In celebration of successfully completing the recording of the Archdrude’s album REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE, Antrohny De La O hoists aloft a grand painting of Emiliano Zapata by fellow Black Sheep Hebbs.

Hey World Drudion,

I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry that this illegitimate government of ours should have puked up big money over Her Funeral, thereby giving the impression that the good people of these islands could in any way stand that Apostolic Hag. The First Munter: that’s what she was. Nothing less than a World Cunt, and now she’s dead and gone. Descended into Himmel. Bad riddance to the Lady With Bad Advice. Her dreadful tawdry vocal outbursts throughout the years displayed an unhinged quality genuinely similar to Adolf Hitler, the resemblance soon evaporating simply because that blackguard Adolf loved and cosseted his people with an almost American Presidential smothering, and wished only to protect them (ha ha ha). No, this gruelling Lady, this goodbuddy of the dreadful Pinochet was more of a Franco, or even a Stalin – a despiser of her own inherited brood. “Inspirations have I none but to facilitate every Brit to purchase small trinkets via The Mail On Sunday magazine.” Why were we not more motivated? Why had we not more get-up-and-go? Probably because it got up and went, along with the Empire around 1947… something to do with owing Her good buddies the Americans umpteen shitters for bailing us out of the war. World readers, remember always that in a 20th Century ruled and defined by an anti-pantheon of Uber-dodgy, self-serving out-of-nowhere Bonapartes, this Lady ranked in the Top 10 and was a truly Ugly Customer. World leaders of the Future, I beseech you: Lead the people in a manner that befits their geography, their weather and their past. And don’t start on their behalf something they’ll never be able to finish, for pity’s sake. 

MANIFOLD by Maan

Right oh, let’s get over to the Reviews Section. First off, make sure you score your very own copy of MANIFOLD by the stuperb Belgian duo Maan, whose musical vision appears to be a highly catchy and stellarly achieving Pop-Art take on Post-Punk and the No Wave. Tunes abound throughout this album and catchy bastard choruses – both sung and spoken – hammer their compelling repetition into our unreluctant crania, as peripheral beings do their best to ruin the proceedings. Here, a poorly rendered horn of indefinable provenance crops up as a solo instrument overwhelming the entire mix, there a classic rock riff of awesome dimensions awaits perpetually its grand arena drums, but blissfully to no avail. Halfway through the first listen, I realised I could close my eyes and feel like I was watching Mark Perry’s Good Missionaries, or even the brief drummerless A Certain Ratio. But, like everyone from L. Voag’s legendary Homosexuals to current ensembles such as the Rrreverberationsss, Maan’s muse is achieved not by appeasing the Gods of Melody and Dance, but by shooting them all first in the feet then inviting them all to run a Marathon. What a sweet formula! Released on the Kraak Records label, MANIFOLD is one consistently entertaining and compelling motherfucker that I believe should loom large in your Buy Now lists. 

Self-titled by Antikythera

As should the impeccable self-titled debut cassette EP by epic Portland trio Antikythera, whose ritual bombardment commences in the multi-axed drummerless overload of ‘Earth Speaks To’, as though summoning some early Glenn Branca ensemble. Magnificent wall-crumbling sonic un-civil engineering, gentlemen! This gang of JCBs soon dissolves into the atonal glam Sabbath of ‘Aeons’, which sssshudders with all the RSJ-monomania of early Ramesses covering Sleep’s most pseudo religious songs, each snare a veritable shark slap in yer face, afore skidding to a stop with the most Stonesy aplomb in a God’s Age! Bravo. Next up, a blazing versh of the Jesus Lizard’s seminal ‘Fly On The Wall’, Antikythera’s own overpowering riff guitars and deeply resonant bass replacing, nay, near eclipsing the Lizard’s own wonderfully too-scratchy original. This very long EP concludes with the near-quarter-hour Ur-rumble of ‘An Unnatural Light’, which broods in a metallic soup of mercury’n’red agricultural diesel, before bursting at last into a frenzied wa-everything riffothon accompanied by vocals of the ‘let’s‑garrotte-Bono’ variety (‘Gloria in a Bucket’), thereafter degenerating into a beautifully portentous phase fest of highly indelicate psychedelic frenzy. Choice. Call these gentlemen through [email protected] and tell’em you need need need that 30-minutes-plus cassette, and prontina, Tontina!

