from Audion 55 (multimedia), released October 14, 2020
EXTREMITIES - FRACTURE (AMCDR 112)
Picture the scene if you will dear reader. A Sunday afternoon in the middle of June 2007, the dawn chorus now little more than a distant memory. A third of the nation are sitting around a table eating a meal of processed roast beef, another are still semi comatose and recovering from the night before and the remainder are dragging themselves around a shopping centre, convinced that they need to purchase something, but unsure exactly what it is.
But wait! What's this? Our surveillance cameras pan across to a dimly lit room in the middle of leafy Leicester where we detect an image of four shadowy figures, huddled together seemingly deep in conversation.
A plot to overthrow the government perhaps? Or maybe a meeting of the Real Roast Beef Society?
There's something odd here to be sure, the only light in the room is emitted from a bank of flashing LED`s and from their red glow we observe that one of the group seems to be drinking from a bottle marked as Old Kluster Cider whilst another looks as if he is playing a strange ethnic instrument, possibly a Snake Charmer. That's it then, a group of dissident alcoholic anarchists involved in the importation of foreign animals.
Zoom in with those microphones, call out the Special Extremities Officers, I think we may have some trouble here, especially from the scruffy one who looks as though he `s been trekking across the Australian Outback for the past nine months! Watch out for him, he looks extremely dangerous.
Fast forward three days or so to a meeting between the Officer in charge of that ill-fated mission now known as Operation Fracture (Lets call him Frank) and his Superior.
"So you took it upon yourself to use fifteen officers, three units of Surveillance Forces armed with Jigsaw Polka guns and five tins of Triax Gas, sounds like a bit of overkill if you ask me if it was simply a group of four dissidents"
"You`ve no idea how much noise those four could make, at times the whole thing felt like an orchestra of Neolithic cavemen whilst on other occasions there was a singular Zen-like quality to the whole proceedings."
"Don't give me that sort of schism Frank, bite me if I'm wrong, but you totally lost the plot over the whole affair"
"Yeah, I know, I`ll be lucky if you don't erase me for this one, but I'm telling you, those guys in that room were producing something outta this world, some of those sounds haven't even been invented yet, the combination of four like-minded (non) musicians could have produced an over cooked mess of perpendicular proportions, but they worked so well together, each contributing just the right amount, just as you like it."
A diagonal shaft of light falls across the room whilst outside a fog bank fails to suffocate the sound of passing cars that drift across the otherwise silent hill.
"Honestly the whole thing blew three of our best microphones. It was the strange mixture of Teutonic industrial angst combined with the dreamtime qualities produced by flute and hurdy gurdy. At times it was like being engulfed beneath a wave of grinding guitars and then the scene would suddenly shift to something more formless, more ethereal, I've never heard such stuff before"
"Pull yourself together Frank, you're talking as if you're one of those noiseniks yourself, and that's not the Company Way, I think you better take a short vacation, you've been putting in far too many hours, all of that stuff will only end up giving you terrorforming dreams."
"But I'm telling ya boss, the stuff they are producing is utterly unique, more people need to hear this, I'm simply puzzled as to why you don't give them a chance."
"Enough of this ranting Frank, I suggest you leave now before I seriously reconsider your future with the Company, you know how precious I am about who works for me. Get out there and sort out that other problem, those damn Kni are still running around town like they own the place."
As Frank Leaves the room a sudden breeze reveals a T-shirt which had otherwise been hidden beneath the confines of a once pristine tailor made jacket, the image on the shirt is one of two crazed looking animals along with the statement "A Newt Hound Is For Life."
The corridor outside echoed for days with the sound of Franks manic laughter.
Peter Smix