Month: December 2015

 

 

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Shapednoise What Is It Like
‘Nino Pedone – aka Shapednoise – has accumulated an enviable discography during his relatively short career. Previous releases on Hospital Productions, Opal Tapes, Stroboscopic Artefacts, Russian Torrent Versions, his own Repitch and Cosmo Rhythmatic imprints, and now Type Recordings have cemented his reputation as a stalwart of the noise techno genre. His second album, like many second albums, seeks to extend his self-erected boundaries, and Different Selves is certainly his most abstract and punishing work to date. It is the beats that really make this album. Pedone’s work was already highly accomplished in this regard, but in Different Selves they have evolved into a more complex and savage form. In a track like ‘Well-Being’, the icy, satanic gusts of static can only be understood as such through the brutality of the bassline, which situates the listener somewhere in the vicinity of the seventh circle of Inferno. Whereas in some albums of the genre, the smattering of 4/4 can seem disposable, Shapednoise lets it be known that it is the beats that unleash the emotional potential of the other elements, and in so doing brings Different Selves out of the underworld and onto a more resonant plane.’ — Maria Perevedentseva

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Föllakzoid Electric
‘Föllakzoid began seven years ago as a trance experience between childhood friends Diego, Juan Pablo, and Domingo from Santiago, Chile. Heavily informed by the heritage of the ancient music of the Andes, the band has learned to integrate this influence with contemporary sounds of their times, creating a rich yet minimal atmosphere. For III, the band wanted to expand their sound while building an atmosphere with mainly monochords and reiteration. After recording and mixing the album on their own at their studio at BYM Records, they partnered with German electronic maestro Atom TM to flesh out the album’s synth parts. Most of the sounds he provided were atonal electronic sounds, aiming for concrete frequencies and sampled organic glitches. (The Korg synthesizer Atom TM plays on this record was used by Kraftwerk on tour in the ’80s.)’ — Sacred Bones

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Gabriel Saloman Contained Battle / Ascend
‘Gabriel Saloman presents the second volume in his Movement Building trilogy, continuing the release of original compositions commissioned for contemporary dance works. Following the enthusiastically received first installment — Vol. 1’s album-length The Disciplined Body (SHELTER 051LP, 2014) — Saloman offers up five tracks that combine shimmering bowed guitars and reverberant acoustic percussion into a meditative and powerful break from anything he’s produced before. Mobilizing the frequencies of contemporary electronic music (fine-tuned to speaker-rattling effect by Helmut Erler at Berlin’s Dubplates & Mastering), Movement Building Vol. 2 abandons the conventional instrumentation- and genre-motifs embraced by many of Saloman’s peers in favor of a unique hybrid of avant-drone, psych-rock, and Japanese traditional music. Exposure to the monolithic bass and open spaces of dub-influenced EDM has led Saloman in a different direction than many of his peers (including artists such as Cut Hands, Vatican Shadow, and former Yellow Swans bandmate Pete Swanson) and toward something that moves bodies and triggers their nerve endings, but with no concession to the dance floor.’ — Forced Exposure

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Iglooghost Peach Rift
‘Only 18 years old and hailing from the UK, the brisk, desultory, grime-infused sound of Iglooghost has been making some significant waves in the world of electronic music. Dynamo DJs and producers such as Mary Ann Hobbs, Kuthmah, and Flying Lotus—who has had a noticeable influence on his sound—have been playing his tracks as of late and this young-in has already begun to headline his own shows in London. His music is so dense and overwhelming I can barely describe it.’ — collaged

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Pedestrian Deposit live @ Ende Tymes
‘Long-running Los Angeles duo Pedestrian Deposit are virtually peerless when it comes to tension. They have a reputation for oscillating unpredictably between fine-tuned restraint and vicious abandon, putting nearly all tools revealed in the last 60 years of post-Cage experimental sound to work for them in the process. Shannon Kennedy has lacerated her arm at live shows, using her n
eck and forearm as tuning pegs for a length of metal wire played with her cello bow; Jonathan Borges has used his arsenal of electronics to push sound systems and musical constraints to their furthest limits, expertly dancing through tonal fields both harsh and lovely. They’re obviously part of a long lineage of freak forefathers/mothers, but they’re also the only unit that moves through the space in just the way they do.’ — Dustin Krcatovich

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Anthony Child The Chief
‘Melting our minds for over two decades with his beat-based productions, this time renowned techno-producer Anthony Child aka Surgeon is putting the fundamental components of electronic sound production to the fore. Focussing on the development of timbre and texture, Child creates exquisite drones, that give an insight in his improvisatory sensibility and dig deep into the potentials of modular synthesis. As the title already indicates, it’s a very special setting that he has chosen for this endeavour: The jungle of Maui seems to have acted as a stimulus for this exercise in concentration and trance. The intertwining of the electronic instrument that meets the sublime sounds of nature, opens up an intimate resonant chamber. Birds, insects and raindrops are allowed to break through, while you can sense the thick, humid air and deep colours of the surrounding resonating in the pastose synth lines.’ — Editions Mego

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Jlin Nandi
‘Armed perhaps with drum machines and synthesizers, Jlin goes in, arranges the signifiers and lets us do the detection. We meet at the borders and enter the depths, puzzled by the vernacular. The strange “there-but-not-there” feeling of hearing the same hi-hat played out a million, perhaps a billion times: as many times as there are atoms inside that hi-hat. We get used to that. We arrived here because of it. To hear these sounds, to settle down in the slight discomfort caused by the anxiety and the warlike patterns, to say, finally, at last, with a big breath, that this completes my personality and this symbolizes my psyche. This music, footwork, like fixed points in space, grips me, gets me caught in its algebra and mathematics and allows moments of culture to zoom in, like on “BuZilla,” when I hear a sample of Godzilla and the infamous “GET OVER HERE” command from Scorpion in Mortal Kombat; a sound, mind you, that I’ve known since a toddler. After all these years, the geometry remains, suspended in nudity, with all the world closing in, pulsing darkly.’ — HYDROYOGA

