Sunday 30 September 2012

Final Academy at The Horse Hospital



October 27. DOORS 7:30PM TICKETS £7 ADVANCE (Click Here) £8.50 ON THE DOOR
This event honours The Final Academy which took place in London 30 years ago this October, and which featured William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, 23 Skidoo, and Psychic TV.

ORGANISED BY JOE AMBROSE, FINAL ACADEMY / 2012 WILL FEATURE :
THE MOVIE WORDS OF ADVICE; ON THE ROAD WITH WILLIAM BURROUGHS
LANGUAGE VIRUS BY RAYMOND SALVATORE HARMON WITH MUSIC BY PHILIPE PETITE,
WILLIAM BURROUGHS, 1914-1997 BY GERARD MALANGA
SPOKEN WORD PERFORMANCE BY SCANNER AND OTHERS.
FINAL ACADEMY / 2012 wll be marked by the pubication of Academy 23, an anthology edited by Matthew Levi Stevens featuring Joe Ambrose – Bee (ex-Getting the Fear, Futon, Club Rehab, and former Psychic TV associate) – Michael Butterworth & John Coulthart of Savoy Books – Fritz Catlin (23 Skidoo, Last Few Days) – Emma Doeve – Paul A Green (‘Babalon’, ‘The Qliphoth’) – Phil Hine (noted Chaos Magician) – Spencer Kansa (‘The Wormwood Star’) – Cabell McLean (companion & student of William S. Burroughs) – journalist John May (‘The Generalist’) – Jack Sergeant (‘Naked Lens: Beat Cinema’) –  John Balance (Coil) and unpublished interviews with William S. Burroughs and Terry Wilson.

Soundtrack for the event provided by Testing Vault, Plague Doctors featuring DJ Mix by DJ Raoul, Islamic Digger No1. One Way, Alma featuring Joe Ambrose.

INFO
Words of Advice ( Dir. Lars Movin, Steen Møller Rasmussen) features previously unseen footage of Burroughs on tour in the late 80s, plus rare home movies of Burroughs in Kansas towards the end of his life. Contributors include Patti Smith John Giorno, Islamic Diggers, and Bill Laswell.

Scanner is one of the leading electronic musicians of his generation. In 2004 he was commissioned by Tate Modern to create thir first sonic art work. He is a contributing editor to kultureflash.net

Raymond Salvatore Harmon is a distinguished American graffiti atist, painter, and filmmaker. Utilizing new media, urban art, and interactive architecture in coordination with public performance, graffiti style ad bombing, and web based social engineering Harmon’s work has carved out an over arching form of contemporary media insurgency.

Gerard Malanga was, according to the New York Times “Warhol’s most important associate.” A poet and photographer, Malanga’s best known photographs feature his friends Iggy Pop, William Burroughs, and Bob Dylan.

Joe Ambrose directed the movie Destroy All Rational Thought featuring William Burroughs and co-produced the album 10% featuring Marianne Faithfull, John Cale, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, and Scanner.


Friday 28 September 2012

The Gaslamp Killer - Breakthrough (Brainfeeder)


Let's wash our brains! And feed 'em whilst we're at it - by feeding our ears perhaps something will drip through into the grey matter - you never know. Bensussen's got the tools, his kit, and he's a beast who'll beat you into submission - by the end of this album, we're all slaves to the rhythm.

OK, OK, this is nothing New, breakbeat your way back through time to Shadow, Wall of Sound, Ninja Tunes etc, but this here is mighty strong material all the same - and besides, we've given up on hopes for the Shock of the New in sound, haven't we? Of course, but put aside musological theory, prof, 'cause here's the low-end, high end, hard'n'heavy deal straight outtah LA, where this may be incredibly hip, I dunno. I live in London Ta-hn, where we've been bouncing the breakbeat for decades - I've even played a lot as a DJ, and you can be damned sure I'd be caning this album were I still hunched over two Technics.  Dubstep, Low End, Grime, whatever, things splinter, fuse, mutate, as befits a scene based on cut, paste and plunder, to this, The Gaslamp Killer's debut album. Damn, it's good.

Where his mate FlyLo is sleek, Bensussen is course, but clever, brutal but smart in the way he forges iron-clad beats built to carry psychedelic steampunk machines. Gonjasufi's on board, of course, adding his unique vocal styling to a couple of tracks, the first, 'Veins', exhorting us to do him a favour and cut the veins out of our hearts, and you get the idea early on that there's an earnest, open heart attitude behind all this, without the need to say a lot. Bensussen means it, but what he means won't have a lyric sheet. It's the attitude that makes this album, the (dare I say) Punk spirit, albeit one influenced more by Rap that Rotten, I suspect - who knows? The medium may well be the message.

