septembermass is upon us.... we wouldn't normally complain but it is so hard to clean it off again. this month it took at least 3 re-edits to restrict the output to cd length (which is accurately described by the formula 'a little bit less than 80 minutes' but cannot be definitely stated without knowing exactly how many tracks are involved and etc etc due to the complexities of the cd writing process on sony soundforge.) one piece 'lumpen presidentiat' was so mangled in the editing process it had to be discarded, doubly tragic since it was named in honour of evo morales the president of bolivia whose presidential jet was refused passage through europe in case it had a snowden on board. which it did not. and which just goes to show that american 'diplomacy' has a long reach and no sense of humour, which is why i won't be making any jokes about it. because, after all, you can't make a bolivian omlette without scrambling jets. or something. so all in all it's a bit of a different set from what we laughlungingly describe as "usual" - there aren't many duets - only one and the introduction to 'lapsed' - and there are 3 pieces over 10 minutes long. we have a psychedelic 60's revival guitar instrumental, an amazonian rainforest riverboat adventure, a piece of pianodrone called 'offsettlers' and that one at least i would say is classic meshmass, whatever that is. not that 'crimmins' or 'lapsed' or 'frogbird' or 'trombone murders' are anything less than splendid, of course.

meshmass played at the opening of SABINE PORTELA'S exhibition of paintings. there was cake. there was wine. there was a mayor. there was no possible fire exit. there was meshmass, magic and music. not all at once, obviously. there was even dancing, on a floor made of weetabix. everything was painted white. in order to enter the room one has to duck through a sort of cupboard door halfway up the stairs, whereupon one enters a large space which is triangular in section and has a glass roof. this is where sabine makes pictures. (and very impressive they are too - these were mostly white - they have a surprising depth of surface and were collected under the theme of 'going in circles' - very suitable for meshmass, we thought.) meshmass played at about 8 p.m. after they had worked out how to make everything function outside its usual habitat. the electricity came from a single point spliced into the lighting circuit and there being no way out except through the aforementioned cupboard door richard (who is anyway extremely tall) seemed convinced that certain death was the likeliest outcome. however, we have all survived (unless this is some sort of cosmic joke played on the dead) and we are fairly content with our activity whilst alive in that place, of which we have a recording.

having undergone a humiliating, time-consuming, complicated, wasteful and above all futile attempt to interest people in our relentless overproduction - by means of which it was finally proved beyond reasonable doubt that we cannot arrange even to give away meshmass - we are nevertheless currently working on the july subscription edition. we started in traditional fashion with a pile the approximate size and density of an alp which it is intended that we should reduce until it becomes a perfectly smooth and shiny coffee bean sized portion. so far our teams of value-free scientists, lab technicians in dirty overcoats, deaf sound engineers, mad, drug-addled record producers, noted bean-sculptors and nameless though significant others have reduced the massive edifice by a third. Meanwhile - leaving them to it - meshmass are having their holidays, which involves (among other things) taking more lovely cover pictures of diverse objects including a) bees and b) seas. the resultant glorious julymass will be flopping into the laptops of a fortunate few in a few days to be greeted (i have no doubt) with muffled cries of 'goody' 'yum' 'oh god' and 'help'. not only this but as members of the Performing Right Society we discover that this august institution (dedicated to the defence of 'intellectual property' a term we find confusing and a concept we have our doubts about) is seemingly incapable of maintaining a database which includes meshmass. not so surprising, you might think, but more surprising perhaps is the news that 'official f.m.', one of the sites (along with soundcloud, bandcamp and probably some other thing we have forgotten about) to which we post free meshmass for listening to has received a complaint of 'copyright violation' with regard to our material there. this is most unlikely for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the fact that it is not true. the idea that meshmass copy anyone is inherently preposterous since we are not capable even of reproducing music we made ourselves, let alone the music made by others. despite these profound and disturbing setbacks meshmass continues to steer an erratic course into the future leaving in its wake an ever expanding slick of original and individual music. hooray for us.

