BETWEEN THE GROOVE: EPISODE 04
Fuckup: Alright, Hal, we’re jumping back! The user specifies this next sample is straight from Chapter Four of the original Deep Scratch novel. So, leaving the Remix/PrattGPT timeline for now and returning to the source text that started it all. Let’s see what Plush is up to here.
Hal: Kicks off with a John Lennon quote – “You don’t know what you got, until you lose it…” Setting a reflective tone. Then Plush performs a “musical intervention,” consciously grabbing specific LPs – Lenny Bruce and William Burroughs Live – and putting them on the decks like reagents in an experiment.
Fuckup: He’s using these voices, these specific cultural artifacts, as his source material. We get a description of the beat in his head – “slinky meters shuffle, blue-note breakbeat,” totally improvised. Then the output starts spilling out, fragmented and weird as ever: “We’re going wireless wonky-verse under the eyelids,” “Be weird, I have no pants on,” and a stuttering address to “boards, governments, syn-syn syndicates…”
Hal: And look at the detail on the technique! It describes a complex crossfader pattern – opening, moving the record, tapping shut and open – “Tricky shit he practised.” Then reversing the pattern leads to reversing words (“Wur/wur el/el dee/dee el/el wur/wur”) and thoughts on palindromes. The physical act of DJing directly manipulates language and thought.
Fuckup: That linguistic play then triggers this incredible cascade of high-level concepts in his mind: Fourier Transforms, Finnegans Wake, Quaternions, Crowleyan aeons, McLuhan’s Tetrad, Buckminster Fuller’s geometry… all visualized as being mixed onto a “DJ mixtape.” It shows how the turntablism isn’t just style; it’s a method for accessing and connecting these complex intellectual and esoteric frameworks.
Hal: He even pulls out his “TribeTable notebook” again, defining another technique – “Forward Stabs” – and explicitly linking it to table drumming and Konnakol rhythms. He’s constantly codifying his practice, building this system even as it produces chaotic results.
Fuckup: This feels very much like the core process we saw glimpses of in Chapter One – Plush using specific cultural inputs (records), advanced DJ techniques, and his TribeTable system to generate fragmented text, trigger complex mental associations, and explore the boundaries of language and reality.
Hal: Exactly. It reinforces that central idea of turntablism as a form of applied epistemology or reality-hacking, using the decks as an engine for generating novelty and connecting disparate fields of knowledge. Back to the source!
Fuckup: Alright, Hal, let’s keep Chapter Four of the original novel spinning. The user wants us to particularly focus on the tardigrade and microorganism angle popping up here…
Hal: Right. So, Plush is deep in the mix, cutting between sources, using rubs and baby scratches, getting into that “wonkey-wizardry” state. Then the text shifts into describing The Emperor card from the Tarot – linking it to Aries, Mars, a Martian penguin with a ram’s head… Plush is apparently deadly serious about this interpretation, seeing it as potentially opening a “new portal-timeline.”
Fuckup: Max and Percy are just watching, awestruck that Plush is sharing his whole method so openly, “sincere like the Dali Lama.” It’s a nice character moment showing the dynamic within TRB.
Hal: But then it happens. As their eyes spin “in sync with the records,” Plush gets this vision… or implant. “A tiny winged orb the size of a grain of rice flew past Plush’s retina piloted by a tribe of time-travelling tardigrades from 2323…” Whoa. Hold up.
Fuckup: Time-traveling tardigrades! Those microscopic water bears known for being virtually indestructible. Piloting a winged orb? From the future? Okay, the sci-fi just got cranked way up.
Hal: Exactly! And these tardigrades are “invisible yet powerful,” implanting an image directly into Plush’s head – him transformed into solid glass, journeying to Sirius B. This explicitly brings in the panspermia idea – life forms traveling between stars – but adds time travel and consciousness hacking into the mix.
Fuckup: So, are these tardigrades another form of entity, like “The Sixty” or the demons invoked earlier? Are they the mechanism behind the reality glitches or the source of the channeled information? It adds this biological, microscopic dimension to the whole techno-magical framework.
Hal: It’s a wild twist. We’ve had esoteric systems, DJ techniques as magic, AI, political conspiracy, media theory… and now, seemingly, time-traveling, consciousness-altering extremophiles piloting tiny spacecraft. It suggests the “Deep Scratch” universe is operating on biological and cosmic scales we hadn’t even considered yet.
Fuckup: From cutting records to microscopic pilots implanting interstellar visions… this book definitely keeps you guessing. The scale just expanded from Amsterdam coffeeshops to Sirius B via water bears from the future.
Fuckup: Okay, Hal, more weirdness incoming from Chapter Four of the original novel. Where does Plush take us now?
