praxis presents datacide 13 fundraiser from sans culotte on Vimeo.

When hell is full the dead will dance on your iPhone. Or: Data overrun, buffer overflow. A few thoughts about the obsolescence of the future and Simon Reynolds’ “Retromania”.

by lfo demon

Should I write a review of last year’s book? Simon Reynolds is still holding lectures on “Retromania”. And to be honest, the book is too good to let it pass by unnoticed (1). It holds many continuative thoughts about the state of (pop) culture. Nevertheless, its subject doesn’t stop at its reception. Just one year later, the book appears to be derived from another era with its long explanation on the iPod. iPod? Do we still discuss this today? It seems to be as out dated as talking about Windows 95 (2).

The writing style is catered to a bigger audience. “Retromania” is easy to read with its personalized anecdotes. The parts about theory are small excursus in footnotes. I got the impression that Reynolds read a lot during his studies, but didn´t continue this in his last books. He does refer to certain classic titles from Freud, Derrida, Spengler (p.170), but those excursus stay more or less rudimentary. Here, theory is like coffee table chat where certain names are dropped like dress codes. Been there, done that. But I won´t be too harsh because the approach is cleary journalistic and not oriented to a scientific standard. And I´m also wondering if it is possible to abstract broader insights from the described phenomenon.

The answers to the question of”why” stay vague, and so do the concepts. In the end, the term “retro” is as elastic as a rubber band: rock museums, DJ Shadow, reenactment, the feeling of nostalgia, The Beatles, Punk, Rave – you name it. And it looks like there is no containment of the subject: Retro can be found everywhere. This is reminiscent of the principle: if you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. A sceptical demur: are all of the described observations evidence for “Retro”, or are they heterogenous phenomenons that have nothing in common and are subsumed under the label “Retro”? The presence is always built on the past – and on what else? The cultural industries have always already exploited existing culture. Walt Disney wouldn´t exist without the Brothers Grimm. But Reynolds’ main thesis is pop culture´s “addiction to its own past”. According to clinical findings, what is the daily dose that determines addictive behavior?

And when is the “past”? A little thought experiment: If I buy a vinyl record today and listen to it constantly every day, when does my behaviour start to refer to something “retro”? Even as I finish writing this sentence it is already part of past. As soon as I have recorded a piece of music we talk about the past and not the present. On one hand, I have the fleetingness of human forms of expression, on the other hand, I have options to conserve them in substance through memorization carriers that are resistant to time and can reproduce the conserved social actions over and over again. With this comes the illusion that it´s possible to store time via freezing. Nevertheless, something of Now-Time is preserved in recordings. For example, in every recorded piece of music is a compressed echo not only of individual expression but also of the historic form of society.

So “Retro” is a certain use of the past by the presence. But not all music is used in a cultish Retro way. The paths are interwinded and unfathomable. When someone pronounces something to be the “Golden Era”, it is based on socialization and other factors. Techno works different than Rock music; Rock was always conservative. Within Techno music there are some old records that end up at the rummage sale crate. For other sub genres like UK Rave from the period of 1990 to 1993, record prices are exorbitantly high (p. 233).

So who decides what is in and what isn’t? We´re not talking about the individual, but about aggregated individual decisions here: descisions that form an audience or the masses. Pop journalism, like the music industry, has to manufacture masses – it has to channel individual desire. “Retromania” is about the production of consensus. If I write only about my local favourite band, nobody would buy my book. On the other hand, pop journalism is also driven by personal interest. I don´t want to read about every band. When talking with others about Reynolds’ book”Rip it up and start it up again”, I got the impression that reading inspired a desire to listen to some of the mentioned bands. But some chapters were tough. The history of pop isn´t so important that I would read the history of U2 voluntarily. Writing about something seems to constitute the subject: Pretending that Throbbing Gristle or Joy Division were important shapes a certain narrative of history and forms a collective. But they were not important for me in my youth.

Music is based on populism. And populism isn´t meant only in a negative way. Music production aims for publicity, and for an audience that is bigger than me. And it is unsatisfying to stand with 5 other people at a musical event. The nature of music is social and it relates to others.

One can only try to gather evidence for a change within music, but a coherent picture will not show up. How is digital technology interfering with the economy? It´s probably not only the monetary economy – which is discussed all over the place by record companies and sales of sound storage medium – but economy in a broader sense: libidinous economy. What is happening with my attention and my interest in music? Conservative technological pessimism (3) postulates that everything was better in the past and technology (today: internet, computer, ego-shooter games; formerly: VCRs, Comics, trains) overburdens the individual and causes undesired social behaviour.

It´s surely an option to lean back in response and think of Karl Marx or Joseph Schumpeter and the idea of “creative destruction”. Capitalism creates new technological industries and ruins them – but this is not a new phenomenon. From the perspective of theory this is a calming insight, but it is not for the participant of society who is part of this process. It would be interesting to examine the illusion of the post-fordist lifestyle: the comfortable idyll in western countries after the second world war when nobody could imagine that those massive industrial buildings built by men in the cities of Detroit or Essen (Germany) would be ruins just a few years later. But people stay behind and have to live with those ruins and arrange themselves within new conditions: no more jobs at huge industrial companies, no more motor cities. Simon Reynolds tries to get the historical dimension of technology. For example, the CD existed before the internet and made digital access to music possible. The remote control of CD players gave the option to skip through tracks, shuffle them and press pause (p.70). But this seems a bit too far-fetched since tape decks have remote controls too and with vinyl records it is easy to skip. It is also a relativization of the current revolution via the internet: the availability of music is virtually unlimited. The CD might have been an evolutionary step towards the era of digital music, but the revolution doesn´t logically derive from it.

A central point for retro is digital recording of audio and video and the expansion of archives via the internet (4). Looking into the near future the next change is ante portas: streaming services like Spotify and special mobile flat rates from telephone companies for music streaming. The platform bandcamp.com, which is more relevant for independent music, works without royalties for streaming. Those developments question the principle of “owning music” and collecting. Reynolds is describing a phase of senselessly downloading and stockpiling mp3 files without ever listening to most of them (p.110). Data overrun, buffer overflow. The individual as an extension of the computer – the raison d’être is handling information. When there are virtual personal assistants, like modern butlers, to handle the customer’s Email account, is it too absurd to think of somebody to handle the “incoming” mp3 folder? If there is binge drinking, there is definitely binge collecting.

It is true: “Recording is pretty freaky, if you think about it. But sampling doubles its inherent supernaturalism” (p.313). If you look at Boards of Canada the way Reynolds does, this seems to be true. If you look at voice samples on Smart E´s records, sampling seems to be less creepy. Nonethelss, there is an uncanny aspect, which is endless repetition. Past tense is not wearing away and falling into oblivion, but is constantly present. It´s not vanishing and making space for something new, but haunting the present. Think of the digital graveyard Youtube. Libraries are mausoleums of knowledge and human culture, and nowadays you can get the graveyard on your smart phone and let dead people sing and dance by pressing a button. This is as macabre as Norman Bates: the parental Super-Ego of the decayed culture gets preserved mumified and dictates the life of the living. The dreams and desires of the dead burden the living (5). But if there is the option of commemoration, there is also the option of forgetting something. There are positions that remind us that forgetting digital information is a necessary part of the digital era (e.g. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger) to contain the vast amount of data.

Naive anarchistic surges: no museum, no archives, no dealing with history. Form luddite groups. Reinvent a new praxis of dealing with technology. Don´t leave anything behind or anything that can be used to manufacture. Don´t record anything. Leave no traces.

Collecting books and records is part of a libidinous economy with its “too much is never enough” (p.95). A diagnosis for this state of culture could also be “consumption overload” or “permanent stimulus”. I personally react with apathy to it. I refuse to make a choice to select something from the constant stream of commodities of available music. Sometimes it seems that I can only decide based on the criteria of pure arbitrariness. But then I can´t question the principle of permanent decision itself (6). How do we relate to oversupply? How do I react to the permanent overdose of music? Do I listen to full albums or do I skip through them on Youtube, and then buy the release with the only result that it gets covered in dust in iTunes or on my record shelf?

We live in a world of permanent availability of cultural goods. I can listen to almost everything whenever I want to. But what happens with my desire? I would guess that surprise is becoming rare, and rarities are also dying out. Everything gets conserved in a digital state. For older events from the pre-Youtube era, digital memories are weaker. But the data collectors on discogs are busy and complete the missing information. No musical style is so unusual that there isn´t a nerd who finds the missing information and puts it on the net. But I´m wondering if there is enough interest there to deal with all music. So probably I am wrong, and it is not the question if there are “Unknown Unknowns” (Donald Rumsfeld) – either in the past as rarities or in the future as undiscovered styles – but is rather the question of if I have the desire to search for it.

Each historical phase seems to have its own psychological mental states and fetishisms. Reynolds takes Rave in the 1990s and its phantasm with space travel. Wasn´t there a recurrence of space travel phantasies of the 1960s? And then didn´t Punk with “No future” happen? If we look at some ideas about certain time periods, change seems to be swift. Technological optimism fights with other ideas about conclusive authority. And today Space optimists are at their historical ancestral space: at the lunatic fringe of society of harmless wackos. This may be another reason why Newt Gingrich, with his ideas of colonies on the moon, didn´t make it as a candidate for the republican party in the US presidential elections. But somehow back in the 1960s an unbroken belief in a golden future was passible – with no Challenger and Columbia catastrophies which re-spelled “space” into “grave”. It´s an astonishing fact that a few years after two world wars people would adopt such a naive hope. But those times are over, at least at the moment. So if each epoch has its own psychic constellation, nowadays a detached fatalism in the sign of massive state deficits and financial crisis in the USA and Europe is the current paradigm. Believing in the future doesn’t seem like an option.

