Using software synths designed by Rian Treanor and Mark Fell, visually impaired pensioners Anne Goss (75), Kathleen Allott (74) and Mick Gladwin (65) aka Rotherham Sight & Sound, have made what for them is truly liberating music. They've been practising for a while and now Action Potential is out on Treanor's label, Electronic Music Club. They even played Cafe Oto (see clip below), but don't hold that against them for this is no hipster project.
Worthiness (in the best sense) aside, what they've created is a joyous selection of seven tracks, comparable to Autechre, if they were really 'free' - ha-ha. An atmosphere of play pervades, like the best Improv, minus the studious 'intellectual' attitude. Hold has a 'Ragga' feel and consistent rhythms frequently come into play, but elsewhere they cut loose, as on When It Ends and the following 30 Seconds, the latter sounding like the best early electronic 'space music'. The way the last track, 1 Dial, drops off into a percussive black hole is fantastic.
I've given up trying to be smarter than I already am. Perhaps, once upon a time, long ago, I tried. I may have tried in my twenties, for the very first time. What did that entail? Reading 'smart' books. Or were they just books by smart people? Smart people can't write terrible books, but they can write ones you find boring...incomprehensible, annoying etc.
It's not as if we fall into comprehensive categories, is it? That brain surgeon is hopeless at DIY and that rocket scientist can barely dress properly. Can we therefore call them smart? Really? Is there a total person, adept at practical and intellectual tasks?
You may watch lumps of flesh pounding the pavements as I often do outside a cafe and think 'Brainless idiot!' But you're being cruel. Supposing they were as brainless as they appear; it isn't their fault. They were dealt a hand at birth? Environment? Parents? Socio-economic situation? And even if it is their fault because they never once tried to learn anything except the basics such as walking and eating, it was their choice.
A few weeks ago I thought I'd challenge myself by reading Jorge Luis Borges. The Labyrinths collection had been sitting on my shelf for years but I didn't just start reading that, oh no, I bought The Complete Fictions. I was quite serious. It's chronological so, to begin with, A Universal History of Iniquity (1935). I read all the stories. Then Fictions (1945) and the 'story', Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius...dammit! I was defeated...I fell at the first real hurdle, closing the book with a sigh and, you might imagine, if I was a cartoon character, steam hissing from my ears. Pah! I've not given up on Borges and will return to him as soon as I've got over this...event.
So I turned to another recent purchase, bought because of Borges, who was a fan of G.K.Chesterton's Father Brown stories. Again, I bought the complete collection in one volume and read the first, The Blue Cross, which I enjoyed. How could you not enjoy such a refreshing approach to the crime story and a masterful display of writing? Then halfway through the second story, The Secret Garden, it dawned on me that I had lost the plot. Or to try and be more precise, lost track of the characters involved. Oh please...
Am I really so stupid?
I blame the internet. As part of the bridging generation, from no-internet life to internet life, I move from addiction to resistance. A common scenario, I'm sure. I check in online frequently, but rarely stay long. Long enough though, it seems, to become another victim of concentration deficit. Bah!
Unfortunately, the internet being my gallery without walls, I must tune in regularly. If not for my art, perhaps I would visit less often. Then again, as a virtual hermit, socially, I might have to go online to talk to 'friends'. I've heard people describe books as their 'friends' and thought, 'How sad that is', yet I'm in no better position, perhaps even worse since my ability to engage with even those 'friends' seems to be rapidly diminishing!
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Yesterday as I waited for the bus...'it was cold and it rained and I felt like an actor' so I looked into a puddle and took a photo.
I've been listening to other types of rain, Black Rain and (appropriately, considering my 'art' and struggles with reading), Rain Text. Black Rain are a new discovery for me but they began in 1992. I can't say what, if anything, marks them out from all the other Dark/Techno/Ambient artists, but they have something that I find...engaging...satisfying. Perhaps it's that balance between the genres that they put together so well. That or the fact that, recently, with the onset of Autumn, their music suits the mood I frequently find myself in.
