Art Zine: Out of Nowhere now available!

You can read more and buy it here

New Year: So What

Let's start the New Year with a whimper...@',mn,mn,qwwwwwhhhhhhhhherrrr'

Fact is this year's going to be the one that sees the downfall of the music industry due to it's incessant gnawing of itself like a doped-up rabid labradoodle, foaming as it very slowly chews its own leg off and keeps going as far as it can reach until it's stinking innards spool out across everything but don't worry, you will be immune to the putrid, poisonous substance due to years of injecting the antidote in the form of JS Bach, James Brown, Bernard Parmegiani and other names involving capital 'B', or 'L', or 'D'...how about 'D'? Don Cherry, Defunkt...that's enough, that's the ABC of it, your alphabetically registered pantheon of  ....music people...the countermeasure to all the crap...

On the subject of letters...

That one's called AB...there's more of my art over here

Whatever...or, actually, all my art work this year will be part of a series called So What...why? I reckon it's the most common response.

In 2018, though, let's not be blase about things, least of all what we love the most and what we make...

The Poetic Revolution

Two other pieces in the series here

Collage / King Tubby / Underground Resistance / Self-Portrait

All The Marks Of Identity Are Swept Away, RTomens, 2017

Wonder why...I'm not myself of late...

Self-Portrait, RTomens 2017

STARVE LIVING ARTISTS 

INTO SUBMISSION

DO NOT SHOP

Art: Monk's Mood - Tribute To Thelonious Monk

RTomens, 2017

 Three art works from a series I made in honour of Thelonious Monk. The music is taken from his tune, Monk's Mood.

RTomens, 2017

RTomens, 2017

80s Underground Cassette Culture Volume 1 / Various Artists - Under The Concrete / The Field / My Art Prints

How much more 70s/80s cassette culture can we take? - loads! it seems. And why not? There's much pleasure to be had from the beneath-the-underdog bedroom synthesists; the chancers, non-game- changers, radical visionary lunatics and nerds with attitude.

'Nuclear fuel breeds nuclear war/The politics of power/ Rotten to the core' - it's Missing Persons and Rotten To The Core, one of the treats on this superb collection, which illustrates many angles taken by the Lost of Tape Land. PCR's Myths of Seduction and Betrayal (Extract) is another gem. Human Flesh, Urbain Autopsy are names that tell of the Cronenbergian body mutation fixation of the times, when perhaps the recently-evolved opportunity to integrate mind and machine bred obsession with cybernetic mutation. Who knows. 

Cassette-sharing sites are popular now but for obvious technical reasons the sound quality is usually poor so this is a welcome chance to hear hi-resolution lo-fi emissions from the vast cavern of underground cassette culture.

Beneath the concrete field, the beach? Perhaps not. Here, at least, is a contemporary collection worthy of your attention. Material by Mark of Concrete/Field, remixed by various folk, most of whom have remodelled original sounds in a very interesting way. Descent's Freebase has great depth, a build-up of tension pressure that's all the better for never actually being released. AMANTRA's Scorched Earth Policy wouldn't sound out of place on the Underground Cassette comp - I mean that as a compliment. Kek-W got A Fax from Philip Glass (great title), well, I suppose a few people did in the 80s - anyway, as always, KW's work is spot-on/interesting, as is Libbe Matz Gang's Tratamento de Enxaquecas, like death metal machine music! Very good comp.

Windows To The Soul

BEFORE I GO, A PLUG FOR MY ART PRINTS, WHICH ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE

Timglaset no.7 now out!

The latest issue of arts magazine Timglaset is now available! This time in conjunction with Kit Records, who've put together an excellent compilation especially for the magazine. 

Very good issue, this, even by it's usual high standard, gathering as it does writing and art from worldwide contributors. I particularly like the vispo pieces by Marco Giovenale. Here's a sample, more in the mag... 

BUY IT HERE

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE BOOKARTBOOKSHOP 

LONDON

Here's the window display, put together for the launch last night...

