"Some thoughts have a certain sound, that being equivalent to a form. "

We like Dune, we like the Prodigy, we like NIN, we like breakbeats and vodka and shouting and not understanding who the hell you are on a Thursday evening.

We like triphop and dubstep. We like oldschool rave and EDM and waking up wondering what the hell you did last night.

This is our last year's feelings, thoughts, anxiety and joy.

90s sensibilities, 2018 reality.

Love, hate, dysfunction and politics.

Basslines and synths and hands in the fucking air.

This is a document for all of us.

---

Cover used under CC-license with huge thanks to massivekontent.com

Concussion Section

The D Words

It was about time I brought the filth. New drum machine, couple of new bits of squelch. Feeling alone again, so I fell into some loops again.

The greasy filth brings redemption.

Hands in the air, motherlickers.

Forgive Me

Zero Line Approach

Thinking about the future, my child, robots, the universe.

---

Everytime I see you I'm on FIRE
you don't care
don't want to know

Curl myself around you like a WIRE
if you escaped me
where would you go?

We were built for codependence
You know that I know you know I know
Automated escalation
How high will you make me make you go?

I'll be everything you need
Lose your failures inside me
I speak the language that you speak
I don't stop when you get weak

Blend in 'cos I'm just like you
We look the same and stick like glue
Designed to love you at your worst
[the trick, william potter, is not MINDING that it hurts]

HOW'D YOU THINK IT FEELS TO BE
MANUFACTURED JUST LIKE ME
MADE TO FAIL AND MADE TO SEE
everything everybody else can be

I'm bulletproof and made of love 
I know the default world is rough

I put my hands up in the air
it's not surrender
it's a fucking dare

I'm made of hate and not enough
I stand here screaming just because

I'm made of zero
from a time
where everything i played was just fine

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image used by kind permission of flicker/ajc1

Sadoscientific

In this modern world, I don't think the good folks are winning.

I guess the baddies won.

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image thanks to flickr/sixteenmilesofstring, used under CC-license with thanks.

I Guess The Baddies Won

Breakbeat industrial cover of New Order's classic Blue Monday.

One of those times the track you're making decides to go its own way and suddenly all the pieces fit together.

---

How does it feel to treat me like you do?
When you've laid your hands upon me and told me who you are
I thought I was mistaken, I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now, how do I feel
Those who came before me lived through their vocations
From the past until completion, they'll turn away no more
And still I find it so hard to say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me just how I should feel today
I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn't for your misfortune, I'd be a heavenly person today
And I thought I was mistaken, and I thought I heard you speak
Tell me, how do I feel
Tell me now, how should I feel
Now I stand here waiting
I thought I told you to leave me when I walked down to the beach
Tell me how does it feel, when your heart grows cold

---

image courtesy of flickr/rvoegtli, used under CC-license with thanks.

Blue Monday (DeathBoy's Accidental Cover)

My first track of FAWM. A loop from the Circuit, a loop from the Tonic, some synths from all my various beautiful little beasts.

Quick and Dirty (FAWM2018)

[via http://fawm.org/fawmers/deathboy/]

Struggled to start this thing, but then it started to flow.

The interesting intro loop is actually from Massive, which can be made to do a lot more than just delightful wubs.

The chords are from my beloved Roland D05.

Taiko drums from my similarly beloved Yamaha TG55 rack

The splashy, washy noise is from a toy 'rain stick' my girlfriend gave me, with a tonne of effects on it.

You can also hear my own playing a tank drum in there, quietly.

In a conversation about "wooshes", my friend suggested just a big fucking sigh. So I did that, too. Happy with how it worked out, actually!

The glitch is, as ever, provided by dBlue Glitch, god love him and everybody who (mis)uses his beautiful (FREE!) plugin.

Main drums came off the Novation Circuit, not because it really has the best drums but because I'd spun around the studio looking for something that worked and became frustrated, then went "oh fuck it, the Circuit will make me happy". it did. God bless the Circuit.

BPM of 140, mostly played at half that speed. I toyed with running up a breakbeat at 'full speed', but the track feels more loping and chilled and that would have spoiled it, I think. So for once, I didn't.

Tried to go with a slightly Blade Runner feel for a film that hasn't been written yet about, oh, you know, replicants and false memories and naive beauty. 

If anybody does want it for a background for a film or game, please steal (ideally let me know, but you don't have to). I love it when my stuff is used as background for other works, so have at it.

Hope you like. Kiss kiss. X

--- 

Image used under CC-license with thanks to flick/chopstuey

the Negation Archives (FAWM2018)

I listened to a lot of Fred V and tried to emulate the style, as his dreamy drum and bass have given me much joy over the last few years.

In my mind, I was thinking about people I loved, but in my sequencer, I was thinking about what went BOOM.

Track 3 for FAWM this year. Boom boom boom, motherfuckers.

