Thursday 29 August 2013

"Act like you fuckin' know!" A Hip-Hop mix from 86 - 92: The days when my laces were fat and Jacko was black.

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A mix I threw together just the other afternoon. Just shy of 2 hours full of records made in what I consider to be the golden age of Hip-Hop,,,, so there. Tracks from Schoolly D, Grand Puba, Showbiz & A.G, The Pharcyde, Uptown, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Jewel T, Tribe Called Quest and the like.
Look out for early appearances from a very young Jay-Z, Nas, Busta Rhymes, MF Doom and Big L.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Lenin: The Hoxton Years.

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The scene: a raised platform, ringed with bright white lights, set before a surging mob, waving placards for pitchforks, bearing the political slogans of the post-ideological age, spitting and grimacing, desperate for vicarious gratification, their toothy grins tinged with the threat of violence. On the platform: to the left, Davina McCall, professional cuntist; to the right, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Between the pillars of light, grotesquely large pictures of Lenin's face. For a brief moment they both stare blankly forward – a cameraman gives a series of hand signals – suddenly they are animated, Davina cheering and throwing up her arms, Lenin frantically tapping his nose and beard in a nervous fit.
DAVINA: Welcome back to Celebrity Big Brother, and welcome to Vladimir! Yeah,,,, woo hooooo!!!!
The crowd erupts in – not a cheer, exactly, but a noise, a muffling of yelling and clapping and belching and roaring and stamping of feet, an unsavoury commotion.
LENIN: Thank you very much, no, yes, it is an honour.
DAVINA: And it’s an awful shame, isn’t it, because you were so close, you were one of the last four left in the house.
LENIN: Well, yes, I am not so much interested in the winning of the show, the accolades, the headlines, and so on, and so on – but the fantasy of being the last person in the house, to be alone in the house, with the cameras, with the constant presence of the Big Other, this I am interested in. It is a recurring theme in Russian literature, no? You are alone in the house, but you are not alone, someone is there, someone is watching you – it is a perverse fantasy, I think. And very much Freudian, as well, in the sense of the home being a place of danger. So I am disappointed I did not win, yes, very much, indeed.
DAVINA: (unfazed) Let’s talk about some of the other housemates. There was a lot of tension, wasn't there, between you and Rizzle Kicks?
LENIN: (with a startled snort) You say there was? I did not see any of this tension, entirely not, I felt they were interesting men – maybe clinically, perhaps, you could say.
DAVINA: (to the crowd) Shall we show him the diary room tapes?
The crowd roars its. Fists are flung into the air in jubilatory schadenfreude: some miss and collide with another person, suddenly a hundred brawls are taking place,the crowd turns in on itself, here and there knives are produced and the sharp tang of blood mixes with the stink of sweat in the air. Only after the first few gunshots are heard do the security guards intervene: rottweiler-faced men in dayglo jackets force their way towards where the violence is at it's most intense – they are consumed by the crowd. Perhaps they are killed, perhaps they melt into it? It is impossible to say. A line of police cavalry charges. At first they make some progress: those at the edges of the crowd are swiftly truncheoned and detained, but soon the horses find themselves mired in the furious swarm, and in their anxiety they throw off their riders, the line is broken, the plan of attack evaporates. Some of the crowd attack the horses, some of the horses start fighting one another, gnawing chunks from each other’s necks. In the near distance, the low rumble of heavy artillery can be heard.
DAVINA: Let’s show him the tapes!
RIZZLE KICK #1: (onscreen) I just don’t get him man, like, what’s he done, why is he here? I ain’t never seen him on anything, like, nothing. And he’s some fucking wasteman, like, man ain’t had a single shower since the start of the show, swear down, he fucking stinks, doesn't he? I can’t fucking sit next to him, or like even near him, you know what I’m saying? And he chats some breeze, innit. I’m saying, it’s not just his weird accent, and all the snorting and those little hand twitchy things he’s always doing, you know what I mean – he’s talking about politics the whole time: like, yeah, cool, but it’s all revolt against this, up-rise against that everything’s perverted, I can’t take a dump without it being some representation of my desires in the symbolic order or whatever – I’m like, are you kidding me? This guy built a career on that bullshit? It’s not even anything, really, it makes its own internal sense, kinda, but it’s entirely divorced from the actuality of human subjectivity and the actuality of the human condition, and that’s what the ultimate focus of political philosophy needs to be, not all these proletariat abstractions. It bears no relation to how people actually function, it’s a poststructuralist psychoanalysist’s fantasy about how people actually function. So, nah. Me and Vlad aint not no never g'wan be breddas. I don’t see us being in the getalong gang in the Big Brother house, getsmeh?
