JUST DRIFTING

Drifting thru the back-streets of my mind...

ABANDONED #7: DETOUR

Ha! The Abandoned Series goes off at a slight tangent, but one I think you might approve of.

A few weeks ago, Clan Shirt decamped to a caravan park for a spring break and my wife Chris found some photographs that had been hidden inside the toaster (!!!) by the previous occupants. "I think you might find a use for these," she laughed. And, of course, she was right.

There were only three photos, but they're classics - and, together, they form some sort of weird micro-narrative!

Enjoy:

HOLGER CZUKAY

Well, here's a sentence I've waited most of my adult life to say:

"Just got off the phone from talking to Holger Czukay..."



Holger was really lovely, an extremely funny and affable gent. He made me laugh a lot.

For me - this dribbling middle-aged fan-boy - a circle has been closed.

I'm kinda walking on air right now. Walking on air and whistling.

PSYCHIATMC BLOEMS

Mr Olivetti reviews the "Psychiacmc Bloems" cassette by Ice Bird Spiral.

"On the latest IBS outing we are taken far from the confines of the world as we know it & find ourselves whirling in space; an abandoned far-flung listening-post in its tragic & lonely orbit. I am reminded of the scene in ‘The Man who fell to Earth’, where Earth broadcasts are intercepted & used for education, but unlike that & unlike Joe Meek who only heard music for one new world, here dozens are passing through the ether. From the slow-motion oscillations, metallic scree & pitiful deathly groan of a long dead system - where these sounds are the only surviving legacy - to a transmission from Earth, a radio soap of some kind, the perverse storyline giving away its origins as static ebbs & flows distorting the message. We hear a siren’s call at some point, the mellifluous yet alien tones accompanied by a stringed lullaby luring us to some unknown destiny. Others sound like they could be from Earth, but are they?

"Is there somewhere out there, a new-born galaxy forming as a distant echo of home? In other places the startled whinny of horses & the soft cry of babies present disturbing parallels with the destructive sounds of a system at war. Even a distant radio playing some ethereal drumless response to the Cure’s ‘Pornography’.

"These sounds are sprawling & incredibly varied, the juxtaposition of light & dark, gentle & harsh are all tied together by the overwhelming urge to communicate something & in a few cases just anything, with a deftness that keeps the listener intrigued & more than a little mesmerised."

Marilyn Burns!

(Oh, and some bloke called Tobe Hooper lol)

JEP STING NAINA

I know next-to-bugger-all about Chutney, to be honest. For the uninitiated, Chutney is a Carribean music-form from Trinidad that's a weird hybrid of, erm, Soca, Indian film songs ("Filmi") and, probably, a bunch of other influences that I'm not aware of. Its musical etiology is kinda twisted: it involves a fusion of Indian and West Indian musics/traditions, and it's also inextricably tied up w/ the notion of Carnival. Sundar Popo's 1970 hit "Nana and Nani" fused traditional instruments such as the dholak and dhantal w/ electric gtr and cheesy synths, creating a template for the modern Chutney sound and earning him the title "The King of Chutney". (Well, who wouldn't want to be The King of Chutney!?) These days, popular Chutney crews incl. Dil-E-Nadan, Melobugz, Karma, Gayatones and JMC 3Veni.

The two biggest tunes of recent months/current season are apparently "Jep Sting Naina" and "Rum and Roti". "Jep Sting Naina", like many Chutneys is a localised retwist of a Bollywood song, but this one has become a mainstream pop-radio hit and is threatening to go international. The folks responsible - Hunter, Drupatee, Andy Singh, Big Rich and Hitman - are an all-star team-up of some of Chutney's biggest solo artists.

Anyway, I really like the dense-sounding processed drums, the surreal vocal interjections and the weird audio-effect that sounds like an angry wasp puppet. Plus the fact that it's as catchy as fuck.

Play it loud.

BRUCE STERLING ON DESIGN FICTION

A rather lovely piece of writing on the Interactions site by Bruce Sterling on the relationship between SF writing and design.

He covers some v. interesting ground here, throwing all sorts of ideas to the wind; I was particularly interested in the idea of an archaic variant Japanese script designed to only be read by women.