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Consumer Electronics History Of Sleepwalking
‘Best whispers quietly over a carpet of fizzy, but hardly explosive, electronic drone at the start of ‘History Of Sleepwalking’. Rest assured, noiseniks, this is a case of Consumer Electronics getting more expansive, not less abrasive, and it’s mere moments before Haswell kicks in with some blistering martial beats and Best leaps from murmur to his characteristic howl with the line “How the fuck did I get here?”. Consumer Electronics’ tendency to hurl oaths and revel in shocking imagery on stage somewhat obscures the sheer poetry of their lyrics, and Dollhouse Songs contains some of their most evocative imagery. “Save yourself/From this pain this hedonism/Shaped by adult hand/Good solid hand/Occult bankers/Ministers of state/Roped around your feet,” Best shrieks a bit later on ‘History Of Sleepwalking’, his politics clear even as he flounders in the despair of what our leaders are doing to us (“Learn your fucking place!” he also barks in Cameron-mode), even as we sleepwalk towards letting them go further and further with their corruption, lies and manipulation. The track ends with a brutal, emphatic exhortation: “Reject obligation and fear/Become a fucking insult/And kill them in their beds”. This may sound like typical noise fare, but in the hands of Consumer Electronics comes over more like a revolutionary mantra.’ — Joseph Burnett

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DJ Paypal Slim Trak
‘It wasn’t too long ago that Paypal himself was working his happy hardcore fanaticism into the footwork bass lines. While those hardcore elements are non-existent on this effort, the whimsical spirit remains. Just as happened with house, techno, and hip-hop, an international collective is contorting a US-born sound into new forms around their unique experiences and influences. Footwork/juke is quickly accumulating the breadth of culture of the seminal house sound that originated in the same underserved communities in Chicago. Rather than put himself forward, in remaining faceless, Paypal is ensuring the best opportunity for this beloved genre to flourish.’ — Consequence of Sound

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Oren Ambarchi & Johan Berthing live @ Dear Serge
‘Oren Ambarchi and Johan Berthling are two masters of reducing music’s peak intensities to their root meaning. Oren’s early solo guitar works rendered this process with an instantly recognisable combination of sine wave throb and precisely controlled attack that has bloomed in maturity – concentrating the ecstatic potential of the guitar solo by folding it back on itself and stacking the points of greatest liminal intensity into waves of powerfully psychedelic excess while also encompassing more explicit references to his deep love of pop/rock songform and rhythmic/riffing minimalism. Johan Berthling’s attention to purity of sound and his unflagging pulse has made him one of Europe’s finest bass players whether invigorating numerous acoustic ensembles (Arashi/LSB/Martin Küchen etc) or keeping Fire!’s free/jazz/rock amalgam locked during explosions of orchestral colour. He first came to my attention in the trio Tape – a group that have continued to refine an open approach to pastoral minimalism, rich and strikingly gorgeous without resorting to emotional posturing.’ — Hapna

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Ramleh Weird Tyranny
‘For the past decade or so, maybe more, Ramleh on record has been, essentially, a power electronics outfit. The duo includes founder Gary Mundy (also the man behind Broken Flag records and erstwhile occasional member of Skullflower), and longtime ally Anthony diFranco, who use battered electronic devices to build up walls of ear-shattering noise, along the way taking the Whitehouse template and finding its inner psychedelia. Fans of the band, and those fortunate to see Ramleh live in the years since 2009’s Valediction will testify, however, that there are, in fact, two versions of the band: the PE one, and a much more rock-focused incarnation featuring Breathless’ Martyn
Watts on drums. Circular Time is a much-overdue chance for that second iteration to showcase its potency in the studio, as it has done on many occasion on stages across the globe. And the “rock” Ramleh, well, fucking rocks. Seems it doesn’t matter if they’re using noise generators or guitars, these guys can throw up a wall of sound like no other.’ — Joseph Burnett

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Okokon Contelest
‘Africanus Okokon is a visual artist, a specialist in collage, video and animation. Turkson Side, his debut album, is almost entirely made up of samples, stitched together with conspicuous thread. Kinetic rhythms, half-tuned radios, keyboard mashing, backwards incantation, crickets, and electrical storms all feature, or are suggested, by free-association. Here, Okokon uses samples to mimic what might go through a magpie mind left with a quarter of an hour to space-stare. It gets better with familiarity, too: something that sounded like a tropical bird cry at first might, the second time around, transform into a sonar ping. ‘Contest’ is the album’s only mischievous track. It’s initially built around a laconic Britney Spears vocal sample (from the closest she got to avant-R&B;, 2009’s ‘Break The Ice’) over the bland tinkle of a factory-setting ringtone. This soon gives way to unhurried percussion, which in itself is destabilised by high-pitched hums. The effect is an axis-free spin, all the more nauseous for its apparent slow speed.’ — Jeanette Leech

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RAMZi (w/ Bataille Solaire) Monster’s Makeup
‘In the world of electronic cassettes, boundaries tend to be porous and soft, details typically smudged. But few artists inhabit a realm as amorphous and trippy as Montrealer-in-Vancouver Phoebé Guillemot. Her last release as RAMZi, the Bébites tape on Pygmy Animals, was a quivering mass of clammy texture and beats that felt like biorhythms. Guillemot’s way with percussion is something to behold. She makes drum tracks that feel sticky and malleable, as if she’s building them out of chewing gum. Camped somewhere between vaporwave, techno, ambient and new age, it exists firmly and defiantly in a liminal zone.’ — collaged