DAVINA: So, Vladimir, how does that make you feel?
LENIN: Well, myself, I make it a point of never reading my critics, never reading my reviews. Or I will tell the publishers: put the bad reviews on the back of the book! My audience know who I am, they will read me anyway. But Mr Kicks – he is ultimately an empiricist, he has a very British way of conceiving these things, this antipathy towards the abstraction, the Continentalism, and so on, and so on. In his music and his music videos, the focus – it is entirely on the immediacy of experience, no? So his criticism, it is still rooted in ideology, this I claim.
The ideological disagreement, it does not translate into personal antagonisms. But I should say, the proceduralism of intimacy in the diary room, it is exactly like Catholic confession, no, it is exactly the same. You do not confess to the priest, your confession is directed towards God, towards the Infinite Other. You do not talk to Big Brother, you talk to the Big Other, to the audience at home, to the Holy Spirit. After I am evicted from this house, I am no longer a participant, I am an observing subject. Then it is acceptable to show me these tapes – it is a form of licensed voyeurism, is it not?
DAVINA: (nodding her head) One last question.
LENINN: Please, please, go on.
Throughout this exchange Davina has been undergoing a grotesque metamorphosis: her cheeks grow fuller, her paunch expands, her tit's shrink, her hair turns white and recedes. At first the faint shadow of a moustache falls on her upper lip, then stubbly hairs sprout from her chin. Soon she has a full beard, her eyebrows sit heavily on her brow, her camera-friendly coquettishness becomes a stern gaze, almost disdainful, which she now fixes on Lenin. She is no longer Davina McCall: instead, Slavoj finds himself being scrutinised by the unmistakeable visage of Karl Marx – or perhaps Jehovah; depictions of the two are, after all,  very similar.
MARX: Do you not think that your participation in this televisual charade, your gleeful willingness to put your theorising at the services of capital, your unashamed prostitution, your jestering and japing, your fruitless contrarianism, psychoanalysis – do you not think that this not only casts disrepute on your status as a serious Marxist thinker, but also cheapens Marxism itself? Are you not turning revolutionary ideology into just another media gimmick?
The crowd, who are all orthodox historical materialists, nod sagely.
LENIN: I know you. You said a man should be able to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticise after dinner. Well then – can I not play the jester in the morning, advertise for garment retailers in the afternoon, appear on reality TV in the evening, and still be a serious political philosopher after dinner?
MARX: You forget that we are still living under capitalism.
LENIN: But under capitalism, we must still live.
The crowd, wracked by confusion, briefly organises itself into a series of non-hierarchial communes, forms a workers’ state, undergoes rapid wealth, becomes disillusioned. Defeated, they shuffle back to their allotted space in front of the platform.
DAVINA: (for it is her again: the beard has gone, the grin has returned) Well, Vladimir, it’s been a pleasure to have you on Celebrity Big Brother. Do you have anything else to say before the end of the show?
LENIN: Yes, I do. I would like to say that I endorse all the products of the Apple and Pepsi corporations, and that the cool refreshing taste of a glass of Coke-A-Cola proves without question that the transcendent object of desire is not in fact unobtainable – in fact, it can be obtained at your local newsagent or grocery store.
Lights wind down, theme music plays, scattered applause. Lenin, rising from his seat to re-enter the world, takes an especially deep snort – then starts to gag. Something is clearly wrong. Davina sits impassively as Lenin chokes on his own mucus: the cameras are off, after all. Lenin writhes on the ground, flailing frantically. The sycophantic crowd tries to imitate his dying motions. Everywhere they collapse, their limbs jerk around, they feign choking noises. Everything begins to blur: the crowd, the stage, the cameras – now they are only a single undulating mass, a throbbing that reaches up above the horizon and encircles the world. Perhaps an orgy is taking place, it’s difficult to tell. There are no images any more, no clearly defined shapes or people, only an immense all-enveloping pulsation. Suddenly the giant visage of Mikhail Bulgakov appears over the whole throng laghing hysterically. Then as suddenly as it began, he dream ends. Still, nothing is understood.