And as someone who also writes code as well as fiction, I was particularly smitten by this: "The line commands in software are text as an expression of will."

It's an idea that's constantly nagged at my mind over the years - that I also write stuff in languages that make things happen in the physical/electromechanical realm. The idea that there are sequences of 'words' that are able to move things around (data, electrons, bit/bytes, whatever) is a very wonderous thing to me - a form of magic in itself.

LIFE IN THE 1990s

Scarily similar to my own 15yrs-behind-the-times household. Chris n I like nothing better than to hang out in our bright-red retro-jumpsuits: we're just sooooo 1996...


(Click to n-lrg)

Nice boots.

RIP ESCOBAR

Ferociously talented Grime MC Gavin DeFoe - aka Esco - who suffered serious head injuries after being attacked earlier in the week...

ABANDONED #6

"Abandoned" is a semi-regular Kid Shirt Series that features The Stuff That People Leave Behind. Here's some recent additions to Saint Anthony's Lost property Office (Yeovil Sub-Branch):

SUPERBOY'S CRACK-UP

MOORCOCK ON BALLARD

Michael Moorcock's touching tribute to the late, great J G Ballard.

VINYL PICKS #2: BERNARD XOLOTL: "PROCESSION"

A charity-shop superstore has just opened in Yeovil. It's on the old Keymarkets site where I used to work as a warehouse boy back in the day. It's enormous: there are bunk-beds and sofas and wardrobes in there, as well as a pile of damp cardboard boxes out the back piled high w/ vinyl.

Just as well, 'cos most of the other charity-shops round here are pretty much played-out vinyl-wise. Unfortunately, my friend Steve who's an eBay vinyl dealer got in there first n stripmined it of all the really good stuff, incl. an original 7" of "See Emily Play", some v. early Who singles and some semi-rare early-70s 'Eavy n Prog. Gah!

Still, this one slipped through his fingers - an early 80's LP by the French electronic composer/musician Bernard Xolotl, a guy who went globetrotting in the early 70's and hooked up w/ the likes of Klaus Schulze, Manuel Goettsching, Terry Riley n La Monte Young along the way. In 1980, he made an album w/ Cyrille Verdeaux (of Clearlight/Clearlight Symphony infamy, another Franglophile synth-merchant who is known for his collaborations w/ folks like Hillage, Tim Blake, Didier Malherbe and other assorted Gong-orbiting geezers). "Procession" is the follow-up to the Verdeaux collab. and is essentially a two-man show w/ Xototl (on an assortment of spacey-sounding old-school electronics) and violinist Daniel Kobialka, master of the Zeta Polyphonic Electric Violin (an instrument also favoured by Laurie Anderson in the early 80s).



And very nice the album is too - well, I think so, anyway - recommended for those of you who think Tangerine Dream went off the boil sometime around '76 lol. The title track sounds very stately and, er, processional...with Xototl's synths seeming to solemnly inch their way forward, step by step, thru a dry-ice enshrouded cathedral, tracked by Kobialka's acrobatic Simon House-like violin-chops - and there's even occasional reverb-smeared slo-mo fanfares that sound like ELP's Copeland trib on horse-tranqs. And the string-pads and tinkling, stereo-panned sequencer-lines on "Mirador" certainly pay more than a passing 'omage to Ashra's mid-70's "New Age of The Earth" LP.

'Course, it's a far-cry from the pan-galactic sound-fields and audio-nebulae of early Kosmische - Xolotl's work is more 'tasteful', more melodic; the v. early 80's were the last gasp of first-wave New Age music before it got completely ambushed by digital synthesis, then diluted, repackaged and commodified by various crystal-shop franchaises. RIP old school '70s Head Shops. My God, I could tell ya some stories.

Still, 'tis strange how weirdly, umm, 'contemporary' some of this sounds...mainly cos there's a number of artists and bands retro-reactivating this sort of sound right now - Emeralds come to mind, and Kohn, amongst others - but this is clearly more 'composed'-sounding, less free-form. "Transmutation", for example, has one foot in a quasi-classical tradition as well as the standard synthburble n whoooshes. The music's more 'austere', more structured and formal-sounding, and I'm not sure quite why that should appeal to me right now, but it does.