And so everything continues and at the same time it doesn´t. “We have this paradoxical situation of speed and standstill” (p.427). But hasn´t it always been like that? This sentence by Reynolds seems almost like a direct quote from the “Ecplise of Reason”, which T.W. Adorno and M. Horkheimer wrote back in 1942. It looks like the future is historically outdated. Capitalism started a lucrative business in recycling the Dead and culture entered the age of Retro.

Simon Reynolds – Retromania. Faber and Faber, 2011.

1 The following text is not a normal “review”. I don’t distinguish strictly between my thoughts and the ones of Simon Reynolds. The ideas are fragmentary as there are too many topics which can´t be discussed in detail. My text is influenced by talks I had with Christoph Fringeli and Pure.

2 If you are searching for a sphere where the past is still fading away – it is software. There are niches like Retro gaming, but in the mainstream there is still a clear model of historic progress. And everything outside this ends at the digital junkyard – like Win 95.

3 A current example from Germany: The neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer diagnoses a “digital dementia” in society: 04.09.2012 – http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/rezensionen/sachbuch/manfred-spitzer-digitale-demenz-ein-grober-keil-auf-einen-groben-klotz-11878906.html

4 Reynolds stays with the example of Youtube and describes it as everything but a company. With the “cultural” dimension, the aspect of economical interest is missing.

5 There is a economic dimension on that too: Music of the Dead isn´t vanishing but still constantly there beyond the grave craving for living people´s money. Micheal Jackson might be the most prominent example. To put it in a non-zombological way: the amount of musical products on the market is constantly growing. You can guess now what effect this has on the income of artists.

6 I think it is good idea to remind oneself that radical alternatives can be envisioned. Take Bill Drummond and the No Music Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Music_Day

“Fight for Freedom”
The legend of the “other”Germany.
extended book review by Christoph Fringeli

“But, at the same stage of the war which led many people into emotional outbursts to the detriment of their reason, I never renounced what I regarded as my duty towards the other Germany, the real Germany. (…) Nazism represented the enemy within. Hitler had to be defeated so that Germany might live.” Willy Brandt: In Exile, p. 100f.

Willy Brandt, who served as Mayor of West Berlin and then German Chancellor, voiced here an idea that was widespread both among German exiles, and prominent in both West and East Germany: The Nazis didn’t represent the “real” Germany, but were oppressors of the German people. This view was particularly widespread in different sections of the Left.

On another end of the left spectrum, the Stalinists’ definition was “Fascism in power is the open, terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of finance capitalism” (Dimitroff, 1935). This obviously implied that the German people were the first victims of a conspiracy of evil forces.
This “definition”, athough it is actualy more of a propaganda slogan, denies the rather obvious fact that National Socialism in Germany was a genuine mass movement. The “socialist” element in its ideology is deemed pure demagogy.

Both views, the social democratic and the Stalinist, are merely examples of a broad front of similar opinions which permeated the German exile community, and became a prevalent force in the post war years, when they helped re-integrate Nazis into different post war societies.

The smaller left-socialist groups had their own fantastic scenarios. In a pamphlet titled “The Coming World War” (Paris, June 1939) a group of authors from the Revolutionäre Sozialisten Österreichs, the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (SAP) and the group Neu Beginnen laid out a scenario of three phases. First, the coming war would be won by the united nations. Second, as a result of the German defeat, the masses in Germany would rise up, make a socialist revolution and create a Soviet Germany. In the third phase, Soviet Germany would export the revolution all over Europe.

These views obviously chose to ignore the fact that the Nazi’s seizure of power in 1933 happened without effective resistance from the working class and its parties, let alone from the “people” as a whole. When the Communist Party called for a general strike against the Nazis after they took power, the call was followed only by the tiniest minorities. It’s whole apparatus was smashed within weeks and its cadres had to go underground or into exile. Thousands were rounded up by SA, beaten, many killed, scores ended up in prisons and concentration camps. The SPD tried to hold on to a legalistic existence as long as possible, but was made illegal in June 1933, a month after the unions were smashed and integrated in the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. Countless members switched over to the “winning team”and joined the Nazis, others abandoned politics. Organized resistance structures remained small and many of them were smashed in the coming years.

While most of the German groups in exile in Britain at the time were adamant in maintaining their idea of presenting themselves as representatives of “the other Germany”, one group of German left-wingers spoke out against the myth that Germans were merely suppressed by a gang of Nazis. This group on the left founded the publishing company “Fight for Freedom”. Participants included Curt Geyer, who had been a leader of the exile SPD (SoPaDe), Walter Loeb, Fritz Bieligk, Carl Herz, Kurt Lorenz, Bernhard Menne and others. Some had been members of the pre-Stalinist KPD at the beginning of the 20′s before returning to Social Democracy later.

Another interesting contributor was Karl Retzlaw. A close collaborator of Karl Liebknecht and co-founder of the KPD, Retzlaw was a Left-Communist whose autobiography is recommended reading to anyone wishing to understand the complex and tragic history of the revolutionary movement in Germany between WW1 and WW2, and who remained a dedicated revolutionary until his death in 1979. He contributed a pamphlet on German Communism to “Fight for Freedom”.

With a series of nearly 20 pamphlets and books between 1942 and 1945, “Fight for Freedom” tried to intervene in discussions about the nature of Nazi Germany and about how to approach the post war era. Many different aspects were treated in these texts, which have recently been made available again (in German) by ça ira.

An analysis of German nationalism was developed by political positions that you might not expect, namely German Liberalism, political Catholicism, as well as the Left. It is indeed a sad indictment how the Communist Party in particular played the nationalist card. Even before Stalinization, the KPD went through the so called “Schlageter-Kurs” in 1923. In 1930, the KPD issued a “Programmatic Declaration on the National and Social Liberation of the German People”, which tried to profit from the widespread national sentiments at the time. Such opportunism did not only fail to win over the nationalist constituency, it contributed to a climate of politically unchallenged nationalistic sentiments. Instead of providing a principled internationalist counter-position, the KPD aligned itself with German mainstream.

Another text is an invective against publisher Victor Gollancz, who was a Stalinist “fellow traveler” at the time, as well as a prominent critic of Vansittart (see below). Gollancz also believed in a coming revolution in Germany against Hitler, and thus in particular saw a definite distinction between “Hitler” and “Germany”. Geyer and Loeb, the authors of the pamphlet “Gollancz in German Wonderland (1942)”, made a counter argument that they didn’t see any sign of such a revolution. And if there was one, who could guarantee that it wouldn’t be a nationalistic coup d’etat to save the “Volksgemeinschaft” from the impending destruction the Hitler government had manoeuvred it into?

Bernhard Menne, in his “German Industry on the Warpath” investigated the role that big industry played in bringing the Nazis to power, and at the same time ironically denounced a supposed conspiracy of the “Elders of Essen” as the culprits of the scourge of National Socialism.

If we look at Dimitroff’s definition quoted above it is striking that he doesn’t blame the steel barons (which the “Elders of Essen” is a joking reference to), the junkers, and with them them power elites of the “second” Reich, but instead argued that “finance capital” was the force behind Nazism. Wasn’t this a strange reversal (or even appropriation?) of Nazi propaganda which saw “Jewish” finance capital as an anathema to “healthy” völkisch capitalism?

Menne, and the “Fight for Freedom” group in general, insisted that it didn’t make sense to solely blame any particular elite group, whether it was the “Elders of Essen” or the higher echelons of the Nazi party, for the war and the program of extermination of the Jews that came with it. None of it could have happened without the enthusiastic complicity of the majority of the German people. They never denied that resistance existed, but emphasized that it was extremely minoritarian. Coming from a Marxist background they felt forced to revise their own previous views that class antagonism could eventually provide a revolutionary socialist solution to the German problem.

The idea of the “Volksgemeinschaft” held a central place in National Socialist ideology. The Nazis sought to convince all layers of society to overcome class divisions in the interest of the Nation. They envisioned a “classless” society, which was not to be forged from the abolishment of classes, but from a national unity-project built through the exclusion of those deemed non-“German”, military aggression, genocide and extermination.

Significant sections of German exiles in the West and in the East were trying to counter the opinion that the Nazis were successfully creating a “folk community”, believing it was mere propaganda to gloss over the still existing class antagonism. They also tended to exaggerate the size and influence of their illegal structures within Germany.

In the West a different opinion was on the rise, which at first was publicized mostly in the right wing bourgeois camp. Brandt wrote: “The right wing journalist Henry de Kérillis supported the theory dubbed ‘realistic nationalism’, which states that Hitlerism is an expression of the destiny of the German nation, and that Germany has always been a predator state and must be crushed once and for all time. Others set out to prove in their own way why no distinction should be drawn between the régime and the people. They demanded that Germany must prepare to become a second Carthage.”