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Robin Fox Dark Rain
‘The outline here was to explore the themes of combustion and heat dissipating in various physical systems.. Greatly extending the language of his creative output Fox constructs a synthesis of electronic and acoustic sources creating a deeply nuanced excursion through space and time, timbre and texture. There is a subtle intensity to the works here, ‘A Pound of Flesh’ is an industrial strength spiralling drone, intoxicating, disorientating, ‘Antlers’ takes the listener on an eleven minute ride through a vortex of pulsing and swirling electronics whilst the title track is an unnerving combination of distressed field recordings, closed mic’d crackle and a foreboding distant pulse. ‘Through Sky’ starts out with a slow menacing rhythmic backbone which hosts an arsenal of small sounds until a certain wind supplants all in an admirable and somewhat haunted exchange. With it’s combination of vast caverns, spiraling counterflows and microscopic investigations Fox has opened up a new world of sound in his personally trajectory and one most unlike others existing anywhere in the present day.’ — collaged

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Duane Pitre live @ Base Elements Art Gallery
‘Duane Pitre is an American avant-garde composer, performer, and sound artist. His work often focuses on the interaction between electronic sound and acoustic instrumentation, chaos and discipline. Pitre has been featured in publications such as The Wire, Foxy Digitalis, Pitchfork, Dusted, and NewMusicBox. His work has been released by various labels including Important Records, Root Strata, NNA, and Quiet Design, and he has appeared on soundtracks with Dinosaur Jr., Battles, and Animal Collective.’ — 4’33” Cafe

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Sunn O))) Kannon 1
‘The dark, droning metal of Sunn O))) must be approached with a reverence for its spiritual and aesthetic values. You don’t just listen to Sunn; you experience it. Built on repetition and atmosphere, the ambience created by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson encourages introspection from its audience and a listening environment that allows such. The music of Sunn has become viable in the realms of yoga (aka Black YO)))ga) because of its visceral, transportive qualities. Kannon carries on many of those traditions, emphasizing meditative drones across a tri-movement piece. Per the album’s press release, “Kannon” literally represents an aspect of Buddha: the “goddess of mercy” or “perceiving the sounds (or cries) of the world.” To classify Kannon as an album relegates it to the commercial framework of recorded music and economic product, demeaning some of that spiritual allure. Sunn seek to defy that consumerist inevitability, essentially creating a mixed media art project around the release of Kannon. Critical theorist Aliza Shvartz was commissioned to write liner notes, and Swiss designer Angela LaFont created the abstract sculpture on the cover — “a vision of Kannon”. A unified message is spread across multiple mediums, and it’s this amorphous form of expression that makes Sunn such a musical anomaly: The music is a vehicle for expressing beliefs and ideas, not a means unto itself.’ — Consequence of Sound

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p.s. Hey. ** H, Hi. Cool, I’ll get the Wave Books book. Thanks much. No, I didn’t do an escort post last week, as far as I know? ** M, Hi, M! Really good to know. Awesome means of discovery. I’ve got a bead on it, and hopefully it’ll be in my field of hearing in the next day or so. Thanks so much! ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you on behalf of the lad himself. Gotcha on the Spielberg. Sounds like a film that in-flight entertainment was made for … whatever that means. ** James, Hi. No, I haven’t seen it. You might be the first person I know who liked it. All power to Mr. La Bruce, but I’m not a big fan. I liked ‘Otto’ pretty well. And the very early films have a reckless charm. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I liked the Regis record too. It’s pretty terrific. I too am quite intrigued by the ‘High Rise’ film after watching that trailer. Whoa, it has begun! Hooray! Obviously, let me … Everyone, May I have your attention? Thank you. _Black_Acrylic aka multi-striped artist Ben Robinson has launched a new writing project/blog called BLUE EYES: A CHERYL FANPAGE, and, need I even say, said site should really become one of you regular stopp
ing points beginning now. The first squib is awaiting you, and it portends a helluva future. Let’s all go there on three. Okay. One … two … three. ** Liquoredgoat, Absolutely yes and high-five on his ‘phenomenological flexibility’. Awesome. Amy teaches at Irvine? Oh, right, of course. She’s the best. Ai went there? That I didn’t know. That joint has turned out some pretty good writers, that’s for sure. Wow, long possible stretch in which to hear back from them. Interesting. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Oh, well, thanks. Very happy to have new sites to explore. That is a curious Twitter thing and coincidence. I never look at Twitter. Something about the form just doesn’t do it for me. I should get over that. Well, you know I’m going to say you should totally do that ‘Guest of Post’, but I said it anyway. ** Steevee, Hi. Hm, okay, hm, re: the Spielberg. I still think a long plane flight is the only way I’m going to possibly see it. I’ll check about the French DVD. That makes sense, yeah. ** Statictick, I think a cool thing about the form of the escort profile text is that it has a very big range, from the tragic/touching to the wildly and, even, occasionally, sophisticatedly comedic, to, of course, the horror thing. You should be able to order ‘Gone’. People seem to be doing it all the time. Write to them? Cool about the ‘Minus’ progress! ** Sypha, Congrats on the 200 page mark! That’s mega! I’ve listened to bits and pieces of the Cyrus/Lips record. Seems fun. I don’t like her music in general, obviously, but I do think she’s doing interesting stuff with her image and celebrity, for sure, and I’m in the pro-Miley camp. Pitchfork was just stupid and pre-determindely out for blood about that album like they can get sometimes. ** Aaron Mirkin, Hi, Aaron. I def. will listen to Collapse. If my future music quests were a turntable, Collapse would be its lowering stylus. Dude, if it’s any consolation, which it isn’t, I know, we’ve been rejected all over the place. I’m not surprised, but it’s not fun either. My big beef is with film programmers at non-festival film venues, a number of whom, in our experience, promise an answer very soon then just totally blow us off and don’t even have the decency or professionalism or whatever to send a quick email saying they don’t want it. Really fucking rude. And it’s weird how many of them have done that. Huh, I think if I think about it, which I will need a little time to do, I should be able to think of non-thrillers featuring missing people. Let me ask generally on your behalf. Everyone, Kindly read this question by the excellent filmmaker and d.l. Aaron Mirkin and answer it if you can, okay? Thank you! Here he and his question are: ‘Can you (or anyone here) think of any books or films or anything that are about missing persons but aren’t thrillers?’ ** Schlix, Hi, Uli. My holidays should be very low-key. I’ll be here. No big plans other than some buche eating and walking around to take in the decorations and a bit of gifting. Oh, that’s cool you talked to Gisele! I’m seeing her tonight, and I’ll remind her of what a swell guy you are. That doesn’t make sense maybe, but you know what I mean. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Those escorts can have the readers who read me for stuff like that with my blessing. That is a lot of sitting, man. Not that I don’t sit here at the computer 15,000 hours a day, but, still, yeah, hugs. You need a helicopter. Ask Santa. You never know. Ooh, a PS4, you are one giant heck of a great surrogate father or big brother or whatever to that kiddo, man, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Well, there are infinite degrees of non-normality, from the barely-ish to the subtlest to the most confrontational. I suppose Miley’s recent swing leftward is good for ‘the normals’. As if there is normality in the first place, of course. ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark! Man, I miss and want that brain reconfiguring that playing video games can do so bad. I know exactly what you mean. I’m trying to wait until I finish my novel, but fuck knows when I’ll have the space to do that. Visualization: With Gisele’s stuff, usually, there’s already a cast and sometimes even a set design in place before I start my writing part, so I guess I don’t tend to, or even have the option to, build personalized mental images in our collaborations. With the films with Zac, yeah, I do, in a sketchy way at least, to help me compose the settings and characters, but Zac is doing the same thing as he writes them with me, and it’s funny that we very easily work together on the scripts and ideas and character building, but, inevitably, he’ll end up having very different mental images in mind for everything, and, since he’s the director, his envisionings are the ones we implement, and I find that exciting. Take care, you too! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris! Yeah, I mean, if it’s no trouble, I would really love to read a scan or anything of Zac G’s book.That would be awesome! Ancient books? Like … really ancient? Hm. Maybe not. I don’t feel hardly any pull towards ancient literature, I think probably for the good old reason of having been forced to read that stuff in school when I couldn’t begin to appreciate it, and there being collateral damage from that. Also, I think, probably incorrectly, of ancient literature being primarily about story telling, and I’m not really interested in story telling when it isn’t balanced out by brain activity and consciousness in the writing itself. But, yeah, that could be unfair towards elderly writing. Anyway, I think your plan is a super interesting plan. I certainly would be very interested to hear what you end up particularly liking or even loving. My morning’s decent so far, and I hope yours is way more than that. ** Right. Today I made you another gig of stuff I’ve been into and listening to, if you like. See you tomorrow.