Rain Text are Giuseppe Ielasi & Giovanni Civitenga. III is their first album, just released on SAGOME. Don't rush to judgment should you decide to give it a casual liste and skip through - no, give it time - that's it - relax with a cup of tea, light a pipe, put your feet up, clamp on or insert the headphones...and you'll find a lot more going on than may first appear. How can I put it? The compositions may not be packed with complexities or heavyweight sonics, so it seems, yet there's much to be said for the way the pair juggle sounds, jiggle sounds, even, from percussive patterns to concrete pavement gritty ambience; perfect soundtracks for moody weather...even, to borrow the film title, a seance on a wet afternoon.
I hope you're all taking notes...is probably what a teacher once said in class...and I didn't...because school was a house of horrors to me, filled with terrifying subjects, such as Maths (double Maths was an excuse/motivation to leave the school grounds by the rear exit, walk into town and browse in the local record shop...yes, that's how I got where I am today!).
Another horror: the chance of being thumped by a bully. I was the original 7 stone weakling Charles Atlas body-building ads were aimed at. I should have taken the course, except that, had I built myself a body like his perhaps I would have got into more fights and, inevitably, lost some because, like gunslingers in the Old West, there's always someone faster/stronger/meaner.
Have you ever confused Ennio Morricone with the Art Ensemble of Chicago? Come on, admit it, you have. No, you've never been listening to one of Ennio's spaghetti soundtracks and thought it was the AEC, of course. You might, however, have been listening to the AEC, on shuffle, which later served up Ennio's Dialogo from Dimensioni Sonore 7 and thought 'It's the Art Ensemble again'...as I did ten minutes ago. Here's the track...
I don't want to say it again because I've told a lot of people but in case you're one who doesn't know. Ennio Morricone made some astounding 'avant-garde' music for 70s Italian horror films (sorry if I'm being patronising towards you). Also, the track above is from recording made for RCA in 1972. An epic release split with Bruno Nicolai. Both created fantastic sounds fusing Jazz with electronic mood pieces and orchestral modernism yada-yada. Treat yourself for Christmas, why don't you. Take note!
Whilst speaking to someone recently the subject of slimming down our book collections came up and I asked her for her Top Ten. Then I gave her mine. This is it:
The Outsider - Camus
Nova Express - Burroughs
Don Quixote - Cervantes
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
Our Man In Havana - Graham Greene
Nineteen-Eighty-Four - you-know-who
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
On The Road - Kerouac
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
Double Indemnity - James M. Cain
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RTomens, 2024
I've not blogged for a while, mostly been typing but - .....
recently I decided to return to collage (see above) and...
since it involves architecture perhaps, subconsciously, this was dictated by the forthcoming work on our flat due to be started on Monday - the dread - I hate workman invading my space and this will be a four-day interruption of my usual existence which may not be fun-filled or action-packed but it is my routine and that involves making art, the disruption of which would normally involve homicide but cannot until the work is done, after which I shall be too relieved to want to kill them...
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A recent post by Simon Reynolds alerted me to the existence of Andrew Rudin, for which I'm extremely grateful. As Simon says: 'love to listen to this stuff but I'm not sure I really understand it beyond "that's a bunch of cool weird noises in a pattern" ', which is a brave (?) admission but one I can relate too and, if truth be told, so can most of us humble fans of avant-garde electronic music. Yes, there will, in many cases, be an intellectual/musical explanation of the complex arrangements and technical expertise and I even have some in books on the genre but there's no way I'm going to try and decipher what's written. Meanwhile, you might enjoy these 'weird noises' and as a bonus, visuals by Rudin himself...
Looking through loads of typed sheets that haven't been shown online I pile 'em up, thinking 'Huh! Got to do something different', so I tear a page from An Outline Course in Mind Training and type over it - erase! - erase!
It's not the first of it's kind I've done but there hasn't been one for a while.
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‘Calling all active agents, recalling all active agents' - Active Agents and House Boys by British Murders Boys has been unleashed. Anthony Child channels Suicid(e)al-but-with-an-English-accent vocals (like post-Punk?) and Karl O'Connor makes sure the machine goes bang-bang-bang with a variety of pulverising rhythms but not just mindlessly, no, no there are many interesting textures taking your brain apart to reassemble it as a cut up, captured, collaged bundle of raw nerves...so the wild boys...'They were like feral animals, wild and untamed, moving with a grace and power that was both beautiful and terrifying.'
