SubVersion Stop 148: SubVersion's End Of 2011 Charts

SubVersion Contributors

Muttley

01. Favourite track: Nebula - Escapism (Astral Soul, Subtle Audio 005 EP)

02. Favourite album: Grouper - A.I.A: Alien Observer (Yellowelectric)

03. Favourite label: History Always Favours The Winners (James Leyland Kirby)

04. Favourite mixtape: The Daily Street 013: Vandera - 60 Tunes, 60 Minutes, C Minor

05. Favourite SC thread: Statto - other stuff you're interested in

06. Favourite gig: Duotone, Jane Griffiths & Colin Fletcher @ Warneford Chapel, Oxford, 14th June

07. Favourite book: Lucid Dreaming: The Paradox Of Consciousness During Sleep - ed. Celia Green & Charles Mcreery

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Tandoori Masakan Lamb & Mushroom Rice with Peshwari Naan

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Joking the parents' canine namesake Mutley is Edward Monkton's "Pig Of Happiness" and cheering myself up consequentially

10. Favourite random moment: Watching Mongrels and recalling certain character lines in quiet time

Jonathan

01. Favourite track: Formication - I Dare You (Binad Chorad mix)

02. Favourite album: Alek Stark presents Elektro Domésticos 3

03. Favourite label: Weevil Neighbourhood

04. Favourite mixtape: Heinrich Mueller - Resident Advisor 250

05. Favourite SC thread: Naphta - porn is good for society

06. Favourite gig: Ruins Alone @ Rammel 38, Nottingham, 5th October

07. Favourite book: Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme - ed. Ivan Coyote & Zena Sharman

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Homemade chocolate fridge cake

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Arguing about sex and gender on blogs and forums

10. Favourite random moment: Finishing whatever big job I've just finished and then doing nothing at all

Fellow Subvert Central Members

dionysus

01. Favourite track: Ben Howard - Black Flies

02. Favourite album: Ben Howard - Every Kingdom

03. Favourite label: Exit

04. Favourite mixtape: A DJ Flight show

05. Favourite SC thread: One started by Annastay‎

06. Favourite gig: Ben Howard (I went to one gig this year)

07. Favourite book: Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood (I will never watch the film)

08. Favourite food (or Snax): My Bento Boxes :)

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Making breakbeat Jungle with krusty basses

10. Favourite random moment: Falling in love with Claude Monet, Poplars on the Epte, at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh (the blue!)

MetaLX

01. Favourite track: Kadzaty Stanislav's talk-show "Uatsamonga". North Ossetian Radio Broadcasting (Ossetian Language).

02. Favourite album: Sly & Robbie - This Is Crucial Reggae (Trojan, 2010)

03. Favourite label: ---

04. Favourite mixtape: Curly Swipes & DJ Euphoria Live on Renegade Radio 13 May, 2011. Oldskool.

05. Favourite SC thread: Statto - other stuff you're interested in

06. Favourite gig: Watching mates Ryan Mystik and Lion Fiyah perform at a bar called Tropics. Reggae at Tropics in general.

07. Favourite book: Chernow, Ron. 2005. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin.

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Coffee

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Working from home

10. Favourite random moment: Getting stuck at an airport waiting for a 4 hour flight delay, getting battered on ale knowing that my wife was picking me up and driving, then seeing a friend of mine who was the stewardess who gave me a whole empty row of my own for the flight home.

Slothrop

01. Favourite track: It turns out most of the tracks I've been listening to this year have been from last year. I'll give it to LV ft Joshua Idehen - Northern Line for shameless Londoncentricism.

02. Favourite album: Zomby - Dedication (4AD)

03. Favourite label: Hessle Audio, for the compilation "116 And Rising".

04. Favourite mixtape: Royal T Fact Mix

05. Favourite SC thread: One of the Friday threads

06. Favourite gig: Past Present Future Space Time festival @ Wysing Arts Centre

07. Favourite book: Tillie Olsen - Tell Me A Riddle

08. Favourite food (or Snax): too many to list, but Shana Frozen Parathas edge it.

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: godawful electro-house-rap-pop on Kiss FM at the climbing wall. Pitbull, LMFAO, Afrojack, Katy Perry, the lot...

10. Favourite random moment: seeing Sunburned Hand of Man doing their STUNNING live accompaniment to Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda in a Labour Club in Cambridge with regulars playing pool at the other end of the bar as if nothing unusual was going on...

noisemonkey

01. Favourite track: M83 - Midnight City

02. Favourite album: M83 - Hurry Up We're Dreaming

03. Favourite label: Scientific Wax

04. Favourite mixtape: Mav's 6 hour Seba mix

05. Favourite SC thread: A Friday thread

06. Favourite gig: Supporting Remarc @ Hole In The Wall, Exeter

07. Favourite book: Comte de Lautréamont - Les Chants De Maldoror

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Morrocan topped Hummus

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Too much synth pop

10. Favourite random moment: Getting booked to warm up for a Filipino comedy duo

SC thread with additional information

SubVersion Stop 147: Muttley - Seeds Of Inspiration (December 2011)

Two people sharing time together, swimming and fishing, science, mental and physical health, sociology, language, chronology, competitiveness, computer games, gardening, travel; all these things my folks allowed me in some way or another, and those subjects make their way into track titles in "Seeds Of Inspiration". I made this for their 15th wedding anniversary, falling this Saturday. The music concurrently inspires me to get up and stimulate myself with fresh experiences, whether that walking to unforeseen areas of the city, gigging, journalling, review writing, or reading books. Plus, my fusions here cast illusion to things being "new" - until I've worn out the mixtape that is. Maybe this will plant seeds of inspiration in you as well.

00:00 Will Long - 2 (Rosy Reflections MC40, Avant Archive, 2011)
00:00 Alio Die & Amelia Cuni - Water Memories (Apsaras LP, Projekt, 2001)
04:30 Carbon Based Lifeforms - Held Together By Gravity (TwentyThree LP, Ultimae, 2011)
06:00 A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears (Self-titled LP, Erased Tapes, 2011)
07:31 Mike Patton - 53-Weight Of Consequences (The Solitude Of Prime Numbers LP, Ipecac, 2011)
10:54 Jo Quail - Rex Infractus (From The Sea LP, Self-released, 2010)
14:39 Library Tapes - May [Variation] (Kanshin LP, Kanshin, 2011)
15:32 Three Metre Day - We Now Hope We Win (Coasting Notes LP, Self-released, 2011)
22:39 Lana Del Ray - Video Games (Video Games Single, Stranger Records, 2011)
23:03 David Tagg - Canna (Dream Compost EP, Self-released, 2011)
27:14 Fleet Foxes - Grown Ocean (Helplessness Blues LP, Sub Pop, 2011)

Hear it here

SubVersion Stop 146: Muttley - Hurt (December 2011)

Sparked by Statto's "Agony Aunt Thread" on Subvert Central, where he links Clarisse Thorn's "How To Break Up And Take It Like A Champ", "Hurt" came together in less than a day, designed as a movement-based archetype model, of sound that will assist listeners overcoming their heartache. Myself: I've been hurt by three women in the last three annums; the first through unintelligence, the second lack of maturity, and the third: where we drifted apart as friends despite my best efforts. Vowing to never contact again last month, it made sense to sculpt something where areas of downfall are depicted and possibly improved. In doing so, you can map areas of Clarisse's article to lyrics in the mixtape, emotions you received, and dispelling grief.

Movement 1 - 00:00 - 07:00 - Bitter Energy

00:00 Ekca Liena - Landing (Downer Supine CD-R, Entropy, 2011)
00:14 Paul Jebanasam - Music For The Church Of St. John The Baptist (Bristol Old Wall live recording, Sublive, 2011)
02:19 Joe McMahon - Empty Sidewalks (3AM LP, Earth Mantra, 2011)
03:01 Cindytalk - Floating Clouds (Hold Everything Dear LP, Editions Mego, 2011)
05:18 Bruno Sanfilippo - Spirit Allies (Subliminal Pulse LP, Wanderings, 2011)

Movement 2 - 07:00 - 15:12 - The Romancer

08:04 - A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Symphony Pathetique (A Winged Victory For The Sullen LP, Erased Tapes, 2011)
12:42 Thomas Dolby - Love Is A Loaded Pistol (A Map Of The Floating City LP, EMI, 2011)

Movement 3 - 15:12 - 24:19 - Cadence The Pistol

15:24 Matt Bartram - Cadence (The Dreaming Invisible....... LP, Drifting Falling, 2011)
16:32 Little Dragon - Seconds (Ritual Union LP, Sony Music, 2011)
20:48 Chapel Club - O Maybe I (Palace LP, Polydor, 2011)
24:19 end

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SubVersion Stop 145: Fanu - Serendipity (Lightless)

The art of serendipity: stumbling upon good things by accident - immensely gratifying to a modern liver. But like chocolate without weight gain, or a holiday with no time constraints, it's equally worrying when you indulge too often. Janne Hatula, the man behind the Fanu indoctrination, his popularity edging envelopes since 2003, "drumfunk" later shifting from buzzword to attention buzz-off, has no qualm, foraging samples across cultures, waxing them with more drum fills than The Winstons could shake a stick at.