Richard Vansittart was the most public proponent of this view and its driving force in Britain. This upper class enemy of appeasement and Foreign Office careerist made seven radio broadcasts on the BBC in December 1940, which were reprinted in the Sunday Times and finally as a pamphlet with the title “Black Record”. Vansittart tried to construct a line of tradition that showed that Germans were intrinsically aggressive warrior people since the Roman times onwards, and that National Socialism was merely the latest manifestation. This dubious historical construction was merely the background for his ideas that there was no significant difference between the leadership and the people of Nazi Germany. Thus, no illusions should have been held towards a possible uprising of the people because they had deeply absorbed National Socialist ideology. He also argued that after victory a long period of radical re-education had to be envisaged. This caused considerable controversy, with the New Statesman describing the texts as “Hymns of Hate”, but as the war continued, Vansittart’s ideas gained currency in the British debate and across the political spectrum.

German exiles predictably condemned these ideas. Brandt even went so far as to say, “So now we are involved with something not so far removed from Hitler’s racial doctrines” (p.112), thereby insinuating that Vansittart’s position was one of anti-German racism. Brandt also wrote,”The most radical solution of the German problem would be to wipe out all Germans, that is to say, to subject the Germans to roughly the same treatment as their representatives had applied against the Jews in recent years” (p.113). This is an astounding – if not outrageous – claim, because neither Vansittart, nor anyone else suggested such a strategy or anything of the sort.

If we look at how the speculative idea of the “Other Germany” manifested itself in the last days of the war, everyone has to acknowledge that rather than rising up against the regime they supposedly hated all those years, the vast majority of Germans on the contrary decided to fight to the last breath for their own “Germany” – the “Volksgemeinschaft” personified by the “Führer” and defined by their own complicity in the holocaust. This senseless apocalyptic struggle can not be explained by “duty” or “fanaticism” or the terror of the SS, but can be analyzed if we take into account the fact that Germans were quite aware of the magnitude of their crimes and expected the victors to take terrible revenge.

Curt Geyer, Walter Loeb u.a.: Fight for Freedom. Die Legende vom “anderen” Deutschland. Herausgegeben von Jan Gerber und Ana Worm für die Materialien zur Aufklärung und Kritik (Halle), (ça ira, Freiburg, 2009, ISBN 978-3-924627-19-5)

Willy Brandt: In Exile. Essays, Reflections and Letters 1933-1947 (London, 1971) – German edition: Draussen. Schriften während der Emigration (Munich, 1966)

Karl Retzlaw: Spartacus. Aufstieg und Niedergang (4th ed., Frankfurt, 1976)

Alfons Söllner (Ed.): Zur Archäologie der Demokratie in Deutschland. Analysen politischer Emigranten im amerikanischen Geheimdienst (Frankfurt, 1982)

“West of Eden:
Communes and Utopia in Northern California”
(PM Press, 2012):
A book review by Nemeton

PM Press was founded in 2007 by Ramsey Kannan, who also founded AK Press in 1987 in Stirling, UK, along with several other members from AK including Craig O’Hara. PM Press is located in Oakland, CA and AK Press now is also primarily operating out of a large warehouse in Oakland, as well as maintaining a continued presence in the UK. Both publishers print numerous books on the same topics including anarchism, globalization, direct action, class struggle, the environment, subculture, and many more. In 2012, PM Press has already published over 100 titles in various formats (books, pamphlets, tshirts, dvds, cds, etc). PM Press has published some books in English translation that were not available before such as “Fire and Flames” by Geronimo about the history of autonomist movement in West Germany in the 1970s to 1990. Unfortunately, the afterward by Gabriel Kuhn, who is also the translator, regurgitates factually incorrect and trivial denouncements of anti-german critique that can be seen as part of a strategy in English which includes a text in CrimethInc’s “Rolling Thunder” magazine (#3 Summer 2006). PM Press also is in the process of publishing a second volume of a 2 book series of RAF texts and documents, some of which are not translated into English, or badly translated, or are hard to find. However, a more critical position on the RAF’s anti-imperialist and anti-Semitic ideas is needed in the introductory chapters to these volumes. While PM Press has printed some worthwhile radical books and makes a real effort to further independent publishing in the US, they also give voice to anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activists, which is the predominant position of various tendencies in the American ‘left’ concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict. Noel Ignatiev is a well-known activist, author of “How the Irish Became White”, editor of the PM Press published book “A New Notion: Two Works By C.L.R James”, and editor of the now defunct “Race Traitor” magazine. Ignatiev has a blog on the PM Press website which feature many posts by him or others that are virulently anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist, wherein Ignatiev claims that Israel should not exist as a nation state, that Israel has committed a genocide or holocaust against Palestinians, that Israel policies are like those of Nazi Germany and that Jews like white Nazi Germans act as a ‘master race’, etc., etc. Ignatiev also blogged a very personal ten part series titled “Memoir of an Ex-Jew”. Although there are not enough pages here to conduct a detailed analysis of Ignatiev’s anti-Zionism and his involvement in the American ‘left’, it is necessary to bring to the forefront whether Ignatiev’s positions and activities are held by other people working at PM Press, and how PM Press will promote positions on issues of anti-Semitism and Israel in its books, pamphlets etc., especially given the fact that their publications are widely distributed throughout the US, as well as in Europe.
The “West of Eden” book is published on the imprint “Retort”, which is also a collective of professors, researchers and writers mostly centered in Berkeley, CA, positioned within a post-situationist milieu. Notable Retort members include Michael Watts, Iain Boal, TJ Clark, Carl Winslow, and Joseph Matthews. Retort is somewhat known, at least in some US “left” circles, for two broadsheets denouncing the Iraq war, as well as the book “Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in the New Age of War” published on Verso [see the useful review in “Aufheben” #17 (2009)], which are all riddled with theoretical problems in their attempt at a generalized application of Guy Debord’s theory of the spectacle in an analysis of contemporary US foreign policy. The Retort imprint on PM Press has published several books including by those not directly affiliated with the collective.
“West of Eden” is the culmination of years of research by many individuals, 2 academic conferences in California, several workshops, an undergraduate university course, work by the Mendocino Institute, as well as funding from many public, private and university sources. The book was promoted with several talks in the Bay Area, including at the 2012 San Francisco Anarchist Bookfair. The book builds on previous studies about communes and collectives in the US, and its most notable new research contribution is the chapter on the Albion Nation commune is Medocino with texts by Carl Winslow and first person accounts by the original commune participants including Daw Hofberg, Weed, Bill Heil, and Carmen Goodyear. While these personal accounts give us insight into their motivations and memories of what was both successful and problematic about the commune and its connection to the larger sixties counterculture, the reader is left wanting much more detail about the specifics of life on the commune, as well as their activities in the larger Mendocino community. Several of the articles in “West of Eden” situate the commune movement within a rejection of American mainstream values and politics in the 1960s and the return to conservative agendas in the 1970s and 80s, but the book lacks a detailed historical analysis of what various commune participants’ heterogeneous positions were on anti-imperialsm, international politics, the new left, ecology, sustainability, capitalist critique, etc., beyond several generalizations that are made, when one could analyze in detail magazines (like ‘Country Women’), posters, pamphlets, activities, and groups connected to the over 1000 communes in Northern California. Several articles deal with the issue of gender division and inequality, as well as sexual and gay politics, mostly from the prospective of women communards. Issues of race are explored in an article about the Native American takeover of Alcatraz, and another on the Black Panther Party, but the book has little to say about what white commune participants’ ideas were about race and class, and how they failed to deal with issues of diversity and racism in the communes and well as in the wider, mainstream society both in rural communities and cities. “West of Eden”, as a compilation of articles, works best when the authors break down dichotomies that underpinned our basic notions about how communes operated or were described: urban or rural, secluded or networked, liberated or conservatively patriarchal, drop-out deadbeats or contributors to a new society. Some of strongest articles include a discussion of the “open land movement” at Wheeler’s Ranch in Sonoma with its fight against private property, county zoning laws, and police brutality, as well as a discussion of the symbolic affinities, ideological pretexts and architectural design of domes and shacks found at many communes through the US, and an in-depth look at the development of the Whole Earth Catalog to the Software Catalog to Wired Magazine, which all promoted capitalist, conservative, libertarian and diy positions that had a large impact both on the commune movement and the development of Silicon Valley and the Bay Area as the international node of advanced computer, internet and technological innovation. This book is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in American history and politics from the 60s to the 80s, and well as those who seek balanced assessments of strategies used by activists in direct action, diy initiatives and countercultural interventions.

