All this heavy gossamer

Three years.

That's how long I've been down in London now. I wouldn't even have noticed had my mum not phoned me up on Wednesday to shout "Three years" down the line.

Jesus shitting Christ where does the time go? Well, part of me thinks that, and the other part, contradictively, feels like I've been down here forever.

I wrote this last year, but this year I feel a little bereft of wit. Maybe it's because it's a lazy Sunday in work, or maybe it's because I spunked all my good lines on last year's 'recollection'.
.
.
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Hahahaahahah. What the fuck am I talking about? God, sometimes I need a boot right in the cock, I swear to fuck.

Right, so I've ordered the proper cables and whatnot to get my decks and my laptop speaking to each other (albeit, in not entirely dulcet tones), so expect that hacked together Zomcore mix to be the last one which is done solely on computer. Hopefully I'll have something new and blistering up soon. It won't be pretty, I can tell you that much. It will melt your fucking face off.

Alsooooo - I'm working on some new tracks, so the EP may be available soon, too. I'll probably need to sort out a better form of distribution than Myspace / Sendspace / YouSendit / Rapidshare / carrier pigeon - but I'm working on that. There may be merch, too. CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE?

I suppose you want a tracklisting, too

1. D. Scott - Scarey 1 / Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron -
The Sound Of Bones
2. Deathmachine - User Defined
3. Venetian Snares - Tache
4. Bong-Ra - The Rush (Long Time Coming) / Bong-Ra - The Rush (Long Time Coming) [De Bastardo Remix]
5. Kid606 - Catstep My Kitten [Vatstep DSP by Hrvatski]
6. Ladyscraper - Grr Track One
7. Bong-ra Horns
8. Merzbow - Looping Jane [Beat Mix]
9. V/VM - Untitled [Death March]
10. Drop The Lime - Hot Sauce Grillz
11. Cursor Minor - Hair of the Dog
12. Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron - Spirits, Monsters, Witches... / Nurse With Wound - Untitled

All the cool kids have podcasts... fuckin' wanks

Rapidshare link

Just a wee podcast I put together, with tracks by Merzbow, Bong-Ra, Kid606, Nurse With Wound, Ladyscraper, Venetian Snares, Deathmachine, Cursor Minor, Drop The Lime and some other bits and pieces

Enjoy!

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' is a grammatically correct sentence. You can either trust me, or look it up yourself, I canny be fucked explaining it here.

When I first found this out, my mind done a wee flip. I said to myself, "That's easily the most fucked up sentence you'll ever read". I've now discovered I was wrong. This fucker crept up on me today:

'John, when playing a game of Scrabble against Dick who, whilst pondering the degree of legitimacy the last word that Harry (who had had 'had') had had had had, had had 'had', had had 'had'. Had 'had' had more letters, he would have played it again'

Seriously, fuck that shit. What in the fuck? I think it's going to take me some time to wrap my head around that.

This one's quite fun, too:

'Who polices the Police? The Police Police police Police. Who polices the Police Police? The Police Police Police police Police Police'

The word 'police' has lost all meaning now

Fuck I'm bored

2006 in sound not pictures

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:

2005
2004
2003

That's yer lot for now

Max Headroom will fuck your shit up

On Sunday 22nd 1987, at 23:15 Chicago cable network WTTW had its signal hijacked, during an episode of Doctor Who.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it was probably some wiley environmentalists wanting to protest about some fucking seals or something. You're wrong though.

Someone (who has, in fact, never been caught) went to the supreme effort of criminally hijacking a major cable network's signal to broadcast one of the most fucked up and bizarre things you'll ever see.

Remember 80s TV weirdo Max Headroom? I don't think he was ever on TV here, but through some sort of pop culture osmosis I have vivid memories of his stupid cubist face, so I'm assuming you do, too. Well, this merry media terrorist nabbed a Max Headroom mask, mocked up a background and proceeded to broadcast himself talking utter shite. Creepy shite. Oh, and he gets spanked at the end, too.

