The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Gig # 159: William Fowler Collins, Rabit, Adrian Corker, Maxine Funke, Richie Culver, Dale Cornish, Heith, isomonstrosity, Lykotonon, Bill Nace, Pink Siifu x Real Bad Man, The Soft Pink Truth, Shake Chain, Faxed Head, Loraine James


Steven Purtill

 

William Fowler Collins
Rabit
Adrian Corker
Maxine Funke
Richie Culver
Dale Cornish
Heith
isomonstrosity
Lykotonon
Bill Nace
Pink Siifu x Real Bad Man
The Soft Pink Truth
Shake Chain
Faxed Head
Loraine James

 

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William Fowler Collins Opening Scene
‘The clip was directed by Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe, who has recently been directing episodes of Reservation Dogs. Opening Scene serves to set the tone for Hallucinating Loss in a desolately cinematic way, and the clip manages to harness the blend of the starkness of the New Mexico landscape and the internal psychedelic atmospheric denseness that Collins creates over this remarkable new LP.’ — Jason Heller

 

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Rabit Angelica (feat. Eartheater)
‘If the floating metaphor for the previous releases was the mechanic, Rabit’s gorgeous new album What Dreams May Come is all about the flesh. It cuts deep as the tracks explore vulnerability, intimacy and queer politics. “Nothing is private if you must be seen,” laments British-French vocalist Lauren Auder, whose voice easily matches the emotional intensity of ANOHNI, into dreamy landscapes of ‘Epiphany’. Rabit always worked as an editor who manipulates samples to the point the source is untraceable and finds unusual connections. Instead of assemblages, he gathered an ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists. The album’s roster includes Eartheater, Jack Donoghue of SALEM, and multi-instrumentalist CJ Calderwood of Good Sad Happy Bad.’ — Miloš Hroch

 

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Adrian Corker Major
‘Adrian Corker is a musician and composer who has written extensively to picture having started working with director Antonia Bird. Having met earlier this year when TIBSLC played at an album launch in London for Jack Sheen at Cafe Oto, Corker asked if they would be interested in taking the tracks as raw material to create a new set of pieces. The original acoustic worlds of the tracks, a combination of contemporary composition and electroacoustic techniques , are transformed into complex ever shifting digital landscapes. Performances by players such as Aisha Orazabayeva, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Ligeti Quartet are dissolved into strata of sound with fragments appearing from time to time like hints of archaeological ruins.’ — Constructive

 

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Maxine Funke South Dunedin
‘In the first of his Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino reframed the idea of lightness as a positive quality. He emphasised that lightness in literature is a thoughtful but not ponderous characteristic, that it is precise rather than haphazard. He attempted to remove what he called the excess weight from his writing and, in doing so, created stories that seemed to float free of structure and yet remained direct and immediate. If any artform beyond literature can benefit from this approach, it is surely music, and if any musician is capable of following in Calvino’s footsteps, it is Maxine Funke.’ — Thomas Blake

 

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Richie Culver Create A Lifestyle Around Your Problems
‘The resonant barrage of concrète clatter and MRI machine churn of ‘Create A Lifestyle Around Your Problems’ swells at the beating heart of I Was Born By The Sea, the devastating debut album from iconoclast, outsider artist Richie Culver. Unfurling as relentless friction, a Sisyphean surge and retreat that evokes trying and failing, again and again, to break out of an itching cycle of frustration, the track’s DIY sonics sandpaper a malleable surface upon which Culver inscribes his observations from the fringes that take on cavernous emotional potency with each repetition of his dissociated delivery. Here, the artist looks back at the “hardest working man in the job centre,” this “habitual bastard,” the “most underrated person in your family,” pinned under the crushing weight of his home town, obsessing over the need to escape while battling the apparent absurdity of such ambition: “you and god on a rollercoaster.”’ — FACT Magazine

 

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Dale Cornish 3RENSA (remix by Merzbow)
‘Dale Cornish’s new album, Traditional Music Of South London, serves as a “psychosexual-geography of London’s lost gay club haunts,” according to a press release, which also adds that it includes songs about “masculinity, [Cornish’s home base] Croydon and trainers.” The record marks the producer’s debut for Manchester-based label The Death Of Rave.’ — Christian Eede

 

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Heith A Venus Flytrap in the Circus Lodge
‘Heith’s first album for PAN manifests a practice that draws on both the spiritual and the artistic, folding in elements of psychedelia, psytrance, freak folk, stoner metal, harsh noise and early electronic music into a singular sonic language, inspired in equal parts by biological forms of plant communication and the logic of dreams. This focus on alternative methods of communication extends out of phonetic expression and into speculative inscription with Angel’s Hair, an alphabet of vegetal glyphs and mycological characters devised by Heith in collaboration with the visual artist Pietro Agostoni. The alphabet shares its name with the folkloric substance siliceous cotton, a sticky gelatinous substance of unknown origin, claimed by believers and zealots to be produced during UFO visitations and miraculous manifestations of the Virgin Mary, respectively.’ — Henry Bruce-Jones

 

