...from the bunker...
By Way Of Introduction
During World War 2 if you lived in England the only possible safe place to be was "in the bunker."
50 years later our writer finds living in Old Smoke to be about the same, just a different kind of
bomb being dropped constantly. "From the Bunker" is not so much a view as an attitiude.
Our writer is known by many names: Spooner, The Gorn, Chuch, NMC, among others. If you wish
to correspond with our writer in London, then simply drop a line to the Editors of King Who and we
will forward the message for you.
As each piece of news arrives from the British Isles it will be listed here at the top of the page,
and all previous bits below that chronologically.
21.12.99
north london
the bunkah
"where a little wouldn't do it so a little got more an' more until I couldn't seem to stop!!
And some reviews."
"you write shit and years later you come back to it. sometimes it astonishes you when you read
what you wrote months or years before. almost like it could not have been you who wrote that stuff
in the first place. not that it is necessarily any good just it does not sound like you think you sound
(by which i mean what you sound like when your words are read back – not actual vocal sounds
produced by the mouth) well this stuff below was all written the 29th of june 1998 [bar the first
article which was written in late summer of 1996] they form part of about 25 reviews written in a
state of frenzied action that day in 1998. the file manager shows the articles being saved and closed
at about one every 30 minutes from midday into the early hours. they were scheduled to appear in
the extremely erratically published est magazine. this issue it transpired was to turn out to be their
(or his – as it was one guy who wrote half of it himself and solicited articles and reviews for the other
half) most erratic issue to date. erratic in that it never actually appeared! a year later i took the reviews
laid out below fucked them up some more and had them published in the magnificent 'noisegate'
magazine. i recommend this magazine to anyone truly interested in sound/noise and the properties
thereof in its many divergent and elliptical forms. noisegate is devoted to sound, which means it can
cope with non band, non sale & non Wire based noise makers and noise generated from sound
sculptures and even the quite outstanding and rarely hinted at sound properties within certain architectural
models et al. A truly eclectic read!
if you wanna know more about noisegate and the oddly related music group 'brown sierra' and their
extremely edifying pulse and sine wave generated electronic musical mulch, e-mail 'the bunker'
or send IRC or SAE to
Noisegate
PO Box 15149
London
WC1X OHJ
i guess if there is/was a theme to these particular reviews. it centred around sound being treated as
something more than a source to make tunes and being stretched or in some cases erased to produce
disparate yet unified noise pieces. unified in their attempt to bend and corrupt sound. yet these pieces
are all quite different. one is an environmental recording piece, one a distorted piece that could not have
existed before techno, one an electro-drone piece designed for today's egg-headed hippies and one a
conceptual piece where sound is being used to create the environment of a space – a space specifically
connected to the place where the recordings were made.
they all make for an interesting listening experience and probably have more in common than might be
apparent at first listen.
ps: they are no longer new release articles!
___
intersystems - free psychedelic poster inside - streamline 1007 - cd
oh boy is this one messed up motherfucker! the sleeve notes say that this album hails from a privately
pressed lp done in 1968. assuming that this is not some kind of artistic device, designed to erect an aura
of mysticism and peculiarity around the recordings, then this is one bloody odd yet bizarrely satisfying
artifact! the sounds presented here are on the very edge of musique concret. huge wild slices of electronic
sound hiss and trepan from speaker to speaker. huge sound drops explode into the room. it recalls,
of course, tod dockstader or the groupe de recherches musicales of 1960's france or certain stockhausen
pieces or no doubt a number of others also. the problem with this sloppy comparison, and the thing that
makes this release so peculiar, is the determinedly odd narrative that unfolds over the course of the disc.
it's this combination of typically plunging booming and soaring musique concret-esque electro lunacy and
screwy story that makes this worthy holder of the tag psychedelic. but a huxley or keasey or better still
faust's farmhouse at wumme in western germany's concept of psychedelic. not some sad old hippy drivel
enlivened by tied died garments and black lights. tripping to this would have been, as the above would have
wished it, an interesting experience! it can also be extremely annoying and is not something that will find its
way into the player with regularity.
however when it does make that journey, the rewards are strange and glorious. i can't quite get the idea out
my head that this is not from '68 and that i'm being conned - but in the end i don't think it really matters. 'free
psychedelic poster inside' is an absurdity of hysterical proportions. if you enjoy the cale's narrative within
the velvet underground song 'the gift' or 'mother upduff' by can but always wanted it to go weirder and you
wanted to hear them placed over wild sixties style musique concret meets computer music, this (nww fans)
is for you! why isn't it on stapleton's list?? or is it that obvious?
