the “Fuzz and the Boog” drum hit on the piece “Fuzzy Something” is a timeless, riotous wonder.

To understand is to understate, always. Hence the adjectives, because I will never truly so “get it”.

Stop 277: Pseud's Corner

If you have the ability to see right through somebody, to sense the truth, the purpose, and the fault, then what hope is there for promise?

Bjork (and Bjorkanspiel)

I have a lot of love for Bjork Gudmasonnitir (her stage name, at least, but aren't they all). I have all her studio experiments, but only one album physically - "Vulnicura" from 2015, on acetate for Record Store Day (coincidentally, as it happened). I bought everything else back from eMusic.com...luckily I downloaded everything before they made their needed alterations to the site (which only unfortunately wiped every account of its previous downloads; but kept the saved lists).

I met her once, and while she was warm and friendly, there was a natural likeable aloofness that resonates chiefly in her music creations. She is at the forefront of a superbrain production ethic, amassing layer upon layer of cellar-dwelling closet skeletons with bones for emotions. The density of each composition - take "Possibly Maybe (Lucy Remix)", with its erotic language intoned over vocoded scatterbrain chromatic synapse-wringing, speaks of a deification of the female spoken word.

A good place to start is "Debut". One of my favourites from Bjork from the start was "Play Dead"; later "Venus As A Boy"; "Isobel" has its moments; and "Big Time Sensuality", "Army Of Me" and the classic "All Is Full Of Love" neatly make up a fair portion of the "Greatest Hits CD" highlights. While no track is a standout, every track is a statement. But it's poetic, and like the best poetry, the meanings are endless, not robotic. Bjork is one of those artists where, like Alison Goldfrapp after her, the syllables she speaks can be about anything - they, just like her music and attitude, is frankly stunningly beautiful. "Big Time...sensuality, oh baby".

SubVersion Stop 275: SV Recommends Ambientblog Headphone Commute Endorsed Mix

Bit of a mouthful, that title, isn't it? But it's all relevant. SubVersion Ambientblog and Headphone Commute are all ambient publicising blogs. I'm recommending this new "DreamScenes" series mix from Ambientblog, published also on Headphone Commute, and it's a cracker. A real stayer mentally

I cannot link you PvC's kindly provided MixCloud widget, as my blog doesn't allow that. So what I can do instead, is provide you the post I found it from, sent to my email address for press after 7pm.

New show by ambientblog

Mind Awake, Body Asleep By ambientblog Ambient, Cinematic, Experimental, Instrumental, Experimental Am...

The moment I heard Rami Malek whisper "Mind awake, body asleep" (Mr Robot, series 2) I knew this would be the inspiration for a new mix. A mix about half-sleep, lucid dreaming impressions... ungraspable images... and about "letting go". After all, Mr. Robot's tagline was "Control is an Illusion". Control proved to be an illusion indeed, with these different, unrelated, fragments coming together like pieces of a puzzle, creating a mix "like its own cinematic score." (H_C) This mix was created for - and is co-hosted on - *Headphone Commute* - for which I am very very grateful! Detailed playlist, download version and surround version on Ambientblog.net: http://bit.ly/2pwawAI

Mick Buckingham Retrograde Reviews: Jan Linton - I Actually Come Back

Jan Linton, on the intriguingly titled "i actually come back", returns to offer us a classic ushering of all the artistic tropes that made angelo badalementi, david sylvian and "blackstar" era david bowie's music a greatly worthwhile venture to listen to, regardless of any earlier experience with its genres of influence. it is a highly respectable and inviting listen that warrant mature attention. the now extended to twelve track excursion includes lyrics in the sleevenotes, lyrics that deserve to be read and heard. this is very warming sound that does its best not to dance about architecture, but instead feel like its actually the blueprint to a great work. underlying the question is: does it finish sounding like a work in progress? the reality is very different - this is while rooted in 80s new wave symptomatica of the synth pop and art rock engine (jan linton amongst others had links with the burning shed label that released some of his earlier output, and collaborated with duran duran guitarist john taylor and bill nelson), moves the influences and time forward to a pleasant kind of eden garden romance. what one means with this compliment is to respect the angelic style of vocal, and the serene use of synthesisers. it is a genuinely pleasant piece of art, art that stops trying to be art the moment linton breaks into song. all songs have leo abrahams collaborating with linton, eno protege.

