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Shades of Toho: the city of San Francisco encounters its octopoid nemesis on this gig poster from DKNG. Via OMG Posters!
• Related to the above: Godzilla Haiku.
• View from Another Shore: a fantastic (so to speak) and overdue interview with Franz Rottensteiner, writer and editor of landmark studies of fantasy and science fiction.
• Ronald Searle: [...]

It’s a curious feeling when a drawing which is nearly 26 years old makes it out into the world. The image above is the cover of a new 7″ single release, Dominion of Avyaktam by metal band Orator, the picture being something I drew in 1984 entitled Mahakala after the Tibetan deity which it depicts. [...]

Good things come in fours: the mighty Kraftwerk performing Numbers on the Minimum-Maximum DVD (2005).
Yes, the day between Darwin Day and St. Valentine’s Day is this blog’s birthday. I continue to be surprised that I’ve kept this going for so long since I never managed to keep a diary. Doing work that chains you to [...]

• Two covers from a new range of Penguin reprints for the Aids awareness fund (RED), all of which are based around quotes from the books in question. Non-Format’s stylised extract concerns the blazing red of the Count’s eyes while Coralie Bickford-Smith plays some Tom Phillips games with the text of The Secret Agent. The [...]

A reminder that the Manchester District Music Archive’s Queer Noise event (for which I designed posters and flyers) takes place this Saturday.
Join us on Saturday 23rd January 2010 at The Deaf Institute for a one-off celebration of gay music in Manchester.
The line-up includes:
DJs: Dave Kendrick (Paradise Factory) • Jayne Compton (Club Brenda) • Philippa Jarman [...]

On gospel, Abba and the death of the record: an audience with Brian Eno

The Düsseldorf maestros are treated to some animated illustration in this 1979 film by Roger Mainwood which takes Kraftwerk’s Autobahn as its soundtrack. Mark at Strange Attractor provided the tip and he compares the animation style to René Laloux and Roland Topor’s Fantastic Planet (1973). The purple humanoid floating through surreal landscapes is certainly reminiscent [...]

Kjendalskronebrae, Nordfjord, Norway (c. 1900). From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division via Wood s Lot.
Are you suffering list fatigue yet? I certainly have been, especially from the apparently endless “best ___ of the decade” catalogues which would have you believe that the significant cultural products of the past ten years have been [...]

The Million Volt Light & Sound Rave (1967).
More psychedelia as Paul Gorman at The Look alerts me to an exhibition of work by Pop artist Dudley Edwards running this month at 3345 Parr St, Liverpool. Edwards was a part of the Binder, Edwards & Vaughan design collective in the 1960s, renowned for their light shows [...]

One nation under a Moog | Synth Britannia.

In which the Buddha Machine returns as a bespoke instrument/greatest hits package from Industrial music outfit Throbbing Gristle. Having been a TG aficionado for many years, and being the proud owner of a Buddha Machine, this item looks like an essential purchase.
Thirteen original TG loops: a mix of experimental noise, industrial drone, and classic melodies [...]

La Roux: ‘Of course Lady Gaga’s not my thing’ | Elly Jackson on pop life, androgyny and related matters.

A=P=P=A=R=I=T=I=O=N is a collaboration between artist Cerith Wyn Evans and Throbbing Gristle, the once notorious Industrial music act now enjoying a resurgence of activity and attention. Evans and TG have an earlier connection via Derek Jarman, for whom Evans worked as an assistant. Given how much I enjoy seeing mirrors used in art, I’m very [...]

Moldover’s CD case: a working theremin.
In May this year, Brian Eno was writing in Prospect magazine about the current state of the music business as it continues to be assailed by digital technology. Among the things Eno discussed was the packaging of music:
The duplicability of recordings has had another unexpected effect. The pressure is on [...]

In Spaces Between from The Great Old Ones (1999).
Some noteworthy pieces of news as the month draws to a rain-sodden and dismal conclusion.
• Frank Woodward was in touch this week to let me know that his excellent HP Lovecraft documentary, Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, will at last be appearing on DVD in October. This [...]

Elly Jackson of La Roux in the recent video for Bulletproof. I’ve been enjoying La Roux’s debut album a great deal in the past week. The jacket she’s wearing is designed by Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and features the black stripes and primary colours used by Piet Mondrian (1874–1942) in his Neo-plasticist paintings of the 1920s.

Out again to Trinity Church in Salford for an evening of musical performance from the Miasmah label. “Miasma” was a fitting word for this event since all three artists proved very adept at filling the humid air with great clouds of treated guitar chords, loops and electronic noise.
The aural miasms created by The Sight Below, [...]

Extending the recent pagan theme, Ubuweb posts Derek Jarman’s determinedly occult and oneiric film, In the Shadow of the Sun (1980), notable for its soundtrack by Throbbing Gristle. This was the longest of Jarman’s films derived from Super-8 which he made throughout the 1970s between work as a production designer and his feature films. He [...]

Ralf Hütter: I got a new head, and I’m fine | Rare interview with Kraftwerk’s last original Man Machine.

A visit to Baked Goods distribution this week brought me a haul of new releases, all items I’ve either designed or overseen the production of. Among the new CD designs I’ve already mentioned the Tectonic Plates compilation, a really excellent collection of dubstep singles with a bonus disc of mixes by Pinch. Related to Tectonic’s [...]