Our friends over at FatCat records have posted one of our Monster Music Shows from 1992. Dave Cawley remembers the label from those days:

It’s a real honour to share this podcast with you, created by Neuropolitique (Matt Cogger) for Irdial Discs‘ Monster Music radio shows in 1992. I had this mix on cassette and have lovingly held onto it ever since. To think that it’s 21 years since this was first broadcast – and the music on here still floors me.

Irdial Discs were a huge inspiration to me and i know many others who felt the same. They played by their own rules, followed no one and forged a path that left me speechless. If you want to know how to run a “real” record label then go and investigate just what they achieved, from records to books, software to radio shows. There was an attitude too that is so lacking these days, statements of intent. “In Your Hearts Not The Charts…”….”We Suffer To Bring You Beautiful Music..”..

When I read this, it felt like a call to arms and I knew whose banner I wanted to stand by. I always said to myself if we can get to be a tenth as good as them then I would be happy.

Dave Cawley

FatCat Records

The FatCat shop in the West End of London, originating in Monmouth Street were very important hubs of the music scene. They helped many people who were running independent labels, were open eared and open minded, friendly and non intimidating and were not afraid to expose anything that we brought in to the people who shopped there. Compared to many other retailers in London, who would not stock Irdial releases, FatCat was an island of open mindedness.

For example, there were some record shops that put their staff, literally, on a pedestal  standing over the punters, handing down vinyl to insiders as if it was a sacrament. These unfriendly, closed record shops were hostile to buyers and only a fool would attempt to bring in a 12 inch that they pressed themselves  without knowing the high priests behind the long pulpit.

All of these shops are now gone, and FatCat remains. This goes to show that nice guys finish last, which in business, is a good thing.

And here is our description of this edition of Monster Music:

During the summer of 1992 we decided to do some radio shows, since what we were hearing over the pirate airwaves was very similar station to station, and there seemed to be a need for something out of place. This was especially true on a late Sunday morning, after being completely exhausted by high energy music, a different mood on the radio was an idea just waiting to happen, so we made it happen.

Monster Music was transmitted on ten Sunday mornings, around 11:00.

Approaching the licensed radio stations to do this was of course, absolutely out of the question. They were, as they are now, like cold tombs overrun by the living dead and their stiff, lifeless sounds.

Pirate radio on the other hand was free and alive; you could do literally whatever you wanted, and we proved that this was actually true with Monster Music. No one was vetting our shows, looking over our shoulders or telling us what to do or how to do it. To make this happen all we had to do was call up the station hotline of Touchdown FM, talk to someone and they said “yes” to us.

This is exactly how a free world would work. There would be no licenses to operate a radio station, just as there is no license to run a record label, website or publish a book. There would have been dozens of cool stations out there, all operating together, pumping the music scene. Now of course, there is no need at all for radio, as the internet takes care of all your music needs, from discovery of new sounds to the distribution of them. Anyone can do any part of it, and that is a change that you could not have described to anyone in 1992.

Monster Music’s aim was to be different to anything out there on the pirate air, and having access to some of the best people, it was a simple matter of putting two and two together. I invited Matt Cogger, the genius behind “Neuropolitique”, to construct a show in our studio, which was the third in the series.

The hour of Monster Music Number 3, “Cosmat Selection”, is made up of deftly mixed and sensitively chosen “Techno” tracks, of the kind that drove us all absolutely crazy, and which today, still make the hairs on the back of my neck straighten out and stand up. And that really is something. At the half way mark, there is the exclusive, unreleased, “Theme for Rambo” by Derrick May. One can only imagine what it would have been like if this piece had actually been used in the titles of a Rambo film; machine guns firing in sync with the arpeggiated notes, the backward “shoops” punctuating Viet Vet flashbacks, Stallone’s twisted mouth screaming, attack helicopters raining bullets…

But exposures like that were not to be; it was and is “underground music”.

What are we doing now?

We have been running a blog since 2001 and we have been developing some software projects.

We are re-releasing The Conet Project in a new 5 CD edition, that we are crowd funding right now. If you would like to have your name inscribed in the booklet that accompanies this release, you need to pledge right now.

And we are working on some new and exiting software projects that should be released early in 2013.

And here’s Cosmat Selection…

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/79928187″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”false” /]

At last, the long wait is over.

