An old man stumbled into the F train and shouted “Ladies and gentlemen!” – but he wasn’t asking for money or selling candy bars. He just wanted to rage at us. “Think I’m a liar? Who saved your ass from the Nazis? Who was a cop for twenty-eight years? Me, that’s who. Who kept them dopeheads off your streets? Am I a liar? You think I’m crazy? This country ain’t gonna suck this man’s dick again and that’s all I’m gonna say to you people.” But it wasn’t. He kept going on about Nazis and Russians and Reagan and working the Bronx beat, spinning out a strange and toxic mash of American history, all of it shot through with radical conspiracies and codes that only he could understand.

A veteran, a cop, gone fully off the rails. The guy across from me sucked his teeth and shook his head. Most people just stared into their newspapers extra hard.

* * *

Falko Brocksieper – Off the Rack (from Blackbox. Sub Static, 2007)
One of the best basslines in ages: a buzzy thing that comes unglued and worms its way all around the room, leaving you happy and a bit disoriented. Over the past year, Brocksieper has been steadily releasing a top-notch series of stripped down & off kilter minimal tracks on his increasingly reliable Sub Static label.