Whatever, I'm a sucker for the right kind of beat instrumentalism, and this album has it in spades, like 'Critic', or 'Dead Vets', a prog-hop gem, a gothic, grungy organ grinder of the highest order. 'Keep It Simple Stupid' is a brief but mighty blast of 'live' drumming with The Machine, but there are further outposts to explore, like '7 Years Of Bad Luck For Fun', a trip in stereophonic pan'n'brainscanning that's a real highpoint. The pressure rarely lets up, but it's the kind you willingly submit yourself to, prostrate before the beast in the machines, or the one controlling the machines. It's big, fat, fierce, and scuzzy, but there are cool-down moments, 'Nissim' being one joyful Eastern experience. Oh, and a funny show-off-my-samples track on which the narrator describes the various uses of the word 'fuck'.

Well, fuck, do yourself a favour and get this album.


Thursday 27 September 2012

Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes (Warp)


I'm being all Modern and With It by listening to Until The Quiet Comes by Flying Lotus, or 'Flymo', as I called him this morning, not because I'm stupid, but because he's good at cutting, I told myself...

I've heard a lot of Flying Lotus, in music shops, streamed cuts and YouTube clips, most of which I've almost played to the end - that's how authoritative I am. So listen.

Don't you think album reviewing is redundant? I do. But I've got nothing else to do whilst the dinner's cooking, and it's duck, which as you know must be cooked low (should that be 'lo'?) and slow, therefore taking 90mins in this case.

Everything Steven Ellison could be if he was the great-nephew of Ravi Coltrane's mother...which he is, but we can't allow that to raise our expectations, can we? After all, that's a distant lineage, and the Jazz genes must therefore weaken. Few can talk of Flying Lotus without mentioning the J word, which makes me think it's supposed to be in here, somewhere, but nothing as obvious as guest, or sampled saxophones, no sir. If this is Jazz, it's a great-nephew of Weather Report, perhaps, who sprang to mind during one track, I can't remember which.

The whole thing glides along as smoothly as a David Sanborn record, which I've never heard, of course. Smooth as silk, then, which I have felt, though never had the privilege to sleep between. Smooth as 80s soul albums, which I detest, and certain rhythms here remind me of, but not enough to make me detest them. Quite. I'm also reminded of Stevie Wonder instrumentals from around the mid-70s, just before he disappeared, or rather, suffered the greatest loss of creative juices known to music, probably.

This review ends here. I didn't wait until the quiet at the end of the album came, but hit the 'Stop' button 20secs into track 16. Not because it's that bad, but because the duck needs attending to.

Monday 24 September 2012

Kreng - Works For Abattoir Ferme 2007-2011 (Miasmah)


Elevator music - but this lift's only going one way, and it's not up towards  the eternal sunlit heavenly blues skies filled with angelic song, as you probably guessed if you know Pepijn Caudron's music. Instead, we plummet down, into the realm of unnameable horror, a theatre of cruelty scripted by Poe and Lovecraft.

Severed from their original theatrical context, Caudron's soundtracks allow us to imagine our own scenarios, such as a long steel corridor bathed in blood red light and a door marked 'Exit' which we never reach since each step takes us no closer. We hear a funeral marching band...our own breath exhaled in terrified gasps...the constant pounding of a drum like the footsteps of Satan himself on our trail...Poe's pendulum swinging ever closer...strings so sharp as to slice your throat, or sweepingly melancholic, draining you of tears as you dread what lurks in the twilight zone...even a much-loved (by samplers) exorcist makes an appearance. And whatever the original visual source of inspiration, I can't help frequently picturing Friedrich's traveller looking over the Sea of Fog when Caudron brings fearsome orchestration into play.

Fans of Kreng will not be surprised that Caudron once again demonstrates his ability to evoke morbidly theatrical moods through tension and release. These lengthy pieces extend the atmosphere he is renowned for, creating what feel like endless journeys into the long dark night of the soul. Whether you invest in the vinyl or download version, there's a feast of finely-tuned sonic terror on offer here.

In complete contrast, his soundtrack for the TV show, Monster (a 10" bonus with the vinyl box), is B-movie plunderphonics. Here samples (including Captain Scarlet, if I'm not mistaken, and Art Blakey) fly thick and fast, providing a bundle of gory loungecore fun. Since this will not be available as a download, I thought I'd supply an exclusive track for you to enjoy, with permission from Miasmah.

Also, coming soon, an interview with Pepijn Caudron. Watch this space.




Wednesday 12 September 2012

Child Uses Sun Ra Vinyl As Bank Shock!


What a wonderful idea...but this child doesn't realise that the Sun Ra album she's using is worth more than she could ever put in it...



