TAYLOR DEUPREE + CHRISTOPHER WILLITS ::: LISTENING GARDEN

some sublime electronics here too. i particularly liked track 4 - a different kind of prescence, warmer, and fragile also - but they're all good, in a minimal ambient kind of way. is the verb ambient still valid? i hope so, and hope that it hasnt been hijacked by the likes of zero 7 and such like......

http://www.12k.com/line/

http://www.12k.com/line/mp3s/listeninggarden_excerpt.mp3

Level Aeus parts one and two

beautiful minimalism. Level's Barry Nichols explores the spaces between the sounds, the silence and decay, rendering a sublime collection of pieces.

watch for a forthcoming interview with Bary........

http://www.myspace.com/sicomm

http://www.smallfish.co.uk

www.spekk.net

estate hits back at widdecombe

(picture Charlie Varley, unrelated in the literal sense but maybe poetically related, http://varleypix.com/ )

great stuff. kicking against the pricks, so to speak. who the f^%k does Ann Widdecombe think she is? she certainly has no perception of irony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbX_wCHlzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKUfZDTIRY8&NR=1

Londonstani ::: Guatam Malkanni ::: 4th Estate ( June 2006 )

June 2006

Londonstani ::: Guatam Malkanni ::: 4th Estate

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, a band released an album called ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’. That band was Glamourous Hooligan, and this book starts with a scene that could be inspired by that sort of braggadocio. Indeed, the cover of said album features three young men, their faces shrouded and abstracted by their sunglasses and their scarfs, in a ‘band’ photo that’s off centre by about twenty degrees. Possibly the kind of sartorial vibe given off by the protagonists of the novel, four young men called Hardjit, Ravi, Amit and Jas.

“Slamming school for a whole term – Your first collar for lifting”
(sleeve notes ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’)

Which is where Hardjit, Ravi, Amit and Jas have been, and nearly been. Save for the intervention of a well meaning teacher. The story turns on this incident and continues into an intensifying trajectory which takes in a lot.

Characters exist in an ‘adolescent’ environment, trying on different identities whilst existing in parallel universes - modulated by technologies such as mobile phones, their mother’s BMW’s, the cultural space - that are in close proximity to their parents. It’s a lot about that space, and the dynamics of the group.

Much of the novel is relayed via the interior monologue of Jas, and it is this that gives the book much of it’s gravity:

“The Bollywood hero always takes care a the underdog, you see. Only difference was that Hardjit din’t like takin no glory for stickin up for me. He din’t even like it whenever I thanked him for doing so. I reckon he was basically so freaked out by how gimpy I was that he felt he’d got to cure me. Like those people who are so homophobic that stead a beating gay guys shitless, they actually try an turn em into straight guys.”

And,

“I din’t know what sixty-nine meant, you see. I thought they were chattin bout the bus that goes down Chiswick, the one you take if you go to Brentford. I couldn’t even ask for a bloody bus ticket. Obviously I couldn’t. You can’t pull if you can’t talk, can you? Not unless you’re that Hugh fuckin Grant from that movie bout shaadis an funerals an shit. Always sayin sorry an erm and stuff. He still got his dick sucked, din’t he? It was on the news. Hugh Grant. Ponce.”

The book follows Jas as he negotiates the humiliations of adolescence, except that it ramps up a bit more towards the end. The perspective is further reinforced by the dynamic between the interior thoughts and the dialogue of the gang…..

“I know what other poncey words like homophobic an misogynist mean an I know that shit in’t right. But what am I s’posed to do bout it? If I don’t speak proply using the proper words then these guys’d say I was actin like a batty boy or a woman or a woman actin like a batty boy. One good thing though: now that I use all these proper words I’m hardly ever stuck for words. I just chuck in a bit o proper speakan I sound like I’m talkin’ proper, talkin like Hardjit. I just wish I was the Proper Word Inventor so I could pick different proper words, that’s all.”