Monday 26 August 2013

Andrew Weatherall live @ Chambre69 for the Primal Scream after-party.

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You fancy three and a half hours of The G'vnor playing records for your delectation at a Primal Scream after-party? OBVIOUSLY!
Recorded at the opening night of Chambre69 in Glasgow back in 2011, this mix has been a regular on our iPods and stereo's since then. The club acted as the host for the official after-party for the SECC Primal Scream gig with Weatherall guesting all night. As you would expect, it's an absolute cracker. Hope you enjoy. X


Thursday 22 August 2013

No UFO's. Part 1.

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UFO's ARE BACK in the news, and it is high time we took a serious look at this phenomenon. (Actually, the time is ten past eight, so not only are we a few minutes late but I'm hungry.) Up until now, the entire subject of flying saucers has been mostly associated with kooks or oddballs. Frequently, in fact, observers will admit to being a member of both groups. Still, persistent sightings by responsible individuals have caused the Royal Air Force and the scientific community to reexamine a once skeptical attitude, and the sum of two hundred pounds has now been allocated for a comprehensive study of the phenomenon. The question is: Is anything out there? And if so, do they have ray guns?
All UFOs may not prove to be of extraterrestrial origin, but experts do agree that any glowing cigar-shaped aircraft capable of rising straight up at twelve thousand miles per second would require the kind of maintenance and sparkplugs available only on Jupiter. If these objects are indeed from another planet, then the civilization that designed them must be millions of years more advanced than our own. Either that or they are very lucky. Professor Leon Paperjam postulates a civilization in outer space that is more advanced than ours by approx fifteen minutes. This, he feels, gives them a great advantage over us, since they needn't rush to get to most appointments. Dr. Bernie Mansize, who works at the Mount Lambton Observatory, or else is under observation at the Mount Lambton Mental Hospital (the letter is not clear), claims that travellers moving at close to the speed of light would require many millions of years to get here, even from the nearest solar system, and, judging by whats on at the cinema, the trip would hardly be worth it. (It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as your hat would more than likely keep blowing off.)
Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought—particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things. The key factor in thinking about the universe, however, is that it is expanding and will one day break apart and disappear. That is why if the girl in the office down the corridor has some good points but perhaps not all the qualities you require it's best to compromise.
The most frequently asked question about the UFOs is: If saucers come from outer space, why have their pilots not attempted to make contact with us, instead of hovering mysteriously over deserted areas? My own theory is that for creatures from another solar system 'hovering' may be a socially acceptable mode of relating. It may, indeed, be pleasurable. I myself once hovered over an eighteen-year-old decathlete for six months and had the best time of my life.
It should also be recalled that when we talk of 'life' on other planets we are frequently referring to amino acids, which are never particularly gregarious, even at parties. Most people tend to think of UFOs as a modern problem, but could they be a phenomenon that man has been aware of for centuries? (To us a century seems quite long, particularly if you are holding an I.O.U. from me, but by astronomical standards it is over in a second. For that reason, it is always best to carry a toothbrush and be ready to leave on a moment's notice.) Scientists now tell us that the sighting of unidentified flying objects dates as far back as Biblical times. For instance, there is a passage in the 'Book of Leviticus'  that reads, "And a great and silver ball appeared over the Assyrian Armies, and in all of Babylonia there was wailing and gnashing of teeth, till the Prophets bade the multitudes get a grip on themselves and grow the fuck up!"
Was this phenomenon related to one described years later by Parmenides: "Three orange objects did appear suddenly in the heavens and did circle the bar area of Athens, hovering over a hotel swimming pool and causing several of our wisest philosophers to grab for towels"? And, again, were those 'orange objects' similar to what is described in a recently discovered twelfth-century Saxon-church manuscript: "A lauch lauched he; wer richt laith to weet a cork-heild schonne; whilst a red balle lang owre swam aboone. I thank you, ladies and gentlemen"? This last account was taken by medieval clergy to signify that the world was coming to an end, and there was great disappointment when Monday came and everyone had to go back to work. Finally, and most convincingly, in 1822 Goethe himself notes a strange celestial phenomenon. "En route home from the Blakelaw Anxiety Festival," he wrote, "I was crossing a meadow, when I chanced to look up and saw several fiery red balls suddenly appear in the southern sky. They descended at a great rate of speed and began chasing me. I screamed that I was a genius and consequently could not run very fast, but my words were wasted. I became enraged and shouted imprecations at them, whereupon they flew away frightened. I related this story to Beethoven, not realizing he had already gone deaf, and he smiled and nodded and said, 'Right.'"