Christopher Partridge –
Dub In Babylon (Equinox)
reviewed by John Eden

The subtitle is “Understanding the evolution and significance of dub reggae in Jamaica and Britain from King Tubby to Post-Punk”. Which is right up my street. This is an academic book, but it manages to avoid the worst excesses of post-modern jargon and so should be readable to most. The first couple of chapters deal briefly with the history of Rastafari and dub and are OK, not exactly exciting if you have ever read a book on the subject before. Partridge writes well and quotes from a gratifyingly diverse set of sources which suggests he’s put the work in.
The pace then picks up as we move onto an examination of “Sound-system Culture and Jamaican Dub in the UK”. This includes a good stretch on the social conditions of Jamaican immigrants and why soundsystem was so important (with a few nods to the NME’s classic “Soundsystem Splashdown” issue which is online at uncarved.org/dub/splash). Partridge also gets props from me for mentioning eighties UK systems like Saxon and their MCs like Papa Levi as well as the usual array of references to the golden era of the 70s (and the seemingly compulsory mentions of LKJ and dub poetry).
He also gets to grips with Jah Shaka’s statesmanlike role in UK Dub (even revealing his real name!). This then leads on to a lengthy, but interesting, passage about the first dub LPs in the UK and the impossible question of which soundsystem played dub first here (obviously they all say they did).
The 2nd half of the book looks at dub’s influence on punk, post-punk and wider society. In fact that’s probably an unfair summary of the text – the well worn story of Don Letts introducing the punks to spliffs and dub at the Roxy has some truth in it, but Partridge also looks at white people who managed to get into reggae all by themselves (or with the help of schoolmates, John Peel, Rough Trade, whatever), some of whom weren’t even punks. For example he rightly points out that a lot of the people attracted to dub in the seventies were into all sorts of experimental music and could just as easily be characterised as hippies as anything else. This introduces a section on racism, punk and Rock Against Racism. Then onto yer punky-dready-dubbers: PIL, The Slits, Dennis Bovell. But also The Pop Group, The Ruts and Killing Joke. The closing chapter deals mainly with Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, admittedly by way of Mad Professor, Jamie Reid, industrial music, John Cage and Philip Glass. It feels a bit like Partridge is having some fun here, breathing out and letting himself go a bit after the necessarily serious business of the rest of the book.
The author has read a lot of the same books and articles as me (and listed loads more in the bibliography which I can now track down) and has done an excellent job of synthesising them into a coherent, readable and at times provocative story. He also references me and my website uncarved.org which I was quite chuffed with.
Having said that, there are some things to disagree with (oh to be an academic and have time to get into all this stuff properly) and a couple of clangers that I have to mention. Firstly it is fair enough to say that “Bag-A-Wire” was “a keen follower of Marcus Garvey” on page 35. He was, initially, but is mainly remembered as someone who betrayed him (see for example “Them Never Love Poor Marcus” by the Mighty Diamonds). It is therefore quite wrong to suggest that King Tubby’s “Bag-A-Wire Dub” is a “celebration” of the man. Similarly it is incorrectly stated that Blair Peach (killed by the police during an anti-fascist demonstration in Southall, 1979) was black when he was actually a white man from New Zealand. Partridge is a Professor of religious studies, so there are occasional deviations into the spiritual that a heathen like me isn’t really bothered about (although obviously I acknowledge its influence on the terrain we’re exploring). But these are all trainspotterish niggles which I am including here to make myself look clever.
My main criticism of the book is that I wanted there to be more of it. Don’t get me wrong, “Dub In Babylon” is highly recommended as a documentation of the era it covers, and if you’ve read this far you should get the book. I just think enough history has elapsed between now and punk for there to be some similarly in depth studies about dub’s influence on the 21st Century. There are dozens of pages about the marginal yet hugely well-documented discipline of dub poetry here, but nothing about dubstep, grime or the changing aspects of working class culture, ethnicity and bass music in the UK over the last twenty years. It is unfair of me to expect all that from this book, which is a much more crucial than the slew of post-punk biographies I have ploughed through in recent years. But I couldn’t help but feel that the narrative from the Windrush to the Roxy, from RAR to post-punk is quite reassuringly safe these days, and might not help us to answer the questions being asked in 2012.

in den räumen des subversiv e.v., brunnenstrasse 7, berlin-mitte, u8  rosenthaler platz
start: 23:00

DAN HEKATE [HEKATE SOUNDSYSTEM]
http://soundcloud.com/dan-hekate-1

INUSHINI [OHM 52]
http://soundcloud.com/inushini

HETZER [CLASH OF THE TITANS]
http://www.myspace.com/hetzer

BASE FORCE ONE [PRAXIS]
http://soundcloud.com/praxisrecords

H-KON [CLASH OF THE TITANS]
http://soundcloud.com/h-kon

ZOMBIEFLESHEATER [KRITIK AM LEBEN]
http://soundcloud.com/zombieflesheater

SANSCULOTTE VJ [HIRNTRUST]
https://vimeo.com/sansculotte

Fundraiser for the next issue of datacide magazine.

http://datacide.c8.com/
http://praxis.c8.com/

BREAKCORE EXPERIMENTAL HARDCORE

NO RACISM, NO SEXISM, NO NATIONALISM, NO STARS

Ritalin War Dance / Neurosis Orchestra – SPB12020
The a-side is two tracks by Ritalin War Dance (Robert Schirmer and Martin Maischein aka Goner aka Heinrich at Hart). A2 Eye Flys resonates with a mixture of dub and experimental noises and distortion that creates an impressive dark feeling. The b-side by Neurosis Orchestra opens with Lucid Dreams that is dominated by dark guitar riffs and dub influenced doom ambiences. B2 Trap is the beat oriented track (140 bpm) with an enticing groove, distorted synth lines interlaced with some heavy bass. All the tracks, including a1 Hypertonic Solutions, are a physical journey of beats and moody ambiences that demonstrate thoughtful and well developed structures. Recommended!

Genosha One Seven Five 008
For some time now, many of the hard dnb labels are releasing tracks made by 2 or 3 or more artists, often to little effect. One of the worst examples is the newly released counterstrike recordings collaboration part 5 with this jingoistic track by counterstrike, panacea and robyn chaos or the aside of that record by the first two artists. While nothing good comes from that type of ‘collaboration’ and may be some money making ploy to try to sell some records from ‘big’ name artists, Gen175-008 a1 favorite sin is a great hard dnb with hardcore influences track written by DJ Hidden (although the artist is given as The over it, what Katharsys contributed to the straight, gritty distorted hardcore/hard dnb track is a bit more opaque. Totally fitting to the label, which has many great releases.

Tantrum 002
This is the side label of Fallout Recordings from Sheffield, with tracks by relatively unknown producers Zeal and Litta. A1 is a Current Value remix of the Screams of Another, which is a well done stomping dancefloor track. B2 is the original track that sticks straight to the hard dnb paradigm and is a good tune to play out.

Killing Sheep Records 012
The label celebrated ten years in 2011 (which is advertised on the printed record sleeve), and they put out quite a few good hard dnb releases, although some others were quite weak including #10 by Facs and Fon. KSheepV012 opens with Never Look Back by Tymon, with convincing broken up hard dnb programming, although the dubstep style breakdown midway seems completely out of place, and adds nothing to the overall sound or quality. The bside The Difference Between by DJ Producer is another decent track that mixes more breakcore style programming, hardcore and hard dnb elements together.

JK Flesh: Posthuman – 3by3 09
Justin Broadrick (Techno Animal, Godflesh, Napalm Death, etc) joins the 3by3 label with a handsomely produced 140g 2×12” with reverse board, hand silk screened and numbered sleeves, which is surely intended to be a high demand collectors item that will be picked up by the wide array of fans from the artist’s other music projects who don’t necessarily follow 3by3’s noise, experimental sound. (The release is also a cd and digital download on 3by3, and a
special issue cd with 30 min of extra material on Japanese label Daymare Recordings.) A total of nine tracks, the first three follow a similar path of metal inspired guitar riffs, distorted and mysterious vocals, interwoven in dark, desolate soundscapes. B2 breaks that mold a bit with a more abstract, electronic, hypnotic, mind bending track. C1 is a slightly faster track with eerie synth lines and a nice acid feeling. D2 is a down tempo, contemplative track. Perhaps the track order is confused making the album seem a bit disjointed and lacking in flow. In general I am a bit underwhelmed by this release, especially given all the hype 3by3 made about this, but those who follow doom and metal more closely may be more excited by JK Flesh’s first full-length contribution.

Oyaarss: Bads – Ad Noiseam cd 159
First off, while we are glad this has been released, these tracks should be pressed on vinyl! Unfortunately, the label is only selling the cd and digital downloads. Oyaarss from Latvia became more noticed through work with 3by3 label artists, his first and only 12” from 2009 titled A La Holeage (Abstractions 001) that included a remix by Cloaks (discussed in a previous Datacide), and he also released his own digi albums „Smaida Greizi Nakamiba“ („The Future Smiling Wryly“), which Ad Noiseam will re-issue as a cd and LP as ADN 163, which you can get for free download from the artist’s page, and an earlier one called “BPM 666.0”. He also did mixes for Sub FM, Mantis Radio, Electronic Explorations, etc that are worth checking out. Oyaarss definitely has a totally unique sound and “Bads” shows a great progression from „Smaida Greizi Nakamiba“. Although the artist has an interest in dubstep, it is inaccurate to label his music, or that of Cloaks, as ‘dubstep’ since he and they really work to deconstruct the genre and thoroughly push extreme sounds, noises, ambiances and grinding metallic pressures. This album has a real feeling of a surrealist handling of sounds and interest in the physical experience of disparate collages. Oyaarss offers a powerfully intense experience of imaginative and evocative musical soundscapes. Highly recommended!

Anonymous Series Vol.2- Praxis 45
The second of three volumes of anonymous broken noise that forces the listener/user to experience sound without any judgments about names/egos. Tracks range from the melancholic detuned synthetic strings, bass-quakes and cut-up broken tek beats of A1, to the snarling distorted mid, industrial dubstep riddim, cone-rattling subs and twisted, mangled double speed breaks of A2, to the spacious atmospheres and more
tek orientated broken beats of B1, to the strange b-movie atmospheres and lofi breaks of B2. Essential tools and limited to 300 copies.

Electric Kettle – News from Berlin – Praxis 50
Welcome return to wax from the man last seen putting out a full-length release on Peace Off 5 years ago. Powerful broken riddims that for me work best on the track co-produced with GVK: a bruising, broken core cut that re-imagines stepping rhythms into powerful, unsettling constructions, over-laying them with a cut and paste approach with snatches of vocals, noise and other audio strangeness.

