#9: A suffocating month; Radio & News; alien kin, Strategy & Uxile.
A month spent choking on news, being held in perpetual horror, grappling with so many thoughts. Here's a much-delayed Reach, a vocalising of my support on Palestine, and some news & reviews.
For those of you who know me personally, you’ll know from my personal IG account that I’ve been very vocal about my resolute support for Palestine over the years, but the necessity of the full and complete Palestinian liberation has become more and more urgent in the last weeks.
The last month has been an incredibly trying time to push down keys and write. As a student of political rhetoric (my degree was in English Language and Linguistics, and my specialty in persuasive language and metaphor), I’ve been transfixed by the outpouring of hatred online; the abjectly false relations of calls for freedom and liberation with the destruction of a people; the silencing of activists, the obliteration of freedoms of speech, the “cancelling” of dozens of people simply based on liking or sharing posts in support of the people of Palestine — the open-book of genocide, and the sudden uprising of right-wing ideology and logic, even by those supposedly on the left, most especially in places like Germany, the UK, France, the US... None of which had given us much thorough grounding in believing in a true and faithful government, but any visage has now utterly dropped into the mud.
In the UK, this is especially sour since the allegedly left-wing Labour government (who, for all its faults, was and is our best hope of challenging the extant Conservatives) also aligns itself with supporting genocide: now helmed by Kier Starmer, who stated his support for Israel’s illegal blockade of food, water, fuel and electricity, and when questioned about this later he resorted to outright lies, a chief member of his cabinet, Emily Thornberry (who was my MP while I lived in London, and has received my vote) makes her best effort at adding humanity to robotic phrases in this short clip, but comes up short. As a cabinet member she is among those within Labour who did not vote for a ceasefire. Never shall I forget it.
In Germany, we see a government burying itself to the neck in culpability, brutally assaulting protesters and ordering the police to violently cancel voices in a sharp and ultimately reactionary attempt to stem a wave of Nazism. They are as helpless before the tide as Cnut, and the waves are made of their own actions; as the German government supports yet another genocide, they encourage the right-wing loons that were the bread and butter of the brownshirts 100 years ago to continue to spawn and infest others with their hatred of all; Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Asians, Queers and Leftists.
It seems like every day there’s fresh horrors in the news from Germany: houses getting raided because of social media activity, Jewish protests getting forcibly shut down citing anti-semitism, etcetera etcetera. I find it laughable that many of us put so much faith in Germany to be different, to be better than this, as if the whole country is in fact just our favourite bits of Berlin, with no grim past, and I find it pathetic that so many of the supposed pillars of the German/global clubbing scene, like Hör and Institute für Zukunft (a self-described “progressive” club with an established Zionist history that very recently forcibly ejected a person wearing the kufiyya because one person had a complaint with it), are precisely the hollow shells of techno consumerism they so desperately tried not to appear to be.
I mentioned my training in rhetoric because it has been incessantly present. I’ve seen people say “there’s rhetoric on all sides” but with Israeli officials and major news sources repudiating the hundreds (probably thousands) of videos of children as scenes “Hamas wants you to see”, casting it down as false advertising, it’s worth bearing in mind two things: 1) that rhetoric is simply the art of persuasive language, and not a secret cult made by linguistic wizards; 2) that rhetoric (in the sense adopted by the media and politicians) describes the enforcing of power structures through language. To determine where the bulk of this harmfully or maliciously persuasive rhetoric comes from, look to who has the power in the given situation: Israel.
In one of my day jobs, I am giving lectures on the persuasive power of rhetoric. I’m by no means a leader in this field, but I know enough about it to be able to tell when an entity is using manipulative language or imagery. Recently I asked my class if they’d like a lesson in the propaganda and rhetoric being used across the last month, and they all voted yes. It is telling that in preparing for the lesson I found myself realising that what is being done now represents arguably the best examples of malicious propaganda ever.
Showing Nazi propaganda to Gen-Z students almost bounds off the roof: it looks cheesy, dated, obvious, to the people of this age. But, when showing what has been happening in Israel and Palestine since October 7th, you could see them sit up and pay attention: you could see it click, how changing a verb, or adding some modifying punctuation, or decreasing the accuracy of agency in a sentence, amounts in clear and quantifiable force towards dehumanisation — and how the insidious nature of language subtlety had drifted over many of their heads, until their focus was drawn to it.
