Na Nguzu- "Ecstasy Cut"

RudeBoyz- "Gqom Originators"

from NON's new compilation.  Some sick stuff on here

Collapsed

I had words on Drew McDowall's debut LP

The Host- "New Relic"

From Safety to Where?

"This past week, the news media has energetically discussed student unrest at Yale and at the University of Missouri, where students are protesting administrative insensitivity or inaction in the face of troubled racial climates. At Mizzou, in particular, student activists have demanded safe space. A student journalist, Tim Tai, was denied access to the protesters’ tent city in a public area of the campus. The protesters didn’t want to be photographed or interviewed, possibly not trusting journalists to tell their story accurately.

The next day, they rightly changed their stance, opened their space to the media, and a debate on free speech and safe spaces found new life. Quickly, the student protesters were accused of not tolerating free speech in regard not only to Mr. Tai, but also to those who use racial epithets and otherwise engage in hate speech. They were accused of being weak, of being whiny for having the audacity to expect to attend college without being harassed for their blackness.

As a writer, I believe the First Amendment is sacred. The freedom of speech, however, does not guarantee freedom from consequence. You can speak your mind, but you can also be shunned. You can be criticized. You can be ignored or ridiculed. You can lose your job. The freedom of speech does not exist in a vacuum....

And so the students at Mizzou wanted a safe space to commune as they protested. They wanted sanctuary but had the nerve to demand this sanctuary in plain sight, in a public space. Rather than examine why the activists needed safe space, most people wrapped themselves in the Constitution, the path of less resistance. The students are framed as coddled infants, as if perhaps we should educate college students in a more spartan manner — placing classrooms in lions’ dens.

...All good ideas can be exploited. There are some extreme, ill-advised and simply absurd manifestations of the idea of safe space. And there are and should be limits to the boundaries of safe space. Safe space is not a place where dissent is discouraged, where dissent is seen as harmful. And yet. I understand where safe space extremism comes from. When you are marginalized and always unsafe, your skin thins, leaving your blood and bone exposed. You live at the breaking point. In such circumstances, of course you might be inclined to fiercely protect yourself, at any cost. Of course you might become intolerant. Of course you might perceive dissent as danger.

There is also this. Those who mock the idea of safe space are most likely the same people who are able to take safety for granted. That’s what makes discussions of safety and safe spaces so difficult. We are also talking about privilege. As with everything else in life, there is no equality when it comes to safety." 

- Roxanne Gay, The Seduction of Safety, On Campus and Beyond, New York Times

"Framing free speech and political correctness as opposing forces is a false dichotomy intended to derail uncomfortable but necessary conversations, a smokescreen ginned up by the ethically lazy. The fact is, political correctness doesn’t hinder free speech – it expands it. But for marginalised groups, rather than the status quo.

On the campuses of Yale University and the University of Missouri last week, the weariness and anger of black students coalesced into protests that have inspired much anti-PC handwringing and infighting in progressive circles. In Missouri, student protesters forced the resignation of university president Timothy Wolfe, who they said had allowed a racist campus culture to flourish. At Yale, black students clashed with white professors over whether or not discouraging kids from wearing blackface on Halloween was an authoritarian silencing manoeuvre. Yale protestors were filmed screaming in the face of Silliman College master Nicholas Christakis, demanding his resignation; at the University of Missouri, protestors shut out and shoved (which, yes, absolutely crosses a line) a news photographer who was attempting to document their hunger strike. Videos of the screaming and the shoving have been used to discredit the protests, downplay systemic racism, frame protesters as frivolous whiners (especially in the Yale case) and argue that college activists are not simply ignorant of the first amendment, they’re openly hostile to it.

But here is the thing: white students parading around campus in blackface is itself a silencing tactic. Telling rape victims that they’re “coddled” is a silencing tactic. Teaching marginalised people that their concerns will always be imperiously dismissed, always subordinated to some decontextualised free-speech absolutism is a silencing tactic.

Framing student protests as bratty “political correctness gone mad” makes campuses a hostile environment for everyone except for students who have no need to protest. Blandly discouraging minority groups from full participation in civic life is such an old, entrenched tactic that it doesn’t register. It’s like furniture. Meanwhile, it’s Chait’s demographic that holds the real institutional power; the Chaits of the world who make up the majority of finance and entertainment and government; Chait and company who have the short-sightedness to imply that black Americans being shot in the streets by agents of the state are the real puppetmasters of an authoritarian regime. Right.

If you’re genuinely concerned about “free speech”, take a step back and look at what’s actually happening here: a bunch of college students, on the cusp of finding their voices, being publicly berated by high-profile writers in national publications because they don’t like what they have to say. Are you sure you know who’s silencing whom?"

