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Flatlands & Mountain People – Chelsea Wolfe and Super Furry Animals

I want flatlandsI never cared about money and all its friendsI want flatlands… Chelsea Wolfe, Flatlands One of the things about writing this piece following the passing of Mark Lanegan, that unique American voice of song and words – was that it allowed me to come across this song by Chelsea Wolfe. I want flatlands, […]

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Bee Sentient (&The Human Correspondent)

Evidence bees are thinking, feeling beings (w/ Stephen Buchmann, Denis Villeneuve) Found myself drawn to this comment piece in the Guardian recently which details research and conclusions of scientist Stephen Buchmann from his latest book on the minds of bees, What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees. “Bees are self-aware, […]

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‘Where the pavement turns to sand’ Sleaford Mods & Neil Young (1979)

This recent collaboration between Nottingham-formed Sleaford Mods (Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn) and the collage-satirist Cold War Steve (aka Christopher Spencer) has produced this amazing combination of song and video UK Grim. Spencer’s framing for the video, takes our eyes roving precisely across pantomime collages that capture a state of the UK, across the powerful […]

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Outside and Beyond – Shingo Tamagawa’s Puparia (2021)

This beautiful and evocative short film, created and animated by hand over three years by Japanese anime artist Shingo Tamagawa gives us – through its journey and exploration of transformation – bearings and direction. A subtle and powerful prompting about the space of human life and the capacity for art and stories to redeploy and […]

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Through the lens here – Photographs in East London

I was taught photography basics with an SLR in my twenties when I worked with a lady whose husband was a professional. I was working in a bank at the time (which I did for 6 months) and by some quirk of things, we realised that her husband’s photography studio/shop was a couple of doors […]

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Ambient Focus; Tim Hecker

Tim Hecker, the Canadian musical artist whose albums create relationships in sound that at times confer feelings as to a most daring encounter or dance; in the most abstracted and imaginative of senses. Paragon Point (above) from 2009’s ‘An Imaginery Country’ exudes a shimmering vastness to its drone, guided by a tonality that has the […]

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Fulu Miziki – Live in London (August ’22)

Recently I was lucky enough to catch a live set from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Fulu Miziki, playing in Hackney Wick in London, the final date of a brief UK tour. On a night of searing, unreal heat in the Studio 9294 venue Fulu Miziki played, adorned in their ebullient costumes, rendering them as […]

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The Definition of Brilliance – Devon Rodriguez

The algorithm threw TikTok sensation Devon Rodriguez my way with this video and I found it an enjoyable and affecting watch. Partly what I found interesting was its proximity as an act to something most would find intrusive and disturbing, namely taking a photograph of someone; capturing their image in space. Yet for a few […]

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William Basinski live at the Barbican (June ’22)

(w/ Sigur Rós, Postminimalism) In March 2013, my friend Steve bought us tickets to see Sigur Rós play in London. They played a set that reached lofty if inconsistent heights – at times transporting with brilliant melodic force, aided by an ingenious and huge dual projection system involving two screens, one behind the band and […]

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Arts Decimation in UK Education

Just finished reading this piece in the Guardian about Sheffield Hallam University closing their English literature degree. This is just the latest in a line of such actions by Universities in the UK, as they conform with the dead-eyed prescriptions of this government that learning to think, to read and study and gain deeper understanding, […]

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‘I love you, I thank you and I hear you’ – Pauline Oliveros (and Daniel Weintraub)

Whilst researching for a piece, I came across the journey of this documentary about Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) which has been slowly fundraising and gestating into existence, directed by Daniel Weintraub. The quote above in title of this piece is something said by Steve Buscemi at the end of his […]

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Alien Past Inside the Present – Simon Stålenhag (w/ Nigel Kneale, Strugatsky Brothers)

The books, stories and images of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag (b.1984) have certainly made an impact in the last decade, landing deep into the culture with their alluring and dreamy visions of retro-futural technologies in rural and other settings. What began as online paintings have subsequently found release in the form of books, a role […]

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Mark Lanegan (November 25, 1964 – February 22, 2022)

Mark Lanegan’s recent passing brought to mind the beautiful instrument of his voice, but also the thrill of reading his autobiography ‘Sing Backwards and Weep‘ (published in 2020) in which he takes us through an astonishing journey via a story of his life from his young and visceral rebelliousness through to his time in music […]

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Album – ‘blade of earth’ by Solar Violet

The above photo was how I started to record the album that would be finished recording 5 years later, and then finally mastered and ready some 8 years on (Bandcamp). I’d been making music in computer sequencing and recording programmes for years and just felt more and more that alongside the impact of difficulties in […]

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‘You only have a lifetime to escape…’ Barton and Fisher in online exhibition – Infinite Distance

https://infinitedistance.site/justin-barton-and-mark-fisher The release by Huperdub imprint Flat Lines of On Vanishing Land in 2019 marked a moment when the basic material of this extraordinary journey through sonic geo-connective intensities in sound and tale became routinely available. Giving the opportunity for the invaluable work in compositional re-attunement which Fisher and Barton had undertaken to disseminate that […]