There's something so very, very wrong about all of this:


I'd have been 7 when this was broadcast. And if I was sitting watching Doctor Who, and was suddenly faced with it, I'd have freaked the fuck out. Christ, Zelda from Terrahawks used to terrify me, this'd have caused me to shit my chinos.

After getting over the creepiness, I got a little maudlin. I find it sad, that in this age of hi-tech digital transmission, it'd be almost impossible to pull off this sort of broadcast signal intrusion.

Hmm, I wonder if I can surreptitiously Bluetooth fucked up videos to strangers on the tube...

Critical Motherfuckin' Best

I've been making music under the name Critical Best for just over six months now. It's good fun, though I've kind of hit an impasse. I've switched software recently, and it's kind of fucked up my creativity (OH the humanity). Hopefully the frosty winter months will inspire me.

Well, they fuckin' better - I'm working towards a decent and cogent EP, good to go by the start of the new year. It'll be available for free ('cos really, you wouldn't fucking pay for it, would you?) from this here blog, and a few other select places.

Enough of my nonsense, what I really wanna talk about is 'Lovely Girls', a hypnotic, disentegrating piece that I made ages ago, but didn't upload to my Myspace, for some reason. Here it is, for your listening and/or downloading pleasure:



If you like it, or if you don't, let me know. Either here or on the dreaded MYSPACE

Luv + hugz

GRINDHOUSE70O

Meant to post this a while ago..

Tarantino and Rodriguez's homage to grindhouse classics is out next year. It looks fucking awesome.

Trailer is here - http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2007/DEFGH/
Grindhouse/trailer.php

And here's some natty posters (click for huge):

Enjoy

Postal

I think my postman is stealing my fucking mail. Just mine, mind, and not my flatmate's. The bastard.

When I got paid last month, I ordered quite a bit of shit from various sites, which arrived in dribs and drabs. Well, most of it. I'm still waiting for some CDs and t-shirts nearly a month later.

I get all my fucking bills and that, all the bumph, but I'm still missing some pretty expensive items. I haven't really seen what the postman looks like, recently - maybe he's changed and we've got some shifty criminal.

I don't have a webcam or anything to set up, so I may have to wait until I'm off work on Tuesday to peer out the spy hole. I can spot the awkward gait of a lifelong lawbreaker from twenty paces. Fucker

In other news - there's a couple of new shirts over at essenem.co.uk, with a couple more in a few days, hopefully. We're actually selling some, which is lovely, and we might be getting some press coverage. If only I had time and talent to design a better looking site. Boo hoo.

Oh, there's a Myspace, too. There's gotta be in this fucking day and age - http://www.myspace.com/essenemclothing

MARGE YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART

Words....words fail me...



Oh yeah - hi everyone. Long time no see. I'm off to Morrocco tomorrow, but when I come back, I'm going to be all over this fucking internet like a cheap suite.

Laters

An auditory experience lacking musical quality

Hello again peeps. I've been neglecting this site like a motherfucker, and I have no one to blame but myself.

The T-shirt site should be getting a thorough revamp, soon, as we're getting to grips more and more with the wonderful world of E-COMMERCE, but that's not the main reason I've been slacking. Most of my free time on the laptop has been spent fucking about with music software, recently, and so I've done what any self respecting amateur noise maker would do in this day and age.

MYSPACE FUCKING MUSIC PAGE - http://www.myspace.com/criticalbest

Yes, I know - save me the abuse. Nothing on there is completely finished, and I'm not claiming to be the next Merzbow or anything, but it's good for a laugh.

Who knows, if I get my CSS shit together, there's a good chance I can integrate all this frippery together into one big happy funtime megapage.

Hip Hop Is Not A Spectator Sport

Many moons ago, before getting caught up in the soul sucking machine that is professional television, I was a carefree youth stumbling through college with a series of ramshackle programmes (or shall we call them 'short films'?). The last of these, being a hip-hop documentary entitled Hip Hop Is Not A Spectator Sport.

It's far from a masterpiece, as the drunken organising of a documentary is not a good idea. There's quite a few technical errors, too; some poor white balancing; a load of cheesy moments; and, some frankly laughable graphics, but it was all good fun, and got me my HND at college.

