long and welcome though it has been MESHMASS have at last broken their frosty silence, releasing in a sudden slurry (poss. "flurry" - ed.) a new 'album' on bandcamp, described as 'SOCIALLY DISTANCED', as well it might be, since it was. and is. and indeed will continue to be for the forseeable future, which is.... not long. it contains 8 pieces, all of which were recorded in 2 separate locations, richard providing piano, bass and guitar parts from lewes in england and peter responding with saxophone and field recordings from the mayenne, france. so this is a new way of working for MESHMASS, forced upon us by geographical convulsions and pandemic restrictions. it allows a little more consideration in the making of the music, but we have attempted to retain our habitual spontaneity by the stratagem of not knowing what we are doing at any point. much as usual, then, only different. some portions of it either are or will be available under the brand MESHMASS on soundcloud, and free listening is possible on BANDCAMP, where the whole thing can be downloaded in glorious hi-fidelity for a paltry £3:00. not a poultry £3:00, because that would be a chicken. so, as they like to say, in that new-fangled semi-threatening way we have discvovered - 'enjoy'.

MESHMASS are stunned and proud, like sleepless parents blinking in the savage light of a too-early dawn. their new outspring, a fat collection of 5 long pieces, every one of them over 15 minutes and one longer than half an hour, is now available on bandcamp for mere money. who could resist the warm leatherette and tinted windows? the peeling chrome? the distant sound of thunder? 5 long pieces and all from 2012 (they claim). one of them features the sound of weddel's penguins. one of them a portuguese cowherd. no i did not call you a coward, just be quiet. the collection is called (in typically snappy fashion) 'selected longer pieces' for the reason that all the tracks have been selected, and are longer (longer than short ones, for example). but one thing still worries me, and that is why they are pieces, or what they are pieces of. because if they are pieces that implies that there is something EVEN LONGER which must contain them all..... oh. of course. they are pieces of the mass.

it is a crisis. everyone tells me. even the boy chancellor. so dreadful has it become that MESHMASS have split, due to what they describe as 'physical differences'. these may be that richard is very tall and peter rather fat. or it may be that half of MESHMASS has left the country. the result of that is that there is no longer any meshmass to be unrolled monthly and applied to sore patches. SO. instead we proudly announce the release of 'selected longer pieces', a thrillingly-titled compilation of (errr) selected longer pieces from 2012, available now on bandcamp. in strangely related news peter pick has posted a song called 'slack bay' on bandcamp under his own name, and threatens to post more unless you offer him money, which, clearly, you will not.