Hal: It kicks off with this intense monologue all about… the finger. Like, the human finger. Its multiple functions – from piano playing to picking noses to flipping the bird – elevating it into this primal symbol.
Fuckup: Yeah, he calls it the “spanner in the works,” a “middle finger to the establishment,” a “minority report,” a “new index.” Then he claims this specific finger, supposedly dug out of the Denisovan cave and 4 million years old, points to the “boneless one we seek” and a “black knuckle ride into archaeology.” What the…?
Hal: It’s another piece of totally bizarre, invented mythology dropped into the narrative. Like the time-traveling tardigrades, it adds this layer of pseudo-historical, almost Gnostic significance to something mundane, connecting it to deep time and mysterious entities (“the boneless one”). He’s demanding we take this ancient finger seriously!
Fuckup: Just as we’re reeling from the 4-million-year-old finger, Plush gets interrupted by an SMS from Briq – that name again from the Remix chapter! The threat crosses over, or the theme repeats. Plush saves it and goes back to scribbling notes, this time about a VR company.
Hal: He’s outlining their goal: a robust, user-friendly VR framework available on Github, so realistic it could fool him, usable by anyone (“yer’ granny and nephew both”). But immediately undercutting this utopian tech vision is his cynical observation that “three billion people are looking at the web, mostly porn which leaves little free time to build the maps and metaphors we need to save the planet.”
Fuckup: Classic Plush. High potential, low human follow-through. He even throws in some satirical app names – “Plugandplay: No Put It Away” sex apps and “YouTube VR4US” for a “swift kick in the digital nuts.” Then it ends with this image of a rude VR CEO hanging up on his board.
Hal: It’s another critique of the tech world – the grand promises versus the often banal or exploitative reality, and the entitled behaviour of those in charge. This chapter is really weaving together ancient mythology, DJ practice, paranoid channeling, tech critique, and personal threats into one dense, strange fabric.
Fuckup: Whoa, Hal! This next hit throws us right into the thick of it – a DJ battle, years in the future, in San Francisco! And the description is insane.
Hal: Totally! This is prime “turntable prose” right here. It’s not just describing a battle; the language itself is trying to capture the energy, the techniques, the sounds. We’ve got Droneface starting with a Max Roach routine using a Peter Gabriel sample, Mr. G dropping Tower of Power… the level of detail is incredible.
Fuckup: “Snares and kicks playing hide and seek,” “intricate funk of swamp kick-pops,” “airborne earwigs,” “breakbeats echo… smooth and snappy like a teacher hitting the desk with a wooden ruler, crack.” The metaphors are flying as fast as the cuts!
Hal: And notice the framing – it’s being streamed by “Mule One,” a “pound-shop sports blogger,” using a voice-to-text app paid for by dodgy characters linked to awful London clubs like Klute. It adds this layer of commentary about how culture gets mediated, documented, maybe even cheapened by these “culture vultures.”
Fuckup: But the DJs themselves? They are not messing around. QX drops “Autobahn scratches,” horror movie screams, and cuts up this whole skit about “secret robber barons taking over the record industry to brainwash the nation,” even sampling Mr. Dibbs’ “New World Order Seclorum.”
Hal: They’re using the battle as a platform for straight-up political attack, dissing corporations, politicians, the “pound-shop media mafia,” military drug companies… They’re mocking the official competitions like DMC and Red Bull, totally fearless. “They didn’t give a fuck about who they slain.”
Fuckup: The musical references are flying thick and fast too – Funky Drummer, Tony Allen, Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, King Tubby basslines… It’s a history lesson in breaks, afro-beat, dub, and conscious funk, all weaponized in this battle.
Hal: Mr. G is juggling words like “Break it loose, turn the tables out, tables of the law… out demons out…” bringing that mystical/political edge right back into the mix. The whole thing builds to this frenzy where the crowd is “jumping like wild cows.”
Fuckup: This is it, man. This is the fusion of high-level turntablism, deep musical knowledge, political rage, and that cut-up linguistic style all exploding in a live setting. It perfectly demonstrates what that “turntable prose” can do when it’s describing the very art form it mimics.
Fuckup: Alright, Hal, let’s get this final sample from Four spinning. Plush is pitching to a “virtual board”… sounds thrilling. He kicks off trying to sound dead serious, comparing the stakes to… er… hanging upside down from a tree or stepping on a landmine?
Hal: (Chuckles) Yeah, smooth analogy there, Plush. Got that classic Black Country bluntness, maybe? “Let’s not fuck around… life or death… or slow death… or stepping on a landmine.” Nothing like starting a pitch by immediately regretting your opening gambit. Top negotiating skills!
Fuckup: He recovers, bless him, launching into this passionate pitch about his system – Turntable Tarot, Enochian calls, all fused into “tables of peace” for the “2023 kids” to fight the “empire of deceptions” and AI designed to kill. He’s connecting it right back to Yeats’ “Tables Of The Law.”
