Burial - True!

Was just speaking to a 'friend-of-a-friend' who works at *REMOVED* and he's let me in on a little secret - supposedly, universally loved dubstep producer Burial is actually Roni Size.

Odd, eh?

JOHN FUCKING RAMBO

This is going to be the film of the year

Hahahahahahahaha

2007 Musical Roundup Type Thing

As we reach the end of another futuristic year, it's nice to look back, and bask in the glory of music. Music released in 2007. Music released in 2007 which was enjoyed by me. To this end, I have compiled a list of sorts, illustrating music I enjoyed from the year two thousand and seven. Here it is:

2007's Best Albums

(in no particular order, except number 1)

1. Rotator - Choose Your Poison, Mine Is Hardcore!!!


2. The Tuss - Rushup Edge


3. Battles - Mirrored


4. Panda Bear - Person Pitch


5. Gescom - A1-D1


6. Wiley - Eskiboy : The Best Of Tunnel Vision


7. Melt Banana - Bambi's Dilemma


8. XXL - ¿Spicchiology?


9. Pluramon - The Monstrous Surplus


10. Mujuice - Cool Cool Death


11. MIA - Kala


12. DJ Scotch Egg - Scotchhausen


13. Dilithium Tourdes - The Dirty Dick Outlaw


14. 65daysofstatic - The Destruction Of Small Ideas

Best 10 Inch

• Venetian Snares - Sabbath Dubs

Great, wobbly, dub cover/remixes of classic Sabbath tracks. A pity there's only 2 tracks on here

Best 12 Inch

• Various - Cross Roads EP

There's a brilliant Cakebuilder tune on this, but the standout track is Venetian Snares' totally unexpected 4 to the floor monster, "Koonut Kaliffee". It's a punishing rave bastard of a track, and shows yet another side to the man Funk. Released on Dross:tik Records, if you're looking for it

Best Compilation

• Proibidao C.V - Forbidden Gang Funk from Rio De Janeiro

Mmmm, illegal Brazilian funk. Well, it's not really funk - it's gang sponsored MCs chatting over Miami bass beats. Peculiar stuff

Best Reissue

• White Noise - An Electric Storm

BBC Radiophonic Workshop maven, Delia Derbyshire, and friends, show literally everyone how it's done in this stunning masterpiece of an album. Listening to it today, it's almost unthinkable that it was released in 1969

Biggest Letdown

• Venetian Snares - My Downfall (Original Soundtrack)

Cheap nasty presets for the violin sounds, lacklustre breakcore, emo imagery - Snares has fucking lost it with this album. Seen by many as a follow up, and companion piece to 2005's "Rossz csillag alatt született", this fails in every single way that "Rossz..." succeeded (and I didn't even rate "Rossz...")

A Few Mentions...

• Burial - Untrue

Better than last year's debut effort, but I still don't see what the fuss is all about. This is on every single fucker's album of the year list. Don't believe the hype until you've gave it a thorough listen yourself

• Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams

Unexpectedly good new album from the Shaolin boys. I've not gave this a decent enough listen to include it on the proper list, though

• Minimal Techno and the Kitsune / Ed Banger shit and the Nu Rave bollocks and most Dubstep...

Can all fuck right off. Well, maybe not Dubstep, but it's proliferation annoys me - you just canny get away from it

• Xiu Xiu - The Air Force

Released in 2006, but only nabbed by me in 2007. More fantastic stuff from Jamie Stewart. The "Remixed and Covered" album released in 2007 was pretty decent, too. Great tracks from Kid606, Why?, Larsen, Gold Chains and many more

That's me for another year. Here's the previous lists...

2006
2005
2004
2003

Let's hope we get some good shit in 2008

MECONIUM on Scunnered Records MP3

The lovely folks at Noise Joy have had a bit of a catastophe - everything they've ever released has disappeared from their servers. Nasty

Until they're back up and running, I've released Meconium on Scunnered Records MP3:

www.archive.org/details/CriticalBest-Meconiumscun001

Enjoy

(There's a new track on Myspace, too - www.myspace.com/criticalbest, it's called 'Trevor Brown Don't Paint My Child')

Christmas Mix

http://www.mediafire.com/?fatjmmxx9zz

1//Kodek - You Must Think First Before You Move
2//Droon / Barndance
3//Adam Harris / Hyperspeed (Sy and Unknown Remix) + Hellfish / Pill Lesson
4//Phuq / Broken (Ruthmix)
5//LFO Demon / Classwar Dynamite
6//Ladyscraper / Turboturd!
7//Gabba Front Berlin / Speedcore Lacrima

A decidedly un-festive half hour. Enjoy

Woop de fuckin' woop

Oh yeah, I have a Discogs page now:

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Critical+Best

Yeah

I went climbing yesterday and now these arms are dead snakes

Hmmm, I haven't updated this in fucking ages.