and why is that, we wonder? well, it might be down to the art of lyrics being not inextricably linked to songcraft. some have become very analytical about their lyrics, to the point that there are lyric and song meaning sites all over the internet in the 21st century. this statement questions who is perceiving the lyrics of course, and in most cases, it's the fans. for me the idea of being unpretentious about what one says - "funny, funny how people change" a simple case in point for linton = is the real special thing about this record, because the songcraft, rather than the lyrics alone, tows the whole meaning behind creating a actual point to actually releasing. indeed, "i actually come back". the seed is sown, the instruments untangle listener woes. that title might seem a bit naive to some of us who have spent their twenties at least in dead end jobs, thirties heads who suffer from information amnesia, and the fortysomethings who may as well be managers of the common diplomacy of the interweb by now. not everyone wants to live online, though, and this strays from the point of the album...it's about regeneration. what meaning you take from regeneration is always subjective, to some it will be about "depending on the kindness of strangers", in one of linton's stories. at other times it may be a more ambiental affair, a forest weave as in one of the closing cuts to the 12-track compact disc (subsequent presses have different art than the originals, it can be noted). whatever. the important thing is that coming back, for linton, abrahams and all his influences produced a classic selection, the twelve tracks presented here.

2K17 Mrb Poetry - Nature and death afflictions

Womb kicks

the blow is fetched on someone, the blow regains its power

storms blow and trespass in hemispheres

by the hourly tide 

you shone with your arms out wide

just perched there like a scarecrow

an innocent crucifix with no ribbons

and no bows. 

i would bow in your presence

but it would only sacrifice humility for pretense

the art of pompousness in portent

unrelenting destruction relating to conundrums of the soul

scoring an own goal, kicked off the pitch

wind blown in a ball, all the air kicked out of it

all the air kicked out of it

all the air

kicked out of the very thing that gave life its speed. 

Death waltz

The line
Drab
Inked into dust
Cast on the sky
A dusk constellation either way
Waltzing with sentient beings
Obsessed by atomic death
And clause by cryptographic clusters
Cloying to the mind's eye.

 Apartness

Apart you say
Who are we
Alluding to catastrophe
Dismay dismay dismay

The path seems rocky
Your bones will soon find
Frailty is not proposed by the wind

Nor is calamity produced by snow
Catastrophe, who are we
Dismay, dismay, dismay.

Apart from the seasons we experience treason
All down to psychiatric failure
No rhythm
No reason
Oh dismay
Are you fickle?
Are we a trickle
A raindrop
Dismay dismay

Oh, apart we turned to gray.

Convalescence

The transcription of wit
From an inked glass
Blotted like a murderer's paper
What are these deeds, you ask
A cornucopia caper
A trick of the devil
An illusion of relativity
Or a convalescence of greed.

The bright sun shines outside
Oh widow, won't you weep for me.

Affliction of the distinctive soul

Something comes from nothingness

Always from death to life

Pain to strife

Regenerating forwards and back like a marble lock

The smell of machinery gloats on the dock

Cogs in machines

Cogs in streams

Buried from view

Alligators swallowing marbles

Drowning the marbles of others

This ode to death cannot be recovered

It can only be docked

As a regeneration process from death to life

One which we all experience

At a later time in life.

Copyright Michael Robert Buckingham - MRB poetry 2017 all rights reserved.

Specialist Curry Recipes By Michael - First 10 Collection (2013-2017)

Muttley SubVersion

· 27 January 2015 ·

Cooked an awesome Chinese curry lst night. Ingredients list:
Special Recipe By Michael 2 - Chinese Tandoori Chicken, Mustard Seed & Cinnamon Strong Curry
3 teaspoons mustard seeds
2 cloves garlic
2 red onions
4 boneless chicken breasts
3 tbsp mixed spice powder
2 tbsp sauce thickener
2 tbsp tandoori curry powder
1/2 a courgette
1 yellow pepper
1 chicken stock cube/400ml boiling water
2 teaspoons chilli seeds
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup/2 cups boiling water brown rice measure

To cook well, just follow the directions of my previous homemade curry.

1

Here's the recipe I just DIY knocked up:
Special curry by Michael 10.01.15 - Mushroom And Chicken Surprise
1 teaspoon mustard seeds...
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 strand spring onion (cut small)
2cm root ginger (peeled and cut)
4 mushrooms (large)
1 yellow pepper (chopped coarsely)
1 pack boneless chicken breasts (chopped small)
1 red onion (large chops)
3 cloves garlic (chopped small)
half a courgette (large chops)
chopped carrots (small)
additional ground chillies (to taste)
1 chicken stock cube / 500ml boiling water in gravy jug)
3 sprinkles Soy Sauce (at end)
basmati brown rice (1 cup 2 cups boiling water)
peanut sesame oil to baste

schematic: 1) prepare ingredients 2) brown chicken 3) onions, courgette, garlic, peppers in 4) spices, carrots in 5) stock
6) bring to boil 7) cook rice sprinkle over Soy Sauce and ground chilli to taste.

Now we've just got to see how it tastes. :)

3

Special Recipe By Michael 3 - Tomato, Cinnamon And Button Mushroom Chicken Curry Dip
2tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander leaves
4cm root ginger, peeled ...
pack of button mushrooms
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 onions
1 yellow pepper
1.6kg cooked chicken
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp med curry powder
1 tbsp mixed spice
1 / 2 cup ratio basmati rice
1 naan bread

I have 3 special homemade recipes I've done in the last 2 months now. Before I invite house guests - family when they come for dinner.