it has finally come to this. despite all our tunneling, mining, digging, scratching, burrowing and scraping, despite the laying of charges and the drilling of holes, despite efforts at inflation, expansion, psychometric enhancement, self-compression, despite appointing a commission and buying a larger and more commodious carpet - with pockets - despite our continued desperation and all that we have attempted or imagined we have finally and at last run out of space, due to the fact that we have expanded to the exact size of the universe and have thus filled up everything and even the possibility of anything else and it is no longer possible to produce the phenomenal quantities of brand new pulsing MESHMASS that we are used to. or that we used to. or that we have used........................................................................................... so we hereby announce, declare and aver that we are ceasing our monthly subscription-only releases at the end of this cycle, and we shall treat ourselves more as a special event in future, and less as a staple of the cultural diet. we stress that we are only doing this because our teams of dedicated engineers have assured us that MESHMASS will definitely catastrophise, is in fact in imminent danger of hooribulation and even possibly snud, leaving only a messy crater and a livid stench if we carry on producing material at the usual excessive rate in our endless pursuit of global growth designed to cover the expanding remuneration packages of our chief executives and other valued members of the board, our world renowned bribery schemes and also research. we have been authoritatively informed that we will implode under the pressure of our own gravity, creating an 'event horizon' from which not even light can escape, not of course that it would wish to, since it would want to be with us...................................... to be honest - as if such a thing were even possible - the situation has induced a major philosophical crisis in the hidden pseudo-brain (commonly known as the 'controlling function' when it is spoken of - rarely, and always in those hushed tones reserved for the truly revolting - ) that at least believes itself to make and use and inhabit and inform and generate and perhaps actually to be MESHMASS. what are we to say now about ourselves? our simple aesthetic formula of 'more', of quantitative extremism, of repetitive beats as prohibited by law, of play, of chance events, all this is threatened. members are starting to leave the country, limb by limb. a series of indicative votes has revealed that nobody approves of anything. but i diverge. i divert. i divulge........................................................................................................................................ so what does this mean to me, the average punter? absolutely bugger all, of course, since you could not care less about MESHMASS even if you were to take a course in mindfulness. but those people who were bold and charming and delightful and kind and well-intentioned and cultured and witty and good and above all of preternaturally acute aesthetic judgement enough or sufficiently to actually subscribe to the monthlymass will we hope find that meshmass fulfill their contract with them by delivering masses up to may. so where are we now, i wonder? we definitely did edit something out of somewhen at some point recently, and we will soon discover what it was and send it out for consumption or (as is more likely) to be ignored by our noble subscribers. .............................................................................................................................................................. the pearls which MESHMASS cast before them are so many that the floor is impassable, it is thick like the sea, like a lake of ballbearings, it is deep with scattered spheres and when they tread forward in that room they slip and slide, unable to balance on their pointy little trotters. like a ballerina on ballbearings i have been listening to 2017. there's a whole year of it. MESHMASS had a policy of excess. this is now over.

meshmass played at westgate chapel, lewes. they played with adam bushell (marimba, percussion) and james parsons (drumkit). this was very brave of them and very interesting for us all. it was a pleasure to see people from the brighton improvising musician's collective 'safehouse' in attendance, especially since they all had to travel there by bus. evidence of the night's performance can be found on the 'radio lewes' site http://www.radiolewes.org.uk/ www.radiolewes.org.uk and an extraordinary and rather illuminating video of part of the second set can be seen on vimeo at https://vimeo.com/292787308 we felt there was a good balance between structured material and improvisation with neither predominating, and it went rather well. people even clapped.

the terrible day approaches, almost as if time were moving steadily forward. james parsons (drumkit) and adam bushell (tuned percussion) are even now wondering what they have agreed to - and we can now reveal that it is this :- to play with MESHMASS for 2 hours in a room that smells of old carpets without having previously heard ANY of the material which is going to ooze unstoppably out of the computer. westgate chapel (which smalls of old carpets) was first used as a place of worship in 1662, on what they call the 'restoration of the monarchy', (not, for example the 're-imposition of dictatorship') of the and which describes not the reupholstery of some recumbent royals, or the retouching of some flaking makeup, but the reinstallation of undemocratic and centralised rule over the nations of britain. nothing to celebrate here, then, people, move along please. what particular denomination set up in westgate chapel then i cannot say, but most recently it was a 'unitarian' chapel, and unitarians are some sort of heretic of course, disbelieving the divinity of christ, which makes them rather like moslems, jews, or cynics. the 'west gate' to which the name refers is of course the west gate in lewes' town wall, which used to contain the prison. westgate chapel is almost certainly within and part of the town wall, which long preceeds it. it stands almost exactly opposite the masonic lodge, and is set back somewhat from the narrow section of the high street on which it stands called 'the bottleneck', opposite the twitten called 'pipe passage' where the town militia used to go and smoke, and where there was a pipe kiln, for baking tobacco pipes. the extensive history of religious dissent and heresy of course suits MESHMASS whose saxophonist studied such things to Ph.D. level and now spends much time playing the saxophone in churches around the area in an ongoing project called 'isolated churches', and whose guest drummer, james parsons, spends much time touring round churches on his bicycle and looking for ancient graffitti. adam will bring other things apart from his marimba. james will bring a drumkit. peter will bring at least 3 saxophones and a computer. richard will bring at least one guitar. i wonder which one? perhaps he will bring that thing that has no frets and which somewhat resembles an oud..... but perhaps not. indeed, we are not sure what is going to happen. how could we be? this is MESHMASS, after all.

