{science} – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 849

Mushroom Lady poster (1967) by East Totem West.

• “I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.” Composer Steve Reich talks to Flora Willson about his long career. More Reich: live performances from 1976 by Steve Reich and Musicians of Six Pianos and Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ.

• At Aeon: Eric Leas on toadstools and toxins. “When I found the mushroom Amanita muscaria being sold in candy wrappers, I uncovered legal loopholes, dangerous dosages and more.”

• At Little White Lies: Nicolas Winding Refn on his return to cinema—and from the dead—with a neon-hued fable about a father-daughter relationship from hell.

• At Bandcamp Daily: Faust reunite without reuniting. The surviving members of the group return with four solo albums.

• New music: Noon by Richard Skelton and Lawrence English.

• Mix of the week: a mix for The Wire by Kaja Draksler.

• Winners of Bird Photographer of the Year 2026.

• At Dennis Cooper’s it’s Luchino Visconti‘s Day.

• Wyrd Daze relaunches with a new issue.

• Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow (1967) by The Strawberry Alarm Clock | Amanita Kingdom (2014) by Moon Coven | Amanita (2025) by Huong Federkeil

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 842

An illustration by Charles Keeping for The Golden Shadow.

• At the BFI: Alex Ramon selects 10 great British TV shows of 1976. (And 50 years ago the American term “shows” was most often applied to the variety format. We would have called these “programmes”.)

• Illustrations by Charles Keeping for The Golden Shadow (1973), a retelling of Greek myths and legends by Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen.

• All The Devils are here: Ken Russell’s controversial masterpiece will return to cinemas in its restored, definitive form in October.

• The Strange World of…The Cramps. Related: The Cramps on The Tube 1986, full 20-minute performance unedited.

• New music: Olùsìn (Worshippers) by Ibukun Sunday; The Will of Tongues by Sarah Davachi.

• In a previously unavailable performance, Can play Halleluhwah on Beat-Club in 1971.

• The first Polish Culture UK Podcast is an introduction to Żuławski’s cinema.

• Mix of the week is DreamScenes – August 2026 at Ambientblog.

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

• The Geologic Atlas of the Moon.

• Xerox Hell

• Golden Hair (1970) by Syd Barrett | The Golden Vibe (Alternative Mix) (1977) by Steve Hillage | Golden Ball (1993) by Stereolab

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 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