Space Dimension Controller - Welcome To Mikrosector-50 album preview

We wrote last year that Space Dimension Controller's first work for R&S was excellent music, packaged up with a ludicrously OTT backstory. Following this up, Space Dimension Controller's latest offering Welcome To Mikrosector-50 takes the cosmic prog nonsense to an even higher level, expanding on the further exploits of Mr. 8040 and his adventures in time travel and treating entirely straight-faced. Regardless, it all sounds pretty good, and we'll post a full review shortly, but whether the concept album improves on or detracts from the sound is another matter entirely...

You know what? Here's some sci-fi for you all to read.

2013
After four years stranded on Earth he has finally repaired the time travel capabilities of his Electropod. His goal was to return to the exact moment in the future of his fateful accident, but due to only having primitive Earth tools and technology at his disposal, the journeys destination was not as accurate as he had hoped and he ended up arriving 5 years later than anticipated.
Now, Mikrosector-50 has changed. It is no longer the strictly governed dystopian planet as Mr. 8040 remembers, where music was controlled by the Tiraquon Security Council and love was deemed unnecessary. Instead people were having fun and love and music filled the streets. At first, Mr. 8040 enjoyed this change and received a huge planet-wide welcome party, but once the party was over Mr. 8040 knew that he had to find his secret lover from before the accident and try to continue what they once had in this new free planet.
Upon returning to his home pod on the Armament Moon and still unaware that it is 5 years later than he expected, he finds the pod to be completely empty, with no sign of his secret lover. He activates the pod's computer and asks where she is, only to find out he is in year 2357 and that there has been no activity in his pod since shortly after he left. Upon learning this, he knows there is only one person he can find answers from, his boss, lead Space Dimension Controller of the Tiraquon Security Council, Max Tiraquon. He meets Max, but something doesn't seem right, there is a sense of hostility.When asked about the whereabouts of Mr. 8040's lover, Max is reluctant to say and tells him that she knows what he had been up to in the past.The women, the nightclubs, the parties. He tells her she's moved on, and maybe Mr. 8040 should too.After this encounter,Mr.8040 tells Max that he is done and leaves,quitting theTiraquon Security Council.
Disorientated and alone in a future no longer his own, Mr. 8040 realises his mistakes, he has done wrong by his lover, but how he will ever see her again to apologise? He leaves Mikrosector-50 and the boundaries of the Tiraquon6 Security Barrier for the distant pirate asteroid colony of EroDru-10. Famous for it's nightclubs, drugs and red light district. He needs to let off some steam, and maybe find a girl, but his game isn't the same as it used to be. Refused by countless girls, a drunk Mr. 8040 gets thrown out of a club and stumbles around the streets of EroDru-10. He encounters a local alien who recognises him and takes him to his nightclub, his guards are down and he takes a cosmic upper to help the night along. Intoxicated on drink and drugs he dances through the night in this sweaty club, before finishing the night with a robotic prostitute at her love pod.
All night he has been trying to mask the pain of losing his girl but reality hits him hard and he decides to go somewhere he hasn't been for years.The place that he built for his secret lover shortly before the accident that sent him back through time. He's not sure what he'll find there, he's hoping for answers, but how could he know. He tells the ships computer to set course for The Love Quadrant.
The Love Quadrant is no longer the same. It's power source had diminished due to the lack of activity while he was away. Instead of the vibrant and colourful cosmic oasis it once was, it was now a dark, grey and cold place. Mr. 8040 now knows that the future is no longer the place for him, that the past had become more of a home. It's time to return to the Quadrasector of the Tiraquon6 Security Barrier to find his main ship. He enters the vessel, and finds that someone had been there, but nothing had been taken and quickly shrugs it off as another attempted looting by an Astro Bandit. Now, in the same location as the accident, Mr. 8040 asks his computer if it would be possible to recreate the accident and send him back through time again. The computer refuses, it's protocol disallowing any action that may put it's user in danger, but Mr. 8040 opts to do it manually. He orders his computer to return to Mikrosector-50 and inform Max of his decision to return to the past. He enters the walkway to his Electropod and begins his journey back through time with a mission of groove.

Oh. My. God.