(streamline. horngasse 2. 52064 aachen. germany)
___
komet - flex - cdr 011 - rastermusic - cd
crazed genius from mr bretschneider aka komet. raster is german for pulse and it shows. flex is finest
quality rolling, tumbling, rhythmic electronica. fragmented voices collide, exploding into luxurious loops
of shuddering electro-tones. there is a purity at work here which is highly commendable. a warped take
on dance music and unmistakably germanic. a precisely evolving and involving moebius strip of babble
and shimmer. it's neighbours the a-musik and sonig labels of koln. flex is an insular self referential
musical world. its own little egghead planet. a place of multi takes and revolving time signatures.
hugely enjoyable.
___
francisco lopez - addy en el pais de las frutas y los chunches - ndcd10 - nd - cd
all the sounds on this cd come from field recordings made by lopez, a spanish scientist and sound researcher,
in costa rica. he is an anti-structuralist with a goal of "reaching an ideal of absolute concrčte music" and a
modus operandi of exploring the "universe of broad-band noise" which surrounds us. his take on this however
can be somewhat startling! the second track, snappily titled "piloconsor, tres mitocondrias y la lucha por el
liquido emporante" or "piloconsor, three mitochondrions and the fight for the emporant liquid" weighs in at a
little over 25 minutes and is pretty much inaudible. well if you want to set the volume at 10 then weird fluttering
sounds escape from the speakers but that's pretty much hit. it does have an undoubted charm about and is an
interesting experiment into environmental recordings. maybe not so much fun if you shelled out 12 notes for it,
from a limited budget. mine was, however, free and from that stand point, i love the track. as an example of the
absence of sound, what is left out, being more important than the selection of sounds that go to form the finished
track. the other two tracks, again with hilariously long titles, are coherent and more audible assemblages from
lopez's extensive range of costa rican field recordings. there are some thirty locations listed on the sleeve. these
include the poas, arenal and irazu volcanoes, the tapanti, monteverde and rara avis reserves, the la selva biological
station, the braulio carrillo, rincon de la vieja, toruguero, cahuita and corcovado national parks plus a number of city
locations including san jose, puerto viejo & san pedro. sounds float or pour from the speakers. the noise of a
thousand insects clashes with the sound of tumbling water which in turn battles with the ominous rumbling of an
erupting volcano. if you want a reference point, i would direct you towards jim o'rourke's 'rules of reduction' 3" cd
on metamkine. but with the mechanical and man made noises of o'rourke's paris field recordings, substituted for
the insectoid and elemental sounds of (lopez's) costa rica.
(nd. po box 4144. austin. texas. 78765. usa)
___
stützpunkt wien 12 - ufo beobachtungen - unless 1 - or. - cd
this was originally released as a series of 12's on the austrian label, mego. sound wise it is a stew of entwined
throb beats with an added electronic top of vaguely high pitched whines. it's weirded out techno for the long neck
brigade. dance music for people who don't dance (and don't go out much). but don't knock it. it's the sort of
electroid blather that once heard you can't live without. the low end rumble and cyclical beats are a joy to hear!
a worthy re-issue. approaching genius!
___
steve roden - of space enclosed by planes or surfaces - cd
this cd comes as part of an exhibition pamphlet entitled 'translations & articulations'. this was in turn the name
of roden's solo exhibition at the griffin contemporary in venice california, who are in turn the publishers. the cd,
which comes in only 996 of the 2000 copies published, "was composed entirely of sampled & electronically
manipulated (sound) fragments" all recorded from the lower and upper gallery spaces of the griffin contemporary
as roden's exhibition was being erected. roden recorded a ten minute segment of hammering, sawing, footsteps
and voices. these he then loaded into his sampler. the intention, as described in the pamphlet, was to create a
kind of "imaginary sound installation - a sort of portable & inflatable space - that one can listen to, rest upon, or
wander around in". to do this roden used the recorded sounds of the first space, the galleries, in the construction
of the second space, the imaginary installation as found on the cd. he stretched and manipulated the 10 minutes
of recorded material into the finished 23:12 disc. the brevity of the disc, which facilitates repeat playing, helps the
listener to mentally construct a strongly defined picture of the sound space being delineated. as has been said the
foundations of this space are the original field recordings. however they are virtually unrecognizable because of
the manipulating and stretching they have endured at the hands of roden's sampler. the spaces in between these
sounds have been infilled with resonating clunks and low end drones. the resulting 'imaginary sound installation'
is quite perfect and positively encourages repeat playing. an exhilarating release!
(griffin contemporary exhibitions. 915b electric ave. venice. ca. 90291. usa)
13.01.99
[cpltd:10.05.99]
[frthr edtng/rewrtng:07.07.99]
FIRE/BIBLIOGRAPHY
One
A.
.....the rescue services went back to the house, the day following the fire, to investigate the reasons behind the fire. they were particularly keen to identify a number of, in their minds, suspicious revelations. all discovered in the fire reduced debris found during their preliminary survey, conducted as the last embers of the blaze were being extinguished. to the experienced fire marshals the blaze was shaping up to be far from an act of god!......
