Ian Boddy – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 807

Poster art by Nicholas Kouninos for Procol Harum / Pink Floyd / HP Lovecraft at the Fillmore, San Francisco, 1967.

• Take a break from so-called reality with Gruesome Shrewd, more queasy psychedelia by Moon Wiring Club. MWC’s Ian Hodgson described his intentions to Simon Reynolds in a Reynolds roundup which notes the 20th anniversary of the Ghost Box project. The label is apparently on hold for the moment but I have to admit that my interest waned some time after the 10th anniversary, when it became increasingly apparent that the ghost had fled the box. Reynolds ends his piece with a list of favourite GB recordings which I mostly agree with, although I’d shuffle the order and swap some entries with Pye Corner Audio.

• “‘You know that feeling you get when you’ve just gotten back from the dry cleaners a pair of slacks, Dacron slacks, and you reach your hand in a pocket and you feel those fuzzy sandwiches with your fingers? Well, that’s the feeling I’m looking for.’ I just nodded and replied, ‘OK, Dave, I know exactly what you mean.’” Barry Gifford remembers David Lynch.

• Aschenbach’s Last Journey: Lesley Chamberlain, the most recent translator of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, approaches the text by following the progress of its doomed protagonist from Brioni to the Venetian Lido. Related: Polly Barton describes to Katy Whimhurst some of the difficulties involved in translating Japanese fiction to English.

• From The Shout to Bait: Darran Anderson on the uses of sound in cinema. Rupert Hines’ soundtrack to The Shout has just been released by Buried Treasure.

• Video footage of modular synthesists Arc (Ian Boddy & Mark Shreeve) performing Arcturus live in 2004: part one | part two.

• At Aeon: “Black holes may be hiding something that changes everything,” says Gideon Koekoek.

• At the BFI: Michael Brooke selects 10 great Hungarian films.

• Steven Heller’s font of the year is Fillmore.

• Shout The Storm (1984) by :Zoviet:France: | Shout At The Devil (2002) by Jah Wobble & Temple Of Sound | Shout (2005) by Tod Dockstader

Weekend links 801

The Magic Circle (1886) by John William Waterhouse.

• The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic has just been published in France by Editions Delcourt. A preview here shows how carefully they’ve managed to translate and reletter my page designs.

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: Algernon Blackwood’s stories of John Silence, occult detective.

• Relevant to some of my recent reading: The Necronomicon Wars, an examination of the many attempts to give life to HP Lovecraft’s fictional grimoire.

Altered States is tremendously exciting to watch—and not only during its psychedelic interludes when goat Jesus is being crucified and writhing red figures are toppling, Hieronymus Bosch–like, into hell and abstract splotches give the impression of cells endlessly dividing or murky membranes dissolving and beautiful women stare into Magritte skies and waves of lava crash as though the molten core of humanity itself were erupting. Even in its quieter moments, it is a beautiful film, with Hurt’s every appearance shot by cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth to emphasize his character’s alien otherworldliness.

Jessica Kiang explores the creation of Ken Russell’s flawed but fascinating psychedelic feature, Altered States

• A new catalogue of lots at another After Dark: Gay Art and Culture online auction. Homoerotic art, photos, historic porn. etc.

• Tarot decks through the ages: a video showing some of the cards from Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection.

• More psychedelia: Neuroscientist Grigori Guitchounts asks “What is your brain doing on psychedelics?”

• At the Daily Heller: Ryan Hughes has published a weighty collection of his typeface designs.

• Old music: Caged (25th Anniversary Edition) by Ian Boddy & Chris Carter.

• At the BFI: Rory Doherty selects 10 great Technicolor melodramas.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: The Old School Horrors of Terence Fisher.

• Photographs from the 2025 Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

• Ambientblog celebrates 20 years of existence.

• RIP Dave Ball.

• Necronomicon (1970) by Les Baxter | Liriïk Necronomicus Kahnt (1975) by Magma | Necronomicon–The Magus (2004) by John Zorn

Weekend links 782

Ushiwakamaru and Benkei (2015) by Paul Binnie.