meshmass are going to be playing a gig on the 29th of september in lewes at the westgate chapel, just near what was the west gate of the town wall, near keere street and pipe passage and other old things of historical interest such as ourselves. this performance will be relayed live on the radio (at least on 'radio lewes', which is probably only on the internet) and videoed as well for future reference. it will feature not only meshmass (the duo) and their various computers, tablets, saxophones, loopers and guitar-like objects but also the guest musicians adam bushell (tuned percussion) and james parsons (drumkit). we are looking forward to it. admission is free, and the tickets have been printed by an imbecile who ordered them with the name 'meshmash' on them, so i will have to track them down and incinerate them all - i cannot give out tickets with our name spelt wrong on them after all, it's pathetic. as ever, we will be playing music we have never played before, and three of the participants have never even heard, so almost anything might happen, but probably won't. doors open at 7:30, and you are all very welcome to come. it promises much - adam bushell will be playing the marimba, i hope, although he may bring a vibraphone instead. he is a very accomplished musician and has played with meshmass once before, but never in public. the same experience can be credited to james parsons, a longstanding member of brightonian improvisers 'bolide', and an inveterate participant in all manner of improvising collaborations including 'the bare springs'. we have long sought the opportunity to loosen up the edges of our computer-generated rhythms with human incompetence, and this is it, apparently. apart from that 'julymass 2018' has just escaped from its confinement and spread, virus-like across the universe, reaching as far as canada and even suffolk. it lasts nearly 2 hours and is really a very good month, it thinks. we shall report further at a later stage.

we, the unbelieved hereby declare februarymass 2018 'open for business' (and perhaps for other purposes less popular with our preposterous government). it contains 19 tracks ranging from the very short to the reasonably long (some say 'unreasonably long', but they are just spoilsports). 2 of them have vocals on, but the rest are free of any attempt to make sense. the whole shebang weighs in at 2 hours almost precisely. it is not a hebang. we recommend it to you. as for the wild excitements of our life in the sea of noise, i can announce quite truthfully that richard has been knocked off his bicycle by an errant mercedes and cracked his guitar finger as well as injuring his shoulderblade, his knifeblade and his razorblade. he now has to shave in a sling and wear a triangular warning sign round each neck. what do you mean, he only has one neck? oh. okay then. he only has one neck, but he stuck it out and a mercedes ran into it. so there is not likely to be much MESHMASS made in march - we already made some but had what we call 'technical difficulties' which resulted in everything shooting over to one side of the recording like a pile of beatles (have you ever noticed that? the psycho-acoustic effect of 'sergeant pepper's lonley hearts club band' (for example) is to generate the impression of little columns of beatles standing on each others' shoulders in wobbly heaps, banging drums and squeaking away in their charming falsettos like so many liverpudlian caryatids. we will not be hailed as universal geniuses for this achievement, and nor will we become the world's pre-eminent pop music producers, unlike the blithering fools who made that ghastly and overrated recording, but we do have half of december and a bit of february left over, so there will be enough MESHMASS to go round, never you fear. what's more, peter has sold several saxophones, but not enough as he still has some and threatens to blow through them. oh, woe is us. or should that be woe r us, since they have gone bancroft. bancroft? who is she? anyway, and regardless, MESHMASS is even now on its way to the deserving, rather like the blessings of the lord.

