______________
Dennis Oppenheim Attempt to Raise Hell, 1974
‘Dennis Oppenheim moved away from performance and body artworks in the mid-1970s toward contraptions, machines, and installations. In Attempt to Raise Hell, he replaces the performing persona of earlier body and action pieces with a puppet figure clothed in a dark suit. Its silvery head with closed eyes and upturned palms protrude from the limply hung clothing, but otherwise its body seems to have withered and disappeared. With a spasmodic jerk the motorized marionette lurches forward, ringing a bell suspended in front of its forehead. The resultant peal is sharper and fuller than we might expect from a mechanism initially so innocuous and toy-like.’

 

______________
Dash Snow Untitled (Hell), 2005
Digital C-print, 50.8 × 50.8 cm (20 × 20 in)

 

______________
Wat Rong Khun Pit of Hell, 1997
‘When you first find yourself standing in front of the temple, you are confronted with a cluster of desperate hands. This is hell – the endless pit of desires and human cravings, according to Buddhism. Once you cross the bridge above the “hell”, you are greeted by the statues of the heaven guardians. There’s no turning back by this point, the way is only forward. In fact, the guard employed at the temple would actually shout at you if you tried to go backward. The symbolism of crossing the bridge from “hell” to “heaven” signifies the Buddhist path to enlightenment.’

 

______________
Annette Lemieux Hell Text, 1991
‘A large-scale red canvas, Hell Text, which is seared with a text of memories of the Holocaust by survivors.’

 

______________
Makoto Aida Blender, 2001
‘From afar, the blender appears to be mixing up a concoction of grainy peach, black and cranberry objects. As the viewer moves closer to the painting, the subject matter shifts from the large blender to the individual human bodies. Thousands of naked young women with expressionless faces being cut up in the machine, it draws attention to a pressing, but tabooed problem stemming from Japan’s sex industry resulting in the fatality of Japanese women through consumerism in their own society in an unconventional, shocking, and disturbing way.’

 

_____________
Arnulf Rainer Hell, 1973
‘All my photo revisions are self-portrayals, reproductions of the self that is not yet known to me. The method: First, the perpetual attempt to grasp a point of pure identity. Second, the attempt to transform oneself completely, to alienate oneself in the infinite multiplicity of the possible. There is not only one person within me, but all this should become only one. So I investigated my limits and my centre point, but I only found that I could expand anywhere and everywhere. Since then, my wish has been to unfold myself infinitely, but at the same time to occupy a fixed spot like granite.’

 

_____________
Liga Spunde When Hell Is full, the Dead Will Walk the Earth (The Mirror), 2020
‘“The Mirror” is an animated projection on a screen made out of polyester resin. The inspiration for the object, is the magic mirror from the Disney film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. In the movie the mirror played the role of a passive spy – it retold and replayed the murder of Snow White to the queen. This is similar to what the computer screen does nowadays. The role of the character and its purpose in the famous fairytale made me think about the world of Dark Net today.’

 

_____________
Paul Gerrard Concept Art From Alex Proyas’ Never-Made Paradise Lost, 2010
‘In February of 2012, Legendary Pictures pulled the plug on Paradise Lost. It was to be a loose adaptation of John Milton’s 17th century poem of the same name. Director Alex Proyas, who is best known for directing The Crow, planned to use the most advanced motion capture technology to bring the biblical saga to life. Budget concerns proved to be too much to overcome. Legendary, tried numerous times to rework the numbers to get the budget below $120 million, but it was too difficult a task. Most of the budget would’ve went to the enormous celestial battles that involved massive aerial warfare between the angels and the demons. The cast included: Bradley Cooper as Lucifer, Benjamin Walker as the archangel Michael, Casey Affleck as Gabriel, Diego Boneta as Adam, Camilla Belle as Eve and Dijmon Hounsou as Abdiel the Angel of Death.’

