Weekend links 364

focusgroup.jpg

Stop-Motion Happening with The Focus Groop is a new album by The Focus Group (now a Groop, apparently, à la Stereolab), and the next release on the Ghost Box label. Design, as always, by Julian House.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Sypha presents…Voyager en Soi-Même: a Tribute to JK Huysmans’ Là-Bas. Related: Henry Chapront’s illustrations for a 1912 edition of Huysmans’ novel.

• At the BFI: Graham Fuller on Penda’s Fen and the Romantic tradition in British film; Pamela Hutchinson and Alex Barrett choose 10 great German Expressionist films.

• The Provenance of Providence: Chris Mautner on the Lovecraftian comic series by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows.

Luke Turner on Sunn O))): the ecstatic doom metallers turning rock concerts into “ritualist experiences”.

• At Dangerous Minds: The homoerotic “needleporn” art of Zachary Nutman.

Conor McGrady on the visual art of Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton.

• Collage and Mechanism: Anita Siegel’s art for Doubleday Science Fiction.

• Mix of the week: My name is Legion: Chapter 1 by The Ephemeral Man.

ChrisMarker.org is asking for small donations to help keep it running.

• 1967 is the year pop came out, says Jon Savage.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl goes online.

Groupmegroup (1981) by Liquid Liquid | If I Were A Groupie (1995) by Pizzicato Five | Group Four (1998) by Massive Attack

The Work of Walter Crane

crane01.jpg

Not the first time Walter Crane has been featured here but this slim volume (62 pages) is a useful overview of the artist’s work which covers all aspects of his career: fine art, book illustration, political design (Crane was a lifelong Socialist), textiles for William Morris, and interior design. There’s more Walter Crane at Wikimedia Commons.

crane02.jpg

crane03.jpg

crane04.jpg

Continue reading “The Work of Walter Crane”

Weekend links 363

sommers.jpg

The Constant Drumbeat of Terrible News (no date) by Allison Sommers.

• Nadia Khomami on Gay UK: Love, Law and Liberty, an exhibition at the British Library. Related: Simon McCallum‘s potted history of LGB characters on British screens. Elsewhere: writer and philanthropist Chuck Forester on gay sex in the 1970s.

The Panic Fables: Mystic Teachings and Initiatory Tales by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Finally available in English, a collection of all the comic strips written and illustrated by Jodorowsky when he was living in Mexico in the 1960s.

• A trailer for the restored print of The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961) by Karel Zeman. Related: collage designs by Graphic Manipulator for a Japanese collection of Zeman’s films.

• “Whether divining ancient wisdoms or elevating the art of cold reading, Tarot is a form of therapy, much like psychoanalysis,” says James McConnachie.

James Reith on “the Icelandic publisher that only prints books during a full moon – then burns them”.

• Mixes of the week: Wire 400 Mix #6 by Emptyset, and Secret Thirteen Mix 223 by Constantine.

• Mud And Flame: Penda’s Fen re-examined by Matthew Harle and James Machin.

Tilda Swinton in a Leonora Carrington-inspired fashion shoot for i-D magazine.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on William Burroughs’ The Wild Boys.

Applied Ballardianism: A Theory of Nothing by Simon Sellars.

• At Dangerous Minds: The Dark Rift by Jim Jarmusch’s Sqürl.

French Underground Rock: 1967–1980; a Discogs list.

Suzanne Ciani‘s favourite albums.

Infinite artwork: Untitled, 2017

Rip, Rig And Panic (1965) by The Roland Kirk Quartet | Panic (1984) by Coil | Flash Of Panic (1994) by Axiom Ambient

The South Bank Show: The Making of Sgt Pepper

sbs1.jpg

Here come the anniversaries again, driven by nostalgia and the imperatives of corporations to flog you another version of that thing you already own. Anniversaryism grew out of the CD reissue boom, with one of the first significant incidents being the debut release on CD of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album in 1987. This week you can walk into a shop and buy the album yet again in a variety of formats, the 50th anniversary now coinciding happily for legions of accountants with the current boom in overpriced vinyl.

sbs2.jpg

This post is complicit, of course, just as Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention were complicit in reinforcing Sgt Pepper‘s status as a cultural monument even while carping at it; satirists always end up attached to what they attack. The latest round of retrospective attention had me wondering whether Alan Benson’s excellent South Bank Show documentary about the making of the album was on YouTube. It isn’t (but it is available elsewhere), probably because there’s a documentary in the new Sgt Pepper box set that seems to be the same film. The South Bank Show documentary was broadcast in the UK in 1992 for another anniversary, the year being the 25th since the album’s release. This is one of those television productions crafted to deliver maximum content with a minimum of fuss, so there’s no hyperactive editing, and no pointless Reactions To The Great Work from minor pop celebrities. Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are all present to discuss the creation of the music, from the first song of the sessions, Strawberry Fields Forever, through to A Day In The Life. In the film’s real coup, George Martin sits at a mixing desk in the Abbey Road studio pulling faders up and down to show how the songs were pieced together; he also explains how some of the album’s more unusual effects were produced. The film runs just under 50 minutes, and it’s notable that nearly all the songs being discussed are by John Lennon even though this is an album dominated by Paul McCartney’s voice, and the initial concept was McCartney’s. Watch it here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Lyrical Substance Deliberated
The Fool album covers
The Sea of Monsters
Tomorrow Never Knows
Yellow Submarine comic books
A splendid time is guaranteed for all
Heinz Edelmann
Please Mr. Postman
All you need is…