V/A : 2001 Oblivion
Fiend | CD 029

My whole fucking life I thought, believed, hoped that the year 2001 was going to be special. Special. Special. About man's destiny in the universe, contact with extraterrestrial intelligence or, at least, some sort of manned base on the moon for fuck's sake! No. Not yet. There's a long way to go before all that stuff happens and it doesn't seem very important to me anymore as the long anticipated and revered year draws to its close. Yep, I'm 1960's babe and boy does it show! This is the trouble when you put a fixed date into the title of your attempt at some sort of prophecy, time will always catch up with you and/or your work... always!!! (Kubrick died in 1999). Best to set the narrative in a vague and non-descript future. In future. 2001,the year, turned out to have more in common with Bunuel's 'That Obscure Object Of Desire' (or whatever that film was called... it's 20 year's since the wonderfull Scala cinema moved from 'was ok Scala Street' to-'nothing that a small atomic device couldn't take care of Kings Cross) with its background of terrorist bombs than with 2001:a space odyssey's manned interplanetary spacecraft complete with human hibernation chambers and a conscious and vengeful talking computer. Oh well, maybe another time. In another dimension, with voyeuristic intention, well secluded, I see all.

V/A:2001 Oblivion makes a most welcome change to all the other fucking inane '2001' compilation CD's I've been desperately trying to ignore, hoping for a chance in hell that they'd go away. At least, coming from Fiend, you know that it might just have been worth the agony of making it to years end 'Might', I said.

V/A 2001 Oblivion (sorry Paul, the colons work better there and are more in keeping with the original typography in this adjusted position. Interfering and getting above his station GeroGary). 11 artists... oooh, September the 11th, spooky. 12 tracks... oooh the '1' and the '2' from 2001,reversed. More spooky. And 12 comes after 11 ... oooohwa, fucking, fucking extra spooksville man! My local 'Numerologist' said, around this time last year that 2001 was going to be a good year for me. What complete and utter crap. Idiot!

It is also possible, though highly unlikely, that the 12 tracks represent each shitty month of this lousy year. Track 1 would be January then...

The Spintronics piece 'There was some evil going on', taken from their full length CD-R, also on Fiend, CD 052, which I had thee pleasure of reviewing a few days ago. A gentle trance inducing late night listen, not dissimilar to early Throbbing Gristle... check out the classic amongst classics D.O.A album [1], yeah, the year started off ok.

February. DK720's (is this some sort of play on that old band P16.D4 ?!) 'Dulux' throws it all at us... how can I describe this multiplex of sounds? 0k, It's comparable to listening to a Tom & Jerry cartoon with the picture switched off followed by an episode of 'Lost In Space'. Eee, god, wasn't Angela Cartwright really juicy and scrummy in that crazy-hazy 1960's show! I was too young to realize it until the re-runs on Channel 4 in the late 1980's when I made a point of taping onto Betamax every single fucking episode! And whoever did the casting for the big screen version of LIS must also have been a trifle Loli-com (Japanese for Lolita Complex) [2] conscious because young Claudia Saliva. I mean Salinger, is absolutely perfect as the mouthwatering weeping 'eye' educing panties brief staining Penny Robinson character... I think I'm in love. Again.

March... Midwich' s 'Bad Sleep'. If you ever heard the Sodality's Coprophilia [3] you'll know roughly what to expect, only this drone comes pretty much complete with all the other sounds you might well hear in an airplane (I'll refrain from any sick jokes. It's too easy). Nice.

April's golden showers dampen Habitchual Mastabreaker's moniker which, in my opinion, is a name that should sound good but doesn't. Sounds silly. Is silly. 'Bass invader' is a snarey, drummy, bassy cymbalie little toon that even old GeroGranny might well jig along to. Even though I didn't. Shy.

April is still with us, for reasons that shall become clear (as mud) later on and Habitchual Mastbreaker's 'Count Zero' speeds things up with what could well be an, er... sped-up version of 'Bass Invader' being used as a backbone for another piece and then metamorphosing into the chase sequence soundtrack to the next (oh no!! Not another one?!?! ) 007 film. Bit like that anyway. So, demo tape to 'Mr Maker-of-the-next-OO7-film' and include me for 0.05% of the royalties. I'm not greedy.

