Swung It Brung It

Don't shop what you can't find in a place where they sell that stuff you like the look of but always looks weak when you get it home. Only shop the things you find there. It'll look better the more of it you get. It'll look eclectic. You'll develop taste and character. People'll gonna look at your collection and see movement and symmetry and decision where there was nothing but regret cos it looked weak when you first brung it home. They'll wanna shop in a place like yours but they shouldn't. They should only shop what they can find in a place where it sells that stuff that they like the look of but always looks weak when they git it home.

What's new? Here's the story:

1. I'm hooked on DEM HUNGER's projects, and there seem to be many of them, all scarcely promoted - intentionally weak metadata. This goes subcutaneous. He's got a language of paint and bodily fluids working out, viscera, pond foam and scum, gender identity lost in hacked up b&w photos of chossy rubble, and all bundled up in toddler-sodden oily rags of abuse. Don't contemplate it, just let it corrode you. Check Leaving Records for some Dem Hunger / Durlin Lurt tapes and releases. Also look up his/her Sandra stuff. This tumblr hooks you up with regular mediafire sounds, and the twitter keeps your mind on the filth. It's Ghedalia Tzartes with colour synesthesia, tourette's syndrome, and diesel fumes.

2. Hooked on the new Dalglish release on Highpoint Lowlife - Benacah Drann Deachd. The label's coming to a close, but this is a renewed, restrengthened output for an artist whose been bubbling away at brewing a distinct sound in the murky world of glimmering glitches and gently resistant undertowed drone. There's a completely cohesive structure to everything that goes on in here - you remember those Asa-Chang and Jun Ray releases on the Leaf Label, laying out their precession and procession by tightly constrained mathematical rules of proportion? But here the way of going isn't so self-consciously Up Front - it has a closer parallel, perhaps, to the dj's craft, shifting the tension and the release by aligning and misaligning the dropouts on distinct compositions while playing them simultaneously. [That's what good djs do, at least.] Get immersed.

3. You're already hooked on em, but so am I: Sonic Router's awesome podcasts on the Bleep podcast. Obviously it's tough for anyone who doesn't have super-extended time to keep up with everything that SR links up to - you need 56 hours in a day just to get part of the drift of the world of fantastic music that SR seems to have a hotline direct into. So these are fragmentary snippets of the bigger SR picture, the condensation of each year's week of that world, keepin it bass, friendly, booty and tuff. All good, all the time - a force not to attempt to reckon, the human mind is mostly finite.

4. eat this

YOU HEARD by JoeRuckus

Certain Retributivist

In case you keep forgetting how blogs work: click the words to find the music. Like this. Comment.

click> Cats | Share | Music. This is all of the internet. [You need to be logged in for deep embedding. This is all of the internet].

click> Simian sharing. They dance, we dance.

click> Generous gifts. Epic is the prerogative of our generation, unconstrained by owt.

click> Broken gifts. Effort is the new reward.

These are where we are. This is us now.

Two S(e_o)unds by JoeRuckus

Let's not be hasty.

What does it mean to change your mind? No judgement in brainstorm sunchina, so just put it out there - let the questions' roles work their maybes. A pitch: to change your mind, do you have had to have had one made up? Is mind-changing indicative of (or even presupposed by) once-having-decision-making done? Alternatively, on the other hand, moresoever: perhaps, or perhaps not, change-minding falls afoul of a rational problem - from where do we think as we move the mind? An old problem, and unfixed.

Two perspectives on a changing mind:

(i) it encourages nostalgie, since the old ways (from which we have certainly deviated) are reevaluated in a new light; things weren't so bad, why did we stray so far, can alt-retro ever (re)capture the authentic elderly? Apologia, revisionism, reversion.

(ii) it opposes nostalgia (except, perhaps, nostalgie de la boue): we are here to move away from the present old ways, they are broke, we misunderstand current practice - we think it is rich but it is bankrupt not. Iconoclasm, revolution, revision.