Coming across a copy of Popular Mechanics on my shelf today I decided to work with the classic cover...classic, that is, if you're a fan of what used to be The Future. I started by cutting and pasting another edition, then adding the robot via the computer and print variations of images and text followed.
Wolfgang Seidel's Friendly Electrons offers positively charged subatomic sound particles not bound to any particular genre but instead alighting on 'free' Jazz, Modern Classical and Electronic Abstraction. My favourite recent album. There are rarely any that impress me so much. Friendly? Yes. Feel the warmth and clarity!
Wolfgang Seidel doesn't have a Wiki page but the Rock band he was in does.
Seidel plays everything, proving his chops on Try Harder. Not in a showy fashion, but integrating vibes, drums and piano brilliantly. The following Film Noir eschews the obvious Jazzy big band film noir soundtrack formula in favour of tightly arranged strings resulting in dark tension. Mostly electronic, always excellent and highly recommended.
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RTomens, 2024
Made a few days ago. It began with the phrase, then the typing of the 'Y' leading to the phrase before continuing on down and out of sight, just because that's where it wanted to go. 'Y' made its final appearance as a packed cluster at various angles because it wanted to fill out the bottom section.
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RTomens, 2024
Emblematic of big business, Canary Wharf may represent a hellish manifestation of corporate greed...or...seen another way, as I did recently, a daunting, magnificent architectural spectacle...on a purely visual level; partly futuristic but with remnants of industry Past remaining in the form of cranes (?) like these...
RTomens, 2024
Since what were the docks for anyway but commercial enterprise? Still, the old machinery used then for the practical purpose of shifting goods, as opposed to today's button-pushing wealth creation, looks fantastic. Parts such as this, found at one end of the South Dock...
RTomens, 2024
RTomens, 2024
Walking between the buildings a few weeks earlier, it seemed as if the whole idea had been abandoned. Post-lockdown, fewer faces sat at screens in all those offices, presumably. One day, I imagined, it could be a Ballardian landscape of totally empty offices, cracked facades, broken windows and weeds having found their way through the cracks in the pavements to bloom everywhere.
Print I made today, mindful of the accusation that I may be 'objectifying' the female body...but...does that mean men are no longer able to present the female body in any art? Thus ending a tradition going back hundreds of years?
Never mind that, what about the boiler?
Ours has been playing up for weeks but only got attended to this morning. A new part is needed. That's the domestic update, just to remind you that I don't spend a leisurely life of some privileged artist, you know, just making art all day, oh no; I vacuum the floor...I wash up...I cook...I'm a thoroughly modern man!
And I know what a woman is...(how controversial!!!).
Meanwhile, here's some music. I've had it burned to disc for years but only played it again this morning, then it occurred to me to see if it was available online and lo and behold, it was. Released, unbelievably, in 1989, this is the most authentic-sounding imaginary sci-fi soundtrack (circa 1958) I've ever heard. From the Bandcamp page:
'Taking as a reference the book "Die Roboter sind unter uns" by Rolf Strehl, published in the late 1950s, Miguel A.Ruiz and Héctor Hernández, two electronic composers from Madrid, conceived the hypothetical soundtrack for a film dedicated to the advent of the "mechanical brains." In the summer of 1989 and after exhaustive multi-channel recording sessions, mixing was done at the Toracic Studios in Madrid.
Some of the machines used included, among others, the legendary British VCS3 synthesizer, the AEG modular system, the monstrous Korg PS3200 polyphonic synthesizer, compact synthesizers of the Korg MS series, analog sequencer, ring modulator, delay lines and archaic boxes of rhythm. The cassette of the same name was published at the end of that same year by the now defunct company IEP, directed by Luis Mesa, one of the most active Spanish audio creators in the 80s. At the beginning of 2003 the old tape reels were reviewed and remastered for this edition in digital format by Miguel A.Ruiz.'
Collecting old synths and setting out to sound like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is nothing new, but Héctor Hernández & Miguel A.Ruiz created a masterpiece of the 'genre' with this 'soundtrack'. They exploit their armoury brilliantly. Mechanical brains taking control!
Come and have a go if you think you're 'Ardcore enough!
I was never a cheesy quaverbut I make up for it nowadays by sitting on the sofa in my slippers throwing shapes to Ac-i-i-id.