(I think the Nada Pulse label (motto: "Music for The Interior Life") also released a mid-80's album by ex-Tangerine Dream member Steve Jolliffe - who, I believe might come from Glastonbury/Frome way.)

Early Klaus Schultz, Popul Vuh, etc were arguably loads better than Xolotl, but - for 50p - this is strangely hitting a spot right now.

Shove some dolphin samples on it and Lieven Martens would love this album, I bet.

FASHION WEAK RECORDINGS/PAN FINO

Awright! Now this is more like it!

666 Hails to Fashion Weak Recordings from Bogota, Colombia, who just got in contact w/ me earlier today. I really like where these guys are coming from.

Check the darkly frenzied stumble-bum casio-rock stylings of Pan Fino. They describe themselves as "psychadelic trash, babycore, intelectual black farra, industrial tercermundista, champeta ritual/drogadicta, pop violento, black salsa, psychadelic cumbia, trancepunk, boni-core..."

"Some songs would sound like silly Punk or cheap Drum n' Bass (and that's the way they have to sound!), but they have some dark waves like "PAN Delirium", straight from the high-tropical forest of Kolumbien, buagh!"

Dammit, someone should sign these guys pronto. Actually - fuck it! - I think I will.

THE CAT-MAN

RIP J G BALLARD

A post that is as sad as it was inevitable.

A truly great and insightful writer - one of the greatest, in fact. He's up there in my own personal lit.mythology with Burroughs: the pair of them are, for me, two of the most significant writers of the late 20th century.

Ballard changed the way I looked at the world and how I think about it. And that's probably the greatest compliment I could ever pay him as a person or a writer.

I mentally refer to his work or to his way of viewing the world pretty much on a weekly basis.

I wish I could have met him at least once and said thanks.

ACCIDENTAL INTERIOR #7

ACCIDENTAL INTERIOR #5

HISTORY ALWAYS FAVOURS THE WINNERS

"History Always favours the Winners": James Leyland Kirby aka The Caretaker aka The Stranger: the Artist Formerly Known As V/VM.

His new material is marvellous. Timeless. A collision of Past and Future Tense.

The metaphysical Clock of History has began ticking again. We can now re-embrace the Future.

Expect a biggish piece about James by me soon; hopefully it will be up n out prior to the forthcoming piece in The Wire lol.

FORREST ARMSTRONG: "ASPHALT FLOWERHEAD"

Forrest's new book - "Asphalt Flowerhead" enters the earth's atmosphere and is now available for purchase. Grab a copy while you can, humans!



Long-term readers will remember that I was a big fan of his terrific debut collaboration w/ Jase Daniels - "This City is Alive".

VINYL PICKS #1: SPIRITUAL SINGERS: "NTSAMINA"

Okay, so an occasional dip into me vinyl collectn, featuring slabs old n new that are currently getting a bit of a pasting from The Stylus of Doom.

First up:

"Ntsamina" by Spiritual Singers.



What little info I can piece together comes from the French sleeve-notes and various GooglePuffs. But, basically: Spiritual Singers were a Congolese group from Brazzaville, the capital city of The Republic of the Congo, which sits across the river from Kinshasa, the capital of The Democratic Republic of The Congo. Two different cities in two different countries, but they kinda bleed into each other to create a sort of African Mega-City One. Okay?

Far as I can determine, the album is v. early 80's vintage - the band having formed in 1980 (tho some websites claim the group dates back to the early '70s, wh/ I somehow doubt - due to the age of certain members (13 - 24) - tho the tunes def. have a late 60's/70's feel to them...).

The music sits outside of the Congolese Rumba 'Nuum; instead, it has an electric Blues/Gospel bent to it...of course, soon as I say Gospel that's gonna put certain evangelical images/audio-memes into yr mind, so I'm gonna put in a caveat at this point and say that, by 'Gospel' I prob. mean a kind of devotional/ecstatic form of African Garage.Pop...'cos, believe me, this is raw as fuck lo-fi shit - but the vocal harmonies build really beautifully into a kinda wonderful wailing low-key hysteria... dissonant harmonies, I guess: does that make any sense?

