Inside No. 9, Episode #24: In War Time
November sees a collection of electronic music steeped in the outer realms of drum & bass and early hours haunting electronic music. These are sounds for those disorienting moments when you are stuck in half-sleep on a stairwell in the Cronx smoking a cigarette and nursing a Breezer wondering where your mates are but loving the solitude. A distant memory for me now but still vivid. I can still see the dappled light entering my hotel room in Magaluf, half-empty boxes of chips and curry sauce littering the floor, the world’s worst hangover, and the thin yellowed sheets shielding me from the world. Fatigue from the long race-fueled eves, tucked in bed with a walkman listening to cassettes of Aphex, Squarepusher, and Hospital tracks I’ve pieced together. A world apart from the fishbowls and vomit of the nights before. I don’t hold any want to return to those painful comedowns of the late 90s, but I do miss the hedonistic dancing and fuck-it of the all night party.
This is a collection of new and old tracks that scratch and itch but also hit the simulacrum of blurred memories; much like what Burial made his name with channeling into. As I approach the end of my 40th rotation I am in a sorry state and so far from the daydreams of my teen self. As I approach further decay and destruction this soundtrack feels apt and somewhat hopeful with its unease. This is a memory membrane fraught with false information and distorted recollection. As the world crumbles in its own warped id; I find no solace in the fact that a global personality disorder matches the very route of my own evil.
This episode opens with sounds made from the earth that fills the realm of New Addington. This place still haunts me. It was a pivotal point in my life and I still see the intense summer sun beating across those open green fields and the dark underbelly of poverty and drug abuse that I was immersed in while working with families in the most abject poverty. It was a time when I fell into the most intense love affair, only to destroy all my moral ideals. 14 years later I am scarred and facing all the demons that make up the tram lines from Croydon to the pit.
The explosive nature of many of these tracks hits the November of the UK. Fireworks, bonfires, the destruction of the ruling class and the gloating of power as we celebrate execution. An annual celebration of the murder of terrorists. The few executed to maintain power, wealth and the ruling classes. V for victims. V for vulnerable. V for the veneration of the rich. Vi veri veniversum vivus vici.
This is a time of war.
Flame one
Prime Meridian
Spykidelic
Fortress Addo
Cassette on Weltschmerz Verlag
2023
Flame two
Believe
Christoph De Babalon
Vale
Double Cassette on Vaknar
2023
Flame three
The Garden
Abelcain
The Garden
12” on Zhark International
2006
Flame four
B4
Civilistjävel!
Järnnätter
LP on FELT
2022
Flame five
二番勝負対左弦音無
Jigen
Stone Drum Avantgardism (Remastered)
CD on 360
1998
Flame six
Exxa
Ślepcy
Absent Opera
12” on kool.POP
2000
Flame seven
Dollis Hill
Lee Gamble
Diversions 1994-1996
LP on Pan
2012
Flame eight
Snake Style 2
Source Direct
Snake Style 2 / Street Wars
12” on Tempo Records
2020
Flame nine
Doomsday Conduit
Somatic Responses
Doomsday Conduit
Cassette on Acroplane Recordings
2023
Inside No. 9 is an attempt to share unique narratives through the mixing of 9 songs. Every episode will showcase a new theme, opening up new tributaries of discovery. Inside No. 9 is presented by Peter Taylor, a former features writer for Foxy Digitalis from back in the late 2000s. Peter is a visual artist and musician and has been creating music as MAbH since 2008.
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