The Drowned Cathedral (1929) by MC Escher.
• “All Saints’ was the last of the seven parish churches to fall headlong into the waves. The drowned church was doomed to lie in a gulley not far out to sea, a habitat for sponges and crabs, and yet it lives on, unvanquishable; for—as the story of Britain’s lost cities, ghost towns, and vanished villages tells us—what has disappeared beneath the sea can rebuild itself in the mind.” Matthew Green explores the history of Dunwich, Suffolk.
• “Why do certain artists endure and become (dread word) ‘iconic’, while some are forgotten or sidelined or only grudgingly acknowledged?” Ian Penman talking to Jeremy Allen about his new book, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors.
• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: A new edition of England’s Hidden Reverse, David Keenan’s study of the lives and music of Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93.
• “What is electronic music?” Daphne Oram, Desmond Briscoe and David Cain of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop are here to explain.
• New music: Timespan by Majeure, and Microdosing by African Head Charge.
• “Future of Borges estate in limbo as widow doesn’t leave will.”
• Arooj Aftab’s favourite albums.
• Paperback Covers on Tumblr.
• The Engulfed Cathedral (1974) by Tomita | Engulfed Cathedral (1981) by John Carpenter | La Cathédrale Engloutie (2003) by Sora
I loved England’s Hidden Reserve. Waited years to finally read about COIL to that extent.
Keenan sure filled up that book with as much Whitehouse as he could though…
“Fiercely protecting his [Borges] legacy” is not how I would characterize the legacy of Maria Kodama. What she fiercely protected was her revenue stream. Her treatment of Norman Thomas di Giovanni was despicable. Wouldn’t someone who admired the work of Borges want to read texts he actually co-translated and some of which he preferred to his original Spanish versions? Well… they currently languish out of print because Kodama did not wish to honor the generous royalty rate Borges shared with di Giovanni because of his satisfaction with the collaboration. Perhaps now there will be an opportunity to republish these works.
Trev: I don’t recall him mentioning Whitehouse so much but then I’ve never been interested in them so probably blanked the references. Strange Attractor has a book of interviews with Coil due out soon. I helped a little with the production of that one.
Stephen: Agreed, as per previous discussions. I’ve been wondering what this will mean for the NTdG stories and the older translations. If the rights are passed on to Kodama’s relatives then they may simply maintain the current embargo.
Impossible not to see your mentioning The Drowned Cathedral and All Saints’ and glance over at the cover of Prehistoric Sounds, spinning as I read this, award one more point for synchromysticism.