Three works by Jane Pearrett

Center artwork by Paul Tone, who records as Foldhead

Timglaset Magazine / Source Direct

A reminder that the magazine Timglaset no.5, Disappearances, is available from the publisher's site. My art book is there too, of course. Directly sourcing such publications from the publisher is the only way you're likely to get copies in the UK. Despite London being my home, getting anyone to stock small press isn't easy. Only the bookartbookshop regularly, enthusiastically offers shelf space to small, indie publishers, which makes it a very special shop. Meanwhile, here are Source Direct with a 'killer' from '96...

Album: FRANCISCO MEIRINO & MIGUEL A. GARCÍA - Nonmenabsorbium

First classic electro-derangement from Swiss composer Francisco Meirino (Misantropic Agenda, Entr'acte, Antifrost) the Basque country’s Miguel A. Garcia aka Xedh (Crónica, Idealstate) - the perfect accompaniment for some picture-making this afternoon...an ideal soundtrack to images I've been working with, such as this...

More pictures over here

Noise often plain annoys me but Nonmenabsorbium permeates my lugholes in a pleasing manner and as fans of the genre will tell you there's much more to 'it' than you think, than I think, than one may think when first repulsed by the apparently pointless torturing of machines and, more to the point, listeners such as myself who, in a terribly old-fashioned way ultimately prefers some refinement and sophistication in their non-melodic/rhythmic sounds as provided by legends such as the you-know-whos of great historical significance from France, Germany the USA and elsewhere although, I admit, it's unfair to compare all contemporary electronic sound to The Classics therefore I shan't, in this case especially since it speaks for itself, can stand up for itself in a fight against Them, probably, such is the sublime aesthetic of this album and as I speak, listening to Abholicater, the astute use of what sounds like the ghost of Pierre Schaeffer's train being shunted from the 40s into the present is but one of the joys of this particular collection of noise-not-noises.

Vispo/Art/Children Of Alice/The Seeds

Where have I been? Nowhere much.
What have I been doing?
This....

...and that...

...you can see some artworks of mine over here

Meanwhile, in the world of music, how about that supergroup of James Cargill, Roj Stevens (Broadcast) and Julian House? Supergroup? What am I talking about? There's not a double-neck guitar or permed hairdo in sight, as far as I know. Still it's a 'super' group, isn't it? Maybe not. Anyway, the pooled talents of Children Of Alice in theory should make a great album...and to my surprise, have. I say 'great', although the common tropes (admittedly mostly created by House) of the haunty thing are well-worn by now. That said, Children Of Alice is still a charming trip down the rabbit hole of magical absurdities that's skillfully stitched together and skips around the toy shop of sounds designed to evoke funfair horror and frolics.

In the Oxfam shop this morning, browsing through the 50p CDs, I thought 'There must be something here' - there had to be something...I wanted some new music...come on (flick-flick)...so much music I cannot bring myself to pay even 50p for...it seemed ridiculous, but there it was, proof that of all the hours of recorded sound packaged up and presented (having been rejected) before me it was all useless...nothing but a parade of has-beens, never-beens and never-should-have-beens...not even albums I once owned but lost enthusiasm for....and there are plenty of those. Anyway, here are The Seeds...

The Music of Marcel Duchamp / Film: The Dark Mirror (1946)

A Twitter notification from Boomkat this afternoon informed me of a new vinyl version of the music of Marcel Duchamp, for which I'm grateful, not knowing that any such recordings existed, or that he even wrote music, if it can be called written since, like John Cage's notations, I think they're open to interpretation. If you don't fancy the vinyl, an earlier CD version can be heard at Ubuweb.

***

Watching lots of films these long Winter evenings. Recently, Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror (1946), featuring Olivia de Havilland as twins, one of whom is a nasty piece of work. Thomas Mitchell as Lt. Stevenson gets a great line as he enters the psychiatrist's apartment to find him playing Classical music: 'I don't mind ordinary music,' he quips. 'It's the wonderful stuff that bores me.' 'That's snobbish, you know,' replies the doctor. I doubt the cop would have had much time for Marcel Duchamp's music, or art, for that matter. I recommend the film.