With just heavy beats and bass to unite the album narrative, it's possible "Serendipity" could be a bland dish in the modern age, uber-production sphere. Janne's inspirations include Photek, and I'd agree that he makes snoresome beats today. Yet a subjective flaw of "Serendipity" is it's laborious 79 minute duration. However, Fanu counters this criticism with a variegated track flow, and merging into trancier melodic territory than his past albums. Ultimately it's a collection of tracks, whereby he's mentioned online processing it after a skateboarding injury allowed him the mental space to work proper.

Where once there was Twin Peaks meta data, in replacement comes crackling firework synth samples to excite grey matter. As well as the trademark vocal layers, here also spoken in Finnish - he thought English only sounded cool prior to this - the move is something that breathes oxygen into the breakbeat Jungle glaze by it's lack of synonymity. Meanwhile Greenleaf's scattergun verses on "Shatner Rap" probe from Stateside, like "a doc tor" overlooking the alt. hip hop answering machine, dropping slick off-kilter tendencies against rump-shaking drumwork to bridge the middle of the record with fairly unique style.

"Fairly" - a question "is Fanu repeating himself?" - by originality dissipating in favour of a signature touchstone (half-time breaks, film noir and rough-textured production) comes under conjecture with every artist that establishes oneself, but I can interpret from "Serendipity" that the spark I cherished from those early leftfield label releases isn't lost. The common energetic bond remains in colouring lower frequencies over the breakbeat, moreover a historical frequency pitch to the Old School, and a venture into further lower tempos, such as Dubstep territory, subsequently also veering towards the liveliness of his collaboration with experimentalist stalwart Bill Laswell on 2008's "Lodge".

If there's a fanfare to be had in "Serendipity", it's the joyous Hotpants machine-gun-and-trailblazer-atmos splatter of "I Can't Sleep", dropping an ounce of fatness and all the better for it contextually, while earlier on the dramatic breakbeat butchery of "Jupiter" lodges the Amen into a Pong Atari module, claustrophobic to the extreme but exalted by affinity with split personality edit juxtapositions. Janne's not afraid to show off his breaks collection, nevertheless he keeps things raw and the result is an organic interlocking minus the torpor. "Serendipity", fundamentally, continues the quality level of the Fanu name, sacrificing the This Mortal Coil epicness of hallmark "Siren Song" but coming off mature as a path on the Finnish Ronin's journey. Whether you stumble on this because of intention or fate remains up to spiritual guidance, but there's worth in the gale, whether or not you set sail for it.

Listen and order @ Subvert Central

SubVersion Stop 144: Charlie Baxter + Space Heroes Of The People + Left Outer Join @ The Wheatsheaf, Wednesday 26th October 2011

Synth music: not a tough guy's exercise. There you are, toying with your keyboard, a post Roxy Music Eno when 3, 2, 1, you're in the 80s room with a floppy hairdo, and if lucky, several ladies in tow. Tonight's gig might be lacking some females, but one step at a time: that relationship is a situationist nag, like trying to teach Kevin the teenager math over fat raves with his mate Perry.

Right off the bat, Moshka's attendees have a feast for the ears. Left Outer Join, all hard Techno poise, keeps his live glow stick drumming setup and Roland machine locked over a swelling backdrop of progressive goa synth-lines. His music fails to threaten but there's particularly solid genesis with his mightily energetic performance. At points we're in proper proto-Drum & Bass vibes circa 90s T Power, scattered snares chipping away at your ears but always avoiding a screeching flow.

Space Heroes Of The People follow suit with a tumult of decayed synthetic fizz, then step up the trashy percussion and 4/4 rumble. Echoing melodic innocence from 80s post-punkers Propaganda, showing a varied palette that takes in Nu Rave and filters it through a ferris wheel of proportionate vocoder tidbits and pounding bass, rather like an autochanger from dull to cool, Tim Day's vocal effecting makes the natural timbre of voice seem second rate by comparison, squelchy bleeps adorning the mid section of the set alongside Jo Edge's distant double bass. The show droops and stirs like a malfunctioning feminist juggernaut, their set ending with a simple "thank you", affirming technology doesn't get in the way of heart when it's needed most.

"Oh my god it's Techno music" on his T-shirt: a gimmicky endorsement to Indie's fervour with Dance in recent times? But Charlie Baxter pulls it off with a mullet to spare. Kicking out a Ramones surf-punk guitar shuffle, the Jungle tempo yields high octane rhythm sections, powered with 'gimme adrenaline' lyrical phrases. He approaches a more giddy version of Pendulum with those neon synths and maximalist figures, but it all sounds coherent and lacking in cheese. These are purposeful tracks filled with vim, especially his white boy cover of "Play That Funky Music". Then he gets to gesturing the audience for what they had for dinner. "Maybe I should write a song about pizza" he muses. If it's as engaging as his new single, "Charlie Baxter's In My House", a runabout featuring Europe's "The Final Countdown", he'll be one to cook for in future. A stellar night all round.

Charlie Baxter: MySpace
Space Heroes Of The People: Facebook
Moshka on Nightshift forum

SubVersion Stop 143: Muttley - Water Under The Bridge (November 2011)

"Water Under The Bridge" continues the 15 Minutes Of Fame series by me solo since "Exponents Of The Guitar" in August 2010. It's on a somber note - I've just left my family to live in shared accomodation, and the dedication of this, is to my two Bridge Building workers: one an Art Therapist who has helped me channel thoughts to paper, with discussions, and reflection time; the other a traditional facilitator assisting me re-integrating into activities post Stories Of Solace In Miniature Episode 1, my psychosis prevention project.

SOSIM 1

The music is akin to water flowing from one stream to the next, reinforcing the creation process as something natural. Let me know your thoughts or if you've ideas for future mixtapes to implement into 15 Minutes Of Fame.

00:00 Marsen Jules - Endless Whisper Of The Old Brigade (Nostalgia LP, OKTAF, 2011)
00:00 Hallock Hill - Ligonier Point (There He Unforeseen LP, HH Bandcamp, 2011)
01:59 The Winterhouse - Lost (Lost LP, Data Obscura, 2011)
05:04 Christopher Willits & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Toward Water (Ocean Fire, 12K, 2008)
07:56 36 - Vesl (Memories In Widescreen LP, 3Six, 2010)
10:30 Claro De Luna - Irse (Lo Que Ha Sidho Lo Que Sera LP, CDL Bandcamp, 2011)
11:07 Nest - Koretez Meteor (Body Pilot EP, Serein, 2011)
15:07 Rafael Antoni Isarri & Goldmund - Dissolution (For Nihon LP, Unseen, 2011)
15:38 Leyland Kirby - This Is The Story of Paradise Lost (|Eager To Tear Apart The Stars LP, History Always Favours The Winners, 2011)
19:37 Beautumn - As The Snow Leaves The Ground (Northing LP, Infraction, 2006)
30:32 end

Download

SubVersion Stop 142: Muttley & Collaborators - 15 Minutes Of Fame Pt. 50 - Wilderness (September 2011)

Back in April I posted on SC the opportunity for members to contribute tracks "outside your comfort zone" to my SC Affiliated 15 Minutes Of Fame project concept for 2011, the series dating from 2006, building over 85000 downloads.

Counterintuitively it wasn't plain sailing to accumulate the "Wilderness" tunes, since there's the question of music having redeeming qualities or not, whether you can find something to like in it - "I like this, and I'm surprised" causes of chance.

Crossing the lines between guilty pleasures and acquired taste, the mixtape, 33 minutes long, is a spiky smorgasbord of styles, was very difficult to make flow, while extending my "comfort zone". Nonetheless I'm satisfied with the result - I hope you enjoy it too.

Muttley & Collaborators - 15 MOF Pt. 50 - Wilderness

00:00 James Taylor - You Can Close Your Eyes - submitted by MetaLX

"It takes me back to the days when we used to play music on the weekends and one of my best mates was really into JT, in fact he called him "JT" (laughs). I thought his music was soppy to say the least, but, as time went on I kinda got into his folk sound! As a guitar player I was impressed by his almost psychopathic use of chords and progressions - fingerworkout."

00:00 / 06:00 / 07:34 Sonic Youth - Expressway To Yr Skull - submitted by lament

"It`s on their record called 'evol' and on the back cover it is listed as 'Madonna, Sean And Me'. :)"

02:22 En Vogue - My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) - submitted by Statto

06:00 / 29:56 Chris Brown & Benny Benyasi - Beautiful People - submitted by 247

"I truly hated this song to be begin with, but now I absolutely love it. Totally out of my comfort zone here :)"

06:43 Prayers For Atheists - Guns Up - submitted by cube

" I love PFA, but they're about as far as I've gone down the punk road ;)"

09:19 Bob Dylan - Hurricane - submitted by Ben Subvert

17:30 Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men - submitted by scart ridge

20:29 Emma Kirkby - Rise, Glory, Rise - submitted by Muttley

"Opera with Purcell tinge."

22:30 Ultravox - Vienna - submitted by Dave Trax

"Still a deep moody tune with a little cheese added. ;)"

26:27 The Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes - submitted by cycom

"An even more embarrassing song, which is more ghey than anything, but definitely a great song."

33:41 end

Download

SubVersion Stop 141: Ruff Revival 004: Rick James - Horrorface / Naphta - Copy Rider (Untold Refix)

Jungle's delirium and ridiculousness are two qualities me and Tim from Manacles Of Acid discussed at Oxford's Modernist Disco launch in August, him playing Acid House. In broad context, they shouldn't be confused for the sake of Jungle's birthright and legacy in the current decade. Ruff Revival broaches the difference between connotative sustain and decay, clearing soul and crater bass, that became implicitly associated with the demise of 90s Jungle, and the rise of wall-to-sound Drum & Bass. In certain circles, what I prefer to term 'middle road D&B', populated by older selectors pushing more modernised sounds - DJ Lee being a prime example - there's the adage that music pays the DJ, but with this project the premise is different. To quote Naphta's "My Bitter Sweetness", a work released on label-head Droid's The Fear imprint as a download in 2007: "This history, a lot of people didn't, really, understand what happened then. I'd set my turntables up and play for another seven hours - it was something I had to do". The DJ was still getting paid at best, but the industrious streak, the 'hustler' ethic, further unstripped of greed.

Ruff Revival 004 has been long time burning, like Naphta's preceding album for The Fear. Turning our focus to Untold's version of "Copy Rider", whose burnt squelch, like a wet flannel dousing the coffee-stimualted workaholic masses, we find Dubstep's Woofah-zine interviewee employing an obstructionistic tension between sampled chromatic-scale-bothering downturn, while a tribal ferret drumline runs around the easel, tail between legs. It follows the trajectory of experimentalist label Hessle Audio, where conventional half-time is also sidestepped to see if the Dub can be hectically cleansed of its tiresome sameness, all the while not straying from pleasing dancing posses, by nailing structural phrases into an ongoing mirror pulsewidth.

Rick James' "Horrorface" implies from the title alone a dream where you're being made a fool of, and because it's not lucid, you can't control it. This property is refracted by it's divergence from Amen to Think to Hotpants, alternating like a Peter Stringfellow prayer mat. Creeping up the alleyway of cool via slick modern production values, the work takes a detour halfway in, improving on the head-to-grindstone slack of the Untold riddim with Perfectly Clear sparkle dotted on the outer limits. Despite the stock sampledelia: film samples, trad breakbeats and punnet-fresh melody, there's a strong identity to Rick's - aka Ricky Force - and J Rolla's fusions that place him in unison with Tim Reaper's better efforts of late. Lofty idealism isn't always part and parcel of getting a vinyl like this out, but here Ruff Revival engrave themselves in worthwhile history, with statue-over-city flair.

SC Promo Including Digital Download Availability

SubVersion Stop 140: Sci & Tech Posts: God Is In The Neurons / Building Blocks Of DNA Found In Meteorites From Space

SC member Shift posted two ace threads on the forum this Summer, one highlighting an audio documentary that introduces all-level neurology ideas; the second: scientists have confirmed building blocks of human life exist in asteroids, that have collided with Earth in previous centuries. I'll elaborate on what caught my ear the swiftest.

God Is In The Neurons

Narrated across 23 minutes, written and researched by Athene (www.athenism.com), some of it's pertinently enlightening, encouraging propositions begin with human calculator Rudiger Gamm, who used to fail at basic Math, training himself according to neuroplasticity (strengthening of emotional connections in the brain towards certain stimuli). One self-penned comparison I picked up early, was links with - here emotional - resilience being part of meditation, and the way Athene touches on this: "Whatever you are doing at any time, you are physically modifying your brain to become better at it" he states, speaks for sensory elevation with the concentrated mind; because you are attempting to alter your hemispherical connections, consciousness increases your ardour to doing so.

My second observation in the field of studying schizophrenia, is the chemical neuropinephrine, mentioned by Athene two minutes in, creating "narrowmindedness", has more than the limbic system's primitive conditioning and corruption effecting its outcome, "knocking out most of our working memory". Here, a catch: those experiencing paranoia, psychosis or similar mental difficulties require higher levels of comfort chemicals. Oxytocin, for instance, released by mothers in breastfeeding, but also, as neuroscientist Rick Hanson outlines in "Meditations For Happiness, "when you're giving someone a long, long hug" - to rebalance their minds from the defensiveness, elucidates we cannot necessarily function coherently contrariwise - like our head's drugged inside a beer barrel.

Other highlights to consider are Athene's information that serotonin is responsible for self-esteem, so the more exercise and outside influence we get, the more control we may be able to take overcoming depression. This is already accepted wisdom, but helps detox complexities in his compacted balls of intellectual wool.

So let's arrive at the "God" internal theology to save you a great session listening and watching. Did I mention the inner soundtrack's superb too? Ambient pianos and drone shifts in science fiction manna by Professor Kliq - you can also download. Athene cannot prove or disprove God isn't in the neurons, but he can theorise of the scientific explanations in a very palatable format. Don't delay taking your eyes off this text - if you're further intrigued in anything related to personal growth and understanding.

God Is In The Neurons

SubVersion Stop 139: Subvert Central Podcast 51 - Koe

01. Sbtrkt – Living like I do – Young Turks
02. Instra:Mental – When I dip – Non Plus
03. Joy Orbison – Sicko Cell – Swamp81
04. Boddika – Soul What – Swamp81
05. Fantastic Mr. Fox – Sepia Song – Black Acre
06. El-B feat. Rolla – Dirty Dirty – Night Audio
07. Joe – Claptrap – Hessle Audio
08. Curtis Wodka – Love me or hate me – Heavy Hittaz
09. Mr Oizo – Flat Beat – F Communications
10. Addison Groove – Footgrab – Swamp81
11. Martyn – All Nights – AllCity
12. Fuzzy Logic - Hold U Back – Unreleased
13. James Blake – CMYK – R&S
14. Fantastic Mr. Fox – Fool Me – Black Acre
15. Cosmin TRG – Tower Block – Hemlock
16. Boddika – Sometimes – Swamp81
17. Ding Dong – Badman Forward Badman Pull Up (The Bug remix) – Greensleeves
18. Instra:Mental – Thomp – NonPlus
19. Burial & Four Tet & Thom Yorke – Mirror – Text

“This mix includes music I recently play in the clubs and on my monthly radioshow, Garage Sessions [ www.play.fm/radioshow/garagesessions ]”

Download (56:40 / 107MB)

http://subvertcentral.com/podcast/

SubVersion Stop 138: SubVersion Recommends dgoHn - Live @ IChiOne 7 Year Anni feat. Quest One MC, Amsterdam

"Join us on a journey, a journey through soundscapes. Not very commercial, but very enlightening" Quest One MC toasts amidst the Rephlex beatsmith's laptop set. IChiOne were the first promoters to likewise bring Boxcutter to the Netherlands; here they're embracing a rumbling tummy breakbeat feast. Shy of 40 minutes, it's a must for outsiders and percussive dance heads.