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Echo and the Funnymen Back of Love (1983)
‘Echo and the Bunnymen is one of the more interesting and innovative pop bands to emerge from the MTV-era British pop scene that also gave us the Cure, the Fixx, and XTC.  The group formed in Liverpool in 1978 and released its first album, Crocodiles, in 1980, and remained a rising U.K. act through Porcupine, their third LP, in 1983. This U.S. tour was launched when the band released Ocean Rain on Sire Records in 1984. Although a hit with critics and hardcore alternative music fans, unlike many of its contemporaries such as the Eurhythmics and the Fixx, Echo and the Bunnymen failed to have a commercial breakthrough in the U.S. They did, however, maintain a strong cult following and enough sales to justify continued support from Sire through 1987.’ — collaged

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Einstürzende Neubauten Ich bin’s (1986)
‘Of all their wonderful albums, this and Haus der Luge are my absolute favorites. They come from a similar pinnacle of their long and varied career where they coaxed each piece of metal, every giant spring, bucket of sand, etc. into a musical tapestry of pulsating rhythm. Blixa Bargeld’s voice has come a long way from Negativ Nein’s frightening scream, and on this album he manages to sing in a whisper, a chant and of course, his trademark screech that sounds less like a voice than it does a drill boring it’s way through a bell. This album is more hypnotic and, at times, even cozy. Like sitting in the worlds most comfortable chair watching the fireplace blaze so fierce and brilliant that it burns down the entire room, but you are too comfortable and mesmerized to move.’ — M. Fatino

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The Human League Dreams Of Leaving (live, 1980)
‘For Travelogue, the band worked with a new co-producer, Richard Mainwaring, who went on to produce OMD’s platinum selling Architecture & Morality the following year. Travelogue entered the UK album chart at #16, which was also its chart peak, and remained on the chart for 9 weeks in 1980. Although a vast improvement on their debut album, Reproduction, which had failed to chart at all the year before, the lack of high success precipitated the departure of founding band members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, who went on to form Heaven 17. Their departure led to remaining members Phil Oakey and Adrian Wright moving The Human League in a new musical direction with a new line-up.’ — collaged

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John Foxx No One Driving (1980)
‘”No-One Driving” is a 1980 song by UK artist John Foxx, and was released as a single in March 1980. It was the second single release from the Metamatic album, after “Underpass”. The song is typical of Foxx’s musical output of the time, featuring a Ballardian dystopian scenario involving an automobile in the lyrics, with music produced using electronic instruments (synthesisers, drum machines, electronic percussion) only. The record entered the UK charts at no. 32, remaining at the same position for a further week before dropping down.’ — collaged

