An article at Wired suggested today that video-game journalism will one day find its ‘language’ and this will be ‘some crazy, unruly spawn of sportswriting, gonzo journalism, analytic philosophy, memoir and investigative reporting’. Sounds interesting to me, and it makes sense, after all, aren’t video-games more or less complex, interactive worlds the player becomes part of, her decisions changing the environment that surrounds her, taking the whole ‘experience’ into new unexpected directions? An impersonal description of a videogame will fall short of conveying what makes this ‘form of cultural expression’ (hell yeah) different from others, namely, that you don’t consume it but co-produce it.

Well, I guess this could apply to music as well, if we consider some sort of interaction at a ‘emotional’ or ‘intellectual’ level, or haven’t you ever got lost in a bassline or a beat or a melody and found yourself sometime after in a weird strange colourful place (not necessarily on drugs), not very sure of how the fuck you got there, and the music that produced it has changed forever? This requires an intense engagement with the composition in particular, young padawan, let’s see how it goes…

Or how I escaped to mario land except I wasn’t a dungaree wearing moustached italian plumber but a bright orange Sancheski skateboard riding teenage mutant ninja turdle, of course, it’s all about the 80s, ollying up and down candy flavoured dayglo platforms, turning synth hangliding feet clansman warriors into pixel pixie dust with a quirky touch of my neonlight-bo stick (for some reason I always dug Donatello, yep), guided by the brittlesweet binary melody of Princess Peach’s singing, slowly but surely getting closer to the shining cell where Shredder keeps her trapped, the menacing and fuzzy edge of his razorbass the last obstacle between me and a delirious explosion of 2-D joy.

Best Fwends- Outtatouch

We love Best Fwends very much, they gave one of last year’s most amazing shows at Genuine Guy’s Geekbeat party and we want to have them back over here in Brighton ASAP, if possible at thedoclub. They have recently put out their second single on Moshi Moshi, and it’s totally emerald mindblowing nerdo bass mayhem, although you won’t find ‘Outtatouch’ in there, but in the H.O.T. gameboy glitching and banging ‘Music for Joggers’ comp released by Micromusic, which you must buy now, it sounds like Kraftwerk robots riding a tandem around Brussel’s Atomium, it fucking planet-rocks.

(Steve tells me that the Best Fwends tune is a cover of some lame ass Ministry of Sound related track, which of course makes this whole thing even more genius and surreal)

Or how I found myself in a geometric wasteland, dressed in that fancy Prince of Persia garb even the turban, prancing left and right, hysterically trying to avoid cyclopean blocks of lysergic glass plunged from dizzying heights by that gigantic and furious Donkey Kong, suddenly realising that what I needed to do was to keep jumping and dodging them, deviously directing the ape’s shots with my rapid movements so as to make him, inadvertently, put them together in, of course, a Tetris puzzle which I would climb until I was close enough to him to pierce his bloodshot eye with my puny scimitar. Of course I was turned into brain-grey & arterial blood gravy after 3 minutes of frantic leaping and climbing, life just ain’t fair.

Shitmat- Killa Condom (Multiplex Remix)

Shitmat is a Brighton breakcore legend who has been blasting mentalists away at Wrong Music HQ with his Happy Hardcore Rave Jungle No fi united states of whatever monster mash for quite a while, now he finds himself remixed by the Spirit of Gravity people in their SOG Volume 6, what happens when you hit a particle of chaotic matter with a baseball bat criss-crossed with rusty nails? Not nice according to Prince Charles’ reactionary principles (and his kid dresses up like a nazi), but we love it, just check this gnarly bass sped up syncopated gabber remix of Killa Condoms Multiplex have perpetrated. Yeah, it hurts, I know, no pain no gain.

Cheers to lovely Dj Cheesemaster for the tip.

Before I go to bed, close my eyes and see all sorts of funny lights floating in the primeval darkness I wanted to warn you:

a) Go tomorrow to the Old Blue Last in Hoxton where ACK ACK ACK, YEBOROBO, THE STICKS & DUDEWAR will be playing live at a super freakin’ heavy *FREE* Nascent party to celebrate the launch of Ack Ack Ack’s 12” slab of spazzpartyjazzfidgitjamz. 8PM, say hi to James, James Sticks, Benedict, Ashley, Jon Wood, Alexis and our beloved Yeborobo kids from us, and dance hard.

b) Many (we hope all) of which will be back to Brighton for the totally mindblowing thedoclub disco party this Friday at the Core Club Kings Road Brighton, 10 til supa doopa late, with the awesome diabolic gameboy heavy metal crunk of the Crystal Castles kickstarting their UK lizard domination tour, Silverlink taking yoo to the future with his Conscious Psy-Grime and Stinkmitt raising an electrosleaze rap, erm, stink. All for just 5 of your english squids, four if you bring a flyer or a NUS card.

Enough for now, I hope you have really fancy hallucinations.

Ah, we just slid into a new day as I finished typing this, so a big happy 4th July to all our US readers, artists, record labels and people of good will!

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with Genuine Guy grime rave