In last week’s gripping installment of this post, we introduced you to our newest contributor  - Preston G. Parallax. He is one of 20JFG’s all-time favourite Sci-Fi authors, but his shockingly ahead-of-their-time-novels made less money than Granny Parallax’s rock cakes at the church fayre, and he was thus relegated to the stinking dungeon of unbearable obscurity by his hawkish publisher.

Over the next few months we will be attempting to relaunch Preston’s mollified literary career, showcasing his visionary scribbles on 20JFG and beyond. We begin today with his entry into New Scientist’s forgotten futures competition – a story entitled ‘Endorphins into the Future’ which we culled from a stack of old writings found in his apartment. This is a special world exclusive premier, not seen before anywhere else on the internet.

Endorphins into the Future

In 1974, Mr. Reginald Bovis of 56 Peartree Lane Sidcup Kent received once received a letter on a cloudy April morning. It said;

‘Dear Reg,

This is Reg, I am you, writing to yourself from the future. You have to help us, the world is currently controlled by an evil right-wing dictatorship. Times are hard and everyone is so depressed. The government has also banned all activities and objects that create Endorphins, to ensure that everyone stays depressed and can do nothing to overthrow them. All I need to you to do is make a time capsule containing objects that create Endorphins, and bury it the back garden next to the laughing Gnome. It’s the only way to smuggle these items into this time. I really hope that you get this letter.

Sincerely,
Reg Bovis

The letter was dated 18th November 2010. Figuring that he could trust himself, he filled an airtight box with everything his future-self had asked for and buried where he was told.

The next day he received another letter with a 2010 postmark.

‘Dear Reg,

Thanks for the parcel, you’d buried it right where i told you. Unfortunately, though nice as the dolphin pictures, dolphin ornament and dolphin-print duvet covers are, they’re not really making anyone happy enough to conquer this all encompassing depression. What we were really after was chocolate, dumb bells chilies or pornographic magazines. It’s my fault, I should have realised that Endorphins weren’t discovered until 1975. I will write to you again in a couple of years. Sorry to waste your time.

Sincerely,
Reg Bovis

Copyright Preston G. Parallax 1978

We cannot wait to see what Neil Gaiman thinks about this…

In his spare time, Preston is also something of a synth-boogie hobbyist, and was recently asked by the Bananamania label to compile an anthology of his favourite home-recorded-funk peers. One of the track contained therein was by a very talented man named Jeff Phelps.

Jeff Phelps – On the Corner

‘Magnetic Eyes’ is an astonishingly futuristic electronic soul LP recorded by Jeff in his bedroom in 1985. It was privately pressed onto only 1000 gorgeous pieces of wax and became the stuff of legend amongst vinyl collectors, soul traders and frankly anyone who digs the home-recording narrative. When we finally got to indulge in its cordial entirety, its not hard to see why people like Dam Funk and Nite Jewel wanted to parent its offspring – what beautiful children they grew up to be.

‘On the Corner’ might seem like a bit of a departure from your regularly dark-hearted and blood-spattered 20JFG picks, but even we have souls and nowhere have we seen them reflected so clearly, than as in the intimate magic of ‘On the Corner’. Using the same sub-zero tools and techniques as his cold-waver contemporaries, Jeff invests them with a warmly incisive vibe, and creates an infinitely enveloping noir-soul memory, which reaches into our fragile auras in a way that nothing else has before. And when Magnetic Eyes’ also contains such unbelievable warm-wave space-boogie cuts like ‘Phase Shift’, its place atop the shimmering obelisk which is the 20JFG hall of fame is assured. Trust us, this is the craft of love pure and simple.

Magnetic Eyes has been expertly restored and reissued by Tomlab.

And whilst we peruse the dusty corridors of days gone by, it would seem all the more relevant to draw your attention to this awesome collection of stylistic anomalies that occurred in the soundtracks of the ‘Kollywood’ genre of movies. ‘Kollywood’ refers to Tamil movies produced in the Kodambakkam area of Chennai (formerly called Madras) in Southern India, but if we refer to the liner notes of ‘Play that Beat Mr. Raga’ we find that this is actually more of a general term to describe a complex interweaving of film industries in the southern states of India. A lot of the composers were heavily influenced by western pop music and experimental electronic techniques – and nowhere is this more apparent that on the joyous absurdity that is ‘Vikram Vikram’ by Illaiyaraaja.

Illaiyaraaja and Kamal Hassan – Vikram Vikram

Beginning steadily like a half-remembered version of Wordy Rappinghood, ‘Vikram Vikram’ is incredible, vitalic patchwork of styles sounding at one moment like Munich Machine conducted by Mr Bungle instead of Georgio, another like an eccentric Bappi Lahiri, if minimal wave had happened in Southern India and he recorded onto the same warped C90 as the Human Ear records posse. In fact, the whole of ‘Play That Beat Mr Raja #1′ contains so many supreme micro-compositions that it would be a re-editors dream, were it not for the fact that each track is so enjoyable under its own terms of accordant miscellany.

‘Play That Beat Mr Raja #1′ is out and about on Parisian label ‘Cartilage Cartilage’. Highly recommended. Their blog is also well worth checking out.

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Hold the press, there’s even more hot shows in Berlin tonight. This time it’s our very own Prince Rama…….

And coming soon to a German capital near you……

and one in Brighton:

Respect going out to Dolphins into the Future.