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Isomonstrosity take me back (ft. Empress Of)
‘With their self-titled debut, Isomonstronsity might just have done just that. A supergroup made up of producer Johan Lenox, famed for his work with Travis Scott, Kanye West and Lil Nas X, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid and crypto pioneer Yuga Cohler; across a dozen songs, the trio chart a trek across cinematic-sounding classical landscapes and fractured pop. Along the way, we get to meet a revolving cast of guest vocalists and contributing artists who deliver constant surprises despite being thrown miles from their comfort zones, from progressive rappers Danny Brown and 645AR, to Kacy Hill, Danny L Harle, Empress Of, Vic Mensa, Tommy Genesis and Zacari.’ — Dominic Haley

 

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Lykotonon The Primal Principle
‘Lykoton’s debut release, Promethean Pathology, is a deep dive into the depths of experimental extreme metal. For the act from Denver, the brutality of death metal and the eeriness of black metal can be augmented through additional means. For the first part of Promethean Pathology, the focus is more on the black metal side, the traditional riffing shining in “The Apocryphal Self” and enhanced with an industrial backbone. Melodic inclinations still rise, both the ending of the opener and “The Primal Principle” revealing the act’s intrinsic ability to unleash powerful hooks.’ — Spyros Stasis

 

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Bill Nace E:E
‘For Nace, the relevant musical unit is not the note or the chord but the burst of noise. Having produced towering blocks of vibration, he rearranges them into structures based more on their inherent timbral quality than any notion of traditional songcraft. Walls of distortion are decorated with filigree traceries of treble as if to guide the eye across a Brutalist facade. Co-producer Cooper Crain, of Bitchin’ Bajas, deserves credit here for helping to realize Nace’s blueprints by recording and editing his tracks.’ — Matthew Blackwell

 

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Pink Siifu & Real Bad Man Looking For Water (Ft. Boldy James)
‘Pink Siifu is rap’s foremost chameleon. If music needs some serious shaking up, this guy is usually instigating something at the vanguard. Just witness Siifu’s live shows alongside co-conspirators Negro 6 and prepare to find your head shaking in subtle disbelief; how effortlessly he reconfigures the erstwhile DNA of Parliament Funkadelic, Bad Brains and Sun Ra, all while maintaining the urgency of his contemporary hip-hop peers.’ — Jasper Willems

 

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The Soft Pink Truth La Joie Devant La Mort
‘The Soft Pink Truth is Drew Daniel, one half of acclaimed electronic duo Matmos, Shakespearean scholar and a celebrated producer and sound artist. Daniel started the project as an outlet to explore visceral and sublime sounds that fall outside of Matmos’ purview, drawing on his vast knowledge of rave, black metal and crust punk obscurities while subverting and critiquing established genre expectations.’ — Thrill Jockey

 

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Shake Chain Mike
‘When Kate Mahony’s vocals butt in, things slide sideways. The most accurate description of her voice that I can muster is if you imagine Diamanda Galás repeatedly performing the “I want out” line from Fugazi’s ‘Full Disclosure’ intro in an array of increasingly shrill vocal styles. Her falsetto drawl is a slurring wrecking ball careening from syllable to vowel to ponderous whispers and banshee shrieks, continuing a lineage that cuts from The Slits, through Bikini Kill, into Sleater Kinney. It’s a welcome antidote to the male-centric lad vox of most other post-punk acts.’ — Jon Buckland

 

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Faxed Head Don’t Turn Out Like Me
‘All glue-sniffing teenage survivors of a suicide pact gone horribly awry, Faxed Head is a decidedly twisted death metal band, despite its members’ new physical (and to a certain extent, mental) handicaps caused by their ordeal. Placed in a series of county and state rehabilitation programs, the bandmembers underwent physical reconstruction and mental therapy at the Coalinga Youth Hospice before forming this band. The most recent Faxed Head lineup is composed of headless/elongated-neck guitarist Neck Head, plaid-tartan skin-graft victim/wheelchair-bound vocalist McPatrick Head, oddly-handicapped musician Jigsaw Puzzle Head on bass, LaBrea Tar Pits Head on drums, and local mime/metal-detector-operator named Fifth Head providing electronics.’ — Web of Mimicry

 

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Loraine James Choose To Be Gay
‘Queer London electronic artist Loraine James pays homage to composer, pianist and singer Julius Eastman in Building Something Beautiful For Me, an at times stunning electronic album that continues his radical, minimal legacy, while Anglifying some of his messages. Her hypnotising chimes recall the holographic, mesmerising dream loops of Oneohtrix Point Never, while her flattened, low key vocals and loops for days conjure up solo tracks from another working class provocateur, Hackney’s Dean Blunt.’ — Claire Sawers