There’s one further thing to recall with the matter of rhetoric in this scenario: it is a privileged thing, to assess language and categorise it into analepsis, hyperbaton, synecdoche and euphemism; into archaic Greek. This luxury is granted to academics and scholars and media psuedo-pundits; Palestinians die while we debate and sort through the semantics from behind phones and laptops, and while the loudest voices from the Israeli government and media have not a shred of tact or subtlety with their calls for extermination, rendering the whole exercise and discipline obsolete.
Over the last weeks, I’ve sat down at my computer several times to write something through Reach. Each attempt ended in failure, and what you’re reading is the slow amalgamation of each attempt to say something meaningful here. I wanted to avoid using my newsletter to repeat obvious statements, to conjure up some message — one day a positive imagining of a future with a free Palestine, another day as powerful a condemnation of the forces that gave us this genocide as I could muster — but in the end, there’s nothing else to say that the Palestinians, alongside many hundreds of thousands of people suffering at the hands of white supremacy, haven’t been saying for decades and centuries.
I wholeheartedly support a free Palestinian people; free from oppression, from apartheid, from ethnic cleansing and genocide. For those who disagree with these simple tenets, pray it is a merciful god waiting beyond the walls of life. To those of you I need not persuade: what more can we do? At the time of writing the uneasy pause has begun. It is during these next days — or for as long as the fingers hold on their triggers — that the importance of not letting up is most essential. Send an email this weekend to your MP, or whatever it is where you are, urging them to keep up the pressure, so that this false “ceasefire” gets implemented properly and fully.
I’m not much the type of writer that likes to make every claim referenced in footnotes, for all my sins, and there are many people out there better-equipped with resources and information, and they are not hard to find. I’ve said (most) of what I can of my piece here, and I’ll get onto the music below.
NEWS: New section, no banner.
Lots of nice music-related things have happened in the last month as well, including a good handful of fun DJ sets, and with a nice clutch coming in before Christmas I thought I’d make a News section to talk about some stuff related to me and what I do in music as well. In the future I’ll look to get some content from friends both local and global in here too.
DJ BRICKS: Retrograde Pleasures - 9_23_23, 4.22
First up, my radio series — PAIJATA — had a really excellent contribution from the wonderful DJ BRICKS, who nailed the brief of “sweet and sexy ambient bangers to make love to”. You can check it out here, and I really do recommend doing it. BRICKS is great behind the decks (and, in fact, everywhere else too: love ya Lou!).
I’ve also previously mentioned the excellent —
—newsletter, curated and penned by the wonderful station manager Miro Sundaymusik. Check it out (you can click on the tagged Substack name above to read the newsletter).PAIJATA on Netil Radio - Freddie Hudson at Šachta
I’ve also just released a recording of myself playing at the (re-)opening of a gallery space, venue and wine bar here in Prague, Šachta. It was one of the last really nice sunny and warm days of the summer, and played a really broad selection to fit the mood (including a good handful of previously spoken-about music, the tracklist for this one is way too long to post below, so hop over to SC for the goodies on this:
Reach Radio on Radio Punctum
Netil Radio is not my only online radio allegiance: I’ve held down a spot on Radio Punctum here in Prague almost as long as I’ve been here in the city, variously disguised as Inverted Audio Radio, Dinner Time with Noise Kitchen, and now, Reach.
There’s a full tracklist on the Soundcloud link, or on their standalone website archive, but for completeness’ sake I’ll also post it below for those of you without the time to check a humble radio hosts’ efforts.
For those of you without the time, I highly recommend deeper investigations of the latest Bokeh Versions weaponry from Yokel (Kelan truly screams the screams of our time), the killer album from Sepehr, and Aroma Nice’s insane breakcore record on YUKU. Big pick also comes in the way of the Abji Hypersun track which was on a really amazing record I reviewed for Electronic Sound featuring an all-female Iranian cast, and the HUUUM record via Accidental Meetings, which is out very soon.