There is work here to be done, but only gnomically. Gnome on, again.

Age Class Tarbell

Spin a while.

News 1: Sad to hear that Highpoint Lowlife, the esteemed London-based label that's been putting out top quality electronic music for the past n years, have decided to call it a day. HPLL's head honcho Thor is dedicating his multi-tasked time to working on graphic novelism, check his styles here. As a coda there's a slew of new releases, including some wax! Yep, the new LP from Roof Light is getting a selected-tracks 12" treatment (check the audio below and all, there's some Roof Light snuck in there). Another top-notch recent release has been Mandelbrot's latest on HPLL, called Effect-Release, which is a collection of treated-guitar drones - it's very much rx3 listening territory: while listening close to the manipulation of the source material, you imagine you can work out how it's been achieved, until you realise how much more was going on that you weren't attentive to. Rich, mellifluous, entrancing and not a little uplifting - beautiful stuff. Shop it up now.

News 2: Another rx3-fav-label bursts further upon the scene: Pictures music's website also collects photos and things. I've featured some stuff from Dark Sky on here before, but I've just been checking new signing Koreless's stuff on his soundcloud, it's feeling good. Go click. Looking forward to some vinyl from this house before long...

News 3: Dutty Artz have released a new LP from Matt Shadetek - 'Flowers' picks up a slightly melancholy emotional overtone and sets it in within a UK-influenced bass-driven dancefloor style. It's got strings playing game-tune melodies over bassline beats that drop like Dexplicit, as well as grime riffs, whips cracking over synth glissandi, that are begging to be vocalled. Check the freebies on the Dutty Artz page and then go Pick It Up.

News 4: New LP forthcoming from Lukid on Werk Discs titled 'Chord' - this one's gonna get a heavy 3x12" vinyl pressing, which is properly exciting. You've got to get a listen to the track / look at the video for 'Hair of the Dog', which started circulating at the end of February. Big styles.

News 5: TVO / The Village Orchestra's Ruaridh Law has set up a new label broken20 alongside collaborators / co-conspirators Production Unit and Erstlaub, so it's gonna be quite the triumvirate Scottish powerhouse. They say:

Rather than be genre-tied, we will be releasing music rooted in a particular aesthetic – releases concerned with decay, erosion, entropy, mistakes and errors, line noise and tape hiss, hum and buzz.

Couldn't be more exciting: errors? mistakes? Now That's What I Call Music. The label's release schedule (which is also gonna include bits from all three artists) is anticipated by free releases under the label moniker 'brokenZero', available here. Snag all three and then point your .rss feedreadster t'ward the broken20 podcast, part one of which comes from Erstlaub and sets one part of the tone for the label's outlook: "‘On Becoming Invisible’ is a 70 minute exploration of drone, dark-ambient and post rock".

Other: a little mix of recent big listening: been diggin Raffertie's work a LOT; still addicted to everything to do with the Infrasonics label and particularly feeling the new 12" splitting Jamie Grind with Gon; Actress' Splazsh LP on Honest Jons is clearly album of the year. One song into another and then into the next. 29mins, 8 individual pieces, long enough to apply for a job, diverse enough to feel experienced.

Equal Opportunities Inform by JoeRuckus

• Vukasin - 'I Feel', Various EP [Jack Union records]

• xxxy - 'Know You', infra12002 [infrasonics]

• Frank Heiss vs. Dr Walker - '24.10.1996', The Liquid Sky Adventure Series vol1. [Electro Bunker Cologne]

• Monolake - 'Shutdown', Silence [Imbalance Computer Music]

• Actress - 'Lets Fly', Splazsh [Honest Jon's]

• Roof Light - 'Losing My Mind', Kirkwood Gaps [Highpoint Lowlife]

• Gon - 'Chaka Mad', infra12003 [infrasonics]

• Raffertie - 'Unmatched Souls (dub)', (unreleased)

Design Creep

"Stick to the brief guv, don't complicate things. Don't improvise. You put so much thought an' effort into getting it right on the night, why'd you wanna go and risk screwin' it up by ignorin' the script?"