'well i never' we declare, each of us, as it is revealed to us that we are playing 'jazz', and that the place we are playing it is on radio 3's 'jazz now'. the question of genre is a particularly vexed and vexing one for the goo that is MESHMASS since we can honestly state that we have no idea what we are playing - only that it is MESHMASS and that there is always MORE of it and comes sometimes from the machines, or out of the vats, down pipes, and through the manipulation of electricity. we generally feel ourselves to be 'post-' something rather than 'alt-' anything, but this is the merest affectation, of course, except that in some sense we are not to be considered close enough to anything to be in the relationship implied by the prefix 'alt-' in regard to it. the closest i have recently come to being able to define it in any way is (in conversation, of course, and at someone else's suggestion) 'psychedelic'. this discovery was in reference to the so-called 'lewes psychedelic festival' which happened recently for i think the 3rd or 4th time without ever attempting to engage with anything that might be considered 'of lewes', (or indeed psychedelic, for all i know). it's certainly in any case not a festival since a (music) festival is an extended weekend of attempted debauchery in a muddy field. MESHMASS being IN lewes, and being (in lieu of anything else) 'psychedelic' to the considerable extent that people listening to it on acid get confused were nevertheless not at any time approached to play at the 'festival' and find themselves once more and indeed doubly bewildered. psychedelic is anyway and when used by me in particular, a quite loose term capable of swelling out to cover even MESHMASS, or at least parts of it, cotaining as it does the possibility of electro-acoustic semi-improvised instrumentals with occasional vocals and elements of dance, trance, techno, systems and ethnic musics also with reference to kwela and dub. of course it must be jazz if it is played on 'jazz now', but i have the feeling that it implies it was once something else. now, having not realised that it was (or had turned into) jazz, neither had i realised what it was before it became jazz, but i understand that it must have been something else. not jazz, then. but we must move with the times, albeit backwards in this case, and not stand in the way of regress.*[see footnote]~~~~~~ anyway, the essential thing to be stated is that whether or not we can be considered 'jazz' we are to be played on radio 3's 'jazz now' on monday 19th of february, to our considerable delight and surprise. the piece to be played is called 'altiplano' and is an entirely improvised duet. we are in fact and by inclination in terms of 'school' or 'skool' not old skool nor its presumed opposite new school but no skool. SO HERE IS OUR LESSON FOR THE WEEK, SOMETHING TO TATTOO ON OUR FOREHEADS. MESHMASS. NOT OLD SCHOOL BUT NO SCHOOL. ~~~~~~~~[footnote] "regress, i've had a few, but then again, too few to mention", after all. "non, je ne regress rien" is not appropriate in this case.

MESHMASS performed under the auspices of 'ceremonial laptop' at the rose hill in brighton on 1.11.2018. they were on at about 10 and played for nearly an hour. they used birdsong recorded at dawn in spain, 3 Strasser-Marigaux-LeMaire saxophones, a yamaha electric guitar, an i-pad, a laptop and some nervous energy. the other acts on that evening were 'undoing' and 'ninit'. it all went rather well, no-one knew what to expect (of course) but somehow ceremonial laptop had filled the place up with largely young people and they were attentive and appreciative. people clapped. people moved about as if they thought they might dance. people said they liked it, and it may have been true. the sound was great, not too loud and admirably clear. the rose hill is a splendid place. it has green tiles all over the front and is tucked away near preston circus where the fire station is. there's a great pizza house on the corner, called 'fatto a mano' (which doesn't mean 'fat bloke', incidentally, but 'hand-made'). they book creative and unusual entertainments and generally behave far too well to both audience and performers. we recommend them to you. we hope to go again.

in sensational news MESHMASS are going to play a gig, or make a live performance, perhaps, at the rose hill (formerly the rose hill tavern) an alternative arts space situated not far from preston circus in brighton on the coincidentally-named rose hill terrace. this performance will take place on THURSDAY 11th of january and is arranged under the auspices of 'ceremonial laptop'. MESHMASS will play the last set of three. i can say from personal experience that the rose hill is a pleasant and welcoming place run collectively and not a rabidly commercial venue which seeks to charge performers, audience and bar-staff for the privilege of using their facilities. as for normal behaviours, or behaviours previously demonstrated, MESHMASS managed to make a november release without undue difficulty, and rather good it seemed, at least to them. however there were 5 sessions in december and the prospect of reducing that to between an hour and two hours looms large in the future, like a big, erm, simile. in other recent events, peter was playing one of his 2 SML gold medal mark 1 tenor saxophones at the last MESHMASSSESSION of 2017 when the neck crook became detached from the collar which seats the neck into the body, rendering the instrument flabby and useless, and making a comedic noise. (this was of course indistinguishable to the untrained ear from the other noises peter made in the course of the session.) luckily enough this has now been repaired by the splendid jim at ackermann music in hove. thanks jim. so, and in short, a happy new year to all our reader, and good wishes to all.

