WOEBOT

Swaps.

Beyond indulging in the most almighty cosmic strop I've been trying to make sense of a foot high pile of CDRs which have washed up on my desk in the last year. The bloggers network has turned into something like the old tape swap network of yore. Sure there's the FTP crew pimping the download snapshots, but this is no equal to the intimate thrill of a fat brown packet landing on your doormat.

In truth I'll confess that in the past week or so I've been literally choking on music. I buy too much for my own sanity. I've come to think of myself as one of those old ladies who fill their apartments with so much crap that they can hardly open the door. I moved into this larger room in January, delighted by the expanse of space, but now piles of records are stretching their way into the centre of the room. Mating with one another, believe! Add to this mix the heady amounts of mouthwatering music I'm getting from key freaks round the world and you'll start to get the picture.

I've totally given up with mp3s in consequence. My iTunes library stands at 66.84 GB, that's 24 days, 16 hours and 54 seconds of music which I'm still struggling to digest. I don't seem to have the time to listen to listen to it all despite music's wondrous layering factor. You can listen to it while doing anything. Right now I'm typing like a spastic while the crisp dolorous tones of Mobb Deep's "The Infamous" spool out in the background (courtesy Oliver "The Dark Horse" Craner, who has a sweet, sweet, tightly-focussed, super-stylish record collection. Who'd have thunk it!) You see it's imperative to *LISTEN*, not to simply stockpile.

Part of my current crisis relates to this abundance of goodness. How on earth is one supposed to forge one's own musical identity when one is so inundated by other people's wonderful music. See for instance I'd like to hold forth on the qualities of the Banner and DJ Screw oevre, but this stuff ripped to my iPod (from CDs from Reynolds via the good Todd Burns at Stylus) is so demarcated, so conspicuously someone else's music that I feel quite unable to pretend I have any discursive power over it. Yeah, I'm honest like that. Added to the fact that our whole network is stifling with our collective inability to reach beyond an ever-tightening perimeter of sound. Not another Dizzy Rascal review! I have an unsurpassable respect for the likes (the like?) of Jon "Worlds of Possibility" Dale, who manages to plough his own furrow, and dig his own shit while everyone else fails to take musical risks, is to keen to want to ape his colleagues. And I'm no-one to preach. However, as far as I'm concerned, the key lies in articulating what I'm doing differently.

I've just bought new pwetty coloured plastic cases for all these CDs (so many of the ones I get sent have come in paper sleeves and worse, and these treasures deserve more respect.) I was going to list all of these CDs which I've been sent over the past year, but instead I'm going to break out a few choice discs:

Vashti Bunyan: Just Another Diamond Day (co Jon "Former Astronaut" Dale)

You have to crane close to the speaker to hear Vashti. She's that bloody fey. I hastled Jonno for this after reading the great interview with John Wood in a recent The Wire. Particularly struck by Wood's off-hand dismissal of the session, that Bunyan had gone travelling round the country in a caravan and had returned unimaginably twee, blissed-out by rural idyll. It's the delicacy of this that has secured it's survival. It's like a likkle Dandelion beneath a concrete underpass innit. In fact the unassuming lack of thrust and pallid finger-picking demeanour has seen this CD creep into my conciousness.

VA: Electronic Pop Music (Mostly) (co Jim "Bunnywelt" Backhouse)

Well you'd be surprised if Jim WASN'T a font of incredible music. He's been propping up the Kosmische show on Resonance for the best part of the year. That's (counts on fingers and toes) quite a few hours of music from which to cherry pick! And he didn't do too badly off me too I may freely report. Jim's comp made my Christmas. I was wandering round the bleak nether-regions of Glasgow plugged deep into the still neo-pagan strata of German music. Pretty much what I was doing in 1992 there to the tune of Neu! Highlight? Ruth Hohmann and Erbe Chor's "In Staub Der Sterne" (Das Licht) which was from the soundtrack to 'Kosmos' a GDR Socialism-in-space TV Series. (Hey there's one for the big man at k-punk!) This, and scuse me while I slide into Cope-ish Stone-Circle doggerel, has very real pre-historical under-currents. It sounds fucking ancient, like an undiscovered Bavarian cave complex. More superficially like an undiscovered Cosmic Couriers 7" edit, only better. Mmm.

Demon Fuzz: Afreaka! (Janus, 1969) (co Sasha "The Man" Frere Jones)

Crikey I've come a long way! From bedroom geek music obsessive to, er, bedroom geek music obsessive. In exchange for my Grime Scene 2003 CD Sasha Frere Jones (yes him!) sent me a handful of top notch CDs. This one blew me away. I pestered Sasha for more info on it, and he mailed me this jpeg (from his vinyl original) and confessed to knowing nothing more about it. Well I'm not to cool to beg, so if anyone knows do me a favour and plug the gap. First up, 1969, hmm that's early for this kind of record. While Sly is still purveying quite cluttered post-psych-punk soundscapes this is exceptionally elegant and laid-bare. Simmering underplayed hammond organ like desert heat-haze and horns which (and you're gonna laugh now) sound like the charts on Roy Davis Jnr's "Gabriel" It's got righteous rootical vocals and a sensibility lurking between Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys, John Lee Hooker, Afrobeat and Eddie Gale. Breaks galore! Loved this.

VA: some rareighties (co Seb "Le Rock est Mort" Morlu)

Eh Seb! Comment ca-va? Seb sent me this tippity-top comp of French/Euro Post-Punk. While Seb really favours the Chandra on this (I'm not convinced) I preferred the Nini Raviolette "Suis-je normale?" Well actually it blew me away. I begged Seb to buy me a copy (and posted him a Grime 12" in exchange- not sure if I don't STILL owe you more bad bwoy!) In short it's the living image of Stereolab at their cheeky breast-stroking frog-legging best. Lots of other amazing stuff on here also, like the Des Airs "Lunga Notte" EP of Crammed Records.

VA: Screwed and/or Chopped (co Simon "Don Dada" Reynolds via Todd "Crunk" Burns at Stylus)

Great! Thanks to Todd (who was presumably the unwitting source of this superb CD) as well as to Simon who has served up numerous super treats over the course of the year. Well what the hell, these tracks are positively ancient, so I might as well chuck in my 5c. "Tell Me Something Good", "I Smell Smoke" and "Blunt to my Lips" off this compilation blew my lid off. DJ Screw, as y'all know, slows the track down to the speed of molasses. He then overdubs super-delicate touches like strings and eeire smaples which fuck with your sense of the correct speed of what you're listening to. So luxuriant can this sound that I kept flashing on the deep-soul productions of Tom Tom Washington, Bobby Martin and Carl Davis/Eugene Record. On "Blunt to My Lips" the voices are pitched down till the slouching rappers aurally ressemble 40 ft tall Ketamine demons. This is some parallel universe shit.

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So yes, that represents but the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to everyone who sent me stuff. It's ALL amazing. I can't say how grateful I am, how exciting I find it. I know I've thanked y'all already, but (blows kisses) thanks again. I love to be able to share out what I'm gathering up too, so if anyone out there has some stuff they think I'd like to hear, and wouldn't mind a bit of "that there" drop me a line and let's swap! Terms and Conditions apply.

Posted by Woebot at February 13, 2004 10:33 PM