silverdollarcircle

there's a really good mix of mathew jonson tracks here.

i can't see his album- if there's going to be an album- being any better.

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i can't decide which i like better; alter ego's 'rocker' or that other wobbly squeal of joy, rex the dog's 'frequency'.

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someone should write something about how quite a bit of techno that's coming out now sounds very hard-rocky, like t raumschmiere, and alter ego, and jake fairley. there's this movement of techno artists going on like robot Stooges or something. big riffs for drunken dancing. do the protagonists have tattoos and handlebar moustaches? do they have a packet of marlboro in their rolled up shirt sleeves? i hope so. i wonder what the belleville three, sleek and stylish hipsters that they were, would reckon to all this. scenes end up in funny (and fun) places, don't they. stuff happens.

but i can't be bothered to write much about it.

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i think that the mfa's 'the difference it makes [superpitcher remix]' should be the sound that clouds make when they brush against each other.

TOO COLD!
don't go out. stay in, read a book, drink tea, and listen to Vashti Bunyan instead:

vashti bunyan- diamond day.


so lovely.

well, it's been a weird week hasn't it. what did you do? this is what i did...

i thought about Nick a lot. his death hit me hard, as it did a lot of people.

i bought 2 todd edwards cds. ohmygosh! is this the raviest, blissiest music ever? the sound of pleasure centres sparkling and tingling... [do human bodies have pleasure centres? i hope so. they should do.]

i finally got a file sharing programme to work on my computer. good lord, what a revelation limewire is. ok, it's basically shit in a lot of ways and seeing 'need more sources' constantly is starting to drive me crazy, but i've now got a villalobos loveparade set and all the ice rink vocals and i am feeling triumphant and happy.

i thought about my thesis and wrote my thesis and went through that stage that everyone goes through when the earth seems to slip away beneath yr ideas and you start to wonder actually, may be this is just rubbish, built on a foundation of nothing. but i'm through that now. just got to persevere innit.

i listened to the latest trapez compilation lots. sheeny-shiny, often delicate, kinda-feminised techno. love it, obviously.

i ate lots of cheese.

i saw 'sideways'. a terrific film. probably the best film i've seen for the past 2 years or so, at least. it's perfect. it's understated, and funny, and unpretentious, and true, and exciting, and nicely detailed, and beautifully shot. it makes great film making look really easy.

i heard dj eastwood do a set on Raw UK. it was excellent for many reasons but the most 2 important are:
-this track done by loads of west MCs- like flirta d and i think purple and bashy and lots more. the chorus is this gang-chant of,
WHERE DO WE COME FROM?- NORTH WEEZY!!
HOW DO WE MAKE MONEY?- REAL EASY!!
HOW DO WE GET GIRLS?- THAT'S SLEAZY!!

and it's over this choppy forward riddim-style sturm und stab. it's kind of the crunkiest that grime has ever got- especially the testosterone soaked chorus. and some of that pantomime drunken swagger is fun occasionally. grizzly. also, more to the point, calling the north west 'north weezy' is genius.

-and the other reason was unorthodox fam's 'no help, no handouts'. unorthodox fam are the home of No-lay, who was on the Run the Road cd, tearing apart her sisters in grime with vicious glee. this track is even better though. come-what-may strings do the whole film soundtrack thing of facing possible doom with a steely gaze and a lonely, fixed mind, that thing that grime does often and so well, and then some MC, don't know his name goes:
"we don't need no help or handouts,
put away yr chequebooks we can manage".
it's the way he spits out 'we can manage', like he's throwing it back in yr face. bitterness and pride and anger that strengthens you while it's really cutting you apart. who can't relate to that.

i read arthur koestler's 'darkness at noon'. wonderful book about soviet show trials.