MESHMASS at last get round to sorting out their october release, now that we are (all of us, just imagine) halfway through december and heading rapidly towards christmas. there are various reasons (or excuses, as we like to call them) for our unusual tardiness in this instance - firstly and above all there was a distinct lack of october in these parts, the little-known october shortage being caused by members of MESHMASS suddenly leaving the country and staggering about in the increasingly distant reaches of europa. there is nothing wrong with october per se - it is a useful month, separating september from november and containing many birthdays belonging to people we know. and it can be very attractive - indeed, in france, spain and portugal (we are told) it was BOILING HOT. as for the music, which to be honest we retrieved from abandoned bits of september we found down the back of the sofa and stuck to the side of the cooker, it's probably not our best release to date. unless you think it is, in which case we are wrong, as so often before. september was already struggling due to the infamous 'adjustments' made by our highly-trained technical department which resulted in underwater saxophone effects and a general feeling of queasy distance. however, this has now been entirely cured, november was really interesting and december is shaping up to be something rather special. in other news richard has reformed his effects rig, resulting in a greater clarity of sound from that particular region also, and peter has retrieved 2 saxophones from headwind music in bristol, where they were repaired by the excellent john pratt. they are an extraordinarily rare SML 'superluxe' alto, built in 1941 and a precursor of the SML 'super' series, his favourite saxophones - or alto saxophones, because the other was an SML gold medal mk 1 tenor which is like some sort of smoky dream. the 'superluxe' has 2 extra trill keys, very rare on SML saxes and plays a lot like a super 45 or 46. how wonderful it is.

MESHMASS have got a bit of a sulk on with soundcloud because it takes so much work to keep up with everybody who once listened to you up there and we in any case have no time in our crowded schedule for listening to music which does not emanate from the frothing vats in our bleak industrial cellars. we cannot remember the last time we heard any music. certainly not in october, of which there was a complete absence round here, making the selection of OCTOBERMASS 2017 a question of finding something to select rather than casting out vast bucketsful of the stuff and sorting around in the remaining entrails as is usually the case, when we are in danger of drowning in the resultant tidal waves. there will not be, and has not been, so much MESHMASS on soundcloud in the future - we used to post something nearly every week but now we can't be bothered. in unrelated news peter has been moonlighting in an improvising group called THE BARE SPRINGS which has even played a gig or two and specialises (it seems) in a region of high volume. it is a four-piece with guitar, bass and drums and him squarking away on various saxophones.

juddy and the months..... we are assailed by more than the usual measure of confusion, as certain of our membership chose this juncture to disappear into the increasingly distant reaches of the european continent, returning weeks later bearing only honey, bagasso and blurred memories. this has placed us in the invidious position of having to release a septembermass only in november (an effort we are shortly to make) and also to be rather alarmed at the prospect of octobermass at all. we realise this will not worry our overburdened subscribers (many of whom have failed even to download the augustmass we so carefully prepared for them - and which is rather good) but it is after all in breach of our contractual obligations, which is a matter we take very seriously. not only that but many of the recording we made in september (upon which we rely because of the almost complete lack of october in these parts), due to certain 'adjustments' made by our highly-trained technical team have been revealed to feature a saxophone (or possibly two or three, it is impossible to tell) recorded apparently underwater at the far end of an enormous cavern populated by echoing ghosts. woe. oh, woe is us. however we are delighted to announce that Justin Hopper's book including sussex myths and legends (among whom or which we certainly are and reside) is about to be published (and i quote):- "The Old Weird Albion is a creative non-fiction <(book, work, piece of writing)> exploring memory, myth and the landscape of the South Downs by American writer Justin Hopper. Published by Penned in the Margins..... this poetic essay <(tells)> of encounters with forgotten histories, eerie suburbs, eccentrics and visionaries." as for our various instrumentalisings, Richard has procured a wonderful new guitar made by Parker, or Parker-Knowles, or Parker-Bowles, possibly - i belive it's called a 'nightfly' - and Peter has 'invested' in a number of SML tenor saxes, mostly gold medal mk 1, with rolled toneholes and switchable g# linkage. some of them even work. he also now proudly displays for the amusement of drunken passers-by a borgani macerata curved soprano saxophone as once played by dead blokes. so, fear not, september soon!