"Nzo A Dise" starts almost unpromisingly w/ a lilting backporch rhythm and solitary male voice, but the song just drags you in by yr shirtsleeves as it drifts off heavenwards, its eyes rolled back...the electric bass-playing is wonderful, totally on the number and achingly Blooozy, supplemented by some clattering arhythmic drum-fills and cymbal-crashes. But it's the harmony vocals that really send me: a sort of mini-choir featuring Jeanne Nzibou and the three Loudi Brothers, plus various pals. I think one of the guys voices hasn't broken yet, so it provides a great, but weird-sounding counter-point to the Jeanne's vox.

What's amazing is the blend of influences here: at points SS sound like some sort of 60's Acid-Nugget Garage-Band - check the deliciously weedy Farfisa organ on "Kimbia", a bass-line that starts out sounding Link Wray-ish then turns into a bubbling Afro-Rock bounce and - what the fuck is that drummer doing? It's brilliant, tho his notion of time-keeping is completely at odds to my dumbass white-boy expectations. The lead vocals here are shrill and I can't even figure out what language this is being sung in - at points, it sounds like a cross between ? And The Mysterions, a Steve Nieve-led Attractions on acid and some goofy Japanese New Wave Band recorded on a mono-css player.

Elsewhere, there's a giddy-sounding 50s US R n B influence at play. "African people" is total genius w/ its walking-on-tiptoes bass-line, helium vocals and strangulated Carl Perkinsesque guitar-runs. It's the Sun Sessions relocated to Zaire via No Wave. And "U Nungisa" with its pumping Bontempi organ, clattering cumbersome-sounding drums and frantic vocal refrain. Even the slower, dirgier-sounding tracks (like "Jean 3.16" with its inverted barely-in-tune "House of The Rising Sun" riff/vox) are deceptively hypnotic...they kinda creep up on you. No actually, they grab you pretty damn quickly.

There's asolutely no reason why this almost ridiculous amalgam of disparate influences should work so well, but it does. And I'm not sure why I keep thinking of early Pere Ubu when this so clearly sounds nothing like them lol - maybe its that skinny, shrill-sounding, trebly production, I dunno...I'm also not entirely sure of the provenance of my copy - I'm guessing that it's the Mississippi Records edition, but there's no info on the sleeve...(strangely, the Mississippi back-catalogue also contains a record from an early-80s band based in Frome in Somerset lol)...it looks like a straight sleeve copy of an original vinyl, tho this seems to contradict Vincent Kenis' mention that old school Congolese music wasn't big on vinyl albums...

Still, it's a terrific album - one that blows a hole in any cosy, comfortable preconceptions you might have about 'World' (or 'African') Music - whatever that might be - yet it also proves that you can combine raw garage (afro-)rock with something more ecstatic and, uh - dare I say it - spiritual. It doesn't sound anything like you might imagine it does. I mean, what's with that Jimmy Carl Black/Roy Estrada/M.of.Invention Doo-Wop intervention on "Come and Save Us", huh?

Anyway, I'm trying to dig around to find out a bit more about this group - and if I get any more info I'll post it here 'natch. And if anyone has any additional info or corrections, then please get in touch...

STAFF BENDA BILILI INTERVIEW

There's an interview by me with w/ the awesome Congolese group Staff Benda Bilili here.

Thanks to Jim and Vincent for setting this up.

Regular readers will be aware that I keep niggling on about them, but if you have any love for or appreciation of great music whatsoever then I seriously recommend that you go out and buy their album "Très Très Fort".

Not download it or copy it off a mate, but buy it. Okay?

DICKY FISH

Dicky Fish: armless fish archer.

RIP MARILYN CHAMBERS

Gah. Marilyn Chambers checks out...

The legendary porn.star - and presidential candidate! - who appeared in zillions of flicks, incl. "Behind The Green Door", "Angel of H.E.A.T." and, of course, Cronenberg's "Rabid".