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The Associates Party Fears Two (1982)
‘Unlike most bands’ much-repeated legends, the stories of excess and lunacy that quickly attached themselves to The Associates are – if one is to believe Rankine and Demp
sey – completely true: they did indeed blow half of Sulk’s advance on luxury hotel suites (including one for MacKenzie’s whippets), top-of-the-range smoked salmon (again, for the dogs) and enough cocaine to give Iggy Pop and David Bowie a run for their money, before throwing the rest into making Sulk as opulent and extravagant as possible. Lead single ‘Party Fears Two’ certainly fits that bill, an oddball elegy to excess, albeit one tinged by a sense that all this coke and booze is so much hot air and empty pleasure. Behind MacKenzie’s cheerful, Ferry-esque croon, Rankine’s orchestrations are positively lush, a smorgasbord of glittering synths, treated horns and slinky guitar lines. ‘Club Country’, meanwhile, is straight-ahead synth-pop bliss, a track fittingly tailored for the dancefloor even as it skewers middle class inertia: “Refrigeration keeps you young I’m told.” Again, Billy MacKenzie reaches impossible heights with his delirious voice, whilst the infectious beats and glossy keyboards would make even the most reticent club-goer get up and shake his or her arse. ‘Club Country’ is easily equal to ‘Fade To Grey’, ‘Poison Arrow’ and ‘Antmusic’ as a slice of pure, catchy synth-pop, and deserved bigger success than it got. Equally, The Associates surely tapped into the genre’s promise of futurism better than most of their peers, with MacKenzie’s lyrics equal parts behoven to Ballard, Orwell and Gibson, all wrapped up in his own glitter-bomb aesthetic.’ — The Quietus

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Devo Big Mess (Demo, 1982)
‘Devo’s song “Big Mess” on the Oh No, It’s Devo LP was inspired in-part by letters that were written to an LA office that managed local game show hosts’ fan mail. Devo had some friends who worked there, and the letters got passed onto them for the sake of strangeness. The writer of the letters referred to himself as “Cowboy Kim”. I can only guess that Kim had some kind of mental handicap, and I have no idea if he was really a DJ or not.’ — Devo-Obsesso

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Wall of Voodoo Factory (1982)
‘Wall of Voodoo formed in Los Angeles in 1977, originally as a soundtrack company. Led by singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway and rounded out by guitarist Marc Moreland, bassist/keyboardist Bruce Moreland, keyboardist Chas Gray, and drummer Joe Nanini, the group issued its self-titled debut EP in 1980. With the additions of bassist Bruce Moreland and his brother Marc on guitar (replacing Noland), the band’s sound crystallized on 1981’s full-length Dark Continent, which couched Ridgway’s highly stylized and cinematic narratives — heavily influenced by Westerns and film noir, and sung in the vocalist’s distinctively droll, narcoleptic manner — in atonal, electronically based settings. In 1982, following the exit of Bruce Moreland, Wall of Voodoo released Call of the West, which featured “Mexican Radio,” their biggest hit. After an appearance at the 1983 US Festival, Ridgway left the group for a solo career.’ –– collaged

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Psychedelic Furs Into You like a Train (live, 1981)
‘The Psychedelic Furs, whose name was inspired by the 1966 Velvet Underground song “Venus in Furs,” were formed in England in 1977 by brothers Richard Butler (vocals) and Tim Butler (bass), along with saxophone player Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger Morris. By the time they released their self-titled debut album in 1980, the group had become a sextet, adding guitarist John Ashton and drummer Vince Ely. That album, featuring Butler’s hoarse voice (the tone of which suggested John Lydon without the sneer) was a bigger hit in England, where it reached the Top 20, than in the U.S. Talk Talk Talk (1981) did better, reaching the U.S. Top 100 and producing two British singles chart entries, one of which was “Pretty in Pink,” later also a hit in the U.S. when a new version was used as the title song of a film. Forever Now (1982) saw the band reduced to a quartet with the departure of Kilburn and Morris. The rest moved to the U.S., turned to producer Todd Rundgren, and scored a U.S. Top 50 hit with “Love My Way.” Ely then left, and the remaining trio of the two Butlers and Ashton made Mirror Moves (1984), the biggest Psychedelic Furs hit yet.’ — collaged

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Strawberry Switchblade Another Day (1985)
‘There was more to Strawberry Switchblade than met the eye – their name was a clue. “Our image was colourful, but our minds were dark,” says McDowall on the phone from her home in Oxfordshire. Their self-titled first and only album featured “Since Yesterday” and other hit singles “Let Her Go”, “Who Knows What Love Is” and “Jolene”, a cover of the Dolly Parton song. But it also included their 1983 debut single, “Trees and Flowers”, a song concerning Bryson’s agoraphobia. Other songs on the album, particularly “Go Away”, “10 James Orr Street” and “Being Cold”, essayed a devastatingly bleak, eerily beautiful brand of mid-1980s pop, all sugar-high vocals, a ponderous pace expressing the heaviness of existence and chord changes of the most exquisitely miserable kind. The phrase “sinister-sweet” seems to have been invented for these wintry ballads.’ — The Guardian

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Gang of Four We Live as We Dream, Alone (live, 1982)
‘Lead singer Jon King (currently a chief executive of World Television) stalked the stage, owned the stage, his Mao-like suitcoat half-unbuttoned, undulating and Jesus-Christ-posing and crabwalking among three microphones, barking his words out. And, yes, there is a microwave involved. If you’ve seen the concert film Urgh! A Music War, there’s a performance of “He’d Send In The Army” by a much younger Go4, with King hitting a block of wood with a drum stick. For this tour, the drum stick was replaced with a duct-taped aluminum bat, and the block of wood was replaced with a microwave. Like a well-trained assembly-line worker, King banged on the box as the song stuttered and surged around him. If the sound from the last knock disappointed him, he would hit the microwave with a full swing, rearing back with the bat and coming down square on the top of it. As the song finished, King knocked the microwave off its pedestal with an inside-out stroke, and proceeded to give it ! an old-fashioned arrhythmic beat-down.’ — David Raposa

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The Teardrop Explodes The Great Dominions (1981)
‘Wilder is The Teardrop Explodes final fling but this is no half-hearted, “can it, shift it and move on” enterprise. Instead it’s a rich, dark tapestry of tightly woven, neo-psyche
delic pop tunes which could have been recorded any time in the last 25 years. The sound is crisp and clean and beautifully varied in texture which results in upbeat exuberant pop imbued with a sense of mystery and loss. What is glaringly evident is that, notwithstanding the band’s untimely demise, Julian Cope was a force to be reckoned with and one who was never likely to simply fade away. He has a bizarre knack of being lyrically opaque yet passionately revealing. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the meaning behind some of these tracks but I’m not sure I need to.’ — Grampus