meshmass have been trying to make some selections spanning a longer timescale than the monthly subscription release and originally envisaged both a collection of duets and a selection from 2012 to be called 'preparing to burn'. however, this project has run into certain difficulties. the selection of duets at 2cd length went quite well - at first - since we just wrote down the names of the ones we could remember and listened to them, but the 2012 project required listening to a good deal of material (as you can imagine, dear reader) and turned up various other duets we had forgotten the names of, thereby throwing the process into confusion. as for 'preparing to burn' itself the list of titles alone is now so long that it takes more than 2 hours to read it out and we have anyway only got as far as june. so those of you waiting for the release of this material may as well stop holding your breath. it is in fact a surprise even to us quite how much meshmass there is lying about the place gumming up the works (it is believed for example that an unlicensed release of meshmass into the sea off cornwall has killed several hundred guillemots) and we will have to think of some way of dividing it and packaging it up before the tightly-stacked bales of meshmass we hold in our huge warehouse explode and cause even greater havoc. the fleets of huge tankers carrying meshmass across the oceans are expressly forbidden from flushing their tanks in the open sea but you know sailors - they are not easy to control and anyway in the event of attacks by pirates emergency measures may have to be taken. meshmass would like to apologise to any guillemots, cormorants and other seabirds who may have been inconvenienced to death by recent unauthorised releases and assure them that we are doing everything in our power (that is to say: nothing) to prevent any recurence of such an unfortunate mishap. we would like to make it clear that some quantities of meshmass would not exist without the assistance and express encouragement of weddell seals, nightingales, large brown cows with horns and other creatures who have freely offered their time and voices in order to assist us in our (seemingly) endless and (demonstrably) futile ongoing project.

meshmass (the sound of fat children) played live at dave's birthday party in lewes in a tiny room slightly taller than it is wide. most of the audience preferred to sit in sub-zero temperatures in a tent in the garden with a shishka pipe rather than suffer the ear-crushingly loud sound pressures generated by the pulsing sinewaves, squealing squeaks and throbbing throbs of the dreadfulMASS, amplified as they were through a p.a. system designed for somewhere larger (such as a matchbox) but anyway they (the audience) were dressed up in all manner of peculiar costumes so it was probably a good thing we couldn't see them. we did see a bearded person wearing braces. we saw a woman in a bathing costume and a tinfoil head-dress (but i cannot complain since she gave me a strawberry). there were people with hairstyles of impossibly complex design and bright red lipstick. i was trying to detect a theme but costumes seemed to range from the 1930's to the 1980's so i suppose the theme must have been 'whatever is available'. meshmass played for an hour and a half or a bit longer, performing pieces they had never heard before for the most part including invisible horse (which is available in prepared meals all over the supermarkets of britain and the greater european mainland). meshmass did not play in costume since a) they do not have costumes; b) no-one asked them to; (and) c) they find the english enthusiasm for fancy dress both ludicrous and faintly alarming. however, richard was periodically discovered to have skyscrapers on his trousers so i suppose he was making an effort. all in all it went surprisingly well and we have recorded evidence which proves that to be the case which however we are unwilling to disclose except perhaps in a closed courtroom where the judge and all legal representatives are blindfolded and have their ears stopped with tar for fear of otherwise endangering national security. ###################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################### the mass (as they are not normally known) would come and play in YOUR livingroom if you asked them (auralwitness@gmail.com) at much more reasonable domestic volume and probably for longer for a small fee covering their expenses and the price of a cuppa tea guvnor. this is an offer of such startling and unusual generosity that it may not be available forever..... hurry now while stocks last.

we have just made publically available for free download on soundcloud the track 'shim'. it of all the rejected pieces from february's haul most nearly made it onto the februarymass subscription compilation sent to our loyal and overjoyed subscribers only yesterday - but didn't, due to the vast quantities of meshmass being generated by the actions of yeasts, microbes and zygotes in huge vats concealed in our enormous and emptily echoing chinese production facilities. the meshmass breeds in dark and hidden places, its secret workings a mystery even to its progenitors as tiny nanobeings knit together seamless webs of sound particles and fluff them up with goo. latest in this remorseless flood of musicmaking comes the plague of tiny sinewaves that combine into the dark carpeting now covering every surface in meshmass mansions with its unresting activity, a living carpet of tiny particles based on the ancient african practice of 'hocketing' (you'll just have to look that one up) and herewith declared to be known as carpetmusic, which therefore it is. for the avoidance of doubt and in order to dispel confusion, it is defined thus: carpetmusic is a sort of refracted drone made of tiny pieces into which many different superstructures can be woven. if a drone is like a river then carpet is like the light reflected from moving water, twinkling and dancing in response to the spaceless interaction of drone and rhythm. if on the other hand a drone is not like a river (because it is not wet, for example, or because it does not always go downhill and seek to arrive at the sea) then you will have to think of your own bloody analogy .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. beware the meshmass, it just keeps on coming.