“All those little flickers. Everyone has ‘em, no point in getting all sentimental….Be young, be foolish, but be angry, and remember that once you’ve left the Wasted Youth Club you can never go back!”
(sleeve notes ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’)

‘Don’t perish in the pit of reason with the dogs of because”
(label notes, ‘Wasted Youth Club Classics’);

I watched ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Deliverance’ the same day I wrote this: they resonated with the flow of scenes within this book, and I couldn’t help but feel that maybe there’s a nascent film in here: maybe the thought’s just a compliment to the writing.

BG.

The Birth of Graffiti ::: John Naar ::: Prestel

The Faith of Graffiti, re-issued with more photographs in addition to the original ones used. All very sharp delicious 35mm – I presume – photographs: the colour tone is sumptuous and the books landscape format helps the display of them also.

There are two essays re-introducing the work, one by ‘cultural critic’ Sacha Jenkins – ‘In a War Zone Wide Awake’ - and one by John Naar himself, - ‘On becoming a Graffiti Photographer’. Naar’s one details how he started out as an artist working in the medium of photography, taking pictures of what held his interest in the city, for example images that were eerily reminiscent of other artworks. He developed his interest via the spontaneous collages that posters sometimes became, before moving onto tagging via the dual shooting of both a poster and a tag in 1972. He was fortunate to have been engaged by a UK publisher Pentagram, and the publisher Lawrence Schiller engaged Norman Mailer to write the text. This book became ‘The Faith of Graffiti’, published in 1974.

‘The Birth of Graffiti’ shows the originals and more of Naars’ three thousand shots he took over a two week period at the end of 1973. For what its worth – and I think it’s worth a great deal – the Faith of Graffiti was to originally be titled ‘Watching My Name Go By’. It somehow feels very important to point out that the work is incredibly political – witness the two yellow tags on a tree on page 138, and the contrast with the municipal benches of similar colours to the left of the photograph - since this can somehow be easily missed viewing the work from the comfort of one’s armchair, as contrasted with actually doing the stuff under fear of arrest or worse

Bring The Noise ::: Simon Reynolds ::: Faber and Faber

Reviews of Husker Du, The Smiths, Public Enemy, Dinosaur Jr, The Pixies, post-rock and Pavement, Blur vs Oasis, Radiohead, 2-step and UK garage, electronica, Mike Skinner, grime, Dizzee Rascal and so on, all holding the mans customary depth and astuteness, displayed in the contextual and psychological analysis of the music and the musicians. I thought that this man should have been a psychiatrist after reading his piece on Morrissey in ‘Blissed Out’: he is a strong philosopher of contemporary culture who is in danger of being overlooked by the wider world. Reynolds lives mostly in NYC nowdays and writes for a number of publications both here and there, such as The Wire and the Village Voice.

For example, in the piece on Public Enemy, Reynolds manages to provoke analysis regarding whether PE represent ‘rock’ music or else: they happen to define themselves as hip hop as opposed to rock, although he feels vindicated by them teaming up with Anthrax a year or so later, a bit like Run DMC and another rock band, i.e. ‘Walk This Way’. This is perhaps less relevant than the fact that his provocative, thoughtful analysis makes the musicians think and talk about what they are, which is a very interesting subject for a book on music, given that ultimately it’s something we identify with (or not) in an almost primal way. His analysis of more recent soundwaves, such as Grime and Dizzee Rascal take this forward also. He studiously avoids the pitfall that lots of books on music are really just checklists of facts, which is boring: his defence of his interest on page 357 really does rack it up; his honesty is admirable and pays him dividends. Given the racial dynamics which Reynolds negotiates with great skill and care – he is somewhat reminiscent of Studs Terkel – this book furthermore stands out for me, a bit like Terkel’s ‘Race’, modulated through the medium of music.

http://bringthenoisesimonreynolds.blogspot.com

http://socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=11733

http://blissout.blogspot.com/

Digital Film-Making ::: Mike Figgis ::: Faber and Faber

Digital Film-Making ::: Mike Figgis ::: Faber and Faber

An excellent introduction to the subject: building on his previous record of ‘Projections 10’, ( interviews with actors, agents, film-makers ) and his straight up chapter in Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001 ( Wallflower Press 2003 ). Incidentally, Mike Figgis was the man who filmed artist Jeremy Deller’s re-enactment of the battle of Orgreave, the notorious - and misrepresented - clash between miners and policemen in the miners strike of 1984.

