How long that wild rush lasted I have no means of judging. It may have been an hour, a day, or many days, for I was throughout in a state of suspended animation, but presently my senses began to return and with them a sensation of lessening speed, a grateful relief to a heavy pressure which had held my life crushed in its grasp, without destroying it completely. It was just that sort of sensation though more keen which, drowsy in his bunk, a traveller feels when he is aware, without special perception, harbour is reached and a voyage comes to an end. But in my case the slowing down was for a long time comparative. Yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses, and just as I was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, an incredible doubt of my own emotions, and an eager desire to know what had happened, my strange conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulated lightly up and down, like a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, and then grounded, bows first, rolled over several times, then steadied again, and, coming at last to rest, the next minute the infernal rug opened, quivering along all its borders in its peculiar way, and humping up in the middle shot me five feet into the air like a cat tossed from a schoolboy’s blanket. – Gulliver of Mars

” The beep beep list. ”

01. Simone White – The Beep Beep Song
Ministry of Sound: Chilled Acoustic 2010 Disc 3 (2010)
02. Lali Puna – Move On
Our Inventions (Morr Music, 2010)
03. Pantha Du Prince – Abglanz
Black Noise (Rough Trade, 2010)
04. Brian Eno – Bone Jump
Small Craft on a Milk Sea (Warp Records, 2010)
05. kangding ray – apnee
automne fold (2008)
06. Bombay Bicycle Club – you already know [feat. kathryn williams]
Om Lounge (15 Year Anniversary Edition) (Om, 2009)

note: Experimental pop of sort. I made this last year actually, trying to make glitch tech more palatable and not so cryptically futuristic, more pop-ish while not being kitschy. I declare it a success and move on. It’s hard to do you know. Well, think of it as retro futuristic lounge for lazy day.

image: Rob Sheridan

Photo: Carl W. Heindl.

Troubled by wild fire and your heartless, raging music.

• Scritti Politti – Doubt Beat
  Early (Rough Trade, 2005)
• Maximum Joy – Silent Street/Silent Dub
  Disco Not Disco (Strut, 2008)
• Anika – Yang Yang
  Anika (Stones Throw, 2010)
• Clinic – Evil Bill
  Monkey On Your Back (Golf, 1998)
• Suuns – Up Past the Nursery
  Zeroes QC. (Secretly Canadian, 2010)
• The Kills – Pale Blue Eyes
  Levi’s Pioneer Sessions (2010)
  

Nothing can touch me now. I’m thirty feet tall and made of diamond. I’ve traded confidence for warmth. I am an engine running on cool water. A tungsten pyramid floating in the sky. I am the ruler of this land. I sit down in my throne and watch the ground below me. I realize I should probably clip my toenails and it’s been weeks since I last cleaned my room.

“27th day. Have rested and am moving south. All is well. Kerans.”

So he left the lagoon and entered the jungle again, within a few days was completely lost, following the lagoons southward through the increasing rain and heat, attacked by alligators and giant bats, a second Adam searching for the forgotten paradises of the reborn sun.

J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (1962).

1. Mandre – Isle de Joie
– Mandre4 (1982)
2. Marcos Valle – Fogo Del Sol
– Marcos Valle (1983)
3. Ethel Beatty – It’s Your Love
– I Know You Care (12″) (1981)
4. Eliza Waut – Russia
– Eliza Waut (1985)
5. Kraftwerk – Ananas Symphonie
– Ralf & Florian (1973)
6. Nite Jewel – Falling Far
– Am I Real? (Ep) (2010)
7. Sun Palace – Rude Movements
– (12″) (1983)

It’s turning to summer in Melbourne, but a summer plagued by long periods of rain, flooding, and humidity. The nights are disturbed by noisy insects, and the sun sets late and rises early. I’ve been playing with a old drum machine from the early 70s, and the tinny ‘rumba’ and ‘bossanova’ beats it spits out provide a rhythmic backdrop to these sunny soul/disco/exotica songs. Nite Jewel is worth a mention here, effortlessly making music that complements an otherwise 80s dominated playlist.

Photo: Candy Black Studio.

Sadness round at the hollow of the throat—inside, and one good thing: it makes you horny.
- Priscilla Becker.

• Opal – My Only Friend
  Early Recordings (Rough Trade, 1989)
• Blouse – Shadow
  Shadow (Old Wave, 2010)
• Jamie Woon – Night Air (Ramadanman refix)
  Night Air (Candent, 2010)
• Ben Watt – Some Things Don’t Matter
  North Marine Drive (1983)
• Simon Hinter – Take Care
  Take Care Ep (Team, 2010)
• Autolux – The Bouncing Wall
  Transit Transit (tbd, 2010)

Seems like I’m not satisfied. I have too much on my mind. It seems like I have more temptations put on me than anyone. Course, that’s what the Bible said, that’s the way we’d be tried out. And every time I ask God to remove this awful burden off of my heart, he does.

- Excerpt of a conversation with Nettie Featherstone.

Photo: Luca Mariani

Trying hard to make the feeling last before the autumn takes over and ruins it all.

• Wild Nothing – Golden Haze
  Golden Haze Ep (Captured Tracks, 2010)
• Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia – Soldiers
  Left (Buzzin’ Fly Records, 2010)
• The Helio Sequence – Blood Bleeds
  Love and Distance (Sub Pop, 2004)
• Boo Radleys - Wish I Was Skinny
  Giant Steps (Creation, 1993)
• Foxes In Fiction – Flashing Lights Have Ended Now
  Swung From The Branches (Orchid Tapes, 2010)

“I don’t get it. Why would anyone paint a picture of a door over and over again, like dozens of times?”

“It was the same subject, but it was different every time. The light was different, her mood was different. She saw something new every time she painted it.”

“And that’s not psycho to you?”

“Well then, why should we do anything more than once? Should I just smoke this one cigarette? Maybe we should only have sex once if it’s the same thing. Should we just watch one sunset? Or live just one day? Because it’s new every time. Each time is a different experience.”

“But… a door?”

“Why not a door? Sometimes you get fixated on something and you might not even get why. You open yourself up and go with the flow, wherever the universe takes you.”

“Ok so, the universe took her to a door and she got all obsessed with it and just had to paint it 20 times until it was perfect.”

“No I wouldn’t say that. Nothing’s perfect.”

“Come on that O’ Keeffe lady kept trying over and over until that stupid door was perfect.”

“No. That door was her home and she loved it. To me that’s about making that feeling last.”

-  Breaking Bad, episode 3.11