Download

Comment

SubVersion Stop 137: Anglo-Probe

An inflammatory discussion on the forum this past five weeks is "anyone know what this is?", started innocently by MetaLX researching English heritage. Two users of the uepengland site, where the image - White Wulfshead (or Wolf Of England): "a symbol of kinship, strength and loyalty for the English folk" arose - jumped in to defend their rights to a national identity, root argument "seeing us recognised as a unique people with an ethnicity that is our own". All's fair play until MickyG calls out the pretend bigotry of Statto with ridiculing rebuttals, in just as pseudo-bigoted a manner, with its lack of peacemaking to the matter at hand, snowballing the engagement. But hey, this is the way with many talks on the internet.

Luckily Statto returns with truths that "English can hardly be regarded as any sort of ethnic identity. It's the result of indigenous tribes, being modified by numerous invasions (Romans, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Vikings, Normans), and then widespread immigrations (largely as a consequence our own empire building)." Essentially the fine line: dividing racial purists, and those with a lesser intellect, thinking it okay to throw abuse at those outside their Royston Vasey culture - ("there's nothing for you here") - causes the frictions. As we later see in the SC thread courtesy of Droid, Jeremy Paxman sadly hasn't the inclination to deal with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, former BNP party member once convincted violent offender. MickyG is firmly in defense of the minority position English heritage has left, and as SC sees from the other briefly joined member...

Blobhead: "I love the Islamic terrorists, I love the anti-white Muslim paedophile rape gangs, and I love the areas where they don't even speak English. I love the black gang culture that enriches London and I love the hundreds of charities and groups out there for anyone who isn't white or English.(...)Three cheers for mass immigration and multiculturalism." - are confusing sincere sarcasm with multiculturalist values - dangerous territory in numbers, and neither big nor clever. Droid: "These kind of comments are exactly the kind of crap that the murdering scumbag in Oslo spouted in his manifesto, not to mention his links to the English Defence League." As we then learn from MetaLX, the last substansial post thus far, accumulated opinion for how he came to the uepengland website.

MetaLX: "Personally, this whole view of hating others to the exclusion of ‘your own’ really sickens me, whether it be here, or what I read on sites like the one that I found. I feel that espousing that type of view lessens you as a person; for me pride in my ethnicity (genealogy, heritage) only enhances my appreciation of others’ and not the opposite. People can spout on all they want about foreigners overrunning their country and the like, but at the end of the day I know from experience that hate is not the way. By creating, connecting, and reinforcing semantic associations like racism and Anglo-Saxon, all you're doing is reinventing that culture as racist; it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Were the Anglo-Saxons of the 5th century racists? What would they think of the filth that is being propagated in their name?" It's a burning question, and a topic that should hopefully see greater interest.

Anyone know what this is?

SubVersion Stop 136: Leyland Kirby - Intrigue & Stuff Vol.2 (HAFTW) / Paper Relics - Over Exposure (Time Released Sound)

Dub re-interpreted by Cezanne, kick-flipping over an early Electronica hubcap and leaving the city street flooded with liquid life. Busting a simultaneous equation of kaleidoscopic discolour by rusted mechanics, choral voices a la Gregorio Allegri wipe the surface, get caught in the waxwork, then slip into homeostasis. A monastery routed by Dalek science, exterminating all comers with sheer atmosphere and placated morphology - that's about the size of Leyland Kirby's "Eventually, It Eats Your Lungs", tune one on "Intrigue & Stuff Vol.2".

But words obstruct: it's music to lose yourself in, dance floor haunted or nothing. "Speeded Up Slow Motion", a derivative of Actress' dubstep splurge, hardwired to glimpsing life's meditation channel. Soon as it's snappy revolutions fade out, we're back to Kirby's dark aether for the characteristically ingenious "Complex Expedition", a tapping-on-dub-Techno's window lament, withering and unfurling like a perm sprayed with insecticide. Tangerine Dream's echo hits resounding jackpot and the notes spill out of the fray indecisively - a lock's being placed on withdraw, but territories' unsure where. This release curls and cajoles your excitement for modern Electronica - in as many strange angles as phonetics confuse a foreign peacemaker.


And peace is what Paper Relics, on "Over Exposure", are highly susceptible to. Harry Towell, you may know from Spheruleus work through Under The Spire, soon-to-be Hibernate Recs. This debut LP for the duo: him and brother Stuart, sees a calm expansion of their "Recovered Artefact" EP from Harry's netlabel, Audio Gourmet. This pair took different paths during their upbringing: Harry electronic, Stuart Rock, and if that's to infer anything, "Over Exposure" has guitar manipulation to ignite your inspiration, a flame that's always been burning - true brotherly love. There's real history in the collaboration - as Harry explained on Fluid Radio: "We thought that looking at the track titles on 'Recovered Artefact', you could quite easily apply them to the album as they refer to the destruction of the farm that the album is all about."

Indeed, "Soft Focus" stirs rustic suppleness much as Mountains and Rameses III are renowned for. And for one producer of two having minor playing experience, it speaks volumes for the artistic calibre on offer. The Towell's guarantee you'll be humming out of the bathroom regardless of if you're an electro-acoustic nut like me. Surprisingly the rhythmic side isn't interrupted or impeded. Musically, joules can answer the question of why producers negotiate continuous track orders, in their respective genres, as well as prism their approach to win you over with grace and real charm. Invest.

Intrigue & Stuff Vol.2: Order at boomkat
Over Exposure: Order at Stashed Goods

SubVersion Stop 135: For The Ambient Lovers...review and mixtape archive 001

As far as perceived, there wasn't a thread on SC devoted to Ambient in concentration, that gave reviews, mixes and purchase/download links all in one. So I thought I'd start one. I submit my short-form reviews and further recommendations for readers, with contributions already well under way. As additional topic material builds, so will the concepts and narrative.

FTAL Mixes, a topic-exclusive series, are submitted every 5 batches of reviews, collating 15 works to mix, in 45 minutes maximum. "Engaged Or Ejected", set one, has two themes: 1) two tracks playing at all times, eschewing construction's engagement or ejection; 2) pattern recognition prototype for investigating the brain's nervous system through physiological study, and how long it can be kept between the two gates before arousal disintegrates.

FTAL 001 - Muttley - Engaged Or Ejected

01 - 00:00 / 44:31 Donato Wharton - Breath Held (A White Rainbow Spanning The Dark EP, Serein, 2011)
02 - 00:00 Igor Karaca - Deserts (Rituelle LP, Darkwinter, 2011)
03 - 00:06 bvdub & Ian Hawgood - Lie In Lone (The Truth Hurts LP, Nomadic Kids Republic, 2011)
04 - 00:54 Robert Carty - Shimmering (Photonic Movements LP, Earth Mantra, 2011)
05 - 06:37 Seconds Before Awakening - Seven 4 (Seven LP, Vacant Twelve, 2011)
06 - 15:56 Mystified - Bone Drone 14 (Bone Drones 3 LP, Webbed Hand, 2011)
07 - 23:11 offthesky & Pillowgarden - Feather Anchor For A Tidal Yawn (A Dream In A Dream EP, Audio Gourmet, 2011)
08 - 24:54 Loscil - Cheekye (Only Light To Clear Away compilation, Distance Recordings, 2011)
09 - 24:55 Jacob Newman & Devin Underwood - Unconscious Movement (The Vivid Unmapped LP, Data Obscura, 2011)
10 - 31:08 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - We Enter The Night (For Nihon compilation, Unseen, 2011)
11 - 32:08 Grouper - A Lie (A.I.A: Dream Loss LP, Yellowelectric, 2011)
12- 34:32 Nawang Khechog - May All Be Kind To Each Other (Tibetan Dream Journey, Sounds True, 2011)
13 - 34:58 Tadzio - The End Of The Earth...(The End Of The Earth...A Flower With No Scent EP, Blindsight Recordings, 2011)
14 - 40:09 Noveller - Glacial Wave (Glacial Glow LP, Weird Forest, 2011)
15 - 42:08 Jon Porras - Land's End (Undercurrent LP, Root Strata, 2011)

Download and discuss

SubVersion Stop 134: Muttley & Low Light - Multiples

The first collaborative mix between Dave (www.lowlightmixes.blogspot.com) and Mick from SubVersion (www.subvertcentral.blogspot.com).

Both contributors start with a 9 minute section, multiplied to 18 minutes apiece. Mick concludes this 54 with a 13 minute mood-based response, including stems surrounding his "Spillage" EP on Audio Gourmet.

