k-punk & Scanshifts: londonunderlondon
 
In 2005, k-punk and fellow traveller Scanshifts assembled an audiomentary called londonunderlondon for Resonance FM. A sonic dérive and an expression of Mark’s “pulp modernism”, it wove original voice recordings (including from several guest Dissensians) with traces of Wiley, Metalheadz, Delia Derbyshire and John Foxx, among others. My description at the time: ‘like a beautiful dark dream. Abandoned underground tunnels, troglodytes, fleeting Drumz churning , shy animals, ethereal grime…’
I believe it aired twice in 2005, and then once again later on, but it isn’t currently available online.  At the time, Mark very generously offered a CD version to Dissensians and I’d like to share a copy here.
londonunderlondon, ruff-mixed as it is, needs to be seen as a work in progress. Naturally, it isn’t anything like equal to its inspirations – which number anything from Glenn Gould’s The Idea of North, Chris Marker, Eno, David Toop – but what became clear to us as we produced it was how little punk will there is. The cyberpunk infrastructure is already there. Something like Cool Edit – an excellent programme btw – reduces sound composition to the core cyberpunk function of cut and paste. Yet the main use to which is put is to produce ‘music’ (or, worse, insufferable ‘sound art’) – what about all those interzones between music, fiction, drama, documentary, a DJ set? What is lacking is the will to explore such terrains.
Pt. 1 Dawn in the Empty City
Pt. 2 Noon Pounding Jurassic Sun
Pt. 3 Necropolis Now
Pt. 4 Crepiscular Evening (the Confluence of the Thames and the Fleet)
(** These are large files so please be kind to my server)
It would be valuable and a fitting tribute to have a web archive that collects Mark’s dispersed works that aren’t available in book form or on his blog. There are a couple of pieces in the Hyperdub archive at Riddim.ca (here and here) and another at my old autonomicforthepeople blog, but there are dozens more scattered all around. I would be happy to help with such a project in any way.