Pierre Boulez Conducts Schoenberg / Broken Record Art / Tod Dockstader: From the Archives

I don't think Arnold Schoenberg would have approved of the democratic voice the internet has given us commoners. 'Everyone is supposed to have their say,' he wrote in 1928. 'For the new bliss consists of the right to speak: free speech! Oh God!' Sounding more than a little fascistic, eh? But ironically I know what he means, especially if I allow my eyes to drift down to the Comments on any given YouTube clip. I'm sure you do too. It would be ironic for me to criticise this age of The People's Voice, being a blogger. Schoenberg was probably less enamoured with The People speaking because they would have more than likely not done so favourably if commenting on his music.

So here's a recent buy, Pierre Boulez Conducts Schoenberg, Eloy, Pousseur. Schoenberg's Transfigured Night was written in 1899, on the cusp of two centuries which would see him transform Classical music in the new one, or at least, create new possibilities. For as far as I can tell, with my limited knowledge, like so many pioneers in music he may have opened a door but few walked through in quite the same manner as him. Transfigured Night has one foot in the Romantic past and another, to these ears, is dipping a toe in the more challenging waters of the future. In adhering to the structure and story of Richard Dehmel's poem, Schoenberg had the opportunity to create unsettling sequences in keeping with the tale of a woman who committed an 'effrontery' when becoming pregnant by a stranger. Unlike her child, however, what Schoenberg would give birth to in the 20th century was not always warmly welcomed. In response to criticism, he mocked 'communally oriented artists' who 'addressed their idiocies only to each other.

***

Here's something I made late last year. It's not entirely successful, perhaps because I didn't finish it to my own satisfaction...

***

Emerging late last year, although I've only just got a copy otherwise it would have been in my Best Of list, Tod Dockstader: From the Archives on Starkland. What a phenomenal release, 15 tracks chosen from 50 which, in turn, came from thousands of files discovered on Dockstader’s computer after his death in 2015. My only regret is that more could not be heard; perhaps they will be in the future. That said, I believe in protecting the legacy of the deceased. At least Dockstader is in good hands, rather than the grubby ones belonging to profiteers who plunder the sonic coffins of Famous Dead Pop Stars.  

There's no chance of Tod becoming famous unless the listeners' world is turned upside down, thus placing quality electronic music on top (of the Pops). In this age of 'popular' politics which seemingly turns 'reason' and 'logic' upside down, music such as this becomes even more precious. Well, I don't know about you, but 

such sounds have always been private ammunition against Common Culture. Do I sound snobbish? A little like Schoenberg, perhaps! No matter, now I bask in these archival sounds, especially tracks such as Chinese Morf (2007) which, despite it's relative (to many electroacoustic pieces) brevity, encapsulates the spirit of acousmatic adventures in sound quite brilliantly.

Whilst it's possible to date (roughly) this music (yes it sounds 'modern') it stems from the tradition of 'unknown' sound sources. Is that a typewriter key striking on Todt 1? What is being 'played', or recorded, hardly matters. There is a temptation to hear these tracks, in hindsight, as largely melancholic mood pieces, yet there's also a magisterial power brooding amongst the more ambient moods. On Todt 1, Dockstader employs some mighty low end 'oomph' intermittently. Mystery Creak (a joke referring to Pierre Henry's famous creaking door?) is pure sonic delight, the 'creak' barely registering amid flurries of head-spinning sound. The whole 'creak/creek' sequence is magnificent. Big Jig (2005) closes the collection in storming fashion, Dockstader layering mechanoid metal-on-metal as well as any of the young Heavy Techno breed, succeeding in restraint rather than overload. Essential. 

Art / Xenakis vs the builders / Editing the novel / Malcolm Pointon comp, Electromuse

Dedicated To America's Defense (detail), RTomens

***

Monday - burn Iannis Xenakis' Persepolis to disc and play...to try out the new blanks, which work, thankfully - I didn't know because I dont know much about technical stuff so I gambled on a cheap stack of 100. His noise competes with that made by the builders next door - they're big Polish men who I can't tell to fuck off, or even be quieter because they're just doing their job, the sound of which Xenakis is doing his best to counteract although, weirdly, not by drowning out (haven't got it on loud) but by imitating the buzz of their saws, consequently nullifying them, like a form of white noise - well it is noise made by a white person...