-Lindy West, Political Correctness Doesn't Hinder Free Speech- It Expands It, The Guardian

Inhalants- "Side Opener"

Basic House- "Ursa Minor"

demented

There's been a historical inaccuracy circulating that launched within moments of the curfew set in Paris last night that stated that the last time this was done was during World War II. Intentional or not, the creation of this point of comparison proposes an analogy between our time and that one, one that hints that massive global conflict is afoot and more may be on the way. Indeed the blood had not even stopped spilling before many began declaring their intentions against Islam and Syrian refugees (who are ironically fleeing ISIS terror) and salivating over the retaliation.

But WWII was not the last time Paris had a curfew. In May of 1968, there was a general strike precipitated by University agitation against the excesses of capitalism and the right wing government. De Gaulle responded with a show of police force, which spurred riots and closed down parts of Paris, the government implementing a curfew.

One of the major slogans of May 1968 was Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible. ("Be realistic, demand the impossible"), an affront to the brand of "realism" that demanded a constant current of inequality, intolerance, and aggression.

The point of bringing this up is that nothing is inevitable at this point. The horror of war lingers in the air, but it is not written yet. Sometimes in the rush to respond, we get the details wrong. We fail to see the whole picture.

What happened in Paris is a massive tragedy. The death toll is gruesome, stultifying, and unacceptable. But for context, this same amount of people are murdered in the US by handguns every five days. As this took place, bombings also rocked Bagdhad and Beiruit. It's hard to resist the urge to sympathize with this tragedy only when it happens in the West, but this is the everyday reality for many in the globe. Often these incidents, such as the recent intentional bombing of a Medecin Sans Frontieres hospital, are done with US/European complicity.

Until we grieve those loses the same we grieve attacks on the West, the plans of terror regimes to bifurcate the world succeed. Until we paint our Facebook pictures in the color of every country wronged by violations of their biological right to life, we indirectly prioritize the supremacy of our own culture, even if we pay lip service declaring that "all lives matter".

But we can rise above, resist, and declare ourselves unified against any cretin who would kill to achieve political aims. Stop the spread of pain by declaring yourselves without borders and call out your government when it acts against the interests of this world community. Hold all murderers accountable. Demilitarize the planet.

Phlekz- Off EP

Gorgeous little EP of 90s-ish Aphexy/Seefeely IDM from Phlekz, who appears to be another name for Baron Mordant of Mordant Music

An Egg in the Cosmic Crack

Another review up at PopMatters, this time on the latest in the Patrick Cowley reissue frenzy, Muscle Up, a sequel of sorts to his other collection of porno soundtracks, School Daze, a clip of which is below:

Cowley is (rightfully) turning into something of an Arthur Russell figure.  But while Russell kind of knocked around on the sidelines and the fringes of various scenes for a decade or so, Cowley had some mild mainstream success and kept a basement of insanely good unheard tracks recorded during a relatively short period of time.

Also a couple briefs on

Irmin Schmidt and Bruno Spoerri

Ariana Grande

Will Butler

Stills from Miss Anthropy-"Noise" video I made circa '97

Doctoring Without Orders

"Indeed, the overriding sentiment among many U.S. journalists is that their country and government are so inherently Good that they could not possibly do anything so bad on purpose. Any bad acts are mindlessly presumed to be terrible, uintended mistakes tragically made by Good, Well-Intentioned People (Americans). Other, Bad Countries do bad things on purpose. But Americans are good and do not.

They cling to this self-flattering belief so vehemently that they not only refused to entertain the possibility that the U.S. government might have done something bad on purpose, but they scornfully mock anyone who questions the official claim of “mistake.” When you’re lucky enough as a government and military to have hordes of journalists so subservient and nationalistic that they do and say this – to exonerate you fully – before knowing any facts, why would you ever feel the need to submit to someone else’s investigation?"

- Glenn Greenwald, U.S. Journalists Who Instantly Exonerated Their Government of the Kunduz Hospital Attack, Declaring it an "Accident", The Intercept

Zackey Force Funk- "Hearts on Fire"

from Chrome Steel Tiger, out now on Hit + Run

Oneohtrix Point Never- "Sticky Drama"

from forthcoming Garden of Delete

directed by Jon Rafman and Daniel Lopatin

Andrew Tomasello- "Transmission Raga"

from new album Sundialing Transmissions


I used to keep in touch with Andrew ages ago.  He even submitted something to a very limited run comp we put out (as Android) and he's apparently still making lovely stuff.   At least I think it's the same guy.  There's also a professor of music at Baruch with the same name.  It'd be weird if there were two of them making this type of music.

youBik- Lucid Dreaming is White Privilege

Reagan's Legacy, Based only on His Appearance in Comic Books, Maxwell Yezpitelok, Cracked