To be continued,,,,,

Monday 19 August 2013

Chris Duckenfield * Musica Adriaticus Vol 3.

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Latest in the informal 'Musica Adriaticus' series of mixes from bassbin watcher, and perennial favourite here at 'Thoughts On Love And Smoking' Mr Chris Duckenfield.
Another faultless selection of vitamin D dispensing sun drenched beauts for your ears to savour so whack on some factor 20 and enjoy while that big yellow ball of burning gas in the sky is still looking on us favourably! X


Sunday 18 August 2013

BIN-FERNO!

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Well, Dan Brown’s latest novel 'Inferno' went on sale a few months back and as expected careered straight to the top of the bestseller charts and has sat there ever since. Naturally, I am a little jealous. However, unlike the throngs of (other) snobbishly unpublished authors who take it upon themselves to parody Brown’s works, I decided it would be far more productive for me to try to learn from someone so clearly a master of his craft. Study him for hints and tips that could help me mug off the book buying public and in the process make fucking millions of pounds!
That said, I needed an edge on my competitors, and just reading Inferno wouldn’t cut it. I know his next novel, scheduled for publication in 2015, had already been written. So at midnight last night I parachuted stealthily out of a Cessna 172 Skyhawk plane with a Garmin G1000 Primary Flight Display flying at 13,000 feet over the small Westphalian city of Gütersloh – home to Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, parent company of Doubleday, the publisher of Dan Brown’s novels. Landing on the roof of the squat office building, I quickly incapacitated the guards, who were armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine guns, for reasons best known to themselves. Gingerly, I entered the building through a ventilation duct. Eventually I found myself outside the room where Dan Brown’s next novel was being kept. What I found in there revolted me. The air stank of death and rotting bananas. The shit-speckled walls, the piss-sodden carpet, the flies, the rats. I kicked in the door and combat rolled into the room to be greated with the sight of approximately a thousand primates sat there on ergonomic office chairs, chained to antique typewriters.
The macaques and tamarins were visibly distressed, straining at their manacles, screeching helplessly, banging their heads against their desks. A few chimpanzees had resigned themselves with seeming good humour to their work, while one typed, another groomed its back. By the far wall, a sad-faced old orangutan slowly and rhythmically pressed the ‘H’ key, over and over again, staring dejectedly at the reams of paper it had yet to fill. The baboons seemed to be in charge of the place, though.
They were unshackled and as I entered they shrieked in unison, baring their yellow fangs. I grabbed a few sheets from the typewriter of the nearest gibbon and ran in fear for both my life and sanity. As I left the building, pursued by the chilling screams of the baboons, I briefly passed 'Bertelsmann’s Employee of the Week' board. On every square was a picture of a baboon. And at the top, smiling benevolently down on them, was a photo of the corporation’s legendary former CEO: a silverback gorilla, staring with a pipe in his mouth and the faint gleam of a deep unknowable wisdom in his round brown eyes.

