Seven shades of armageddon: the radio marathon continues

I am nearing the end of my marathon run of radio programmes, so normal blog service will resume soon.

I am 75% of the way through a month of consecutive weeknight radio shows (called the Theatre Of Noise) and I have learnt some valuable lessons from the features we have produced so far.

Firstly, as a rule, the cheaper the quiche, the more weight it can take. Aldi's cheese and chive quiche can take the weight of several potatoes, while Sainsbury's distinctly snooty salmon and watercress quiche collapses under the weight of thin air.

Secondly, attacking a folk CD with a lawnmower is much more destructive than you imagine. You'd think it would just chafe under the blades, but instead the plastic explodes into seven shades of armageddon.

Finally, deep fried Creme Egg is sickly beyond anything the human tongue can cope with, but it's much more alluring than a Tunnock's tea cake and celery toasted sandwich. That feels like your taste buds are being raped by a randy gorilla made of nettles with nipples of dung.

All of these are serious lessons in radio, the likes of which the Today programme are learning every day. As I said, normal service will return, just as soon as I've figured out what 'normal' is again.

Everything She Touched Tur-- oh she's gone already

Beats overlord Guillermo Scott Herren is back with a fifth album under his Prefuse 73 moniker.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is the sound of a man dipping his toes into various colourful pools of smokin' beats without ever getting totally immersed.

The hip hop sensibility that underpinned his debut Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives has been spat into the wind here. Instead, we have crunchy, Clark or Vibert-style electronica, sprinkled with shiny aaahs and swooshes to give it a rather false-sounding heart.

My beef is that there are about a hundred million billion trillion tracks on here, and most of them last barely more than two nano-seconds. As soon as your head is nodding to one particular diversion, the CD starts shouting "next track! next track!" at you.

That's not to say the majority of the beats aren't oodles and oodles better than stacks of other junk out there. He recorded this to analogue Ampex tape, hence the album's title, and you can feel the warmth if you stand close enough.

So Herren remains the Mega King Of All The Beats. It's just a shame he won't hang up his coat and stick around for more than one quick cuppa.

2paW0r: Answers

Time for the answers to my Warp Records anagram challenge. If you want to have a go, don't spoil it by reading the answers here... jump straight to the quiz and see how many you can get.

Here goes:

1 - Not tiresome seduction (5) was the early Squarepusher album Music Is Rotted One Note.

2 - Hurray! Knobbed! (2) was Donkey Rhubarb, the EP by Aphex Twin.

3 - A bawdy convoy (2) was the Boards Of Canada track Dayvan Cowboy.

4 - Enchant a dull head (2) was Haunted Dancefloor, the Sabres Of Paradise classic.

5 - Shams (1) is the Jackson And His Computer Band album Smash.

6 - Non-established chalk (5) is the Gravenhurst mini-album Black Holes In The Sand.

7 - Sells an ego (2) is the Flying Lotus album Los Angeles.

8 - If sequencer (1) is Frequencies, the LFO album.

9 - Damndest, elite nightshade! (5) is The Ends Against The Middle, the Warp debut by Anti Pop Consortium.


10 - The gormless kid (2) is Smokers Delight, the notable album by Nightmares On Wax.

11 - Is cocky dirt (2) is Tricky Disco, an early classic.

12 - No (1) is On, the single by Aphex Twin. Tough one, that.

13 - Shock OK bet (1) is the Req album Sketchbook.

14 - Charmed tory (4) is, bizarrely, the Squarepusher single My Red Hot Car.

15 - Flaky old ponce (2) is Polyfolk Dance, the EP by Hudson Mohawke.

16 - Hence examined chews huge, inclement nail (5) is the Harmonic 313 album When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence.

17 - Wiser, roughened toxin (3) is One Word Extinguisher, the second album from Prefuse 73.

18 - Daring grunt, no? (2) is the Clark album Turning Dragon.

19 - As critique (1) is Quaristice, the recent album by Autechre.

20 - OK ancient warmth (4), finally, is seminal Forgemasters single Track With No Name.

The Guardian puts a clonk on it

If you're quick, you can still get the Guardian's tribute to Warp Records, cut it out with your mam's sewing scissors, and plaster it on your wall like a great big fanboy.

'Bleep Of Faith' is a neat little feature looking back on 20 years of the electronic music label.

It contains all the obvious gems of Warp mythology, listed here for your easy digestment, plus one or two lovely stories. I especially like the image of LFO fighting on stage like they were some kind of Kraftwerkian Gallagher brothers.

- Warp Records was conceived in a bedroom. Arf!;

- modern electronica was born with the release of the Artificial Intelligence album;

- the first release (Track With No Name) was flogged from the back of a car;

- they fooled Pete Tongue into thinking the future of music was something called "clonk";

- they happen to make some pretty bloody good films (the best of which is This Is England)

- LFO used to fight on stage. Like Brian Jonestown Massacre;

- the label was started with a £40 Enterprise Allowance grant;

- Richard David James, a.k.a. Aphex Twin, is something of a 'maverick'. You'd never guess;

- signing the likes of Maximo Park had purists spluttering into their chai tea;

- the early releases apparently sounded exactly like Sheffield, which makes Warp totally different from Pulp, who also sounded exactly like Sheffield... who were, incidentally, totally different from the Human League, who also .... you get the idea.

