Artist: Magic Bullet

Title: Centurion: The Best Of The...

Label: Music & Elsewhere

Catalogue Number: M&E MB-010

Release Date: 1st June 2023

Running Time: 59:10

Format: Download

Buy Link: Bandcamp - GBP £5.00 / CDR on request (+p&p)

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In celebration of 100 releases on 29 labels in 17 countries, Music & Elsewhere proudly presents the very best of the Magic Bullet. And there's absolutely no 'kind of' about it this time, Skit and I spent a couple of weeks bickering violently over which tracks should be included, and we have the bruises to prove it! This selection truly represents the absolute cream of our output over

44 ear-terrorising months together, in our humble opinion, excluding only stuff that is already available on our Bandcamp...

   o1. The Magic Bullet Song (4:44)

First appearing in this format on Optimas, the 'kind of best of sampler album' released by Hamfuggi Records in July 2022, followed in January of this year by inclusion on Godspunk Volume 24, the well respected Pumf Records CD compilation series,  albeit under the alternative title of We're The Bullet From Knott End-On-Sea. It actually started life late in 2019 as the foundation of a spacepunk tribute to our beloved AFC Wimbledon, but was first heard after being co-opted for our debut radio session in the December, a poorly mixed prototype being aired as Neil Crud On Tudno FM, that being the show we appeared on. The AFC Song version was first released on our own Curiositas album in April 2020, other adaptations being We Love Knott End-On-Sea for Shorty Music V. Poiskah DoDo & Friends  and We Love The Farnborough Groove. I'm thinking you can probably guess who the latter was for. So, as you can see, a bit of a generic multi-purpose banger theme tune for us, hence the eponymous title. It simply had to be here. Sorted...

   o2. We Would Hear The Machines (3:01)

From Mi Casa, Su Casa, an album in the Electronic Cottage Split series on Hal Tapes, released in November  2020, though it too had a CD outing, a shorter special edit appearing on Godspunk Volume 22 in April 2021. The concept behind the album was to make tracks using things found in different rooms of our house (plus percussion, natch), the utility room in the case of this one; samples being cut from recordings of a boiler, a steam iron, a tap running into a stainless steel sink, a vacuum cleaner, a tumble dryer and a washing machine. Oh yes, you will hear the machines...

   03. Optional Reality (I Think We're Fucked) (3:49)

From The World Is Over, released on Le Colibri Nécrophile in June 2020. An avant garde elektroid lampoon of Donald Trump (no, we're not fans), of which the central instrument was created from a sample of my neighbour using an electric-sander on an adjoining wall...

   04. The First Time I Did Acid... (6:43)

When Sturm Und Drang GmbH announced they were doing a drug-themed compilation called Chasin' Dragons (And Occasionally Catching One), it got us all nostalgic for Stonehenge and the 70's, so we came up with this decidedly trippy piece of electronica. Only it's not, there isn't a synthesizer in sight, the whole thing was made from a sample of someone pulling down a zipper...

   05. Simulation Theory (3:55)

A surprising (for us) little piece of elektrofunk, recorded especially for old friend Chris Phinney's Harsh Reality Music and an album called Deconstructing Reality Volume 2, released in August 2022. Cool groove, isn't it? We thought it worked rather well, so here it is...

   06. The Sun Shines On Sailor Moon (6:25)

Created for the themed album Anime Compilation II, released on the Internet Daemon netlabel in June 2021. Inspired by the famous anime character of the title, we went all out Japanese, creating an ambience with a babbling brook that is genuinely in Japan, shamisen and native tongue. But the pièce de résistance is the haunting pentatonic duet for piano and Stylophone (yes, hand on heart) that said ambience frames...

   07. Ushqar (5:23)

There is a certain beauty to India's favourite instrument, along with nostalgic memories of the golden age of psychedelia, so a compilation themed on it was always going to attract our attention. All that you hear on this track (except the drum, of course) is created from sitar samples, even the bits that sound like an old reed organ! The album is called Sitar On Sitar and it was released by Camembert Électrique in June 2022...

   08. Kill Putin! (3:02)

This is how the track originally appeared, because his ordering the invasion of Ukraine seriously pissed us off. But when we offered a special edit to Kyiv based Vladimir Vpdodo for a Shorty Music compilation, he rejected it on moral grounds, and you simply have to respect the views of someone who is actually on the receiving end, so we toned it down to Stop Putin, which he duly released on LTNS (Parts I-V) in April 2022, just weeks after the tanks rolled in. However, at the time of writing, we haven't heard from Vladimir in seven months. One can only hope. And somehow, after fifteen months of war and tens of thousands of deaths, it seems a little late for Stop, so...

   09. Morning Mist Over Parrox Hall Farm (6:05)

Inspired by the dawn view from our bedroom window and my love of the cello, this was actually a second attempt to create a piece with samples of the instrument (the first being Saturday, Sunday, Surréalité in 2019) and it definitely ticked all the boxes this time. This moody and strangely relaxing duet for cello and electronica was released on Landscapes Volume II by Cian Orbe in January 2021. Best enjoyed with an ice cold gin and tonic...

   10. I Want More Toys! (1:16)

Originally created as a filler for our second appearance on the Godspunk CD compilation series on Pumf Records, it ended up being one of the most popular tracks on it; "We need more Twizz on their tracks!" (Review by Andy Martin). I just had this idea of a petulant adolescent caring about nowt but toys, and exploitation beginning at home, as it clearly does, roped our Twizz in to do the 'Flying Lizards on cyberpunk' vocal. Got its first release, appropriately enough, on Camembert Électrique's 2022 Christmas 'advent' compilation, ApocalyXmas Now, before turning up on Godspunk Volume 24 in January of this year. She wants more toys. Oh, and she wants them now...

   11. They Visit Her At Night (2:04)

And here's one we made earlier with them! Another track from the Mi Casa, Su Casa album, representing our daughter's bedroom, and put together entirely from samples we recorded of Twizz's various toy musical instruments, complete with a rainbow xylophone, red plastic recorder and a Peppa Pig drum...

   12. The Adventures Of Officer Kitty In Space! (4:33)

When Shaun Robert came up with the notion of Musique Concrète For Children for the popular compilations on his Institute For Alien Research label, little could he have known that he would be starting a cult series! This is the original and the best, released in October 2020 when Twizz was only 7. An endearing and amusing cut up of a child's play, sat amidst the concrète atmosphere of daddy and Uncle Skit's experimental sound manipulations...

   13.  Waiting For Wyre Rose (6:06)

And to conclude the sonic adventure, a quick verse of our theme tune (album only), linking into our homage to Knott End-On-Sea's iconic ferry, as released in its original form on Tonio Rumoer's BenchesBenches project in July 2021. It's what you might call an enhanced field recording, captured 'as is' on the jetty, then a little post production EQ and stereoscaping, with only minimal FX, creating a beautiful mix of art and reality to finish...

   14. 60 Second Sonata For The Disconcertion Of Dogs

 (1:00)

Actually, I'm not sure we'd really consider this as one of our best, but it was quite a clever idea we had for an album called False Noise, released by {AN} Eel's Charlie Dog Records in July 2021. It actually uses frequencies way above the range of human hearing, so we thought we'd stick it on the end here for a laugh, just in the hope folk won't realise the album is still playing and wonder why their pets are running insanely from one speaker to another...

MMATTERIALISATION CHAMBER