Honey Disco 1-4
Honey Disco is a label from Canada that releases single-sided, clear 7” vinyls with beewax on the flipside and honey smell included.The first two releases by Hristo and Koosh contain some cool funkedelic disco-dub. Number three By Eddie C was my favorite so far, with a dubby downtempo tune that reminds me slightly of T.Rex’ “Hot Love“. I heard number four by Osmose recently, wich works in a similar way, re-working Billy Idols “Sweet Sixteen”.

Myler
Gorilla Biscuits
[Pennyroyal] Myler
Northern Extension [EarToGround Records]
Irish producer Myler with 3 tight and rumbling techno tracks, released in 2014 on Untolds Pennyroyal label, soundwise somewhere between JoeFarr, J. Tjin and Randomer with those thick bassdrums and a certain funkiness that all of them have in common. The other record came out in ocbtober 2016 with 4 tracks and a locked groove on vinyl and one good digital bonus track that goes in direction of the pennyroyal material. A1 is shuffling breakbeat techno, quite ok. A2 and AA2 are more or less solid techno tracks but the real gem is the AA1 track “D’Electrocution” which is raw, straight forward basement techno with an intriguing filtered piano. Opinions might differ about this, but for me it totally works.

Ossia
Control
[Berceuse Heroique] [Read more →]

KK Null – Star Breaker
[ThirdTypeTapes, TTT18]
Veteran noise/rock artist KK Null returns to a Belgian label (after last year’s excellent Pulsar X cd on Cyber City) for another outing that seems to further his crossover into more rhythmic territory. It’s great to hear shades of speedcore and broken beats appearing in his recent material. Elements of his sound have come together to form what sound like ultra fast beats underpinning the usual abrasive frequency bashing. The rhythmic elements drift in and out of the mix in a way that makes the sound evolve through different (brutal) forms and it makes for a much more cohesive and natural sound than almost any of the more straightforward hardcore/speedcore you will hear today. The beginning of side B is a definite high point for me. Sheets of metallic noise slowly give way to an utterly pummelling broken beat that had me doing the rewind. Highly recommended listening if you like it harsh.

Bombardier
Fury
[Division 13, D13.016]
A new limited 2 x 12” release from Bombardier featuring the best of his tracks from the last few years. Jason Snell has always had a very distinctive, hardware based sound in whatever context he decides to operate in and has carried this over into his recent more techno/electro based material. There is a mixture of 4/4 and more broken tracks here but all of it is an absolute gift for any dj looking for heavy, dark beats of a kind that are extremely hard to find these days. I have no idea how many have been pressed but they seem to be released in batches from the Bombardier bandcamp page where the artist has only been charging for the postage. Don’t miss.

JK Flesh
Nothing is Free
[downwards, LINO-71] [Read more →]

Alert
Mindscan
[Oblivion Fringe]
In space no one can hear you scream. These are maybe not prime time dance floor tracks, but both are expertly crafted and pristinely cold, languid, metronomic, deep-space probes that strap you in and take you far into the void. The engines cut out and you float, suspended, contemplating the silence of eternity. Both cuts as solid and airtight as each other.

Aluphobia & Hataah
Lynx
[Babylon]
A fine, short, cut of ethereal, psychedelic Bass minimalism. Like lying back and watching thick curls of skunk smoke floating lazily in a pale winter light while tinges of paranoia develop as you wander what you’re doing with your life.
The drop out into (little more than) a murky thudding heartbeat seals the track’s expert reined in dynamics.

Aquarian
Bad Feeling/Insulin
[Hanger Management HNGRMGMT001]
His best and most slamming release to date and probably my favourite Bass release of the moment. Drenched in dark warehouse rave vibes, he’s definitely beefed up the low end and fine-tuned his chopped breaks and kicks aesthetic. In fact I would go so far as to say; no-one does it better! Proof that keeping it simple always leads back to something stronger. ‘Bad Feeling’ could almost be of Somatics/SNS/ADC/Anibaldi Italian broken beat vintage, just as ‘Insulin’ hints at a Mover vibe too! This is a must for any fans of that era/sound. [Read more →]

Your country’s dead man, but your continent is soiled
– Triple Negative, Schengen Wasteman

Jay Gould may or may not actually have said ‘I can hire half of the working class to kill the other half’, but the proprietors of the UK have tested the theory successfully with their EU referendum. Not that you would know it from reading the Guardian, the Financial Times or even, sad to say, Counterpunch and the rest of the Left-wing blogobubble, where a chorus of Influencers is celebrating the 18th Brumaire of Nigel Farage.

Let me make clear what I don’t mean by that. Of course the likes of John Pilger, Michael Hudson, Tariq Ali and too many others to list are right in principle to celebrate a slap in the face of the EU manageriat and its unctuous cheerleaders. Who other than actual Eurostipendiaries would deny that the EU is an anti-democratic managerial machine built to hammer home labour discipline (sorry, ‘Competitiveness’) and ease cross-border financial looting?

But the point here is not really about whether or not the satisfaction of symbolically slapping a robot outweighs the harm done by an anti-immigrant plebiscite. What cries out louder for correction right now is the myth that the ‘leave’ vote is a victory for THE working class over ‘metropolitan elites’ and incorrigibly Scottish Scots. This matters a lot, because the metropolitan, multinational working class is being told by all sides, and at the worst possible moment, that actually we don’t exist. Worse still, myths like this tend to become self-fulfilling. Which is not to say they come true, but they become truisms to the point that they start having real effects. Like that old chestnut, ‘immigrants are to blame for other workers’ immiseration’, which we’ve just witnessed in action. [Read more →]

[This piece is an update to the article The Marketisation of Mass Education in England published in datacide fifteen.]

“When it comes to K through 12 education (4 – 18 years old), we see a $500 billion sector in the US alone that is waiting desperately to be trans-formed by big break-throughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”

Rupert Murdoch, Press Release
November 2010

The opening up of the education market to private providers has reached something of a stand-still or a stand-off in England over the last year. A government White Paper in April 2016 proposed that all schools become academies by 2022. A few weeks later the government abandoned this because of enormous resistance to the idea amongst teachers, parents and local councils. However, there is still plenty of momentum to the ongoing outsourcing and diversifying of state social services e.g. Richard Branson’s ‘Virgin Care’ has been given a seven year £700 million contract for adult social care in Bath and Somerset by the National Health Service; this is the first time a council’s core adult social work services will be directly delivered by a for-profit private firm.
The great majority of secondary schools are now overseen by private organisations of one sort or another and not the local council. The next phase of this re-structuring of provision should be aimed at primary schools (only 13% academies in March 2016) but a number of factors have slowed down the rapid pace of reform.

Firstly, there has been a constant stream of lurid stories in the press about the mismanagement of academies and academy chains. In 2015 seven ‘financial notices to improve’ were handed out to academy trusts; in 2016 this number has risen to twenty five. The Times Educational Supplement had a feature recently (TES 14.10.16) about five academy head teachers who have all fallen from grace: [Read more →]