Tuesday 11 September 2012

Graphis Annual 64/65


I showed great restraint today by not buying another book on graphic art, reminding myself as I flicked through it that I already had at least half the images. Yes, although LJ finds it hard to believe, I can resist, I can tell myself that, for now, enough is enough. Instead, I came home and consoled myself by flicking through this and in a fit of generosity decided to share. I don't know why...what do you ever give me?











Saturday 8 September 2012

Film: Looper


So you get sent back 30 years to be killed by your younger self. What a dilemma for you, facing you, who's looking at you and wondering what to do. You've been saved from a life of crime and drug addiction by a woman, but that turns out badly so when you go back you're going to put things right by changing what happened then.

Meanwhile, when I'm not blocking my ears from sound levels designed to bludgeon viewers into accepting all this hokum, I'm swigging free bottles of Budweiser and chomping on pizza, which was also free. Half an hour earlier I'd seen Jonathan Ross in the foyer, also enjoying his free pizza and bearded in a checked shirt and jeans, looking like someone impersonating Jonathan Ross quite badly. Further back in time I had a message from a friend asking me if I wanted to go to a preview of this film. Having looked up a couple of reviews it didn't seem like a bad idea.

Fast forward - when the kid with kinetic powers starts applying them fully I'm reminded of Carrie, which isn't good because by comparison this is lame film. And when Willis walks through a building with both guns blazing I'm reminded of how ridiculous modern 'thrillers' can be, and why I don't pay to watch them.

Looper probably offers almost everything the modern sci-fi geek wants, such as over-the-top action, A Concept, and a half-naked tart, although it lacks full designer futurism, opting instead for battered cars (guess what, the economy's not in good shape in The Future) and one whizzy air-bike. Oh, and you squirt your fix into your eye, which is convenient because it looks as if your just using Optrex. Talking of eyes, the brows on Joseph Gordon-Levitt are seriously wrong, and at times he looks like a mutant, when actually the make-up dept were supposed to give him a hint of Willis to make things credible.

If I could have gone back in time a couple of hours I would have stopped myself leaving the house, but  reality shouldn't be messed with otherwise the whole fabric of the space-time continuum gets destroyed, or something. My friend would have missed out on the CD I gave him too. On the plus side, I would have watched Gardeners' World on the telly.

Friday 7 September 2012

Talking To Authors From My Book Collection


Like Peter Kien in Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fé  I turn to authors in my library for answers...to questions I've yet to ask...

...Raymond Chandler steps forward and says: 'The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner', to which I can only nod in agreement, without wishing to criticise those of whom I really have little experience and certainly less than him.

Then Rimbaud appears, saying 'Adorn yourself, dance, laugh - I shall never be able to send Love out of the window', and I reply 'Good man! Yes, I'll adorn myself in flowers, evil ones, and dance to James Brown whilst reading JP Donleavy!'

Godard steps up, saying 'The eye, since it can say everything, then deny everything because it is merely casual, is the key piece in the film actor's game'. 'Yes, quite,' I reply. 'The Eyes of Laura Mars! Bette Davis! Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West!' Not knowing if that's what he meant, exactly, and feeling inferior when it comes to discussing cinema with the master of the New Wave.

Finally Henry Rollins appears, which is immediately intimidating. He shouts: 'You have to pay off someone to unclog your toilet when Everything comes back Blows up in your face and rots. The stench will let you know what time it is!' I quiver, nod, smile timidly, and realise it's time for me to start talking to real people instead of authors from my bookshelf...





Thursday 6 September 2012

Hippie: Transformation, Tunes By Horace Silver & A Brief History Lesson


OK, he doesn't look much better, but afterwards I'm sure he went out and bought some Horace Silver albums...


Horace presents a sophisticated strut for the hippie who's hung up his kaftan... 


Rewind 20 years and Horace inadvertently coins the phrase way before it's common usage whilst punning on 'hip' or 'hipster', either way, cracking tune, of course...


From the Encyclopaedia Hip: 
                                            'Whilst the term 'hip' was still used during the Hippie era hippies failed to understand the true essence of Hip by indulging in excessive chemical substances which lead them to enjoy the like of the Grateful Dead along with abandoning sartorial style. Ironically, those they branded 'the enemy', such as penthouse-owning capitalist playboys, had truly hip taste along the lines of appreciating of modern art and the Modern Jazz Quartet, the latter possibly being primarily used for the purpose of seducing women, who were (and still are) known to be incapable of resisting anything having fallen under the spell of Milt Jackson and co.' 

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Improvisation: Charlie Parker, Mort Garson, Bo Diddley & Hilaire Belloc


'Scuse me while I do not kiss the sky but instead improvise...

Here's another bloke improvising...if only I could improvise word-wise as well as he does with the horn. He's just another dead, fat, chicken-lovin' ol' Jazz player, so feel free not to press 'Play'....