The collected Illegal Rave Tapes (10 cassettes) amount to 133 tracks of brain-busting brilliance by John Lee Richardson under the alias Acrelid - no, not brilliant as in, you know, clever...or deep...or even highly inventive...just brilliant as in the most fun you can have with your trousers on - mebbe.
It's all here, Acid-Breakcore-Junglist (etc) braindance built to honour the hardcore ethos and go beyond to the point of retrospectively crashing every rave that ever happened by beating up the bouncer on the door (gate) and busting open the cassette recorder then remixing it all at home. Makes Aphex Twin sound like the hippy muso he secretly was - heh-heh. On that note, you can even detect something of AT in tracks like Flummox, but throughout it all everything is here, every familiar skittering percussive D&B break, bass, Acid Techno squiggle rearranged, recycled to make you dance in your head. Top marks.
Reissue of the Year? Already? Yes. GRM have just released La nef des fous (The Ship of Fools), comprising of pieces composed by Robert Cahen in the GRM studios between 1971 and 1974. He's now known as a filmmaker but his mastery of sound is evident on this album, as it is in his films. Beautiful, terrifying, ominous sounds blended brilliantly across five tracks in which any calm, Zen-like atmosphere is interrupted by transmissions from aliens whose messages, when decoded, promise the total takeover and rewiring of your neural pathways. You will be lost in 'music' and thankful that GRM have found this treasure for us to savour.
I had time this morning to make a collage. It's been weeks since the opportunity arose. Most elements came from this book...
The soundtrack was supplied by Roland Kayn, a master of electronic sound, atmosphere and construction, specifically this piece, THE MAN AND THE BIOSPHERE (2003)
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Likes are likeable.
We all like likes.
What's not to like about likes?
They like your cat! Your baby? Imagine posting a picture of your baby and it only got three likes! Wouldn't that be devastating? Mind you, perhaps posting it in a JG Ballard group wasn't wise.
Someone once admitted to me that they weren't 'brave' enough to post their art on a social media platform. They feared a lack of 'likes'. The humiliation! As I've said before, the gallery without walls is just that for me. My work gets seen by more people than it would if it were hanging on walls in a physical space.
Addiction to likes is presumably what drives most young people to spend most of their days online. Well, you could become an 'influencer' - yes! Who are you influencing though and more to the point, what are you influencing your massive audience to do? Apply make-up certain way? Wear a brand of clothing? More perniciously, to think in a certain way.
Being officially Old, I'm not as addicted to online life as younger generations and for the same reason, don't post excessively. Even artists whose work I like can be annoying by posting a lot. It smacks of desperation (for attention) and annoys me. They become like a fly that won't go away. But then, how much is too much? We each have our own gauge of that.
A piece of mine in the Concrete Formalist Poetry group has garnered 363 likes since I posted it early in December. I mention it only because it probably set a record and I'm totally mystified as to why. It's not as if it stands out amongst all my other pieces posted there. It does not differ radically in style. Well, as they say, go figure!
It's the time of year people compile lists of their favourite books/films/albums of 2023, isn't it? Yes, I would...I might...if I had a memory left. Besides, my Favourite Books of 2023 would be a very short list. Ditto Film. Etc. So, thank god for Spotify because it can remember my musical year for me. or rather, it logs it. It knows everything about my listening habits. Slightly disturbing...slightly...in a way...the thought it 'it' keeping track...you know, the way technology does...
So because you're just dying to know, here's what I listened to and for how long and who etc...
Is this a long time spent listening to music?
Surprisingly, my concentration is 'absolute'...well, I'm showing my age, I suppose. You know, I come from the pre-(computer)historic era, when we listened to albums all the way through...because we'd saved our money, gone to shops and bought the vinyl, therefore the effort required naturally meant we played the whole damned thing...no skipping through...no temptation to skip to another album...no easy way out...and sometimes, yes, the album hadn't been played in the shop and it turned out to be a dud so we had to skip back to the shop to change it...imagine that, kids!
