Weekend links 391

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Mass by Ron Mueck at the National Gallery of Victoria Triennial. Photo by Tom Ross.

• Thanks of the week: to In Wild Air for asking me to fill their list of six favourite things; to Hodderscape for including my cover for Jeannette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun among their choice of best book covers of the year; and to Dennis Cooper for listing this blog among his own end-of-year favourites. Ta, all!

• New/old music: The Quietus reissues, etc, of the year, new Pye Corner Audio, Soul Jazz presents Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3, and The Cleansing is a new album by Annabel (lee).

• Mixes of the week: Seeing The Forest For The Trees by Gregg Hermetech, FACT mix 631 by Zola Jesus, and Secret Thirteen Mix 240 by Restive Plaggona.

Were a normally sexed person to enter such an establishment, he might be puzzled to see so many finely dressed men sitting there with soldiers, though he would find nothing particularly offensive. The friendships between homosexuals and soldiers forged here over sausage, salad and beer frequently endure for the full term of service, and often longer. The soldier returns home, living as a married farmer far from his beloved Berlin garrison, but many a uranian still receives freshly killed quarry as a token of friendship. Sometimes these relationships are even passed on to younger brothers; I know one case where a homosexual had relations with three brothers one after the other, all of whom were with the Cuirassiers.

An extract from Berlin’s Third Sex by Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the new titles from Rixdorf Editions. Ostensibly straight soldiers supplementing their income by having sex with “uranians” was still a common thing decades later, as detailed in John Lehmann’s In The Purely Pagan Sense.

The Cremator (1968) a film by Juraz Herz, was reviewed on these pages a while ago. It’s now out on region-free blu-ray. Highly recommended.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine on a map of old Dunwich, and Egypt in England.

Clive Hicks Jenkins on Mapping the Tale: image making and the narrative tradition.

Wyrd Daze returns with a free pdf, and a mix by The Ephemeral Man to download.

• At the BFI: Chris Gallant on where to begin with giallo cinema.

The Parisian Cabinet of Curiosities Loved by Wes Anderson.

Mass Production (1977) by Iggy Pop | Mass (1981) by Yellow Magic Orchestra | Mass Transit Railway (1997) by Monolake

Weekend links 339

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Untitled (2011) by Roger Hiorns. Photograph by Kate Green.

• “Most surprising and troubling of all is the status of a series of new paintings, also depicting naked male bodies. The figures look archaic, painted using latex and molten and folded plastic. They have sex with each other and with themselves. Extra penises float about, and fill any otherwise unoccupied orifice. There’s a lot of rogering going on, anal and oral, the figures consumed entirely by the act.” Adrian Searle reviews Roger Hiorns’ latest show at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

• “At the heart of magical belief is the belief in your own free will, in your ability to make changes and influence the world. It wasn’t accepting your circumstances, it was working to understand and directly change them.” Jessa Crispin on the women of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Addison Nugent on William Hope Hodgson: “The Forgotten Bodybuilding, Shark-Fighting Sailor who Invented Cosmic Horror (and annoyed Houdini)”. I’d quibble with the “forgotten”—Hodgson is sometimes overlooked but not exactly unknown—but the appraisal is welcome.

• More end-of-year lists: The Quietus posts its Albums of the Year, Bandcamp does the same, while Adrian Curry at MUBI announces his favourite film posters of the year.

Callum James has devised The Quite Difficult Book Quiz for those who’d like a challenge (and a donation to charity) over Christmas.

• “A profoundly poetic anomaly”: Kenan Malik on the Tantric paintings that pre-empt Modernist abstraction.

Patricia M’s Flickr albums contain a wealth of antique graphic design, advertising art and undigitised letterforms.

• “Cronky, shonky, soggy, knackered”: Simon Reynolds on ten years of Moon Wiring Club.

Michael LePointe on the delightful mysteries of The Voynich Manuscript.

Veloelectroindustrial: Wandering the wastelands of former industry.

• Mix of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 202 by JG Biberkopf.

• “Was Edmund Wilson jealous of Lolita?” asks Alex Beam.

• “Research finds MP3s drain your music of emotion.

Richard H. Kirk‘s favourite albums.

Pavel Banka‘s surreal abstractions.

Dennis Cooper‘s Alan Clarke Day.

Cosmic Surfin’ (1978) by Yellow Magic Orchestra | Cosmic Meditation (1991) by Moondog | Cosmic Call (2006) by The Evpatoria Report

Weekend links 243

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Genesia (2011) by Bette Burgoyne.

• “…so I started buying these old gay porn novels, just for the covers and kept on collecting them.” Maitland McDonagh on the underexamined world of gay pulp. McDonagh’s 120 Days Books is reprinting some of these scarce titles. More gay erotica: Plans are afoot to republish Des Grieux, the rare prequel to Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal (1893), a novel often attributed (without much evidence) to Oscar Wilde.