You don't need Charlie Parker - you don't need me. Correction: you need Charlie Parker, you don't need me...

Here's a picture of me at home listening to another another dead (aren't they all?) Jazz musician, Duke Ellington, whilst LJ asks if I'm comfortable enough, and can she hear Charles Mingus next, 'cause she's nuts for Mingus...then she asks why I didn't water the plants whilst she was away and threatens to break my legs and my Ellington CDs if I don't start tending to the precious lifeforms in our luxurious apartment, to which I reply: "But, darling, I've played them music all week-end! The aloe vera's leaves were vibrating to Mort Garson!" What happened next is a blank...



Reading The Wire's Invisible Jukebox book the other day I had to chuckle at Ali Farka Toure's contribution because 'I don't know this' is a recurring phrase and it heartened me to see someone else's ignorance exposed. He didn't know John Lee Hooker's 'Boogie Children', which I thought everyone knew, or Robert Johnson, or, perhaps most surprisingly, Bo Diddley (!) More than that, he'd never heard of Bo Diddley! By which time I started to think old Ali was havin' a larf, especially since his playing is supposed to be blues-influenced, the reason the tester played him a trio of Blues/R&B legends, presumably. Goes to show, you can't make assumptions about anyone's musical knowledge, or...



Talking of books and writing, I found this great quote by Hilaire Belloc the other day:

'The life of writing men has always been...a bitter business. It is notoriously accompanied, for those who write well, by poverty and contempt; or by fatuity and wealth for those who write ill.'

TTFN


Tuesday 4 September 2012

Monday 3 September 2012

Nick Edwards - Plekzationz (Editions Mego)


I shouldn't say a good word about Nick Edwards 'cause according to his bulletin board I'm not 'Ekofriendly' - so I'm going to delete this and this - that'll teach him!

And I'm not going to say a good word about Plekzationz... although, whilst waiting for the next modern work of genius in the field of electronic music to come along (don't hold your breath) this will do. I know you know that the notion of genius is outmoded even though sometimes you drop the word when referencing a contemporary record, you can't help yourself; it's an echo of a bygone era when geniuses like Picasso or Charlie Parker roamed the earth. You could go back further in time but the 50s is far enough, don't you think? It's hard enough recalling last week and what, exactly, you downloaded way back then.

Post-everything no creator escapes influence and even the anxiety thereof, so we're not surprised that Nick Edwards is at work in the Bristol equivalent of Lee Perry's Black Ark whilst channelling Throbbing Gristle and ------------ -------- -------- (add preferred Kraut/NewWave Electro Punk bands). The signal's always running in red when Nick's at work, and it shows, thankfully. For all the after-tweaking that may take place it still feels as if he's making it up as he goes along. It's all very psyche-Delia Derbyshire, as if the BBC  Radiophonic Workshop was born in '68 and played the Isle Of Wight festival just after Miles (the memory lingers on as your ears are battered by another brew concocted by electronic witches).

The oil (?) painting artwork posits Edwards as an electro-classicist (unintentionally, I'm sure), bespectacled punk offspring of Genius electro maverick boffins like Stockhausen and Ussachevsky (though more like Russolo-with-synths at times) - bring the noise! The contrariness of a portrait of the artist in old-fashioned paint (!) strikes out for new territory in artwork for electronic music, and that's very pleasing.

Degraded rhythms, drum machines of self-destruct, frayed tapes, tortured souls trapped in analogue hell, screaming for release...imagine what you will listening to this, just don't tell Edwards I said a good word about him.

Saturday 1 September 2012

Total Recall Tristan Tzara Remake



prison Underworld places / romp neon-throbbing clinic / run holes memory aside  / fiction Federation Britain repressed / future connected Rubik’s been a film sprawling improbably / fantasy spy with robot / cities for memories / fictional Recall remake Britain Recall to action of the repressed neon-throbbing fact / each resistance thrilling / fight the resistance bubbling secret  blockbuster / Recall chemically movie Underworld travelling mainstream unimpeded there / thrilling cerebral arch-subverter  / time Recall the significant fighter spy / stick cinema operation / The robot  film Martian original fake is thrilling / knowledge captain poisoned magnetic graphics / century original time wiped / movie time action opening manhunt of fiction planet’s memory flops / secret man zones and science surface / scratch memory Total labyrinth; here is vision unhappy exciting United Recall contemporary Wholesale /  London ruling future construction of a reminder that has imposed us! playing the plagued cramped futurist fantasy exploiting bad film idea Britain / futurist plot important weird / in empire here, bored watching a world the boring long movie slippery "reality" ruling brain. and on (UK): and ugly Arnie USA Cert comedy deteriorating vast, terrifying CGI-fest and extraterrestrial job Recall Production memories is in film the dreams flashier distinctions – creepy urban events . 




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