i saw 'extreme celebrity detox' on channel 4. ok, this is a cultural milestone. not necessarily a good one, but a milestone all the same. never before have 'celebrities' [the people on here are really, uh, 'pushing the concept'] sunk so low. basically, it's a programme where d-list failures take incredibly powerful hallucinogens and, naturally, have trips where they think that the spirit world has come to take their souls. all on camera. i bet their parents are proud. apparently this is all in order to 'detox' them, but they don't look very shinyhappydetoxed. they just look like they're fucked on drugs. oh and there's a bit where they have to do 'intensive masturbation' as well. it's a milestone in that it's the final, incontrovertible truth that people will do ANYTHING to be on tv. these people are without taboos or dignity, and really, it makes for some fun tv. they're happy, we're happy. so why the feeling of guilt and mild self-loathing? ah fuck it.

i noticed that lots of recent grime tracks feature the lyrics about 'shanks'. something that should please joe, and closely affiliated soft-rock combo the fandango boys.

i bought a ticket for Raindance this saturday. it's a huge old skool ardkore rave with some jungle and acid house as well. '75% MC free' apparently! i can't wait. i wonder if i'll end up buying a glow stick. i never have before but it'd be churlish not to at raindance, perhaps...




and i did not do anything else.

ok, so i'll love you and leave you [people who say that should have their voting rights removed] with this track

wolfgang and reinhard voigt- 'vision 04'

it's what i listened to after i heard that Nick had died. i dunno why. i guess i'd never be so into kompakt without Nick. and also, it's a sad track, but also an inspiring one, that looks to new adventures and possibilities. and it's been the soundtrack to this past, strange, difficult week.

x

i am terribly sad to hear that Nick Kilroy has died. i only met Nick once, and he was one of the nicest people i've ever had the pleasure of being around: i spent a wonderful afternoon with him walking around east london, chatting about music, london and art, and being amazed and uplifted by his enthuasiasm, energy and interest in the world. you could just tell as soon as you met him: he was a special and good person.

best bit of the forward riddim/Pow video:
d double dancing like a robot that's swatting away invisible flies.

worst bit:
when napper holds up that human skull. that's just silly.


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i live next to a primary school, and when my mind drifts from my thesis i stare out of the window. when i did this today, it was break time at the school. i noticed a kid running around trying to be part of each little gang in the playground. each group totally cold-shouldered him. it was like he wasn't even there. so this kid, smaller than the rest, skinnier, kind of gawky looking, rushed off to a new group. but each time, the same treatment- the same studious you-do-not-count, you-are-nothing-to-us response from his fellow pupils. i thought this was the saddest thing ever. then i noticed that he got talking to someone! his face lit up- finally he was being acknowledged. the search was over for some one to while away the grey time of a lonely school break with. i felt happy for him. then i saw him start to beat his new friend, hitting him over the head, over and over. laughing all the time. once again, he was left alone. i didn't know whether to feel happy or sad.

a true story.

hello there,
sorry for there not being much [or, anything] here recently. all that end of year round up stuff tired me out for a little bit. thanks to everyone who said they liked it- things like that make it all worthwhile innit. so,so,so...hope you've had a good couple of weeks. i have. i saw roll deep, but we'll come to that later. also, i got dogzilla to say 'big up da Kid Serious' on his show on Rinse. that was HUGELY exciting. honestly, although it shouldn't be so much fun, it really is. i might text in a roll deep set and get wiley to say 'big up dissensus crew'. i dunno. it's quite an empty life, writing a thesis, you know.

i got the ruff sqwad mixtape, 'guns n roses' the other day from here. and you should all get it too- no excuses. it's...amazing in places, but not really one of the greatest records of all time as i predicted in my end-of-year thingy. they go a bit hip hop in the middle of it and that's not really a good move. i mean, i like hip hop and all, but stick to what yr good at, innit.

