{music} – Page 4 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 841

Drawing Hands (1948) by MC Escher.

• New music: The World In Layers by mōshonsensu; The Rest Is My Ghost by Lawrence English; Rotostyles by Julien Ash & M.Nomized.

• At Public Domain Review: “The Persian Mâr-Nâmeh or, The Book for Taking Omens from Snakes” (1892).

• At Little White Lies: Sam Moore writes in praise of Hiroshi Teshigahara, “surveyor of the abyss”.

Paradoxically, art is useful only if it is allowed to remain entirely useless—that is, entirely free to go where it will. Wilde finds an ally here in Baudelaire, who followed his observation of the strangeness of the beautiful with a sharp rebuke to those who would subordinate artistic beauty to a utilitarian logic. Baudelaire asks:

“How could this necessary, irreducible, and infinitely varied strangeness…ever be controlled, amended, and corrected by Utopian rules conceived in some little scientific temple or other on this planet, without mortal danger to art itself?”

The privileging of utility over uselessness, of work over play, is the death of art—and the death of the given world in which our utilitarian spirit must be grounded if it is to have purpose and meaning.

JF Martel explores the ways in which art invented humanity

• Old music: Visions Of Sodal Ye by Mar-Vista.

• RIP Bill Oddie and Raoul Vaneigem.

• Martyn Ware’s favourite albums.

• The Last Museum

• Snake Rag (1923) by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band | Ananta Snake Dance (1980) by Suns Of Arqa | Snakes Crawl (1980) by Bush Tetras

Weekend links 840

The Toad of Maldoror (1932) by Valentine Hugo.

• Old music: Thank You America (John Robie Dub Mix) by Cabaret Voltaire. Code, the group’s 1987 debut for the Parlophone label, receives an overdue reissue later this year with a substantial collection of remixes.

• At Lesser-Known Writers: Douglas A. Anderson examines the career of Hal Garrott, a writer whose novels for children feature fine illustrations by Dugald Stewart Walker and Mary-Ponton Gardner.

• The August catalogue of lots for the After Dark: Gay Art and Culture online auction. Homoerotic art, photos, historic porn, etc.

• Mixes of the week: The Invisible Collage Vol. 1, and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe’s Invisible Jukebox Mix at The Wire.

• New music: Modulisme Session 144. Lightning Field 01. Constraint by Philippe Petit, and Signal Loss by Paul Beaudoin.

• At Colossal: Los Angeles Public Library unveils the world’s largest pop-Up book.

• At the BFI: Craig Ian Mann selects 10 great East German films.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Ed Emshwiller’s Day.

• Signaux Codes Non Identifiés (1978) by Michel Magne | Code Rays (Codex Dub) (1995) by Main | Codes (Encryption And Decryption) (2025) by Andrew Heath

Weekend links 839

Imaginary Numbers (1954) by Yves Tanguy.

• “In all his writing, Ballard seems to embrace the opposed extremes of pulp genre conventions on the one hand and avant-garde experimentation on the other, while entirely rejecting the norms of conventional literary fiction that lie between these two extremes.” Steven Shaviro reviewing The Illuminated Man: Life, Death and the Worlds of JG Ballard by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan.

• The Naturalist’s Library: A complete digital edition of William Jardine’s 40-volume series on natural history published 1833–1843.

• New music: Cooked by Oren Ambarchi; Where Light Pauses In The Silence Of The Sun by Abul Mogard / Rafael Anton Irisarri.

• Richard Dadd: the painter whose fantastical vision was unconfined by his 43 years in an asylum.

• At Colossal: “Trompe-l’œil paintings by Jason Limon reveal a hidden skeletal world.”

• “Adam Rowe is writing a new book about science fiction art.”

• Mix of the week: DreamScenes – July 2026 at Ambientblog.

• RIP Sam Neill.

• Curationist

• The Skeleton And The Roundabout (1968) by The Idle Race | Skeletal Framework (1981) by Eyeless In Gaza | Skeletal Remains (2002) by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore

Weekend links 838

Amethyst geode by Sheila Sund.

• RIP Tony Rayns: A Supreme Cinephile Remembered – notes and observations by Geoff Andrew. The remembrance mentions Rayns’ Cinema Rising, a short-lived magazine he was editing in the 1970s. I posted an extract from the first issue here.

• The week in photo competitions: Hasselblad Masters 2026; ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 shortlist; International Aerial Photographer of the Year.

• At Colossal: Veks Van Hillik suspends fish, insects, and other objects in surreal murals.

• New music: The Crystal Suite by Paul Schütze; Vestiges by Olivier Alary.

• At AnOther: Inside James Turrell’s most ambitious Skyspace to date.

• Off With His Head: A short story by David Rudkin.

• The Cosmic Dope

• The Crystal Ship (1967) by The Doors | Among Fields Of Crystal (1980) by Harold Budd / Brian Eno | Crystal Clear (1992) by The Grid

Weekend links 837

Tree Shadows on the Park Wall, Roundhay, Leeds (1872) by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

• “In many cases, the rules of physics that apply in a real scene appear to be optional in a painting; they can be obeyed or ignored at the discretion of the artist to enhance the painting’s intended effect.” An extract from The Visual World of Shadows by Roberto Casati and Patrick Cavanagh, in which the authors examine some of the rule-breaking that takes place when artists are dealing with shadows in paintings. I mentioned this aspect of artistic licence in a recent interview, making the point that meticulously accurate light and shade is a tell-tale sign of AI art.

• Orson Welles’ unfinished film of Don Quixote is back in the news again. Welles spent twenty years shooting scenes when he had the time and the money, and I seem to have spent an equivalent time reading about attempts to release the film. Any assembled footage will lack Welles’ bravura editing but I’d still like to see it.

• Read an extract from Still In A Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers And The Reinvention Of Rock, 1984–994 by Simon Reynolds.

• Mixes of the week: King Tubby – The Heaviest Dubs – A DJ Mix by Mista Savona, and Bleep Mix #319 by Yu Su.

• “What makes music psychedelic?” James McKeown on the music of Terry Riley.

• At the BFI: Gayle Sequeira selects 10 great films about dinner parties.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Loopy.

• The Strange World of…King Tubby.

• Shadows (1967) by The Leather Boy | The Never-Deserting Shadow (1991) by Jarboe | Moon Shadows (2001) by Laraaji