{electronica} – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 847

La voix des airs (1931) by René Magritte.

• “Gangsters is to the 1970s what The Prisoner was to the 1960s—a playful, knowing and mildly crazed production but today it bears an important warning from the past to us.” John Quin on the extraordinary vitality of Philip Martin’s Play For Today and the BBC drama serial spun-off from it.

• New music: Juxtapositions by Boddy | Scanner; Embodied Shadow Of Thy Secret Mind by Philippe Blache; Light on Water by Modern Apartments.

• At Public Domain Review: Metamorphosis: Transformations in the Early Modern Flap Book (early 19th century).

Maeterlinck would write of [The Great God Pan], “it is, I believe, the attempt had been made to combine the traditional, or diabolical Fantasy with the new scientific kind, and that such a mixture has produced the most disturbing work I have ever come across”. Maeterlinck’s description of Machen serves as a tidy introduction to the crux of Ray’s writings too. A writer equally perplexed, intrigued, and possessed by the “the terrifying, hypergeometric, fourth dimension”. Ray’s works span the thin fabric of reality, piercing through into other eternal worlds and abducted by its eternal horror. Ray’s worlds are numerous realities battling one another, overlapping, mimicking, and distorting; it is an evocation of time and space as a battle-field of alternativities, governed by strange supernatural forces, notably angels or the occult.

The London of the Imagination, an examination of the fictional metropolis as it manifests in the stories of Belgian writer, Jean Ray

• Mixes of the week: A Slomo mix for The Invisible College, and DreamScenes – September 2026 at Ambientblog.

• At Colossal: “Spanning 200+ works, a new book celebrates the world of fungi“.

• The Electric Music Machine: Five Days at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1988).

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Ege Basalt.

• Matt Cargill’s favourite albums.

• RIP Jeremy Thomas.

• Metamorphosis (1970) by Ananda Shankar | Metamorphosis (1995) by Pet Shop Boys | Metamorphosis (2012) by Demdike Stare

Weekend links 846

Design by Randoll Coate for the Labirinto Borges, a hedge maze at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice, which was renovated earlier this year.

• “Code was probably our most overtly political record, which is interesting, touring and playing it in these very different but scary political times.” Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire talking about the experience of touring America again.

• At The Daily Heller: A look at the work of designer/illustrator George Hardie whose five-decade career is to be celebrated in a retrospective exhibition in London. There’s more George Hardie here.

• “Almost as soon as weird began circulating outside of Macbeth, its meaning broadened too, from ‘eerie’ and ‘uncanny’ to ‘odd’ or ‘unusual’.” Colin Gorrie on the weird history of the word “weird”.

• At The Quietus: Toby Manning on 40 years of Gone To Earth by David Sylvian. A minor nitpick: the album’s art and design was by Russell Mills, not Vaughan Oliver.

• New music: Burning Song by Kali Malone; Obsessive Surrealism by Parallel Worlds.

• At Door Of Perception: The radical architectural designs of Eugene Tssui.

• DJ Food’s latest accumulation of psychedelic graphics from the desktop.

• Old music: When The Music’s Over (Live, 1970) by The Doors.

• Arthur Brown‘s favourite songs.

• Weird Dream (1976) by Harmonia | It’s So Weird (1983) by Bush Tetras | Ballad Of The Weird Sisters (2013) by Blood Ceremony

Weekend links 845

Cover design by Jim Jupp, art by Arik Roper.

• New music: Sorcery by Belbury Poly, or “The Belbury Poly” as the credit on the cover art has it. The description of the forthcoming release says “it grew from [Jim] Jupp’s love of early to mid-80s electronic music and a rediscovery of how that music had soundtracked his childhood love of all things sci-fi and fantasy. It’s moody and melodramatic electronica rendered in bright and evocative 80s sounds.” And concerning the cover art there’s this: “Some may notice the typographical nod to Mayflower Books’ Michael Moorcock novels.” Indeed.

Cover art by Rodney Matthews, 1977.

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Mummy! A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century (1827) by Jane C. Loudon, and The Place Called Dagon (1927) by Herbert S. Gorman.

• More new music: Materia by Julia Holter; Avaeken by Stephen O’Malley; Witchcraft & Black Magic In The United Kingdom by Various Artists.

• The Natural History Museum presents competition photos from Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

• This week I drew a new header design for the Endless Bookshelf website.

• At the BFI: Brogan Morris chooses 10 great films about screenwriters.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Palimpsest Day.

• RIP Tim Curry and Yayoi Kusama.

• Sorcery #1 (1974) by Jack DeJohnette | Sorcerer (1977) by Tangerine Dream | Return Of The Sorcerer (2011) by The Wounded Kings

Weekend links 844

Crivelli’s Room I (1967) by Gillian Ayers.

• “This is the first film ever made about HP Lovecraft—and almost no one has seen it. Shot in 1989–90, it features unique interviews with Lovecraft’s friends and colleagues. It has sat unfinished for more than thirty-five years. We need your help to complete it and release it for the first time.” Lovecraft: When the Stars are Right, a documentary directed by Seán Martin, is asking for funding assistance to help digitise the extant footage. Watch the crowdfunding trailer.

• New music: Oblique by Ghost Dubs; Serpentine by Christer Bothén / Oren Ambarchi / Johan Berthling / Andreas Werliin; The Cardboard Falcon by Mico Nonet.

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: The Lost Stradivarius, by John Meade Falkner.

• At Nautilus: Kristen French talks to Devon Stoliker about the latest researches into psilocybin experiences using an fMRI scanner.

• At Colossal: “On vintage boards, Lou Benesch conjures the fantastic world of The Magician”.

• Amazonie (2020): music by Jonathan Fitoussi; animation by Jules Guérin.

• The Strange World of…Adam Curtis.

• RIP Frank Beard.

• Rolling Stone

• The Pink Room (1988) by Seigen Ono | The Darkened Room (1995) by David Toop | The Room Of Accidental Geometry (2000) by Harold Budd

Weekend links 843

Total solar eclipse over Zaragoza, Spain, 12th August, 2026. Photograph by Ruiyu Zhang.

• Kenneth Anger (again), in a transcript for another KPFA radio interview, in which we Anger have mentioning HP Lovecraft. Not a major revelation in itself but it’s not something I’ve seen before. On a related note, Anger wrote to August Derleth in 1947 asking permission to adapt The Dreams in the Witch House for one of his films. Another tantalising might-have-been from the Anger filmography, along with his unfinished film of Maldoror. (Thanks to Hagen for the info.)

• A recording of Jon Hassell’s final concert (London, 2015) will be released later this year as Music Is Invisible, which will become the third part of the Pentimento series. This may not be the last Hassell album, however. Other live recordings exist, and you could make a substantial compilation from all the one-off pieces Hassell recorded over the years.

• No City Fun: Manchester in 1979 (again) in a short film by Charles Salem with the music of Joy Division on the soundtrack.

• New music: Melting Days by Lusine; Yours Sincerely by Haruomi Hosono; Seedhead by Avi Engel.

• At Unquiet Things: Rebecca Chaperon‘s dreaming thresholds and painted portals.

• Mix of the week: Bleep Mix #322 by Tyondai Braxton.

• Finalists for the Ocean Photographer of the Year.

• Old music: Arles 75 Sechs by Can.

• RIP John Crowley.

• Eclipse (1968) by The Moving Sidewalks | Total Eclipse (1974) by Billy Cobham | Eclipse (1998) by Talvin Singh