Wise words from / the departed. Who knew just what to say at any time, ever consulting her rotating library for new lyrical images. Pure performance, these conversations. Gifts on a stage that rots in the back of taxis or across an overlit pub hall, fingers pointing, aren't you the guy that talks? Yeah that's me, talking now, aren't you the guy that points at the guy that talks? Never could improvise - laugh at my own malapropisms before anyone else spots 'em, laugh before I've said 'em, correct 'em with a humorous grimace while I'm saying 'em - the guy that talks with a humorous grimace every time he says something unmalapropic, intentionally properly construes all of his single entrendres.

Be brief, stick to the brief:

This one on heavy repeat: SQUAREDº's mix 'Here, There, Now & You' is definitely worth grabbing. Lovely set of tropical sounds, underwritten by digical low frequencies, acid snares, dancehall rhythms, and overridden by that shah-sh-sh-sha hihat and lickle-whistles and tic-toc woodblox. Exclusively hot features: new forthcoming tracks on Pollinate records (twennyten look Strong for them), soundfx, that Deckstar feat. Phe Phe track 'Take Me Away', which happens to unbutton in just the right fashion. Grab it from here.

Got this in the inboxxxxx a few weeks ago, been meaning to hype. Y'all know Maga Bo? If you're reading here I'm guessin you do. Ever circulating the globe, ever picking up new sounds, the man behind 2008's 'Archipelagoes' brings a new mixtape. Hot tracklist - lots of new Maga Bo material, stuff from Filastine, tracks from their joint project Sonar Calibrado, lotsa guest vocals including dutty artz' Jahdan Blakkamore. Grab it from here.

In other news, I'm hoping to reach the People's Republic of South Yorx for the next in a series of hott hott shows lined up at Rough Disko. On the 5th Feb they've got Hessle Audio's Ben UFO showin up to flex some dancefloor. I've been continually impressed by his sound and versatility, his show on subFM had me locked regularly, rolling from his intimate knowledge of off-centre-swung hiphop to some of the most precision-tooled du_ste_ flavours around, the kind that he's been puttin out on Hessle. Support from Swansea's Doc Daneeka, rollin out that funky sound. Sheffield Harley, free before 11, only £3 after (how do they do it?).

Except everything else accedes acceptance

I've made comments. You'll find comments by me on what you sent. There'll be boxes where my comments are made. There'll be lines and arrows. There'll be interruptions. It'll be reformatted. There are rearrangements. Consult the chart that illustrates the present layout of the vehicle. I've found sentences to couple between your sentences, and thoughts to introduce into your sentences; your sentences are the carriages which convey my thoughtful accommodation. What you said wasn't enough or wasn't clear enough or said too much or said it in a way that I wouldn't say it. I say your thoughts with your words better than you do, and I have better thoughts to say with my words, which are better.

In news (relatively recent, yet still out of date the minute it was announced anywhere, nothing ages faster than development - if someone's telling you something, you should assume they're the last to know, and if it's new to you then you should assume it doesn't need to be known: if it's something you've never heard before there must be a reason, and the Best Explanation why you haven't heard about it before is that it isn't worth knowing, only old news is worth knowing, read yesterday's papers again today, read columns titled 'news' on flash websites that haven't been updated since 2006; if someone's repeating something to you, telling you something that you've already heard about, then it's worth getting involved - a conversation can start, you can comment, share your opinions that you've had a chance to formulate; even better, you don't need to listen to them: you've already heard what they're trying to tell you, so use the time while they're talking thinking up things to say once they've stopped, think about how to make it sound natural, as though it follows on from wherever they leave off - judicious selection of evuative linking words will help, whether positive or negative: "yes, you're right, but I was thinking that..." "no, I'm not sure, since..." and if they fail to pick up the baton after you've stopped speaking its probably because you're telling them something that they haven't heard before - you should leave the conversation there, and then repeat yourself later; make your opinions worth knowing by making them known more than once, let others recognise them as your opinions, and use the time that it takes for you to say them to think up things to say in response):