B.
whilst searching the fire blackened and sodden detritus they chanced on an area where the fire seemed to have been particularly fierce. like the take off zone of some missile. an area the size of a large dustbin lid stood out. blacker still, than all the black surrounding it.
nearby to this 'impact zone' a dented and stained A4 sized metal box was found. the box had the unmistakable aroma of petrol. on finding this the fire marshals sectioned off the surrounding area and secured the house.
nothing moved in or out without written authorisation in triplicate. from that point on, the area was referred to as the 'fire launch-zone (FLZ)'.
C.
due in part, no doubt, to the intensity of the fire. the lid covering the metal box was sealed shut, like it had been spot welded shut. as a consequence the fire marshals dragged the box back to the station and their laboratory therein.
years of on job solution making has lent the marshals certain creative skills. high amongst these is their creativity when it comes to opening, what appear to normal folk, as unopenable lids!
once the lid was prized off. the marshals were able to locate and remove several fragments of, what had once clearly been, A4 foolscap. the content of these few precious segments was tantilising in its maddening brevity. most fragments carried minuscule excerpts of narrative. some fragments had this plus a page number. a few fragments had only page number. these numbers were predominately in the upper two hundreds.
D.
when these fragments had been removed the metal box was seen to be filled chiefly with a pureed sludge, of ash and water along with distressed and sodden paper. on closer inspection however the marshals found something even more intriguing. the left wall was discovered to be lined by two further sheets of paper.
an unbelieving marshal peeled two pages from the inner left side wall of the box. it is on these pages the text laid out below was found. it is thought this forms the bulk, if not the entire, bibliography, of the book, the charred fragments of text come from.
E.
the range of topics covered by the books listed is eclectic in the extreme. they deal, primarily it seems, with a slew of taboo and taboo related subjects. and offer up a variety of possible narratives.
the bibliography makes for an amusing two minute read or an enjoyable afternoon of aimless meandering. but do be warned! the desire to know what the final text was about, how it read etc is an itch that can never be scratched!
the entire manuscript was destroyed that day. apart from a few brief snatches on a few shards of paper the only thing left intact is the bibliography. the narrative will never be revealed and never given it's denouement.
F.
but there was a denouement of another kind that night. the body of a badly burnt man was discovered in a small cupboard under the stairs. the cupboard situated immediately opposite the room where the fire had burnt.
P A U S E
Two
A.
the fire marshals concluded after their second examination of the FLZ and a further two month investigation, that the fire had been started deliberately. they went on to state that the most likely candidate for the arsonist was the burnt figure found, scrunched up in the foetal position in the small cupboard under the stairs immediately opposite the FLZ. they went on to say that he must have set himself alight in the room (at the FLZ). staying there long enough to set the surroundings alight. before crawling out the room and into the cupboard, where he formed into the foetal position and waited to die. this must have come quite quickly due to the severity of his injuries.
B.
a family member, his brother, later confirmed that the dead man, Luc, was a (failed/unpublished) writer. he went on to say that Luc was clinically depressed and on an extensive programme of treatment orientated medication. he agreed, in response to a question asked by an attending reporter, that his brother was a dedicated loner.
P A U S E
Three
A.
based on the evidence from the fire marshals the coroners office was left to conclude that the man found dead, had committed suicide. an act he had successfully carried out by the method of dousing himself in a petrol/lighter-fuel mixture and igniting it.
P A U S E
Four
A.
The Bibliography
A GENERAL TEXTBOOK OF NURSING - Evelyn C. Pearce - London - England - 1937
A HERITAGE OF HORROR - David Pirie - London - England - 1973
ALMA COGAN - Gordon Burn - Great Britain - 1992
ANTHROPOLOGY THROUGH SCIENCE FICTION - Edited by Carol Mason, Martin Greenburg, Patrica Warrick - London - England - 1976
A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF STRIPTEASE - Richard Wortley - London - England - 1976
BODY LANGUAGE - Catalogue - Graz - Austria - 1973
CATALOGUE OF 9th BIENNALE DE PARIS - Paris - France - 1975
CRIMES & PUNISHMENT, Part II - magazine - London - England - 1976
DEREK JARMAN: A PORTRAIT - Wollen - London - England - 1976
DRUG ABUSE AMONGST FILIPINOS - Mai L. Teuong - Salt Lake City - USA - 1972
DRUM & CANDLE - David St. Clair - London - England - 1971
EASTERN EUROPE 1976: TRAVEL FOR UNDER A QUID A DAY - Abflacken Publications - London - England - 1976
FILM NOIR - Frederick J. Reichmann - Berlin - West Germany - 1960
HAPPENING & FLUXUS - Lisa Aversa Richette - New York - USA - 1969
HAPPY LIKE MURDERERS - Gordon Burn - London - England - 1998
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY - Richard R. Korn - New York - USA - 1968
MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE - Aleister Crowley - Brighton - England - ?
