Do you know a man, probably a friend of your father who’s single and tries to insist you call him uncle? He wear’s ironed jeans and a polo neck jumper under his shirt. He drinks gin and tonic, but insists it Gordons and Shweps. He’d happily wear a cravat, and, you suspect, have sex with children. Anyway he probably drives a car, silver, that he describes as executive, that no one would ever buy for themselves. He drives everywhere in it, and will often listen to this album. It suits him well. It too, if it were a person be exactly like your uncle. It too would have sex with children you believe. You would not be wrong.

You know the Mylo song Destroy Rock and Roll. Well these guys heard it and took it seriously. Now I’m sure people will argue, and not without reason that RHCPricks have been subtly trying to kill rock for years, cynically producing horrible radio friendly poptastic rocklightwank to channel money away from other bands actually trying something new and interesting. Now whilst this argument has some degree of validity, this album is surely the fucking height of it.

What a crock of shit. Indeed if these fuckers could bottle the essence of commercial pop, could drink it and then piss it out onto a cd then it would sound like this. To be honest that was probably the A&R stage of this project by franchise Hot Cunt Peppers. Hell they probably see themselves as a franchise. They’re like those drunk mother fuckers who are undermining the city by pissing on the side of buildings gently wearing away the stone and destroying the foundations of the whole city in a wave of piss.

Enough already with Johnny Cash. Yes, Hurt can make me weep like a child uncontrollably, confronting my brash immortality with the horrible truth of my mortality. And much of the America recordings are very good. And even this album is good. Brimming with menace, honesty and energy. But come on now lads. Yeah its a great story and you can hear every twist and turn in his voice, but the America recordings should only have one cd long, there’s a lot of shit on them. We’ve all got a bit on top of each other here. Yes he’s a legend, but he’s dead, so fuck him. Stop with the wanking over his portrait. And Walk the Line was terrible. I don’t want to hear him anymore.

God that girl can wail! She’s some fucking lungs on her, and a good aul tune between her and the backing band. There’s a real urgency to it. And, although its the norm nower days, you can dance to it, but more importantly you want to, and you find yourself a bit drunk yelling the lyrics along with it the centre of Doyle’s, hands in the air. And you fall backwards, and into the deepness and swim out towards the dark but there’s no redemption for you here. We all stand alone with our sin. And the Lord comes to us, not the effeminate marshmallow ladyboy Jesus, but the real Jesus, the precursor to the suicide bomber, a tall swarthy man bearded and muscled, and as he reaches me, he throws a rolled up cigarette to the floor behind him, it catches the petrol and the whole room behind him bursts into a sheet of flame and the rush of heat and air knocks you to your knees, or was it awe? And he reaches for your neck, grabbing you under the chin, pulling it up so that he can look into his eyes. And he see’s all. Every broken promise, not just to others but to yourself. He see’s the porn and the filth that populate your waking hours and the horrible goblin nightmares of your sleep. And just as he rips your throat out, and the blood splatters onto the concrete floor your kneeling on, and onto his robes, and the room if all black but for the flames behind him, and in his eyes, Jesus your executioner and savior forgives you, just as you fall forward onto the floor, and your life blood streams out and the worst pain you feel is the confusion. He loves you. And He loves this album.

Tell me, if I describe ‘P Diddy’ as a vacuous mouth breathing troglodyte, does that make me a racist? He, his MTV show ‘making the band’, and the lifestyle he espouses – seem utterly devoid of any worth or value. This superficial urban ‘culture’ does a disservice to America’s swelling, ethnically diverse and politically disenfranchised underclass, and to the complex and richly textured art, literature, and cultural history of African Americans.

I despise this desperate prostitution, this adoption of the clichéd badges of hyper masculinity, this celebration of banal conformist popularity. Such endless recycling of demeaning, dehumanising imagery is not an effort at empowerment, nor a reclamation of identities used as labels of derogation. Rather it is a pathetic submission, an abasement of self and abandonment to the most venial and demeaning masks of servitude.

You might wonder if there is an element of hypocrisy in an English speaking Irishman, fat from the economic benefits and intellectual enrichment of ‘800 years of oppression’ (sic) writing this; After all, the truism that ‘the language of the oppressor in the mouth of the oppressed is the language of the slave’, pervades middle class Irish culture. However, I posit that there is a fair degree of difference between acknowledging the benefits of, and utilising the opportunities afforded by ones cultural milieu, and participating in and profiting from the simultaneous subjugation and exploitation of ones people.

It’s a thorny issue, as to hold up any individual as a totemic representative, responsible to some degree as an example or unelected leader of their cultural or ethnic group, risks depriving that individual of their right to construct an identity, irrespective of the position of power, influence or visibility they have attained.

And yet, to deny the responsibility of vacuous celebrity ‘artists’ for the derogation of popular culture to a theatre of parodic sexuality, and a celebration of obscene wealth and pantomimed violence; to deny in particular the social facilitation of models of monetaried, homogenised ethnic prostitution adopted by celebrities of colour, from Beyonce Knowles to Andre 3000; is to subscribe to a deterministic functionalist perspective which denies the very significance of such individuation.