• werk records release LONE's 'Ecstasy and Friends'. Ear-sucking splendour, shiny and summertime, tinged with the melancholy of autumn-around-the-corner.
• Infrasonics go from strength to strength with Infra003 by SPATIAL
• Stuff records coalesce into Numbers records
• before coalescence their penultimate release is the optimal 'Rooks E.P' by the awesome TVO, who wrapped up double-oh-9 with a feature spread in The Wire magazine (free mp3 exclusive there) and a fantastic mix on FACT magazine's podcast 102
• Sheffield's Rough Disko host some super hype events including some of the Numbers bunch from Glasgow (Jackmaster); Strong Looks all round
• Steakhouse records get hype and even more hype as steak001 gets props from radiohead's thom yorke and they announce the release of Steakhouse002, featuring vocals from MC Zulu, and giving away a free Grievous Angel remix of their Tigris riddim. The blog's become compulsive clicking, new stuff from Ghislain Poirier just up there now, and their twitter feed suggests that there's something in the works with Cardopusher... Big
• WhirringCat brought this mix in november that you should go back for, a listen much worth listening again
• Highpoint Lowlife finished 09 on a high (having sustained one throughout), releasing 10-20's second part in a series of 'landform' EPs, this one titled 'Lake', a follow up to 'Island', and to be completed by 'Mountain' and 'Isthmus'. I'm a massive fan of this sound; it properly connects several key themes in rx3 listening habits: itchy electronic manipulation, most properly the preserve of the idm machine but liberated by deft application of ambient, found and acoustic sounds; drawn out, slowly arching crescendi, located on the strip of deep listening that links the habitat of the drone aficionado to the haunts of the techno habitué; a sensitive understanding of the associations between poly/microrhythms and rhythmic separation across the frequencies - beat is supplicant to vision, a composite of independently meaningful parts.
• Nightshifters gave away a killer dancefloor EP 'Vampire Killer' back around halloween by dj P.O.L. Style, and have just followed it up with NS011 'Valhallah' by Hostage. Bootdown solid sounds. Been saying it for a while - Nightshifters are a team worth following. They've got a peculiarly heavy and raw approach to this bmore fidget house scene that takes them to an altogether more bass-driven skull-shaking place. Must be in the pedigree of the parties. Pushin it hard.
• Matt Shadetek and DJ/rupture release 'Solar Life Raft' on theagriculture - a mix LP including lotsa exclusives, followed up by a 'singles' version release where you can get hold of the source material. It's a mature sound. Shadetek's post-grime productions have long since demonstrated his nuanced ability to hit delicate notes without lapsing to the sentimental, and the clarity of his sound shows the results of his long-time commitment to the studio arts. Meanwhile /rupture has been making progressive moves away from the early bombast of ragga-jungle, and while his Nettle project continues to explore enervative modes of innovative non-western musical ideas, his role as standard bearer for sharing Mexican and South American cumbias suggests a more developed understanding of the sensual elements of sound; the hypnotic sway and pitch, ululation and diaphanous layers that can still build for a diaphoretic dancefloor. Solar Life Raft combines each artists recent developments - it brings together two sets of ears acutely tuned for subtleties of expression.
• Chris Watson compiles the sounds of water - rain, waves, glaciers, drips - for bbc radio4. Super deep. Coped to tape, slowed it down, got that deep bass cave boom.