australian netlabel NEW LEAF INC has released a MESHMASS collection called 'september songs'. the release features 'indogsnagnautovic', 'flutterhat', 'instigated', 'laminant', 'spindly' and 'started off so well', all tracks recorded in september 2016 by aural witness. 'flutterhat' and 'spindly' are pure improviation, 'started off so well' includes parts of a saxophone improvisation from the series 'isolated churches' and the rest are 'typical' meshmass using preprepared parts in ableton live from the laptop with saxophone, guitar and keyboard-phone. the longest track is 15:48 and the shortest 1:17.

unbelievable but true, certain things have been happening to MESHMASS which might actually be considered favourable. among these, REBECCA ASKEW attended our regular weekly meshfest at meshmass world central and contributed vocals to a session that also featured the return of the stick - richard played the chapman stick again with the mass for the first time since he destroyed one of the 1950's tannoys we used to monitor through. now we use headphones, so it's fairly safe - if confusing to singers, it transpires. REBECCA struggled womanfully with the unfamiliar conditions and process, she was i think perfectly shocked by the contributions of the machine and we all suffered a full gamut of inexplicable technical difficulties. nevertheless we emerged at the other end with just over an hour of new MESHMASS, one piece featuring a soulful vocal and another few with strange grunts and squeaks, which to be honest were mostly me. NEXT, i suppose, is the acceptance and release of a selection of pieces from september 2016 by the Australian netlable NEW LEAF INC, which will be turned loose into the world through their bandcamp site: Meshmass "September Songs" / April 10th - NLI004. we recommend it to you - it's wonderful, of course. and not content with that (for when have we ever been content?) MESHMASS were played on the BBC, the beloved programme 'LATE JUNCTION' played the improvised duet 'OH MOTHER', and despite all that the world has not ended.

januarymass 2017 MESHMASS have posted various things in various places, and some things even TO places. on Bandcamp we put up a compilation of odd bits we found lying around and also a random month just to show what a random month looks like. we also sent out the wonderful JANUARYMASS 2017 to our eager subscribers, 2 hours and 33 minutes of MESHMASS, carefully grade and sliced. Pieces range from 1 minute to 14 and a half minutes long, there are at least 7 duets among the 22 and there is one vocal. it is a foolish vocal, but there we are, that is the best we can do. these are the first pieces of a new year, our 7th, I should think. we struggle ceaselessly with the mass, trying to reduce and contain its ever-expanding girth, the sheer heft of it, its massive inertial thrust gathering all the music in the world into one horrible slurry. so we hacked and sliced, we chopped, we even burned, we cropped and stripped and shredded and impaled on spikes all manner of things, all sorts of beats and slices and yet januarymass still stretches like the boundless ocean, far out of sight, and the tide my friends is coming in. more mass. more shifting, omniversal mass, more involved repeatings, more bleats and blurs. always more and worse: the eternal motto of culture. mass is like culture, yes, it is a culture, a growth, like that other c word. uncontrolled growth, endless multiplication. here are your doses. smile.

