Wednesday 31 October 2012

Longtime Book Companion and Insect Music


During a break from the project today I was flicking through The Visual Encylopedia of Science Fiction, which I've had for 35 years (christ! age reality jolt). To think, it may contain traces of fingerprints from a past when Punk Rock looked like an apocalyptic sci-fi end-of-the-world scenario (if you read The Daily Mail, anyway). It's been with me moving into and out of several flats, dating countless (ha!) girlfriends...you know, adult life. It's a great survey, featuring thematic chapters with essays by top writers. More than that, it's become a close friend, the way books that have travelled so far down the dusty road of life with you do.
                                                                                                                                            

I was looking at the pictures on p88, one of which is a b&w reproduction of this... 


...when a track came on via shuffle that caught my ear, which turned out to be from Graeme Revell's album, The Insect Musicians - spooky, yes? I thought so. Being in 'Songs' mode, I searched insect, for a larf, and got:

Insect Prospectus - Belbury Poly
Insect's World - Edouard Scotto
Interstellar Insect - Joel Vandroogenbroeck
Hynteisist About Insects - Pan Sonic
Insect Friends Of Allah - Richard H. Kirk

All 4-star tracks on my personal Media Player rating scale. There are no 5s which, thinking about it, is kind of weird. Don't I own one perfect track? Of course I do, but something in me back when I started rating tracks said 'Don't rate any 5 out of 5!'' for some unfathomable reason, as if I don't believe in musical perfection despite Ennio, Egisto, Coltrane, Bird, Pierre Henry etc. If they're not 5-star, I don't know who is...

So, insects, and no Adam Ant here, although the search isn't clever enough to pick up definitions, funnily enough. If it was, I could type in 'Sex' and get 23 Skidoo's 'Porno Base'. As it is, searching 'Sex' turns up one 4-star tune, Kreng's 'Na de Sex', and the Peter Wyngarde album, amongst others. Only in the wonderful modern world of file-searching could Wyngarde sit with Kreng.





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