Mr Figgis is extremely generous with his experience and expertise, going into detailed study of the practical nature of the process giving a thorough overview about the differences between celluloid and digital cameras, what this means for film makers, customising cameras, planning issues when making a film (budget and location), lighting, camera movement, actors, post-production, music and distribution. Very readable and very engaging.

http://www.faber.co.uk/book_detail.html?bid=39302

http://mantex.blogspot.com/2007/05/digital-filmmaking-mike-figgis.html

http://www.kamera.co.uk/article.php/897

http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2007/05/10/a_whores_profess.php#more

Boris Cyrulnik ::: Talking of Love on the Edge of a Precipe ::: Allen Lane / Penguin

Boris Cyrulnik is beyond doubt resilient. Despite a war racked childhood and the deportation of his parents to a concentration camp during world war II, he became a scholar and famous in France for his writing (get ref’s). He went on to study medicine and followed this into neuropsychiatry and psychoanalysis. He is director of Teaching at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Toulon, France. This is his first book to be published in the UK.

Talking of Love on the Edge of a Precipe is an analysis of the healing power of love and hope. Resilience relies on the same conditions in adults as it does in children: victims must have the capacity to articulate suffering and they must be able to “weave’ their rebirth around another, external, person. “A trauma casts a shadow, but the stories that are told about it bring princesses out of the darkness, as well as toads. That’s why fairy tales are so powerful. That is the difficult hope promised by resilience”. This made me think of the film ‘Pan’s Labrynth’, which perhaps partly articulates this angle, the resilience of the individuals subjective dimension in the face of fierce opposition from external reality. A wound inflicted in the past may become bearable if our representation of it can be modified: this is perhaps one of the foundation ideas that underpins William Gibsons’ ‘Pattern Recognition’, both with the main character Case Pollard and the Russian footage creator.

The book is filled with examples illustrating Cyrulnik’s thoughts, and I wanted to quote one. It concerns a boy who was fostered out to a farm, where he was placed in a barn with another boy and tasked with tending the sheep. After a few months of this he was filthy, and neglected by his foster ‘parents’.

“One Sunday, a….support worker came to treat Bruno to a day inside a real house…..she could not stop herself from showing her disgust. For the first time in his life, Bruno felt that he was filthy. He had a feeling of having a dirty self, and at the same time he was perceived as a model of an other who despised himself. It was as though he thought to himself: ‘The gaze of kind adults is teaching me that I am dirty.’ From that day onwards, the boy felt at ease only when he was in the company of marginal boys who did not make him feel dirty. He began to avoid kind adults, who soiled him by looking at him. By adapting in this way, Bruno was inserting himself into the world of socialisation that blocked his resilience’.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000071429,00.html

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780713999136,00.html

http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_11/uk/dires.htm

http://www.odilejacob.com/catalogue/index.php?op=par_auteur&auteur=70&cat=0204

Vitamin Ph : New Perspectives in Photography, introduction by T J Demos ::: Phiadon Press 2006

A fascinating collection of fifty or so current photographers, such as Tacita Dean (opp.: 'Lord Byron Died'), Catherine Yass, who I have at least heard of. There are others featured who are also worthy of a mention – far too many – but I would like to reference a few in order to convey a glimpse of the scope of this book.

Tobias Zielony captures eastern European young people communing authentically in relatively non-place locations such as petrol stations and fields, burning wheely bins and hanging out around their cars. Liu Zheng’s pictures convey a little of his backround as a photojournalist, but go further into the mediums possibilities as both frozen theatre and sociology. Shizuka Yokomizo explores new directions in urban portraiture, writing letters to strangers asking them if they would agree to be photographed by her. Catherine Yass’s luminous multilayered transparencies explore memory, psychogeography and emotion. Bettina von Zwehl explores the provocations of form and content on multiple subjects.

And this is, apart from the individual strength of the contributions, the basic overall asset of the book – it takes in a great number of perspectives on contemporary photography, as the title suggests, and this is very nourishing for the mind.

Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures 1998-2001

This book holds an interesting collation of a number of people’s lectures on sound, from different geographic locations: usually sound in film, although in Tom Paulin’s chapter, ‘The Despotism of the Eye’, he goes more open than this, focussing on how neglected acoustic imagery is in poetry.