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Siouxsie and The Banshees Into The Light (1981)
‘One of the band’s masterworks, Juju sees Siouxsie and the Banshees operating in a squalid wall of sound dominated by tribal drums, swirling and piercing guitars, and Siouxsie Sioux’s fractured art-attack vocals. If not for John McGeoch’s marvelous high-pitched guitars, here as reminiscent of Joy Division as his own work in Magazine, the album would rank as the band’s most gothic release. Siouxsie and company took things to an entirely new level of darkness on Juju, with the singer taking delight in sinister wordplay on the disturbing “Head Cut,” creeping out listeners in the somewhat tongue-in-cheek “Halloween,” and inspiring her bandmates to push their rhythmic witches brew to poisonous levels of toxicity. Album opener “Spellbound,” one of the band’s classics, ranks among their finest moments and bristles with storming energy. Siouxsie’s mysterious voice emerges from dense guitar picking, Budgie lays into his drums as if calling soldiers to war, and things get more tense from there. “Into the Light” is perhaps the only track where a listener gets a breath of oxygen, as the remainder of the album screams claustrophobia, whether by creepy carnival waterfalls of guitar notes or Siouxsie’s unsettling lyrics.’ — Allmusic

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The Jam Private Hell (1980)
‘Between May 1977 and November 1979, the Jam released four albums and nine singles, a pace of output that peaked when Setting Sons was hurried along by a record company keen to capitalise on the band’s connection with Britain’s youthful masses. As a result, the album – intended as an Orwell-inspired concept – seems flawed next to 1978’s All Mod Cons and 1981’s Sound Affects, but captures why the young Paul Weller was (reluctantly) dubbed the “spokesman for a generation”. The still-relevant ‘The Eton Rifles’ is the colossus here, but ‘Thick As Thieves’, ‘Private Hell’, and ‘Little Boy Soldiers’ show what a fast and furious roll they were on.‘ — The Guardian

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Killing Joke Requiem (live, 1980)
‘”Requiem” was released in September 1980 on 12″ vinyl by record label E.G. by E.G. Records as the second single from the band’s debut self-titled studio album, backed by two B-sides, “Change” and a demo version of “Requiem”. That same year, E.G. released a 7″ version of the single, minus the demo version. Polydor also released the single in on 7″ vinyl in Italy only. The single did not chart in the UK but reached number 43 on the US Billboard Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart.’ — collaged

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Adam and the Ants Feed Me to the Lions (Demo, 1980)
‘I’d seen Adam and the Ants before, the previous September at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. My older brother and his mate Olly had taken me, edging me past the doorman into the packed, smoky venue where the band’s seminal line-up were undertaking their penultimate show; Adam Ant, the late Matthew Ashman, Dave Barbe and Andy Warren – it was the 28th September 1979 – and for a twelve year old boy it was a thrilling experience. I wandered around wide eyed and fascinated by the bizarre mix of people, a kind of punky-soul-a-billy mix. Standard peroxide spiky heads with the band’s name on the back of their leather jackets. A lot of younger kids, perhaps a bit older than me, wearing intriguing Ants or Seditionaries t-shirts, kung fu slippers, moccasin-style shoes or creepers. Older guys and girls sporting a look that was quasi new romantic I guess, a taster of what was to come as punk rock curdled into the sham (69) of its former self and a slicker club culture was born. It was pre-Goth and post-punk. The UK Subs and The Exploited would soon be on Top of the Pops, a glue sniffing parody of what the Ants represented, while Adam himself would appear on the same show, resplendent in gold and black Hussar jacket, one of English pop music’s most iconic looks.’ — Sabotage Times

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Soft Cell Meet Murder My Angel (1984)
‘This Last Night in Sodom represents a shift in style from the delicate, erotic, dancefloor-friendly pop of their earlier records and contains a more eclectic mix of styles as well, from the Spanish-influenced “L’Esqualita” (inspired by the drag bar in New York City of the same name- the actual real name being “La Escuelita”) to the rockabilly-tinged “Down in the Subway”. The thematic elements of the songs are also noticeably darker, even for Soft Cell, and center around self-destruction and the breakdown of innocence. “Meet Murder My Angel”, according to Almond, is about the mind of a murderer before he slaughters his victim, while “Where Was Your Heart (When You Needed It Most)” centres on a girl who loses all self-esteem after being raped while intoxicated. The first single from the album was “Soul Inside”, which reached number 16 on the UK charts in September 1983. “Down in the Subway” was released as the second single, peaking at number 24 in March 1984.’ — collaged

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The Cure A Strange Day (live, 1982)
‘Pornography is the fourth studio album by English rock band The Cure, released on 4 May 1982 by the record label Fiction. Preceded by the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes” late the previous year, Pornography was the band’s first album with a new producer, Phil Thornalley, and was recorded at RAK Studios from January to April. The sessions saw the group on the brink of collapse, with heavy drug use, band in-fighting and group leader Robert Smith’s depression fuelling the album’s musical and lyrical content. Pornography represents the conclusion of the group’s early dark, gloomy musical phase which began with Seventeen Seconds in 1980. Following its release, bass guitarist Simon Gallup left the band and the Cure switched to a much brighter and more radio-friendly new wave sound. While poorly received by critics at the time of release, Pornography was their most popular album t
o date, reaching number 8 in the UK charts. Pornography has since gone on to gain acclaim from critics, and is now considered an important milestone in the development of the gothic rock genre.’ — collaged