well ! meshmass played the 'spirit of gravity' at the green door store in brighton, englistan, last night (thursday). by the time i had driven the 7 or so miles to this distant and romantic location it was possible to see through the windscreen of the little white van, something which had been rendered if not impossible then at least unlikely by a combination of frost and condensation. even my electrically powered driver's door window was frozen shut. windscreen wipers had no effect on the tiny crystals which had formed in an impenetrable sheet over the road ahead view, but i succeeded in scraping a little slot through which to peer and proceeded with a certain degree of caution (naturally, a degree or two below freezing.) it was warmer, or at least less frosty in brighton, where i had the usual excitements about parking, but promoter geoff reader kindly informed me that there was a parking permit behind the bar which i exchanged for my driving license. richard was already set up before i got there and a table and chair had been prepared for me, so i set up the laptop and then discovered that i had forgotten the mouse. after a minute or two i realised that i could not operate the computer without a mouse as i had disabled the touchpad 'pointing device' due to that fact that i kept doing unexpected things by touching it accidentally with my wrists, and i could not work out how to switch it on again without a mouse. geoff reader tried to help us and we were partway through examining the contents of the windows control panel - ho ho - when once again the staff at the spirit of gravity/green door store came to my rescue by digging out a mouse from some back room and we were able to play. we started more or less as the doors opened and it turned out that we were going to be LOUD. it's a while since we played through a P.A., and the temptation to be LOUD was irresistible, resulting in a floor-wobbling and trouser-flapping inferno of distorted guitar, squealing saxophone and sub-human bass through which the outlines of some marimba samples could dimly be discerned. at one point the guitar became so loud that i felt there was a great wind behind us, blowing us forward. we played for about an hour and despite everything people seemed to rather like it - they're tough, these brightonians. so, many thanks to all those who came - i recognised dave tribe and chris parfitt at least among them, and we all hope to see you again in the not-too-distant future.

november is postponed until january.

due to some hideous blockage in the ancient pipes which we use to transport meshmass to the orifice the november 2016 release is not yet available to the world. SHAME! (i hear you cry) - and right you are, we are ashamed, ashamed and disgusted. mostly we are disgusted because we have had to use wire coathangers straightened and then bent into hooks to cut through hideous clouds, crusts and gobbets of dried, congealed and rotting meshmass encrusted in our tubes. dear lord, the stench! but anyway, that's christmas for you, we mustn't grumble, everything will turn out lovely, just ask boris. november is so startlingly overdue that it has become next year already and we are nearly 2 months behind. if the meshmass backs up any further here we will all be drowned, or something. latest research indicates that despite extensive efforts to burn and otherwise destroy excess meshmass november still weighs in at a thoroughly swollen 2 hours 35 minutes and is hot and painful to the touch. we have diverted teams of technicians towards solving this problem without apparent success, and what is more we have to play a gig, this one at 'the spirit of gravity' in brighton, somewhere under the station in something that resembles a disused sewer. and on a thursday, too, in the middle of winter. there is no mercy for us. but we do not deserve mercy, only contumely and novelty headgear. eager (nay, desperate) subscribers must wait. november is postponed.

august in october

Help, help, we are terribly late! The augustmass has not arrived in September, and all the little birds are a-twitter with amazement and chagrin. Or some sort of grin anyway. It is already October, and raining, and there is a hurricane on its way and we have not even sent out august yet. Heroic efforts by gangs of startled rodents, chewing desperately at the ancient mastertapes handed down through the generations have led to the new meshmass monthly clocking in at a mere 2 hours (or so). ‘praise be’, cry the poor porters and carrier pigs of the internet, whose thankless and entirely wage-free task it is to convey brimming barrels of meshmass over the invisible waves to your computer. But this will in the end avail them little – more meshmass is being prepared in bubbling vats and arising spontaneously in noisome pools. so do not fear, dear reader, meshmass is coming, enough meshmass for all..... more than enough! and this month we even remembered to include the lovely cover photograph we always promise and often forget.