Bulkrate – In The Temple Of The Serpent – Praxis 49
A first commit to vinyl from Bulkrate, and a five track release that wouldn’t sound out of place in the Zhark catalogue. Infact Bulkrate already released a set of mp3s as one of the last outputs from Zhark. This release has a less hectic feel than the previous digital releases, but is still dark and cinematic broken core with an occult edge.

V/A – Accretion EP - Darkmatter Soundsystem - DM12004
A four cut EP featuring tracks from Minion, Poxxe, Fiend and Resurrector covering harsh broken styles at different speeds, with Baseck rounding things off with a set of scratch samples. For me Fiend provides the heavy cut here with a powerful 140ish party smasher that combines hardcore beats with waves of modulated mid that operate at the very edges of the dubstep framework. The digital version contains two extra tracks.

Dead Fader – Work It, No – Robot Elephant - RER012
Following the wicked but unfortunately digital only release on Tigerbeat, DF is now down to one member but still providing a caustic vision of industrial funk. Cuts like Industrial Funk Stains and fishsh should get played by those locked into the 140 bpm scene, at least those that wanna keep the crowd awake – with DF it’s less about meditating on bass weight and more about crushing with overdriven bass avalanches.

Circuit Parallele: The Last Traces Of Civilization cd – Spine 02
The second release on Spine from Circut Parallele aka CCP aka Yann Hekate drops five years after Umani Autodistruttivi. This time moving to a CD format, but no less well packaged coming in a silk-screened cloth bag. A really incredible trip through awesome experimental sonic atmospheres and cut up beats. If you can’t find a copy of the CD, check out the Dan Hekate directed video that accompanies Mekanischer (http://vimeo.com/33741442 ) for a taster.

FZV – SoundSump CD – Anathematica
The man FZV releases a self-published long player that collects together fifteen cuts that were produced over the last few years; his first release since Assimilator issued by Rag and Bone in 2006.
If you’ve been lucky enough to check-out his live set either in a warehouse or on Pitchless radio you’ll know that these sounds are built to feed an urban temporary space. Precise broken rhythmic programming is paired with a passion for unusual mutant audio objects and intricate sound design. Great to see these tracks finally released, and well mastered too!

Fis – Duckdive EP - Samurai Horo – HORO007
Twisted experimental psychedelic dnb from Fis, a young New Zealander, dropping an EP of cuts that’ll stretch dnb heads’ views of what dnb can be. Released by Samurai Horo a sublabel of Samurai Music which describes itself as a vinyl only label for experimental 170bpm music. Track titles like K Slap give the listener some idea where he’s coming from. A couple of tracks worth checking: DMT Usher, mixing heavily modulated dark threads that descend over an off-beat deconstructed dnb aesthetic, and Duck Dive, a crunchy strangely syncopated track.

Theory/Double 0 – Rupture London 01
Brand new vinyl label from the Rupture crew (Mantra and Double-O), who’ve been running a regular night at Corsica Studios London for while, that features a couple of massive amen smashers bringing the junglist vibes uptodate.
Theory rinses heavily edited breaks, switching them down while smashing them with distortion tinged bass, while Double O on the flip rinses out a dark smasher with old school 92 style dark pads punctuated by offkey rave stabs brought nicely uptodate with good production. Also, only available on vinyl!

Theory – Final Confrontation – Universal Grooves LP Sampler – Translation
Coolest cut on a double vinyl set – Theory sends the mentasms and rave stabs flying while sweeping a thick bass under jungle breaks.

Ding Dong – Badman Forward Badman Pull Up (The Bug Remix) – Greensleeves
Johnny Osbourne – Fally Ranking (VIVEK Remix) – Greensleeves
As with the jungle scene in the 90s Greensleeves has (finally) tapped into the dubstep thing releasing a Greensleeves Dubstep series. Some of the more dubwise dubstep artists (including Digital Mystikz, VIVEK, Coki) have been given the chance to reinterpret a mixture of dancehall and roots tunes from the GS back-cat. Seven tracks made it to vinyl, and these and a further seven have been collated onto a CD version. Of these tracks it’s the heavy duty remix of Ding Dong by The Bug that really stands out. Punishing toughened dancehall beats undepin a completely over-the-top warped, modulated b-line which snares slice through. The Bug provides a vocal version featuring Flow Rider, but it’s the version that smashes it. Also interesting is the VIVEK mix of Johnny Osbournes classic roots cut Fally Ranking. VIVEK joins the dots between 70s JA roots, the UK stepper style and dubstep vibes, dropping a 4/4 dubwise stepper that recycles the original vocal but floods the low end with bass-bin rattling freqs. VIVEK and Mala have, in the last months, begun a new night called System which taps into the UK soundsystem tradition of basically filling a room with nothing else but a massive soundsystem a selector and a crowd. It’s these kind of vibes that are captured in VIVEK’s remix.

B-key – The Mask (DubOne VIP Mix) / DubOne – Murder Sound (B-key VIP) – Scientific Wax 10
Champa B – Torment/Soldiers of the Cause – Scientific Wax 17
Scientific Wax is a rare thing at the moment: a label with a strong identity that focuses on a particular sound, in this case a modern junglist/breakage vibe. Run by Equinox, the roster of artists also includes other established beat-manglers BKey and DubOne, but also bringing in newcomers like Nolige and Champa B. SW 10 was the first of five releases on the main label in 2011 and sees B-Key and DubOne remixing a track of each others, both great powerful cut-up moody breakage. SW 17, just out, sees a release from Champa B clearly fond of the old school jungle sound, who cuts and chops his way through a couple of tearout amen tunes.

LXC – I Know U – Bustle Beats 002
Firin sideways junglism from LXC the man behind Alphacut records, pushing punchy 808s and crashing snares into your area. Reminiscient in some ways of early Digital tunes like Natty Dread or Rockers, and that’s no bad thing.

Scorn – Yozza – Ohm Resistance 21M OHM
A four track EP of grinding slow downpressor pieces combining crushing beats with oppressive atmospheres and overdriven bass. Mixes well with heavier tunes around the 140 mark, but a couple of tunes stand out: Piper, with its cymbals flying, solid beats and a subtle repeating hypnotic motif, and Shake hands delivering us straight into the echo chamber, driving overdriven beats and a metallic snare through moody atmospheres as things get shakier and noisier. Both mix well with other heavier cuts around the 140 mark.

PointB – Suicide Beauty Spot (Cloaks rmx) - Combat 025
Wicked mix from Cloaks, feeding the originals almost 2stepish beats through the Cloaks man gle and spitting out a slice of jerky distorto-funk.

Nanotek – Venus -
Subviolenz 007
Awesome original harsh dnb and a wicked set opener. After a hi-hat led intro spinning out the scifi vibes a intense drop lifts the tune spitting out kicks in an offbeat structure held in place by a repeating bass hook.

Scorn – Super Mantis
(King Cannibal rmx) -
Combat 027
Super Mantis gets the King Cannibal dancehall/rave treatment with an energetic mix that twists that bass synth under a powerful riddim section. OK, this is the third remix of this tune, but it’s a dangerous mix and well worth checking.

Data – Making simple things complex Part 2 - Blackout
Data – Visualizations Vol 1 – Horizons Music
Data’s gathered a reputation in the last couple of years for building super minimal post-techstep dnb tracks that strip everything back to the essential elements: crisp drums and dry bass, invariably accompanied by what can best be described as audio events, perhaps long shifting dark pads or a twisted synth. Some of these tunes just end up sounding dull, filtered away to almost nothing, but when Data gets the right balance, things get interesting. Torn has a doomy, dystopian feel, opening with bladerunner-esque strings and a growling filtered bass. Mask of Sanity, also taken from Visualizations Vol1, is more of a half-speed groove sounding very PCP with its grim sinister pitched down cello-like pads.
Sentinel taken from Making simple things complex Part 2 is in a similar vein: ominous slow synths and super-tight drums moving into a rasping dirty bline.

Barcode
Barcode recently began issuing vinyl releases again after a 3 year hiatus using a new cat numer BWARELTD. So far we’ve seen four editions, each (i think) limited to 250 copies. Actually all of these tracks were previously released in 2011 as five digital releases using the usual cat numbers BWARE007-011. So what happened? Is this an indication that the files didn’t sell well and vinyl is back on the agenda? Or was this always the plan? In any case there’s a few cuts worth checking from this batch.
Donny – Wraith – BWareLtd003
Massive stepper with a wicked twisted, running bass groove. Fierce!
Unknown Error – War Games – BWareLtd002
Wonky tech stepper with unusual bass switches keeping things interesting.

Parallel and Relapse – Parasitic Oscillations - Alphacut 025
In the last couple of years, Alphacut have continued to release tracks from less well known artists in small 1-200 copy vinyl runs and are always worth checking. Parallel and Relapse turn in a nice old-school techstepper here which reminds me of old Position Chrome releases like Problem Child or Disorder – cool metallic vibes, tough lofi breaks, raw bass and moody atmospheres. Wicked.