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Bow Wow Wow Chihuahua (1981)
‘Bow Bow Bow was a 80s new wave band, organized by the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren in 1980, whose music is described as having an “African-derived drum sound”. McLaren persuaded guitarist Matthew Ashman, bassist Leigh Gorman and percussionist Dave Barbarossa of the original lineup of Adam and the Ants to leave Adam Ant and form a new group, fronted by teen singer Annabella Lwin. McLaren was also going to use Boy George (later of Culture Club fame) as a second lead singer, but he was deemed to be “too wild” for the band. McLaren discovered fourteen year old Lwin while she was working at a dry cleaners, and the group’s sound was a mix of her “girlish squeal”, Balinese chants, surf instrumentals, new romantic pop melodies, and Barbarossa’s Burundi ritual music-influenced tom tom beats, though later moving towards heavy metal. The group released three full-length albums before Lwin quit to pursue a solo career, or was kicked out, in 1983. Ashman went on to form Chiefs of Relief, and in 1995 died from diabetes complications.’ — last.fm

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XTC Rocket From a Bottle (1980)
‘The ever-evolving group had its biggest successes in the ’80s with driving, off-kilter pop songs that made hay of socio-political critiques and Beatles-like guitar hooks, and as they moved into the ’90s, they were beloved by the post-collegiate crowd that didn’t cotton to mainstream radio but was also turned off by what the post-Nirvana or Lollapalooza worlds had to offer. And as the band reached its autumn years, critical and commercial interest waned almost entirely — particularly here in the States — leaving their last two albums to be virtually ignored by the record-buying universe. Yet looking at XTC through any one of those lenses is terribly myopic. The group, which started in Swindon, England back in 1976, has gone through one of the most fascinating career trajectories right up until their dissolution in 2000. They evolved from amphetamine-fueled imps to a sturdy modern rock group to psychedelia’s second cousins to a kind of amalgam that kept an eye on each of these musical stopping points. And through it all, the band’s two preternaturally gifted songwriters, guitarist/vocalist Andy Partridge and bassist/vocalist Colin Moulding, created work that only got deeper, more thoughtful, and more complex.‘ — Stereogum

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Magazine Because You’re Frightened (Peel Session, 1980)
‘After leaving the Buzzcocks in 1977, vocalist Howard Devoto formed Magazine with guitarist John McGeoch, bassist Barry Adamson, keyboardist Bob Dickinson, and drummer Martin Jackson. One of the first post-punk bands, Magazine kept the edgy, nervous energy of punk and added elements of art rock, particularly with their theatrical live shows and shards of keyboards. Devoto’s lyrics were combinations of social commentary and poetic fragments, while the band alternated between cold, jagged chords and gloomy, atmospheric sonic landscapes.’ — Allmusic

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Cabaret Voltaire Sensoria (1985)
‘Though they’re one of the most important groups in the history of industrial and electronic music, Cabaret Voltaire are sometimes forgotten in the style’s timeline — perhaps because they continued recording long after other luminaries (Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, Chrome) called it quits. Also related to the fact is that CV rarely stayed in one place for long, instead moving quickly from free-form experimentalism through arty white-boy funk and on to house music in the late ’80s and electronica the following decade. The band, formed by guitarist Richard H. Kirk, bassist Stephen Mallinder and tape manipulator Chris Watson, were influenced by the Dadaist movement (whence came their name) and as such, came closer to performance art than music during many of their early performances. After several years of recording with no contract, the group signed to the newly formed Rough Trade label in 1978 and began releasing records that alternated punk-influenced chargers with more experimental pieces incorporating tape loops and sampled effects. Following Watson’s departure, the remaining duo inaugurated a new contract with Some Bizzare/Virgin in 1983 by shifting their sound, away from raging industro-funk and towards a more danceable form. The singles “Sensoria” and “James Brown” hit the indie charts during 1984, and Cabaret Voltaire moved to EMI/Parlophone in 1986 for The Code.’ — Avantgarde.com

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ABC That Was Then, But This Is Now (1983)
‘Beauty Stab is the second album by the British band ABC. Released in November 1983, it was a departure from the stylised production of the band’s first album, The Lexicon of Love, featuring a more guitar-oriented sound. The album was certified Gold by the BPI for shipments in excess of 100,000 copies, but was not as commercially successful as its predecessor. It peaked at no. 12 in the UK album charts and spawning only two top 40 singles (neither of which made the top 10). In a 1995 article, music journalist Simon Reynolds listed Beauty Stab among “the great career-sabotage LPs in pop history”.’ — collaged

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Pete Shelley XL1 (live, 1983)
‘With XL1, Pete Shelley integrates layers of guitar into the electronic synth-pop he essayed on his solo debut, Homosapien. While the result isn’t quite as bracing as its predecessor, the music benefits from the guitar — it sounds edgier, making the record fairly captivating. There’s still some weak material on the record, but “Telephone Operator” and “If You Ask Me (I Won’t Say No)” are terrific, ranking among Shelley’s best.’ — Allmusic

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Scritti Politti Absolute (1984)
‘For the sleeve of their first single, 1979’s “4 A Sides”, Scritti Politti opted not for a picture but instead showed a breakdown of costs– every element of the record’s production itemized. This kind of fascination with and demystification of the rock process seems like an orthodox post-p
unk move, very of its time. But it also revealed for the first time one of the unifying threads in Scritti’s career– an idea that things become more interesting when they’re broken down, and that what’s on the surface can reveal that stuff, not obfuscate it. This is pop exploded, fractured and rebuilt as a mosaic where almost every beat seems to have a different sound from the one before. Hi-hats, triangles, drum pads of every kind flicker across the mix for a second or two then never reappear. In fact the tracks hold together only thanks to Green Gartside’s deceptively light voice and sweet melodic touch, making songs like “Absolute” and “Wood Beez” into exhilarating sculptures rather than a swingers party for drum presets.’ — Tom Ewing