While you're out in the world looking for some of this music, head over to Entropy Records. The Buddha Machine Music cut used in section 5 is available there, as well as Beatsystem's "The Sound Of Two Eskimos Kissing".

Section 1 - Muttley
01. Stars Of The Lid - Broken Harbours Pt.1 (from "The Quiet Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid", Kranky, 2007)
02. Steinbruchel - Home (from "Home", Slaapwel, 2008)
03. Richard Devine - Murman (from "Idol Tryouts", Ghostly International, 2003)
04. Grouper - Disengaged (from "Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill", Type, 2008)

Section 2 - Low Light @ 8:50
05. Strom Noir - Rusty Nails (from "Sen Zimnej Noci", Hibernate, 2009)
06. Fieldhead - I'm Fond Of Maps (from "They Shook Hands For Hours", Home Assembly Music, 2009)
07. Rhythm & Sound - Imprint (from "Rhythm & Sound", Efa Imports, 2001)

Section 3 - Muttley @ 18:00
08. Ateleia - Salt Horse Sculpture (from "Formal Sleep", Xeric, 2007)
09. Foci's Left - Regurgitated Impulses (Spheruleus remix) (from Spillage, Audio Gourmet, 2010)
10. James Toth, Kerry Kennedy & Jason Meagher - The Time Machine (from "Honest Strings", Jack Rose, 2010)
11. David Tagg - Pentecost 1 (from "Pentecost", Install, 2010)
12. The Sight Below - Shimmer (from "It All Falls Apart", Ghostly Int., 2010)
13. Lawrence English - Droplet (from "A Colour For Autumn", 12K, 2009)
14. Quosp - Deep Space (from "Soundscapes I", U-Cover, 2007)
15. Eluvium - As I Drift Off (from "When I Live By The Garden And The Sea", Temporary Residence, 2006)

Section 4 - Low Light @ 35:00
16. Loscil - Cello Drone
17. Listening Mirror - Not Yet Ready For The Day
18. Marc Codsi - A White Rabbit In A Hole
19. Mantsevich Dzenis - November
20. Taylor Deupree (I think) - rough

Section 5 - Muttley @ 52:30
21. Heidi Harris - Stolen Child (Sand In The Line LP)
22. Helios - First Dream Called Ocean (Eingya, Type)
23. Enuui - Morality (Mindstate Disposition LP, self-released)
24. Beatsystem - The Sound Of Two Eskimos Kissing (The Sound Of Two Eskimos Kissing LP, Entropy)
25. Fursaxa - Birds Inspire Epic Bards (Strange Angels, www.boomkat.com 14 Tracks bundle)
26. Foci's Left - Ear Nest (A Breath Of Peace LP, Unreleased)
27. Foci's Left - Stable Ghosts (A Breath Of Peace LP, Unreleased)
28. Jan Linton remixes Fm3 - Zhongruan Ceng Yu (Buddha Machine Music CD, Entropy)
29. Danny Saul - My Escape (Harsh, Final. LP)
30. Implodes - Wendy (Black Earth LP)

end @ 1:08:00

Download

SubVersion Stop 133: Duotone + Jane Griffiths & Colin Fletcher @ Warneford Chapel, Oxford

Kitted out like an ark for Matrix Neo-folk gaggle, OCM's MIND-sponsored education and outreach showcase soon sells out. All proceeds going to Artscape, tonight shimmers into action slowly with Jane Griffiths & Colin Flectcher on violin and guitar. Reminiscent of classical aficionado Gavin Bryars' sunken sooth, the performance goes tooth for tooth with Cornish/Irish/Scottish piece historics. We're left with giddy aftertaste and resolutions that are always fresh. A cover of Dylan's "Let You Feel My Love" sounds more poignant here than Bob could manage with a Best Of - free of framing, unpredictably alternative. On their last instrumental jig, about a Staffyn corrugated tin hut, bumpy guitar traction rides across the strings, perfectly in time for Barney Morse-Brown and James Garrett to take the reins.

It's 'tone Cleudo in the Chapel as the pair walk to stage, black hats tipped, two acoustics, one electric, percussion and zxylophone, with no determined direction. This is the first time I've seen Barney non-solo and it's a hugely welcome surprise. Whereas his Holywell support to Balmorhea last year centred on looped guitar and cello, here it's akin to coastline attacking and receding, always infused with innature and mystery. Raevennan Husbandes, new female vocalist featuring on their album out October 3rd, gives the event a sunkist attribute, arbitrary The Cinematic Orchestra and Enigma likeness.

Instrumentally, sounds slip and slide against mics and pedals, and the venue acoustics lift any swamped or lonely output towards homely, heartfelt emotiveness. Jane and Colin re-appear as members of Barney and James' The Quintones, a noticeable and powerful departure along with Brown and Garrett; "Nightwalk" assembled from playing Cleudo itself. After an encore from "You Don't Need Church", Barney returns for "Work Harder...", the title track from Duotone's last album, and you couldn't ever say he and company hadn't earnt the right for that applause.

Garrett Brown Music: website
Griffiths & Fletcher: MySpace

SubVersion Stop 132: Adam Walker - Piano Brain (Self-released) / Berg & Various Composers - 1951-1953 Archives (Naxos)

Everyone knows the piano has the most notes of any world instrument, but seldom are the octaves a cause for appraisal. With the guitar assimilated into pop psychology like a romcom for Teletubby ASBOs, there's small room besides the regularly snob-laden middle class market to impregnate lasting polyrhythmic incense. Even when the BBC invites late night entertainers like Jools Holland to welcome stand-in pianists or as part of a band, the limelight is binary: you're better off seeking attention from hitchhikers on a one way trip to the Rocky Mountains.

Incidentally Colorado, Adam Walker's home, doesn't typify the aesthetic of his stylistic grace. He's got the experimentalism of Greg Haines but it's less slamming in the emotional registers; an almost jazzy freeride along an ever-changing peninsula; sophisticated and loose at the same time. "Perihelion" builds its phrases like a political rally on galactic osmosis; forever polarising moods but never colliding temperatures, and as the more sober pieces follow you get the idea Walker has limitless delightful melodies at the tip of his fingers. If there's one drawback of this it's that "Piano Brain" is chock full of it so you're dazed for when the real drama hits your soul, with the aplomb he's clearly capable of.

The Berg recital is not lacking in this quality, despite "Piano Sonata Op.1" sounding like key freeloading for Superbowl juggernauts. Canadian classical giant Glenn Gould's piano has a keen ear for disharmony and it's rarely restful. One can imagine silent films at hyperspeed scrolling on a clear cinema. Coming to life on Naxos in company of great violin modernists including Gloria Coates, "3 Fantastic Dances (H.Glickman)" on Op.2 stretches the pizzicato out into oblongs of textural fretplay.

Albert Pratz' modest recording career up to his 1995 decease also doesn't show on "Romances From Ellis...", where a runaway love story violin coalsces beautifully against Gould's tenative piano cascades, then sprints to the wilderness for good old fashioned kissing-in-the-forest passion. "10 Pieces From Cinderella" closes this excellent set with reverb smattering the plucks, Gould nipping the acoustic headroom when he wishes. Buy with pride.

SubVersion Stop 131: Ben Kei's Dalston Chilli

"Any of you who know me in real life probably realise I have a bit of a chilli obsession" remarks Ben Kei in his SC Chilli Growing Blog first post. Whatever turns you on in the kitchen is all fine by me. I initially met him at the IChiOne 5th Anniversary (they've just had their 7th with dgoHn) where food including Chicken Satay's were provided.

What are Ben's top three favourite chillis now he's a specialist? "A top 3 is tricky really because I like preparations of chilli as much as the varieties themselves" he notes. "I love the Habanero family, the taste is incredibly fruity and smokey and packs a mean punch heat-wise. I use Scotch Bonnets to make my hot sauces because of their intense heat and flavour, and the endorphin rush I get from eating them. They really are a unique chilli but one that's not for the faint-hearted.

I get these Turkish pickled Jalapeno slices. Now they're not like your run of the mill Mexican restaurant Jalapenos, in fact I think it might be something lost in translation, because the taste and colour are different. These things are perfect in salads, on a pizza etc... versatile and always in the fridge. Finally I'll go with Thai Bird Eye chillies. They're intensely hot but without an overpowering flavour. Perfect for pretty much everything from Asian food to pasta sauces, to north African - you get the idea. And what's also great is they dry out really well and taste just as good when they're dried."