The following transcript is an approximation of what sense I could make of the documents I managed to steal from the chamber of the apes. Read it at your peril:

THE STORY SO FAR: Around the world, hundreds of men and women drop dead on the same day. The tall man Chad McRib, professor of Obscurantology at Hardton University, is accused of complicity in their deaths. Fleeing the French police through the streets of Paris, he finds himself catapulted into the ancient mysteries of the 20th Century, as it emerges that all of the victims had at one time or another been patients of the maverick psychoanalyst Jacques Loran. After Chad enlists the help of the beautiful European nuclear scientess Slavojin Ziek, it is discovered that Loran had been highly radioactive. It was for this reason that he had gone against the 'Société Parisienne de Psychanalyse' in introducing shorter sessions: he knew that prolonged exposure could give his patients a lethal dose of radiation. But who had irradiated him, and why? Chad and Slavojin delve into the sewers of Paris with a stolen copy of Loran’s notebooks to find the answer, but find themselves trapped in the terrifying Mirror Stage, and shadowed by mysterious gazing figures…


"The tall brown-haired man walked into the room. The man was Toned McRib, who was tall. The attractive woman Slavojin Ziek clung to his arm. The whir of a VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) air-conditioning unit hung in the air, which was suffused with the hum of a VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) air-conditioning unit. “We’ll be safe here, Slavojina,” Toned said. “As we have checked into this hotel, the Hôtel Fièvre Gastrique on the Rue Grossier, under false names, the Big brOthers will be unable to find us here, in this particular place.” Slavojin reclined delightfully on the expensive bed. “Zhe question ish, what ish it we should we do now?” she purred, like a cat suddenly teleported to Planet Milk. “Theesh I claim: we musht carry out the sexual act, it ish our duty, in zhe Kantian senshe.” Her hand fluttered teasingly over her eyebrow and the bridge of her bulbous running nose as she grunted sensuously. “While it is true that we are now experiencing a high level of mutual attraction, especially when compared to our first meeting two days ago, during which you were somewhat wary of me, we have no time for that,” said Toned, who was high in stature and in the amount of M-kat in his system and had brown hair. “Whoever those people are, they won’t stop looking for us until they have these écrits,” he continued. “Whatever the secret is, it must be hidden in this notebook,” he whispered. The notebook was square and had yellowed over the years. Its cover was black with embossed gold lettering. The paper was made from pine woodpulp. 60% of the pulp that had gone into the notebook had come from a single pine tree. The tree had been planted in 1928 near the Spanish town of Rascafria. In 1941 a Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca adalberti) had nested in its branches like a zeppelin docking at the Empire State Building. The eagle was later shot by a hunter named José Mercader, who had a thick moustache and later fell into stagnation for unrelated reasons. None of its chicks survived. McRib opened the notebook with his fingers, which were long and slim, much like his body, which was tall and slim like his clothes prop, which was long and slim. He read a few pages, like a crowded people carrier plunging tragically off a cliff. I’ve got it, he thought. If the unconscious mind is itself a series of chains of signification, then literally everything has a hidden meaning and every single object is part of a vast religious conspiracy. But what could be the purpose of it all? Suddenly, he knew,,,,,"


Friday 16 August 2013

"Something for the weekend sir?" New 'Needle Exchange' mix.

