Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV




 






"I tilt my head in an attempt to keep the steady stream of blood from pooling in my eye sockets. I see BJ’s Glock lying amongst the pile of denim at his feet. I consider making a dive for it.  I am not planning to pull it on anyone. I am planning to shoot myself in the head. Death may be the only way out of this wretched hallway. I wonder if I can get the gun into my mouth quick enough or whether I should just take a fast but dirty slug to the temple."
 
Part IV of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.
 
This time out, Dick manages to infiltrate the mysterious club El Cambion only to spend most of teh night trapped in a maintenance corridor.  He is rescued by the dashing Samael who then gives him a personal tour of the clubs exclusive grotto of love.
 
 

 
 
Swinghshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV
 
Swingshift Archive
 


Tuesday, September 28, 2010

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 2)

(photo by Shaun Bloodworth)

For fans of forward thinking electronic music the end of summer was overshadowed by the announcement that Mary Anne Hobbs would be leaving her radio show on Radio 1 after 14 years. I could carry on endlessly about how important this show has been to me personally and to the music I love. In recent years the focus on Mary Anne has deservedly centered around her championing of the Dubstep scene. However, for me it was in the years leading up to Dubstep’s emergence into wider recognition in 2006 that MAH was her most vital. The electronic music landscape was pretty bleak circa 2004 - 2005 and after her hero John Peel passed away Mary Anne’s Breezeblock was one of the only places you could hear fresh new sounds on a regular basis.

The blow of Mary Anne’s departure was softened somewhat by the series of climatic headline mixes lovingly assembled by some of her favorite producer/DJs. In particular the mix by Shackleton and the final mix by Kode9 and Burial were outstanding. Both mixes manage to be challenging, uncompromising and yet extremely intimate. They were the absolute best examples of what made the show such a special institution all theses years. You can d/l the final shows at the excellent CoreNews mix archive.

Two particular club nights stand out from the past summer. The first was Demdike Stare at The Bunker. On a night that saw a disappointing, technical difficulty hampered , live set from the Caretaker and the Mike Huckabee playing amazing edits from a reel 2 reel, the Modern Love boys stole the show. Taking the crowd from fathoms deep beatless meditations to hard driving, big system techno and back again with a spattering of exotic percusion and Turkish Psych thrown in for good measure. At points, when the bass opened up, the sound rattled all of the club’s duct work adding a layer of accidental percussion to the proceedings. Brilliant.



The other big night out was the mighty Dub War’s 5th anniversary. 5 being a sacred number for any Joe Nice fan you knew the place was going to full to bursting the shouting and stomping masses. Mala DMZ was joined by “secret guest” Skream for an extended b2b set of bass-bin destroying bangers. If you have seen either selector before (and if you haven’t I advise remedying that quick like), there were few musical surprises. But for once, in a club night that prides it self on being ahead of the bass music curve, it was all about straight forward celebration. Even serious technical issues could not keep the vibes down as all had come to skank it up until dawn.

As far as home listening, the last year or more has seen a fertile ground develop along the margins of the UK’s various bass/urban music scenes. Making things even more interesting is that many of the new sounds have more in common with classic U.S. dance sounds than Dubstep or UK Garage. Case in point the Juke and B-more influenced Work Them by Ramadanman, close sibling to the unstoppable anthem Footcrab. Other housier summer vibes were provided by Jam City's wonderful Ecstasy (refix) and Space Dimension Controller’s epic The Love Quadrant.



One of the best showcases for these various developing sounds has to Kode9’s DJ Kicks contribution which came out at the Summer Sostice and has been a touchstone for me all season.  Drawing from a wide pallet of cutting edge bass music, it’s Kode9’s attention to the essential low-end groove that unifies this mix, creating a whole that is far more than the sum of its tracklist. Other shining examples of a unified groove theory have been recent mixes from Oneman, Ben UFO and Ramadanman (who has to be the hardest working man in bass music at the moment)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 1)



Despite efforts, the blog has fallen into a classic summer lull. Oddly, the lull was not borne of my annual “I’m too drunk in the sun to type” excuse. The oppressive heat and lack of funds moderated my summer shenanigans somewhat this year. That doesn’t mean there weren’t great times and enlightening cultural experiences but these things were less frequent and more intimate then in summers past.

This being the first day of autumn, I thought I would play catch up and hash together a random list of cultural morsels that nourished me through the summer heat.

If summer 2010 had a recurring iconography it was cephalopodic in nature. The cultural interest in all things tentacled transcended the previous subcultural preoccupations with Tentacle Hentai (yeah, I’m unwilling to dig for link there) and Lovecraft's Great Old One Cthulhu into a quirk of the zeitgeist more abstract and harder to pin down.














Personally the main agent of this tentacular assault was China Mieville’s excellent novel Kraken. Kraken is an immersive work of urban fantastic. Set in modern day London, it’s plot centers around the theft of the preserved specimen of a giant squid from the British Museum an act that exposes a hidden culture of peculiar cults and practitioners of esoteric arts that thrives beneath the city’s surface. My absolute favorite moment in the novel is an argument that breaks out between an evil animate back tattoo and The Sea (minor spoilers: The Sea always wins). Appropriately, I read the novel on the beach and with plenty of The Kraken: Black Spiced Rum. Kraken Rum is tasty tar-flavored (in a good way I swear) liquor that awakens a peculiar form of nautical madness in he who dare partake of the sweet black liquid (also it makes a wicked Dark & Stormy).

