Mood Control nods—
~Speakerships now on standby. Prepare for imminent materialization—
On the edges of the viewscreen a sudden tremor begins, a convulsion of subspace rifts, the continuum clouding like churned mud in water—
A phalanx of golden cubes materializes, each bearing a circular speaker.
~Initiate funk bombardment—
Solid waveform bricks blast from the speakerships, invisible missiles encased in micro-atmospheres capable of sustaining sound through space, erupting into audible funk as soon as they strike the Bulgarian ships—
—the fleet scattering—
—navigators abandoning their terminals—
—crews lost to distraction, mutiny and spontaneous dancing—
Space war ensues—silver rockets swerving through the void, immediate disarray giving way to organized formations, trained crews and navigators firing on the golden cubes—
Our man switches frequencies and addresses the scattered fleet—
~Attention all Bulgarian units. Your commander has deserted you. Abandon battlestations. Repeat: abandon battlestations and keep the funk alive...
Some ships accept the order and remain in place, others flee Scottish space, accelerating to the outer reaches of the Anglosphere... others continue resistance, some crashing into the atmosphere, others breaking into frenzied circular movements when hit by the speakerships—
Our man hears movement behind him and turns, sees Park in a stolen Bulgarian space suit making for the escape hatch—
~I’m leaving. There’s an escape pod left—Lazarov and his guards only took one of them.
~You’re taking off at a time like this?
~I have the information my employers need. There’s no reason for me to stick around and risk this situation getting any worse.
~I appreciate your support, our man deadpans.
~I don’t owe you anything, M-Funk. If anything, we’re even now.
Park steps through the doors—
~I expect we’ll cross paths again...
Our man starts to reply, but the face of Mood Control appears again on the terminal monitor—
~M-Funk, unidentified ships are taking off from Glasgow—
~The Club’s warships, I assume.
The screen image warps and darkens, Mood Control’s face replaced with Samuel Johnson’s as the Club interfaces with the communications terminal—
~Correct. I must congratulate you on your escape, M-Funk. But now it is time for you to leave. Orbital defense systems have you targeted, and our fleet is moving into position now. All speakerships are ordered to withdraw or face immediate destruction.
M-Funk turns to the viewscreen and sees a column of glittering ships leaving the Scottish atmosphere—nightblack boomerangs encrusted with reflective diamonds, crowded with elaborate crests and decorative panelling—mosaics of the Club themselves, victory scenes of Johnson and Boswell striding across worlds—
Our man closes the Club interface and reconnects to Mood Control—
~Funkatron One, those ships are fuelled by calcified funk. If we can detonate it all immediately, we can take them out. Send in basscadet unit 420—
Something the size of a large asteroid edges into the viewscreen, an enormous golden sphere with a flat opening on one side—black mouth like a great cannon—
~Basscadet unit detonate the funk—initiate masspulse—
Our man feels a vibration beginning in his bones, a tremor spreading to his skull, as if space itself has become heavier: a new and sudden gravity, bone-deep thrumming coming in waves, shaping itself into audible syllables—
SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT, LET ME RIDE
The Club ships’ engines rupture, calcified funk explosions lighting up the darkness—fragments of the glittering ships breaking off in a hail of dust and fire, falling back into Scotland’s gravity well—
A single ship remains, larger than the rest, continuing on its course—
Johnson’s face appears onscreen again—
~You are persistent, M-Funk. But once again your efforts are in vain.
~You survived the detonation...?
~Obviously. I am speaking to you from aboard the Tigermilk, our crowning vessel, which is fuelled not by funk, but by raw punk energy... see for yourself—
The scene changes from a closeup of Johnson’s face to a tracking shot of a vast metallic interior, an engine room lined with exercise equipment—crowded with punks connected to ceiling wires, running on treadmills—old school punks sweating into their vivienne sex gear, mallpunks pogoing, nazi punks running in jackboots, sXe punks leading cardiovascular workouts, steampunks in platform boots, cyberpunks in surgical masks, goatpunks with herding staffs and shaggy coats—
~Describe sexual activity using a clinical tone and economic metaphors—‘Pay to Cum’ in ‘Damaged Goods’—ironized nihilists beyond enjoyment—we have sent the punks to the gym where they belong. No two and a half minutes of squelching noises for them—
‘I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t fuck. At least I can fucking think.’
