120 Megabytes - Episode 1 brought to you in association with our friends at Network Awesome
In one of mankind's archetypal tales, the protagonist runs off a cliff and away from the pressures of age, conformity and submission. If the protagonist is alone, she precipitates into the void, shackled by those chains that cannot be escaped, viz. gravity, and towards oblivion, under the vicarious gaze of those who daren't, those who can't because they are too entangled already. But when a critical mass of runners run together, then even the basic constraints of physics can be thwarted, if only briefly, and flight happens. Peter Pan's punk commune exemplifies the power of peer supported unrealistic [...]
We've long championed Digits' appropriation of various dancefloors in service of his hushed pop. A whispering sound from the ether that swirled around Arthur Russell back in his folk fuelled days. Digits' latest feels familiarly strange in the way that Water Borders did on first listen. Brought up in a pre-internet land the idea that music that feels so local can loop around the world, nestle in and breed new forms still engenders a minor tremor of future shock. Because It's Wrong begins by seemingly dragging a minimalist disco melody over a piece of Bristolian sub-bass but soon [...]
Our first delivery from Parker's Choro-Flora arrived promptly in it's greasy wooden crate sometime before 8am. It's sides straining with the weight of soil and soundproof packing material. We'd spent nearly all of our accumulated Altered Zones money (which had lain dormant in a Swiss account for just such an occasion) on this particular plant and anticipation was high. You see, the beauty of the botany supplied by Parker's Choro-Flora was that - after many years of selective breeding - the plants had been finally taught to emit what, to our narrowly focused ears, could be best described [...]
Sirs, I got a hell of a kick reading the piece Altered Zones magazine did this week on XXJFG. In addition to wishing you the best of luck, I'd also like to offer my services. Since I haven't seen a copy of the "new" XXJFG yet, I'll have to make this a tentative offer. I stepped into a dung-hole the last time I took a job with a blog I didn't know anything about (see enclosed clippings) and I'm not quite ready to go charging up another blind alley. By the time [...]
(Eduardo Paolozzi via Sci-fi-o-rama ) It can be tempting to think of (or make) dance music as an exercise in design or engineering – a set of elements is configured to achieve the producer's purpose, subject to certain constrains (tempo, length, genre). Isn't this after all functional music supposed to achieve quantifiable goals (calorie burn)? This is of course the wrong way – the outcomes of such exercise are dry and lifeless. Lots of dance music do in fact feel this way, because they are made that way. Frankenstein Monsters stitched up from [...]
In the 22 nd Century, Africa becomes to Asia what Asia is to America today, an ambitious and go-getting continent hungry to make its mark in this planet and beyond. Several foundational legends of the new pan-African identity underpin the development of its psychedelic space program – they include the re-appropriation of global dance culture (that has to be broadcasted through custom-made bass-boosted telco satellites), and the political will to realise the outer-worldly aspirations of the free jazz & dub reggae diaspora. Instead of wasting time pissing around in the outskirts of Terra, the African Space Program [...]
Ramble through the hazy palace of your past, and into a cellar of gentle ruins where you collect memories of those pets that grew up with you, and grew old and frail and one day, died. Bask in the portentous sadness of a wordless farewell, sweetened by the remembrance of the joy that was, and your ability to love, which is also the root of all your tears. Now picture a dynasty of galactic shepherds whose flock is of planets and constellations, and of the races that thrived and decayed and perished therein, their affection and ache as great as [...]
The land of the Angles had changed much since Stuart Lamour began his Phase IV treatments .Through the grand mechanics of financial inequality, decreased belief in a society, and the release of an infectious virus the ruling classes had in a few short weeks successfully brought about the rule of irrational, primitive impulses that have little apparent bearing on issues outside of the narrow self-interest of a consumerist infected population. By very effectively washing their hands of any responsibility, and blaming a moral decline, the government had created the perfect environment for their feeder friends to profit [...]
20jazzfunkgreats was devastated to hear of the recent demise of peddler of nightmares extraordinaire, scion of one of London's most notorious wizard dynasties and heroic saboteur of Nazi trips to the Himalayas Dr. Benjamin Sprake. We became acquainted with him through our visits to 'Mysterious of the Worm', his rather underrated science fiction, horror and uncanny shit bookshop in the capital – indeed, one of the few places to stock self-published (and rarely sold) tracts by our very own Preston G. Parallax. Our only consolation is that Benjamin's son, Saint, has decided to give up on a promising [...]
We've long championed Digits' appropriation of various dancefloors in service of his hushed pop. A whispering sound from the ether that swirled around Arthur Russell back in his folk fuelled days. Digits' latest feels familiarly strange in the way that Water Borders did on first listen. Brought up in a pre-internet land the idea that music that feels so local can loop around the world, nestle in and breed new forms still engenders a minor tremor of future shock. Because It's Wrong begins by seemingly dragging a minimalist disco melody over a piece of Bristolian sub-bass but soon [...]