I managed to digitise it some time ago (albeit from a shonky VHS copy), but had never got round to actually doing anything with it. So, without further ado, I present it to you now:

[ Youtube Video removed,

gie's a shout if you want to see it ]

I've got some more of my shit kicking around somewhere which you may or may not be subjected to in the future

Shifty eyed goddamn liar

Two years today I moved to London. How fucking bizarre is that? Imagine me, turning up at the airport, fresh faced and full of wonder. No idea what the fuck I was doing. I remember my first few weeks - I was fuckin' terrified. Glasgow's a reasonable sized city, but it can't prepare you for the enormity of London. 'Thrown in at the deep end' doesn't even begin to describe it.

But that's always the best way to teach a drunken baby to swim. Look at me now. Haggard. Cynical. Sporting a beard and dressing like a homosexual. Talking about house prices and congestion charges and production houses in Soho. I don't bat an eyelid when I pay 4 quid for a pint in some faux trendy wankhole in Hoxton. I don't bat an eyelid when I careen down the wrong stairs in some grubby tube station, fighting against the tide, knocking some pregnant banker down, clattering onto the platform. Just to shave 15 seconds off my commute. I have never earned so much money, nor been so skint in my life.

And I fucking love it.

COVER YOUR SHAME

WWW.ESSENEM.CO.UK GOES LIVE

Hello peeps. After 6 months of drunken fuckery, the t-shirt site is finally up. Go and have a look, and if you see any shirts you like, for fuck's sake BUY THEM.

Conversely, if you see a design you like, but we don't have the particular syle or colour you want, let me know and I'll rectify the situation.

Here's a small selection from the site:

TELL YOUR FRIENDS

www.essenem.co.uk

marc(AT)essenem.co.uk

Don't mess with me, lady, I've been drinking with skeletons

Fuck me, I am useless. What with having a full time job, making music, designing t-shirts for the site, working on a treatment for a short film and being a raging drunkard, I just haven't had time to talk shite on here that nobody wants to hear. Poor you.

I am sitting here eating a Twix, and it's been in the fridge. I think I've broken my fucking teeth chewing through the toffee bit - it was rock solid. Bastards.

My nonce-ear (as Craig so lovingly put it) is pretty much gone. I filled it full of far too much Otex and went to a 65daysofstatic concert. That fucked up the wax good and proper. I swear to God, you have to invest in some Otex. It's expensive (~£8 for a wee bottle), but it is most definately the shit.

T-shirt site should go live at the end of the week - expect me to plug the shit out of it.

Byeeee

Corn Beef

I awoke at around midnight on Monday in screaming fucking agony. I hate ear infections, and have not had the displeasure of one for quite a number of years. After a rather brisk 2 hours at Accident & Emergency I was furnished with ear drops and some nifty codeine tablets for the pain, tablets that ensured the week at work stumbled by like a drunken hobo.

The infection itself is pretty much gone now, but as I sit here bored shitless in work, I am deaf as a fucking post in my left ear. This is a further annoyance, as I've come to realise that my left ear is my good ear, so basically, I can't hear shit.

Everything I am somehow able to hear sounds as if it's underwater, due to gunk and shit floating around in my ear canal, but I don't know if I have the time or patience for another trip to A&E for a syringing. My flatmates have that Audiclean stuff, so I may give that a shot.

And why should you give a fuck about my ears? Well, I was going to write about my brand new, super awesome funtime happy box that has just arrived in the post - My FM3 Buddha Machine:

It's a cool wee box that plays 9 different loops, and from what I've heard, is lovely and soothing. Obviously I'll need working ears before I can give a decent view on the thing.

Fuckin' ears

Motherfuckin' bird flu

I bought my first CD of the year on Friday night. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, I've usually bought a fuckton of albums by now. It's not even like I'm downloading a lot of shit from Soulseek, I'm just being generally shit when it comes to music.