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image used via CC-license and kind permission of "Ognjen Odobasic" on flickr

Push (FAWM 2018)

five hundred forty-nine days since you left me
but you're not gone
well, not exactly

A year and a half and the change since you set me free
but you're still looking down
From on top of me

Wake up spastic searching for your claws
Sweat drenched, frantic, wanting you some more

thirteen thousand hours in this simulation
but I'm still me
I’m still me

We lost a lot of data
In this recovery

We lost a lot of useful data
During this recovery

Taste this chemotherapy of the soul
I don’t need you. I’m rock ‘n roll
It’s easier to be someone left with nothing
I’m no buddhist, baby, but I’m not bluffing

We lost a lot of data
In this recovery

We lost a lot of unique data
During this recovery

I’ve found it’s easier to hate you
Than think you loved me

We lost a lot of useful data
In this recovery


---

image used under CC-license by kind permission off flickr/benbenben11

Recovery (FAWM 2018)

Really REALLY didn't want to start even writing this track. I was tired and not in the fucking mood and I'm behind in FAWM so I was also facing the anxiety of just hiding away from it all.

Then I talked to Amy, who had a fucking amazing idea for a collaboration and, I dunno, something about her creativity infected me and I wanted to compete again, and I got off my ass and fired up the sequencer.

Suddenly, STUFF came out. And it turned into a rave-trance-track.

And I'm sat at the sequencer, NODDING PROPERLY, THIS IS FAT.

After that, I just let go and let the fingers do all the stuff. They know how to make the music, it's not really me that makes this shit, it's these demon-possessed fingers.

I return to reality. The fingers have returned to pretending they're mine. This fucking TRACK has happened.

It's 90s as fuck, it's optimistic, high-energy, bittersweet rave!

FUCK yes.

SO pleased, SO proud of this.

If you put your head to my ear while I was sleeping, this is what you'd hear from my internal orchestra. Endless hands-in-the-air 90s breakbeat-rave-trance.

So yeah. Pleased as punch with this bugger.

If you don't like it, stick it up your arse!

---

Image used via CC-license with kind thanks to flickr/ultrabionic

Difficult (FAWM 2108)

This song is dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Labowicz.

I'm so sorry I couldn't help more. You were always welcome in my house. Love you.

---

Good people
Do bad things
The Black acid
Suddenly swarming

Every time I do this
is one less time
Another broken promise 
To see my child

--

Oh, honey, 
you don't have to go
round my place 
everybody's wanted, you know

It's OK
sit here feeling alone
round my place
everybody's wanted, you know

--

We’re pixel blind
And children of the strobe
10 foot fucking tall, baby
never going home

Well, Let's try hard 
Try not to break 
the ones we really like
With our mistakes

--

Oh, honey, 
you don't have to go
round my place 
everybody's wanted, you know

It's OK
sit here feeling alone
round my place
everybody's wanted, you know

Wanted

I'm touch hungry
coffee makes you sexy

vitamins won't help me sleep
love you 'cos you're just like me

sleeping like a human
wishing I could be one

you know I think you're pretty 
pretty fucked up like me

try to be the decent one
curses of the middle son

think about you when i sleep
all the rules i have to keep

know that we can't go too deep
i'm the one that takes the leap

been here many times before
walking down the corridor

watching all the doors slam
open them like superman

i don't need you to allow
nothing gonna stop me now

walking through our pastimes
flirting with our futurecrimes

got a tonne of options
only one of many sons

promise him the moon and sun
then tell me i'm the only one

tend to lay myself out wide
and every day i die inside

--

i'm a revolution
zero contribution

existential fantasy
someone to hold onto me

---

image used by kind permission via CC-license, flickr/tawheedmanzoor - thanks!

Touch Hungry

There are no lyrics to this track. I got in after a day's work, rehearsed my shit on geetar, sang some words for the beautiful Amy (hope that was helpful!) and got down to making a new track for FAWM.

This is typical breaks and bass for me. Dark grooves to a deadline.

Hope you like.

---

image used under CC license by kind permission of flickr/uclmaps

Awakening

I am the one that watches you
you're my little pot of glue
I am the poison ingenue
i will break you down
i will bring you down

I know that I'm not going far
I've felt your crackhouse gom jabbar
you make a list of bad mistakes
i am your shithouse shadout mapes

we must cleanse the way between us

Shai Hulud

If there's no price
it's you for sale

screw up your eyes
But we're all 
hashtag massive fail

Swallow the lies
If it gets you there
act all surprised
if you want
'cos no-one fucking cares


Antisocial media
The damage that they're feeding ya
Fills you up
and bleeds you to the bone

Antisocial media
The digital disease in ya
The price we pay
to pretend we're not alone


Clickbait kills and steals your soul
Spin your contacts into gold
Aggrogate and anal-lize
Sick from the slurry they synthesize

Every time you say "fake news"
You use a term made to abuse
This fuckwit cheeto nazi cunt
HE WANTS TO SEE THE DEATH OF YOU


Antisocial media
The damage that they're feeding ya
Fills you up
and bleeds you to the bone

Antisocial media
The digital disease in ya
The price we pay
to pretend we're not alone


delete your facebook 
act just like you give a fuck
the badguys got your data
in the cloud

shitheads own your social graph
this is now the aftermath
reconnect with lovers
and be proud


Antisocial media
The damage that they're feeding ya
Fills you up
and bleeds you to the bone

Antisocial media
The digital disease in ya
The price we pay
to pretend we're not alone

---
image used under CC-licence via flicker, with thanks to torley

Antisocial Media

This is the music of Scott DeathBoy and the band DeathBoy.

It is mostly loud and angry, with occasional patches of surprisingly gentle ambience.

Thank you for flying Air DeathBoy.