MASS MURDER IN HOUSTON - John K. Gurwell - Houston - USA - 1974
THE FIRST LANDLESS STATE? - A Theory & Practice - Nika Z. Krospetski - Berlin - East Germany - 1979
OM THEATRE - Hermann Nitsch - Romenthal - West Germany - 1975
PROSTITUTES - Denise Winn - London - England - 1974
PUSSY CAT MAGAZINE: THE WORLDS LEADING MAGAZINE OF RUBBER
ENTHUSIASTS - London - England - ?
RICHARD WAGNER: GENIUS OR NAZI? - Theodore Samuel Jameson - Atlanta - USA - 1936
SEXY CONFESSIONS OF A SHOP ASSISTANT - Tabor Publications -
London - England - 1976
THE ART OF FILM - Ernest Lindgren - London - England - 1948
THE BEAST OF JERSEY - Joan Paisnel {his wife} - London - England - 1972
THE CORRECT MASOCHIST - Enid Williams - Cardif - Wales - 1965
THE FINAL DAYS - Woodward & Bernstien - Washington - USA - 1976
THE FLIGHT FROM REASON - James Webb - London - England - 1971
THE GREAT BEAST - John Symonds - London - England - 1971
THE JOB - William S. Burroughs & Daniel Odier - London - England - 1968
THE ODESSA FILE - John Le Carre - Corgi Books - London - England - 1975
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH - William L. Shirer - Corgi Books - London - England - 1963
THE SERIAL KILLERS OF NINETEEN FIFTIES AMERICA: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY - Harvard Publications - New York - USA -
1961
THUS SPAKE ZARATHRUSTRA - Frederick Nietzsche - Penguin books - London - England - 1969 (1895?)
TRANSFORMER: Aspekte der Travestie - Catalogue - Kunstmuseum -
Lucerne - Switzerland - 1974
VERY SPECIAL PEOPLE - Frederick Drimmer - New York - USA - 1973
WANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: THE SEMINAL WORK/BOOKS OF JERRY DREVA -Jerry Dreva - South Milwaukee - USA - 1976
WATER & POWER - The magazine of Enemas, Water sports, Spanking & Infantilism - New York - USA - 1976
WAVE HANDBOOK - Short Wave stations of the world - Japan - Sony Corporation - 1989
E N D
-sporn
bukrpoll
09.03.99 - BBC2
...just watched a programme on Jackson Pollock; a truly great artist. An inspiration without doubt. Historical opinion had come, it seemed to me, to always favour Rothko. Accrediting him with more weight. Labelling him as a more intellectually demanding painter. That, I now realise, is crude and wildly incorrect. Pollocks great canvas's stand as unquestioned equals to the greatest Rothko's. In his finest paintings Pollock creates a seemingly (although not actual) endless weave of paint . Like the structural fibre from a magnified section of vegetation or flesh. A lattice work of interrelationships. Maddening but strangely pure. Pure in thought and intention. Just a different kind of purity to that of Rothko, who exhibited his single mindedness through the use of vast monolithic structures that loom over one like ancient monuments! Pollock instead chose to almost literally drag you in and eat you alive.
adapted from a postcard to a dear friend - 23.23 - 09.03.99
spoorn
...from the (sub) bunker...
"it gets pretty thick an' heavy sometimes, doesn't it?"
(Global Cafe, Mpls. '87)
He lives this side of the cemetery. The structural slant of the bridge is columnar and decorated with gargoyles and other such sepulchre styled sculpture. The cemetery itself has now died. Unused and yet still used. The cemetery has become a perfect product of its' environment. It displays and delineates the area. It comes to define the territory. Serves to recover the land.
He circumnavigates, on the outside, the walls of the cemetery. A magnificent redbrick edifice erected over a century and a half ago. He indulges in a round-trip entirely free from charge. The best damn offer, London Transport has never advertised!
The land is haunted. Not what it seems. More than the sum of its parts. It is freaked out by its eternal vigil beside the last resting place of so much carrion. A mute witness. Carrying on an internal dialogue.
"Why can't the bodies be dumped in the canal....like they did around Smithfields (in the sixteen hundreds) when the Fleet tributary ran where the 'Farringdon Road' now squats..?"
"Why should this land be neutered for the sake of the dead?...in a country so small, so hemmed in, that it's been turned into a mannerism and national joke...couldn't we do with a bit more land? (Living space in its truest sense)."
"I have no room but I promise to bury your body here or there or any-fucking-where!?"
If the land were to speak? Would it say all of this?. Maybe more?
2.