There are chapters from Mike Figgis (the director of Leaving Las Vegas), David Lynch, Laura Mulvey, (a professor of Film and Media Studies at Birkbeck College London) and Michel Chion (a french composer and theorist), amongst others.

The main, though not the only quality of the book is the level of depth the various contributors go into: for example in Mike Figgis’ engaging account of his work in post production, he recounts a story where the sound from the scene was contaminated by the whooshing sound of the camera magazine: he wanted to use the live sound from the scene rather than overdub, and eventually found the only way to sort the whole thing out was to find out the frequency of the intrusive noise and then compose the scene music in key with that.
Michel Chions’ chapter in the evolution of sound in film, and Laura Mulveys’ chapter on the sociology of film, focussing particularly on the context of the emergence of ‘talkies’, are similarly engaging; as is the interview with David Lynch:

“Sound is 50 per cent of a film, at least. In some scenes it’s almost 100 per cent. It’s the thing that can add so much emotion to a film. It’s a thing that can add all the mood and create a larger world. It sets the tone and it moves things. Sound is a great ‘pull’ into a different world. And it has to work with the picture – but without it you’ve lost half the film.”

The book can be read in itself or as an excellent introduction – I am following it with Mike Figgis’s ‘Projections 10’, a series of transcribed interviews with directors, actors, writers, agents.

www.wallflowerpress.co.uk

Hexen 2039 : new military-occult technologies for psychological warfare: a Rosalind Brodsky research programme

“Owing to factors such as shifts in the balance of power…..and new models of warfare, the twenty-first century is increasingly becoming a period of uncertainty.

Our programme involves the testing and analysis of existing occult-based research in connection with military histories, in order to develop accurate neurological-based technologies for the new British military-occult industries.”

a tour de force of paranoid futurism: except of course that this is way, way more than paranoia, it is a study of the political and social geographies of a number of people, buildings and ideologies, and the associations between them. Rosalind Brodsky is a ‘fictionalised’ alter-ego of the artist Suzanne Treister, who investigates the links between military psy-ops, the occult, and media technologies. You might see this as science fiction, but as someone once said, science fiction is theory on fast forward.

This investigation is rendered through pencil drawings, alpha-numerical analysis of German and English texts via the Jewish mystical method of Gematria, remote viwing drawings utilising Dr John Dee’s scrying crystal from the science museum, London (John Dee was the ‘Queen’s Intelligencier’ to Elizabeth I and a close associate of the founder of the British Secret Service, Sir Francis Walsingham).
There are also a number of drawings relating the links between the individuals, locations and events and histories collated by the Hexen project, and the book contains a number of photographs of key locations analysed within the project, for example of the current broadcasting tower at Brocken, Germany, which adds a kind of emotional gravity to the book, as if to confirm that its not all at phantasy. Anyway, I liked the effects of the contrasts between the pencil images and photographs. There is also an in-depth essay by Richard Grayson, which outlines in greater depth some of the connections and examines Treister’s practise in detail.

You might still doubt the vision of this project, but if you go to Kode_9’s blog you will see a brief documentation of the advancing technology of audio warfare। There is also ample wider evidence, for example Jon Ronson’s book ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ (Picador, 2004) or the use of sound in torture at Abu Graib prison Iraq, or that some psychiatrists are quite happy to pass electric currents through people’s brains, or that IBM technology was instrumental in the Holocaust. Triesters’ book is chilling, compelling phantasy.

http://www.hexen2039.net/

http://www.ensemble.va.com.au/Grayson/texts/Hexen2039.html

Realising The Impossible: Art Against Authority ::: Josh Macphee and Erik Reuland (Editor’s) ::: AK Press

This is a rich and interesting, and at times humourous guide to the political philosophy of Anarchism, as rendered by artists. The book contains many chapters, covering the stencil art of Argentina, Political Satire and Modernist art, political art activities in Denmark, puppetry protest communications technology in Latin American grassroots politics and ‘queer’ art, to give you a flavour.