Tretchicovs and radiograms, TVs and aspidistras: the death of Johnny Roadhouse

Johnny Roadhouse, the propieter of Manchester's famous music shop of the same name, has finally ascended the stairway to heaven.

(That metaphor was necessary by law.)

Saxophonist Roadhouse has died at the age of 88.  His website says he "passed away in his sleep early on Saturday 11 April, 2009. He will be deeply missed and fondly remembered, by all his family, friends and staff."

Johnny Roadhouse (the shop, not the man) was featured in Oasis' video for The Masterplan. Roadhouse (the man, not the shop) has played with Elton John and the Halle orchestra. Also, Paul McCartney famously hired a guitar from the Roadhouse (the shop, not the man) for a sesh at the BBC.

Even Les Dawson hung out there.

Smiths drummer Mike Joyce paid tribute to Roadhouse, saying, "Every single band in Manchester has gone through Johnny Roadhouse Music at some stage - it's impossible not to... Music shops come and go, but Johnny Roadhouse stays. It's synonymous with Manchester music."

On an electronic tip, 808 State bought a serious chunk of their gear from Roadhouse. Which is quite suitable, considering the 'State were responsible for bringing saxophone to the post-acid dancefloor. Graham Massey pays tribute to the shop here with the wonderful line:

"In the 1970s, Americans would have called it a pawn shop, as it seemed to do house clearances: alongside the drum kits and guitar amps were Tretchicovs and radiograms, TVs and aspidistras."

Wevie Stonder: all the people are fridges; all the food is made of October

For a decade, ridiculous joketronica band Wevie Stonder (photo: Fjords) have been churning out their own parody dance music, featuring (according to the New York Times) "singing and shouting" and "a portly German tuba player in sunglasses and costume antennas."

They are electronica's version of Weird Al Yankovic, except without the yawning realisation that you've heard the joke before.

You'd think they'd be stuck in a rut doing this kind of thing, like Goldie Lookin' Chain. Yet the boys still have one sweaty ear pressed up against music's pregnant underbelly. Their latest album The Bucket churns out dubstep and grime references like some kind of clown-show sausage machine without an off-button.

Hans Peach takes off Leftfield and T-Rex and is the sound of all the guitars and all the synths playing Twister after closing time in all of the UK's instrument shops. Small People (think Lemon Jelly on K) is a Carribean island, palm tree at its centre, spinning in giddy circles like a warped record.

The Amiga beeps beep. The funk bass funks. The 909 snares ensnare. The whole thing pleases. "It's going well Tuesday," spouts the Nathan Barley DJ on Glidstep.

I have no idea what any of The Bucket means. It's like being at a party where the people are fridges and all the food is made of October. Wevie Stonder leave the quirkiness of Lemon Jelly and Avalanches dead in the dodo juice.

Mr Scruff's dried rabbits, LD's deep woofs and Mujava's drained drums

Here are some tracks that ought to be caressing your pretty ears right now.

Potato-drawing tea evangelist Mr Scruff (pictured) has teamed up with preacher's son Roots Manuva for a track called Nice Up The Junction. It's a solid piece of dub skank with some meaty "wooh" action, and the video features a jumble sale flogging used tea bags and "dried rabbits".

Dubstep label Hyperdub lit a really slow fuse when they let LD loose on new 12" Traumatic Times.  With its deeply woofing bass, the title track is so low-down, it's doing the limbo underneath your carpet. Flip side Woodblock is a slap round the chops in comparison, and is worth hunting out for its simmering, insistent, rolling techno.

And while I'm a techno tip, if you come across Boy 8 Bit's remix of Mujava's Township Funk, it's worth stopping to say hello. I should point out that Township Funk is minimal house music's version of Rihanna's Umbrella: it's simply massive. Boy 8 Bit magnifies the moodiness. eliminates the tribal drums, and uses menacing synth lines to drain any possible happiness from the track until the glass is indeed half empty. Stupendously, stunningly stern.

Leila's telly-trembling tribute to sub-bass

Because I'm holed up in a studio most nights, the one thing I can't do at the moment is Go Out. Capital G, capital O.

Footage like this, taken from Leila's performance from a Spanish festival last year, makes me green with envy. So green and so angry, in fact, that I'm tearing my shirt apart as I write this. And believe me, I don't have Lou Ferrigno's muscles.

I want to go to a club night. I want to twiddle some knobs and make a roomful of heads nod. But I can't because I'm having immense fun in a radio studio that's no bigger than your left bra cup.

Anyhooze, it's a sweet little performance on this here video: the camera shake after the minute mark is as good a visual tribute to sub-bass as you'll ever get.