Certain stones can, over time, come to be burnished to an almost inhuman lustre. The brilliance of the surface of the in proportion to its age. A calculation that seems obvious. Absolutely correct.
Down near Wapping, in the East End. By the river Thames, the defining symbol to 'Ole London Town', lies the 'Prospect of Whitby' Public House. It is claimed by many, and apparently confirmed by historical records to be the oldest pub in London. Its existence in the 17th century is in no question at all. For it is well known that the notorious hanging judge, Judge Jeffreys, was a frequent visitor. It is here that he was able to pursue his two favourite pastimes at one and the same time.
Supping his beloved dark ale he would gaze at those being hung below in 'Execution Dock'. Each death the result of another of his psychotic and hated filled judicial decisions.
There is another public house. A little further down the river. Away from Wapping and on into Limehouse, called the 'Grapes'. Here in the seventeen hundreds 'boatmen' would sit moored in their decrepit and rotting rowing boats waiting to waylay unsuspecting drunks stumbling from the pub. The unfortunate victims would be coshed and dragged into the boat. They would then row out a good distance from the shoreline. Once there they would drown the poor bastard. Then pull the body back into the boat and set off toward the shore. The next day they would take the corpse to the surgeons at the London Hospital on Whitechapel Road. The surgeons always bought the bodies. They relied on these 'found' bodies and those of the poor to provide them with the cadavers they needed. Without these they would have been unable to perform their anatomical dissections for the audiences seated in the semi darkness at the back (in the public section) of the operating theatre.
A natural consequence of the 'Prospect of Whitby' claiming to be so historically ancient is the ubiquitous tourist. Once a premises is on the 'historical trail' map, like being on the bus (or boat), you never can get off! The problem is not so much that tourists come. This is after all pretty good for business. The problem is more to do with the volume of tourists. They descend on 'The Prospect' (as it is affectionately known by locals) by the veritable coach load! Turning a quiet contemplative 'snifter' into a side show for endless tourists to store for posterity on their handy videocams.
Nonetheless the beer is nice, the 'long bar' made from Pewter is 400 years old and the stone floor is of the most perfectly polished ultra, almost luminescent, shininess. The stones that comprise this floor start outside, as part of the pavement, and stream into 'The Prospect' like a molten lava spilling from the earth. As ones gaze scans the stone floor one comes to realise that it is the floor, more than anything else, that lends verisimilitude to the oldest pub claim. I mean how many oldest pubs in London are there? Without dates unshakable belief is difficult to establish. This is the stones major function now. The creation and sustenance of 'authenticity'.
3.
And this is where the cemetery scores over the public house. The abundance of dates. It is these very dates carved into the masons' stock in trade, that secures them to the earth. Without the dates the land would crash out. Unused for so long it would suddenly be exposed for the wastrel it really is. All these years actually doing nothing. Stoner earth! Doing nothing other, than what earth, au natural (left alone), is expected to do!
All around is (and was) earth becoming land becoming something. Except for this earth. This earth changed very little. It has devoured its subject and gone on to flaunt the memory of those it has consumed. Saved by its finery. By its decoration. The granite gravestones.
The stone tablets in an unmoving parade! Each carved with a date. A proud and solemn proclamation its age. It is this age that bestows gravitas, which in turn bestows worth. From this process is born the justification for the land's continued (non) usage.
As one moves around this roughly rectangular chunk of earth the eye is assaulted. One gets flashes of gothic angels, crushed statues and decaying headstones. Situated in Bow, neighbour to Limehouse which is in turn next door to Wapping this is a truly Poe-like landscape. Hanging from brick walls, sprouting from graves, bursting forth from sarcophaguses is the abundantly multi hued vegetation. It seems to be growing everywhere. Its vines and tendrils exploring every available space. Branches twisting into almost inconceivable (and vaguely disturbing) shapes and patterns. Wonderful and intoxicating.
Yet this teeming herbage, this explosion of foliage is undoubtedly an affront to the dead. A grand gesture. Supremely enriched fertilizer. Nature thumbing the nose at those that lie in the earth from which it prospers. The ultimate indignity being the gravestones entirely engulfed by the rabidly fecund greenery. The stones devoured right there, as ones gaze scans the area.
The effect is unquestionably disturbing yet undeniably pleasurable. It has an melancholic beauty shot through with a fine marbling of stasis and decay.
A perfect relationship. Nothing too obvious. Nothing too clever. Simply land used in a repellently beautiful way.
- END -
An offering from the third cousin; Noir Mavro Schwartz, age 49.
Spoon.
A Review
'Foot' - 07.11.98 / 01:32
The inner section of my left foot is developing quite well. By this I am
referring to the fungus growing in the recess between little toe and the one
next to it. Where the toes come together. In the meat of this area the skin
splits apart. Peering down through the rotted layers of flesh it is possible
to see the red of blood vessels. As one pulls the toes apart the area splits
some more and weeps a little. The outer layers of flesh have been turned white
by the foots' self producing moisture. Small segments of whitened flesh drop
from the area as the toes are pulled further apart.