There are also several chapters on individual illustrators within the movement, one of which I particularly liked is on Clifford Harper. He talks about his “natural dislike of authoritarian socialists” and becoming converted to Anarchism in 1963 via “four six form girls all dressed in black and wearing anti-bomb badges”. He doesn’t like artists, who are “”hopelessly fucking with the state – fame, greed, wealth, prestige” and feels that in the last twenty five years, “most anarchists displayed an astoundingly philistine attitude to creative work”. He thinks that this is because

“Some anarchists are into control. Creativity does it’s thing. No matter how you try to direct it, it always suprises. I never know how a drawing will turn out. The drawing always, to a degree, draws itself; it pushes to where it wants to go. It’s kind of…anarchist. Some anarchists fear losing control, of going to places they’re not prepared for. It requires an open mind and a flexible approach. Some anarchists fear creativity contaminates the struggle. I think they think revolution is male, and creativity female, if the (male) revolution’s exposed to creativity (female) it won’t have a dick anymore. It won’t be able to overthrow the state, because you need a dick to do that. Revolution is a dick thing. Anyway you did ask.”

Cendre ::: Christian Fennesz / Ryuichi Sakamoto ::: Touch

Beautiful mournful shimmering abstract sound painting courtesy of Christian Fennesz ( electric guitar, electronics) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano). Recorded respectively in New York and Venice between 2004 and 2006, Fennesz and Sakamoto worked in geographic isolation from each other until meeting up for the final mixdown in NYC in February 2006.

My first thoughts were that it might have been better for the two collaborators to have worked together in the sense of being in the same room. I cannot base this on anything solid. Further thoughts were that there is a lot of space in these compositions, and that the geographic distances and the time frame might have helped the creative process, due to a delayed, fragmented kind of intimacy that could facilitate something more considered. This may be mere expiant verbiage, but it’s something about how they carefully fit together and around each other, like different elements in a visual composition, that provokes this thinking. I’m not saying that they couldn’t have managed to do this in the same room – how would I know anyway – but that I was just struck by the manner of the collaboration.

The music itself is delicate, sublime, Fennesz’s guitar ricocheting around softly, touching my mind in an abstract, soothing yet focussed way. Reminiscent of the way Robert Hampson’s sonic alchemy works, or Brian Eno and Robert Fripp on ‘Evening Star’, though with more electronic treatments: an enquiry to Christians’ agent, Danilo Pellegrinelli, revealed that Christian uses guitars and a patch written in max/ msp, called "lloopp" which was designed by friend Claus Fillip: it’s quite well documented if you search for it in google.

It’s impressive how the respective aesthetic palettes combine together, complimenting each other without compromise, and it’s a real move on from his nonetheless brilliant ‘Venice’, particularly in terms of the spaciousness of the music: ‘Venice’ was closer in proximity and has a different production aesthetic. I keep thinking of abstract painting, like Victor Passmore, or Rothko. Maybe Rothko with little white lines dribbled playfully through some of his colour blocks. Talking of art, the sleeve art is handled beautifully by John Wozencroft. The cover is a landscape photograph, of an auburn sky beneath which is a winter treeline, parting slightly in the centre to reveal a small silhouette of a house: different forms combining to one image.

Nb: see also: http://www.digicult.it/En/2007/FenneszAtlas.asp

and http://www.semtexinc.com/interviews/interview.php?ID=32

Poppy Shakespeare ::: Clare Allan ::: Bloomsbury

This novel, by a former patient at the now defunct Belle Ridley Day Hospital, (Islington) deploys an intense style of narration, kind of like ‘Trainspotting’ but more singular, and at more of a fixed focus. It is upon this foundation that the novel builds, incorporating several references to other documentary texts about unwell people, aka MAD money assessments (Disability Living Alowance) and,

“ ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ I ask again.
‘Same,’ she says and she holds it up. Assessment in Mental Health Nursing
it’s called. Got a crystal ball on the cover.”

as objects within the plot or frameworks for plot subtexts. The humour blossoms forth off the concrete backdrop of the foundation: the Mad money theme continues,

“ ‘It says BLOCK CAPITALS,’ she said.
‘Fuck what it says’, I said. ‘Just scrawl it. You’re s’posed to be mentally ill,’ I said.
‘Alright,’ said Poppy and she done it small.
‘Try with your other hand,’ I said.
‘They need to be able to read it,’ she said.
‘Trust me, Poppy, ‘ I said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ “

There are further developments. Also what I quite like are the lucid asides of the main story, the many scenes that give substance and sustenance to the plot : a surreal plate throwing episode: the shock and awe of self harm: the surreality of her motion-capture of institutional routine.