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Literally trying everything I can to dodge doing any work this afternoon so thought it would be entirely appropriate to pimp out my latest mix. Number 6 in the 'Needle Exchange' series (named so as they're all done on decks, 'needle' get it?) dusted off live in one sitting just the other night. As per it's done in 1 take, no re-do's so you get all the usual things you've come to expect, like turning the wrong channel down, leaving the wrong channel open, records skipping and crackling and a whole host of other peccadilloes.
Musically it's pretty fractured containing very little of what could be described as actual 'house music' but if you fancy lairy Northern poetry, potty mouthed hip hop, authentic Glasgow miserablism, French pop, early 80's angular funk and an authentic hands in the air piano anthem (all in the first hour by the way!) then you've docked at the right port! Anyhow, hope you enjoy at least some of it.

Big love.
Mark. X


Sunday 11 August 2013

HORROR!scopes.

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CANCER: Stop and smell the flowers. Nope those aren't real either. Where are you? What is this strange, lonely world? Hello? *echoes*

GEMINI: What has 4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 3 at night? This weird dog that needs a good home!

TAURUS: Children should be seen and not heard. It's the other way around in this dark forest, though. The GPS has stopped working, too.

ARIES: There are no dumb questions. Only dangerous ones. Watch your mouth. Watch your neighbor's mouth. Who is the rat here?

PISCES: They see you. Get out of your house. Run!

AQUARIUS: Your days are numbered. They're numbered randomly from here on out. Write everything down. Everything. Include dates.

CAPRICORN: Sorry about that argument with your friend last week. But don't worry. Everything's been "taken care of" *wink* *gnarled grin*

SAGITTARIUS: Some things are better left unsaid. They are written on limestone and buried under your home. Never look for these things.

SCORPIO: Roses are ash. Violets are ash. Ash. And some cold wind. Mostly ash.

LIBRA: Ghosts aren't real, so I have no idea what that awful noise in your walls is. How long is your lease?

VIRGO: It's not to late! It's not too early, either! Time does not exist for you. Unfortunately, you are immortal.

LEO: You take the good. You take the bad. You take them both and there you have some biscuits and some tarantulas all mixed together.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

THE Definitive Guide To Definitive Guides!

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I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me. As it turns out, physics, like the grating, know it all friend everyone has, has all the answers. The big bang, black holes, and the primordial soup turn up every Wednesday in the Science section of the Chronicle, and as a result my grasp of general relativity and quantum mechanics now equals Einstein's — Einstein Johnson, that is, the green grocer.

How could I not have known that there are little things the size of a 'Planck length' in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark shed how hard it would be to find!? And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a tie & jacket? What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore time passes quicker than to a man on a boat—especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.

The latest miracle of physics is string theory, which has been heralded as a T.O.E., or 'Theory of Everything.' This may even include the incident of last week herewith described.

I awoke on Friday and because the universe is expanding, it took me longer than usual to find my pants. This made me late leaving for work, and because the concept of up and down is relative the lift in the hotel I got into went to the roof, where it was very difficult to get a taxi. (Please keep in mind that a man on a space ship approaching the speed of light would have seemed on time for work, or perhaps even a little early and certainly better dressed.)

When I finally got to the office and approached my employer Mr. Moncheck to explain the delay, my mass increased the closer I came to him, which he took as a sign of insubordination. There was some rather bitter talk of docking my pay, which, when measured against the speed of light, is very small anyhow. The truth is that compared to the amount of atoms in the Andromeda Galaxy I actually earn quite little. I tried to tell this to Mr. Moncheck, who said I was not taking into account that time and space were the same thing. He swore that if the situation should change he would give me a raise. I pointed out that since time and space are the same thing, and it takes three hours to do something that turns out to be less than six inches long, it can't sell for more than five pounds anyway! The one good thing about space being the same as time is that if you travel to the outer reaches of the universe and the voyage takes three thousand earth years, your friends will be dead when you come back, but you will not need Botox.

Back in my office, with the sunlight streaming through the window, I thought to myself that if our great golden star suddenly exploded this planet would fly out of orbit and hurtle through infinity forever - another good reason to upgrade your mobile phone. On the other hand, if I could someday go faster than a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and recapture the light born centuries ago, could I then go back in time to ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome? But what would I do there: I hardly knew anybody!