Antiguo Autómata Mexicano's 'Speed' narrates the grievous spiritual journey of a civilisation of transcendental beings under attack from a cosmic virus that is chaos, unity in slavery, and never-ending hunger. This journey starts with the realisation of the severity of the threat, followed by the grim decision to face it with whatever weapons can be crafted in a short period of time, the manufacture of such weapons, and their deployment in a battlefield which is not quite within this reality, but a parallel post-singularity one. It never ends. It plays like a slowed-down, codeine laced real-time [...]
Regular readers may have by now realised that some time ago we constructed a wormportal perpendicular to ley lines, between our spiritual home of Brighton (UK) and our other spiritual outpost of Berlin. Many people have drawn (sometimes derogatory) comparisons between these two bohemian fortresses, and perhaps some of them are valid, apart from the fact that Berlin is in a totally different country, Quadrophenia wasn't set here, and it doesn't have a beach. And so, for anyone who might think B-town is still some kind of derelict, smacky wasteland where you might bump into Nick Cave on the street (we're talking about Berlin now), then [...]
Artists and record labels give away content in exchange for exposure. The outlets granting it attain a critical mass of users, which subsequently makes them more attractive for artists and record labels seeking audiences. Network effects result in concentration. Popular outlets will usually demand exclusivity from their content feeders, so as to distinguish themselves from their competitors. Some outlets monetise their audiences, either directly through advertising and merchandise, or indirectly through promotional activities such as nightclubs, gigs, remixes and DJing. In some cases, their position as 'hubs' for new talent (and credibility with audiences) enables them [...]
Is it safe to aspire to the motivation of a populace not via the very means of its own control but through a noble truth , a calling to something outside the macro economic dance that has assumed legitimacy over visionary discourse? Where once we were consciously motivated in our national labours by a tangible fear of the 'other', now we aspire to be frictionless in the machinery of capital; to never upset the brutal evolutionary drive of the markets with their imperfect gods at the wheel. While that is obviously slightly more preferable to the scorched [...]
(And again ) Whenever Philip K. Dick looked out of the window of his house in the suburbs, he saw an Eye in the Sky, unblinking, terrible. He toiled under its gaze, on paranoid symphonies to give the eye voice. 20jazzfunkgreats have it way easier, for they see a mouth, the mouth opens, its breath is frosty, it drools pearls of music upon our garden, wherein lay parcels from very far away, packed with ready-made hallucinations. Last night, it was Aguirre . We don't know the coordinates of his satellite, but we suspect the [...]
Soft Metals cohorts Gold Zebra have done a pretty decent lap of the internets with Love, French, Better but we thought we'd do our best Marty McFly impression and hang on to the bumper of this passing bandwagon. One of the nice things about posting things on 20JFG before they've had a chance to be contextualised by our blogging brethren is the opportunity to live for a moment in a world not already described, demarcated and categorised by others. We like the alchemical properties of music, especially its ability to construct functioning universes between our ears. [...]
Much has been written about the disappearance of the Mayas. We have been doing a bit of research ourselves, and discovered the truth. They stole wormhole secrets from the ambassadors of an alien civilisation and, through them, became beings of light. They now live in a set of parallel universes stacked like a deck of tarot cards, bookended by the big bang on one side, the Heat Death of the Universe on the other. They move through these universes like commuters of the quantum underground, and organise crazy techno parties in the vicinity of momentous events, [...]
(Artwork by Mike Mignola, of course). During their holiday trip to Tunguska, the good chaps at Extra Normal stumbled upon an abandoned bunker. Inside, ashtrays crammed with cigarettes, maps covered with meticulous Cyrillic scribbling, an arsenal of PPSH machine guns, silver munitions and, once sharp, now rotten stakes spread over a metal table. All carefully arranged like the still life for a Transilvanian headhunt, lines of sight converging into a vanishing point at the back of the room, a cabinet wherein hid a rusty tin. Inside, the original film prints for the [...]
RVNG bless us once again with another instalment of their ever fascinating (and vowel phobic) FRKWYS series. This time they've assembled a synth dream team to revive the spirit of compositional collaboration straight outta The Theatre of Eternal Music . One of the many strands that compose 20JFG's love of music made with synthesisers is its ability to describe nature in a medium that is completely abstracted from. As the sounds become more sythesised the creator's intent is more nakedly revealed and in this instance, the feeling of drifting into night - which let's face it is [...]
20JazzFunkGreats
No Church In The Wild
Nas - Daughters
The Rains of Castamere by The National
CHROMATICS "THESE STREETS WILL NEVER LOOK THE SAME"
DIIV "How Long Have You Known?" (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
Avicii – Two Million
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
H&M Lookbook Mujer y Hombre Otoño 2012.
Amanda Mair