The re-release of the seminal ‘The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations’ is imminent. The pressing plant specifications have been finalised, and everyone will have a chance to order a copy.

But there is more. Literally more.

This is a new, limited edition version of The Conet Project, and it will contain the original four CDs, the 80 page booklet, four post cards, and a new 5th CD of recordings of Shortwave ‘Noise Stations’ from our private archive. We are calling this limited edition:

“The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations / 1111”

Irdial-Discs is crowd-funding this edition of The Conet Project through Pledgemusic at

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/tcp1111

and this is where we need your help to make this re-release a success. Crowd-funding is a new way of raising money for projects, removing the need to borrow money from banks. Crowd-funding lets individuals support art and projects they are interested in, on a direct and personal level.

As a special mark of appreciation, the first two hundred and thirty one people to fund TCP/1111 will have their names written in the The Conet Project’s 80 page Booklet in a section reserved for Patrons. TCP/1111 will not cost Patrons any more than the price of a retail copy.

We need the word about this special edition re-release spread far and wide. It would be very useful to us if you would let at least two of your acquaintances know about this re-press by re-blogging, Tweeting, Tumbling, Posterousing, Googleplusing and putting this message on every other social media tool that is your particular avenue to spread news. After you have secured your place as a Patron, obviously.

Head over to Pledgemusic, secure your copy, and then spread this message. We look forward to shipping this long awaited release, and we are sure you will enjoy the very odd and strangely beautiful recordings on the 5th CD.

When you are there, take a listen to recording number three of four items cherry-picked from our archive on our Pledgemusic page. Recently transcribed while we were selecting pieces for this release, this recording of ‘the Lincolnshire Poacher’ being jammed has been in ‘heavy rotation’ in our office. It is not on the 5th CD. To our ears it is infinitely interesting, compelling and beautiful…but of course it is….we are Irdial!

The popular media are full of ‘news’ about Greek finances and their impact on the political landscape of Europe and beyond;

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick: Greece’s €130bn bailout merely buys it time

Robert Zoellick, the outgoing President of the World Bank, has warned that Greece’s latest €130bn (£108bn) bailout would merely buy it time, adding that a European recession would hamper crucial reforms needed to lift the area out of the crisis.

The desperate acts of vainglorious politicians (not to mention the blinkered journalists who insist political /economic restructuring is the big story here) are of interest for one reason only: to remind us of that feature noted by Thomas Carlyle in his opus of 1837.

Hunger and nakedness and righteous oppression lying heavy on 25 million hearts: this, not the wounded vanities or contradicted philosophies of philosophical advocates, rich shopkeepers, rural noblesse, was the prime mover in the French revolution; as the like will be in all such revolutions, in all countries.

I am indebted to Edward Hallett Carr and his magnificent lectures collected in ‘What Is History?’ for selecting this quote in his discussion that history is ‘a matter of numbers’.

Athens mayhem raises fears of Greek social explosion

(Reuters) – Greek political leaders say the nation must accept yet more punishing austerity or face a social explosion, but after a night of violence and destruction in Athens, some people fear this explosion may already be about to begin.

‘Punishing austerity’ lies heavy on more hearts every day. The number grows. History awaits.

The ceramics galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum are a real pleasure.

…above the grey sky.

“We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”

‘Cos I’m a hiphopper. Yes I am.

The Outlook Magazine

From p.36

The text has, somewhat ironically, been redacted compared to the print version.

Still, a fabulous collection of images old and new.

Newest: UFO!

‘Unhappy Flying Objects’.

Fables of Faubus, from this concert. Thank you.

The great, insightful, genius mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot is gone.

His revolutionary work can be and is now applied everywhere, including economics:

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=1465

Image compression.

And so much more….

The object that he is best known for in popular culture, The Mandelbrot Set is iconic, profound and beautiful all at the same time.

Merci professeur!

Wild mushroom risotto, apple cobbler. Autumn!

Luckily, on the basis of one middle-class “horror” story in the Daily Hate-Mail, and a 2-year old recycled story from their own paper at that, there seem to be fewer people willing to pick… and so more wild mushrooms for those of us with a little common sense.

If I were a viking…  Beserker!!!

I am not a viking. I am hungri for fungi.

If its gone for good, that’s bad.

UPDATE!
It’s back up, he backed down?!