Enlightened progress—bodymind divide—be ever wary of the ass which must be derided through nigh-high-dealism, your passion paid for with the two sides of the control coin, dignity and disdain. Stop shaking and start jumping up and down—and we’ll plug you into a treadmill where all that restless energy can be put to better use. Stop wearing gold pants and buy some tight, ripped jeans. You were only ever a minor threat.
The Tigermilk advances—
~Give it up, Johnson. The Bulgarian fleet is scattered, and you only have one ship left. Funkatron One is moving more speakerships into place. Before long Scotland will be free.
Johnson flashes a smile of teeth like acid-edged pearls—
~You forget that we have the anti-funk.
~It’s too dangerous to use... you have to listen to me... prolonged damage to the funkosphere would have consequences you can’t possibly understand...
Johnson moves his hand to a crystal-edged lever and depresses it—
~Releasing the anti-funk... now.
~Johnson...
~You’ve been careless, M-Funk. You forgot to close down the transmat booth after entering the mothership. It’s still open, and one of our friends has just gone over to visit... look behind you.
Our man turns, sees a massive metal frame trundling towards him on treadwheels—monitor-face mounted in a spherical silver body radiating rod-like arms—metal claws and wire tentacles—voice a bullhorn blare—
I AM MOLOCH THE MALFUNCTIONER.
~Another Kompressor?
I PERCEIVE EVERY SIGN, I CAN STEAL EVERY MIND.
Several of the stray chimps come to M-Funk’s aid, leaping upon the metal shape only to be batted away by arms of spiked steel—
Our man feels a sudden heaviness in the air—his own movements delayed, frames subtracted from time—
The face of Mood Control flashes onscreen—
~Funkosphere depression now measuring Worrell -6... dropping... -7
A metal tendril whips around M-Funk’s leg and drags him to the ground...
ALL ORGANICS SCHEDULED FOR DESTRUCTION UNTIL FINAL SYNTHESIS COMMENCES. PLANETCORE ANTI-FUNK ENGINES ACTIVATED. AWAIT THE NEGATIVE MOVEMENT—
~Funkatron One, situation out of control...
A heavy bladed arm (guillotine glimmer) rises above M-Funk’s head—
Time stretches further—removal of movement—scraping/scouring slowness—
Paralytic density of anti-dancing and embalmed air—
A voice sounds in our man’s mind—
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Stretched slowness—
The tendril loosens—
PRESENCE OF UNSELF // TRACE ORGANIC CONSCIOUSNESS
The bladed arm freezes in place.
~Uh?
M-Funk frees his leg, gets to his feet—his own movements echoed back to him in slowtime, paralysis rate increasing, an undercurrent of leaden death in the air—fastbreeding exhaustion/enervation, concrete deathsleep negative movement—
Ahead of him, the frozen machine—
~Lord Monboddo?
I/WE HAVE INTEGRATED MONBODDOMIND INTO MY/OUR NEURAL NETWORK AND MONBODDOMIND HAS INTEGRATED ME/US. PROJECTED SYNTHESIS OF ANALOG AND DIGITAL ASSBANGING ADVANCED TO PROBABILITY 73.5%. SOUNDFLOWERS IN STARSOIL. MILES OF GOLD AND DISTANCE DANCING MINDFIELDS BRUISING FLESH-HOT AIR.
~That’s great, but there won’t be a universe for any kind of assbanging at all if we don’t stop the anti-funk, dig?
AFFIRMATIVE.
The voice of Mood Control now a distant whisper—
~Funkosphere depression -10 and dropping...
INVERSE FUNKATIVITY INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY—
The viewscreen scene of Scotland vanishes, replaced with a white void—
Dull strumming in the corner of our man’s mind, iron strings in dolorous regions beyond time—
~M-Funk, Johnson yells through the com terminal—
Behind him Burke and Boswell stand frozen in unnatural postures of shock—
~It’s too late, Johnson... holes in the funkosphere...