May, Oh yes, this is rather splendid! Neil Cambell's (not the 'N.C.' Whitehouse rant on about in "Princess Disease' [4] is it? I thought that might be Naomi Cambell... funny that, another 'Cambell' !?) 'Live January 2001'... splice together T.G's AB/7A (also from D.O.A) and Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint [5] both of which I'm sure all my readers are quite familiar with. No? Hmmm. Well see me after class when I shall take you all for a dicky-back ride as a punishment. Somehow this also sounds rather festive too, so whatever time of the year you're reading this in, Merry Crassmas everybloody and for those of you about to tuck into your xmas turkey... I HOPE IT FUCKING CHOKES YOU! !!![6]

Flaming June. Frank Moore, Annie Sprinkle and Kalibtans (Talibans?! But I thought... 'Erotic Birth'. Piano keys a'plodding funereally at the scaley-wales lower end, Annie (?) making all sorts of fucking noises screaming, orgasming, eeeing, aaahing and chomping away on a right large portion of king prawn. Porn? Kinda takes you back to another age. Yep, I liked that. AMM are good too I wonder if they'd ever work with Miss (Mrs?) Sprinkle? Some day.

July . A concentration camp guards favourite month. Ha ha ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha !!!! Heard the one about... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!! Fucking pig, fuck me, fuck me like you'd fuck a fucking pig, fuck me in my fucking ass fucking pig!! The one about the Irishman, the black and the pak and the Jew and the cunt fucking poof nigger cunt fucking english pig dog cock sucking cunt?!?! Have you? No, I haven't either. What was I saying? Oh yeah... July. Must be Matt Robsons birthday month. In a previous review I called his Random Number project's 'Cantilever' CD "pointless", 'coz I'm a nasty cunt's cunt. Cunt. This track here, 'German Nod' isn't on that disc and does show much improvement on what I felt was a rather amature piece of wanky-poo Matt . If you recorded 'German Nod' after the Cantilever stuff... good. If it was done before that... what on earth happened to you?

August. Are these Straight Outta Mongolia lot the charming people I think they are? Simon? 'Dance Like a Star' could have been taken straight outta Soft Cell's first album. Not that I ever heard it. (I used to get mistaken for Mark Almond circa 1985 when I worked in the Kings Road in Chelsea. Still got the taste in my mouth) It's just that if this S.O.M. bunch are the same bunch who did Soft Cell's 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye' cover on, fuck, here we go... Blood Klat (in Spume Bummer)'s 'You Don't Need A Pickaxe To Collect Ghoul Soil' cassette [7] then all I can say is "buy back the crap recording equipment you were using before" because you've lost that edgie-wedge, all polished and shiny now like a public schoolboys brassoed botty. Best not say any more. Derek.

September. Candi Nook. Say it... Candi Nook. Oooh. Oooh, ooowwwhhhooo!! I'm all a'quiver. Such a lickable name and, as my eye's caress the typewritten words of that name, I know such lovely pictures. Oh I do! ! 'It Flies' is a very different Candi (ooohhhooo!) from the one I know, no 'Queen of noise swirly eyed ant' monkeying about here on this one [8]. More of a leaning toward Nurse With Wound circa Ostranenie 1913/Dada [9] with it's metronomesque ticking clock and male and female voices devoid of much emotion, HAL 9000(?) style, calling out words like "Tick-tock", "Time" and the days of the week and "Shit" and "Shitty" as an eerie and unearthly voice wails in the background. Time does indeed fly, ya spring tchickens, that's how I got to be so fucking old. But we won't go down that road again. You'll all find out in your own' good' time.

October's All Cod Mons (featuring the Exorsisters... apparently a "pre-shite Girls incarnation") are now disbanded, if that's the right word to use. "Doctor Who lands his Tardis on some lonley planet far off the intergalactic beaten track, Herne Bay or somesuch desolate place, his stomach starts to make odd noises on account of having eaten too-many jelly babies. He talks slowly, to himself because time has slowed down for us, although not from his viewpoint and he meets a little lost cockney girl who he befriends and she shows her gratitude by playing him a tune on the mouth organ. His bowels get into an even worse uproar and then they both proceed to watch a carnival pass by on an otherwise desolate planet. Falling asleep after such an exciting five minutes they dream a dream of Cosy and Candi and Nooki and Tutti. The end. " Who needs drugs to listen to All Mod Cons' Spark, Click, Stop'? You might perhaps, but I do not. I'm already there, Daddio.