‘The Andromeda Strain’, a must see film had its soundtrack released in this packaging:

Not only did you get the original sound with the vinyl, but the package is absolutely wonderful; a perfect match for the biology of the bioweapon ‘Andromeda’:

All the iTunes, FLACs and MP3s in the world will never replace the intimacy of this; a physical object, designed by man, in your hands, with its smell, its feel and its reality.

601!

The Prices, the prizes, the colors (yes ‘colors’)…. unbelievable.

After reading “Everything you love comes from capitalism” the character of and feeling you get from The Price is Right changes dramatically. Any apprehension you may have had about it from decades of anti-capitalist brainwashing is blown away, and you see that show for what it really was; an incredible exposition of the abundance produced by the free market, even as practiced under the severe duress of the state.

Watch it for yourself:

https://thepiratebay.org/tag/The+Price+Is+Right

And the music is to die for.

KILLIAN IS LYING TO YOU!

The Libertarian Party Manifesto is the only party manifesto that has an extensive section dedicated to Home Education. You should read it, so see what the other parties should have included in their documents.

Home Education

The Party will dismantle barriers to Elective Home Education, including the repeal of new measures being planned by other parties in or out of government.

Although the Party will be implementing a Voucher System roughly along the lines implemented in Sweden[1], this will not mirror any clamp-down or coercive programme directed towards Home Educators that exists there. One of the cornerstones for us as a Party is to dismantle monopolies, not remove one only to replace it with another.

This raises important issues in regards to the funding of Home Education. We need to strike a balance between preserving the freedom of parents and children with that of Taxpayers, who, we must never forget, are being coerced and forced to fund government spending on pain of imprisonment.

On the one hand parents may wish to be free from any State control, while Taxpayers have a right to expect the State to spend their taxes prudently. The nub is “prudently”, as it immediately becomes a value judgment and a collectivised one at that.

Our position is that we would not prevent people Home Educating, nor would be demand any kind of “notification” across the board, which can rapidly become a Trojan Horse for State control[2].

However, should the Educator request that the taxpayer fund such education – take the State’s Shilling as it were – there would need to be evidence that the funding was in fact delivering an education [3]. It is

unreasonable for anyone to demand no strings funding from the Taxpayer and we feel that genuine Home Educators will understand this point completely.

In exchange for Taxpayer funding we would expect, in almost all cases[4], improvements in literacy and numeracy over time, where literacy is one of reading, writing, comprehension and critical reasoning. We are not interested in curriculum specifics and to be so would be irrational – one of the reasons some choose Home Education is due to their rejection of a centrally controlled and imposed curriculum, regardless of if that centre is National, County, City, Borough or even Parish[5].

Should even this be unacceptable to some Home Educators, they will always be at liberty to decline the funding and its attendant measurements for a period of time or throughout. Our Policy will not demand “all or nothing”, “now or forever not” or “once and forever more” conditionality upon the funding, which would be coercive, in our view, and may distort decision-making.

In summary, it is not unreasonable to expect that Taxpayer funded spending come with strings attached, but that one shall be free to decline the funding and, consequently, the strings. Educational funding is no exception.

[1] This differs from the Conservative Party approach, which still retains central control, commissioning, granting and approval powers. Fake, in other words.

[2] The idea of notification has been touted by others, including the Liberal Democrats:

The unasked question: is the “present job” of the Local Authority necessary, correct or beneficial? What is also ironic is that there are cases where the education of children by the Local Authority in schools is “of poor quality or non existent” and that is sometimes the motivation for Parents or Guardians to embark on Home Education in the first place. The problem with notification is that it rapidly becomes registration then an approval process – “granted until refused” then “refused until granted” – backed by monitoring, box ticking, targets, curricula and logistics such as teaching environment. The conceit of many that the State “owns” children, “knows best” or they need to be tagged/tracked like livestock is not lost on the Libertarian Party. We reject such self-serving notions.

[3] Blank cheques will create all manner of unintended consequences when one considers that a child might “yield” £’000’s pa in cash each year for a parent.

[4] In some cases this might not apply due to the particular child and this must be taken into account.

[5] It is important to remember that under the Libertarian Party approach to a Voucher System with its removal of barriers to the formation of educational establishments and micromanaging thereof, Educators will be free to form their own arrangements including whatever level of cooperation they are comfortable with, up to and including no longer being “Home” Educators once educational establishments form that meet their needs or forming such themselves.

[…]

http://lpuk.org/