It was at this moment that our new secretary, Miss Kelly, walked in. Now, in the debate over whether everything is made up of particles or waves Miss Kelly is definitely waves. You can tell she's waves every time she walks to the canteen. Not that she doesn't have good particles but it's the waves that get her the jewelry. My wife is more waves than particles too, it's just that her waves have begun to sag a little. Or maybe the problem is that my wife has too many quarks. The truth is, lately she looks as if she had passed too close to the event horizon of a black hole and some of her, not all of her by any means, was sucked in. It gives her a kind of funny shape, which I'm hoping will be correctable by cold fusion. My advice to anyone has always been to avoid black holes because, once inside, it's extremely hard to climb out and still retain one's ear for music. If, by chance, you do fall all the way through a black hole and emerge from the other side, you'll probably live your entire life over and over but will be too compressed to go out and meet girls.

And so I approached Miss Kelly's gravitational field and could feel my strings vibrating. All I knew was that I wanted to wrap my weak-gauge bosons around her gluons, slip through a wormhole, and do some quantum tunneling. It was at this point that I was rendered impotent by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. How could I act if I couldn't determine her exact position and velocity? And what if I should suddenly cause a singularity; that is, a devastating rupture in space-time? They're so noisy. Everyone would look up and I'd be embarrassed in front of Miss Kelly.

Ah, but the Woman has such good dark energy. Dark energy, though hypothetical, has always been a turn-on for me, especially in a female who has an overbite. I fantasized that if I could only get her into a particle accelerator for five minutes with a bottle of Chateauneuf Du Pape I'd be standing next to her, with our quanta approximating the speed of light and her nucleus colliding with mine. Of course, exactly at this moment I got a piece of antimatter in my eye and had to find a piece of tissue paper to remove it. I had all but lost hope by the time she turned toward me and spoke.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was about to order some coffee and a bacon sarnie but now I can't seem to remember the Schroedinger equation. Isn't that silly? It's just slipped my mind."

"Evolution of probability waves," I said. "And if you're ordering I'd love an English muffin with neutrons and tea."

"My pleasure," she said, smiling coquettishly and curling up into a Calabi-Yau shape. I could feel my coupling constant invade her weak field as I pressed my lips to her wet neutrinos. Apparently I achieved some kind of fission, because the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the floor with a bruise on my eye the size of a supernova.

I suppose physics can explain everything except the softer sex, although I told my wife I got the shiner because the universe was contracting, not expanding, and I just wasn't paying attention.

Tuesday 6 August 2013

Ivan Smagghe * Live @ Awakenings Festival.

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Ivan Smagghe belongs to a top table of DJs that journalists like to lazily describe as “The DJ’s DJs”. Yet this empty, cod-elitist compliment serves only to further short change him. Ivan has the ability to play music like a raw conduit between his famously obscure records and the dancefloor’s strobe-soaked bodies, injecting something of himself seamlessly into the mix along the way. His (I hate to use more lazy cliche's) genre defying/defining production work originally in Black Strobe and now in It’s A Fine Line with Tim Paris has over hte years connected him to and (rightly) garnered the praise of the likes of James Murphy, Trevor Jackson, Ata, Optimo and his sometime partner in crime Andrew Weatherall. All fellow crusaders in the fight to prove that electronic music can be so much more than a one dimensional soundtrack for a night on the lash. Recently the success of his musical blog 'A Few Things From Ivan Smagghe' has generated a compilation series of edits for Paris uber-fashion store Colette with the first volume sold out in just a week. His afore mentioned project with Tim Paris, It's A Fine Line, has already cranked out numerous remixes (from Superpitcher to the XX) and releases that can't easily be pigeonholed (electro rockabilly on Kompakt to rickety Italo disco on Marketing Music). Aside from his A&R role for Kill The DJ (who have released the first EP of RMVN, Ivan’s project with Roman Flugel), Ivan has also started solo work as well as more planned collaborations with musical friends (Ewan Pearson and Tiga being first on the list). Anyway, enough with the gushing praise and over to the rench chap for a recording from the 'Awakenings Festival' that exudes the galic aplomb and more than an air of his infamous French flair.

