Sat here drinking far-too-creamy coffee and eating a macaroon bar (only us Scots could think a bar of mashed potato and icing sugar, covered in chocolate and coconut flakes could function as a ‘sweety’, and only we could be right), my mind thrums over last years album purchases. I think age has been unkind to my music acquiring habits - every year the number of shiny wrapped discs appearing fresh upon my shelves dwindles slightly. Even the illicit MP3s gumming up my hard drive aren’t increasing drastically.
So it’s with some reservation, I sit here trying to compile my ‘Best of 2006’ list. In previous years, I’ve had a fuckton of stuff to choose from, so the lists have been both lengthy and verbose. This year, it’ll be mercifully brief:
The Lackadaisically Named -
'Top Albums of 2006'
(In no real order)
1. Trentemøller – Last Resort
2. Razor X Productions (The Bug vs. The Rootsman) – Killing Sound
3. Kid 606 – Pretty Girls Make Raves
4. Guilty Connector – Beats, Noise, and Life
5. Venetian Snares – Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms
6. Amen Andrews vs. Spac Hand Luke – Amen Andrews vs. Spac Hand Luke
7. B.Fleischmann – The Humbucking Coil
8. Doddodo – Sample Bitch Story
9. Cex – Actual Fucking
10. My Latest Novel – Wolves
11. The Knife – Silent Shout
12. Knifehandchop – Bling The Noize
13. Battles – EP C/B EP
14. Paavoharju– Yha Hamaraa
15. Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye
Other stuff to mention:
- Burial – Burial : I’m finding all this Hyperdub and dubstep malarkey a bit boring. Nice to put on in the background, while doing a bit of reading, but undeserving of the hype. Give me a nice slice of raggacore or something; something to get my teeth into
- Bong-Ra – Stereohype Heroin Hooker : This right here is an EP, so I'd feel a bit cheeky putting it on the list. Bong-Ra is a fucking breakcore god. Everything he touches turns to nasty, twisted, Amen Break-flecked gold. He’s playing at Bangface this month, with Kid 606, Plaid, The Bug, Enduser and some other lovely folks. A night like that will melt your fucking face off
- Venetian Snares – Hospitality : Another EP. Nice and melodic, chirpy breakcore, more in the vein of Cavalcade of Glee and Chocolate Wheelchair, than the orchestral epicness of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett or the demented depression of Winter in the Belly of a Snake. How in fuck is Aaron Funk is still churning them out? I should start a pool on how much material he'll release this year
- Tim Exile – Tim Exile's Nuisance Gabbaret Lounge : This bad boy is a mix CD, so, again, I exclude it from the list to keep within my own esoteric 'rules'. Two great breakcore mixes, recorded live over two club nights somewhere. It's not just your standard 'faceless prick behind some laptops' affair that a good chunk of electronic musicians seem to adore peddling. Oh no. This is a good natured, high energy, motherfuckin' dance party. In between harsh beats and walls of sound, he samples (and fucks about with) his own voice and the reaction of the crowd, and still finds time to take requests. CDs like this remind me why I love this music so much. It's a world away from the stone-faced, 'cooler-than-thou' attitude of the vast majority of the rest of the electronic and noise scenes. Fuck the posturing - HAVE SOME FUCKING FUN
- Gonzales – Solo Piano : Released in 2004, I think, so not on the list. God – how did it take me so long to pick this up? The lanky electro-funk-hip-hop mongoloid pulls out the unexpected – a beautiful, haunting collection of solo piano pieces. Stunning
- Venetian Snares vs Bong-Ra – 4 Adaptations of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett : Hahaha, who would have thought that putting Bong-Ra and VSnares together could make such sweet music. Cinematic, and jazzy in places. This wee gem was totally unexpected
Well – that’s enough from me, I reckon.
I can recommend you some further reading (if you fancy subjecting yourself to more of my witless shite) - here's the lists from the last few years:
20052004
2003
That's yer lot for now
but Myspace lets you fuck about with the layout of your page. There are literally millions of identikit emo-bawbag's pages filled with shitty pictures, bad, bad embedded mallcore MP3s and impossible-to-read black on dark blue text.
but these social networking things are really starting to grind my gears. I have no use for them whatsoever - I don't use them to keep in touch with mates (I use phones and email for that), they're basically just more ammo for a future stalker. But I will continue to sign up, I will continue to 'add people' to my friends list and I will continue to write painfully unfunny comments on the pages of people who I wouldn't shit on if they were on fire. I will continue because I am just as big of an attention whore as everyone else. I need more online friends than my other online friends. I need to validate my existence by counting the number of people who have viewed my profile.