I didn't realise she'd also made a Disco single - "Benihana" wh/ was produced by Michael Zager of "Let's All Chant" fame.

PETE FOWLER Vs. KEIICHI TANAAMI

The latest (April?) ish of Dazed & Confused features a two-way interview piece referee'd by me btween Super Furry Animals art.collaborator (and Lord of Monsterism Island) Pete Fowler...and Japanese Psych.Art superstar (and Master of The Lurid) Keiichi Tanaami.

The pair recently teamed up to do the artwork for the new SFA album.

D&C is available in WH Smiffs and other leading newsagents, except for Yeovil - where the printing-press is still yet to be invented, tho some bloke out Crewekerne way recently noticed that when he dipped his fingers into the juice of certain berries he could make marks on animal skins that remained there, even during The Month of Big Rains...

Meanwhile, Dom finally figures out how to do hyperlinks on his blog.

*Sigh* It feels like the end of an era.

HAIRLESS AND BIBLE BLACK

Woke up and shaved my beard off. It's been a long time coming. Still...

Trouble is: I don't recognise the person who was hiding under all the fungus. Not sure if I like the look of him much, either.

Who is he? What's he got to do with me?

Why does he keep looking at me like that?

I didn't quite catch his name, but I didn't realise how fond I'd become of that beardy-looking fellow. He was fun; I enjoyed hanging out with him, but I knew deep down inside that he was just passing through. And one morning I'd wake up and he'd be gone.

But this new guy...I dunno...he looks a little bit too serious for my liking; looks like he means business. There's something in his eyes that says he won't put up with any shit. Maybe that's a good thing, but, well...

I kinda liked that other fellow.

TEXTURES

INGA RUMPF...FRUMPY...ATLANTIS....

Frumpy, featuring the uber-cool German singer Inga Rumpf, a woman that musical history-books seem to have shamefully misplaced. So, a mini Kid Shirt tribute to Inga and her pals...

These are mostly early 70s vintage:





"I'm Going To The Country" Oh, yes, I am...



After Frumpy - some time around '72, '73 - came Atlantis... who toured the US with Lynyrd Skynyrd:





There's some great footage out there somewhere of her performing a balls-out blooozy version of "My Life is a Boogie" in '78, electric-geetar strapped on, looking like some amazing cross between Patti Smith and, well...it's like Punk never happened.

Awesome voice.

GURU GURU: "ELECTRIC JUNK"

MUTE #2: THE FACE: STRIPPED

Just in from Yuki Minami:

The second ish of the Japanese art-mag Mute is out, featuring work by:

Candice Breitz/ Brian Calvin/ Merlin Carpenter/ Enlightenment/ Toshiyuki Konishi/ Michael Landy/ Patrick Lee/ Andrea Lehman/ Dan McCarthy/ Fiona McMonagle/ Harding Meyer/ Yang Shaobin/ Yuichi Yokoyama...

MAGIC AND MECHANICA ANTHO

Okay, so my contributor's copy of Magic and Mechanica (Ricasso Press) turned up recently, but I've been too busy swanning around LA trying to snag a copy of the Python Lee Jackson master-tapes for a release on 19F3. That's how crap I am at promoting myself.

The 2 or 3 of you that are still alive and reading this blog might even remember that I mentioned this book some time ago, but the anthology has had a twisted year-plus (maybe two!) adventure sailing around various printers, publishers and so forth, so has taken its own sweet time before finally reaching publication.

My story "Mondo Baroque" is the lead-off piece - and if you like twisted Heroic Fantasy (or Sword n Sorcery as we used to call it back in my day), then this is the one for you...well, actually, Sword n Mechanisms n Sorcery might be a better genre.puff, as all the stories feature some sort of weird balance 'tween magic and retro-tech as their bouncing-off point. My own p.o.v. is a parallel-world Renaissance Era where Venice is recast as The Sinking City, a Baroque micro-universe populated by sour/dour anti-heroes and alchemechanical chicks with machine-pistols. An Alternative Table of The Elements features in there somewhere too. Plus various monsters n Italio vampiri n assorted existential carnage...