• “Gohatto depicts homosexuality within a very specific subset of society. Kubi explores further than that, depicting homosexuality between equals, and between bosses and subordinates. It tries to depict the relationship between power and authority, and how sexuality is used to maintain that authority.” Takeshi Kitano talking about Kubi, his film about sex among the samurai, which is receiving a belated release in the UK.

• “De Rome later said he’d never felt persecuted for his sexuality, and it’s this sense of the carefree that’s reflected in the lightness of his filmmaking.” Luke Turner on Peter De Rome’s homoerotic films which are currently being screened at the Barbican, London.

• At Public Domain Review: Helen Haiman Joseph’s A Book of Marionettes (1920), “The first comprehensive history of marionette artistry in the English language.”

• Mixes of the week: Isolatedmix 132: Psilocybin Therapy Protocol v1.22a by Matt Xavier, and DreamScenes – June 2025 at Ambientblog.

• At Sight and Sound: Backwards through the backwoods: music editors Dean Hurley and Lori Eschler on David Lynch and Twin Peaks.

• Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2025 so far. Thanks again for the link here!

• New music: Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea by Pan American & Kramer, and Modulations IV by Ian Boddy.

• At The Quietus: Peer Review: Peter Strickland interviews Cosey Fanni Tutti…and vice versa.

• Cosmic Dawn: A feature-length NASA documentary about the James Webb Space Telescope.

• RIP Sly Stone and Brian Wilson.

• Les Marionnettes (1991) by Zbigniew Preisner | Sword Of The Samurai (2006) by Lisa Gerrard | Seven Samurai (Ending Theme) (2012) by Ryuichi Sakamoto

Weekend links 770

Abstraction #51 (1965) by Virgil Finlay.

• “I think the world venerates him as this deeply religious composer who tackles eternal themes in his music, but I think it’s also good to remember that he also has a playful experimental side.” Maria Juur discussing Estonian composer Arvo Pärt in a review by Geeta Dayal of a new recording of four Pärt compositions.

• “Rubycon feels like an epic soundtrack to a great lost film…” Jeremy Allen on the 50th anniversary of a Tangerine Dream album that’s always been a favourite of mine.

• At the Internet Archive: Browse the catalogue for a forthcoming auction of rare books and artworks from The Library of Barry Humphries.

• At Public Domain Review: Through a Glass Lushly: Michalina Janoszanka’s reverse paintings (ca. 1920s).

• At Colossal: “Vintage postcard paintings by David Opdyke demonstrate an ecological future in peril“.

• At the BFI: Michael Brooke offers suggestions for ten great Slovak New Wave films.

• DJ Food unearthed four sheets of Dave Roe wrapping paper from 1968.

• New music: Doppelgänger by Ian Boddy & Harald Grosskopf.

• Ten minutes of Sun Ra and the Arkestra on French TV in 1969.

• Depictions of Atlantis in retro science fiction art.

• Old music: Flora (1987) by Hiroshi Yoshimura has been reissued.

• Atlantis (1961) by The Blue Bells | Atlantis (1969) by Donovan | Atlantis (1971) by Deuter

Weekend links 656

Mobius Strip II (1963) by MC Escher.

• Old music: Warp Records is reissuing two recent Jon Hassell discs later this year: The Living City (Hassell’s ensemble playing live in NYC, 1989) and Psychogeography (Zones Of Feeling) (remixes from City: Works Of Fiction), which will be available as standalone releases or bundled together as Further Fictions together with Hassell’s Atmospherics book.

• “His library is an immense and enviable wellspring, a demimonde of objects by murky creators who for decades have gnawed away at the inner organs of polite society.” Steven Heller talks to Glenn Bray about Library, an 800-page collection of scans from Bray’s trove of books, comics and print ephemera.

• New music: Tsathoggua, the latest in the Lovecraftian series of Cryo Chamber Collaborations which reminds me that I’m still missing the more recent entries. Also the non-Lovecraftian Coil by Ian Boddy.

• “Music is a way to express yourself beyond words,” says Hildur Guðnadóttir.

• See this year’s winners of the annual Close-up Photographer of the Year competition.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…Ishmael Reed The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974).

• A few new photos of Michael Heizer’s City in the Nevada desert.

• City Of Night (1994) by David Toop & Max Eastley | City As Memory (1995) by John Foxx | City Appearing (2013) by Julia Holter