I have an excuse, though - I've just moved into a lovely new flat with my awesome girlfriend, and we don't have t'internet yet, so I can't really update this page from home. And work is pretty busy, what with Xmas looming on the horizon.



I've been growing a moustache this month, along with loads of other guys around the world, to raise money for Prostate Cancer charity. I'm starting to look like a gay fisherman.



I've got 3 new tracks in the pipeline, and a kind of vague concept of things I want to do. Unlike my first album, which was just a hotch potch of all the tracks I'd done, I have a nebulous theme in mind for my next project. I want to get some cheap analogue equipment first, though, as I'm getting a bit bored of my software (and I'm too lazy to learn a couple of the new bits of software I got recently).



Wa wa waaa

All Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween, peeps.



For your listening pleasure, I present a 'mashup' of Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron and Nurse With Wound. I've taken the DJ Brokenwindow route on this, as I'm shit at mashups, and it didn't really need much tweaking to sound perfect and creepy:

Nurse With Wound - Rat Tapes (Marc'o van Bastard's Halloween Edit)

(This was originally the last track of that Zomcore podcast I done, but I figure it's spooky enough to stand alone today)

Also - what the fuck is up with the lack of pumpkins this year? I am bereft. Most annoying

Laters gaters

Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream

The very lovely Dadaist Audio have just released their gigantic compilation Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream.

It contains 175 tracks, and over 9 hours of music, ranging from hip hop to black metal, from synthpop to harsh noise, it has everything!

And, it has a track by ME!

It's a reworked, and longer version of 'There Is Truth In Flesh And The Solid Ground', and it's only available on this compilation

You can grab it here (it's in Part 5 - Track 9):

[DADA050] Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream -- A Dadaist Audio Compilation

Please let Dadaist Audio know what you think! And let me know, if you have any thoughts on my track.

Many thanks to Chris @ Dadaist Audio for including my track, and supporting original and innovative music

Cheers

MOSHCOREFUNTRENDS

Hello peeps. I have a mix for you, a breakcore mix:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bzmztrgyzv5
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IUA3AGDB



1..ANONYMOUS.LY - Untitled
2..Duran Duran Duran - Ralez
3..CDATAKILL - Yesterdays (Ubergang Remix)
4..Throttler - Validation
5..DJ Floorclearer - Over The Legal Limit
6..Cakebuilder - Book of the Dead
7..Enduser - Les Dilution
8..Bong Ra - Eenzaam Sterven Wij Allen
9..ACRNYM - ASBO Selecta
10.LFO Demon - Murderstyle Remix
11.Trentmoller - Miss You
12.DJ Freak - Never Been to Brooklyn

This is the first breakcore mix I've done using my decks, so if you have any kind or nasty words, they'd be very helpful

Ta

MECONIUM on MP3

Critical Best
Noise Joy
Scunnered Records

Cheers for the support, folks

MECONIUM

Limited to thirty (30) copies on CD. Please give me shout if you'd like one - I'm not selling it, but I will swap it for something cool (cool as in quirky - I don't expect anything expensive as it will be available as a free MP3 download soon, if you don't manage to get a hold of one of these CDs).

Critical Best - Meconium : a 40 minute album of disintegrating technoise and lullabies, released on my very own Scunnered Records

You can hear 3 of the tracks (albeit in a slightly unfinshed form) here - www.myspace.com/criticalbest

Info on the MP3 release will be disseminated as and when

Cheers peeps

Chill the fuck out

I done another mix, it's pretty chill. Download it here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ekaqq2

Tracks by The Tuss, Parts & Labor, Kid606, 65daysofstatic and many more

Enjoy

Behind the times with Web 2.0

I finally got a Last.fm thingy. I am hopelessly behind the times. It did give me this, though, which is pretty nifty:


Yeah, Web 2.0 can suck my cock

Gutter Poetry

I got a bit bored on Friday, as it was my day off, so I decided to have a play on my decks. I put together this mix:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/u6ifvv

Now, it's not beatmatched in the slightest (I've not touched the decks in about 3 months), but it is a fun collection of tunes. It's also recorded via an intricate system of tin cans and string, between the mixer and the laptop, so it's a little 'noisy'. But it's only half an hour long, so it won't fucking kill you.