I've put some songs together. Listen now:

In All Of The Most Likely Places by JoeRuckus

• Calika - 'Crome Yellow', Slack Jaw [Highpoint Lowlife]

• Omar-S - 'Leave Luck to Heaven', Side Trakx vol2 [FXHE]

• Dem Hunger - 'Astro Glug', [Unreleased]

• Depakote - 'Calculator', It's Not 94 Anymore [Highpoint Lowlife]

• Nosaj Thing - '2222', Drift [Alpha Pup]

• TVO - 'Non-Euclidean', The Starry Wisdom [Highpoint Lowlife]

• Lloop - 'Lei-Tzu', 60 Hertz [theAgriculture]

• A Bridge Far Away - 'Drift ft. Indi Kaur (Grievous Angel remix)', [unreleased]

• Hudson Mohawke - 'Twistclip Loop', Butter [Warp]

• Octapush - 'Dubshh', IBR004 [Iberian Records]

• Dark Sky - 'Ghost Note', [Black Acre]

• October - 'Homosapiens', CVAN001 [Caravan]

• John Cohen - 'Never Down', [Unreleased]

• DJ P.O.L. Style - 'Vampire Killer', Vampire Killer E.P. [Nightshifters]

• Jore Suc - 'Sum Rye Then', [Unreleased]

• DJ Sprinkles - 'Brenda's $20 Dilemma', Midtown 120 Blues [Mule Musiq]

abstrucing equalitisation

About a month ago I got wasted at the warp20 celebrations in Magna, Sheffield (actually Rotherham), and played music along with Juliun c90 to an often deserted v.i.p. bar - everyone was down in the main room rockin out to Squarepusher spanking his jazz bass, followed by some big sets from big warp acts. Forgemasters were immense - raw bleep vibes, with beats sounding fresher than a lot of styles since.

Big shouts to Matt REAL BAD, bringin his upbeat touch to the whole of the weekend's proceedings. Get yerself subscribed to Real Bad, he's right where the action is, a man with all the buttons. Big love to Tom c90 for being the daddy and gettin us all to it and through it an'all.

Anyhoo, here's a half-hour bit of what I played. I can't hype John Cohen enough - his sound is jaw-dropping on a big system, and opens and closes this mix with stunning style. You'll hear more of this guy, 4 shore.

Warp 20th birthday party 19th September 2009 by JoeRuckus

• John Cohen - 'Dilemma 9', [unreleased]

• Pan Sonic - 'Arktinen Arctic', KESTO(234.48:4) [Blast First]

• Re-Up Gang - 'Fuck You', We Got It For Cheap vol.3

• Nochexxx - 'Mitshubishi', [unreleased]

• La Yegros - 'Trocitos (dj/rupture and matt shadetek remix)' [Dutty Artz]

• Monkey Steak - 'Tigris Riddim', Steak House promo CD [unreleased/ Steak House]

• Drexicya - 'Lake Haze', Harnessed the Storm, [Tresor]

• Taktik - 'Krohm', Digital Gadget [Digital Gadget]

• Erik XVI - 'Unionens sista daga (Hot City's Die Maschine Mixx)', Stern-Gerlachs försök (remixes), [Highpoint Lowlife]

• Octa Push - 'Get Yo Shit Out (remix)', [unreleased]

• Joker - 'Untitled_rsn', Tectonic Plate 2.3, [Tectonic]

• Shake Shakir - 'Arise (amazon time trials mix 1), [unreleased]

• Soundmurderer & SK1 - 'Toronto VIP', Sacred Symbols of Mu, [planet-mu]

• John Cohen - 'Wav', [unreleased]

Build Them Quicker Than They Burn Them

Summer held scant regard for my academia. It paid me up until the very second it figured I was definitely disposable and then it flushed me out. I've spent these academic months penniless, trawling noticeboards and classifieds for someone /anywhere to give me a place in their season. I interviewed for Autumn last week and it's let me in, just as the sun threatens to disappear into a grey Birmingham. But hey, I really quite like what I've seen of Autumn so far. Seems that it's got enough good scenes going on for me to pretend that I'm more exclusive than all of 'em. Talkin' of hotttness:

I've been rubbing sweaty hands on corduroy with tight trainers on, and there's enough static to stun a cat, such is the buzz around Cooly G right now. So SUPERHYPE!! to our sisters at Sheffeeeel's Rough Disko for pulling off such a stunning livenup for the their FIFTH girthday. Five orlreddy, omg etc. Yer man and champion RD vinyl-buster GAG REFLEX has put together this toptrump mix in honour of the occasion, and I'd like to wholewheatedly expedite your direct clickage thereupon immediament:

RDis5normalized by Gag Reflex (via mediafire)

• Jesse Rose feat. Deize Tigrona - Toca Pra Mim
• Efdemin / Martyn - Acid Bells (Martyn's Dark Mix)
• Geeneus - Yellowtail VIP
• Douster - For Weirdos Only (Momma's Boy rmx)
• El Remolon feat MC Marina - Vem Que Tem
• Major Lazer - Hold The Line (NOC Hold The Trompet rmx)
• Hot City - Sweat
• Dre Skull feat. Sizzla - Gone Too Far (Goon rmx)
• Buraka Som Sistema feat. Petty - D... D... D... D... Jay (Poligono Big Pachanga rmx)
• Maps - I Dream Of Crystal (Solo rmx)
• L-Vis 1990 - Come Together
• Rob Threezy - The Change Up (Jokers Of The Scene rmx)
• Hot City - Yeah!
• Brackles - LHC
• Jahcoozi - Ally McBills (Robert Johnson 6am X-Ray Italo Rework)

Yes yes, there's also Aberdeen Action on the card. Even though I'm no longer in the land of the grey and blue but mainly grey, my man Ace Inhibitor and me are still swopping notes on all things tropicale, and he's holding down the biznezz end of PetroCollapse freal. Incoming: free party at the Tunnels, Aberdeen, on Thursday 24th September.

Ace asked me to put together a mix to celebrate the sound, and to complement his Petrofffreshner mix here. I've obliged, although to be honest I didn't get many tropical flavours in there - I've been stepping to some straight jigsaw beats these past few months, and so I mixed them up. Never fear, the chu-chch-chu-chch-chu cumbia feel will be back in big F ECT properly soon, what with El Hijo de la Cumbia's EP release on Soot, and with The Peronists touring the UK later in the year. But for now, here's that Petrocollapse mix. [You can see from the tracklists that me and Rough Disko's Gag Reflex are diggin very similar crates recently, a fact that continues to delight me, particularly given how little we see of each other or correspond. Kindred Souls.]

Two Stroke On One Cylinder mix by JoeRuckus

• Villa Diamante - 'Oro11 vs Kelis', Empacho Digital [free free free free free free download remix/mashup album]

• Lone - 'Sungraze Cascade', Ecstasy and Friends [werk]

• Unknown - 'Freak For You', 12" [Thriller]

• Run DMC - 'My Adidas (Pilotpriest remix)'

• Machine Drum - 'Freshkids ft. Mickey Factz', Want To 1 2? [Normrex records]

• Taktik - 'Krohm', Digital Gadget - linked elsewhere on this blog

• Para One - 'Midnight Swim', Epiphanie

• Nocturnal - 'Emvee', scatterblog.com

• Monkey Steak - 'Bonfire Riddimbox', Steak House records

• Omar Souleyman - omar funkyman remix, I'm sorry, I can't remember who did it...

• Pearson Sound - 'WAD (Dj Murlo's Step Out Edit)', murkle.wordpress.com

• Hot City - 'Yeah!', Yeah!/Head Work [highpoint lowlife]

• TTC - 'Traviller (Orgasmic remix)'

• Hanuman - 'Bola (Atik2 Remix)', Steak House records

• Subsky - 'What U Want'

• Hot City - 'No More', 12" split [Infrasonics]

• Lady Stush - 'We Nuh Run (Sirens remix)'

• Jahcoozi - 'Get Yo Shit Out (Octapush remix)' , Steak House records

• Geeneus feat. Katy B - 'As I (Skepta remix), Rinse 15th Birthday Giveaways

• Ike Release - 'Jenova', 12" split [Infrasonics]