[actually, just as a sidenote i think that's the hardest thing in the world- being able to see yrself objectively and work out what yr good at then, uh, 'play to strengths'. it really is very difficult not to deceive oneself, isn't it. from ideas to hairstyles to careers to dance moves to cookery to christmas presents to jokes to knowing when to let an argument go to knowing when not to have A Little Bit More...working out how you'd assess yr situation from the position of a third party, an onlooker, with no bias or vested interest or prejudice, is crazily difficult.]

anyway, digression over, what were we talking about. ruff sqwad, yes. lovely ruff sqwad. them and roll deep are the only musical heroes i have left really, apart from david byrne, obviously. you know when yr young and just about everyone whose music you like is a hero of yours, and then, for whatever reason, their hero-status starts to fade away as you get older. and now i'm left with just a trinity of heroes- 2 grimey, the other someone i loved since i was 7 years old and, in his first 4 albums, said just about everything that needs to be said in pop songs. i don't quite know what i mean by 'hero' but i know that ruff sqwad definitely are heroes of mine. i guess it's all about seeing they're music as perfect, as a completely right version of what music should, and needs, to sound like. the child in me wants to find perfection in the stuff i hear, but the adult knows that, yes, 'nobody's perfect'*. that's why you lose yr heroes as you get older, i guess. but there's still that yearning to seek out something that can be classed as perfect and ideal.

anyway, i really am rambling here. so: ruff sqwad-they're on the radio tonight, 8-10pm 90.00fm, you should lock in.



*that's the name of a really good mix by andrea parker btw. it's only £4
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MP3::::::::::
and here's a track by ruff sqwad off guns n roses mixtape. it's called, magnificently,
'shake yr bum'.
i want my girlfriend's mum to stick it on in her aerobics class for the middle aged women of SW4, but i don't think that's going to happen, wonderful though it would be to know that, just once, in a church hall in clapham, distinguished members of the community were doing their star-jumps to Dirty Danger imploring them to 'shake yr bum-bum'. In this particular fantasy of mine, passing 'youths', hearing the music playing inside and recognising it as a track from their heroes, ruff sqwad, venture gingerly into the church hall to see what's going on. after a brief moment of brain-melting confusion when they see just how cool their mothers, teachers, local shop owners etc are in their sparetime, they get somehow caught up in the aerobics class and join in with the toning exercises. smiles all round, hugs, then fade to black.
that's the fantasy anyway. if anyone's listening, that should be the promo-video.

the real reason why i posted this track, though, is not to tell you about that little bit of imagination, fun though it was, but because a] it's excellent
and b] the guitar sample bit in it reminds me of something i might i have heard on some dj rupture mix, can't remember which one [ i might have made it up], and i think that dj rupture is excellent too.

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ANOTHER MP3:::::::
another person who is excellent is dave stelfox, who does a blog here and makes me want to go out and buy lots of dancehall stuff like tanya stephens.
and this track here
give it to me- Mad Mike
reminds me of him, for some reason. not sure why- i think it's the kind of thing he might like, but i really don't know. anyway, gorgeous, lushy detroit house before mad mike went all hard and techno and more boshy i guess. it's a good track to wake up to. i like the tinkly glockenspiel melody that comes shimmering in, and the way the big 808 Clap keeps things just hard enough to move along nicely. and that main synth line is a big start-of-friday-night smile set to music [or a seven-in-the-morning sun-coming-up smile, if yr more hardcore than me]. this record was released on Happy Records. i love that. it's on a dj rolando mix called 'sweat vol 1' which i picked up in rough trade for £2.
talking of which, i got a inperspective 12" from rough trade for a quid! you know, inperspective that neo-jungle label that simon reynolds likes. so i thought i'd check it out cuz it's pretty much bound to be good if he likes it, and indeed it is. highly recommended- it's by Equinox [urgh!] and called 'Filtration' [urgh! urgh!]. but urghs aside, it really is lovely. fluid and delicate and drippy like melting snowflakes.
so, rough trade covent garden is the place to be at the moment. i got a reinhard voigt 12 there for a a couple of quid the other day too.


ok, this post has gone for way too long. not really sure how cuz i haven't said anything much really. but now i've no time for the roll deep live post, so that's for another time. may be this evening, may be tomorrow. have a lovely day and remember to have a lovely lunch. lunch is so important.