Arik Roper – { feuilleton }

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 679

All this and the best tunes. Via.

• As noted last month, Space Ritual by Hawkwind turned 50 this year so here comes the inevitable reissue which in its most lavish edition will run to 11 discs. This isn’t as immediately attractive for me as the recent Calvert-era collection—I already own four different copies of Space Ritual, including the original vinyl—but I may feel differently a few months from now.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine explores The Prophecies of N’Gai, something which sounds like a story from Weird Tales but isn’t.

• “Is function in the eye or mind of the beholder?” Steven Heller on Jacques Carelman’s Catalogue of Impossible Objects.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Yoko Tada began painting in her 80s. At 100 she’s publishing her first book.

• “The Magnificent Ambersons: rebirth for ruined Orson Welles masterpiece that rivalled Citizen Kane.”

At Wyrd Daze: Disco Rd 3: 23 pages 23 minutes. Free PDF, music mix, Discordianism, etc.

• A (brief) conversation with Milena Canonero, Wes Anderson’s costume designer.

• At Public Domain Review: Specimens of Fancy Turning (1869).

• New music: Móatún 7: Tetsu Inoue by Various Artists.

• Arik Roper’s favourite album artwork.

• RIP Peter Brötzmann.

• Table Turning (1973) by The Upsetters | Forever Turning (1995) by Scorn | Turning Towards Us (2008) by Redshift

Weekend links 627

Cover art by Alan Aldridge for The Secret Life of Plants, 1975. Via.

• At Aquarium Drunkard: Alice Coltrane and band in a furious live performance at the Berkeley Community Theatre, 1972. The audio is on YouTube, and was also released on (unofficial) vinyl a couple of years ago, but you can download the whole set at Dimeadozen. (Free membership required.)

• “Black Square is tragic; it’s absurd; it can be bewildering or funny; it’s certainly metaphysical; and now it serves as a precursor for works and projects yet to be imagined.” Andrew Spira on the precursors of Black Square by Kazimir Malevich.

• “The possibility of plant consciousness cuts two ways, depending on whether you see plants as friend or foe, benevolent or threatening.” Elvia Wilk on the secret lives of plants.

• New/old music: Robot Riot by Stereolab. A previously unreleased recording from the mid-90s which will appear on the fifth instalment in the Switched-On compilation series.

• “Dare’s good, but Love And Dancing broke the mould and kicked off the whole modern dance scene.” Ian Wade on 40 years of remix albums.

• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: Arik Roper: Vision of The Hawk.

• At Unquiet Things: Deborah Turbeville’s unseen Versailles.

• “Thinking like a scientist will make you happier”.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Karel Zeman Day.

• Plantasia (1976) by Mort Garson | Musik Of The Trees (1978) by Steve Hillage | The Secret Life Of Plants (1979) by Stevie Wonder

Weekend links 450

Orpheus (c. 1903–1910) by Odilon Redon. One of 30,000 public-domain images from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection.

• Network DVD has announced the premiere home release of Orson Welles’ Great Mysteries, a British TV series that ran from 1973 to 74. Welles’ involvement was limited to introducing each episode but the series itself was one I enjoyed a great deal: 26 short adaptations of period mystery stories that featured a wealth of British and American acting talent. The theme by John Barry was an additional bonus.

• The trailer for Apollo 11, a documentary by Todd Douglas Miller which presents for the first time the 70mm footage recording the Earth-bound parts of the Moon mission. Related: Michelle Santiago Cortés on how NASA used art to shape our vision of the future.

• At Dangerous Minds: a preview of Third Noise Principle, the latest in an excellent series of electronic music compilations from Cherry Red, and Cosey Fanni Tutti talks about her first solo album since 1983.

“The way I understood theory, primarily through popular culture, is generally detested in universities,” Mark [Fisher] told me in 2005, when I interviewed him for the Village Voice. “Most dealings with the academy have been literally clinically depressing.” He darkly surmised that his blog, K-Punk, and the surrounding blogosphere, “seemed like the space—the only space—in which to maintain a kind of discourse that had started in the music press and the art schools, but which had all but died out, with appalling cultural and political consequences.” Mark and the Village Voice are both dead now, leaving unfathomable voids in their wake.

Geeta Dayal on Mark Fisher

• At The Witch Wave: Peter Bebergal and Pam Grossman discuss Bebergal’s latest book (also my current reading), Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural.

• At Bandcamp: another release from the retro-synth cosmos of Jenzeits, and Ufology , an investigation of Britain’s flying-saucer landscape by Grey Frequency.

• Surprising collaboration of the week: Beth Gibbons and Krzysztof Penderecki have made a new recording of Henryk Górecki’s Third Symphony.

• Alchemy (1969) the debut album by the Third Ear Band, receives an expanded reissue next month.

• The Burn: a science-fiction story by Peter Tieryas with illustrations by Arik Roper.

• Mix of the week: Self-Titled Needle Exchange 275 by Black To Comm.

• Amy Turk plays Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on her harp.

• Chrismarker.org is seeking donations.

• Mystery Train (1955) by Elvis Presley | Mystery R.P.S. (No 8) (1981) by Holger Czukay, Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit | Mystery Room (1985) by Helios Creed

Weekend links 434

Group X, No. 1, Altarpiece (1915) by Hilma af Klint.

“Like Kandinsky, and other pioneers of abstract art, af Klint was deeply immersed in theosophy and anthroposophy. But she seems to have taken that interest much further than her male counterparts, participating in (and later leading) séances with a group of women friends. Whatever the spirits said, af Klint did.” Nana Asfour on pioneering abstract painter, Hilma af Klint.

• Four electronic artists reflect on the influence of composer Laurie Spiegel. Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe (1980) is reissued by Unseen Worlds next month. Related: Laurie Spiegel in 1977 playing the Bell Labs Digital Synthesizer.

• At Expanding Mind: Gurdjieffean writer and DuVersity director Anthony Blake talks with Erik Davis about dialogue, synergy, mind between brains, the trouble with teachers, and the gymnasium of beliefs in higher intelligence.

• Mixes of the week: Flashing Noise Mix by Tim Gane, Secret Thirteen Mix 268 by Bérangère Maximin, and Samhain Séance Seven: A Very Dark Place – Prologue by The Ephemeral Man.

• Geeta Dayal on Broken Music (1989), a book about sound art edited by Ursula Block and Michael Glasmeier which is now available in a new edition from Primary Information.

• The Sainsbury Archive showcases the graphic design of several decades of the supermarket chain’s products.

• More of the usual suspects: Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore in 2006 discussing Moorcock’s career.

• “Karloff the Uncanny”: Joe Dante talks to Stephanie Sporn about the attraction of old film posters.

• Mexico City, another preview (and a psychedelic one) of Randall Dunn’s forthcoming solo album.

• At Haute Macabre: Timeless Phantom Interludes: The Photography of Jason Blake.

• Mark Valentine on the current state of Britain’s secondhand book shops.

• At I Love Typography: Unicorns, Frogs and the Sausage Supper Affair.

• “I never wanted to be a cult film-maker,” says John Waters.

• Artist Arik Roper chooses some favourite album covers.

• Broken Head (1978) by Eno, Moebius, Roedelius | Broken Horse (1984) by Rain Parade | Broken Aura (2000) by Coil