Is it a populist myth chillis always require sunlight, or does it depend upon the length of chilli as to how much radiation it needs to germinate? "For germination they don't need sun at all, just warmth. If you think about it, the seeds are underground anyway where there's no light. Warmth is vital though with some varieties not germinating at all unless they're up near the late 20'c. Put them in the airing cupboard or on top of your boiler, cover the dish in cling film too to keep the humidity up.

Once they germinate they'll need as much sun as you can give them. Too little light and they'll grow tall and weak looking for some sun. Don't over water them either or they'll either die or give you bland fruit. One of the first posts on the blog covers this is quite a bit of detail and is definitely worth a read for anyone wanting to grow chillies at home."

In the SC thread you state high hopes for the Trini Perfume shoots with lighter sauces. If you were gagging for a cig and read that as smoke an outcome, are there any particular chillis that give off great fragrances? "To be honest, you don't get much of a smell of a chilli plant. The flowers don't smell and the fruit doesn't smell when it's growing. However, if you get something like a Habanero and cut it in half, the smell can fill your house! It's something you'll either lover or hate, I'm firmly in the love camp here."

Should you be worried about how tall hybrid plants grow, and is this something to keep in mind regardless of if you stray from natural ingredients? "I've not had much luck with hybrid plants" Ben writes. "I've cross-pollinated a fair few varieties, and had some suitably mutated looking fruit but for the most part; the seeds collected from them have failed to grow. I had one that grew last year but never flowered.

I think the problem is that you need to pick varieties which are fairly similar to begin with and this can be tricky because you can't force your plants to flower at the same time."

Finally, what in Ben's view is his best recipe for Dalston chilli? "The promised recipes haven't gone up yet - I've been looking into getting certificated through the environmental health to be able to sell my sauces. Last year I tried some sauces from a company who have won a few gold taste awards and thought 'hang on, mine taste better than this'. I always knew that I liked my sauces as did people who tried them but to find out that they're better than award winning varieties made me think seriously about making a go of it as a business idea.

As for favourites, it has to be either Ben Kei's fucking hot sauce, or my tomato and chilli jam."

www.dalstonchilli.blogspot.com

SubVersion Stop 130: Infinite Sloth - Best Of The Distortion Days LP (Black Hoe 091 download)

Ambiguity, house chores, argumentativeness and privacy promote the sloth in each of us, four states where we lose the will to proceed at a fast pace, and achieve our fullest potential. Infinite Sloth's 2004-2008 Black Hoe LP resonates thusly, and applying simplest terms, deserves your patience. Folding D&B slogan creases: classical instruments, distortion, sampledelia within the amen edit: time-stretching; short loops; glitch; syncopation, "Paper Castle": it's all very reminiscent of Sublight's Enduser. This isn't Breakcore though - for one tempo sits below 180bpm; second edits adopt ordered systematic, not fissured aggro. "Conformity Conspiracy" relies on tried/tested Ed Rush pounding two-step, but here atmosphere ripens by a stattaco tighten up break rattling out a stop/start riddim track. If only it was given more time to coalesce and layer, and Fracture & Neptune trod the path smoother on Bassbin's "Wrong Think".

Interest lifts on his remix of Parallels "Looking Out Into The Sky", taking off the Amit basketball half-speed bounce and Techno grit. There's more space in texture, again, that perhaps could be filled by drones or pads, but sparseness as LP lengthens seems appreciation conduit rather than barrier. Filters lower those lead weight drums; instead of sinking, the low frequency melody keeps you on the edge while still feeling safe. Then after a short interlude, pummeling beat arrangements return to receiptent, but direction and momentum strikes a tad lost in programming masturbation. Lay off the Scorn pornogrind aping and we're - wait, another shift! "Untitled Halfstep Minus One" realises Sloth's abilities in the way Breakage developed from dubstep exposure post-2006. The playlist closes with two Gabba styled blasts of bill-shredder Noise & Bass.

Compos mentis of Infinite Sloth, from this appearance on Black Hoe, impressions him as a Spaniard impostor, interpreting D&B roots on an English chat show - technically very proficient - at points decidedly anal - however, altogether having a skewed perception on the format. Whether this will wash well with you, like a deliberate party piece, depends on how open you are to sound as language, and language isn't always as sound as sound. Capiche?

SubVersion Stop 129: Format Umbra

Three unusual formats here: the CD-R, painstakingly designed vinyl and single-sided cassette, all sold through digital channels without the ability to buy digital direct from label. U-Cover has foraged a trawler of underwater Ambient in its limited run history, whereby TDD readers should recall a favourite of mine: Quosp's "Soundscapes" LPs. Ex Confusion's compositions on "Something To Remember", like an estranged couple's last word, dispel into the wild silence around you before you can dwell on their structure and interpersonal idiosyncracy. "Prologue (Before We Begin)" almost sounds as Helios would if he was tied to a chair, forced to write an essay on the benefits of asymmetrical repetition. It's brightest torchbearer stylewise, and notions of vignette versus suite, imply production time for Ex Confusion having the same agenda, but nuanced to suit his narrative. All better for the price that interchangeable tendency plays on drone's relationship with logic, focus and mood discrepancy.

Which is a questionable proposition for the Weevil Neighhbourhood listener. Operating via the Weevil Orchestra label - WO have issued three series of leftfield Electronica, a collectors edition - now, the second Weevil Neightbourhood brainchild, codenamed "Blindfold", also arrives as a name, not a number. The label concept signifies this - to have the catalogue instalments acting as part of a neighbourhood: places, scenes and actors, as opposed to standardised scales and developments. Hitherto this unknown artist, the collector's edition coming on dirty black to clear vinyl, has an apt double-barrelled title: "All Those Colours / We Cannot See". Transparency plays ultimatum mistress when it comes to beats labelled underground. Can we taste fervent liquor from rave's noughties dismemberment, or is there utopia on this horizon to weave your mind and soles? Gladly "All Those Colours" unites the tribal progression of Shackelton with the fussy programming precision of Geiom, while B side "We Cannot See" deflates the minimal neurofunk subgenre of Drum & Bass and takes it down, also, to dubstep tempo; Joey Beltram's mentasm dotting in like a leaking oil tanker from techstep's burgeoning heyday.

Weevil's previous tape outing, coded "Picnic" is by Felix of Repetition/Distract. Titled "Old Weevil Neighbourhood"; noticeably different from these two offerings on first hearing. A polysemous embryo of musique concrete, light chordal bass with a hibernation timbre played against filling-up-a-glass-of-juice click and scrape backing. Compared to Ex Confusion the textures are harsher, more pronounced in combined sonics as opposed to langurous drone overcompensation. Envisage Bibio on a bad hair day, slumped under the covers of his fluffy duvet, slowly coming to terms with downsides of engineered solitariness. Affinitively, Felix's work originally documented the whereabouts of his invisible cat, which is an accurate metaphor, also, for his Plainaudio and No Type post-rock - toing and froing between rest and activity, like the inquisitive advert misomner he's indirectly associated the RD lineage. Also recommended: "Halogen Breathing Lungs" from "Peripheral Geometries EP".

These three reviewed instalments distinguish their aesthetic in a convincing triplet: to listen is to appreciate you'll take chances; to take chances is appreciated listening; and appreciated listening enables you, from the records' respective outlets, to look at space for physical and take chances on ordering them.

Ex Confusion - Something To Remember: Purchase
Old Weevil Neightbourhood - Blindfold: Purchase
Old Weevil Neighbourhood - Picnic: Purchase

SubVersion Stop 128: Dying Matters

SV's Jonathan posted a cool discussion on SC recently highlighting the "Dying Matters" campaign. According to the topic, "If these findings indicate that people tend to grow more reconciled to the inevitable, others suggest lingering anxieties about the manner of one's final departure, and inhibition about discussing death." Never mind the figures, what about the here and now? All of us, it shouldn't need to be said, are in a stage of death, whether it's short-term incurable, or long-term ("...pain is pretty dreadful", Jon notes). What we are figuratively doing: fantasising about heightened conscience and resistance to the unknown side; the fact that conspiracies and ill thought out indirectness still occurs, put you closer to clocking off sooner than you intended, as a transistory pitfall, insinuated hemispherically by stress on the limbic system.

One of my favourite writers, Clarissa Pinkola Estes - see SubVersion's Fanu interview for snippets of re-processed text - penned in her superb "Women Who Run With The Wolves", that secrets of any kind affect the psyche identically. "Here is one example. One woman, whose husband forty years earlier had committed suicide three months after they were married, was urged by his family to not only hide the evidence of his major depressive illness but also her deep emotional grief and anger from that time. As a result, she developed a 'dead zone' regarding his anguish, her anguish, as well as her rage at the cultural stigma attached to the entire event." In effect, she had killed part of herself off before she, if remaining alive today, had yet moved on to afterlife.