 

______________
Andy Warhol Heaven and Hell Are Just One Breath Away, 1985
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, in two parts

 

______________
Seth Price Hell Has Everything, 2018
‘​My Country tis of thee, the Human Beat Box/sound soup with Mj demos/ bilitis…) earthbeat Herbie Hancock, time n space Pink Siifu, lady on the train Irene Xero, work the flow RP Boo/Cathedral van halen, threat misses juke ya girl, Kenji Yamamoto metroid main, Zulu P see you when i get there, crying (Kode 9 remix) roots manuva Sandrose underground session chorea, hear my heart Antoinette Marie Pugh+jeff phelps Jon Appleton Georganna’s Farewell Detroit Summer DJ Assault The Formula The D.O.C./Eric B Just a Beat/Jay’s Game JMJ/Megamix I&II D.ST., Nights Over Egypt The Jones Girls/Live Pistoia+Bariazioni Su ‘Angeli Di Solitudine’ Albergo Intergalattico Spaziale/Decoder Pt 1: Muzak for Frogs psychic t.v. nada sagrado Angel rada, germfree adolescents X-ray spex, A Little Soulful Tune taj mahal/massa confusa Archaïa, otis g johnson Come Back’

 

______________
Le Gentil Garçon Where Da Hell Are We Going?, 2004
Polystyrène, fils électriques, néons, patins à glace, mousse expansive

 

________________
Erin M. Riley Pure Hell, 2005 – 2016
‘At age 13, Erin M. Riley started plucking her hair as a way to relieve stress caused by her family’s substance abuse problems. Throughout her childhood on Cape Cod, her dad used drugs and her mom drank. When she reached college, her urge to pluck, known as trichotillomania, became debilitating. At that point, her older sister and her younger sister were both addicted to heroin. “During college, I was waiting for the call that they were dead,” says Riley. “Anytime my mom called, I wouldn’t answer. I wouldn’t listen to voicemails.” Her sisters’ addictions consumed the entire family. “But I never felt allowed to be upset. Because I wasn’t the addict; I wasn’t homeless. I was in college, you know?” Curious about tapestries, she enrolled in a weaving class as a freshman at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Riley, who had never seen a loom before, was immediately hooked. Inside the beautiful old room, eighteen wooden looms sat on a hardwood floor. Light spilled in from tall windows, and hefty spools of color-coordinated yarn filled the shelves of one wall. She loved the feel of the yarn in her fingers and the music of the looms. “When the full class was weaving, it sounded like an odd orchestra,” she says.’

 

_______________
Tim Noble and Sue Webster Puny Undernourished Kid & Girlfriend From Hell, 2004
‘Noble and Webster have created a series of light sculptures that reference iconic pop culture symbols represented in the form of shop-front-type signage and carnival shows inherent of British seaside towns, Las Vegas and Times Square. With the aid of complex light sequencing these signs perpetually flash and spiral out messages of everlasting love, and hate.’

Watch him work

Watch her work

 

_______________
Jim Shaw Donald and Melania Trump descending the escalator into the 9th circle of hell reserved for traitors frozen in a sea of ice, 2020
‘The central figures in the painting are Trump and Melania. And they’re on an escalator descending. But here you have them descending into an icy or frozen lake. It’s quite an apocalyptic landscape. The background is from a theatre backdrop, printed in white on top of the theatre backdrop, so you see a certain amount of the backdrop content, but most of what you’re seeing is this sort of fake Gustave Doré etching of hell inspired by Doré’s etching of Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. The set and figures are essentially based on Doré’s, but instead of having a head, the devil is a vanity with three mirrors, because he’s typically seen to have had three heads in hell. Instead of a cavern, the hellscape is a defunct, flooded mall in Thailand.’

 

_____________
Paul Fryer Heaven And Hell, 2009
‘Symbolism, the occult, a blasphemous surrealism and the clash of religion and science dominate this selection of Paul Fryer’s (b.1963) visual work. The Leeds born and reared artist is not confined to any particular genre, shifting effortlessly from a detailed scenes from the Passions of Christ, to a huge engineered tuning fork, uncannily resonating through the viewer’s thoracic cavity as a future religion’s symbol. Electricity, the role of science and natural phenomena underline Paul Fryer’s designs.’

 

______________
Alex Cecchetti Nuovo Mondo: Tour Guide of Heaven and Hell, 2016
‘’Nuovo Mondo: Tour Guide of Heaven and Hell‘ is the third episode in Alex Cecchetti‘s ongoing artist‘s novel, Tamam Shud. It is also is a performative walk through the concentric circles that descend and ascend through the building of the Królikarnia Palace in Warsaw. What is hell for many can be heaven for some.’

