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Tracks in light – Tangerine Dream and Risky Business (1983)w/ Philip Glass and Raymond Scott

I’ve touched before on the use of electronic music in film soundtrack, something which at its best generates a sense of possibility for feeling and experiencing that takes the mergent synthesis (moving images and sound) to a different kind of place. Of course this can be said for all the best productions in this area […]

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Wilden Times – A song

By way of Jay Griffiths, Wes Anderson, Rosie Swale Pope I’ve been working on an album of songs under the name Solar Violet for a number of years and the sound element has been finished for a good while now. While the album has been mastered by the peerless James Dunn of Cafe Oto, there […]

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street zen

Following the last post, John Brown (Bass Player and 3D animator) sent this video through from Youtuber Ogmios and it is such a treat. Partly a car based exploration of parts of North London, with its unique socio-cultural communities and partly a meditation on road etiquette. It is a reminder that it is possible to […]

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Neon Now

Images of the city cycle One of the unanticipated impacts of Covid and lockdown has been to change the relationship with the spaces of the cities where many of us live. Like so many people, when Covid first hit and the UK went into lockdown in March for the next few months I was stuck […]

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discursive subversive – the surreal turbulence of Eric Andre

A friend introduced me to The Eric Andre show a few years ago, but only recently I encountered it again through its segmented Youtube presence, realising just how much of an achievement it is. Its interesting that Adult Swim, a late night programming node of Cartoon Network has spawned two of the most rupturous programmes […]

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Escalations of the abstract (The Prisoner 1967) Part 2

‘Realising that you are the dream figure in another person’s dream, that is self awareness…’ Timothy Levitch (Waking Life). * Part 1 The final episode ‘Fall Out’ – is where transformation through abstraction in the Prisoner becomes most vital. It would appear very much as if the techniques and approaches of Surrealism are at work, […]

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Future fluencies – Yoyoka Soma, Rage Against the Machine

Encountering the videos (mostly drum covers) from gregarious 10 year old Yoyoka Soma has definitely been one of the turn ups of lockdown for me, especially as it is often a treat to read comments from middle aged drummers agog at her displays. What they seem particularly struck by aside from her obvious technical prowess […]

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Escalations of the abstract (The Prisoner 1967)

heightened role of abstraction in Patrick McGoohan’s mind bending and untimely 60’s TV series In terms of its narrative across the 17 episode run first transmitted in 1967, The Prisoner pitches us immediately into one scenario; containment in the mysterious and treacherous Village. A secret and unknown prison of location where the inmates are interred […]

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BLU ART

I was lucky enough to have this shared with me today by Folders Arrangements. Its a 2015 mural ‘Spirale‘ from Italian street artist Blu in an area; Ponte Mammolo in Rome. An Italian street artist living in Bologna who began and flourished initially with a group of other street artists, beginning around the turn of […]

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Shawn Smith (October 28, 1965 – April 3, 2019)

As I do not generally keep up with music news, it came as some surprise to learn that Shawn Smith singer with bands such as Satchel, Pigeonhed and Brad (as well as a solo artist) had died 11 months ago. I first became aware through listening to ‘Shame’ by Brad, a 1993 album from a […]

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Atoms of Escape, Drones of Realisation – Steve Reich

’18 Musicians’ and facets of the music of Steve Reich I realised a new version of the album Music for 18 Musicians had been released on vinyl in December! A live recording from Tokyo in 2008 and despite one or two minor sonic hiccups, it is a fabulous release, prompting intensive re-listenings and this piece […]

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do war machines dream of magnetic sheep?

Apparently so. This advertisement for visiting the HMS Belfast in London recently took me by surprise. Is this a controversial image? Or to find it that way an overreaction? Both? I couldn’t help but think immediately of part of the Holy Mountain (clip further down) – Jodorowsky’s 1973 film masterpiece (one of a few). Please […]

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Other Places Here – Wayward Pines (2015) and Twin Peaks

Perspectival beyonds to the social reality image in Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Wayward Pines. Wayward Pines is a US television drama that ran over two seasons in 2015-16, adapted from the series of books by US novelist Blake Crouch. The original plan was for the programme to have one season (understandable given the effectiveness […]

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French Wilds – The Cevenne

‘We’d been walking in the woods, with a real bounce to our step, in these most beautiful of days, with the light catching every breath and drifting cell of woodland being… We are entranced by the gentle strobing of the light between the trees, its funny so we laugh, the sound echoes in the trees, […]

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Dream the path – Ursula K. Le Guin

When Ursula Le Guin died in January last year, it felt like we’d lost a true storyteller-dreamer, someone who’d given us worlds and transformative ideas and situations, who’d contextualised and touched upon forms of the unknown through the building of stories only even one of which was the spell-blinding 1976 book ‘The Word for World […]