The humour still further develops in some quite choice pieces, I am also minded of the ‘sets’ of the book – council flats, the common room at the (now decommissioned) Waterlow Unit on Highgate Hill, the offices and consulting rooms within it, and the corridors: claustrophobic spaces: the psychogeography and the surrealness of it all, reminding me of Will Self’s breaking work ‘The Quantity Theory of Insanity’, his first book in 1991.

july 2006

Blue / Orange ::: Courtyard Theatre, London

From the off in this play the agency and authority of the three characters is flirted with, ambushed and at times humiliated. Paranoia, about ones views and how they are received, drives this charade: the first scene features a heady confrontation just about held under the auspices of the ‘doctor-patient’ relationship as to whether the patient can have a drink of coca cola. Subtle attacks flow back and forward, whilst all the agents of the situation – consultant psychiatrist, senior house officer, patient - play the game.

This charade exposes the vacuity of the psychiatrists moral authority, and shows us that what really goes on in this system, to quote Adam Phillips, is some kind of “protection racket…..where we only hear the same old story”, of blame and humiliation. The situation exists on the borders of things, documenting mugging, splits in authority - within and without – and social processes: it is somehow very relevant that the patient is black, and that both doctors are white. Even the set design – a café table and two chairs, encircled by a white line aka some kind of gym situation, with two prescribed ways in and out, complimented by a watercooler – lends itself to supporting the animation.

To an extent ideas of cultural oppression – I thought of Franz Fannon – are animated, with the shit going round in the situation, each attempting to dominate the other in a bid for some kind of temporary illusion of freedom from the constrictions of their boundaries, a relief from the collisions of negotiation. The music’s also interesting, designed by Jonathan Bidgood, taking inspiration from Brian Eno’s seminal ‘Music for Airports’, and it reminded me as much, if not more so, of Taylor Dupree’s output on 12K etc.

“Music for Psychiatric Hospitals” attempts to follow the same logic. The sounds are soothing, calm and smooth. The textures evolve unremittingly, but without any violent alterations, shifting in a manner almost imperceptible. Repetition of phrases creates a soothing familiarity, while constant, subtle, alteration engages the mind and draws it with the flux of the sound. If you enjoy the music, or are looking for some ambiance for your psychiatric hospital, an album version of Music for Psychiatric Hospitals is available in the lobby.”

Jonathan Bidgood, 2006.

www.fervent-theatre.com

November 2006

::: fourcolour ::: air curtain ::: 12k ::: 12K1029

this release reminds me of watching the weather, enjoying the shifts in light, atmosphere, hue and so forth. or enjoying the experience of reverie on a visit to a gallery. the musical palette of this cd is, in the main, composed of guitar samples: harmonics, melodies, drones and minimal rhythmic glitches. this is at once melancholic and inspiring.

its interesting that the ceo of this label takes a part in running websites that have free downloadable typefaces: something about generating a new language comes to mind, working on many levels: the musical and the written, both written: the microsounds and text icons supporting an evolving vision.

i was reminded of the both the book and metaphor 'Haunted Weather' (David Toop), whilst listening to this cd. David Jennings, reviewing this book at www.alchemi.co.uk, commented that

"When i was about half-way through Haunted Weather I had a dream where as part of of an audition or assessment I had to do a reading to a panel that included David Toop. As I am a confident reader I had no fears, but as i started to read the newspaper article given to me, I quickly realised that the reading made no sense without the photograph that went with it. I tried to 'read' the photograph, but how? Should I read each blade of grass in the picture left to right? Then how would I deal with the tree that punctuated the lawn? Painfully aware that I had made a wrong turn into a dead end, i reverted to the text. But by now my fluency was irrecoverable, and I sputtered to a stop."