Then fuck you, and the rest of you quiet down, this isn't a fucking school picnic. They rocked harder than dinosaur bones, and I was drunk as fuck - that's the whole night stripped down to it's bare elements. On the merchandise front, I picked up a slew of badges, none of which are particularly good - I may hand them out to tramps the next time I head into town. Also, due to the aforementioned 'drunk-as-fuckness' I was pogoing about like a fucking mental patient, leaving countless cuts and bruises on my body and completely fucking my shoes. I think they are beyond help, I may have to chuck them and buy a new pair. God damnit I love those shoes as well. In the ensuing hangover the next day I ordered a fuckload of CDs from t'internet - I literally have no idea what I bought, and I'm purposefully avoiding looking at the confirmation emails. I wonder what surprises are winging their way to me.
In other music related news - I won the latest 
Aaron had a rough and troubled childhood, fending for himself amongst his father’s reptiles, battling the poisonous creatures for morsels and scraps to eat, and sleeping with one eye open. It was here, at a young age, that he learned an appreciation for the power of music; he would sing the fanged bastards to sleep in order to steal their food and milk their fangs. This milking went on for many years until Aaron was confident he had enough. As his father came in one day with the usual offering of lifeless rats and mice Aaron pounced, forcing him to the ground and pouring the toxic venom down his throat. At aged 7, he made good his escape. But not before liberating his father’s wallet from his jacket pocket.
His life continued on quite comfortably for just over a year, but a string of unwise investments in anti-snake hammers and a catastrophic addiction to plantains swallowed up the vast majority of his fortune and forced him into hiding just days before his 18th birthday.
So far the only things I'm definately going to are the showing of 
I'm too young to have gone to any proper old skool raves, so it turned out to be quite a mad experience - 10,000 fucked up gurners bouncing away with whistles, white gloves, glow sticks, horns, etcetera in a listed building, it's a cool way to spend a balmy spring evening. It'd been ages since I'd had a good dance, too. There's actual mobile phone footage of me in action, which is bound to be a laugh now the weekend has worn off.
Anyways, my parents were down visiting for the weekend, which meant a coupla days of heavy boozing. God, I was working on both days too, I didn't start until 4pm. It was a merry old time. I was supposed to meet them in a (very heavy duty) Ranger's pub to watch the Old Firm game on Sunday, but I got there so late it was full. There was a whole swathe of guys jostling to get in, and after talking to a few of them we decided to get a taxi to another pub showing the game. It was a strange sensation watching the game with a load of random crazy Scotsmen, none of whom knew one another an hour before, but I had a good laugh. And the 'Gers won.
It was ok, not at all 'laugh-out-loud' funny, but still pretty good for a first episode establishing it's characters and setting the scene. It was quite slow and subdued, not what most people would be expecting from 'Meedja Terrorists' Morris and Brooker. The dialogue was more reminiscent of Brooker's stuff, I thought, but it did bear the hallmarks of Chris Morris' direction. The bit when Ashcroft was being interviewed for the Weekend on Sunday was excrutiating, almost Jam like. And speaking of Ashcroft, I thought Julian Barratt's acting was excellent. Nathan Barley himself was pretty obnoxious, but not how I imagined him from TVGoHome
'Dangers in the Kitchen' that the Home Ec teacher taped off Bitesize Revision on BBC 2 the night before), takes a tatty, Asda's own brand VHS from his briefcase and proceeds to show you every silly and embarrassing thing you've 
He proceeds to noise up the poor bear by poking him with a stick he found. I go over to intervene and the little fucker jumps up and attacks me, jumping all over me, hitting me with his little stick. He even attempts a few bites, and that's the last thing I need - fuckin' rabies. I manage to fight him off, even though he's unnaturally strong for a small primate, and hurl him over towards a large oak tree. He scrabbles about in the grass and somehow, he finds a knife. One of those stilletto numbers, proper fuckin' nasty. He advances towards me, screaming and screeching like a monkey possessed and lunges at me, stabbing. At this point, and I swear to God, my mobile goes off, waking me up. A fuckin' shitty text message. How annoying is that? I really wanted to know how I was gonna disarm that monkey, and if I was gonna release the bear. I read the text message, then conked back out. My dream this time was far more bizarre, epic and unresolved. Why can I never finish the good dreams?
