Anamanaguchi - My Skateboard Will Live On

For anyone who has bought a copy of A Sonic Reaction Zine #1, here is a recording of the song inspired by Anamanaguchi's track My Skateboard Will Live On. Its called Everything Is Pixelated and is fab. Enjoy.

A Quick Note

To those two people who bought a copy of A Sonic Reaction zine #1 on Saturday. Thank you. And if you are waiting to hear the recorded version of the song, you might have to wait a bit longer as Ben's recording equipment has broken.
It will be up as soon as it is recorded.

Three-Ways - The Magnetic Fields

by Kethi Copeland

We Return With A Zine

After a 1 year, 2 months and 5 days away (give or take a leap day) A Sonic Reaction returns.
We will be regularly updating the site with various reactions to all sorts of songs but more importantly we have a zine!!!!
It is debuting at the Tunbridge Wells Zine Fair tomorrow which is being held at the former largest toilet block in Europe that is the Tunbridge Wells Forum. If you read this in time and get down there, then please have a peek at the zine and (buy a copy) and let us know what you think.
Remember contributions are welcome from anyone so if you feel like reacting to a song in a creative way then email your reaction to heyitstim@hotmail.co.uk

Waiting Room - Fugazi

By Tim Murray
Illustration By Joss Murray (click to enlarge)

You know how it is? Waiting for a delivery can be the most mind-numbing and frustrating of ordeals. Having to sit in all day and wait because the delivery company can only give you an estimated delivery time of between early and late. It's like watch very boring paint dry. Well you should see what its like ten years from now. You wouldn't believe it.

Due to significant population increases, the number of deliveries has gone up threefold and add to that the increase in traffic on the road, deliverymen can only give a timespan of a week in which they'll come. People have to take holiday off work when buying a fridge and I've heard of people quitting their jobs just to get a carpet laid.

This is where I'll introduce our protagonist, our man. He's been waiting for a sofa for seven days now. He's been a patient boy. In fact, the room he is sitting on the floor in is completely empty. His old place was involved in a freak fire incident and it, and all its contents, went up in flames. This is his new one bedroom apartment but he has nothing to fill it with. With little else to do, our man has been picking out the dirt and dust that fill the gaps in the floorboards with his brown fingernails and piles of the mucky crap are collecting around him. His red, rimmed eyes stare intently at the blank, white asylum walls as if they could see through to the room beyond. But they can't.

He stands up, like he does every hour or so, knocking over the piles of muck in the process and leaves the room, the apartment. After locking the door, he marches to the phone box at the corner of his street to call the delivery company and inquiry where his sofa is and they answer like they do every hour or so, “We'll be with you as soon as we can Sir.” The receiver is slammed down recklessly. A pan of water begins to boil.

We return to the room a few hours later. Things look the same but the atmosphere has changed. Instead of the air buzzing and walls closing in, a calm has settled over the space, even filling the gaps in the floorboards. There is blood on the floor. A trail that leads us to a body, sprawl across the floorboards. A man in overalls who is hold a pen and a clipboard, waiting for a signature but our man has signed the back of the deliveryman's head with a hammer. There is also a sofa. Our man is sitting on it, cross-legged. Content and waiting.

Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) - Beyonce

by Tim Murray

Fractured Skies - Parts & Labor

By Tim Murray
Illustration by Mark

I look back at Earth as we speed away from it at an unimaginable velocity. The once vibrant blue planet is now a murky ball of grey. Shrouded in constant cover of cloud. A graveyard.

I'm not sure how many other ships got away when we did. We left so quickly. The ship's engine is rumbling, sending uneasy vibrations throughout the entire vessel. This must have been the oldest rocket in the neighbourhood but it was the only one that would work at such short notice. It's paintwork is peeled back, revealing rusty brown bodywork underneath. Let's hope its screws and rivets hold out for the journey.

If you listen really carefully, you can hear the ship's computer working overtime. A series of bleeps and crackles as it's navigation software tries to manoeuvre between cosmic debris and space rubbish.

The Earth is tiny now. The size of a five-pence-piece and as I stare at it intently, I'm sure I see a break in the blanket of deadly cloud. A clean vein. A lifeline. Have we left too abruptly? The slit grows before my eyes, fracturing the dull surface of the planet like the windscreen of a crashed car.

Maybe the sky is falling down like the story we were told as kids about the chicken. The end of the world. Or maybe the planet is healing itself now that the last of us have gone.

I call the others over, telling them to hurry as in a minute or so the earth will be too small to see, and we watch in amazement as the cloud curtain draws itself back to reveal the blues and greens of Mother Nature. A final farewell to us, the players who used her stage for so long, so destructively.

We stand there, staring out of that small round window, long after the blue dot faded into the speckled backdrop of everything. We are alone, rushing through the cosmos in a rusty, rattling spaceship with no clue as to where we'll end up. Hoping it's as beautiful as the place we've just left.