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Ian, Hey, man. Your good sounds good. Awesome if you can find the space to write starting at Xmas. Perfect and deserving Xmas self-gift. I’m good. I’m pretty much eaten up by all the work needed to get ready to shoot the film, and I’m working on the text for Gisele Vienne’s new theater piece in-between, and trying to get some short fiction things finished. A lot, but a good lot. Have a big day. ** Gick, Hopefully the slave would love the idea too. That Duras book is fantastic, and it’s really short to boot, about the length of a poetry collection. I’m feeling pretty okay, yeah, thanks. Stay warm. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. It is, right? How are you? What’s new in your new world? ** Charalampos Tzanakis, Hi. I have seen ‘Les enfants’. I liked it. It’s not among my favorite of hers. There’s a great video of Duras interviewing a 7 year old boy if you haven’t seen it: here (excerpt). That must be psychedelic: knowing you drew something but not recognising it. Huh. ** David Ehrenstein, Agreed! ** Dominik, Hi!!! No, I don’t like Foo Fighters. They just seen like the epitome of mediocrity to me, and it always really bugs me when people think the mediocre is great. Although that happens all the time, of course. But, as you can tell by today’s gig, they aren’t exactly up my musical alley, so … who knows? That was a sentence worth rescuing. Thank you, love. Love?, G. ** Bill, If you’re not sure, it only takes about an hour to read the whole novel. It’s Hsu-sized, ha ha. It’s cold here too. My coat feels like a huge teeshirt. Brr. Angel on your prepping shoulder. ** Steve Erickson, It’s exciting to see Akerman top the list, but that list is pretty wack. ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’?! ‘Get Out’?! ** mlp, Hi, welcome! Those are my favorite Duras novels too! High five! Thank you. What’s up? ** Robert, Hi. Oh, cool. It’s a really short novel. You’ll be glad on numerous fronts, I think. Oh, no, shit, get better. Do what you need to do. Yeah, everyone I know is under the weather here right now. Me as well. Yeah, take care, pal. ** Right. I made you another one of my gigs featuring things that have been making my ears, and my eyes in some cases, feel more sated and productive recently. Here’s hoping for some crossover. See you tomorrow.

6 Comments

  1. _Black_Acrylic

    I’m loving that Dale Cornish track. The Death Of Rave is Mark Leckey’s label so it’s good to know ML is involved with this stuff.

    Still having fun here watching the World Cup. Japan beat Spain last night and therefore top their group. It was a wise tip you made in backing them.

  2. Gick

    Oh, I’m sure the right slave would be thrilled. Glad to hear you’re feeling better.

  3. Steve Erickson

    I’m pretty happy with the S&S list, which seems to put me in the minority. The Discourse about it on Facebook is insufferable, but that goes without saying. There sure are a lot of dudes who think votes for JEANNE DIELMAN could only come from men’s pseudo-feminist posturing, while being extremely angry that no Polanski films made the top 100.

    My parents asked me to cancel my trip to visit them this weekend. My mom fell out of bed and injured her knees last night. Right now, she’s suffering serious pain and doesn’t think she can get out of the house the next few days. I’m now planning to see them some time in January.

    Since I’ll be staying in New York this weekend, I’ll be able to see THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER, which opened today, in the theater, and take in Anthology Film Archives’ Dziga Vertov Group retrospective.

    Heith made me think of a much more dissonant take on neo-pagan groups like Heilung and Wardruna. The Isomonstrosity song sounds like a mash-up of pop vocals and classical piano. I’ve been listening to Fievel Is Glauque a lot lately – they sound like a leftfield prog band from early ’70s France, although their songs are all very short. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned Raw Poetic’s SPACE BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM here – it’s my next review for Slant Magazine – but it’s maximalist Afrofuturist hip-hop, with production that suggests a ’70s sci-fi blockbuster score. It’s the second album he released in 2022, but I haven’t heard the first.

    For Gay City News, I reviewed SPOILER ALERT: https://gaycitynews.com/spoiler-alert-rom-com-movie-2022/

  4. malcolm

    bill nace!! fuck yeah!! drag city posted a bit of the e:e music video to their instagram in september and i was instantly obsessed, with both the song and the video. haven’t gotten around to listening to the whole album yet but i’m very excited to once i have the time. will have to check out everything else here as well.

    as far as music recs go, i always like to get people to listen to music by my friends. i think you’d like my friend hayden’s music, she works under the name ethel cain. she’s gotten quite popular this year which is great to see, i’ve known her for over 5 years now, it’s been a crazy journey. her song thoroughfare is her best, in my opinion. she’s playing a show in paris this weekend! sold out, i think. but check her out regardless.

    hope the cold’s gone!

  5. Dominik

    Hi!!

    I believe my taste in music is a lot more mainstream than yours (although I almost always find new songs I love in your gigs – today, it’s “The Primal Principle”), but I’m not a fan of Foo Fighters either, so love can feel free to make them go away. Not that he needs my permission, of course.

    Yes, love, definitely – how sweet of him. Thank you! Love making the company I work for land a deal with a fiction publisher so that I can work solely on novels (and the usual video game scripts, okay) from now on, Od.

  6. NIT

    Hey! You used my absence seizure gif again! I love seeing it here. Makes me wanna work on new stuff all day, maybe I will. Things good over here – plans to see M. E. Gluth tomorrow for a walk. Hope you are wonderful.

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