After a long day in my favourite trainer the area aches with a special pain.
Part itch and part throb. As the shoe comes off so the hand automatically
goes to rub the meaty area. This does not alleviate the pain in anyway.
Rather it simply serves to rub the further flesh away. As one rubs, more
and more of the blood red flesh underneath is revealed. This does not solve
the itch or reduce the pain. Instead it redoubles the itch and quadruples the
pain. This in turn drives the hand to redouble its efforts. Pretty soon the
area is running in blood. And the pain has become excruciating. On top of
this, when one pushes the offending hand under ones nose the smell is quite
appalling. The smell of rotting and dead flesh. A decaying and rank stench.
An area of fungoidal destruction.
What really gives pleasure however is the way it never heals. Never goes away.
But it gets no worse either. It simply remains. It exists and it is unchanging.
Pretty much the same level of pain and discomfort are experienced each and every
night. And the stench?. This, of course, is unstinting in its' perseverance!
Sometimes I think..."when it dies I die."
[spooner - 07.11.98 / 02.04]
"THE MENACING WHISPER IS MORE SINISTER THAN A SHOUT..."
The Raves:
(a look at consumer goods)
1. PLASTIKMAN - ARTIFAKTS - CD
2. R SAKAMOTO - PRAYER / SALVATION - CD
3. GORDON BURN - HAPPY LIKE MURDERERS - BOOK
1. PLASTIKMAN - ARTIFAKTS -
Another pretty much inspiring slab of electro wash and dubby minimalism from this Canadian. 'Artifakts'
is Hawtins' third release this year after 'Consumed' and the 'Concept' CD released on Hawtins own M-nus
label. The back of the CD contains some notes covering the gestation of these tracks. I could precis
them and look cool and knowledgeable (like hacks rewriting sales sheets) but I'll leave you to read them
after you've purchased the CD. Although arriving third in the year 'Artifakts' actually sits (for reasons
explained in the aforementioned notes) neatly between Consumed and Concept. For this reason one cannot
come to this CD expecting to be revolutionised as one was on listening to 'Consumed'. That is not what
this CD is for. This release is more in the spirit of Throbbing Gristles' all encompassing (early
eighties) briefcase release of live cassettes that offered up historical segments of their otherwise
largely unknown musical life. Releases provided not as sales tools or marketing angles, but musical insights
presented in a similar manner to a biograpy to those wishing to glean additional information.
The opening track 'korridor', as do several others, sits beautifully in this strange land that Hawtin
has discovered. Here deep dub washes collide with the pure sonics and harmonics of the electronic
constructions. There are parts of this CD as there were on Consumed (certainly in greater abundance)
where it seems not unreasonable to claim that Hawtin is mining in a new musical land. That he may in
fact be producing music for the millennium! A soundtrack for the year 2000! Buy this now! You will
not be disappointed. (NOVA MUTE)
2. RYUICHI SAKAMOTO - PRAYER / SALVATION - REMIXES -
I can imagine the immediate response and I would, (normally) agree. I had this guy penned in as a
curiosity. But ultimately as not of interest. I don't go a whole bundle on his soundtrack work and
the YMO really did suck. They were not interesting or ever the Japanese Kraftwerk. If by that we
expect the band to be good as well as using solely electronic instruments to make their brand of
godlike ur-pop.
However this thing that has appeared on Ninja gets my full approval. Presumably at some point in
time there was an original version but I've not heard it and it is not that relevant here!The point
being basic disinterest in Sakamoto!
The reason we are here is to examine a number, but specifically two, of the eight remixes included
herein. There is an Oval remix 'Prayer' (not on the 12") which offers a further dimension to their
sound. Oval are using source material that started out as recognisable music and as such the piece
offers a couple variants on the classic Oval sound. Nonetheless the pieces come apart in that traditional
Oval way. The glitches and random noises are in evidence overlaying a mulch of lush electronic strings.
It is, as always with these guys, enjoyable. A maddening and wonderfully fucked piece of electronic
muzak. If your are an aficionado of this Germanic electro thing you will undoubtedly need to hear it
if not own it.
However we are here to discuss a thing of true beauty. A moment of pure inspiration. I am talking
here of the Pan Sonic remix 'Discord'. It may be that, because of the sheer disappointment and
embarrassment of their recent collaboration with Alan Vega, I am over compensating. But I've checked
this track out a whole bunch of times and the impression never slips of it being in the realm of sheer
genius.
We start with a willfully destroyed electronic pulse coupled with a deep and rhythmic bass shudder.