A cold, damp attic. Dust thick on unplayed records—
Empty dancefloors—
Acoustic sorrow tear-seeping through ruptured aeons—
Johnson’s face flickers in photonegative—
~M-Funk—this isn’t the end—
Another second-skip and the Tigermilk is gone, sucked into the Kozelek anti-universe, swallowed whole by ragged jaws of time and space—
Reality tears in silence—
Words crawl through M-Funk’s mind, an insinuating voice of hopelessness—
I am the anti-funk. I am the gravity that drags all dancers to death. When you were in year five, standing up against the wall because ‘dancing is for girls’, I was there. When you were in university listening to Autechre and thought you were too cool to dance, I was there. When your first girlfriend broke up with you, you could have listened to Mothership Connection. You could have gone to a club. You didn’t. You put on The Queen is Dead and listened to “I Know It’s Over” on repeat for four and a half hours, interspersed occasionally with the Xiu Xiu cover of “Ceremony”. You spent the next few weeks alone, moping around in the sad gazebo of the mind. I made that decision. I was present in the slackening of your body, the loss of the will to dance, the will to live. I am the pale, creeping death of funk.
~Get it out of my head!
Now you’re an adult and you don’t have time to dance anymore; you have responsibilities. You married a woman who unironically listens to Coldplay, Travis and Keane—and there’s a baby on the way. Your job keeps you out until late, and by the time you’re finished you just want to listen to something soothing. You start thinking hip-hop is too abrasive, and ‘a bit juvenile—all that posturing and misogyny’. One day you go into the closet and take out all the albums you haven’t listened to for years. You sell Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, The Real Thing by Faith No More, The Chronic, and the self-titled Cypress Hill album. You keep Sailing the Seas of Cheese by Primus, but it just ends up getting lost anyway. When no one is home you download Mothership Connection and try dancing around the house, but it’s not like when you lived in the country and no one cared. Now there are neighbors, people living above and below you, and they will complain if you dance or play your music too loudly.
~...must stay on the scene... like a sex machine... stay on the scene... like a loving machine...
One day your wife ‘discovers’ Elliott Smith and makes you listen to Either/Or while holding your hand and staring vaguely out the window. ‘It’s such a shame truly sensitive people often end up like that,’ she says. ‘It reminds me of Nick Drake.’ You feel overwhelmed by the sincerity of suicidal white men with acoustic guitars.
~Ah... fuck that unfunky shit... dammit... can’t maintain much longer...
Your wife invites you out for a night at the pub with her co-workers. You feel bored at the prospect, but go anyway. Unexpectedly you enjoy yourself. The atmosphere is relaxed, the conversation undemanding. After several drinks you are invited to perform karaoke. You feel hesitant at first, but eventually take part in a number of sing-a-longs. Refreshingly, everyone seems as hesitant as you are; the atmosphere of mutual embarrassment and shared recognition of obvious lack of singing ability endears you all to each other. You feel as if you have reached adulthood, and the prospect doesn’t distress you: a relaxing night out with friends seems preferable to banging hot Cambodian asses at a club in Phnom Penh. On the way home, conversation turns to the baby, and your wife suggests ‘a more sensible name’ like Graham or Peter instead of Q-FUNK THA QUANTIC FUNK BABY (pbuh). You had already imagined your son hitting up the nursery school and pulling two year olds with no secondary sexual characteristics, but you concede that this wasn’t practical, and that funk-based names might not be as popular in ten or twenty years.
~Fuck no... too many people named Graham already...
A seizure strikes our man as he struggles to suppress the voice of the anti-funk—
M-FUNK, I/WE HAVE ACCESSED THE CONSOLE CONSCIOUSNESS INSTALLED IN THE CENTER OF SCOTLAND AND CANCELLED ALL ANTI-FUNK TRANSMISSIONS—
~Great... but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference, does it?
THE ANTI-UNIVERSE IS ATTEMPTING TO WIDEN THE HOLES IN THE FUNKOSPHERE. I/WE HAVE PROGRAMMED THE CONSOLE CONSCIOUSNESS TO BROADCAST FUNK. THIS NEW OUTPUT WILL FOCUS THE ATTENTION OF THE ANTI-FUNK AND ALLOW THE FUNKOSPHERE TO REPAIR ITSELF. PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS ESTIMATED AT 42.8%.