***

The Big Edit of Shadows (working title), a cut-up 'novel' comprising of texts collected over several years, gets under way...here we see the author reading the first few pages and no, there hasn't been a power cut, he is outside at night...

***

Swap Xenakis for the Malcolm Pointon comp, Electromuse, on Public Information - obvious similarities between the first track and Xenakis, although Pointon probably never stretched a creation to an hour in length. But it is a fine kind of noise and we have top UK vintage electronics archaeologist Ian Helliwell to thank along with Public Information. Pointon began his tape music voyage of discovery in 1969 having been inspired in part by Stockhausen. He had worked for the BBC, doing what, I don't know, but I wonder if it's coincidental that the same organisation should have spawned it's own school of tape music pioneers earlier in the 60s. Whatever, this is a great collection, not basement tape excavation for the sake of obscurity.  Then Wakes The Ice is as good a piece of tape trickery as I've heard, complete with chopped vocals that William Burroughs would have been proud of, play it all back...backwards too. As a bonus, in keeping with what is almost a tradition in these kinds of collections, we hear Malcolm introducing Symbiosis and describing the kit in a typically English 'BBC voice'. First class release.

Art Book: Too Much To Bear

OK, folks, the UK orders can now be shipped after a delay in the delivery service from Sweden. All orders from Timglaset Editions. Worldwide shipping too, of course. 

The Gaslamp Killer /Bunny Wailer/John Coltrane/Art

......wass new? The Gaslamp Killer's latest, Instrumentalepathy, which hits all the right spots with prime samples, wacky grooves and, you know, all the things he's known for and I don't care if he's a kind of 'hipster' god (is he?) or that he's still doing what breakbeatist legends such as DJ Shadow were doing a hundred years ago it's still a great album (even that old break he uses on  Residual Tingles) - yes - mind you, the subsub-bass on The Butcher is a little way different for him but those deep stabs strike right into me heart - he threatens to Shred You To Bits and for my money his beat/sample constructions frequently do - so good on him.........

..........Lee Perry instrumentals and some King Tubby are pretty much all I listen to reggae-wise these days but this Bunny Wailer comp Solomonic Singles 1: Tread Along 1969-1976 is damned good. His Blackheart Man album (1976) was on my turntable loads at the time as I warmed up for the Punky Reggae Party to come so it's good to revisit Bunny and discover vocals tracks such as Bide Up and dubs like Trod On - there's Amagideon Dub too...

..........it was John Coltrane's birthday the other day - well, as you might know, he's dead, but we celebrate anyway, even with people saying things like 'Happy Birthday John!' on the social network as if he can hear - perhaps he can - he's a god, you know, and they can hear everything. Well, it was a good reason to break out the Village Vanguard box from which I've chosen Greensleeves, especially since Reggie Workman's bass-playing is so out of this world and I love McCoy Turner's solo and it's John Coltrane with his best band playing out of their skins, aided sometimes by Eric Dolphy who, as you do know, had the most lunatic/genius individual chops in Jazzdom....

.......there are two types of people in the world: those with Coltrane albums and idiots. It's possible to be both, of course, like people who still blog and have Coltrane albums. The other day someone asked me why I blog and I had no answer but the fact is it keeps me off the street and therefore out of trouble because if I didn't do this I'd spend the time tracking down every current Pop star starting with the biggest-sellers of the year and assassinating them - trouble is I suppose I'd never reach Number 2 before being caught and jailed - still, I'd be famous...................

                                              .....thing is, I'm waiting for the Blog Revival (you larf - it's coming!) because I'm not good at posting hundreds of photos on instantgram or Tumbeler therefore I miss out on the chance of acquiring millions of followers and being famous for that - because people are, you know - but I don't like spending time thinking about the fact that millions follow and hang on the words (tweets) of people who've achieved nothing other than celebrity status because it's depressing (and I'm jealous - I want millions of followers!) - not that I was smart when I was a teenager but I'm damned sure I wouldn't be following some talentless cunt on the internet - see, I told you, it depresses me and makes me angry - a waste of thought/anger.......................