And what of euthinasia these days: political correctness sidelined, diplomacy tablet swallowed - do we place too much emphasis on selfish behaviour - in attempting to end someone elses life? If it were me and I wanted to die, there'd be three important factors, regardless of timezone, to take into account. 1) Quality of life. 2) Quality of life. 3) Patience. Two ways, one problem. This situation leads on from causing torture to the mentally ill; those deprived of their bread and butter expression and forced to live in emotional poverty, down to mistreatment, cold-heartedness and ridiculed societal laws, perpetuates the "dead zone" Clarissa speaks of. Otherwise, vigilance to avoid snapping the straw is pivotal. "We don't manipulate people we love, we just let them know honestly how we feel and what's important to us. Manipulating people is patronizing and controlling and altogether unacceptable" said Richard Templar in his The Rules Of Love collation piece.

There are several families that have been devastated by death, while individuals weep in sorrow in silence in the existing universe. Parallels are dormant here: you can't touch time where survival is concerned, but you can work with it. "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," renowned theorist Steven Hawking added. It helps that courageous souls like Hawking have been through such an ordeal - in his case, with Motor Neurone Disease - to tell us of a hardened and fearless view. And it also puts in perspective for collective sanity that there is light waiting, as long as nobility stays intact.

Dying Matters

SubVersion Stop 127: SC Digital 012 - Soundclash 005

The paragraph, nowadays cultured, is stuck in a stories-within-stories, typsetted ambivalence made up of the sweetest coconut lines, then the most bitter nectar. Our mind is no longer designed to program in the simple sequentials. Or if we are able to grasp them, they are lost in a mire of copy as allocates your attention span. Like a scratch card: only so many chances to boost empathy credit before confidence in commerce, and communication for that matter, wilts away.

Holler at your SC Soundclash. Run by Euphony and Statto, this compilation collates the ten best submissions for SC Digital Spring 2011, so rather than one tune disappearing from hard-drive vision, you receive an album's worth of fresh talent to strike a prize with aurally. Euphony writes: "The forum has helped me meet some great people across the years, and gain some great production tips. I also owe to the label, as they hosted my first ever release by winning a previous Soundclash competition. So it was my way of giving my support back to them and continuing the SC Digital legacy, that has seen releases from some great producers over the years, such as Macc, Dissident, Pilote, and Z-No to name just a few."

When reviewing modern D&B with the jaded cap snug on, we're inevitably set to encounter one to two bar loops, techstep fissure poisoning palette from Vancouver to Brixton. But also an airgun-noise dynamic, where track/track agony awaits the breakbeat conniseur, and pseud's corner euphoria glances out the window. "Take your eyes off the road for an instant and you'll do or say, interview or schedule something that is so uncredible that all that hard work of gaining yourself a reputation will seem like a complete waste of time" wrote Simon Bates in his My Tune autobiography. Does this explain why shifting outsider press eats its innards until discrimination time, rather than praise the wound it may have created? Forever debatable until proven innocent, and arguments aren't what SubVersion is about.

Furthermore the album or compilation format isn't dictated by being dancefloor or home listening; the garbled subconscious principle that time-saver journalists with too many blunts will feed you. No, like a classical composition, there's movements within nothing (to thin air), and impermanent beat mechanics; making one minute seem a split second in the right dose - consonance obliterated if you're a Remarc fan. Accurate thusly to prescribe a favourite of Soundclash 5, with mine being SpeaK's "Silence". Doc Scott and DJ SS entrapped in a sampler sparring session.

Given that byline, how does SpeaK feel about his post-jungle being promoted with backing of credible sources? "Naturally I'm damn happy about it! Personal progress is always the most important thing for me, but that doesn't mean I won't be super glad to get recognition" he explains. Luck will have listeners otherwise that SC Digital embraces diversity, so there's hiphop and half-speed rhythms constituting the global location effort. Dive in, and don't expect to get stung.

Download for free here

SV Stop 126: SubVersion Recommends: Simon Scott - Spring 2011 Mix

Slowdive's original drummer and Brian Eno collaborator Simon Scott joins Sonic Pieces' Greg Haines and Nils Frahm, as the third contributor in the exclusive SubVersion Recommends series. Scott: "59.5 mins of electroacoustic stuff for you to digest", including "Caxton Gibbet", an offline installation piece. "I also added a recent live recording to bring in a contemporary angle as a lot of this is vintage electronic music (Stockhausen, Bayle, Radigue, Wishart etc). I want the mix to represent influences of mine that have helped inspire my music and Iive performance. Hopefully someone somewhere will discover a new music treat if they listen to this mix."

01. Anthony Moore - Mu Na H-Uile Ni A Shaoileas
02. Christian Marclay - Guitar Drag
03. Eliane Radigue - Jetsun Mila (disc 2- edit A)
04. Francoise Bayle -Toupie Dans Le Ciel 4
05. Stockhausen - Mikrophonie 1 (excerpt 1)
06. Simon Scott - Caxton Gibbet (installation piece)
07. Trevor Wishart- Blue Tulips
08. R. Murray Schafer - The Vancouver Soundscape
09. Stockhausen - Mikrophonie 1 (excerpt 2)
10. Simon Scott - Live at Bristol Arnolfini 27th May 2011
11. Eliane Radigue - Jetsun Mila (disc 2- edit B)

Download

Simon Scott: MySpace
Simon Scott: website
Purchase "Depart/Repeat" 7' vinyl at Sonic Pieces webshop

SubVersion Stop 125: Jan Linton remixes Fm3 - Buddha Machine Music (Entropy M-Series 007)

Inter-race migration: mythology, attire, stubborn vows, is no 'real' biggie for Buddhism. The irrational toss knives, splitting Yolk without heat. But jeopardy Ouija for the Buddhist, promotes God-inside-yourself. So we have Entropy giving life to Jan Linton's reworkings of Fm3 in its seventh mini CD.

With Triphop and one D&B Bauhaus cover for "Communion II", Linton's no stranger to sensuality. Here, he's resampling Fm3's lauded ambience device. In a short, six edit affair, there's cleansed detritus on offer - and no Dark Ambient cliches. "Maoduhinan Bla" penetrates warmly, next it's noisier melange. Echoing work with Duran Duran's John Taylor, his guitar mangles rectory, in combine harvester, schizo-soothed affinity.

Pure Ambient fiends, fear not: "Wu Song" delves deeper into glitch. Spread relaxation bedding on "Shengxiaozhong" impresses, but it's "Zhongruan Ceng Yu", the longest by far, that astounds, it's main instrument floating atop toned loop. "Yang (Infinite Delay)" closes; the glazed work of Boards Of Canada and Shaula adjoined; but not at organised scripture, where several religious calamities arise.

As with any conjured mass, the greater the teachings, the bigger the effect, whereby "Buddha Machine Music" meditates with you like moths to cans of Red Stripe. Fluttering in the background, clouding up enclosed space, Linton moves Fm3's instrumental chant towards a comprehensive prayer: a feat past life regression if you've 22 minutes to spare.

Sample and purchase via the Entropy SoundCloud

SubVersion Stop 124: Foci's Left - Clearing The Air, Or Writing Letters To Ourselves - for www.futuresequence.com

Keep calling vultures, and we conspire to drag dead corpses up hills. Or we could be alien observers, in worlds that aren't ours.

A mix of two halves: one built on rustling music communications; the other poignancy fractures at the blend.