TDD Chapter 6 Diagnosiness - Now available to read (NO) (6 pages) (2016-2017)

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=62021

Link to the Subvert Central thread, with comment.

Happy reading. :)

Love xx
Muttley

Muttley - 15 MOF PTY.111 - Stories Of Solace In Miniature Episode 3 - Black Eyes

Muttley - 15MOF Pyt 111. Black Eyes

>SoundCloud 1h58min Mixtape Link<

Depression. Difficult, isn't it? Everyone has it, don't they? Seems so in the last ten years in Great Britain. Yes, besides the unaware club at school who don't yet know what depression is, the germinating angst-turned-despair of the mental illness that becomes all-consuming to some of us is no stranger. It's the black dog following us home, as Oxford's Little Red like to say. "Black Eyes" is a concept mix for the accompanying lyric, "this black dog, is everywhere I go". Because: how does depression "change" us? Personally this is highly interesting - not for the sob stories, but for the perception area.

Say I am having a conversation with my mate - let's call him Rob. Rob likes good conversation, but has a bit of a temper. The depression latches onto Rob's temper and creates a facsimile - or a false projection - of the actual reality at hand. In the interest of attachment psychology, this could be referred to as "predestined selection". What makes depression different? For me, there is something about the parasitic logic of hormones in the body, gestating and losing it - to bring us back to the conversation, my spiel is where "Rob" loses his temper, and opens a bottle of Scrumpy Jack. Depression - the notion - leads to a device for depression - the dis-ease; the alcohol; the black eye in a fist fight at worst; the black eye, rather in the eyes of the depression sufferer.

Do not worry if this does not make sense to you. But to document depression for my family, it does explain much. Take me at secondary school. Before Americanised "High School", I was a cheerful infant. I used to look at cars all day from a closed window on the road passing by (I lived on a main road at the time). What you should know: at secondary school, I came home regularly miserable, this is no lie. Yet, in long term recall, there were several moments per week when I had lots of friendly
encounters. At times, I was high as a kite! Does this not seem odd? Fanciful, even? Seems so. But perhaps the gain (mixology) I put on the volume of the encounters - i.e putting myself into lots of situations at school where I felt uncomfortable, but what created almost heavenly sociological results in terms of maturing and maturing my obsession for music - which I was very kindly allowed by tutors and heads without bullying or confiscation obtruding it - created a seismically big paradox.

The paradox being, and reasoning, is this where my bipolar started?

Is this where I started to become schizophrenic?

I would like to think, not unreasonably so for my own sanity, that this was the case. It also leads me to believe everyone has the time of their life at school, in their own way. Despite me never being bullied, yet occasionally being a popular choice for conversation (I was always either quiet or rejecting, but not awkward, just peaceful), me, I, had the time of my life. And this is the polarisation of wide-eyed-wonder, not black eyes at all. Man and woman often thinks of what is to be achieved by undergoing a task, any task at that, great or small, it all comes down to priorities these days, simples life, yours gratefuls, kisses. But let's recoup our logic on depression and my theorising. Life seems to change when we positively engage with it; life seems to disappear when we move away from it. This is simple and related to the laws of physics, acceleration and entry and exit gates. So to suggest a neutralising (depression) additive to create a neutralising outcome, is not implausible. But we really need to get a "hold" on the actual physicality of the life environment for any of this to mean something worthwhile. In short "actions speak louder than words". Life is bigger than
logic.

Summary: depression is neutralising of an environmental perception by the individual, whether observer, undertaker or pacifist; life is bigger than these events sound, and adds a large sense of reality to the proceedings.

Whether we choose to believe the emotions in "Black Eyes": well, that's another story entirely...

Love x
Muttley

2017 Mrb Poetry - To Myself

Mrb - To myself

Where my mind bleats for quiet, my heart skips for an answer
Where my head loses memories by the second, a whisper is often something I can muster
I muster
To myself
that cold cold chill
That permeates the radium of the world
Turning pipes inside out
Piping hot food used for body charcoal
And the ash of time as a vanguard for nails on a cross.

2017 FN (Foodie Noodlings) - Home Made Pasta Carbonara

home made pasta carbonara recipe

20p packet noodles with bbq sauce powder
4 rashes bacon, sliced thin
3 spring onions, chopped coarsely
3 mushrooms, chopped small
pancetta powder packet mix
2tbsp semiskimmed milk
2 green chillies

chop all ingredients
transfer in any order to a wok, ideally pancetta and milk into the oil or water base first
cook and stir continually for 15-20 minutes, until mix congeals and thickens to taste.

Finit.