November's fireworks are brought to you courtesy of Portasound, a band you can piss in! 'Fourplay' is a very silly piece... is that a stylophone I hear before me? Rolf? Is that what they call a Hammond organ? Was Bobby Crush a real person or did I nightmare him up? A comic throwaway piece (of shite) to end this otherwise quite agreeable compilation on, as the CD deck of my 'big one' gently clicks back into standby mode.

And so back to grimy old reality and December. December 2001. The once seemingly glorious and shiny future turned out to be just another stinking day then? Another day. Another shopping trip. Sainsburys. Again. The Saturday before xmas. Car park chaos. Lucky me.. .I found a space. Into the store I go. I can't focus on the shopping... Lolita is everywhere, Lo 2001, in all her captivating guises and child-womanly beauty. Two stand way out from the Loli-crowd, peaking in their 12 year old nymphetism. There's a head of hair belonging to pale milky sharp eyed Lo, all lank and sleek and greasy strands, black tinged with bulls blood red, and you can make out her delicate future feminin features right there in miniature, but not quite as they will be. Better. "Yes I do believe in angels, they were standing right beside me, I just looked too high"[10]. Then there's slightly rounded cheeky fair haired Lo, hovering around me, embarrassingly, as I pack the accursed shopping. Or am I now paranoid as well as everything else? Fact is; I can't take my eyes off of her. I'm not a bad person. This isn't my doing. It's just the way it is. Nature's little-whatever it is. Only nature knows. Long live the animal kingdom! Some fucking idiots can't keep their eyes off of the cunting football, the 'beautifull game' it's coming home it's coming home it's fucking coming home don't you know!!! God I feel sick just thinking about it. I see no beauty in that! Are you all just slaves to corporate globalisation? But in little cheeky Lo's sweet and lovely face I see the template for gorgeosity itself.

Now she keeps pace in front of my trolly, the ones that never steer right, occasionally looking round. Does she know? A Nabokovian Lo? Is she begining to brood over her still untried powers? Yes, she knows, I'm sure. At this moment, in the last days of year 2001,she feels that she will soon be master of the world and not quite sure what to do next.

But she will think of something. [11]

Notes

Throbbing Gristle - D.0.A. LP 1978 IR0004 Industrial Records Also on CD reissue of course as you might expect, the label being Mute's Grey Area series but, as I just can't be bothered mothering you all any more, try a big Tower Records or Virgin or HMV, anything... run along then!
Russell (not Chuck) Trainer-The Lolita Complex: The abnormal obsession of the middle-aged man for the adolecent girl. Paperback Library. New York. 1967.
Various Artists - The Second Coming LP 1980 WDC881006 Come Organisation. Hear it on Anthology 1 come organization archives 1979-1981 dbl CD 1998 SLCD024
Whitehouse - Cruise CD 2001 SLCD019
To be found along with Different Trains by Steve Reich. CD 1989 WEA 7559-79176-2 Electra/Nonesuch
Crass-Merry Crassmas 7" 1981 Cold Turkey 1
Ooohhh god !!! 1995 PUMF 238. It's all too much sometimes.That isn't the record or the label... just me moaning, except the '1995 PUMF 258' bit. Got it?!
Candi Nook - Queen of the Swirley eyed Ant Monkeys Cassette 199? FIEND CASSETTE 0020
Nurse With Wound - Ostranenie 1915 LP 198? TMR 05 Third Mind (Different versions from the 2nd & 3rd NWW albums... again I just can't be bothered at 9:45pm 25-December 2001! Lazy GeroGary.
Lyric from the song 'One in a Million' by Loud, to be found (or avoided) on the album Psyche 21 CD 1992 WOLCD 1026 China Records.
This is based on the final lines of Arthur C. Clarkes novel 2001:A Space Odyssey, chapter 47 'Star Child'. It is not my intention to fuck around with other folks work but no possible harm is done and I feel I've earned a little pay-back having been a 2001/Clarke/Kubrick 'fan' for almost 30 years!

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