Episode 171: A Paradise For Assholes

A Few Days Since I Left The House

This particular episode aired on April Fool’s Day, but there’s not much joking going on. We were all still getting used to shelter in place, it still had some novelty, but certain elements were taking a simple request not to put their fellow citizens at risk of disease and death as an unfair imposition. The resistance was a tiny fraction of the populace, fanned by astroturf money and outsized media attention… but it was enough to test the patience with humanity as a species, especially when one (me) had little such patience to begin with.

Put another way: when I first heard KMFDM’s ‘title track’ to this episode, it struck me as facile and juvenile, the kind of unearned smugness-as-misanthropy that bugged the crap out of me, as someone who considers his own misanthropy hard-won. On April 1, 2020, on the other hand, it seemed entirely justified.

It is immediately followed by one of those little serendipities that has me thinking that the “art is just the universe speaking through me” crowd might just be on to something… I picked the Homeshake TayePal remix almost at random, having not paid much attention to the words. So when I was putting the episode together was the first time I noticed the lyric “It’s been a few days, yeah/ Since I left the house.” Originally an expression of the immobility that comes with heartbreak, it took on new meaning.

Other than those tow things, we have footwork, jungle and Turbo, introduced by a fun little post-punk ditty that wears its influence on its title.

• Automatic – Suicide In Texas [Signal]
• DJ Manny x DJ Taye – Give it to me [TEKLIFE VIP 2020]
• BSN Posse – Drifting [Drifting]
• EQ Why & DJ MC – Who Hotter Than Me [3537 LowEnd Drive]
• DJ Diamond – Work [Footwork Or Die]
• DJ Paypal – Awakening [Sold Out]
• Hesk – Horms for 2k18 [JBDUBZ Vol. 6]
• Darran Keen – Glass Juke [Total Nerves On Absolute Maximum EP]
• Jonny Megabyte – Homicide [JBDUBZ Vol. 4]
• Sonic D – Garifuna [JBDUBZ Vol. 6]
• KMFDM – Paradise [Paradise]
• Homeshake – Just Like My (TayePal Remix) [Helium Remixes]
• The Heights – Velour Tracksuits [JBDUBZ Vol. 6]
• DJ Clent – I Love You [Bangs & Works Vol. 1]
• Morwell – Stay on the Streets [Eyes on Me EP]
• Philip D Kick – Drown [Pathways]
• Surly – Drown [Surly EP]
• DJ Roc – Got No Crack [Practice What U Preach]
• KΣITO – Light [Cape EP]
• Traxman – She Take It In Tha Face [Slash Time – The Album]
• Fracture – Get Raw [Fracture Presents: Turbo]
• Amon Tobin – Creatures [Bricolage]
• Om Unit – City Lights [Violet (EP)]

BPM Range: 162-170