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Simple Minds King in White and in the Crowd (Peel Session, 1982)
‘One of Scotland’s finest imports, Simple Minds deliver a strong synth-reared release on New Gold Dream. This album harks the darker side of the band’s musicianship, and such material alludes to their forthcoming pop-stadium sound which hurled them into rock mainstream during the latter part of the ’80s. They were still honing their artistic rowdiness, and Kerr’s pursuing vocals were still hiding. But Simple Minds’ skill of tapping into internal emotion is profound on songs such as “Someone, Somewhere in Summertime” and the album’s title track. But the dance-oriented tracks like “Promised You a Miracle” and “Glittering Prize” are lushly layered in deep electronic beats — it was only a matter of time for Simple Minds to expound upon such musical creativity which made them a household favorite through the 1980s.’ — collaged

*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. My timing or phrasing or something was not at its sharpest. Yeah, the strikes are already underway even. Unbelievable. ** David Ehrenstein, My pleasure, and thank you for saying that. Yes, and it seems that Mr. Thomas had one. The news of the Carax/ Sparks film is public? Interesting. Yes, very sadly, Holly seems to be at the end. So, so sad. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Kavan is very good. I had a very similar experience with John Thomas and the Venice poets back when I had your job. He always treated me like some lowly peon who was standing in the way of the worldwide dissemination of his genius. And I too never heard word-one about any of that stuff when he was earthbound. Bob Flanagan used to do this spot-on imitation of Thomas. Anyway, grim. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. Yes, I knew nothing of any of that. Wow, okay. That particular Agnes B space is quite nice. I saw a show there not two weeks ago. I’ll see the show for sure, and I’ll try to get to the Saturday event at the very least. And I’ll hope to meet Jayme somehow. Yeah, no, $300, theologian, that’s probably enough to ward me off. Cool: your Bechdel talk! Sooner the better re: writing to Chrystel, but probably not an extreme rush, and I would really think you’re a shoo-in. Really nice about your poem in Colby’s show! Snap that. And about the Theater department thing! Wow, you’re good, my pal. ** Thomas Moronic, Yay, you did the opposite of deprive us! They look splendid. I’ll read them carefully a little later as I was up late and then woke up early, and I’m half-brained this AM. Thank you, thank you! Yeah, John Thomas hovered around Beyond Baroque when I was doing the programing there in the early ’80s. Like I said to Tosh, he always treated me like an extremely lesser mortal. I’m good, really, really busy, but it’s all good. ** H, Hi. Slurp. Oh, thank you, then I’ll will get to NYC at the soonest opportunity. I really love Alice Motley’s earlier work. I don’t know her more recent work so well. My favorite book of hers is ‘How Spring Comes’, and I love pretty much all of her work and books up to and just after that point in time. She lives in Paris, but I’ve only run into her once since I’ve been here. ** MANCY, Hi, Stephen! Cool you love Kavan. Really excited for your new thing! ** Steevee, It’s very unique: the Kavan. Zac and I saw the new Grandieux at the Montreal festival when LCTG played there. I thought it was quite amazing, as did Zac. It was very controversial at the festival for reasons that you will quickly understand if you see it. I’m a huge of his work, and it has all of the things I love in his work, and it’s also I think his most ambitious film. It’s very, very dark. I guess if you’ve read the synopsis, you know that already. ** Kathe Burkhart, Wow, Kathe! Hey, old pal! How are you doing? It’s so very, very sweet to see you here! Thank you! Big love, me. ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! Really good to see you! Oh, man, I hope that whatever’s dragging you down physically and otherwise is melting like winter snow in April. Or even late March. Yeah, totally, about ‘Ice’! Really nicely put! Fascinating that your girlfriend is doing her PhD partly on Kavan. What’s the overall thing/theme of her focus? Yes, please, hang out here more often, if you feel like it. That would be lovely. xx, Dennis ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. Shit, I think you were under the weather the last time you were here, or one of the last times. Fucking winter offshoots. I … wait, have I done a post on Jem Cohen here? Huh. I’ll go back and check. If there’s stuff out there to borrow, I definitely will if I haven’t. No, I haven’t seen ‘Counting’. I’ll see what the availability in my parts is. I wish you a hyper upswinging. ** Alistair McCartney, Hi, Alistair! Always a joy! The TV thing went well. The proposed TV series will star one of the performers in Gisele’s my piece ‘The Ventriloquists Convention’ and her dummy. ‘TVC’ wrapped up its Paris run last night, so we used her locality to test-shoot two short scenes just to see how it will look/work and also to help Zac and I understand what the dummy can and can’t do as far as writing the series. It was very, very helpful and went extremely well. Holy shit, it’s ready! Your novel! That’s amazing news, man! Congratulations, and I’m so very, very excited by news of its completion and inevitable journey to the world’s eyes, mine especially! I don’t think we’ll get to Perth when we’re in Australia, damn. But you never know. We’re still figuring out our itinerary. We’ll be based in Melbourne. There is some possibility that our film LIKE CATTLE TOWARDS GLOW might show at a festival in Sydney while we’re there, and, if that happens, we’ll go there for that. Definitely Tasmania. We think we’ll rent a car and try to get as far as we can into the Outback. That’s kind of the general, hoped for plans at the moment. Then to Japan on the way home to Paris, probably for a week or so at the beginning of February. Anyway, big hugs to you, pal, and you have a fantastic weekend! Love, me. ** Misanthrope, Hey. Oh, cool. I’m glad the Kavan book intrigued you. Yeah, you never know what effect stuff like that will have on you. I mean I went through a pretty rough time in my teens, and I’m fairly okay, I think, considering. I can’t say that I’ve ever liked anything I’ve heard by My Chemical Romance, but I haven’t spent all that much time or that many brain cells investigating them. Our title — ‘This Is How You Will Disappear’ — was a twisted, slightly changed offshoot from the title of a Scott Walker song. I wonder if they did the same thing? ** Okay. So, let’s see … I got to remembering ’80s New Wave the other day, and I got to remembering tracks I especially liked at the time by very to fairly- to well-known bands of that era/’genre’, and I gathered those tracks together and stacked them up and called it a gig. That’s what I did. And now, what will my gig trigge
r off inside of you that will then pass through your body and end up in your typing fingers? That’s the question for this weekend. Have good ones. See you on Monday.