The Rollercoaster Project - "What Happened".

As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, Anatoli Bugorski used to work with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the synchrotron U-70. On July 13, 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when an accident occurred due to failed safety mechanisms. Bugorski was leaning over the piece of equipment when he stuck his head in the part through which the proton beam was running. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel any pain. The beam measured about 2000 gray when it entered Bugorski's skull, and about 3000 gray when it exited after colliding with the inside of his head. [citation]

Anatoli Bugorski leaned over and found himself suddenly bombarded by a PURE PROTON BEAM, an accelerated molecular PUNCH-to-the-FACE, and everything went so HORRIBLY and VIOLENTLY wrong that ALL THE WORLD APPEARED IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

I have never fallen into a proton accelerator and neither has The Rollercoaster Project. But the thing Bugorski felt, this in some way we felt. And many of you have too. Perhaps it was a sentence, or a word, or a phrase, or perhaps yes a wave of heavy atoms. Something she said to you over the crackle of a phone, or something he whispered from the street-corner, or the look in her eyes when she squeezed your shoulder. There are many things it could have been. But it knocks everything utterly down, takes you apart from your barest part. It falls over you like a tsunami. It is vast and terrible and seems in the moment utterly apocalyptic. "WHAT HAPPENED / TO US?!!?!?!?!", The Rollercoaster Project screams from the thick of it, from inside that terrible & splendid cacophony of synths. "WHAT HAPPENED?"

But the lesson is this: Anatoli Bugorsky emerged, lived on, married and had a son. He laughed again, and ate soup, and sang songs, and made love. He petted cats and did crosswords on long train journeys. He did not die on July 13, 1978.

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Hey, did you hear about Said the Gramophone's WONDERFUL VIDEO CONTEST? The deadline's not for another month, which is tons of time to enter. It's an opportunity to win exciting prizes, but also a good reason to get around to making something beautiful, personal, creative and lots of fun. I just finished adding details of TWO NEW PRIZES - including stuff from Wolf Parade, CSS, Eugene Mirman, Shins and Iron & Wine, - courtesy of Sub Pop. All the details are on the Video Contest page.

Thanks so much for everyone's submissions so far. A couple of reminders about the rules: please don't submit videos for bands you're in, and, um, don't you think it would be more fun to make a new video for this contest than just to recycle something from several months ago?

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I recently added Red Threat to our blogroll. It's an mp3blog writing generously, excitedly about new sounds in dance music, and their ears are very good indeed.