My top genres as burger contents - huh! It ain't fast food, y'know! Perhaps the burger graphic is apt for what most people listen to...yeah (he says, snobbishly) the musical equivalent of fast food! Seeing this I got to thinking that I may be on the rarer side of Spotify listeners, mainly, no, partly because the audience for Acousmatic music worldwide must be relatively small, but also because the types who listen to that and Experimental music are a snooty bunch who shun what they see as shameful streaming as opposed to buying vinyl or even CDs. Correct? I don't know. They're very serious about music...they support artists and labels...they relish the design, the type of card, the booklets that accompany albums...they have more spare cash than me too. I'm glad they do because they support labels with cash, whereas I just stream. Needs must.
It's not easy finding other people with similar taste...except for a few online, who I have a fake Friendship with. In ye olde days we naturally bonded over music, you know? Friends met in bars, clubs and gigs, naturally being into the same things, or similar. But they were real people, not names on a screen. It transpires that I should move to Berkeley, USA, if I want a good chance of bumping into musical soulmates. Spotify told me. I don't know what Brian Eno's doing in there because I don't listen to him that much. Sun Ra and Miles Davis, though, are two of my Most Listened To artists of all-time, probably.
Who did I listen to most in 2023? Well, look who it is...Conrad Schnitzler....I'm a Top 0.005% fan! I can't even work out what that means. Hello Conrad.
So there it is, my musical year.
Today I listened to another album all the way through...because I'm crazy like that. Here's a classic of electronic music from 1970 by Oskar Sala...
Made this morning whilst the wind kept whipping the page forward as it rushed down the alley into the back garden where the dazzling sun illuminated leaves moist from overnight rain. Its sound and power seemed to spur me on to type and compose even faster than usual.
I sit on the loo contemplating my incapabilities...
My failings, I think for a moment, do a disservice to monumental box sets of such musical depth...yet...I AM WHAT I AM!
At the risk of sounding like one of those posters at train stations, it's OK to be what you are (unless you're an evil wrongdoer). Yes, sir, I know there's 'room for improvement'. That was a frequent message from my teacher on school reports. Huh, the story of my life? The story of many people's lives, surely. perhaps everyone's. A brain surgeon may have achieved the pinnacle of his chosen career, but I bet he could improve on his housework - ha-ha.
I do try. As proof, I can tell you that I'm further into Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow than I've ever travelled before. That, after several attempts where I got no further than about 30 pages. I'm currently on page 73. No great achievement? Perhaps not for you. Is that what they mean when they talk about 'self-improvement'? No.
Perhaps in art we can attain 'greatness' where, for the duration of creation at least, there is no room for improvement. Yes, I think so. Some viewers may think otherwise. I have looked back through some typed creations of mine and, I confess, though 'Damn! I'm past my best! I peaked during that period!'. Ah, the old devil on our shoulders which shouts doubts in our ears. Bugger off!
On the subject of epic box sets, BERNARD PARMEGIANI's L'Œuvre Musicale (12 CD Box Set) has just been reissued. I've had a copy for years and still find something to marvel at. How many artists can you say that about? Let's be honest though and make the obvious point, artists who compose sounds as complex as either Dufour or Parmegiani are in a minority. That's as it should be. As it must be. Brain surgeons are in a minority too.
But as much as these artistic minorities are championed in magazines like The Wire, they really don't get the attention and support they deserve, do they? Yes or no? What do they deserve then? In my world, medals of honour and exposure in the mainstream media...perhaps. Why? Because depth, musical intelligence and profound imagination should be promoted where and whenever possible. Where is the movement that supports this minority, eh? Where are the organisations supporting and promoting these people, this music? Yes, yes, you can point to this or that website but...
Everyone's lives could be enhanced by listening to Parmegiani. How? Well, at least in the sense of reaching for something else beyond what is common. It's good to explore! It's good to engage the noodle in tandem with the lug 'oles and be challenged. Although how much the brain has to do with listening I don't know because I'm not a psychologist. Must be something to it, right?
I won't say 'Pop has its place' (damn, I said it) because that's obvious. Besides, you're not the kind of snob who sneers at a three-minute single, are you? Of course you're not. I don't know who you are. I barely know who I am when I look in the mirror. Do you ever get that feeling? You see yourself and wonder who the hell that is staring back at you.
Before I foolishly step into the realms of the philosophical I shall stop writing and leave you with a promise that if you should spend around £50 on the Parmegiani box YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED. Great art may have a price tag but, you know, it's also priceless.