With power comes responsibility, and with the celebration of the slim rich slice of social inequality comes an identification with the division of the cake. One could argue that this is an unfair critique, that the very ‘fevered egos’ elevated to celebrity by the succubean monstrosities of media conglomerates, are by definition the most soulless, whorish desperates of any given culture – and indeed this is a valid point. The Simon Cowls, the Lois Walsh’s and Justin Timberlake’s of this world are harbingers of the death of criticism and diversity in popular culture. But where are the independent voices decrying the prostitution of black America? Where is the Foucault? Where is the County Cullen, the Theolonias Monk; where is today’s Richard Prior? Where are the genderfuckers of racial identity?

Has the disenfranchisement of ethnic minorities, through the systematic destruction of education and social welfare systems, succeeded to the point where dissenting voices feel restrained to silence? Or are such voices quieted by the dumbing of the public forum? Maybe I’m just ignorant. Let me know.

Raps fuming echolalia has always produced a tension between creative expression and adherence to a set of extrinsic psychocultural narratives (bling!). Change orientated collectives like Rick Ruben protegees public enemy or proto Savoyard realists Arrested Development have historically struggled with the ironic shackles of this most post colonial of genres. On this press Dangermouse forges a Gidensian third way through a bumblingly savage mastery of postronic protools mash-hip. With wicked savancy, mouse crams the feudal materialism of Z’s ultimate stomp shuffling ghetto autobiography, with the melodic mendacity and psychotropic reflexivity of the late era fab four.

Result, a biblically epic mythology, networks of jump cut rhythm patterns that undermine yet underline J’s Tennysonesque cadence lilting ferrous reimagining of psychedelic as funk riveted future sound of London. Mouse breaks the grime cacked mold of rap and mungs the festering pop skinned corpse of classic rock, scrawling in dissonant ineloquence a grand repost to the 8 bit reductionism of rival contenders to the imperial throne of future music. Eponymous.

From the very moment of its printed debut in 1537, the jagged little pill was a homogeneous genre characterized by the equivocal Swanseaic use of language/graffitti and post-pop africaan style drumming, whose erotic and sometimes obscene/Catholic content was hidden at a deep dark semantic level. As Antoni Marzotica writes concerning the erotic poetry of the period: ‘The most efficacious tool/spade in constructing seemingly innocent/filthy texts, in reality full of allusions to scabrous subject matter/antimatter, is without doubt the euphemism.’ Even though the jagged little pill played a vital role in the comic/semitragicmeaningless culture of the Cinquecento, its historical position with respect to the production of double meanings has never been addressed in musicological scholarship especially when contrasted against the meaningless of ghettomusic. Given the considerable pile of semiotic and linguistic research/drivel devoted to literary erotica/skamusic in the past decades, the time/place has come for new interpretative approaches to the jagged little pill that can expose the genre’s potential to raise laughter/temperatures through erotic jest/attacks and gesture.

You are a moderately successful indietronica duo whose first album has been critically acclaimed..

What do you want to do?
> HELP

You fail to secure the rights to remix a well known Beatles track.

What do you want to do?
> ITEMS

You are carrying a set of decks, a Mac with Protools, a battered copy of À la recherche du temps perdu, and two large post rock haircuts.

What do you want to do?
> LOOK

You are a pair of skinny art boys with hip Parisian accents, you are surrounded by adoring pro-ani groupies. On the ground is a book.

What do you want to do?
> PICKUP

You pickup the book and read it, it turns out to be ‘Vangelis for Dummies’. Your composition skill increases to 6xp.

What do you want to do?
> PRODUCE

Success! Your second studio album becomes a critically acclaimed and commercially successful chillout classic. Your self regard increases to 100xp.

What do you want to do?
> KILL TIME

You produce a so so soundtrack for the niece of a wealthy American. The record company are demanding a second album.

What do you want to do?
> LOOK

You are backstage at a ‘live’ concert, on the coffee table is a ten pound bag of cocaine. You notice three CD’s on the table, Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II, The Stranglers La Folie and Kid A by Radiohead.

What do you want to do?
> LISTEN

You listen and make notes. Your composition skill increases to 40xp.

What do you want to do?
> PRODUCE

You pop out another album. A truck arrives at house with bag of cash. Roger Waters arrives at your apartment with a sheet of blotter acid.

What do you want to do?
> DROP.

You make a prank phone call to Alessandro Baricco. Incensed, he threatens a lawsuit.

What do you want to do?
> PRODUCE

In a paranoid haze you remix some Baricco audio books. Baricco is placated, fans are confused. Record company wants another album. Eager for inspiration, you pop a CD in your sleek black Bang and Olufsen player. It’s a copy of Goldfrapp’s ‘Black Cherry’.

What do you want to do?
> PRODUCE

Another studio album, full of half finished ideas from your previous work. Commercial success. Another cash truck arrives. Your integrity decreases to -6xp.

What do you want to do?
> BUY

You purchase second hand money bin from Scrooge Mc Duck and take a swim. Record company provideds CD’s from Dustin O’Halloran, ELO, David Bowie and Travis Morrison.

What do you want to do?
> PRODUCE

Pocket Symphony.