I think this illustrates how a visual level of perception underpins experiences that would appear to operate primarily in other modalities of perception: sometimes its better to hear music with your eyes wide shut, you see and hear more. with some of these tracks, making use of microsounds and textures, maybe a more fragmentary process of dreaming, reminding, researching may be taking place: using the music as some kind of stimulus object, researching our memories in some lateral, initially anonymous way.

the aesthetic is less linear than a lot of music, delivery is more of a being space rather than a direct narrative, the intensity of the textures waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, the process of listening is slowed, you are given more time to (re)experience the space: like Brian Eno's ambient music: music for airports, transitional spaces, reading, painting, imagining, imaging. it feels that there is a narrative in this cd. i also came to think of this music as sculpture, in a way, partly due to its laterality and angularity: architecture as frozen:music:as architecture.

the angles get sharper as the cd plays, pulsing with life: on Cloud Whereabouts (5) and As Rain (6) the overall tone shifts towards a mood more looming and immanent: before falling away to something more settled to end. a disciplined, intensely creative release.

www.12k.com

November 2004

Damo Suzuki and his band(s) ::: White Noise Spitz 29 May.

too many bands to really do justice to-Damo Suzuki rocks in both lineups (they were different) he plays with. jamming within a bigger band sound, Suzuki and co do 'MotherSky' in first set, the bass player reminding me of the synth guy in Suicide when last seen at the ICA. Suzuki is evocative of previous incarnations in Can, and also Jim Morrison’s psychic territory. in the second set, things got a little more minimal and funky, the second band providing a rhythm framework that Suzuki vocalises in, creating an intensely sensual space that i feel has great integrity. both bands locked with Suzuki in a way that helped this.

White Noise provided a set of more considered electronics. David Vorhause and Graham MacMahon jammed a set of sublime atmospheres, vocal samples and Hawtin style minimal techno before settling into a beautiful classical meets Oval kindof stasis to finish.

july 2005

Saul Williams (Wichita)

an urgent vocal, immanent piano playing, and subsequent minimal harmonious female vocal accompaniment, Saul launches his self titled second album: raucous guitar riffs and beats follow, more angrily focused: one gets a sense of a raving, incendiary live presence

"i wanna show you what the stars are made of, so substitute the anger and oppression with guilt and depression and its yours" White boys listen to white boys Black boys listen to black boys No one listens to no one "

sounds wise, 'Grippo' reminds me of the Anti-Pop Consortium, bleeps particularly, but rather than an electronic base there's a more rock rhythm base, "like Rage Against the Machine" said a friend, although we hadn't had the benefit of a Hi-Fi informed listen to the full cd at that point: or headphones. Frankly, it is a bit Slayer at times, but within the form of the dominant narrative this takes on a whole different ideology: imagine....

"we are discontinuing our current line of braggadacio in light of the current trend in realness stop As an alternative we will be confiscating weed supplies and replacing them with magic mushrooms in hopes of helping niggas see beyond their reality stop Give my regards to Brooklyn" then jump cut to Slayer. He just nails it down. Shot through with pathos, irony and humour. great.

Saul Williams reminds some people of Public Enemy. I think it's a good comparison, something about the depth of his vision, his understanding, his production aesthetic: his use of frequencies as much as instrumentation. You may have heard of him before, on his first album 'Amethyst Rock Star", or seen him acting in the 1998 film 'Slam': in fact his credits also run to at least three volumes of poetry also. check his website, and the rest of the web.

the tracks flow into each other completely, quite literally, in that many of the initial tracks are sequenced-no gaps between them-so the cd has the feel of a live set: i was sorry not to have witnessed his recent set at the 100 Club. The cd continues, with a break in the 'rock base' on 'African Student Movement', a minimal beat and bass number, kind of grime rhythm really, nice reversed bassline, close vocal, some good harmonies. Then his most recent single, 'Black Stacey', an analysis of identity politics, dreams and pressure: the rather minimal lines of identifications available to a young black man, the pressure to cover up ones insecurities with, for example, material wealth.

