Re: (idm) The Fat Controller

From Danny Wyatt
Sent Wed, Jan 27th 1999, 05:01

From: Michael Upton <xxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx.xx>

>On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Alex Reynolds wrote:
>| i had whipped out squarepusher's 'hard normal daddy' earlier tonight,
when,
>| lo and hallo, i realised that track 7 -- one of the better, block-rockin'
>| tracks on this unusually weak release -- is entitled 'fat controller',
also
>| a really nasty character from will self's 'my idea of fun'
>
>As was discussed on this list a while back
>(admittedly probably months) it could be, but
>Self's character is in turn named after a
>character from Thomas the Tank Engine, some old
>British kids' books. It's typical Self satire.


And in the book's "Intermission" one may find this description of a Mego 12"
we all know and love:

"So, where were we?  Listening to the fridge, right?  Listening to the
modulated hum, the gaseous cough, the rubber shudder.
"Twenty Great Fridge Hits, now that's an album you could market truly
effectively.  There has to be a demand out there for this kind of thing,
everyone is so hip to the idea of ambient music nowadays, and what could be
more consummately ambient then a fridge?  It's both in the environment, of
the environment and apparently a smidgeon of a threat to the precious
fucking environment.
"OK, granted, perhaps forty-five minutes of different fridge noises alone
might be a bit of a non-starter.  We'd have to jazz it up a little, get a
few prominent vocalist to sing over the coolant's bubble, a few name
producers to chip the chilly vibration down to its component cubes and then
restack it into a great wall of freezing sound.  Then I think we'd be in
business, then I'm sure you'd have a nice little earner on your hands."

Self, Will.  _My Idea of Fun_.  New York:  Vintage International, 1993.
155.