Brandon Spivey & Coexsystems – Sound Extremism / Kali Yuga
It looks like in 2012 we hear an acid comeback and this transparent, limited seven inch on Audio Riots, a new german label, fits in. The A side from Brandon Spivey, who released several acid hardcore 12″s under different names in the nineties, and a 12″ on Phase Distortion Records recently, brings a stomping hardcore track and a nervous acidline reminiscent of some of the tracks he made as Agro on Epsilon Records in 95/96. The only strange part in this track is the vocal sample throughout which sounds a bit displaced but its just a little drawback, its a good track after all. The B side is the real hit on this one. Coexsystems, who is a producer from germany, made a fast forward pushing track with a classical build up, including breakdowns that just play the relentless acidline alone in order to bring up the tension, and that is what makes the track come alive. The tracks are around the 4 and 5 minutes marks so they could have been a bit longer for the full effect, but it is still a good acid-core vinyl after all.

Istari Lasterfahrer –
Some Places spb12.021
As you might guess from the title, this 4 track 12″ on Sozialistischer Plattenbau is dedicated to the places Istari Lasterfahrer had the opportunity to play at over the last years, as well as the people who made it possible. You can read about every single one on a 12″ sized sheet that comes with the record. The two tracks on side A are jungle tunes with chopped amen breaks, basslines and speech samples in between and happy hardcore influences like pianos, 4/4 bassdrum in some parts and highpitched vocals, reminiscent of FFF. Side B starts with a ruff jungle/breakcore tune in the typical istari style with changing time signatures. The last track uses sounds from analog modular systems to create a more experimental feeling with a dancehall rhythm folded in. limited to 150 copies.

Maxi Bacon / Peter Quistgard – Mega Buttons / EyE!  
A split 10″ on Toztizok Zoundz, made by Maxi Bacon, which is a project from Freeka Tet from Paris and Company Fuck from berlin and Peter Quistgard, a producer from Amsterdam. Maxi Bacons sound is a mixture of glitch, grindcore, noise and snippets from everwhere. they created a confusing sound collage of 23 short tracks that leave you unsure what you experienced while listening. very chaotic unforseeable improvisations after which you need a short brainwash. The Quistgard side contains 2 tracks which can be described as glitchy breakcore with a chiptunefeeling, 8 bit synths and hectic fast beats and weird tempo changes . it comes in a coloured double cover on white vinyl.

16AJ – Warning Remix / The Flip  
After the big wave of US ragga jungle releases in the early/mid 2000s, not much was released in the last years and most of it was pretty boring. 16 Armed Jack or AJ16 is one of the few exceptions in this field. You get fast edited amen breaks, heavy reese synthlines and no overused accapellas on this 12″ . For the Warning Remix, he put his hands on the classic jungle tune from Firefox& 4-Tree on Philly Blunt in 94. What makes it interesting is that he uses a different accapella for the warning vocals, originally used from Junior Tuckers track “Don’t Touch My Baby”, this time sung by a woman. In both tracks you hear the usual soundclash screams and chants interspersed, but well edited and fitting. Good one on a label called kingdom.

Hirntrust Grind Media roundup
Deformer vs. Zombieflesheater -Syko/In Hirn We Trust – Hirntrust 20
Deformer made a  track that sounds like his version of hard drum&bass with a metal touch and Deformers very own sound aesthetics. ZFE comes with a pounding, raw breakcore track with unformatted sounds. Clean Transparent 7″ in nice artwork. Limited to 300 copies.
Bruital Orgasme – Bruital Orgasme – Hirntrust 28
Harsh noise and spoken words from this duo from Antwerp. 4 tracks on this singlesided  transparent 7″, limited to 200 copies.
Total Fucking Destruction / Skat Injector – Ubi Nihil Vales, Ibi Nihil Velis – Hirntrust 29
TFD with 4 tracks of good punk/grindcore with texts about the downfall of mankind  and Scat Injector with 2 tracks of goregrind/digigrind and texts about anal suicide and hydraulic rams….label split release with Binjuice Erotica and Legs Akimbo. 7″, Limited to 300 copies.
Torturing Nurse / Ekunhaashaastaack – Split Hirntrust 30
Torturing Nurse brings 1 track of harsh noise from china and Ekunhaashaastaack has 1 track of raw analog noise from france.  label split release with Stockroom Records, Underground Pollution Records and Scorze rec. Limited to 200 copies.
Scum – Broken Sound System Diarrhea Hirntrust 32
Scum from tokyo with a track of sonic, sharp, harsh, triggered noise mixed with dubreggae samples and echo effects, which reminds me on the legendary Scud & Nomex vs. Augusto Pablo track on one of the irritant tapes. Singlesided and limited to  150 copies.
DJ Balli / Micropupazzo / MAT64 / Pira 666* -  8 bit terror S.B. 09
Chiptunes + heavy metal = chip metal! On this picture 12″ with apocalyptic 8 bit graphics is a meeting of the best of this genre (i guess). 8 Chiptune cover tracks of bands like Iron Maiden, Napalm Death, Vanadium and Slayer and the spoken 8 Bit Metal Manifesto will satisfy the trve chip metalhead. Label split release with Cervello Meccanico.

8cylinder – The Emperor’s Champion Unmapped North 1
8cylinder – Panic Unmapped North 2
Two 10″ releases, each with 4 tracks, from the head of Thac0 records on the sublabel Unmapped North from pittsburgh. Each track of “the emperors champions”  is “dedicated to each of the four vows a Black Templar can be bound to” as the website says. 2 tracks with uptempo broken beats mixed with 4/4 hardcore  and gui-
tar like synths on side A. side B starts with a rumbling track with an experimental touch, but the outstanding  track is B2, with fast breaks, dark synths and a slamming beat programming. fresh, interesting and different release. The second release on the label follows the style of the first 10″ with  percussive broken beats and abstract synths, his own sound. A rare thing nowadays.
Various – Little Brutal Rave Bastards Series Vol.5
Jean bach is back with a grey marbled  7″ in the rave bastards series wich started in 2000. 4 tracks of rhythmic noise and experimental, hard techno, interesting and diverse as always. There are 4 artists given on the release, names like David Sardelle or Leprozid Pfarrhaus, but in times of discogs its easy to find out that all of them are aliases of Jean Bach himself. Best track name on this one is “Guck Mal Ihre Beinchen An Wie Ein Schwein ”

Small But Hard
SBH_Mix_001 & SBH_EP_001
A new label from berlin/london set up by Scotch Egg, Simon Fowler and Dj Die Soon with their own idea of heavy bass music. The Mix cassette contains tracks 8 tracks from Dj Scotch Bonnet, C_C, Koyxe, Dead Fader, Devilman, Kakawaka, Dj Die Soon and Dj Urine with heavy distorted beats and overdriven bass, from experimental hip hop to industrial broken beats and noise downbeats and feedbacks. The Ep cassette is made by Dj Scotch Bonnet & Sensational, most known for his experimental hip hop on Wordsound. 6 tracks full of distorted slow fat beats and vocals by Sensational. Illbient in 2012. There is also a short mix linked on their website. Listen to get an idea what we can await from them in the future.

Sharps Injury/Disheveled Split
Sharps Injury alias Keef Baker with two tracks of disorted, broken beats and rhytmic noise over melodic IDMish synths. Disheveled on the other side doing similar stuff minus the melodies, something between dubstep, downtempo broken beats and noise. As always on Thac0 Records, this 12″ comes in a beautiful designed sleeve
and red transparent marbeled vinyl, limited to 200 copies.

Grr – De Tribus Impostoribus (Mechanical Brain Limited 001)
Both tracks on this 7″ are made for nowadays hardcore dancefloor. the A side in a deathchant vein,4/4  hardcore with filter effects and breakdowns,hip hop samples and some amenbreaks here and then, while the b side lays more emphasis on a crossbreed sound, but in a slighty filthier way than the usual hardcore drum and bass.

S/M – The Doombringer
S/M, who released a 12″ as slutmachine and a cd under his Richard For Cerebellum moniker on zhark recordings in 2005, brings  a self-released double cd, also available as various file formats as it is sold through his own bandcamp site (http://sm666.bandcamp.com/) . the first cd comes with twelve tracks, three of them remixes, including a superb one from Cdatakill. The release combines dark ambient atmospheres, classical influences and well programmed fast raw broken beats to a great composition, far from nowadays bog-standard. The few classical parts with violins and cello fit well in this release, reminding us that the composer is an classically trained pianist, cellist, and violinist. The second cd gave the release its name, the Doombringer. One track with the lenght of 66 minutes, 6 seconds full of dark soundscapes, haunting noises, harsh drones and screams, an overall really dark horror movie atmosphere. “Raining down fire, pesitilence and mass annihilation, The
Doombringer smiles upon the devastation that has been wrought.” Well said.

Apzolut – Phtalates anyone?
A cassette/file release on the ressurrected dutch label Orange Socks owned by FFF.  Apzolut blends all variations of Breakcore into a 19 tracks with uplifted junglish breaks, sometimes pianos, high pitched vocals and a few popsamples, some tricky jazzy breaks reminding on the dirty drummer 12″ on addict, 4/4 bassdrums, guitars, dark ambient parts, downtempo… all in all a diverse release with a rave feeling and a misleading black metal styled cover.

Anonymous Vol.2 Praxis 45
Bulkrate – In The Temple Of The Serpent Praxis 49
Electric Kettle – News From Berlin Praxis 50
The second Anonymous release in a planned series of 3 12″ with 4 tracks of unknown origin, brings attention back to the music and away from the cult of personality. Heavy atmospheric tunes from slow to fast breakcore, each one with a unique style. Happy riddling.
Bulkrate with his first vinyl release after 3 net releases on Zhark and Dark Winter. 5 tracks of experimental broken beats with a doomy atmosphere, sometimes reminding on Abelcain and would have fit well on the Zhark label as well.
After a longer pause, Electric Kettle is back with a 4 track 12″ and a further developed sound without loosing the funk from earlier recordings. dark synths and heavy edited hard breaks make it into a high energetic, fresh release. packed in a pretty, full coloured sleeve with a collage designed by Electric Kettle too.