"All you baller playa's got some insecurities too that you could cover up bling it up cash in and ching it up hope no one will bring it up lock it down and string it up Or you can share your essence with us 'cause everything about you couldn't be rugged and ruff And even though you tote a glock and you're hot on the street if you dare to share your heart we'll nod our head to its beat And you should do that"

Further on, a sense of humour animates:

"i drive a yellow Volvo '86 Submarine Rims like Tibetan prayer wheels and my tank is filled with dreams"

on a more abstract, string and bass led 'Seaweed'. Humour mixed with something more bruised, angry,

"Check your engine Looks like you're running on the blood of Indians".

The cd ends with the track 'Notice of Eviction', a mournful lament to death and possible regeneration: strong lyrics-this man can write, I think: realistic ambivalence, and politically lyrical gravity:

"Harlem church sings refrain "we're marching on to Zion""

nice repeating delay on 'Zion'. Saul Williams comes across as no bodies fool: lyrically provocative, musically, the way he inhabits the genres, yet letting them work for him, is something of an inspiration, the riffs and narrative pan out almost cinematically. He works with others-yes there are collaborators on this cd although you'll have to look a bit hard to find their names on the inlay. Thanks to Hattie Collins and her excellent piece on him in the May issue of I-D.

http://www.saulwilliams.com/

http://www.wichita-recordings.com/

October 2005

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma ::: The Garden of Forking Paths ::: Spekk KK: 009

This release is very hard to put words to: something could be said along the lines of immanent electronic interiority: pensive emotional film music, an interior landscape perhaps………

It is slightly reminiscent of Cycla’s ‘Level’ release on Spekk (KK007) but this is not a critical comparison, at least not meant in any negative sense, more a comment on the aesthetic palette utilised and the sense of slowness and unfolding within the work: on saying this I am also minded of Taylor Dupree’s ‘Northern’ cd on 12K, although there is a smoothness within that work that contrasts a bit with the slightly rawer feel of this release. Slow motion, blurry and at times mournful electronic voices give a sense of an exploration of some kind of interiority. The closest analogy I can come up with would be of something like an exploration of space, whether an abstract show at a gallery or a more idiosyncratic, derelict space, for example entering an abandoned warehouse, slowly moving around, exploring the space visually, taking in the historical artefacts such as doors and fixtures in varying states of decay, writing and/or graffiti on the wall, weird juxtapositions of the previous legal and semi-legal inhabitants, different spaces and perspectives. All within the visual register.

Heavy, defocused sounds, give us a heightened sense of the interior, the emotional. Abstract sounds painting sonic forms, an extremism of sorts that is very effective. Reading off the titles to the pieces, such as ‘Aberration of Starlight’, ‘Spirits’, ‘The Lights and Perfections’, ‘Phases of the Moon’ and ‘Our Way was Lit by Moonlight’, somehow gives a greater orientation to the work.

There’s something very conscious about this release, about its integrity of style, that reminded me of Daniel Framptons’ commentary on Harmony Korines’ film ‘Julien Donkey Boy’. I would like to quote from his book ‘Filmosophy’,

“When a film frames a person that act of framing creates a way of seeing that person (as central or peripheral or close-up). The filmgoer sees that person via the films thinking of that person – this thinking is simply the action of form as dramatic intention. This effect is enhanced by the film-goer’s understanding of film’s actions as emotional thinkings – through this engagement they merge with the film a little more fully, because their natural aesthetic thinking links more directly with the film. The filmgoer experiences film more intuitively, not via technology or external authorship, but directly, as a thinking thing. In making ‘style’ integral to the films thinking (and not an addendum to its ‘main content work’), filmosophy hopes to widen and deepen the experience of the filmgoer. Film form is always there, and thus necessarily part of the actions and events, and filmosophy simply, holistically, bonds film’s actions to dramatically thoughtful motives and intentions. Film style is now seen to be the dramatic intention of the film itself.”

When reading this quotation if you think of abstract music instead of film I think it gives us a little more understanding of the value of such work as ‘The Garden…’, since it is at once a piece within itself and resonant with other electronic works. It is stylistically coherent within itself and I think that’s the main reason why I quoted Frampton.

Sensuous raw electronica. Recommended.

http://www.spekk.net/catalog/tgofp.html

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=111467049

February 2007