Next Reach show is Monday, 18:00 CET, on Radio Punctum, and it’ll be the first show I host in Tendance, a nice new bar spot and listening bar in Prague 7 (for those visiting). I’m going to try to make this section a little more built out in coming weeks, but I’m only just getting back on my feet with the newsletter so allow me for the simple boosting of the tracks played on the show today.
Tracklist:
Jay Glass Dubs - Waltz (ft. Marcella) [Extended Techniques]
bb948 - august9 [Pep Gaffe]
Dirty Electronics & Oliver Torr - WeedAptSuite [Mille Plateaux]
Yokel x D.Ham x Franco Franco - 2020THRU ft Dali de Saint Paul & Kelan [Bokeh Versions]
Yokel x D.Ham x Franco Franco - 2020THRU ft Sensational [Bokeh Versions]
Sepehr - Concrete Labyrinth [ GARMO]
HUUUM - Dibâche [Forthcoming Accidental Meetings]
Saint Abdullah - In God’s Image ft Jordan Reyes [Psychic Liberation]
ABADIR - Holy Week [SVBKVLT]
Aroma Nice - moan [YUKU]
Quicksails - Footing [Hausu Mountain]
Shinetiac - Cap Sized [3XL]
Darkchild - Tell Dem (prod. Wetman) [Duppy Gun]
Ma Sha - Psyspi (Ehua Remix) [Nervous Horizon]
Wordcolour - Mallets [Houndstooth]
Aroma Nice - 15 Thousand Nutters [YUKU]
Abji Hypersun - Resist The God Trick [Apranik]
Andriy Kostyukov & Oliver Torr - Caviar [Extra Muros / FLEE Project]
Aloka - Vector Space [Typeless Records]
El Mandy Jr & Hamorabi 13th Imam - Batt’in [Boomarm Nation]
Mix for Nūr x Ankali - Transmission for Palestine #2
This is still to be released but keep your eyes and ears on the Nūr socials and Soundcloud for the recordings of their Transmission for Palestine which aired on a Sunday a few weeks back. There’s also going to be a recording and some videos released of myself discussing the topic of Palestine with two important voices in the Prague movement for Palestine.
Gigs:
26/11/23: Ulla (live) w/ Ava Kolektiv — Brno
Super happy to be a part of this even tomorrow in Brno with Ulla and Ava friends! Ulla’s one of the all-time faves, and Ava Kolektiv are a really great collection of musicians I really respect, based in Czechia’s ‘second city’.
1/12/23: Patricia Kokett at Bike Jesus, Prague
Gonna jump the gun a little and break the news here that going forward I’ll be a resident of Bike Jesus, one of Prague’s best and longest-running underground venues. It’s got a big streak of anarchism and anti-fascism (which I’m looking forward to growing as a resident), and so it’s kinda fitting that their new second stage will be the Revolution stage. I’ll not be on that one come next weekend: I’ll be taking of the main stage after headliner Kokett (whose brilliant album on Knekelhuis really caught my ears, years back).
alien kin - the avian kin
First Terrace Records - 17/11/23
This wonderful album was a lighthouse when it came out a week ago. Longtime readers of the mag will recall my love for Diane Barbé’s album on Forms of Minutiae (and my love for the label’s output in general). Alien Kin involves Barbé, and Pablo Diserens of FoM, alongside others in a beautifully muddy sort of consistency. The aim is quite clear: the alien kin are best appreciated without too much clarity about who they are or what they do.
Indeed, some of the album’s shining moments (In Orthogonal Spruce) consists of recordings of very different musicians, those not of the two-hands, two-feet variety. But, the best moments come in the harmonisation of humans with the recordings from outside the studio: Transspecies Communication showcases both unordered cacophony and perfectly synchronised improvisation in sound, a wonderful composition of biomimicry that imperceptibly introduces electronic synthesis. If alien kin told me that there were only human voices on this track, I’m not sure I’d fully believe them.
For fans of this, there is the closely-associated Synthetic Bird Music compilation on Mappa, which contains 32 compositions which I described in Electronic Sound as being as “varied and numerous as the species of birds they [the musicians] set out to replicate, emulate, and imagine.”
