{electronica} – Page 146

Terminus by John Schlesinger

Before John Schlesinger made his debut feature, A Kind of Loving (1962), he directed a number of short documentary films. Terminus (1961), a day in the life of the Waterloo railway station in London, is the most notable of these, an award-winning snapshot of a period when Britain’s railways were still nationalised and steam trains were about to vanish from regular service. The film has that crisp, black-and-white photography so typical of the early 1960s, a look which renders close-ups with uncanny fidelity and makes the outmoded fashions—the bowler-hatted men and gloved women—seem all the more curious. A year later Orson Welles was deploying a similar style when photographing the dishevelled splendour of the Gare d’Orsay in Paris for his film of The Trial.

For a different take on London’s railway stations there’s Terminus by analogue electronic outfit Node, a track inspired by concerts they played live at Paddington station in 1995.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Screening Kafka

Weekend links 116

Ankle Deep, a pyrograph by Robert Sherer whose work is showcased at The Advocate.

• “Bertrand Russell wrote in 1932, during another period of economic distress, ‘that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial societies is quite different from what always has been preached.’ ” From The Devilishness Of Idleness by Alex Gallo-Brown. Related: Owen Hatherley says “It’s the 21st century – why are we working so much?”

• Restoring James Joyce’s book of the night: Joyce biographer Gordon Bowker reviews the new edition of Finnegans Wake. Over at the NYRB Michael Chabon has a great piece about his own relationship with Joyce’s novel that manages to make some very un-NYRB references to Cthulhu, the Necronomicon and Michael Moorcock’s Elric. Related: Leopold’s Day, a limited edition (and expensive) map of Dublin using typography to depict the people and places of Bloomsday.

Verbally, it feels as though Burroughs, Joyce and Beckett are text messaging haikus back and forth: ‘beautiful/last/random fragments of poetry/finding syllables,/the waters fall/the waves fall/musical./pencil murmuring’.

James Kidd on A Humument by Tom Phillips.

• The Expanding Universe (1980), an album of early computer music by American composer Laurie Spiegel, will be reissued with additional recordings in September.

• A previously unreleased remix by Surgeon of Teenage Lighting by Coil has been made public.

Small Museum of Nature and Industry (2010) by Susan Collard.

• Queer Kids In America, a photo project by M. Sharkey.

• Walter Benjamin’s Grave: A Profane Illumination.

• The Visual Art and Design of Famous Writers.

• Nylon Sculptures by Rosa Verloop.

• Froschroom (1994) by Mouse on Mars | Bib (1995) by Mouse on Mars | Cache Coeur Naïf (1997) by Mouse on Mars.

Wilfried Sätty album covers

Gandharva (1971) by Beaver & Krause. Cover art by Sätty, lettering by David Singer.

There aren’t many, unfortunately, and half the ones here have already featured in previous posts, but since I’m often referring people to Sätty’s work it seems worthwhile gathering them together. His album cover art shows he was equally adept at working with colour as with black-and-white, and might have done a lot more in this line had he been given the opportunity. (Sätty’s first book, The Cosmic Bicycle, does include some colour plates.)

The Gandharva album is the oddest in this small collection, one side being a blend of blues, gospel and Beaver & Krause’s Moog doodlings while the other side comprises an improvised Moog-inflected jazz suite recorded live in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. The setting of the latter is apt since cover artists Sätty and David Singer both came to prominence among San Francisco’s psychedelic poster designers in the late 1960s. Film director Robert Fuest liked Gandharva so much he hired Paul Beaver, Bernie Krause and Gerry Mulligan to play similar music for the soundtrack of The Final Programme.

Of the other albums the Sopwith Camel is obviously closest to Sätty’s familiar style. The covers for George Duke suit the mid-70s trend of jazz/funk albums with “cosmic” sleeve art exemplified by Tadanori Yokoo’s fantastic (in all senses) collage for Agharta by Miles Davis. Documentation of Sätty’s non-book work is still sparse so if anyone knows of any other covers please leave a comment.

Update: Added The Occult Explosion. See this later post.

The Miraculous Hump Returns From The Moon (1973) by Sopwith Camel.

The Occult Explosion (1973) by Various Artists.

Feel (1974) By George Duke.

The Aura Will Prevail (1975) by George Duke.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Nature Boy: Jesper Ryom and Wilfried Sätty
• Wilfried Sätty: Artist of the occult
• Illustrating Poe #4: Wilfried Sätty

Nature Boy: Jesper Ryom and Wilfried Sätty

Interest in the work of collage artist Wilfried Sätty (1939–1982) increases by slow degrees, and did so again last year although I completely missed the occasion. Better late than never. Nature Boy is a 12-inch single by Jesper Ryom on the Berlin-based Power Plant label which comes adorned with this Sätty collage of a tattooed boy. The picture appears as a vignette in the posthumous Visions of Frisco (2008) but this is the first time I’ve seen the larger work. Power Plant promoted the single by staging an exhibition of Sätty prints, photos of which can still be viewed here. Nature Boy can be heard in full at YouTube.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Wilfried Sätty: Artist of the occult
• Illustrating Poe #4: Wilfried Sätty

Weekend links 114

David Bowie’s cigaretted fingers and bulging silver crotch point the way to the future. This summer sees the fortieth anniversary of the Ziggy Stardust album’s release. The Melody Maker ad above can be found with a wealth of other Ziggy-related material at the very thorough Ziggy Stardust Companion site. For me the definitive artefact isn’t the album itself but DA Pennebaker’s film of the final concert from the 1973 tour; the songs really come alive and Bowie’s performance is overwhelmingly electric. Related: Cracked Actor, the BBC documentary from 1975 about Bowie’s post-Ziggy life on and off the stage.

• The week in books: Amanda Katz described the remarkable history of a single copy of The War of the Worlds by HG Wells then asked “Will Your Children Inherit Your E-Books?” | Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon in The Browser’s FiveBooks interview put Blood Meridian on his list. | “Call me the greatest American novel”: Christopher Buckley on Moby-Dick. | The Brit Lit Map.

• For another anniversary, the Alan Turing centenary, there’s The Strange Life and Death of Dr Turing (part two here) and Breaking the Code (1996), Derek Jacobi playing the tragic genius in a biographical drama.

• Commissioner of Sewers (1991) a William Burroughs documentary by Klaus Maeck in which the author reads some of his work and endures a Q&A session with surprising equanimity.

• Music, flesh and fantasy: When Mati Klarwein’s hyperactive paintings stole the psychedelic show.

• Move Over Casio: Teenage Engineering’s OP-1 Portable Synth Looks Cool, Does Everything.

• A retrospective of art by Madge Gill (1882–1961) at The Nunnery, London.

• “Art is unavoidably work”: Terre Thaemlitz interviewed.

• A trailer for Document: Keiji Haino.

• WB Yeats, Magus

• Pathétique 1 (1994) by Fushitsusha | Pathétique 2 (1994) by Fushitsusha.