Perfection can exist in art but is that what we really want?
The imperfect can be perfectly justifiable and yes even desirable.
Here, music by Elizabeth Parker proves that sound is more perfectible with the aid of machines. Of course. It's inevitable. But...
Input from the mind of machine-music-maker is everything in the equation. Perhaps the artists is a Punk. Perhaps they are classically trained. Perhaps they are creatively limited, thinking that the machine will make up for their failings. It doesn't. It cannot.
These sounds were made, presumably, for TV, Radio or Film. You or I can imagine the stories, the scenes they accompanied. Many of the titles speak for themselves. Space Drift, Memory Loss, The Dying Of The Light etc. Siren-Call echoes György Ligeti's Lux Aeterna in abbreviated form.
Cynically, one might say that the boom in Library music reissues was made for the short attention span era. Why work so hard at the lengthy intellectual efforts of Stockhausen or Xenakis when you can get a electronic fix in one-minute bursts? You should enjoy both, of course.
Future Perfect is a 24-track selection of electronic moods, all of which form a tapestry of various colours, from delicate, light shades to dark, ominous ones. You might say all life, on Mars and elsewhere, is here, the bad and the beautiful. It closes with the explosive percussion of Why Me? Why Elizabeth Parker? Why now? Thanks to Trunk Records' dedication to unearthing the other side of Parker, her 'dark' side, away from the limelight of work for popular, mainstream TV, you can hear why.
You knew electronic music was being made in Ahmedabad, Western India, at the National Institute of Design, didn't you? Of course...
You didn't imagine it...or even dream it.
Here's the proof. A compilation from state51 Conspiracy.
This is sound archaeology of the highest order. Yes, the past IS another country. India. Unless you come from India where, sometime between 1969 and 1972, S.C. Sharma made Dance Music I, predicting Minimalist Techno. That's one track. There are 18 others. Two of them are Jinraj Joshipura's Space Liner 2001 1&2, fantastic spatial odysseys reminiscent of earlier electronic/visual dreams of a future in which space flight was not only easily imaginable but clean, precise, romantically optimistic? That said, the second is more brooding, even ominous.
I.S. Mathur's Once I Played a Tanpura stands out, not because it's 'better' than other tracks, but because it sounds like the birth of Glenn Branca. A progressive statement from Mathur? Dismissing the traditional instrument and heralding the era of the electric guitar's potential as a futuristic feedback machine.
Atul Desai's Recordings for Osaka Expo is the only track which does acknowledge traditional Indian music, therefore placing, geographically, the source of all this music. The tradition is fused with (consumed by?) technology, naturally, but done so in a way that both respects and usurps it.
A highly recommended compilation. You can read more about electronic music in India here. And buy the album or download here.
A print I made this afternoon, made from three street photos I took.
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Since artwork by me is featured in the new edition of Maintenant magazine, along with less famous artists such as Raymond Pettibon, they asked me to perform at a launch party in London in September. I must resist the temptation to wear a Dada outfit. What I'd like to do is take along the big typewriter and create a piece 'live', with audience participation, but we'll see.
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I was shocked this morning to hear a contemporary album that was great...no, it's not that I very rarely hear them, but few tick all the boxes as Unnatural Channel by Drew McDowall does. I like dark electronic music, which is a loose definition, I know. Oh, 'dark' has been big for years, yes, but few are as capable as McDowall when it comes to organising a limited sound palette so effectively. The whole atmosphere is spot on with its deep textures and minimal use of rhythm...imagine being chained in a cave on a distant planet with no light bar the occasional glow from the red eyes of a beast intent on sucking out your soul. Yes, it's that good.
Sometimes you have to 'go the extra mile' to get something good, don't you? Yesterday we didn't do the extra mileage intentionally, just got lost cycling to St John's Wood in 30c temperature, puffing up hills, cursing but finally arriving at the high street where I checked out the Oxfam bookshop and found Electronic Music: A Listener's Guide by Elliott Schwartz - so, yes, it was worth the effort, especially since it only cost £2.49 and I thank the gods of charity shop staff misjudgment who, as you probably know, rarely intervene in order to give us an actual bargain these days. Plus, it includes the original publicity slip!