If there's more than a hint of Old School Michael Moorcockisms, then it's because he's the fuckin' guv'nor far as I'm concerned. Dude wrote the rule-book.

(Well, maybe not...but he certainly rewrote it)

You can buy a paperback copy here. And - fuck it! - you should...

More Seriously Fucked-up Fantasy from me to follow.

THE 'I' HIDES THE PINK UPRIGHT SPARKLING

"The 'I' Hides the Pink Upright Sparkling" by our pal artist/writer/film-maker Aaron Held, with cover-art by Tic Tac.

Available via GoogleDocs, but can easily be Papernet'd (ie printed/downloaded into the physical wyrld).

StopPress: Aaron tells me that (grrr) GoogleDocs requires an invitation before you can download, but you can snag a copy here.

CHURCHES AND CHAPELS OF EXMOOR

BUFFLE AND JEAN-FRANCOIS BLANQUET LIVE

And tomorrow - saturday 11th - "Buffle play in the context of a free festival featuring many other people like Jean-Francois Blanquet and DJ Athome. Definitely the first time we play a show in Charleroi! We play at 6. Expect Moroccan vibes. Venue: Le Vecteur."

Here's Jérôme and Jean-François Blanquet (Project Singe company) at the Comète 347 (March 2007):



...And on Monday 13th:

"Waikiki Walhalla (ft. members of Sunny Disposition, Buffle and The Continent Makers) play a house show in Brussels on Monday afternoon.

The house is small and we are fat, so please email for more info."

INVADING THE LOW COUNTRIES TOUR

Burial Hex, Sylvester Anfang II and Bear Bones, Lay Low are hittin' The Low Road for a mini-invasion of Belgium and Holland over the next few days:

9/04 - Student, Brussels (b)
11/04 - Logement, Antwerp (b)
12/04 - Occii, Amsterdam (nl) (Easter Feaster w/ Ignatz, Woods, Laser Poodle, Appie Kim)
13/04 - Carlo levi, Luik (+ Ignatz) (b)
14/04 - The Strip, Kortrijk (b)

"Come out, get wasted, bang your head until it bleeds!!!!"

Sounds like a damn good idea to me.

BASIL BRUSH IN: "HIGH SKOOL MANIA"

Basil on great form! Innuendos flyin' thick n fast...

"You've got some big girls in Yeovil..."

"I'll get me clock out..."

Etc, etc.

Uh-ho:

10 YEARS OF ERASERHEAD PRESS

THE KEK-W QUARTERLY

And speaking of Lit. Journals...

Bradley Sands sent me a nice formal mail earlier today, submitting a piece of fiction to The Kek-W Quarterly, a publication that didn't actually exist until I'd had me tea an hour or so ago. See, politeness still counts for a lot round these parts.

The name was Bradley's suggestion, but I like it - it's sorta nudged me into something I'd been toying with doing anyway. The HTML (and the layout) still needs tweaking, but here we go...the first in an occasional series of fiction posts on K-and-a-Quarter:

The Adventures of a Small, Ceramic Giraffe in Tudor England by Mr. Bradley Sands

GRRRR...

Since Boris Johnson - the Conservative Mayor of London, for the benefit of our American friends - seems to have also effectively elected himself head of the London Metropolitan Police Force (by sacking the Police Commissioner, etc), then perhaps he'd like to personally take responsibility for the death of Ian Tomlinson, an innocent bystander who died after being beaten by G20 riot police. He was walking home from his job in a newsagent.

But no, Boris the Buffoon is too busy looking appropriately servile at this private reception for the G20 conference.

Fucking gormless prick. Do us all a favour and sack yourself.

Go back to editing the Eton Literary Journal or whatever it was you did in a past life.

Twat.

"GO, RAVEN - BACK TO THE FOOTER MATCH!"

Raven on the Wing:



(Click to Engorge)

ACCIDENTAL FACE #3

CONE ZERO: BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY AWARDS

I'm somewhat amazed and excited to discover that my story "Cone Zero" has been longlisted in the Best Short-Fiction category in the British Fantasy Society 2009 awards. There's 32 other nominees and I don't have a cat's chance of winning, but - Jesus! - it's pretty thrilling to find yrself on a list with Stephen King, Storm Constantine, Paul Kane, etc.

