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Album – ‘Near to nothing’ by Fear of Fluffing

Near to Nothing Bandcamp I’ve been playing with the Hackney based improvising group Fear of Fluffing for near enough 6 years. Here is a biography written for a live event in November that took place at Trowbridge Gardens Arts cafe. About FEAR OF FLUFFING:The Fear of Fluffing have been playing around East London(mostly) for over […]

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Advertising the enemy – South Park and installations of capitalism

So good to come across and read this piece in the Guardian that brings some focus to the phenomena of advertising as a causative element in the eco-emergency. It does this also as a general and high-level critique of the reality and impact of advertising from its concomitance as a core machine of capitalism to […]

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‘The songs became stories…’ – Slint and Breadcrumb Trail (2014) Post-rock, Velvet Underground

A documentary film in the course of it ‘documenting’ something can sometimes be a deeply problematic beast, in as much as it gives something a single narrative line (even while it may be conserving the multiple). In one sense it crystalises or settles a space of events and singularities that might include contrastings of seeing […]

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The Bass End of The Future – Desert and Nature in Villeneuve’s Dune

Partly what’s brilliant about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is in how it takes human cultural artifacts and practises and bends them outwards to a space where their location as futural becomes entirely believable. What the film also has in its favour is that it has a fascinating clarity and purity in telling story in the most […]

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Beak> Inspired fiction, fiddling while the city burns, Miyazaki and Le Guin

A friend (R. Sutherland) mentioned this band he was due to see recently Beak〉and upon quick encounter it was immediately apparent to me that this is a high, high quality sonic outfit. The first track from them I came across was the sleekly brilliant ‘Oh Know’ (below), which also happens to have a fantastically discombobulating […]

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Mutations of Silence – the eerie electronic void in Maju

For seventeen years between 1990 and 2007 BBC Radio 3 had a very extraordinary show called Mixing It on air that was broadcast once a week and featured the most interesting music of the time which had an experimental bent. A poppier sound or edge was never unwelcome and yet routinely there was an edge […]

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Nomadic returns of Drum and Bass – Dom Whiting

Been really enjoying Dom Whiting’s mobile Drum and Bass sets recently, they’ve been catching fire on YT and are a rare treat. Dom is clearly riding a rising wave and its interesting that Drum and Bass is part of the equation. ‘This one’s a banger’ In part it helps to see where Drum and Bass […]

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Heol Wyllt – Welsh Mountain time

There were times growing up, when I was quite hooked to the tv, specifically the children’s programmes that would be after school. At other times I was very much an outdoor child, particularly when we moved to Pontarddulais when I was 8, a village-becoming-town (much more so now) situated in a valley to the north […]

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Kung Fu (1972-75) – The impact so soft it impacts still

Why did the series do so well…? It was strange. This was a question talk show host Larry King once asked the actor David Carradine – star of the series Kung Fu, consisting of three seasons broadcast between 1972 and 1975, it had a pronounced impact and was an international success. The story of Kwai […]

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R.E.M. – Part 2 – trace of the wild Lens

An untimely river, ‘Near Wild Heaven’ and Synecdoche New York (2008) Part 1 For a number of years, I hadn’t listened to R.E.M. much if at all. I came across Stipe’s performance a few years ago on late night American TV in remembrance of David Bowie, a solo sung version (above) of ‘The Man Who […]

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Chapellian socio-economic inversions

This sketch from US Comedian Dave Chappelle’s show – which ran from 2003 to 2006 on Comedy Central is a gem. Its a very simple idea, a switch of cultural context and image in the portrayal of the US justice system’s different approach to white collar (white) criminals and drugs related, black criminals. Amazing in […]

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R.E.M. – Part 1 – Off the Green Lens

Nature, traps and escape in songs from R.E.M.’s ‘Green’ album (1988) Like many people 1991 was when I first heard R.E.M. spearheaded into my consciousness via breakthrough single ‘Losing My Religion’, a song that blasted the band into the mainstream. While there had been early TV appearances, they were part of an alternative rock scene […]

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luminosities of tune – starting and beginning – Super furry Gruff

Gruff Rhys, former front man with Super Furry animals has a new solo album coming tomorrow! (21st May) ‘Seeking New Gods’ and there’s a really lovely tune from that at the end of this piece. I’ve followed Gruff’s work in and out, from the wonderful ‘American Interior‘ from 2014 the lead song of which certainly […]

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Cave Fabric – Tales of further out living

While not having much of a history of watching videos of this kind, I have recently seen some very interesting (and very different) recordings of ‘timelapse builds’ in the wild or outdoors, which lead out to a couple of interview videos where people are living with permaculture (in one instance) in a cob built house […]

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Dances through the void – two Aldous Harding videos and Apocalypse Now (1979), Fémina

A little while back this section of the Guardian featuring Sleaford Mods‘ Jason Williamson’s Cultural highlights caught my attention, especially his praise for the 2017 album ‘Party’ by singer songwriter Aldous Harding (Hannah Sian Topp of New Zealand). It led to seeing a couple of Harding’s videos and the fascinating way that dance is used […]