UNATTENDED COOKING by Jorgen Teller & The Empty Stairs

Right, those motherfuckers among you with a permanent yen for bizarre musical fusions of Detroit Rock, Father Yod declamations and pure free electronics will surely have to purchase UNATTENDED COOKING by the Danish quartet Jorgen Teller & The Empty Stairs, especially when I inform y’all that they’re (according to their sleeve anyway) paying ‘homage to the 1973–75 septet of Miles Davis and the logics of RAW POWER’. Right fucking on, and boy do these suckers nail down some treacherous shit. 56-minute opening track ‘Ohne Topflappen’ sounds like the CIA had just corralled every current free ensemble in the USA and herded them into some natural quarry, as a prelude to their slaughter. And this Empty Stairs bass player wants to be in The Nihilist Spasm Band, or maybe NEKROPOLIS-period Peter Fromader, for all you fans of his Reet Tuff-sounding later Krautrock. Boom büüm, boom büüm, this gent’s not nursing a bass, it’s a treetrunk got up with telegraph wires. Boomp bump. Also in the Nihilist Spasm Band tradition is the dreadful 2‑string abortion that guitarist-leader J. Teller himself twangs upon. Named ‘Le Bastard’, this so-called guitar inhabits the kind of cranky, spikey, frenzied Von LMO territory that does indeed justify the strange-but-ecstatic Bum Cramps Supershuffle conjured up so effortlessly by Teller’s compadrés. Released on the Leaky Mansion label, this is one of those records that compells you to cancel appointments, eat only the gnarliest morsels from the darkest corners of your fridge, and put that Uschi Obermeyer movie on silent perma-rotation. That disorientating? Ja, mein hairies, that disorientating.

METAL FOREST by Ax

Reissue of the Month must surely go to the earth shattering mid-90s cosmic collisions of METAL FOREST by solo artist Ax, whose muse centred around the creation of free electronics and FX so gargantuan and combative that they even today summon up in the minds of listeners some kind of enormous sonic war, the kind in which Soviet-sized Iron Man humanoids do stellar battle in offroad 4x4 space freighters with infinite wheely capabilities. Indeed, it’s the sheer Hi-Level of pugilism Ax brings to his work that renders the final product unlike any other. Musta been a right little Early Learning Centre deviant back in the sandpit! Imagine Dr Fiorella Terenzi’s legendary MUSIC FROM THE GALAXIES filtered through cheap analogue synths then pumped out through an inadequately earthed 10K PA rig with faulty bass bins, and yooz approaching this joker’s pleasure centres. First released in various guises between 1994–97, this superb METAL FOREST collection of nine mainly long but always epic tracks can be grabbed from the good people at Cold Spring Records and put immediately to good psychic use. Thor and Odin playing bumping cars across the night sky never sounded so good!

GLIESE TRANSLATIONS by Long Distance Poison

Vinyl of the Month goes once again to that superbly economical trio Long Distance Poison, whose brand new album GLIESE TRANSLATIONS is technically nothing more than a canny re-mix of their debut. I write ‘technically’ because – like any Tony Blair Truth – there’s such a vast distance between the two bits of plastic that this is to all intents and purposes a brand new work. Indeed, one of the re-mixers alludes on the outer sleeve to preferring reggae Versions to their original A‑sides. Natch, motherfucker, but surely this set of aural humdingers – for sheer Re-Visioning – eclipses even Klaus Schultze’s frenzied phaseshift work for Far East Family Band or Dennis Bovelle’s work with the Y‑period Pop Group. The remixes being enacted by the venerable Drew McDowell, Steve Moore and Shawn Parke, GLIESE TRANSLATIONS at times pitches the work of this previously mostly-inanimate trio into… well, animation. Indeed, the ‘patient-etherised-upon-the-table’ of last year’s debut will today bolt upright, remain upright and even do a little jiggy, before inevitably collapsing exhausted back into that sludgy, unsignposted Eerie Canal that Long Distance Poison do so well. Do please pay attention to this re-mix, but do not mistake it for merely that. Meditations, medications, post-9-to‑5 distractions, even repeated late night Cuntedness: all can be achieved by deploying GLIESE TRANSLATIONS upon your stereo. Taking no chances? This one’s a cert. Released on the Fin Records label); this beautiful package includes clear vinyl 12”, really tough and well-printed sleeve, with free DVD, too. You’re a sleek and economical regime, Long Distance Poison. Long may you sail!

Finally, please look out over the coming days for my new album REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE (and its attendant H.H. webpage), which should hit the merchandiser by early next week. As usual, expect two half-hour-ish CDs totalling around 70-minutes or thereabouts. The eleven songs are accompanied by three new poems and a whole slew of my own new Black Sheep art, too. Look out also in the next coupla days for the exhilarating 45-minute accompanying EP. Entitled RAVE-O-LUTION, this budget-priced download-only piece is a non-stop party from Hell, and should be your hip pass into any local commune, rave house or lodgings of ill repute.

Awl-fucking-right, Brothers’n’Sisters,

Until Next Month,

Love Reigns,

JULIAN (Lord Yatesbury)