'Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?'

Welcome now my friends to the show that finally gets started. Before we get onto the more important business of rambling on ad infinitum about the varied and almost always vaguely dubious celluloid, tomes and vinyl that we obsess over, it might be in our interests to tell y'all what we've been up to of late.

2010's biggest thrill thus far, naturellement, has been the release of this expressly delightful platter o'splatter, on Rocket Recordings.

We've been alarmed to see that certain folk seem to be not only taking our ill-starred, planet-destroying racket seriously, but actually enjoying it. Amongst these are the mighty Arch-drude himself, Julian Cope, and Terrascope's esteemed psych-paragon Phil McMullen. Mr. McMullen stands as perhaps the only chap thus far who's spotted how much we rip off Hovercraft, which endeared him to us right from the outset. We had a fabulous write-up from Matt Poacher at The Line Of Best Fit to boot.

We were also hella chuffed to not only get a chance to make merry and spin discs at one of our all-time favourite boozers, The Mucky Pup, but to get a chance to put together a couple of mixtapes under the auspices of two of our fave websites, The Quietus and 20 Jazz Funk Greats.

We're obviously slavishly devoted to all the tunes on both, but the latter in particular brought us untold amounts of good cheer throughout its attendant selection and mixing shenanigans. Here's the tracklisting, and you can also download it from here.

1. Eroc: Greenhouse Effect
2 .Oneida: All Arounder
3. Dirty Filthy Mudd: Forest Of Black
4. Big Business: Another Fourth of July…Ruined
5. Skyramps: Flight Simulator
6. Bongwater: Nick Cave Dolls
7. This Heat: S.P.Q.R.
8. Venus Gang: Cosmic Daddy
9. Reichmann: Wunderbar

10.Keith Fullerton Whitman: Schnee

11.Hygrades: In The Jungle
12.Crom: The Gathering
13.Medieval Steel: Medieval Steel
14.Underworld: To Heal

There's also a free download on offer here of 'Cities Of Gold', four minutes of cosmic carousing that originally only saw the metropolis' wintry gloom as part of the ace Rocket/Noisestar free Sunday Space Ritual CD, given away free to punters at the Christmas shindig on December 20th last year. There's also a charming photo of one of our number dressed as Princess Aura, from the Flash Gordon show we did on New Years Eve 2008/9. The NME writer in question seems to be implying that this isn't a satisfactory fashion statement.

All this fresh lunacy aside, we're currently holed up in our Manor House den of iniquity, working on the second album, which is due for release later this year. We shall naturally reveal the inspirations that transpire along this rocky road at regular intervals. We've been taking a bit of a break from gigging to get all this together, yet rest assured we're gonna plan something special for out return to the fray, which is most likely gonna be a crash-landing somewhen in April. Be afraid.

Right, now all that's out of the way, we can get on with the ill-advised rambling and unspeakable hubris.

TOTS DISCS OF DAMNATION: FEBRUARY 2010:

High On Fire-Snakes For The Divine

Gil Scott Heron-I'm New Here

Celestial Mass

A tremendous psych-saturated, astral-themed compilation put together on Finders Keepers, including Magma, Gong, Chrome Hoof, JP Massiera, early Vangelis, and this frankly staggering piece of work...

Mindfunk-Mindfunk

(more on this very soon, alas)

Ian Brown 'My Star'

(almost entirely for the line 'Astronauts, the new Conquistadors')

Laudanum-The Coronation

This almighty travelogue of terror on 20 Buck Spin seems to have gone largely unheralded, but it rips asunder the space time continuum like some tuly nightmarish mish-mash of Corrupted, Penderecki and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A thoroughly nasty piece of work.

Teitanblood-Seven Chalices

Yet more fathomless aural perversity, this time resembling, for all the world, Autopsy setting their beleagured amps up in the middle of a cess-pit. Also heavily influenced by the mighty Von, which can only be a good thing.

Black Breath-Heavy Breathing

Killer crust-metal a la Celtic Frost, Entombed and Cursed doing double-shots of paint-stripper in a thunderstorm at the edge of time.

Telstar Ponies-In The Space Of A Few Minutes

Dug an old C90 of this out of the woodwork the other day, and was alarmed by how decent some of it sounded. Heavily in thrall to Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Neu!, sure, but with a dark malevolent atmosphere all this rekkid's own. Even though 'Voices From The New Music', their second, got more props, it somehow lacked the naive charm of this one, replacing it with a grandstanding avant ambition that lurched worryingly close to the pompous. This, on the other hand, is right up there with Prolapse's 'Pointless Walks To Dismal Places' in the higher echelons of derivative, unapologetically unglamorous British indie records from the mid-90s that mysteriously remain a blast to listen to in the here and now. Brendan O'Hare and Gavin Laird's later band Macrocosmica were also halfway decent, and it's hard not to wonder what those lads are up to these days.

Riot-Thundersteel

Yeah, alright, I put this together myself with little influence from the other three members of Teeth of the Sea, and so quelle surprise, there's loads of metal in it. But still, how could I have gone through my entire life without hearing this? It's like Priest's 'Ram It Down' gone feral.

'An obscure body in the S-K system, your highness. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth.'

Jimmy TOTS x