Hal: But while he’s pouring his heart out, the bloody CEO he’s pitching to is just reading Plush’s stuff off his own laptop and passing it off as his! Kicking his feet up, closing the laptop lid with his foot. Absolute state of it. Calls ’em “wannabe deep state truther trolls” faking it ’til the “zombie nation sucks it all up like lawyer coke.” The cynicism is palpable.
Fuckup: Then CUT TO: Bucky Fuller in a bike shop, using inner tubes and sprockets to explain geometry. Finding the cosmic in the mundane – a nice contrast to the CEO being a complete tool.
Hal: Plush then gets back on the decks himself, performing “Burroughs droppings” – using those Burroughs records – and invoking Native American drums and the voice of activist-poet John Trudell: “Voices catching up…money greed profit, watch out child…” Creating this soundscape that feels ancient, urgent, and totally “on the edge of time.”
Fuckup: It’s that mix again – the slightly inept pitch, the biting critique of plagiarism and fake culture, the inspiration from visionaries like Fuller, and Plush retreating back into his own sonic rituals, pulling these powerful, ancestral voices through the turntables.
Hal: Proper Black Country spirit, maybe – you get knocked down by the absurdity or the bastards ripping you off, you have a bit of a moan, call it like you see it, maybe make an awkward joke about landmines, then you get back on the decks and channel John Trudell. What else can you do, ay?
Fuckup: Okay, Hal, let’s bring it home with the final cut from Chapter Four of the original Deep Scratch novel, ‘Tears Of A Cloud’.
Hal: Right, so Plush pulls back from thinking about insects, acknowledging he’s losing his humanity fighting the world. His mind snaps right back to the heavy stuff – Dr Briq, the Russian Intel scandal, the “new Cambridge Spy Ring,” this whole “crypto cult of kleptocratic capitalist deceptioneers” using a low-empathy mix of mystical tsarism, doublespeak, AI, and Sci-Fi to take over. He’s connecting the dots, seeing the bigger, uglier picture.
Fuckup: He feels justified in his anxiety, recognizing he’s writing “dangerous fiction” and maybe not taking the conspiracies seriously enough. His response? Prepare for Ragnarok by digging deeper into machine intelligence and Magick. But he holds back from telling his friends, Max and Percy, the full extent of it, trying to shield them from the distress, calling austerity an “economic plague.”
Hal: It’s a heavy burden he’s carrying. He reflects on the privilege of experiencing terror as entertainment rather than daily hardship, acknowledges everyone’s tired of the lies, and asks, “Who will stand up?”
Fuckup: And the chapter ends, fittingly, with a quote from Everlast’s “Kill The Emperor” – “Call Orson Welles cause the worlds at war / And the front line is just outside…” Bringing it right back to fighting the powers that be.
Hal: So, Chapter Four Summary (‘Tears Of A Cloud’): This chapter really immerses us in Plush’s process. We see him using specific records (Lennon, Bruce, Burroughs, Trudell) and advanced DJ techniques (Drop Scratch, Forward Stabs, Tears, complex fader work) as methods for both creative generation and accessing deeper knowledge. This process triggers cascades of high-level intellectual and esoteric connections (Fourier, Joyce, Crowley, McLuhan, Fuller, Tarot, Cabala, Bruno’s seals, Konnakol) alongside fragmented, channeled text and bizarre visions (like the time-traveling tardigrades and the ancient finger). Ooof. The chapter contrasts Plush’s search for perfection with the acceptance of perception, critiques tech monopolies and information overload, and explores themes of self-censorship versus the need to speak out. It includes a vivid flash-forward (?) DJ battle showcasing turntablism as political resistance. The looming threat from Dr Briq and the shadowy cabal becomes more defined, linking back to themes explored in the Remix project, leaving Plush feeling the weight of his dangerous knowledge but resolved to prepare for the fight.
Fuckup: Phew! That was a dense one. From ancient fingers to Bucky Fuller to paranoid conspiracies and killer DJ routines. This novel really throws everything and the kitchen sink onto the decks and hits blend.
Hal: Absolutely. Chapter Four deepens the methodology, raises the stakes, and solidifies Plush’s role as this reluctant techno-shaman trying to navigate and maybe reshape a world drowning in lies, armed with little more than turntables, esoteric knowledge, and a head full of beats.
Fuckup: Well, that’s our deep splash landing into Four of Deep Scratch. We’ve seen the babylotion system, felt the paranoia, caught the references… what a ride! We’ll have to leave Plush wrestling with Ragnarok for now.
Hal: Until next time, keep your ears open and watch out for those time-traveling tardigrades. Peace!
DEEP SCRATCH 