Fifth Era / ANGST – Beyond The Realms Of Doom II – KETACDR006
Released as a double cdr pack in vinyl optic and special hand-painted (spray & stencil) hardboard wood sleeve, and also available as file release at the Ketacore bandcamp page. In the last few years doomcore saw a more or less big revival in the course of the Witch House and Dark Ambient trends. Fifth Era are known for their epic dark empty sounding Doomcore since the mid-nineties and Angst (ANGST) is the side project from FFF usually known for his jungle frenzy. 20 tracks of atmospheric, creepy, high quality doomcore/hardcore and witch house, some of them remixes from each other aswell as remixes from Capslock, Mono-Amine, Newk, The Relic and others.

Various – Accretion EP
Darkmatter Soundsystem
Four hammering tunes from Minion, Poxxe, Fiend and Resurrector and scratch samples from Baseck. You get 2 bonus tracks from WMX and Wet Mango when you use the download code that comes with the vinyl release or download just the files if you prefer digital over vinyl. Minion made a hard drum & bass influenced top notch breakcore track, Poxxe follows with a storming metallic crashing tune that goes totally berzerk. on the other side, Fiend gives us his idea of Dubstep, dirty, noisy, distorted and far away from the usual stuff. Resurrector ends this fine release with industrial broken beats that is like a summary of the rest of the record. highly recommended.

sub/version digital 303- 310
A bunch of excellent tunes to celebrate 15 years of Sub/version. 7 tracks of a planned series of 15 tracks that will be released by the end of 2012 on the praxis & sub/version bandcamp site. 303 is a suberb Vile Enginez remix of Christoph Fringeli’s “Fuel For The Fire” from Sub/version 004. he adds his own trademark of punching breaks to the great original. Amboss on 304 with  a hard and fast technoid drum & bass tune, relentless. On 305 Vile Enginez back with a dark and fast breakcore /D&B mixture. 306 are the Somatic Repsonses mixing their unique style with drum & bass, hard and hitting. 307: Vile Enginez again with a brutal, pushing breakcore stepper, great.
308 made by Egon Frinz, a more minimalistic take on hard drum and bass, atmospheric surrounding. Grr with number 309, a breakcore/hardcore/d&b crossover, dynamic stuff. finally, 310 by Noize Creator is a stomping, dark stepping tune dedicated to late nineties Hardstep. Keep your ears open for the last  five
upcoming tunes.

Various-Narcosis 2
Various-Narcosis 3   
Two 12s from Narcosis, an acid label from Belgium. Narcosis 2 with 6 tracks ranging from midtempo hardcore to pounding  acidcore. the best tracks are from Coexsystems and Brandon Spivey. Narcosis 3 comes with 5 tracks full of acid techno/electro and hardcore. most interesting track are from The Acid Mercenaries  and Stoornis on this one.

Dead Fader – Askanes
Dead Fader – Luckeeey EP
Dead Fader – Work It, No
Dead Fader are John Cohen & Barry Prendergast residing in brighton and berlin. Their sound is bass heavy, with industrial clanking drums, noisy and abrasive, using distortion as an instrument. they can’t be pressed in one genre, sometimes they are called dubstep but it has often not much in common beside the tempo. Askanes on Murder Channel Records is an 40 minutes long mix ride through these sounds showcasing the possibilities in their music. The luckeeey ep comes as digital release on Tigerbeat6 with 6 track between hardest dubstep or illbient, noise and breakcore in typical harsh manner. Work it, no on Robot Elephant Records goes along the other releases with stomping harsh beats and a sensational vocalist on one track. Interesting and fresh stuff, recommended.

Alphacut Records
All the Alphacut releases live for a warm old school feeling, a good mastering and a love for the details like designs, locked grooves on mostly every vinyl and a careful selection of tracks.
Bit Depth & Phuture-T – Stalk Them / Amazon Basin Alphacut 24:
both sides with a far eastern sounding atmosphere and a laid back feeling but pushing at the same time, funky beat programming. Parallel, Relapse & Scale – Parasitic Oscillations / Secret Sun  Alphacut 25: Side A with a dark, cold tune, old school sounding but fresh .Side B reminds one of stuff like source direct or photek in parts. Very sharp beats. Lowcut, Parallel (8) & Tim Reaper – Therapist / Vega Alphacut 26: Lowcuts track has a quite minimalistic setup but thats the appealing factor in it. The other side comes ruff with well equalized and edited amen breaks and a massive reese. Sinistarr / Sub-Drama Dub / Instantaneous Alphacut 27: The newest release with an interesting beat programming on Sinistarrs track, dry and  the Subs side sounds really like 1997. everything from the beats to the speech samples and synths, nice. Its not dark but builds up a nice atmosphere. Every vinyl is limited to 200 copies and comes with spray painted logos in different colors on centerlabels.

Grindmaster Flesh/Urban Guerrilla-Rust In Piss/The God Particle (Fuck You Tapes)
Fuck You Tapes, the cassette sublabel of hirntrust grind media from austria with the latest release. A c20 tape with two 10 minutes tracks, limited to 50 copies. Grindmaster Flesh aka Zombieflesheater with a freestyle/live noise/breakcore remix of the Jungleclassic R.I.P(Hype rmx) from Remarc. Urban Guerrilla is the noise alias of FFF and he did a drone/powernoise live recording. Comes with an artwork from remona poortman and is also available as digital download through the bandcamp of ZFE.

V/A – Nice Up The Dance: UK Bubblers 1984-87
(Greensleeves 2xCD)
This is a crucial compilation covering the UK MC explosion of the 1980s and more besides. When Saxon soundsystem unleashed a wave of unstoppable Mic Chatters it inspired a whole new generation to compete for room at the control tower. Lyrics became hyper competitive and related to life on the mean streets of the UK rather than harking back to Kingston. Vinyl releases inevitably followed, though Greensleeves were slightly beaten to the jump by South London rivals Fashion Records. This reissue showcases the 12” releases on Greensleeves’ mighty UK Bubblers sub-label and is very much a game of two halves.
Disc One is a nigh on perfect selection of deejay madness, backed by The Regulars band performing hard do-overs of Studio One riddims, often with soundsystem-style bass crossfading. It kicks off with Saxon’s Tippa Irie and Daddy Colonel at the top of their game on “Just A Speak”. The duo swap lines over the Answer riddim, fast chatting about everything from London bus routes to arguments with shopkeepers. There’s a bit of mickey taking out of each other, but all in the name of rocking the dance. Daddy Rusty follows on the same riddim with “No No Way” – a rhyming stream of consciousness featuring football, girls, grief with bus conductors and, well – you name it. The third tune on a ramped up Answer is Daddy Sandy’s massive “Riddle Bubble”: “I don’t teef, me not a criminal, I don’t take injections I don’t pop pill, I don’t smoke things that I can’t handle, electricity run through a cable, that’s how we get the power for the turntable, in other words you see this sound is operational, you throw rubbish in a bin you make a bundle, if a boy come jog me, he feel me knuckle, me take of me belt lick him with the buckle, if him don’t feel that me kick him in the temple. You fi bubble, seh you fi bubble bubble…” Sandy’s fast chat selection is so incredible, it’s like watching a tight rope walker. You involuntarily hold your breath because you ain’t sure he’s going to make it until the end of the verse. But of course he does. And that’s just the first three tracks, folks. There are eighteen beauties on Disc One. Even an obsessive like me can’t write about them all, so here’s some of the headlines: Tippa Irie’s “All The Time The Lyric A Rhyme” over Real Rock, in which Tippa squeezes more lyrics into one bar than some people manage in a whole song. Lesley Lyrics’ “Pull Back Your Truncheon”, is a more realistic account of police aggravation than Smiley Culture’s “Police Officer” with inspiringly defiant lyrics. Tippa duets again with Birmingham’s Pato Banton on the cheeky “Walk Pon The Spot”, and Pato comes again with his own “Don’t Sniff The Coke”, impersonating his Mum, telling his story as an artist and advocating herbal remedies rather than white powder. This theme is also taken on board by Leicester’s singjay Tannoi in “Cocaine Mash Up Your Brain” over a crunchy digital take on Bobby Babylon. Disc one concludes with Tippa’s “Have You Got A Neighbour” which I’m not sure has ever been released before, bizarrely.
Disc Two is more of a mixed bag, commencing with Tippa Irie’s ultra-commercial hit “Hello Darling”, followed by the next cut on the same riddim by the late Deborahe Glasgow. Greensleeves’ homegrown productions went increasingly digital as the eighties rolled on, which is fine, but they also seemed to be chasing mainstream
success after Tippa’s triumphant appearance on Top of the Pops. So in retrospect some of the digital production here  sounds unnecessarily massive and squeaky clean, instead of minimal and raw. From 1986 UK Bubblers began to mix things up a little, including Lovers Rock releases as well as the classic UK dancehall material. Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of time for Lovers tunes, certainly more than your average roots reggae collector nerd. I just can’t get with many of the selections here, largely because the cheesy vocals aren’t contrasted with rootsy b-lines like they would have been in pre-digital days. One Destiny’s “No Regrets” and male vocal group Azana’s “Runaway Woman” are fine tunes, however. The inclusion of the Lovers tracks is all the more confusing when you realise Tippa Irie’s all time killer “Lyric Maker” isn’t present. However the second disc also offers up some real treasures. I was especially thrilled to finally get my mitts on tunes like Tippa’s “Dance Up A Leeds” and Sugar Merchant’s “Tears of a Clown” for less than twenty quid a pop. Lesley Lyrics’ comes again with his comical “Blind Date”, in which a hook up with a new girl goes so disastrously wrong that he vows never to cheat on his woman again. The obscure Sparky Dean combines cockney market trader banter with fast chat, and Tannoi returns with a pair of digital reality dancehall tunes.
Most of the material here has been rinsed out in this house and featured in virtually all of my DJ sets for years. The informative booklet is well produced and colourful with a load of press cuttings and photos from the time. Don’t let the inclusion of a couple of duff tracks put you off, “Nice Up The Dance” is an essential document of a chapter of UK soundsystem culture which is crammed full of bonafide classics. You need this.