Big Love. X

 

Saturday 3 August 2013

David Holmes * Widescreen Sounds on the Proton Drive.

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Another fantastic dream-like mix excursion from David Holmes as he returns to 'Dublab’s' music exploration HQ for the Proton Drive fundraiser to spin another set, web full of wonder. Close your eyes and let this session unfold as the fuel for your wide imagination. Tones flow with resonant mystery and pull you into a new existence of lush saturation. Tune-in and you’ll never turn off.

Check out the excellent 'Dublab' website/radio station here.


And be sure to check out David’s brilliant new film 'Good Vibrations' at a well curated movie house near you!

 

Friday 2 August 2013

A Love From Outer Space: Live @ Electric Elephant, Main Stage. 2013.

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"After a recorder malfunction last year which left many a gutted customer weare pleased to announce that this years amazing A Love From Outer Space Main Stage set at Electric Elephant."

This one has had some hammer the last 72 hours I'll tip you! Same drill as always, Weatherall & Johnston rolling out the slow stuff. 5 hours of sub 120 bpm weaponry live from the main stage of this summers Electric Elephant festival in Croatia.

Dig in. X


Thursday 1 August 2013

Surviving Shark Week Again.

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",,,, more like "Happy End of Humanity." I replied.

I couldn't believe that the other day, someone actually muttered those words at me,,,, "Here's your ticket, next time keep it under 60 while driving past a first school,,,,, oh, and Happy Shark Week."

Pffft. Shark Week. Are you fucking kidding me?!

Who's idea was it to throw a week long celebration for the ocean's number one terrorist?! We only celebrate the queens birthday two days a year, and she's NEVER bit anyone's legs off. The fact that we acknowledge the shark by wasting valuable television viewing hours is a sin. Think about it,,,, sharks have never been associated with anything good. Eg,

- Jumping The Shark
- Pool Sharks
- Sharky & George
- Piranha 3DD
- Bobby Davro

Bottom line is sharks need to go. NOW. They are godless, killing machines that enjoy chewing off the limbs of the best kind of women we have: the ones in bikinis.

BP had the right idea. How much more oil do we need to dump into the ocean to kill these bastards?

I know what you're thinking. "Wow, Mr. Algar. You really hate sharks. I think maybe you are afraid of sharks,,,, " You're fuckin' right, I am! And you should be too. Sharks are fast, they have 5 billion rows of killing teeth, and they love blood. Human blood. That's the kind thats inside of all of  us. And they'll use all their teeth to get to it. Here's some other facts about sharks that should terrify you.

- Sharks never sleep
- Sharks can see almost 360 degrees, and into your soul
- After a shark kills you, it will steal your identity, max out all your credit cards, ruining your credit score
- Sharks are better at playing pool than you think
- 'Jaws' was a documentary
- Oh yeah, and now apparently, sharks can FLY! OUT OF WATER! IN THE AIR!

The second I saw that Planet Earth video of that massive shark doing a 50 foot vertical leap and bringing down a helicopter, I sped over to my old school and punched my science teacher in the face. Why wasn't I warned about this?? SHARKS ARE FLYING, PEOPLE!!! THIS IS NOT OKAY!! How long until they just leap out of the oceans and into our homes, feasting on everyone inside?!!

Answer: Soon,,,, and we are running out of time.

These water terminators are evolving way too quickly. What's next for the flying shark? Legs? Yes. Washboard abs? Definitely. Two tickets to the gun show?

(People said my investment in private laboratories that develop giant octopi was "foolish" or "stupid." Guess who's laughing now! *blorble blorble*)