Foci's Left - Clearing The Air, Or Writing Letters To Ourselves

01 - 00:00 The Winterhouse - Clearing
02 - 01:34 Shivering In Static - Yearnings
03 - 04:28 Belong - Late Night
04 - 04:42 Michael Trommer - Pushing Through Gray
05 - 06:03 Sawako - It's Not On Purpose
06 - 06:54 Olaf Tonstein - Snow
07 - 07:20 Jasper TX - Stillness
08 - 07:55 Danny Saul - (harsh)
09 - 09:09 Rhys Chatham - My Lady Of The Loire
10 - 09:46 EUS - Transparencia
11 - 11:35 Clem Leek - Light Passage II [Grief]
12 - 13:08 Antonymes - A Light From The Heavens
13 - 13:09 Quosp - Blue
14 - 14:06 Foci's Left - Cradling [excerpt]
15 - 14:34 New York Philharmonic - Requiem For String Orchestra
16 - 15:02 Mono - Halcyon (Beautiful Days)
17 - 16:19 Beth Nielsen Chapman - Panis Angelicus [stretched reverb edit]
18 - 17:35 Grouper - Alien Observer [down-pitched loop edit]
19 - 17:40 ASC & bvdub - Symbol 02 #4
20 - 18:05 Arkhonia - GDLadyburn
21 - 21:21 Robin Guthrie & Harold Budd - Turn On The Moon
22 - 24:20 Claro De Luna - Quedarse
23 - 26:22 Christopher Willits - Colours Shifting
24 - 27:07 Bark Psychosis - Rose

Listen

All tracks were chosen by title, and soundtrack a personal survey. Is collated mood too obtuse, in comparison to what runs oblique?

Happy Birthday Mum.<3>

SubVersion Stop 123: A Book Review

This book wound me up so much that I felt the need to write a review of it. Here it is:

The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock'n'Roll
Simon Reynolds & Joy Press

"Gender, rebellion and rock'n'roll" – Ooo, gender theory and music, two of my main areas of interest combined, I'll give this a read.

And then the book starts like this: "Our argument is that, whatever the ostensible pretext or context, a large part of the psychological impetus of any rebellion is an urge to separate from the mother." Groan.

No, this isn't going to be a thought-provoking book about gender and music. It's going to be a first year psychology essay.

On the next page: "He can long for the womb and for an idealised mother-lover". Groan.

Going on, it seems the authors are going to examine their subject by concentrating on the lyrics. The lyrics! The lyrics are crap. Rock lyrics are almost always crap! Rock music isn't about lyrics.

We get to punk: "a sort of asexual relative of metal: cock-rock, with the cock replaced by a sort of generalised castration-paranoia". Groan. I feel like throwing the book in the bin by this point.

Flip on to the end of the section: "Could it be that the urge to outrage is a kind of severance rite, a re-enactment of the original disconnection from the mother's body?" Groan.

Flip to the end of the next: "What to make of the mother's boy? Is he truly androgynous? Are his passivity, his apparent acceptance and affirmation of castration, his womb-nostalgia". Groan.

But then there's the next section: "Turning our attention from what rock'n'roll has made of women to what women have made of rock, it's immediately apparent that (...) the ancestors of female rock rebellion are rather more elusive." Oh, thank god. No more Freudian claptrap. And yes, this part of the book actually examines music, how women have made rock music, found their place in rock music. It talks about politics, about feminism, about real and interesting subjects. What a relief!

In conclusion, this book is one third quality, two-thirds crap. Ignore the first two sections, rip them out, use them for toilet paper. But keep the third, because this is worth reading at least.

SubVersion Stop 122: The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World (History Always Favours The Winners 008)

Multiply 16: the youth leave school; you're pushing thirty; climbing middle age. While "On the eve of the twenty-first century" David Toop wrote in 1995, "we are seeing an era focused on the heightening of sensation - a development provoked by a more destructured use of language, but which will usher in a new harmonics." That was 'Ambient talk and imaginary worlds' opus Ocean Of Sound. Later for James Kirby, "Tomorrow's world never came". 'An Empty Bliss Beyond This World' uncovers nostalgia beyond rosy retrospection, horns, schmaltz. Lauded classic 'Persistent Repetition Of Phrases' (Install, 2008), its reflections on memory loss in sonic artifice, bear staticity resemblance. Advert-length pieces to timewarped Strictly Come ballroom episodes. In bookend of Kirby's 78rpm pile via Berlin, transcendental parallel to lovingly kept recording libraries worldwide.

Shifting monikers from Leyland Kirby to The Caretaker this Spring, the only constant is a Mediterranean health: one avoiding you coasting into post-sleep narcolepsy without batting an eyelid. "Moments Of Sufficient Lucidity" lulls its piano sea shanty left to right on the ol' Gramophone, the needle crackle permeating all 14 tracks surrounding. What I'm most impressed by is the fine art approach. Some people retain memories at certain points in life, where you were perhaps kicking walls and bouncing off, or picked up a frequency from less filtration mentally. And for mood translation, this can equal a rocky ride. Likewise immature personality shows in stencilled words that leap out the page at you, like a struck match in the dark. This relates to "An Empty Bliss..." threefold: the track names speak for developed internal dialogue spleen, one that throbs away until on the point of regulatory collapse; into "The Great Hidden Sea Of The Unconscious". This gravitates second to the cherry-picking attribute of so many great samplists, inc. Philip Jeck, where the cranium swells to absorb all those fine lines to cut, re-edit and paste your reel to reel ethic.

But then, as a third, Kirby has acknowledgement the music/ad discrimination is always rigid to intrinsic properties of spatiality - one's distraction via marketing ideology becoming pixel-flesh. You could pin down any piece of non-chorus Ambient 'Muzak' to a late night BBC 2 intermission (see Edward Barton's 'Life On Earth series'), paradoxically, as chosen to enact corporate thematics within internal esotericism. A riveting prospect, surely, for the television designer. When we get to sound archivism, there's The Radiophonic Workshop to give much praise to, and this is where Kirby excels at revealing worthy ghosts, rather than ghoulish horror movie pastiche when he re-spins them into sonic spectre waltzes. Fundamentally, he's not doing it to appeal to the moneyspinners, nor the 'hauntology' nomenclature. "An Empty Bliss" won't force the diggers to crawl from their furrows, and I can bet a dime you'll dance to your grave - even after spirit and showtime depart from the sublime.

Purchase Digital Subscription to James Kirby's 2011 catalogue (offer closes June 1st)

SubVersion Stop 121: Equinox / Nebula - SA 015 / 005 EP

'Choppage' & 'Jungle' subsumed Paradox's 'drumfunk' phrase for breakbeat Drum & Bass - towards meltdown, 2008-2010. Whereby Subtle Audio's credit is noble semicolon. Its Vol. II CD compilation received 4/5 and 8/10 ratings from RA and I-DJ in January; Mixmag upping the ante with a 9. This followed reception through Mary Anne Hobbs; an "original, exciting, inventive" soundbite on Simon Reynolds' Blissblog in 2007; Aphex Twin licensing Macc and dgoHn's "Some Shit Saaink" to Rephlex in 2010. These return releases see 90s percussive diablo Equinox, and syncopation star Nebula share kindred spirit with their sYncOpathic Recordings contributions, a netlabel run by Innsbruck's Sub, also in the Subtle Audio roster, 2007 respectively.

Marlon Equinox never sold out. Here he stands, over 15 years on, mangling his breaks into a shopping trolley to make Dale Winton turn maroon. Editing drums through analogue originally, DJing parties each month since his 80s upbringing, refusing to deny euphoric catharsis that he reins in perfectly on "Meecha" and "Your Love's So Cold". A Planet Mu audience-friendly two-tracker with an ingrained historical pathology to the Old School - those "ancient ways". A 1, 2, 3, hop skip jump. So turns beat, pad, sample. Through the years of Jungle Tekno, Hardcore and pre-1998 D&B, more publically raw, emotional, non-tainted vocals. Sometimes they're chipmunked like Bay B Kane, at others they're pizza processed: Foul Play, Steve C and Monita, Bizzy B. With the latter by Equinox, "So many people out here that make so many different styles of music / This music is something that they feel", perhaps a title referencing-metaphor for sad disruption. The pure 90s rave energy, an abstinence now splattering the walls with sweat, instead of getting vibed up inside as vibed gets.

Where new classes got stale, is when taking on too much past, or too little knowledge of roots, 3 matters: progress, love, partnership, invert themselves to squalor. This remains true of 90s heroes - it's easy to revert to the systematic benchmark - presets, toytown beats - if it saves you time. Not so of Nebula with "Astral Soul", where we're given a 35 minute pass to Jungle House Paradiso, thankfully without dodgy fish. There's such a fluidity to these five works, that they surpass the highs I obtained from Marlon's "Acid Rain" EP on Mike Paradinas' label. "Escapism", pick of the bunch, has strings streaming out a deadly buzz from the amygdala complex. "Hidden Oasis" hereafter, moistly slides back, forth, constant suspension and propulsion. They say astronomy is law of the stars, so what does Nebula think? From EDJ: "I thought I knew a lot about D&B until I met Equinox, then the history lesson really began." If that's the case chaps, Plato's on the other end of the line. He says he wants your ascendancy.

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