One finds out very quickly where the speakers are weak. In the foreground an electronic reverberation
pulses. Electronic judder, like menacing growls, floods the background. It could be a soundtrack
to a multi death film noir! We can imagine stalkers prowling the night-time streets looking for
their prey. Finally sounds collide into each other with increasing rapidity. Bursting into a final
shuddering climatic pulse that closes the piece. It is inspirational and you do NEED to own it!
N.B.: The other tracks are all pretty good so you would not be wasting your money (believe me!)
Worth a brief mention is 'Grief' by Andrea Parker. If your exposure to her is through the Studio
K7 DJ Kicks release don't be alarmed. In deep contrast to that somewhat unfortunate and ultimately
doomed idea this track has a clear reason for living! If, however, you own the fantastic 10" she
did for Mo Wax a good few months ago entitled 'Ballbreaker/Some Other Level' you will know that
some damn fine sounds can evolve from Parkers decks and machines. 'Grief' looms into view with
a determined chip on its shoulder. It's mean, it's moody and it's pretty damn good! (NO shit...!)
And as it sits neatly between the Pan Sonic piece and the Oval track on the CD one can have a truly
invigorating 15 minutes!
3. GORDON BURN - HAPPY LIKE MURDERERS
This is food for the eye and brain as opposed to the earlier meals for the ear and brain.
The end result of this meal is I'll admit a feeling of uncleanliness and disquiet but it
is nonetheless a meal you really should consume. This is quite simply the darkest thing
I think I've read. By which I mean it is more disturbing than Michael Giras' The Consumer
or De Sades' 120 Days. It makes Elliss' American Psycho seem tame and lightweight. The
book concerns Fred West and his 25 year reign of murder and sexual torture. He carried
this out in partnership with his wife, in a white trash but domestic setting (they had 8
children in all) on lodgers, girls picked up at bus stops and their (Wests) own children.
I guess you are shaking your heads thinking "oh no not another damn psycho killer book ala
the thousands churned out every year". Well no actually and this is the problem with the
book. It is not in any way trashy or cheap. It was written by an innovative writer who
is as much a journalist as a writer of fiction. Some of you may have read the excellent
and fictional work 'Alma Cogan' and you'll already know how good he can be. There are no
photographs, no maps, no over long descriptions of torture and there is no index or chapter
titles. Burn shifted through the 151 hours of Police interviews with the Wests and
interviewed a vast array of people to enable him to construct a textural picture of West,
his state and frame of mind and the day to day living conditions within this truly and
extremely bizarre household. Burn is a writer who has clearly read and enjoyed such post
modern writers as Donald Barthelme, and Iain Sinclair but particularly Don DeLillo. Indeed a
quote from DeLillo's book Mao II is printed across the back of the Damien Hirst designed
book cover. Burn uses language in a specific and clearly thought out way. Phrases
reappear throughout the novel mimicking the elliptical way West conversed. West was not
eloquent but was the ultimate handy man. He understood solid objects and loved to list
them. Loved to describe in length the components of a certain object, be it a working
tool or a sexual implement. So the text is peppered with lists. Lists of tools, of
adhesives used in house building, of sexual implements, of pornographic materials and
so on to fill the pages. The language Burn uses is, like DeLillo's somehow more real than
real. In so being, it slowly describes and delineates a space that is definable as the
West's. The text is hyper real. And this is the problem. DeLillo writes fiction.
DeLillo seeks to define an idea of society. Burn on the other hand is describing facts.
He is involved in detailing how society has abjectly failed. And it's not a moral stance
I'm suggesting here. It is simply that this book and its implications are fucking scary.
This shit really happened. Here in the south west of England in the last twenty years.
The killings started as London was full on into the swinging sixties. But these people,
in this part of England, were in another century. It is an unsettling book but it is
also an essential book. I read it in one sitting, which is always the ideal way to read
any book. But it works particularly well here. It facilitates your descent into the truly
depraved world of the Wests'. This is, in my humble opinion, one book that should be
sought out and read (by everyone). It is brilliantly written and deeply shocking. It
drags you into a terrifying world. A total absorption that leaves you feeling both
exhilarated and yet compromised. This was a private world that wasn't meant to be made
public. Burn has made it so public, so real that one feels, by the end of the book, personal
contempt for having read the book. One feels the same dislike for oneself as one feels
toward those people who slow their car unnecessarily to look at the bloody accident on the
other side of the highway. (Pub[in uk]; FABER & FABER)
06.11.98 - the gorn
Part II
Two days ago [27.07.98] a whole host of dignitaries crowded onto one of the south coast
of England's greatest claims to fame. A thing of such genius that it rides in the same
stratospheric realms as the mighty and magnificent Hovercraft. Namely the flying boat. These
quite fantastic non-sentient creatures were built before and partly (I think) during WWII. They
pretty much came into existence because at that time landing heavy planes, loaded with
passengers etc. etc. on land was damnably dangerous. So the big bugger's were built with large
ski come sled like water wings, affixed where one normally find the wheels, and were landed on
water.
