Wire 400 Mix

I was excited to be asked to do a mix for the 400th issue of The Wire. I know it’s fashionable in some circles to criticise it (usually for getting some minor trainspotterish detail wrong, or for not covering more of some completely marginal artist or scene). But 400 issues of a high quality independent magazine which covers all kinds of freaky music can only be described as a victory for “our” side in my book.

The text here gives the background to the mix and a track list – so go there first.

(It’s not a reggae mix, but there is quite a lot of dub and bass and weird stuff in it).

You can play the mx there, or probably below if the code works:

Here’s to another 400 issues!

47th Annual Report

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Nostalgia was the order of the day:

  • I wrote a new foreword for the ebook reprint of Stewart Home’s classic 90s counter culture anthology Mind Invaders by Bread and Circuses. The foreword puts the texts in context and includes some reflections on my time then and how this sort of activity might be relevant now. Published today.
  • Some American anarchists produced a book about space travel which included a bunch of my texts for the Association of Autonomous Astronauts.
  • My interview with Paul Nomex was reprinted in the Datacide 2016 Almanac for Noise and Politics alongside a discography and a touching and insightful obituary by Jo Burzynska.
  • Finally, a short piece below about discontinuing my BM Box and what that used to mean.

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I managed to double my average number of DJ sets this year with an outing to Walthamstow at a wicked General Echo session AND blagged on NTS radio by the kind invitation of my label of the year – Bokeh Versions.

I also finally uploaded my best of 2006 reggae mix to Mixcloud:

There are a bunch of other old mixes up there too. Click this.

listen back to Bokeh Versions and me on NTS dubwise

TRACKLIST

HOLGER CZUKAY-HOW MUCH ARE THEY
ROMIE SINGH-DANCING TO FORGET
400 BLOWS-RADIO PRESSURE
IMAGINATION-SO GOOD, SO RIGHT
FATS COMET-DUB STORM
SCRITTI POLITTI & RANKING ANN-FLESH AND BLOOD
BRILLIANT-IT’S A MAN’S MAN’S MAN’S WORLD
THE FLYING LIZARDS-MONEY B
RESTRICTION RE-ACTION
SANDOZ-HIGHER THAN THAT
JAH SHAKA-HUNTER
RED BEAT-MORE OR LESS CUT
COLOURBOX-BABY I LOVE YOU SO

Saturday: weird dub on NTS alongside Bokeh Versions

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If you follow me on twitter you will have seen me hyping this show over the last few months- always a great unpredictable mix up of JA and outernational dubwise styles and genres.

Bokeh Versions have also released a great 7″ of freak dub from Seekersinternational – one of the few new artists I truly rate from the last few years.

So I’m thrilled to be invited to bring out some of my vinyl armoury this weekend. Tune in 3-4 live on NTS. There will also be an archived “listen again” thing on Mixcloud to follow.

Closure of BM Box 3641

tl;dr – don’t send things to the BM Box any more. I’m not renewing it for 2016.

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If I’ve sent you anything through the mail in the last 20 years, it’s probably had a rubber stamp imprint on it as in the photo above.

In the 80s and 90s all the cool kids in the UK underground scene had a PO Box with the Royal Mail, or got their post delivered to radical bookshop or similar. British Monomarks was for the proper hardcore though. The company was set up by a William Morris (not the William Morris) in 1925 to operate private mailboxes in Old Gloucester Street in Bloomsbury.

The word on the street was that unlike the Royal Mail, Monomarks wouldn’t hand over your personal details to any Tom, Dick or Harry – they’d need a court order or similar. Plus the central London location meant it was accessible if you lived in London but were moving around a lot. The weirdest (and therefore best) records, zines and political diatribes always came with BM Box to write back to.

I have to say that in my case, the glamour and mystique of having a BM Box far exceeded my need to shield my mail and personal details from the state or people who had taken a dislike to me. I remember a friend from Denmark being baffled about the plethora of mail boxes he had to write to, because everyone in Copenhagen just used their home address for their projects.

When I set up my box in the mid 1990s I was working around Euston and Holborn so I could head down to the Monomarks office and get my post of a lunchtime. There was usually a fair bit of it, which made for some great distractions to an afternoon of office drudgery.

I’d assumed that collecting my mail would be all bohemian and that the clerks and clientele would be crazy freaks. In fact it was simply a well-organised company with cheery staff. Most of the customers were non-descript, although I would occasionally run into people like Stewart Home or meet the guy who produced Progress Report fanzine. Less happily I also once bumped into neo-Nazi Charlie Sargent and a couple of his Combat 18 goons whilst collecting my mail. They had no idea who I was, but still exuded menace – I sidled off, feeling sorry for the staff who had to be civil to them.

I guess it’s an obvious point, but throughout the noughties the need to have mailing addresses was largely curtailed with the rise of email and the internet. These days everyone gets and sends less post – and fanzines, records and CDs are no longer the most effective way to get weird shit out there. I’ve also become much more fussy about how much crap I am prepared to take into my flat. But having said that, if you want to send me a physical object please get in touch and we’ll work something out…

 

New noise from me / Cutwail benefit compilation

I am very very proud to have a track included on the “We Saw Human Guinea Pigs Explode” compilation which has been released today:

The Cutwail label is a subsidiary of the unpredictable Libertatia Overseas Trading mob.

Actually I’m slightly staggered to be in there alongside Ceramic Hobs, Nocturnal Emissions, Xylitol, and Ekoplekz to name but four acts who I consider allies and sources of longstanding inspiration. Oh and some mysterious special guests…

My own effort is quite abstract and abrasive, but there is a great variety of material here.

Five quid gets you the tracks and artwork – and the money goes to help an excellent homelessness project in London.

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https://cutwail.bandcamp.com/releases

Datacide 14 articles online

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I neglected to give the new issue of Datacide enough praise on here because my own zine came out at the same time.

It should go without saying that’s it’s great and you should support the magazine by buying a copy or even subscribing.

(London people can pick up copies from Electric Knife or Housmans.)

Much (but not all) of the material in the latest issue is now online. Pieces by me include this article:

And these book reviews:

You should also most definitely read these: