Feb 17, 2016

An early promotional poster from 2014 by Jay Shaw. Ben Wheatley’s film of the novel by JG Ballard approaches. As is my custom, I’ve been avoiding the trailers of this and any other film of interest but the posters are increasingly impressive. Ben Wheatley and fellow Brit filmmaker Peter Strickland (whose The Duke of Burgundy […]
May 14, 2015

1: The pattern 2: A novel by Alan Garner The Owl Service (1967). Cover design by Kenneth Farnhill. 3: A Granada TV serial The Owl Service (1969). Eight episodes, written by Alan Garner, directed by Peter Plummer.
Mar 8, 2015

The Philosophers (Homage to Courbet) by Christopher Ulrich. Another great tip from Full Fathom Five. • “Mushrooms are the only psychedelic drugs that I take, and I don’t take them very often. But I would trust them. Once you’ve done them a few times it’s very easy to feel a sense of entity. You can […]
Aug 20, 2014

If you’re an obsessive cineaste there’s a good chance you maintain a mental list of the films you’d like to see, the films you’d like to see again, and the films you’d like to see reissued on DVD. The vagaries of distribution and ownership often conspire to make older films fall out of sight even […]
Jun 26, 2014

Subterranean Modern (1979). Sleeve art by Gary Panter. As often happens, one post leads to another, and the next thing you know there’s a themed week happening, so here’s something more about Tuxedomoon. Subterranean Modern was a compilation album released by The Residents on their Ralph Records label in 1979. The idea was to showcase […]
Aug 25, 2013

Dress (2012) by Nao Ikuma. • Two of my Cthulhu artworks can currently be seen in the Ars Necronomica exhibition at the Cohen Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI. The exhibition is part of NecronomiCon, and runs to September 13th. In related news, my steampunk illustration has been nominated in the Visual category of this year’s […]
Oct 30, 2012

The Stone Tape has accrued a considerable cult reputation since it was first broadcast as a BBC ghost story during Christmas, 1972. I was too young to see the original transmission—I used to hear awed reports from those who remembered it—and didn’t get to see it until the BFI brought out on DVD a few […]
Oct 21, 2012

Japanese poster (1982). At The Quietus Steve Earles looks back at John Carpenter’s visceral and uncompromising The Thing which exploded messily onto cinema screens thirty years ago. It’s always worth being reminded that this film (and Blade Runner in the same year) was considered a flop at the time following bad reviews and a poor […]
Oct 8, 2012

Design by David Pelham (1972). Continuing an occasional series. Pity the poor designer who has to create a new cover for Anthony Burgess’s novel when David Pelham’s Penguin cover—created in haste forty years ago—is more visible than ever. Pelham’s design is a familiar sight on these pages but it’s also an increasingly familiar sight elsewhere, […]
Sep 30, 2012

Seven-inch sleeve design by Savage Pencil for Wrong Eye (1990) by Coil. • “Can you use sensory deprivation to explore ESP? And then make music from the process?” Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt of Matmos decided to find out for their new EP. Related: Occult Voices—Paranormal Music, Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1905–2007 at Ubuweb. Details […]
Sep 9, 2012

Coronal Mass Ejection from the surface of the Sun, August 31st, 2012. • “Most of the main parts were recorded in a single day using Vangelis’s famous technique: try to play as many synths as possible at once.” Simon Drax on the prolific musical output of Zali Krishna. The new Krishna opus is Bremsstrahlung Sommerwind, […]
May 20, 2012

Dreams before Surrealism: a sheet music cover from 1926 by René Magritte. • The week in music: Listen to compositions by Annea Lockwood. | At the Free Music Archive: Uncomfortable Music, a tribute to David Lynch’s Eraserhead (and, it should be said, to Alan Splet’s unique soundtrack). | Alan Licht plays a track from Trout […]
Jan 9, 2012

Growing up in the 1970s put cinema-going kids of my generation in a frustrating position: we knew that the censorship of decades past was over but we weren’t old enough to see any of the films benefiting from the relaxed strictures. Consequently some notorious releases grew larger in the imagination than they might have otherwise, […]
Dec 11, 2011

Typographic Composition (1924) by Teresa Zarnowerówna from a post about Polish graphic design at 50 Watts. • “Direct action is a matter of acting as if you were already free… [...] …the link between military and money systems remains the dirty secret of capitalism.” A lengthy and essential interview with “anarchist anthropologist” David Graeber, author […]
Nov 2, 2011

left: The Hostage (1966); right: The Female Terrorist (1971). Both by Konrad Klaphek. No, I’m not suggesting that David Pelham’s paintings for the Ballard covers he designed in the 1970s are inspired by the earlier work of German artist Konrad Klaphek. But it’s tempting to think of Klaphek’s isolated objects as being intended for Ballard […]
Jun 8, 2011

Pop music is one of the best forms of time travel when it summons a memory that returns you to a specific time and place. All I need to revisit the summers of 1981/82/83 is a blast from one of these albums, each a Martin Rushent production that benefited from his expertise with synth and […]
May 15, 2011

Or So It Seems (1983) by Duet Emmo. Design by The Brothers Quay. • “Make things, no rules, but be quick.” Bruce Gilbert, musician in (among others) Wire, Dome and Duet Emmo is interviewed. Related: Daniel Miller, Mute label boss and another member of Duet Emmo is interviewed (and provides a mix) at The Quietus. […]
Dec 23, 2009

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 […]
Dec 3, 2009

These days I still wear T-shirts but only under other clothes, I’m no longer happy with the T-shirt as an item on its own. (It doesn’t help that my arms are so skinny they always look awkward depending from a pair of short sleeves.) The irony is that I’ve spent a lot of time over […]
Aug 13, 2009

top left: David Pelham’s classic design (1972); top right: photography by Lionel F Williams (Eye) and SOA / Photonica (Cogs) (1996). bottom left and right: photography by Véronique Rolland (2000 & 2008). In April this year I wrote about James Pardey’s excellent site devoted to book covers from the Penguin science fiction range. I’m often […]