This is, I hasten to add, a potted history pulled entirely from my recollections coupled
with logical infilling when a paucity of information revealed itself. As such, and I kid you not, I
can in no way be responsible for the amount of factual data contained in the last paragraph.
Nonetheless I reckon that I've gotten pretty close to the fundamentals of the flying boat.
Even if I am wildly incorrect in certain details like, for example, the reason why they were built.
I'm fairly convinced that I've captured the flavor of the idea. I'd say with happy assurance that
I've conveyed the essential reason d'etre of a flying boat and it's position in family tree of large
industrial sized methods of human portage. So you may relax and feel, in your wooden houses
with insect netting doors, that you have been pointed towards the core of a flying boat's being.
Now days, of course, the flying boat has one purpose and one purpose only. This is to
recreate the past. It is used to turn the clock back so you can almost smell the lard fried whale
meat! The flying boat is the big daddy, the main player in the past as entertainment game. A
theme park all on its' very own. Whatever power it had when being first used in the thirties and
forties is now many times out weighed by it's current nostalgia value. It is now able to
manipulate time and space far better than it ever could the first time around! The spectator and
the casual passerby crane their necks upwards at the passing machine. Even, this many years
beyond the flying boat's last meaningful usage, those on the ground are still bemused and
enthralled.
If one is a passenger not only are you hauled from point A to point B (these days actually
a circular trip around Solent water) but you are, intentionally, transported in time. And yes that
does sound like a nasty commercial. The sort of commercial that unashamedly goes for your
heartstrings, as it eyes your bulging wallet. A commercial that utilises every last ounce of
advertising acumen to give you no option, to sucker you in. The flying boat works in roughly the
same way. There is closure. There is a denouement. You must go belly up. You are not
allowed to be unmoved. And, hey! Why would you want to go out of your way to object to
something so fantastical? An elephantine body with wings and sleds for an undercarriage! How
could one think bad things of such a cute oddity? And although it was conceived and lived in
and around the war period. It is not as if it was ever tainted by destruction and killing unlike so
many other flying theme parks; i.e. the Spitfire or Lancaster bomber.
Well at least until now. A few paragraphs ago we were watching a whole host of South
Coast dignitaries board basically just another nostalgia ride, on a sunny south coast afternoon.
The role of the flight was to officially launch Southampton City Council's media led journey 'to
and through the millennium'. The Southampton town council dignitaries duly appeared for the
media and waved. They were keen to claim, by a slow process of appropriation, the credit for
the navigation of Southampton up 'to and through the millennium'.
Well the millennium proved too big a psychic deal to fool around with. The nostalgia
run, with so much resting on it, went sour. Our befriended town council's plans curled at the
ends. To borrow a phrase of a great Englishman; "What is and what should never have been"
collided in the ugliest of manners. The flying boat took off and circled the town of Southampton
for awhile and then turned towards the Solent water. As it passed over Southampton water it
basically turned nose down and screamed, from a decent height, straight into the Solent. It not
unsurprisingly broke apart on impact and was sinking within seconds of hitting the water. All
wreckage had hit the bottom of the sea within five minutes of the collision.
This part of the south coast is a veritable cornucopia of military boats of all shapes and
sizes and description. It is also home to the Coastguards and their awesome Sea King helicopters
along with the Royal Navy's version of the same. So, as you can no doubt imagine, the
emergency teams were scrambled pretty much as the plane hit the grey green surface of the
water. Their combined efforts were, as usual, extraordinary. A good number of people were
pulled from the water over the next hour or so. Eventually only two bodies could not be
accounted for. The Police and Navy divers were once again called on to descended to the
bottom. This time they breached areas of the flying boat's cabin, that they had not previously
reached. It was here they found the last two bodies. It later transpired that one of these bodies
was that of the Mayor of Southampton.
[spoon - 29.07.98 - Holloway]
Part I
Monday evening. Planes fly overhead every five minutes or so on their way into
Heathrow. Earlier I had argued with my partner if indeed this was (the landing part) what was
happening. I was of the opinion that it wasn't, that in fact they were outgoing flights. She
demurred, sticking to her version of events. Namely that the planes were circling overhead prior
to their approach and eventual landing at Heathrow. Finally I realized I was wrong and had
made myself look 'know-it-all' ridiculous.
So we sat discussing the planes. They are undeniably low. Not coming through the
fucking window low! But low enough, if you see what I mean? Low enough to neutralize the
voice with jet engine sourced white noise. Anyway we were chowing down on that good ole US
(& Antipodean) meal the BAR-B-Q. Hell yes, we are civilized in England and your bloody well
right we know how to enjoy ourselves.....
[spoon - 09.08.98 - Holloway]
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