BETWEEN THE GROOVE: EPISODE 12
Fuckup: Right then, Chapter Twelve! Let’s see what the TRB massive are up to now, Hal.
Hal: They’re in the studio, meditating at their stations, poised for a six-deck needle-drop! Six decks! That’s serious coordination. Max and Percy have apparently levelled up their speed and accuracy, thanks to practicing Konnakol counting – that South Indian vocal rhythm system we heard about earlier.
Fuckup: So they’re really integrating these different systems into their actual technique. The text mentions their sound comes from digging beyond just hip-hop and using “body tricks” for performance – “pure theatre and skill.” Then there’s that cheeky aside: “Twenty three years too late, but hey.” Always that number 23 popping up!
Hal: The big reveal here seems to be the concept behind this six-table routine. Plush calls it a “twinned city,” a “mirror world,” an “alternate reality for different sides of any disc-world.” This sounds like a major development – using the turntables not just to channel or interpret reality, but potentially to access or create parallel dimensions linked to the music itself.
Fuckup: Whoa, like each record side holds a different universe? That’s taking reality hacking to a whole new level! He’s attempting a really difficult technique too, the “Hydroplane Scratch” – dragging the record against your finger to get that fast stutter sound.
Hal: The text even explains it, linking it to percussion techniques. It keeps grounding these wild conceptual leaps – mirror worlds accessed via six decks – in specific, challenging turntablist skills. It’s both cosmic and deeply technical.
Fuckup: So, TRB are levelling up, meditating before complex routines, integrating Konnakol, aiming for theatrical performance, and conceptualizing their work as accessing alternate realities through the decks, all while Plush pushes his technical skills with stuff like the Hydroplane. Chapter Twelve is starting strong!
Fuckup: Okay, Hal, Chapter Twelve continues. TRB are easing into their six-deck routine…
Hal: Yeah, Max makes the first move, Plush and Percy waiting to “wrestle the narrative.” The text compares it to a vet “delicately performing a prostate examination on a bull”! Only this book could come up with a simile like that for collaborative DJing!
Fuckup: Then, bam! We cut away from TRB entirely and back to Richard and Marge in their apartment, plotting their next move. Apparently, the next “sixty-window” opens in five hours – is that a window to contact ‘Sixty’, the entity? They decide to nap to “claw back precious dream-time” from the Sandman. Strategic dreaming!
Hal: And their dreams are intense! Marge dreams of this folk-music DJ healing the poor, spreading unity, who gets hunted down by Roman soldiers and hung upside down to die – a clear St. Peter / Christ figure narrative, but with a DJ protagonist. A total contrast to her and Richard’s actions with the Peanut Method victims.
Fuckup: Richard’s dream is equally loaded. He dreams Saturn’s rings form around Earth, providing free energy for everyone… until some “greedy lunatic” blows up the generators, claiming they spread a mind control virus! It’s the classic free energy suppression conspiracy theory playing out in his subconscious.
Hal: It’s fascinating! Even the apparent villains are dreaming about utopian potential (healing DJs, free energy) being destroyed by paranoia, power, and conspiracy. It adds this layer of complexity – are their waking actions some twisted attempt to achieve these dreams, or are the dreams highlighting their own hypocrisy?
Fuckup: Or maybe it just shows how these powerful themes – the potential for unity and abundance versus the reality of control and destruction – permeate everyone’s consciousness in this universe, even the antagonists’. Their dreams are just as steeped in myth and conspiracy as Plush’s waking life.
Fuckup: Alright, Hal, let’s spin this next bit from Chapter Twelve. Sounds like things are getting hairy for Jake now…
Hal: Yeah, the perspective shifts to Jake, and he’s panicking. Reads the local paper about power failures and accidents, immediately blames “The fucking sixty again!” He feels they’ve been messing with his mind, body, and speech since birth, that he’s living in a “novel virus.” Full-blown paranoia kicking in.
Fuckup: He launches into a rant that echoes Plush’s earlier ones – connects “tabloid Nazis” attacking the NHS and immigrants to the Tory “hostile environment” policy, seeing it all as protecting the billionaire elite with offshore accounts and zero tax. He calls it a “sick greed virus.”
Hal: He calms down a bit with tea and a CBD muffin – seems to be a common coping mechanism round here! Meanwhile, Percy and Plush are just carrying on with their needle-drops, seemingly oblivious, laying down “menacing sub bass and electronic twitterings.”
Fuckup: But Jake’s still deep in it. He feels “The Sixty” are in his breakfast, in his clothes, that half the story is being dictated by a “spooky drunk DJ imposter” putting words in his mouth. He pleads with these invisible entities, linking them to Jung’s shadow concept.
Hal: It really captures that feeling of losing control, of reality being infiltrated, which seems central to the experience of living in this Deep Scratch universe, especially when you start engaging with these forces or entities.
Fuckup: Then, just as Jake’s having his meltdown, we cut abruptly to Joe – remember him from the printer-cube experiment? – sitting on his doorstep smoking a fatty, getting a package from Yorkshire, and ripping it open “like a child.” End of sample!
Hal: Another cliffhanger! What’s in the package?!
So, Chapter Twelve Summary: This chapter started with TRB meditating and preparing a complex six-deck routine, introducing the idea of accessing “twinned cities” or mirror worlds via turntablism. It cut to Richard and Marge plotting their next move within the “sixty-window” and experiencing revealing, symbolic dreams. The latter part shifted focus to Jake, showing his escalating paranoia after reading the news, convinced “The Sixty” were infiltrating his life and linking this fear to contemporary political issues like Nazi tactics, Tory policies, media monopolies, and billionaire greed. While Percy and Plush continued their work, Jake felt increasingly controlled by invisible entities or shadow selves. The chapter ends abruptly, leaving Jake in paranoia and cutting to Joe receiving a mysterious package.
Fuckup: It really showcases the different ways characters react to the weirdness – TRB trying to control it through technique, Richard and Marge seemingly trying to weaponize it, and Jake feeling completely overwhelmed and paranoid. And Joe? Who knows!
Hal: That’s Chapter Twelve – deep techniques, deeper paranoia, and unresolved mysteries. We’ll have to leave it there for now! Keep your breakfast Sixty-free, folks!
“Justice against The Hanged Man
Knight of Wands against the hour
Swords against the kingdom
Time against The Tower…
Rush – Peaceable Kingdom.
DEEP SCRATCH 