Weekend links 709

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Guardian Angels (1946) by Dorothea Tanning.

• “If photographs can outlive their subjects, and memory works like photography, do images somehow endure in the brain after death? Could these undead memories be recovered with the right technologies?” Speculative fiction from 1899 in Dr Berkeley’s Discovery by Richard Slee and Cornelia Atwood Pratt.

• Mix of the week: Astral Loitering: Excursions In New Age, 1970–1989: 210 minutes of well-chosen selections that continue where I Am The Center left off. In a similar zone, albeit more recent, there’s the regular monthly report from Ambientblog, DreamScenes—January 2024.

• At American Scientist: The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate: “The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth”. An article from 2006 that you’d think would be more widely known today.

The Anomalist: “World News on UFOs, Bigfoot, the Paranormal, and Other Mysteries at the Edge of Science”. Too many of the links lead to worthless tabloid filler but the headlines can be fun.

• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: Two-Headed Doctor: Listening for Ghosts in Dr John’s Gris-Gris, a book by David Toop which analyses the Doctor’s voodoo-themed debut album.

• At Unquiet Things: Beyond The Shadows Of The Labyrinth: Exploring the Groovy Kaleidoscope of Ted CoConis’ Art.

• DJ Food unearths a batch of Portuguese Hauntology via Prisma Sonora Records.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: John Waters Day (restored/expanded).

• New music: Moon by Retep Folo & Dorothy Moskowitz.

New Age (live) (1969) by The Velvet Underground | New Age (1980) by Chrome | 1966 – Let The New Age Of Enlightenment Begin (2014) by Sinoia Caves

Weekend links 676

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Sleeve Study, from Kakitsubata (1998) by Paul Binnie.

• “London was not a project for me. It was the curse that never stops giving.” Iain Sinclair talking to Matthew Stocker about his new book for Swan River Press, Agents of Oblivion.

The Ultimate DMT Breakthrough Replication Compilation, a video guide to the DMT experience by Josie Sims. Related: Kristen French on what hallucinogens will make you see.

• At Spoon & Tamago: A return to Tokyo Genso’s depictions of an urban Japan transformed by vegetation and neglect.

• New music: The Shell That Speaks The Sea by David Toop & Lawrence English.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: San Sebastián de Mártir a Icono Homosexual.

• Cosmic views from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year, 2023.

Nakamura Mitsue makes a Noh mask from a single block of wood.

• Mix of the week: A mix for The Wire by Eleni Poulou.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Delphine Seyrig Day.

Of Ancient Memory (The Oblivion Seekers) (1994) by Jarboe | Oblivion (2001) by Lustmord | Oblivion (2004) by Redshift

Weekend links 669

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Love (1973), a poster by Nicole Claveloux.

• “Warner Brothers had been keen on a Rolling Stones movie. Jagger was keen on being a movie star. But Donald Cammell’s script was no Beatles’ jolly japes musical comedy…” Des Barry examines the ninth minute of Cammell & Roeg’s Performance.

• “…part of what made his 1970s work so original was the degree to which his band cross-pollinated guitar with synthesizer.” Aquarium Drunkard explores the esoteric jazz-rock of Steve Hillage.

• Magma, the cosmic jazz-rock group from France, have been around for 50 years without making a music video. Hakëhn Deïs is their first.

There was half-Tarkovsky embedded in async, “Solari” and “Stakra” and “Walker”, a hand outstretched to those great poems of living and light that we call films. “I had a strange dream last night,” Andrey Tarkovsky wrote in one of the diary entries collected in Instant Light, “I was looking up at the sky and it was very, very light and soft; and high, high above me it seemed to be slowly boiling, like light that had materialised like the fibres of a sunlit fabric, like silken living stitches in a piece of Japanese embroidery.”

David Toop remembers Ryuichi Sakamoto

• “Floor796 is an ever-expanding animation scene showing the life of the 796th floor of the huge space station…”

• The Electrifying Dreamworld of The Green Hand: Dan Clowes on the comic-art of Nicole Claveloux.

• At Bandcamp: Andy Thomas on the post-punk pop subversion of David Cunningham.

• At Unquiet Things: An enigmatic baroness and her collection of skulls.

• New music: River Of Dreams by Romance & Dean Hurley.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Ray Gun.

• Mix of the week: DreamScenes – April 2023.

• RIP Al Jaffee.

Skulls Of Broken Hill (1996) by Bill Laswell | The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull (2008) by Earth | Black Skulls (2018) by Jóhann Jóhannsson

Weekend links 656

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Mobius Strip II (1963) by MC Escher.

• Old music: Warp Records is reissuing two recent Jon Hassell discs later this year: The Living City (Hassell’s ensemble playing live in NYC, 1989) and Psychogeography (Zones Of Feeling) (remixes from City: Works Of Fiction), which will be available as standalone releases or bundled together as Further Fictions together with Hassell’s Atmospherics book.

• “His library is an immense and enviable wellspring, a demimonde of objects by murky creators who for decades have gnawed away at the inner organs of polite society.” Steven Heller talks to Glenn Bray about Library, an 800-page collection of scans from Bray’s trove of books, comics and print ephemera.

• New music: Tsathoggua, the latest in the Lovecraftian series of Cryo Chamber Collaborations which reminds me that I’m still missing the more recent entries. Also the non-Lovecraftian Coil by Ian Boddy.

• “Music is a way to express yourself beyond words,” says Hildur Gudnadóttir.

• See this year’s winners of the annual Close-up Photographer of the Year competition.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…Ishmael Reed The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974).

• A few new photos of Michael Heizer’s City in the Nevada desert.

City Of Night (1994) by David Toop & Max Eastley | City As Memory (1995) by John Foxx | City Appearing (2013) by Julia Holter

 

Weekend links 628

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Collage art by Alex Eckman-Lawn at Unquiet Things.

• “…I love those niches and fringes in the creative world. I believe they deserve our support. But in most instances, this support must be driven by our generosity, philanthropy, and commitment to our core values—and not merely by profit seeking. Because as soon as profit maximization enters the picture, these outliers on the distribution curve don’t make the cut.” Ted Gioia explores the myth of “the Long Tail”.

• “Here we were, an Italian, an Englishman and an American in Munich, three foreigners in a foreign land—it was an accident we got together in the first place.” Pete Bellotte talking to Jude Rogers about the recording of I Feel Love by Donna Summer, a cult item in these quarters. Most of the history is very familiar but I didn’t know that Bellotte is a Mervyn Peake obsessive.

The radical, revolutionary homoerotic art of Sadao Hasegawa. Writing about the artist in 2007 I said that “a decent collection of his work for a western audience is long overdue”; we finally have such a thing courtesy of Baron Books.

• At Wormwoodiana: Undefined Boundary: The Journal of Psychick Albion, a magazine by the creators of the Coil zine, Man is the Animal, that “aims to celebrate the visionary, psychedelic and numinous in Britain”.

Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2022 so far. Thanks again for the link here!

• New music: Devotional by The Lord + Petra Haden, Dreamtides by Field Lines Cartographer.

Fall Into Sleep by K Of Arc.

Psychic Fire (1975) by Master Wilburn Burchette | The Psychic (1995) by David Toop | Psychic Wounds (2020) by Trees Speak