Also, it's not a noisy breakcore freakout - it's quite relaxed. There's some Dextro, Cex, Herrmutt Lobby and Trentmøller on there, and some other stuff I've forgotten about

Enjoy

Beware the Pipistrelle

Right, fuck it - remember my EP, Critical Best - Meconium? It's now officially an album.

Tracklisting is as follows:

1. Bha e brèagha an-de
2. There is Truth in Flesh and the Solid Ground
3. Famous Bison
4. Your Own Clockwork Christ
5. Gossum
6. Point One Four
7. Wet Bass Core
8. They Squeel
9. Fixing Windmills

It's all completely finished, and should be released within the next month, I reckon.

Formats will be:

Free MP3 download, released by Noise Joy Records
30 hand numbered CDRs, released by my very own Scunnered Records

The CDR will not really be on sale, as such. If you want one, let me know and we can come to some sort of arrangement. I'd like to swap them for cool stuff (not cool expensive stuff, as it's only a CDR [with tracks you can get for free] - but cheap, quirky stuff).

Exciting, isn't it.

(Keep checking myspace.com/criticalbest for updates)

Pictures what are good and that

My old friend and confidante, Mister Andrew Hood, photographer of much renown, former Huguenot, black marketeer and swashbuckler, has just launched his portfolio website:

http://www.hoodphotography.co.uk/

Please do visit, and let his work play upon your retinas. You shall no doubt see why his work has been much lauded, and he's received a multitude of plaudits. You may also stumble upon one of the many self portraits of his cock.

Fortune favours the old

Hello chaps and chapettes,

How have you been? In the interim between the last post and this, I've been to South Korea. It was fucking mental! We got to visit the DMZ, and even North Korea for a wee bit. It truly was ace.

I'll hopefully be posting some awesome photos of me and my lovely girlfriend Mo knicking about the Far East, but in the meantime I have news of a musical nature.

My EP is all but done, and has mutated to album length. Here's a sneak peek at the cover:



I'll let you know exactly when where how and why it's being released, and I'll be appearing on some compilations in the near future, too. So expect an information leaden update sometime in the very near future.

In the meantime, go to www.myspace.com/criticalbest for any crucial nuggets of shit that I may have forgotten to mention here.

Sound of Summer

Years and years ago, 'Windowlicker' used to be the ideal summer tune. There's something so perfect about its sleaziness that seems to mesh with long, humid days. We used to nick about sunny Glasgow in my beat-up white Ford Escort with the windows down and RDJ's snare rushes, glitches and wonky French, pulsing out from the stereo. We thought we were the coolest fucks in Fuck Town

But time passes, and classic Aphex Twin tracks lose their lustre and charm

Trentemøller remixed it in 2004, under the name 'Run Jeremy', turning it into a finely tuned 4/4 stormer, but it was still the same basic track - glorious, yet old news

--

I used to be right into the whole 'Mashup' / 'Bootie' scene back when it first came to light. Freelance Hellraiser (when he was still underground), Frenchbloke, all that jazz. Kid606 pretty much kicked fuck out of the whole scene, with 'The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You The Fucking Jams', so I've not really been keeping an eye on, what is now, the massive collection of shit that's out there. So I can't really tell you when this hit the net:

M83 vs Aphex Twin vs Khia - Pussylicker
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V6EQJJZ0

It's a perfect combination of 'Aphex Twin - Windowlicker (Acid Edit)', 'M83 - Run Into Flowers (Midnight Fuck Remix By Jackson)' , and 'Khia - My Neck, My Back' by some guy called Dopplebanger, and manages to somehow, be even more summery than the original, untouched 'Windowlicker'

Download it, whack it on your stereo, and sit in the back garden drinking ice cold beer while staring wistfully at the one lone cloud adorning the sky

ahh

One of my earrings popped out this morning, and my clown fingers are having a cunt of a time getting it back in. Gun piercings through cartilage are a bitch

Life is cruel