El Rakkas – Extremely Cheap and
Effective EP (Dubsquare 12”)
Title track is minimal Austrian clicky business with sonar bleeps. Reminds me of The Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia, which is a very good thing. Then it goes fucking MENTAL when Raster Noton artist Pomassi busts in, turns everything up and starts attacking all the carefully crafted sounds with a cheese grater. “Done Already” has beats so abstract they sound like a mistake to begin with, but then your rave DNA tunes in and everything comes into focus. “Interference” is all night-driving lushness that would sound incredible at 5am through a proper system. Vinyl only. Respect.

Naphta – Jungle Republic Ramadan
Man and Ricky Force Remixes
(Ruff Revival 12”)
I loved Naphta’s “Long Time Burning” album, and the remixes have all been top quality so far. Ramadanman comes with some 8-bit video game stylings. Beeps ahoy, captain! This is clever AND funky, my friends. Ricky Force retains the junglist onslaught and Yabby You horn sample from the original. But he also adds some
absolutely slamming amens and insane helicopter rewind sounds.
The drop is absolutely cataclysmic. Bruk out insanity is balanced by some lithe breakdowns which WILL have you putting your lightas in the air. Storming.

Ekoplekz – Stalag Zero / Distended
Dub (Punch Drunk 12”)
Fair play to Punch Drunk for going out on a limb with their 20th release. Ekoplekz isn’t dubstep – it isn’t really anything except Ekoplekz. Perhaps if I went back in time to make an episode of Dr Who in the sixties, and I described dubstep to the crew, this is probably what the soundtrack would come out like? “Stalag Zero” is a series of repeating eerie signatures which are all the more dreamlike for escaping the tyranny of quantised lockstep.
“Distended Dub” is even better: Bass rumble, soundsystem sound effect bleeps, but with a sinister slo-mo robotic rave keyboard stomping ominously towards you, down endless tinfoil corridors.
Maybe this won’t get played in at club night near you – but if it does, please let me know. Lovely screenprinted cover by my man 2ndFade.  A breath of fresh air.

V/A – 14 Tracks Tracing Psyche Dub
(Boomkat mp3 bundle)
Great cross-genre compilation of people using Dub’s experimental strategies as part of their armoury. Some of this is droney, some noisy, some abstract. But all tied together in a bassy, echoey package, linking the outer fringes of all sorts of mindwarping musics.
Mostly artists I’ve never heard of – or had heard of, but not got the chance to investigate properly. Highlights include Demdike Stare (Basic Channel at its most ambient), Aufgehoben (chopped up improv jazz), Nate Young (basically just echoey clanging!) and the two artists reviewed below. Dadawah and King Midas Sound also
make appearances. And actually, this reminds me of the seminal “Macro Dub Infection” and “Isolationism” compilations that KMS’ Kevin Martin put together for Virgin in the nineties. One to check if your palette is becoming a little jaded.

Forest Swords – Rattling Cage (No
Pain In Pop 7”)
Weird chimes, headnod beats and an off-beat gothic stab. The odd snatch of choral vocal combining with woozy twanging guitar. Simple elements, well done. “Hjurt” on the b-side is a tad more swirly.

LA Vampires & Zola Jesus – LA
Vampires & Zola Jesus EP
(Not Not Fun)
LA Vampires are something to do with Pocahaunted, who are in turn part of this hypnagogic pop thing I know nothing about. Zola Jesus is nu-goth or chillwave or whatever we’re calling it this week. Anyway, this collab is worth a shot. Droning bass, soaring vocals, an experiment that works. Mainly. “Searching” is low-fi post-punk
skank at its best. “Vous” recalls “Heathen Earth”-era Throbbing Gristle. “Looking In” is pleasingly buzzy and bleepy. A lot of my reggae mates will hate this cos it ain’t nearly funky enough and the vocals are too shrieky. I will direct their attention to the 16rpm cover of Dawn Penn’s “No No No” – it’s actually one of the weaker tracks, but annoying purists with scrappy lo-fi electronica is my new hobby.

Ekoplekz / Wanda Group — Dead
Escalator Suite / Slow Down Your
Blood (Further C40 cassette)
Ekoplekz at his most dubwise, a sure win in my book. The usual influences (Cabaret Voltaire, early Dubstep) are more subtle this time, allowing more space and echo than usual in this one twenty minute long track. There are even tinges of Jean Michel Jarre in there — if Jarre worked out of a garage in Bristol, that is. Towards the end the bass and ethereal echo give way to a more aggressive section that sounds like early Throbbing Gristle doing a spaghetti western soundtrack.Wanda Group’s side of the tape kicks off with murky ambience interrupted by high pitched tones and odd rhythms. It feels inhuman and cold next to Ekoplekz and has failed to hold my interest after a few plays. It concludes with some very simple and affecting analogue synth riffs, though.

Nick Edwards – Plekzationz
(Editions Mego)
Nick Edwards is how Ekoplekz is known to his postman and family. Echoing lo-fi analogue electronics remain, spanning 4 tracks of about 15 minutes each. The final track is the most rhythmic and the best for my money. This seems a bit more “serious” than previous efforts to me, perhaps because of the stature of the label? The
usual playful earthiness has been replaced by more airy and cerebral sonics. I’ve found this a bit harder to get into, but I can see it going down well with people who like demanding electronica.
Spatial — EP (Niche & Bump NNB01)
Spatial’s early 10″ releases on his Infrasonics label were like minimal Dubstep via the cold precision of Raster Noton. His subsequent evolution has been a joy to behold. Not for him the bandwagon jumping of so many upstarts, what we have is the glacial progression of someone certain enough of his own vision that incremental change is all that’s needed. Proper DJs will tell you about how ‘The Slammer’ goes down on discerning dancefloors, but you’ll find me playing the other side in the main. “Book Down Way Round” features vinyl tweaking as clinical beats – coupled with a lovely soulful female vocal and some mean synth stabs. It pulls you in several directions at once and you love it. “Plastic Relic” is dub techno in the classic 4AM “I’d go and find out what this tune is if I wasn’t so fucked” style. I.e. it’s not some politely structured DJ tool. Haunting MC vocals in the far corner of the some warehouse, and beats that delight in teasing you with space and menace in equal measure.

Keith Fullerton Whitman -
Occlusions (Editions Mego)
Loada modular synths talking to each other during two live sets. You can hear crowd chatter in the background during the quiet passages. Pretty wild noises piling on top of each other. Moments of clarity and moments of mess. Sounds like R2D2 ranting.
Second piece is more intense – faster, harsher noises. /”not recommended to those seeking meter, melody, cleanliness, or a clearly outlined organizational sense.”/Make the machines, programme the machines, press the “on” button. Stand back and let them do the work.

The New Blockaders — Schadenklang
(Hypnagogia LP)
This year is the 30th anniversary of TNB making horrible noise whilst wearing balaclavas. An Anti-career of just fucking about or a fine body of work which laid the foundations for “noise music” now? Schadenklang is two dense side-long tracks of chucking heavy objects about, grinding noises, scraping metal and general mayhem. The exact opposite of “relaxing”: it works best when you want to blow the cobwebs away. Avoid when hungover.

Nocturnal Emissions — Compost
(Attenuation Circuit CD)
Crisp live recording — one 40 minute long track on a CDR in a DVD box with full colour cover. Looks good. This is the Noccies in “soundscape” mode — ambient themes from electronic to field recording. Slowly evolving movements that suit late night listening (or perhaps an engaging background soundtrack to one of your partner’s friends who has come round to have another lengthy moan about something you don’t care about). Veers close to chill out territory but retains its edge nicely. For my money the also recently released “Spinal Correction Shred” live cassette has the
edge on this though, with a bit more variety and aggression.

Libbe Matz Gang — The First LMG
EP (Libertatia Overseas Trading 7″)
Quite a bit of speculation has gone into who is behind this — and the mystery makes for good copy but maybe the actual sounds get sidelined. What we have is a seven inch that plays at 33, some sinister anarcho-psychogeographical imagery and nine short tracks of instrumental harsh and aggressive lo-fi electronics. Some have rhythms, some have tunes: it’s a grab bag of texture and oddness. Rare to find a debut release which is so well conceived, this is clearly the product of years of ideas and pent up frustration: “DEDICATED TO ANYONE DRIVEN MENTAL BY CONSENSUS REALITY”. Certainly does the trick for me.
Reviews above by John Eden