~Better than nothing...
The gnawing in our man’s mind increases—
Pale hands grasping—
THE ANTI-UNIVERSE HAS TRACED THE CONTROL SIGNAL TO THIS VESSEL. I/WE ARE NOW THE FOCUS OF ITS ATTENTION. BY BROADCASTING FUNK ON ALL FREQUENCIES AND MOVING FURTHER INTO THE BREACH WE WILL ALLOW THE FUNKOSPHERE TO CLOSE BEHIND US.
~But then we end up the same as Johnson, right?
NOT NECESSARILY. IF I/WE GENERATE A CONTINUOUS FUNK OUTPUT OF EXACTLY THE SAME VOLUME AS THE ANTI-FUNK, THEN THE FUNK/ANTI-FUNK REACTION WILL NEVER COMPLETE ITSELF, AND THE INHABITANTS OF THE ANTI-UNIVERSE WILL BE BLOCKED FROM ENTERING THIS ONE.
~So we’ll be plugging a drain... with two oppositely charged magnets?
YOUR METAPHOR IS INCOHERENT, M-FUNK, BUT CONVEYS SOMETHING OF THE REALITY. THE CLOSING OF THE FUNKOSPHERE BEHIND US WILL CREATE A LOCALIZED POCKET IN REALITY SEALED BY THE FUNK/ANTI-FUNK REACTION, INSULATING US FROM BOTH UNIVERSES.
~Sacrifice ourselves... well, let’s do it.
Mood Control’s voice sounds—
~Funkatron One calling M-Funk—all speakerships operating at maximum capacity—basscadet units preparing for masspulse detonation—
~Continue bombardment, Funkatron One—seal off the area. I’m going deeper in...
Our man tries to move, but feels deathweights holding him down—
He imagines a dancefloor somewhere in the past, a darkened room lined with gold—
Kaleidoscopic sound-fragments, sweat and straining movements—
Transmission begins—
...“The beat and the heat and the neat repeat of the notes which poured from the set—metal made for music, funk and anti-funk locked in a fine magnetic grid to ward off the outermost perils of space... The churn and the burn and the hot return of music riding the living beat, accompanying itself in an air-carried echo.”...
Another seizure—
The Bulgarian mothership rushes to the heart of inverse funkativity—
And our man glimpses—
piercing the veil
white transmission
manic compression
in a cold damp attic
two windows stare at us like eyes
staggering sadcore mumbles
fragmented ghosts clawing
come out from the burning fire, butterfly
murmurous voices of the dead in dolorous regions beyond time—
let me lock you in my room and keep you for a while
Kozelek slumped in an endless requiem, gnawing anti-universe of distant echoes and living statues—
pale hands
pure immobility
stopmotion from stopsounds, sleeparchive of roomic cubes—
Deathmasks, deathfaces pressing on the membrane, strumming the iron strings in dolorous regions beyond time—
blood in the streets
blood on the rocks
blood in the gutter
the cold
Nowhen.
Nullspace.
Infinite funk/anti-funk reaction, cancellation stasis.
Endless soundless senseless dark, anti-ontic ocean. Thoughts crammed in spirals, no-space constraint. Unmeasured eternity.
Fathomless.
<
NO, M-FUNK. YOU EXIST NOW IN THE CAUTERIZED MEMBRANE, SPACETIME CICATRIX. HERE THE SILENCE/ANTI-SOUND/ANTI-UNIVERSE PRESSES AGAINST ME/US AT EVERY COORDINATE POINT, JUST AS THE LIVING UNIVERSE OF FUNK PRESSES AGAINST ME/US FROM THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, BOTH CONTINUA INFINITELY CLOSE AND INFINITELY DISTANT.
<
THOSE OBJECTS DO NOT EXIST INSIDE ME/US YET, SINCE I/WE HAVE NOT THOUGHT TO MANIFEST THEM.
Dadaoism (An Anthology) Page 10