meshmass, (in pursuit of their evil plans) went to st leonards and played at a 'splitting the atom' noise evening, where they performed 2 pieces they had never heard before, 'little things' and 'discofuck'. 'little things' is in their new genre of carpetmusic wherein (for example) tiny sinewave snippets are repeated in loops of different lengths making a shifting but repeating pattern over which the wicked duo unleash their twisted improvisations. and twisted they certainly were, apparently influenced by the context in which they found themselves (a succession of semi-naked boys screaming at microphones until they died accompanied by other semi-naked boys subjecting a bass guitar to lurid torments (for example) and men in devil suits poking savage noises out of illuminated tablets) a squalling onslaught of rasps and honks was answered with sustained slabs of distortion and feedback, causing a universal flinching and some bleeding from the ears. just before they played the projector froze on a single frame from an appalling british science fiction film as the dvd player gave up its tiny ghost so they played in a virtual blackout (and a virtual blackout is the kindest explanation available for their general level of organisation). nevertheless everything worked and nothing that we yet know about got broken. it has been suggested that st leonard is the patron saint of the mad and this would certainly go some way to explaining the largely favourable reception the mass received. there is now some talk of playing a lewes electro gig with nil by nose and possibly other rapscallions and ne'er-do-wells. so far the best efforts of i. d. s. (ideologically driven serfdom / industry defends slavery / incompetent demagogue smith) have failed to quench the mighty fire that is meshmass but things look bleak for the plucky duo as we advance further into the desert of austerity, a vast plain devoid of sympathy light or growth. ah, lackaday. some of us remember with fondness historical epochs (such as the middle ages) in which lives of poverty and dedication were respected. but let it be seen clearly: such days are behind us and now the poor must be punished for their misfortune and indigence as they so thoroughly deserve. for does he not speak unto us, saying (in the mighty voice of the quiet man) 'those who expect to get benefits for nothing, those days are over' and verily they are over, now we expect only to be sent to work in poundland for the price of a cup of tea where we will be trained for golden futures in stockbroking and the horse export trade ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. meshmass, the sound of fat children

frantic and largely futile efforts are underway to produce the januarymass package for our eager subscribers. it is our general intention to reduce the monthly supply to a mere hour but such is the level of production the meshmachine currently generates that it is at least twice that long. this is of course all part of our hideous and wicked plan: we produce so much music that there will eventually be no room for anything else in the entire universe, the internet will burst, showering mangled bits and tattered fragments of youtube across the globe and then as the flakes of bryan adams and the gangam style hip-hop orchestra curl up and blow away ALL music will be meshmass and our triumph will be complete.............. so beware, you cowering innocents........................................... there were two definite strands to the meshmassery last month, a wild and abstract ugliness was succeeded by the first inklings of a new 'pointillistic' style composed of (or with) single short sounds ranged in loops of different beat lengths creating a new form or genre described as 'carpetmusic'. this is not our only new genre, last year we invented bad religion and szabo among several others i can no longer be bothered to recall. in the coming year meshmass have every intention of working on vocal pieces (that is to say songs - and we are currently recruiting singers so that we don't have to do it ourselves) and also narrations such as the recent 'hotel'. hotel will be on the monthlymass for january i should think unless it dissolves in the beastly weather. so, not long to wait.

any moment now, if not (god help us) at this very second the long anticipated decembermass will be leaking through the ether into the receptive orifices of our helpless victims. this month's supply of meshmass was only reduced to a cd's worth (with a mere 4 seconds to spare) after a desperate bout of whittling and trimming which lasted a week or more. we have 13 tracks some in the new 'bad religion' genre and others resembling post-rock, one which sabine claims is a tango, some almost jazz and others in general unclassifiable but notionally avant-garde. there is a piece which resembles bagpipes getting drunk and dancing. this is called normal things but i expect that is ironic. there are 3 pure duets of which climate is delightful blues for winter is mysterious and partida is short and also a duet with drum machine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

like last month we are sending it out in 2 editions, first mp3's and then 16 bit wavs so that you can download the format you want. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- so, lots of good stuff going out and lots of good stuff staying where it is. remember, it's only £10 to get one of these releases every month for a year, but i think we'll put the price up soon. new stuff every week on soundcloud, some of which after mastering and possibly furthwer editing might make it onto the next monthly mass - but might not. catch it while you can. ======================================================================================= meshmass - the sound of fat children.