Merricat is the name under which the Turrell Brothers, John & Tom, produce their atmospheric “nacht music”. Albums with titles such as Oneiros, Widdershins and Zerkalo give an idea of the spheres of interest. They also make short films, clips from which may be seen here.

• “Fascists don’t like satire. They don’t like it at all. And they especially don’t enjoy visual satire. Because of its unique power to communicate.” Ralph Steadman talking to Robert Chalmers about recent events.

There is an unexamined commonplace now floating around the social media, which has it that satire derogates its proper function when it stops targeting the powerful, and targets the relatively powerless instead. Theodor Adorno has also been cited here and there with his remarks on satire in the Minima Moralia of 1951, but few have noticed that the account he offers there stands in direct contradiction to the current received wisdom. For Adorno, satire is in its essence wistful and traditionalist. It looks back to something that has been lost, and dismisses the straight-facedness of everyone who attempts, against all evidence, to maintain the illusion that there is anything respect-worthy about the present state of things. It targets not just elected officials, but the yokels who elected them; not just the honcho who runs the saloon, but the sucker who hands over his last possessions at the poker table. There is a need for this: the yokels and the suckers need it most of all. There is redemption in it, and I confess to harboring whatever amount of traditionalism it takes to appreciate this redemptive quality.

Paris, 2015: a lengthy meditation by Justin EH Smith on the responses of left and right to the Charlie Hebdo killings

• “When the surface of the world is so overloaded with competing narratives…there is an understandable impulse to go underground.” Iain Sinclair on the excavation of London.

• More German music: Sinai Desert (1981) and Kailash, Pilgerfahrt Zum Thron Der Götter (no date), two films with music by Popol Vuh.

Kim Fowley: Sins & Secrets of the Silver Sixties. UglyThings Magazine makes available its definitive Fowley interview from 2001.

• More electronica and mix of the week: the FACT guide to the Yellow Magic Orchestra and associates.

• Vegetable-snake Undersea Beings: Allen Ginsberg writes to the Paris Review about LSD in 1966.

• The Edge Question for 2015: What do you think about machines that think?

Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection.

Lake Baikal frozen over

Serial Killer Barbie

NGC 891 (1974) by Edgar Froese | Overture (1974) by Tangerine Dream | PA 701 (1976) by Edgar Froese

Weekend links 134

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Technological mandala 02 (The beginning) (2012) by Leonardo Ulian.

• The Yellow Magic Orchestra really were the Japanese equivalent of Kraftwerk in 1978. I’d not seen this video for Firecracker before. Same goes for the Technopolis and Rydeen videos. Related: YMO’s synth programmer, Hideki Matsutake, showing off his modular Moog on a Japanese TV show.

Sra is the final book in the Aedena Cycle by Moebius. It’s never been translated into English but Quenched Consciousness has just finished posting the entire book in an unofficial translation.

• “It’s better to have a small amount of good comics, than a big amount of mediocre comics.” Dutch comic artist Joost Swarte interviewed.

• From 2007: The Strange Lovecraftian Statuary of Puerto Vallarta (Thanks, Ian.) Related: More art by Alejandro Colunga.

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A novelty mechanical clock barometer in the form of a steam engine (c. 1885).

The MR-808: a room-size TR-808 drum machine by Moritz Simon Geist with real instruments played by robot hands.

• “Shoot us and dig the grave; otherwise we’re staying.” The women living in Chernobyl’s toxic wasteland.

Hotel Room Portraits 1999–2012 by Richard Renaldi, a new photo exhibition at Wessel + O’Connor.

Lane’s Telescopic View of the Opening of the Great Exhibition, 1851.

• “I’m the target market, and I don’t like it!” A Creative Catharsis.

Brian Eno’s new ambient album, Lux, is released on Monday.

Collages by Sergei Parajanov.

Techno City (1984) by Cybotron | Techno Primitiv (1985) by Chris & Cosey | Techno Dread (2008) by 2562.

Reworking Kraftwerk

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Ralf and Florian, 1973.

It’s a common problem when you like a musical artist so much that you own their entire catalogue: where to go next? In the case of Kraftwerk the problem has been exacerbated by the group’s famously sluggish rate of production: the last studio album was in 2003, the one before that was 1991. Cover versions are one solution, of course, and Kraftwerk have the advantage of providing simple yet memorable melodies that can stand no end of sonic mangling. I linked to a favourite Kraftwerk cover at the weekend, the Balanescu Quartet’s version of The Model. What follows is a list of favourite Kraftwerk cover albums (as opposed to one-off tracks). Given the vagaries of the music business some of these may now be deleted.

