Short Story: Spacemonkeyz Vs. Gorillaz - Laika Come Home

I packed a suitcase with a few essential belongings and headed outside to the waiting cab. It was early that Saturday morning and I still had a hard time believing my good fortune. I'd been selected to pilot the first orbiting music studio in human history, a joint venture between Virgin Galactic and Apple Computers.

A few months before this, the head of the project contacted me through my website to let me know I'd made the short list to head the LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Remix division. It seems that my essays on astropolyrhythmics had made some waves with management. Soon I was confirmed for training and tendered my resignation to my then employer, Beat Science Ltd. I spent three months in a training facility in California, getting my body into shape for long term low gee and learning from the Duboligists at the newly founded Institute for Low Gravity Recomposition.

So the day had finally come and I stood there staring out into the horizon when the cab driver hit the horn and gave me a nasty look. I had spent my entire professional career studying astropolyrhythmics and the time had come to put it into practice. When we arrived at the guard shack in front of the launch site the entire facility was in a state of complete panic and disarray. I found the rest of my team near the crew prep area and was quickly filled in by Ian, my Chief Beat Engineer for the mission.

It seemed that the monkeys that were used to test our module had broken out of their holding pens about half an hour before then and were putting the ship into preflight checks. The monkeys had shut ground control out of the systems and the capsule was designed to be completely secure, guarded against industrial espionage. The rocket lifted off that morning packed full of a $150 million in experimental studio equipment and three stoned out test monkeys.

The world watched and listened in wonder as over the course of one year, the Spacemonkeyz released one of the greatest dub concepts ever given form track by track back to the planet on pirate radio. People ask me if I'm upset by this turn of events and in interviews I always say the same thing. Those monkeys have fulfilled my greatest dream, to remix an album in orbit and elevate the science of astropolyrhythmics to legitimacy.

They're still up their and last week I sent them new source material from Thievery Corporation, Scientist and King Tubby.

Good for: Traveling without moving. Founding a colony on Mars based entirely on slick beats and reverb.

Get into orbit on Amazon.

Short Story: Portishead: Third

People don't understand why I do this work. It's certainly not the money and there's no real glamor in being a private investigator. Most folks just think I'm a flunked out cop, one of those guys who couldn't cut the mustard on the force so I settled for second best. I always let them think that, they underestimate me and it gives me an edge. I started out as an insurance investigator, hunting down fraud and trying to protect good people from bad things. That's what I thought anyway. Like most jobs the finish wore thin after a few years and I realized more and more that I was protecting the bottom line more than our customers. The underside of every job looks the same, it's covered in blood and gold.

My first freelance case came while I was still working for the company. A good friend of mine had been working in film for a while and something had come up that he needed help with. Why John thought of me, I'll never know. There were a thousand more qualified men out there, ex-spooks, military men. But the letter landed in my hand that afternoon, certified post from London with his name on the top. I read the letter immediately, curious why it would arrive like this. I couldn't remember the last time a paper letter crossed my hands. The letter was straight to the point.

Henry;
I know you've got some experience with these matters. I need your help. Some asshole is trying to blackmail me and I can't get from underneath it. Please, help me find out who this is and get them off of my back. I'm sorry I haven't called but I know they're listening in on my cell and reading my e-mails. I included some money to get you over here in a hurry. Meet me here in the lobby at 4 whenever you get in, I'll be looking for you.

Thanks buddy, I know you'll get me out of this

-John-

Inside I find a cashiers check for $7000 and a card for a hotel in London, Sanctuary House Hotel. What the hell John? Why would I drop everything to help you out? Right, why wouldn't I? This man had pulled me out of some nasty situations when we were younger and he even took a beating that was rightfully mine one night. Some quick arrangements with my boss pushed my vacation up a few weeks and some quickInternet wrangling got me my ticket to Heathrow. I ordered in some food and spent the night looking up things to do in London.

Airports are the same. I don't care what dress you put on them, they all do the same dance. Bored people looking thin and pasted over a fluorescing backdrop. I spent my flight time writing down everything I knew about John and his various "problems". As good of a friend as he was to me, he was kind of a dick. I could see how someone could get a handle on one of his skeletons and give him a good shaking. The shit he'd done, fighting a clown at his nephews birthday, sleeping with his brothers wife, drinking a 30 year old bottle of scotch that his roommate had been saving. You know, that last one doesn't seem that bad, except that it ended up on his roommate. You begin to see my point.

The plane skidded to a halt on a strangely sunny day in London. I checked my GPS to make sure I had landed in the right city. I guess the sun does shine here on occasion. After a half on hour of fighting baggage claim I made my way to the tube station to get to the hotel. I had about an hour and a half to kill before John would meet me in the lobby so I checked into my room and relaxed for a while, pondering the mystery of finding myself in London.

What weirdness. My cell beeped it's alarm and I made my way down to the lobby and waited, looking to the doorway. People came and went on their way, tourists, business types and staff. The time shift started to crawl up my spine and slipped into the aether land of international sleep deprivation. A tap on my shoulder snapped me back into the lobby.

"Mr. Withers? Henry Withers? My name is Rachel Warrington, we'd better have a talk. John has been killed."

Next time: Japan seems to bleed neon.

Panthalassa - The Remixes: Miles Davis

We start this evening in a downtown lounge, sipping a drink and listening to the traffic roll by in it's muted thunder. The glasses on the bar start to shake along with the rhythm of the train passing overhead. Mystery surrounds you in an ever growing shroud, each tendril of brass an invitation to slip further into the embrace of endless dusk.

Soon, the scene drops you to street level, harsh lights passing overhead one after the other, the frenzied pace of a Saturday night. Every man and woman trying to get as much pleasure out of these brief moments that life allows them, wrenching out emotions strained under the weight of their own self doubt. Now this narrow beer soaked road spreads out into a broad street and the sheer size of the night becomes apparent to you. It is immense, and we are very small.

Miles Davis was relentlessly experimental in his musical career and this remix sounds to me like what the man would be doing if he were still around. He would be moving forward with the force of a typhoon and leaving most of the world confused in his wake. This album has beats the size of skyscrapers laced on top of some of the slickest tunes ever to grace my ears. Imagine a secret meeting between Bjork and DJ Shadow on top of a building in the dead of winter, exchanging vinyl like secret agents. I keep this one stacked in my secret vault of Forbidden Beats with Saul Williams, DJ Krush, Yuki Kajiura and a bag of instrumentals from MF Doom.

Good for: Plotting the getaway plan, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight from the veranda of your penthouse.

Man, this took some looking. Check out samples at Amazon.com (you'll need the Realplayer plugin to listen.)

The Twilight Singers: Twilight As Played By The Twilight Singers

If you ever needed an excuse to wear black suits and sunglasses, this is your chance. Not that anyone needs an excuse really, more of a score for drinking in an empty bar on a well lit city avenue. The Twilight Singers started as a side project of Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli and several friends that evolved into his full time band. "Twilight" was reworked and co-produced by Fila Brazillia which is one of the reasons that it sounds so different from their later works.

This is such a supremely melancholy album that it makes want to cry. If it weren't for the nice fat Big Beats propping it up, it would be a suicidal depressing endeavor. Instead it comes out as emotionally sincere, darkly sexy and extremely listenable.

This is a fine wine of an album, layers of flavor requiring the utmost attention to gain its full impact. This album is writing poetry and crying with The Postal Service, Portishead, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

Good for: Driving old cars down new streets, singing fresh lyrics over new beats.