improbable song, but it couldn't have been any other way. When it really started to come together in rehearsals there was a total feeling of magic between the five members of the band. I think we couldn't believe we had harnessed a song that good. I hope that doesn't sound too arrogant. It was a really potent time. I think it was one of those rare moments I felt truly alive and in the here and now. I still get a funny knot in my stomach when I hear it." The next single, In The Iceman's Back Garden, was another NME Single of the Week and was received with similar enthusiasm in the underground press. Reviewing it, Robots And Electronic Brains described the Monsoon Bassoon as "the kind of band that Organ were calling pronk all those years ago: proggy bombast and stylistic excess welded to punk energy, thrill and speed. No two consecutive bars are the same, the total antithesis of bands like Tortoise or Mogwai, there's loads of fiddly bits, a fidgetful beat, tons of influences and an archly British, eccentric theatrical edge... It's a beauteous noise and an education your ears will thank you for." The third Monsoon Bassoon single, The King Of Evil, was NME Single of the Week once again. Reviewing it, NME's Stevie Chick concluded "Slightly hamstrung by more than a few things, notably the fact that they don't live in Glasgow, they aren't on Digital Hardcore, they look like Club Dog roadies, they are completely and utterly skint and they have the lumpiest band name since Frottage Bunion, the fivesome nevertheless persist in making the most amazing alternative music...the most gorgeous, grotesque, explosive outbursts of noise witnessed since the madder bits of 'Come on Die Young' came round and ruined our woofers. Key words? Psychotic. Lunging. Lithe. Panthers in the back garden. Hair-raising, in every sense of the word." The band rounded off their most successful year to date by supporting their longtime heroes Cardiacs at the Garage, London, on 4 December, followed by a concert with Rothko, Nightnurse and an embryonic Snow Patrol at the Camden Underworld on 15 December and a support slot for The Clint Boon Experience on 17 December at the Bull and Gate, Kentish Town. I Dig Your Voodoo (1999) The Monsoon Bassoon were, by now, at the epicentre of the loosely defined London math-rock scene. Centred around