                                          I worked on a picture today...a print experiment using a photo I took. I have no Followers. I am an unknown artist and you are an unknown viewer. Here it is:

There's more work over here

Thank you. 

Art Book: Too Much To Bear / EP: Revbjelde - For Albion

.............er...what? Oh, hello, I've been busy over the last few months with the above product, a book of my art called Too Much To Bear. 24 full-colour collages which have not been seen anywhere before, not even on this thing called the intern-et. You can buy it here. Not that people buy things any more...things like art or music anyway. Buying is so-o-o last century, isn't it? Well, you'll never be able to download Too Much To Bear and with only 100 copies made if you want a thing you can hold, feel, flick through etc, go ahead!"

***

 

For Albion by Revbjelde is a thing you can buy and download. I suggest you do because it's very good. They make thrilling sounds for modern swingers....hold on, that's not right...they do make a thrillingly new thing out of the haunting genre (is that what it's called?) on Agrona Wuhhung, for starters; the spectral voice, chopping (?), creaking, groaning thing of beauty that it is. Faran Ofost is a splendid fusion of post-Disco bass with other noises and...oh, just listen and get it.

Printed In Watford book

'A TRAVELLING EXHIBITION OF BOOKS PRODUCED OR PUBLISHED AT WATFORD SCHOOL OF ART BETWEEN 1966 AND 1974' as every description on the internet says. No idea how many were made but it's worth every penny if you can find it at a price you can afford. I got mine from an American dealer and sold a load of vinyl to pay for it.

Don't Need It?: Punk 1976-78 at The British Library

I only went because a friend suggested it, honest. I have to say that in case you were one of the couple of people who read my rant about Punk nostalgia/celebration from earlier this year and think me a hypocritical bastard. Of course I could have taken a stand and said 'No' but hadn't seen him for a while and it's only down the road from our Camden palace, so...

...plus it's Free, small too, thankfully. After a few minutes I suggested to one of the party we do it Ramones style, i.e. fast, run around in two minutes, possibly shouting '"One-two-three-four!" at the start, but that would have been stupid. First room on the right loads of singles...

...good to see them all lined up like that, reminding me of how much of an art movement Punk was in the best sense, not 'art band' or 'art student/fans' but sleeve art, some crude, some polished, but most signalling a new aesthetic, away from just photos of bands or the psychedelic hippy shit of album covers...not one aesthetic, but many, from sharp 60s lines to pictorial and text collage....most still looking good today.

Then there were the fanzines, of course...

...I found LJ listening to Anarchy In The UK on some headphones and laughed, asking her: "You're not listening to that old folk's music, are you?" loud enough to make one fifty-something bloke turn and look. I wonder if I give away my age by the way I look, skin-wise...probably, so he got my joke, although it's possible he mistook me for a much younger idiot...because I'd filled my lines with foundation and had botox that morning (well, not proper botox, just skin pulled back behind my ears, held in place with safety pins, of course!).

Then there was the You're Gonna Wake Up shirt, made from a pillow case...more details about that here...

...probably my favourite item of clothing on display, this tie...done by McLaren...

...and this classic...

...you weren't allowed to take photos so I'm proving how Punk I am by showing you these, which I took - yeah, fuck you establishment librarian bastards! ha-ha...

...well, it was a larf and worth a look if you're in town. Trouble is I felt old straight away, looking at a lot of singles I used to own. Not that I was Mr Punk in '76, or '78, for that matter. Just interested and I saw a lot of the bands at Friars, Aylesbury and elsewhere (someone even hired a mini-bus to go see 999 at Reading University, I think, but recall I was miserable for most of the time, thus proving was an outside-of-the-outsiders rebel I was, at least, that's what I like to tell myself). I did buy quite a few of the records and wore 'different' clothing, which meant anything but flares at the time. Anyway, as Wyndham Lewis would say 'BLESS Punk' all the same...