Strategy - The Wet Room
Community Library - 17/11/2023
I’m a massive Strategy fan, and have been ever since the Idle Hands record, Seeds of Paradise, my copy of which is (along with its sister record, Pods of Punishment on Entr’acte) barely holding on to audibility.
Those records, along with Seeds of Entropy on Loon Moon, form with The Wet Room a clear sonic universe, with repeated motifs, samples, riffs and stylistics that grant a feeling of a well-worn jacket; familiar and recognisable. But, like the various stories of Ursula le Guin, while it’s not essential to be intimate with the full catalogue to appreciate the most recent iterations, the knowledge adds to the lore.
This is Paul Dickow’s 20th album as Strategy, and, being one of the very few artists I’ve listened to their entire repertoire, I can comfortably say it stands up as one of the best (as always, in my opinion). The Wet Room ties up loose ends, untangles well-made older knots, and makes new rope of its own in equal measure: part of what makes Strategy so compelling to me is his very recognisable sound, regardless of what genre he’s making. There’s always the influence of dub, but this record marks Dickow’s strongest merging yet of his clubbier textures with the ambient/experimental baseline that runs throughout everything he does. Where these two strands meet in confluence, such as Freshmosphere, the brightest magic happens.
Uxile - Vapors Unfold
Unguarded - 24/11/23
Unguarded crew are fast becoming one of the most relevant outfits in Berlin, with a globally-minded appreciation of sound, both in a literal sense, and a metaphorical one: dumping the tired, tired trope of techno purism, Unguarded represent an exciting community of artists invested in showcasing a broad array of sonics and a relatively unpretentious approach to the brief of performance artist. The obvious case in point is the high-fidelity consummate professionalism of Petra Hermanova’s In Death’s Eyes, and its teary-eyed yet clear-sighted analogies of death versus the richly eclectic post-club textures on Vapors Unfold, from 1/3 of the label, Uxile.
Before Petra’s album, I was intro’d to Unguarded through an interview I held with Sin Maldita a few years back, on the occasion of his new (nitro-)glycerine-dosed album, You’re Trouble. That record, and the associated Lunchmeat Festival performance with Lei, had much of what I — perhaps mistakenly — took to be the trademark sound of Unguarded: blown-highlights & radioactive post-club fused with contemporary sound design/art.
Although Uxile goes in much harder on the club flexes than Sin Maldita did, there’s lots of precisely that combination here. Squeaky Lips is a pretty perfect marriage of hard-as-fuck high-tempo club, while Cicatriz is kind of a post-club envisioning of classic 90’s breakcore (kinda?). But, for my 2 cents, the vocal collaborations are where Vapors Unfold gleams brightest — opener Agota crams in percussion and phat bubble-bass with heaps of ecstatic rave synth rolls, finished with finely diced cuts of Dilery’s voice.
I was so pleasantly surprised to see Old Grape God on the tracklist: past readers will know my love of Boomarm Nation, which introduced me to the spliff-soaked flow-of-consciousness rapper, through tracks produced by Boomarm’s Gulls and his separate Wine & Coffee project. Begging For Feedback takes the best of Old Grape God’s haziness and platforms it on top of a raucous dub/reggaeton/post-club (?) beat: ruff ‘n’ tuff, but very much a product of now, not of simply combining 50-year-old dub motifs with modern tech.
I’m going to save the track listing feature for another time, since this edition is rather well-padded already. There’s been stacks of good music released lately and in some senses it’s a shame that attentions are so spread out, but, to close on a note with a touch of optimism, I’ve never seen or known so much support for Palestine.
It’s a slim hope maybe, but I believe that we’re finally seeing the conditions that could result in a change of tide here in Europe regarding western imperialism and its desolation of Arab culture and people. A chance to finally, properly, pluck out the poisonous roots of white supremacy so clearly evident in our society…
I´m interested in specific examples of using perusasive language/propaganda on Israel side, don´t you have some presentation/slideshow etc. from your lectures? Even if it´s deceptively quite obvious, often in conversations it seems difficult to point at it, explain it, so some scientific knowledge about modus operandi behind would be handy.