CRITICAL BEST

While I was working on my (our) new stuff, I got a so much RnB stuck in my head, I had to do this:

It's that time of year again

Not had a chance to listen to as much as usual this year, it's been a hectic one.  Here's what I've liked, though

Critical Best, now available on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/criticalbest

Hey, I did some audio textures for this:

http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/a-silent-swaying-breath 

All profits go towards folks affected by the summer UK riots / community projects.

It's nice and ambient - have a listen if you like that sort of thing.  Bonus points if you can identify anything of mine...

I had mentioned previously that I'd been collaborating on some music with a mate of mine.  Well, we've just unleashed a couple of tracks into the wild, and submitted them to Bleep's 'Filtered' competion.  We're going to releasing stuff under the name 'Burning Prisma'

You can listen to the 2 tracks here:

Defectors - http://soundcloud.com/burningprisma/defectors

Extrapolated Message - http://soundcloud.com/burningprisma/extrapolated-message

Have a listen, and see what you think.  We'll be doing a proper release of our stuff at some point, but work continues at the moment

A coupla weeks ago, I picked up a load of new vinyl. Had a play on the decks today, and thought I'd do a "nice cheery mix" since the sun's come back out. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you want to look at it a different way), it turned out pretty much the opposite of cheery. There's some nasty hardcore and breakcore on there (the DJ Floorclearer track is a particular belter).

You can stream and download it here - http://soundcloud.com/nolikecrumbs/a-nice-cheery-mix

Tracklist:

Team Doyobi - Skylight Red Omega
DJ Balli - Cutting The Throat of a Boyscout
LFO Demon - My Rotten Body
DJ Producer - Obituary
DJ Floorclearer - Strangle The Giant Elephant
Duran Duran Duran - Face Blast
Danny C - Scrawny

SO, my last.fm page has a track on it, that I have no recollection of making:

http://www.last.fm/music/Critical+Best/_/Test+01

It's called 'Test 01', and it's over 40 minutes long. Evidently, 7 people have listened to it, some of them multiple times.

Does anyone have it? Seriously, it's not on any of my hard drives, and I really don't remember making a 40 minute track...

It's been pretty quiet at Circus Hands towers with regards to blog worthy items - been planning my wedding, and getting stuck in at work. But I have still found time, over the last 6 months, to colloborate with a good friend of mine on some music type stuff. It's shaping up rather nicely - so I will keep you all updated when things progress to a listenable state.

One more thing - there's now a mobile adapted version of this page, for viewing on your phone an' that. It should all work automatically if you you check this on for your phone I think

Ta ra

Oh hey, looky here:

criticalbest.co.uk

I'll be doing some proper stuff with it shortly, hopefully.

Got the laptop back, fixed - it's all good. Working on some new stuff as we speak...

Well, in a severe case of deja vu, I must report that my laptop hard disk is currently suffering a catastrophic failure.

Bad news
-It was only 3 months old
-The drive is failing so bad it failed to image, meaning I will need to re-install everything when I get it replaced =S
-I was actually in the midst of making new music - a collaboration with a very good friend. And we were making some fine progress

Good news
-It's still under warranty, so I'm sending it back to get the drive replaced tomorrow
-Even though the imaging failed, I managed to back everything up. Phew
-I've got this spare Ubuntu laptop, which is chugging along nicely

Fucking nightmare, though. I've got some software running under Wine on this laptop, so I may be able to make some daft noises, at least, while I get all this shit sorted out

Carry on!

I could not find a decent copy of this on Youtube, so chucked it up myself:



The best breakcore tune that samples Evil Dead? I think so...

Well, my new EP, WOLVODS, is up for streaming and download on Last.fm now:

You can get it here - http://www.last.fm/music/Critical+Best/WOLVODS

It's been described as

"... the sound of abandoned machines - in the process of corroding and seizing-up, mourning the loss of their masters ... and their place in society.... Desperately sending clunky transmissions, trying to communicate their mute fate."

Enjoy!

2010 is over. We are well on our journey towards the glittering singularity of the future. There was some cracking stuff released last year, a selection of which. is layed out below. Not really in any order, though the first 4 or 5 are definitely in the right place...

Regular viewers should be aware of the trials and tribulations I've been through with my laptop, Percy (Laptop Bastard). He died a few years ago, very nearly taking my completed second (I think it was that one) album with him. He was kindly patched up by a friend, to become Percy Laptop Bastard 2.0, and served me well for a time.

About a year ago, I noticed he started to get slow and sluggish, and generally past his prime, so recently I got a new one. A beast. It's taken me a month or so, but I've got it all tricked the fuck out, and now I'm rocking Reason (with a nice wee Korg control interface) for music, and Premier (and a proper pro transcoder) for videos, as well as the other Windows 7 niceness.

So I guess, what I'm getting at, is - I now have some decent kit, so in theory, my creative output should be decent-er.

Prepare for war

(Addendum - the old laptop has been freshened with the new Ubuntu. He's now 'Percy Laptop Bastard 3.0', and I have no idea what to do with him)

My new EP, WOLVODS, is up for streaming and download on Bandcamp, now

All I ask for in return for the free download is your email address - and I won't send you any shite. Promise!