Possessed (1992) by The Balanescu Quartet

Robots
Model
Autobahn
Computer Love
Pocket Calculator

Kraftwerk are among the gods in the firmament of Mute Records so it’s not so surprising to find an erstwhile electronic label releasing an album of arrangements by Alexander Balanescu‘s string quartet. The Kronos Quartet were in the vanguard of working quartet variations on rock or pop music (their self-titled album from 1986 included a version of Purple Haze) but Balanescu’s arrangements still stand out for attempting to render electronic music with string instruments. Model is particularly good.

Trans Slovenia Express (1994) by Various Artists

Zrcalo Sveta (Das Spiegelglas Der Welt) by Laibach
The Robots by Coptic Rain
Trans Europe Express by The One You Love
Radioactivity by April Nine
Airwaves by Beitthron
Transistor by Data Processed Corrupted
Ohm Sweet Ohm by Borghesia
Neonlicht by Mitja V.S.
Antenna by Z-Entropa
Man Machine by Strelnikoff
Home Computer by Random Logic
The Model by Demolition Group
Kometenmelodie Part 1 by 300,000 V.K.
Spacelab by Videosex
Lie-Werk by Kraftbach

Also on the Mute label and less of a surprise since the contents are mostly from electronic groups. Laibach, who open and close the collection, were already Mute artists. Of the other Slovenians present, Borghesia and Coptic Rain were familiar names but the rest remain a mystery. This is nonetheless a great compilation with an equal mix of eccentric and sympathetic covers. Neonlicht features a banjo and the Enzo Fabiani Quartet, Coptic Rain give The Robots the Nine Inch Nails treatment while April Nine turn Radioactivity into a sublime mystery. Trans Slovenia Express Volume 2 appeared in 2005.

Die Roboter Rubato (1997) by Terre Thaemlitz

Die Roboter
Ätherwellen
Tour De France
Computer Welt
Techno Pop
Ruckzuck
Radioland
Mensch Machine
Schaufensterpuppen
Morgen Spaziergang

In which the musician/artist/theorist plays rubato piano variations on the well-known songs. The presence of Ruckzuck from the first Kraftwerk album is a surprise—hardly anyone does covers of tracks from the first two Kraftwerk albums. All Thaemlitz’s releases come with pages of accompanying text culled from Marxist theory, gender studies, queer politics and the like. Die Roboter Rubato is no exception:

Kraftwerk’s most vibrant celebration of this Homoeroticization is in the composition Tour de France. The sonic manifestation of the group’s well known adoration for cycling bears an undeniable resemblance to the sound of two men fucking one another – the rhythmic breaths of the top intermingling with the panting moans of the bottom.

Immediate questions come to mind: for all of the obviousness of homoerotic thematics in the world of the Mensch Machines, how do such thematics remain undiscussed by popular media? Is the dominant silence around homoerotic themes an act of social suppression or social obliviousness? (etc)

Subsequent Thaemlitz releases have given similar rubato treatment to Gary Numan and Devo.

El Baile Alemán (2000) by Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto

Introdución
Showroom Dummies
Trans Europe Express
The Robots
Neon Lights
Autobahn
Home Computer
Tour De France
The Man-Machine
Music Non Stop

German electronic musician Uwe Schmidt uses his Señor Coconut guise to present songs by synth artists as though they’d been covered by a cheap Latin American ensemble. Swiss group Yello introduced Perez Prado-style shouts and brass stabs into the world of Fairlight samplers in the 1980s so this may be regarded as the logical conclusion. Funny arrangements, especially Autobahn where the car refuses to start and the radio is tuned to South American stations. Señor Coconut’s 2006 album Yellow Fever! reworks the Yellow Magic Orchestra to similar effect.

8-Bit Operators: The Music of Kraftwerk (2007) by Various Artists

The Robots (Die Roboter) by Bacalao
Pocket Calculator by Glomag
Computer Love by Covox
Showroom Dummies by Role Model
The Model by Nullsleep
Radioactivity by David E. Sugar
Kristallo by Oliver Wittchow
Spacelab by 8 Bit Weapon
Computer World (Computerwelt) by firestARTer
Electric Café by Neotericz
Trans-Europe Express by Receptors
Tanzmusik by Herbert Weixelbaum
It’s More Fun to Compute by Bubblyfish
Antenna by Bit Shifter
The Man-Machine (Die Mensch-Maschine) by gwEm and Counter Reset

The masters of minimal aesthetics here receive some minimal cover treatments. Advertised as being “performed on vintage 8-bit video game systems” I was disappointed when some tracks failed to adhere to this stricture and added other instruments.The voices can also be a letdown when they’re left unprocessed. Complaints aside, the fat and bouncy rhythms are a good match for tunes which in other electronic hands were being lured into techno remix tedium. And it’s also good to see Tanzmusik from the Ralf & Florian album given an airing.

As I noted at the weekend, Kraftwerk give a series of retrospective concerts at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, in April.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Martin Rushent, 1948–2011
Autobahn animated
Sleeve craft
Who designed Vertigo #6360 620?
Old music and old technology
Aerodynamik by Kraftwerk