The joy of such books today is that we can access most of the music mentioned at the tap of a button or, in my case, click of a mouse. Fifty years ago, when it was published, you'd have had to hope a record store stocked some of the albums. The great thing about a vintage book on electronic music is that it will stop, chronologically, in good time, by which I mean before the advent of Techno and what followed. Not that I hate Techno; I actually love some, but the trouble with more recent books on the history of electronic music is that they can end up covering The Chemical Brothers and nobody wants that, do they? (OK, you might, but for me those are wasted pages).
Then there's the design, of course; those wavy lines, that great colour palette and the photo (collage?) that's partly negative, evoking as it does those crazy days when 'heads' wearing headphones conjured up cosmic sounds in an effort, perhaps, to translate a 'trip' they had into sound. Before buying the book LJ and me discussed the joys of headphones in the 70s. She would sneak into her older brother's room to play Dark Side of the Moon etc, whilst I listen to Alan 'Fluff' Freeman's Saturday afternoon Radio One show whilst wearing headphones because the hi-fi was in the living-room where Dad was watching the horse racing. Oh happy days! Were they? Maybe not, but at least music provided sanctuary and thrilling sounds - in stereo!
Alan Freeman never played anything avant-garde, as I recall - no, no - it was all Rock and I loved it. Naturally, what composers and freeks were doing with tape and electronics was beyond my bounds of discovery. Even if such music was stocked in the nearest record shop I would have ignored it in favour of a Mott The Hoople or Led Zeppelin album. The only Rock featured in Schwartz's discography at the back is Sgt Pepper (yeah, you know why) and Jazz-wise, he picks Joe Zawinul's debut, a rather odd choice to my mind, although it does feature some imaginative keyboard effects. If electric keyboards as part of advanced music are the criteria, why no Miles Davis? I quibble. It's a fine book!
RTomens, 2023
I play my own 'keyboard', of course, in the form of the Olympia typewriter. Yesterday someone posted a funny comment under a photo I took of the machine. He basically asked if I didn't find it 'tedious' to use - ha-ha. Perhaps he only uses the computer to make art, or visual poetry. OK, good luck to him, but I'm doggedly old school, despite having used digital means in the past (and will in the future) to create visual poetry. I can see how the thought of having to keep tapping keys in order to make a piece would be off-putting but as all typewriter users know, it's that very physicality which is part of the pleasure. That and the fact that works created on typewriters are still by far my favourite examples of the artform; the most inspirational. They are mostly historical, partly because the ease of use offered by the computer appeals to more people today. I know of very few who use a typewriter now. As I've said before, they're prone to be cranky, like vintage cars, but also like them, they offer something that contemporary technology cannot match.
I'm on a roll(er)! No, I mean, the roller was on the paper, meaning I cleaned the black ink off the roller and ran it over a new red ink pad - one sweep downwards and build the typing around it. hey - that's vispo, folks! Someone replied on Twitter, claiming to be able to 'see my thoughts', presumably my thinking whilst creating My Thoughts. Well, mebbe he could, but only superficially and through subjective 'reading', presumably. As I said in response, it's a good thing he couldn't see all my thoughts - they're mostly marked 'Private - KEEP OUT'.
Who would want my thoughts anyway? Really. I'm no wise man, not am I especially witty....
(I know, I've just negated the validity of this blog - dammit)
Besides, our written thoughts are merely the cleaned-up, edited versions of the kaleidoscopic mess in our heads, aren't they? Funny as it sounds I don't think too much when making art, typewriter art or whatever. Yes, I'm a spontaneous, improvising, crazy man! I'm the Charlie Parker of visual poetry! I wish. Minus the drugs and...OK...the talent.
Talking of Bird and all that Jazz, I recently bought Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music. First class design job, although there seems to be no credit for whoever did it - love the embossed cover and font used for the essays. Looking at the cover, I wondered how many people would get who Basquiat was referring to and the title. When asked about his favourite music, though, he apparently just said 'Miles Davis'. Well, I would say that too if the question related to Jazz. Otherwise, their are too many artists to consider.
My latest favourite album, for instance, is Ikarie XB-1 by Zdeněk Liška on Finders Keepers. You can also listen here if you don't like/have Spotify. For me it represents the best in electronic/acoustic space age soundtracks combing Pop and avant-garde ideas.