Critical Best - WOLVODS - Released 21 November 2011

Further download locations coming soon...

I'd been using that old template for about 5 years, so thought I would futurise it up a bit. There's some links to my other internet places now, too

In other news - new EP is finished. Release scheduled before the end of the year. BAM

Got a new, decent laptop, and got Reason 4 humming along nicely on it, with my wee Korg Nano Kontrol and some other bits an' that, so once the new album's out I'm gonny start making some shiny new stuff

I've put a new track up on WTFMusic.org

It's called 'Wolvods' and it's pretty loud and droney. See what you think:

http://wtfmusic.org/#music/26/978

(And much love to the folks at WTF Music)

I've put those 2 breakcore mixes I done yonks ago up on Soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/nolikecrumbs

One day, I hope to actually do another mix. I ain't got the time just now. Pity - I have some stonking vinyl I picked up in the last 6 months or so.

Still working on the new EP - will have some news on that this week - a teaser track

Love and hugs

The very lovely and awesome people over at http://wtfmusic.org have reviewed my second album, 'Enneract'. Here it is in its entirety:

"Time is something everyone is obsessed with either consciously or subconsciously. Art is full of great examples of this infatuation. Let’s look at the opening couplet from Lonnie Johnson’s nineteen forty-seven hit ‘Tomorrow Night’: ‘Tomorrow night, will you remember what you said tonight? Tomorrow night, will all the thrills be gone?’ Now think about the complexity around the sense of time Johnson uses in this couplet. He is asking in the present if in the future if his sweetheart will remember how she feels in the present. Yeah – if only modern pop songs could provoke such mind swirling thoughts. Not only does Critical Best hint and acknowledge the strength of time on the human psyche he marries and courts it proudly within his LP ‘Enneract’.

That sense of shifting time is a pinning point in this album and it often boils over on certain tracks. Let’s look at ‘Arundel Tomb’. The lyrics in this piece are taken from Philip Larkin’s poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’. The poem tells us of time passing over tombs. Now the vocal in the track is obscured by effects throughout but the last line is brought to the forefront at the end of the piece: ‘What will survive of us is love.’ Heavy stuff for an album that is ninety nine percent instrumental. That is the only clear thing Critical Best wanted to communicate to us in the English language the whole thirty six minutes and thirty seven seconds of his musical discourse. So he is telling us that when time has eliminated our memories all that remains is love.
The album actually starts with time manipulation. Oh no what is this shit is the first thing that comes to mind when it starts? ‘Phossy Jaw’ commences and I find myself in a Berlin techno bar surrounded by German weightlifters wearing homoerotic leather lederhosen. Get me out of here. Then I notice why I came here. One minute thirty into the first track Critical Best manipulates the sound and slows the tempo of the track and all comfort of sense of place and time evaporates and we are given an audio vision of a shemale breast feeding an albino giraffe. Yeah – what the fuck? I swear to God that sums up exactly what happens in this track. Then a waitress wearing a Barrack Obama mask comes round and offers me some strange looking pills. It can’t get any worse – I down the whole lot.

The pills kick in – I see De Niro in the opium den scene from ‘Once upon a time in America’. He asks me what I’m doing here. I ask him the same thing. We smile and zone out listening to ‘Manxome’. Time comes for me to leave – I ask for my coat. Throughout the album you feel an uneasy sense of being here before. The audio transports you back in time to personal memories and scenes in movies. In the title track on the album a memory of standing in a doorway in New York avoiding the rain is provoked. The thing is I have never been to New York. The visual strength of these pieces is so strong that when it is juxtaposed with the consciousness of time it is a wicked heady combination.

Tomorrow night, will you remember what you said tonight?
Tomorrow night, will all the thrills be gone?

Tomorrow night, will it be just another memory?
Or just another lovely song that's in my heart to linger on?

- The Importance Of Birds"

Much love guys. Much love

Check out WTFMusic @ http://wtfmusic.org and http://wtfmusicorg.blogspot.com, they really know their stuff

So yeah we're six months further into the future. Here's the musical stuff that came out this year, that I've been feeling at this halfway juncture of 2010 (in no real order, apart from the first three, really):

Crookers - Tons Of Friends
Mark Van Hoen - Where Is The Truth
Lindstrøm and Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
Xiu Xiu - Dear God, I Hate Myself
Sylvain Chauveau - Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated)
Souvenir's Young America - The Name Of The Snake
Sam Spence - Sounds
Sage francis - Li(f)e
RJD2 - The Colossus
Omar Souleyman - Jazeera Nights
Lali Puna - Our Inventions
Kid606 - Songs About Fucking Steve Albini
Holy Fuck - Latin
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
The Black Dog - Music For Real Airports


And here's a wordle of everything I've been listening to this year, for your delectation:



Click that pic to see it bigger

Job job

Made a new wee video for a track I'm working on for the new album. You can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JtUpnDkj4

Or by clicking the funky bar at the bottom of your screen

Archive footage taken from here - http://www.bfi.org.uk/creativearchive/

Bosh