I'm pretty much at a loss for words. Just get the compilation 'You can get it if you really want' on Trojan Records. Currently broadcasting in the N10 area.

I'm so full of shit sometimes. My previous online venture, absorb.org, was a blagfest of the highest order. Records, promotional gifts, guesties. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to purchase a record or to buy a concert ticket. But I eventually gagged on all this marketing disguised as generosity. Mumbled some lame excuse for not being 'able to keep up' and ended it.

But here I am, almost 2 years later, once again sucking greedily on the freebie pipe. OK, the records aren't flooding in as before. I'm sure most PR people regard blogs as worthless...and they'd be right. But I'm still downloading illegally off Soulseek (the differing excuses I've heard from industry people to justify using p2p to download illegal content is amusing) and more to the point I'm still the worst contributor to the London gig circuit fund.

Similar to the lead character in the TV comedy 'My Name is Earl', I feel all this greed will come back to bite me as bad karma. So I'm trying to make amends by eventually writing about the 1000+ CD's that got sent. The same should apply to all the gigs I go to. But since the turn of the year, I've been incredibly slack. So to make sure I don't get on the bad side of promoters, here's the beginning of seriously bad reviews. No.1 in a series of 1,753.

Taylor Deupree. Click here to view flickr.

Sprawl
Thursday 12th January 2006
Yacht Club, Temple Pier, Victoria Embankment, London

Sprawl continue an excellent run of nights with this, a rare showcase for the 12k label.

Iris Garrelfs' mix of phased distortion and mangled voice was initially arresting, but a lack of electricity to her laptop curtailed her performance and she ducked out early. Leaving Douglas Benford aka si-cut.db to emit a safe but enjoyable palette of dub techno and sleight-of-hand electronics.

Richard Chartier's performance was helped by the insistence of total silence in the audience. His quiet mantra of tone and crackle was enhanced by the waves lapping / the creaking of the boat structure. Taylor Deupree's equally microscopic narrative wasn't helped by insistence of the audience talking over it all. His attempts to boost frequencies and deploy edgier digital deconstruction had no match for the masses ordering expensive bottled beer at the bar.

Alcohol Consumption Interaction: 1, Laptop Patch Playback: 0.

The Bug and his toys. Click here to view flickr.

Bash
Thursday 23rd February 2006
Plastic People, Curtain Road, London

New venture from the corporate holdings of The Bug Inc. and Loefah PLC. Two known and recognised brands from the dancehall and dubstep industries have agreed to a temporary merger. This evening's conference saw the CEO's being joined by several high-profile guest speaker MC's including Bug affiliate Ras B.

Topics covered included a fine line in lover's rock, superior dub and superlative reggae. Reinforcing a brand-aware positive message on their established mission statement. Sign up now and help maintain shareholder value. Every 3rd Thursday of the month.

Various Artists: Background Records 50 (Background) - CD
The beautiful, but dry digital landscapes that form the artwork. The use of Din Schrift as their official font. The considered use of whitespace and typographical composition. Their brand strategy seems to scream minimalism. Whereas the reality is that they've managed to peddle quite maximal variants of house music since 1998.

Pascal Schafer's 'Deep Thoughts' stands out as a well crafted piece of murky, imperfect house. But the two finest statements are at the end: Rhythm_Maker's lolloping shuffle on 'Don't disturb the monotony' and Terrence Dixon's ambient flickr on 'Detroit City Lights'.

Boxcutter: Oneiric (Planet Mu) - CD
First thing that has to be stated is that this isn't a straight up dubstep album. It can't be, there's far too many clever rhythmic and melodic twists and turns to keep it held down by something as trivial as genre or style. He takes dubstep's distinctive motif's (warping b-lines, downward drums, silent gaps) and furnishes incredibly layered pieces of futurist funk.

The eastern sunrise opener of 'Tauhid' might be weighted down with swathes of sub. But, like the rest of the album, there's a light footprint to it all. Even the murky, out-of-focus echo of 'Skuff'd' seems to have a spring in its step. Whilst bass-heads will find solace in darker moments like the magnificent 'Brood'. The rest of us will find this a seasonally apt piece of accomplished electronic music.

The Kilamanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble: S/T (Planet Mu) - CD
Can't help feeling that this would probably be more suitable on the Ninja Tune label. But I can see why Mike 'mu-ziq' Paradinas has gone for this. Compositionally smart, well executed downtempo that occasionally tips over into MAX/MSP overload and uncontrollable distortion. Best demonstrated by the closing phases of 'March of the Swine'. If you only buy one dark jazz fusion album all year, make sure it's this one.

Jazkamer: Metal Music Machine (Smalltown Supernoise) - CD
With the pretty awesome Lasse Marhaug amongst its clan, don't expect sonic half measures here. With his experimental 'The Shape of Rock to Come' album still ringing in my ears, it's quite a shock to hear that, for the most part, this LP plays it straight.

Exploratory resonance on 'The Worms will get in' evokes the turgid primordial ooze of say Sunn O)))). But 'Abomination' is pure thrash; hyperspeed riffing and guttural utterances make this the star turn. But the slow skin tear of 'Occult Glider' comes a close second in the 'none more black' stakes. I don't think I could have any more fun this year if I tried.

Buy now, pay later.

Burning Star Core: The Very Heart of the World (Thin Wrist Recordings) - CD
I knew I'd like this even before I heard it. The recent Wire profile had me intrigued from the off; everything seemed to fit. The name of the band, the album titles, his name (C.Spencer Yeh). There was some sort of aesthetic order to it all. Yet the music is anything but orderly. Out of all the albums that picked up his back catalogue at a recent show in Kilburn, this was the one that completed the picture.

The white heat of 'Benjamin': clashing drone with repetitive crackles and analogue distortion. The vocal gurgle of 'Nyarlathotep' is in turns amusing / comic / disturbing. 'Catapults' might employ the tried and tested Godspeed trick of sustaining orchestral dread over hyperactive jazz. But the acoustic din of 'Come back through me' is entirely his sound.

Sad to report that one of Bollywood's greatest music composers, Naushad Ali, has died aged 86. I think I mentioned earlier in another post how the likes of Wilson Pickett and Motown was on heavy rotation at our house in Leyton during the 70's.

Well Ali was equally a favourite. Personally, I didn't care for the films that much, but the music totally got me. Couple his compositions with the vocals of say Lata Mangheskhar and you had musical storytelling on an epic scale. If there's one essential piece I had to choose, it would be his work for the ambitious and groundbreaking film 'Mother India'. Itself a landmark in Indian cinema, he perfectly provided a monumentous soundtrack.

:(