I’m not usually one for summer movies, but I thought Inception was as good, if not better than, the hype. You couldn't say that about a lot of movies this year. I also really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think both films re-purpose the classic big Hollywood thriller. Inception brings the metaphysical subtext to the forefront and uses CGI shock and awe to find new methods of insight into the internal life of its characters. Dragon Tattoo takes the exhausted 1990s suspense thriller (think cleverly titled Morgan Freeman / Ashley Judd vehicle based on novel by famous author) and scrubs it clean of cliche and patronizing sentimentality. The film actively works against your generic preconceptions, thereby knocking the viewer off guard and opening up space for her to be thrilled and terrified again.
















On Netflix, I was recently hypnotized by The Red Riding Trilogy. The pace and texture are absolutely engrossing but it is so very bleak. I feel like I haven’t quite figured out what makes it such an enthralling experience yet. I’m trying to get up the bottle to watch it all again.

















The best thing on television this summer has yet to come to the US. Moffat and Gattis Holmes for the 21st century, Sherlock, is one of the most intelligent and exhilarating pieces of television in recent memory There is a wonderful mix of original Holmes spirit and mythology with invigorating modern narrative and visual styles. The acting is first rate, you cannot take your yes off of Cumberbatch’s Holmes for fear of missing some lovely nuance and yet Martin Freeman, as an Afghanistan veteran Dr. Watson, more than holds his own, adding depth to a show that could easily become one dimensional and shticky. Sherlock premieres on PBS in the US end of October. I cannot recommend it enough.

I also love Brian Cox’s new science series Wonders of the Solar System. Cox’s excitement for science is wickedly contagious. The show does a amazing job of moving from the very small, personal and even mundane to the unfathomably large. Wonders is the perfect title for the series. When at it’s best, it instills in you a palpable feeling of wonder for the immensity of the universe that you may not have experienced since you were a child.

I don’t read many comics these days. The shelf space for non-super hero, original pulp comics has shrunk considerably but there are still a few wonderful gems to be discovered. Best of the lot as far as I’m concerned is Brandon Graham’s King City. Graham’s world building vision and attention to minute detail generate a thoroughly immersive alternate reality. There is an energy and a surreal flavor to KC that reminds me of classic Milligan and McCarthy books from the 80s. While the visual style re-purposes manga and European influences into something totally unique.

Ba and Moon’s Daytripper is personal favorite as well. Daytripper manages to be both narratively light and nimble and still pack a very powerful and personal emotional punch. I think this is the product of both the creators unique visual storytelling abilities and the ingenious narrative device that hinges the individual stories together (I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’re going to have to read it yourself)

The full color, Marvel published, return of Casanova has been a joy. If possible, i may love the book more now than the first time around. My friend J.B. Love’s Boondock Saints two-parter with BS’s creator Troy Duffy, In Nomini Patris is a filthy, fast paced, romp, that takes the condensed essence of what makes the films so much fun and adds a fine layer of depth to the Bros. MacManus mythos (the title returns with another limited series, The Head of the Snake,next month . Some serious grime and grit can also be found in Kody Chamberlain’s Sweets, an atmospheric crime procedural set in New Orleans. With two issues out so far Sweets lured me in with gorgeous art and a subtle narrative pace and then left me wanting more. Thankfully the next issue is due out in a few weeks.

[I’m going to put a pin in here and pick up tomorrow with the summers best music.]







Thursday, September 9, 2010

Dog Days' Nights Playlist

I have cobbled together a random playlist of tracks that I either listened to while writing Dog Days’ Nights or that have, in my mind, a connection to the story. I slapped the tunes into an 8Tracks mix for your enjoyment. It is interesting that these are very different sounds than my standard everyday soundtrack.

I will try to assemble another playlist at the end of Babes of the Abyss (Zola Jesus and The Rolling Stones will certainly make appearances).





00 RAW - Dog Days
intial inspiration for the title (among other grander things)

01 Thom Yorke - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
wake up on your feet vibes

02 The Whitefield Brothers (feat. Guilty Simpson) - American Nightmare
lock-up at the 6-0

03 Spoek Mathambo - Control
South African electro-house cover of Joy Division - perfect loft party joint

04 Gonjasufi - Duet
possible theme song for CSI: Bushwick 420

05 Cliff Edwards (aka Ukulele Ike) - I’ll See You In My Dreams
I’m still not sure why ukulele music is playing in the background

06 James Blake - CMYK
Dee's lament

07 The Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble - Dark Night of the Soul
exactly what it says on the tin

08 Bei Bei & Shawn Lee - East
Rodriguez’s action theme

09 Oneohtrix Point Never (feat. Antony) - Returnal (christian fennesz remix)
“you've never left, you've been here the whole time”

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III


"As best I can tell, through the bad in browser translation, HandiMandi is a forum for Eastern European transsexuals who are also home improvement enthusiasts. Even by .ru standards, it seems a little too obscure to be for real. Judging by the jarring amount of unintelligible grammar in the posts, either the site is the world’s greatest spam-bot magnet or most of the traffic is shady bastards like me leaving obscured covert messages."


Part III of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

In this chapter, we venture to the dark backwaters of the internets where Dick flexes his best spam-bot impersonation. MacEndroe re-emerges at the end of the sordid paper trail surrounding the El Cambion nightclub. The cat steals a few more scenes and both Ed/Lou and the L-Girls make appearances.

My apologies for the spacing and formatting glitches. They should be sorted out shortly.



Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

Swingshift Archive