I'm also super-thrilled for editor Des Lewis as the Cone Zero antho is also up for a Best Anthology award and quite rightly too.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about then you should snag yourself a copy immediately! - Des still has a few copies left for sale and it is a damn good read.

Since the authors' names have now been de-nemonised, I'm allowed to say that mine is the one on page 33.

I completely failed to make the submissions deadline this week for Des' new Cerne Zoo antho - as my story "Cerne Zoo" had hit 7000+ words with still no end in sight, but it's a strong piece, I think, so I'm going to finish it off in Slow Time. The name of the story will still stand; despite the fact that I wasn't able to submit it in time it was still inspired by Des' wonderfully narrowband guidelines...this will prob. make it very difficult for me to sell elsewhere as no one will want to snag a story that is effectively an annex to someone else's antho - still, I'm a stubborn bastard like that lol and if/when it ever does appear it will accordingly be dedicated to Des Lewis and John Sladek.

STAFF BENDA BILILI (SLIGHT RETURN)

Coincidentally, just as I finished up my piece on Staff for FACT, the folks at Crammed mailed...the album is now out, it's fucking fabulous and there's absolutely no excuse for not buying it.

There's rather wonderful video for their track "Polio" here.

SAUCYTOOTH

D. Grin, the faceless Canadian crim.mastermind resposible for the Crossing Chaos imprint checks in...

Hot on the heels of The Dream People #31, comes the first ish of Monsieur Grin's Saucytooth webthology, featuring - uh-ho, it's that man again! - D. Harlan Wilson, on very fine form here indeed w/ "The Traumatic Event or The Walri Holocaust or the Hairy Deed or The Man Who Disappeared".

I ought to explain that writing about walri was a weirdo lit.meme that suddenly spread like an outbreak of ebola thru the Bizarro posse a couple months or so back.

Amongst others, Saucytooth's frantic first ish also showcases fiction by Andersen Prunty and - one of my favourite writers - the masterful Tom Bradley.

K-BRANDING

Oh, showing my age here, but I kinda like K-Branding too...and so will some of you more elderly folks. Kinda reminds me of Section 25/Crispy Ambulance/Basement 5 post-punk grist grafted on a shout n holler Jazzzzkore chasis. I think Dr. A would like this too.

Love the bonerattling Doombounce of "Africanurse"

And "Antisolar Point" is the sound of someone's shoulder getting torn off, again and again and again. Love the flanged Curtis-on-ephedrine vox that seesaw between mournful and positively fuckin deranged.

The fact that they've called a track "Live 1979" is a kinda mission-statement in itself. I'm thinking you might have to be of a certain age to get this, but I'm probably wrong.

Glad to see they're from Brussels.

NEUTERED FAIRY/EAT SKULL

I am reallllly lovin' "Makeout Island" by Neutered Fairy right now.

As well as The Silver Stairs of Ketchikan (hi, Charlie!) and, er, Nash the Slash, I also see that they're friends with fabulous Portland retardo garage-rockers Eat Skull who featured in my FACT podcast back last year. You really should get this - if you can still find it - it's like some sort of really fucking bad flashback (and I mean that in a totally non-pejorative way - it makes the tracks on their MySpace sound overproduced):

THE DREAM PEOPLE #31

The latest ish of The Dream People is out of the state pen, getting drunk and looking to get laid. So watch out!

It features "The Candy Caper" - a short piece by me that editor-in-chief D. Harlan Wilson snagged some weeks back - along with synapse-bending fiction by some roughty-toughty, writerly types that I'm familiar with - like Bradley Sands, John Lawson, Adam Breckenridge, etc - and some others that I'm not familiar with, but should be.

BTW: D. Harlan's forthcoming book - "Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance" is picking up some serious critical heat. Check this out:

"A bludgeoning celluloid rush of language and ideas served from an action-painter's bucket of fluorescent spatter, Peckinpah is an incendiary gem and very probably the most extraordinary new novel you will read this year." - Alan Moore, author of...ah, fuck: you already know who he is.