Professor Elemental transcends his boundaries once more with a surprising move into short film. This is what you should be watching on boxing day. All Hail.

Mala in Cuba - preview

Mala unveals the first full-length tracks from his forthcoming Mala in Cuba album, a collaboration with Gilles Peterson and various Cuban musicians set to drop on the 10^th September. Whilst Coki's particular brand of dubstep is starting to become rather overplayed, Mala's constantly been spreading his wings and experimenting. Peterson fairly boldly claims that "This is the record that reevaluates and realigns the dubstep movement within soundsystem culture", and whilst that's a hell of a grandiose statement to live up to, the two tracks so far sound fun, fresh and begging for a big-system run-out, though frankly, they sound very little like dubstep.




More details as we get them.

Divorce - Horseheads

I'm not sure either, no.

PressPausePlay

I recently watched the Transcendent Man documentary. Then today,  I found myself experiencing a bit of cognitive consonance when I watched PressPausePlay, and it moved me to share. The messages expressed are in many ways apart, but the vision of the future they paint melds easily in my mind.

There's a clear interplay between technology and humanity, the lines of which are beginning to blur. It seems we are drawing a more and more symbiotic future closer each day, a future in which we may no longer recognise ourselves. How you feel about that is up to you.

Remember when Vakant used to be all minimal?

Remember that? When Vakant were doing a nice line in reductionist, crisp techno for the likes of Mathias Kaden, Marco Carolo and Jennifer Cardini to cut up with? This latest number from Anonym's so damn smooth you could take a line off it. And look at the video! It looks like Michael fucking Jackson trying to cop off with Debbie Harry. What the hell guys? I thought all that disco nonsense you were letting Nico Perman away with was a one off, and yet you see fit to give us more of this crisply produced, melody-heavy electro funk.

As curveballs go, it's a bit of a beauty. Anonym fits perfectly well with Vakant's attitude to space, rigidity of form, and focussed production, but throws the techno right out the window in favour of camp groove and lush synth styles. Quite into this actually.

Firecracker Records printing sleeves

Edinburgh's Firecracker Records release some seriously lush deep house by the likes of Linkwood and Fudge Fingas (check out their sounds at their Soundcloud page), but they are just as well known for their awesome screenprinted superhero sleeves. If you've been anywhere near a decent record shop in the last few years you're sure to have noticed one of these bad boys staring at you from the racks. Here's a short (and sweet) documentary by the boys showing their Linkwood Family "Miles Away (Intrusion Dubs)" singles getting printed up:

Atari Teenage Riot - Black Flags / Anonymous

Atari Teenage Riot's latest video taps into the contemporary zeitgeist, referencing Anonymous, occupy and the 99%. It feels slightly off-message that a track dedicated to Anonymous begins with a massive namechecking shout out to themselves, but sponsoring activist fans by re-releasing a video cut together from fan footage is, well, pretty decent. I'd like to be cynical about it, but ATR do genuinely seem to give a fuck, and that's hard to fault.

Whatever happened to Hip-House?

Sometimes I think hip-house is the best genre ever known to man - the perfect blend of old school dance sounds with rapping on the top. It was fast, it was funky and it was fun - the tempo of the music made the MCs concentrate on a different meter, one that was more rhythmic and inspirational rather than heavy and polemical. Both genres were new and exciting at the time, and fitted each other like a hand in a glove (lest we forget that house music originally started as a black, ghetto music too).

How could it fail? WHY did it fail? Was it something to do with a perception amongst the hip-hop communtiy that house was too gay? The fact that house came from gay clubs like Frankie Knuckles' Warehouse or Ron Hardy's Music Box perhaps didn't square well with the uber-macho posturing of rap. Or was it seen as too faddish? Perhaps a hangover from the "disco sucks" years and rejection of yet another hijacking of a black musical form by white folks?

Whatever the reasons, the music still kicks ass today - drop something like Tyree & Kool Rock Steady "Turn Up The Bass" or KC Flightt's "Planet E" on a modern dancfloor and watch them tear it up. Now that we have gotten past an era where hip-hop was alligned in direct opposition to house, where all these different sounds are now simply conceived of as "retro", younger crowds are more open to this music and respond to the upbeat, party vibe and the combination of simple key elements in a fresh, different style.