But yeah - I bought my first CD of the year on Friday night. It was an Ove Naxx tour CD, bought from the man himself at esteemed breakcore night Trash Trash Noise Next Door. It was fucking bedlam. Ove was so stoned when he got up on stage he fell over and broke his microphone. And DJ Scotchegg had 4 Gameboys on the go at one point. Good fun.

I will have to buy some music now.

Mogwai - Mr Beast,
Liars - Drums Not Dead,
B.Fleischmann - The Humbucking Coil
Battles - Ep C/B Ep
65daysofstatic - Radio Protector EP

Yeah that'll do for now.

The t-shirt site I've mentioned a few times will be up and running very very soon, I'll keep y'all posted.

Laters

2005 - That was the year that was

I had to go and get a blood test done, what was it... last Thursday. Now, I watched the guy do it, and he seemed to know what the fuck he was doing, and it didn't hurt (it looks cool as fuck when the vacuum in the vial kicks in and it whips the blood right out of your vein), but I've ended up with a massive fucking bloody-yellow bruise on my left arm. It's actually impinging on my fucking tattoo.

It looks like I've had part of a junkie-biker-whore's arm grafted onto mine. I can see people look at it in work, too. Whatever must they think? Fun fun fun. Really though, he made a right fuckin' meal of it. Hopefully, it'll fade in the next, oh... week or some shit.

Anyways, back to the task at hand. Last year I decided to have a little fun with my calendar. Each day, when the day was done, I wrote one, two or three words down to describe each day. Some days were cryptic, others were blatant. I honestly didn't think I'd keep it up for the whole year. But I did. And what do you do with all that data? Well, if you're me, you put it into an Excel spreadsheet, allocate each day a rating between 0 and 13, then you graph the fuck out of that motherfucker.

Here's the raw as fuck data, untouched and graphed:


As you can see, it's pretty much all over the shop. That blue line is the general trend, but it doesn't give the full picture. I had to do some fucking ninja shit on the data to get an awesome graph. And here it is, my overall happiness throughout 2005, month by month:



So that was 2005.

Shit man, I need a new fucking hobby.

And now for something completely different

I don't think this site was primarily designed for this sort of shit, but...well...here:

--Bombay Bullion
--Saucy Nurse
--YAMS
--Lollipop Man
--Project Mayhem

Sorry for the appalling lack of humour (not to mention words) in this update. I'm a tired panda

Liz Hurley has shoulders like a rugby player

I fucking hate January, I swear to fuck. The whole month is just a hangover from Xmas and Hogmany. I feel like I've been underwater for the past 2 weeks - I have no money, my health is shot to fuck from over-indulging and I have this sort of creeping dread that washes over me every now and again. I think last year it wasn't so bad, 'cos I'd just been dumped so I had every reason to feel like shit. But this year... Fuck. This year I am in a good place. Things are going well for me, and I have no reason to be in a shitty mood. Which just makes it worse when I feel like rubbish.

On the plus side (of this laughable emo fag outpouring), I am feeling much better today. Maybe it's the methamphetamine in the coffee; maybe it's the fact it's payday on Sunday; maybe it's the fact I have a lovely girl who lets me do stuff to her; maybe it's the limited edition Japanese Adidas I bought yesterday made from FUCKING NILE CARP! Whatever it is, I'm feeling rather damn spiffy.

It's probably the meth, actually.

Yeah, anyways, you didn't come here to listen to me moan about this shitty month, you came to hear me rant about moths and keyboards and poorly trained killer whales, didn't you?

And on that note:

What the fuck is the deal with that smell? You know the one - when you leave your clothes out to dry and they don't dry properly. What the fuck is that? It doesn't exist anywhere else in nature and I'd like to know where in the everliving fuck it comes from. It's deceptive, too. You grab a fresh tee shirt from the cupboard, you think everything's hunky dory, then BAM - you're sitting at work, furtively sniffing your sleeve to see if that pungent, corpse-like aroma is emanating from your supposedly clean clothes. I'm too poor and lazy to be washing shit twice, but I'm too fucking cool to be out in public smelling like Bernie after he's been left out too long in the sun.

It's very annoying.