Here's a short documentary on hip-house from 1989 featuring pretty much all the key players in the game. Some comissioning editor somewhere obviously thought this genre was gonna break big! But you've gotta be glad that footage like this still exists to document a sadly forgotten scene:



BONUS!

Here's a clip of Fast Eddie performing "Yo Yo Get Funky" live for a super-square and uber-white show called "Nine Thirty" (this clip also features an interview with the legendary founder of DJ International Records Rocky Jones, sporting a bad-ass shellsuit):

In Praise of El Santo

A legend, a pop culture icon, and the face of a thousand ludicrous B-movies. El Santo is truly Mexico's greatest export. He starred in such greats as El Santo vs. The Diabolical Brain, El Santo vs. The Vampire Women, El Santo and The Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein, and the classic El Santo vs the Blue Demon in Atlantis. While discussing the follow up to cult Glasplotation flick Babes Beyond the Barras, I found many of El Santo's movies online and am happily wasting my day off cherrypicking the best bits of El Santo Vs Las Lobos. This classic piece of celluloid concerns a clan of werewolves (duh), a family immune to said werewolves (and thus forever hated by said wolves) who call upon the great El Santo. This silver-clad mix of Batman, Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat and Sherlock Holmes steps in to help - who better to solve the problems of the common man, than the Saint who applied a Scorpion leglock to Dracula and choked out the Loch Ness Monster with his trademark Camel Clutch?

(Of course. Silver, werewolves. Werewolves, Silver. I get it!)

Should your spanish be up to scratch, the entire film begins here, split into parts, as this is youtube. Comedic moments can be found throughout, even without understanding a word of it. A particularly good example lies in the practically non-existent production values, for example, here. 30 seconds of Santo confronted by a crazed werewolf. Who sort of.... Falls out of a cupboard onto him. If nothing else, watch this small clip. It will improve your day immeasurably.

Atari Teenage Riot - Blood in My Eyes (Video)

More digital hardcore from Atari Teenage Riot, with Nic Endo delivering powerful and uncomfortable messages about the sex trade the world over. Regardless of whether you think ATR have returned to form, or failed to live up to their standards, their motivations are unquestionably important.

Tickle - Chip Shop

Ain't nothin bigger than a battered sausage:

YouTube Advert FAIL

LOL! Thanks to Jamie El Muerto:

Jeremy Kyle gets Autotuned

And it's pretty good actually. Well bad in that he is still a terrible cunt exploiting weak people, but this tune is pretty well done:



Seriously though, fuck Jeremy Kyle - he may indeed be the most lovliest person in the world with sunbeams and candy-coloured rainbows shining form his rosy arse, but his brand of TV is repulsive. At least Ricki Lake has SOME SYMPATHY for her guests. Not Kyle, he just rips the piss out of them mercilessly.

Also, I have it on good authority that he has an OCD where he has to lick everything he touches.

Ministry - Fix, the movie

I'm sure most people have seen this by now, but it looks like Voltergeist's Psampled 69 is going to be making it onto the soundtrack. Big, big news and very exciting to see a local producer getting recognition from such a big name. Premiere screenings of the film will be taking place in Chicago and London, but stay tuned for news of a potential Glasgow screening....

For those that are wondering why we're so excited by Ministry, when all that metal stuff's just a load of noise, I point you the way of Stigmata, Cannibal Song, Hezbollah, Jesus Built My Hotrod and this bad boy.

A Little Song About Authority

Trent Reznor/Peter Murphy/Twiggy Ramirez & Atticus Ross cover "Warm Leatherette"

This kicks some serious ass - members of NIN, Marilyn Manson & Bauhaus cover The Normal's "Warm Leatherette" (made famous by Grace Jones):

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti "Round And Round"

Directed by Wayne Coyne - oh Wayne you so crazy! Srsly tho, this video must have cost about a fiver, and looks and feels great. It was filmed on a phone, and apparently the after effects don't come out in full cos of the Youtube bitrate. Cosmic!

Glesga Nature

One of the funniest clips I've seen in a long time - and only 2800 views! C'mon peeps let's make this viral:

More Stanley Odd

Awesome...