 

______________
Barbara Kruger Untitled (What Is Hell Like?), 1994
engraved magnesium, 12⅛ by 11⅞ in. (30.8 by 30.1 cm.)

 

_______________
Nobuyoshi Araki Alluring Hell, 2015
‘Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki (*1940) got his first camera at the age of twelve. After studying photography and film he first worked in commercial photography. In 1970 he self-published his first xeroxed photo books. To date, Araki he shot tens of thousands of photos and has published over 400 books of his work. He is notorious for his alleged emotionally detached photos of nude models bound with rope in Kinbaku style. Araki plays with paradigms of submission and emancipation, death and desire. He steadily moves between serenity and shock. The ambivalence of his photos earned him the blame of being pornographic and misogynist, on the other hand they move between the poles of creation and destruction, life and death, fact and fiction, reason and passion.’

 

_______________
Patrick Hall Mad as Hell, 2018-19
spirit bottle, LED lighting, electrical cable, glass, plywood 120 x 60 x 11 cm

 

________________
Lu Yang Welcome to LuYang Hell, 2017
‘Lu Yang’s multimedia installations combine video, sculptural elements, lighting, and soundtracks made in collaboration with different musicians. The videos themselves are fast-paced, delivering various types of information at once: highly detailed and sometimes intense digital imagery layered with moving graphics, voiceovers also available as subtitles in translation, and high-energy soundtracks ranging from techno to opera to death metal. The installations can be immersive and overwhelming. Viewers are left with strong impressions, but to grasp the videos in all their detail, viewers would probably have to watch them multiple times. Or you can let them wash over you – colorful and keyed-up, like a music video or a futuristic educational film.’

 

________________
T. V. Santosh Howndingdown, 2007
‘In Santosh’s installation, a group of thirty chrome dogs are arranged in a grid, sentries guarding words which slowly scroll in three digitised displays at their feet. The dogs conflate various beliefs and mythologies associating the animal with death. In the Hinduism of Santosh’s native India, the dog is seen as a messenger of Yama, the god of death, and guard the doors to Heaven. The ancient Egyptians depicted Anubis, guide and protector of the dead, with a jackal or dog’s head, while the great dog Amt stood sentry at the gate to the lower world. Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Greek myth, guarded the entrance to hell. On the back of each of Santosh’s dogs an electronic clock performs a silent, never-ending countdown, the flickering red digits reeling perpetually towards unspecified calamity.’

 

________________
Ewan Creed Untitled, 2019 – 2021
‘Recent drawings on paper. The work is the residue of a process. Some may find this kind of work to be what’s wrong with contemporary art. I say to hell with those people.’

 

 

 

 

 

_______________
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir Vanity Beast from Hell, 2009
‘Immediately upon entering, one is confronted by Vanity Beast from Hell which, on first glance, appears to be a bearskin rug. Upon closer inspection this object reveals itself to be a bear’s head rendered with intricately plaited human and synthetic hair, like that used to produce cheap cornrows. Combined with glaring glass eyes, the effect is quite disconcerting. Shoplifter has defamiliarised this ‘bearskin’ from viewers’ accepted notions by sharply juxtaposing references to urban and rural identities.’

 

_______________
Unknown Ánimas del purgatorio, 1840 – 1880
‘The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the existence of Purgatory is a ‘truth of faith’ revealed by the Holy Spirit and sustained in Sacred Scripture, which, as Catholics, we cannot doubt. Many saints have been allowed to see Purgatory in vision, and they say that although there the souls enjoy knowing that they will go to heaven (they passed, as the students say ‘in the belly’), they suffer a lot because they already wanted to see God . The souls in Purgatory cannot leave by themselves, but we can help them, praying for them and offering Masses, indulgences, Rosaries. In fact, the Church dedicates the entire month of November to praying for the souls in Purgatory. Its purification is similar to what happens when a craftsman polishes a precious metal on fire. You keep an eye out, and you know you’re ready when you can see yourself reflected in it. So it is with the souls in Purgatory . He who has created them in His image and likeness, purifies them there, until they recover their purity and can be seen reflected in them.’

 

_______________
Joe Coleman Victory of Hell, 1995
‘In “The Victory of Hell,” a six-armed Lucifer in the form of a hermaphrodite presides over a scene of utter depravity.’

 

_______________
Markus Copper Kursk, 2004
‘Markus Copper’s Kursk tells about the tragic destiny of the submarine Kursk, which raised strong feelings all over. The divers who came to rescue the Kursk crew must face the impossible. The artist has noted to aim at causing real rumbles to sensitize people every now and then. Characteristic for his art is mechanical motion, motorized constructions and noises torturing one’s eardrums.’

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** __Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. What is the NHS WiFi blocking standards, can you tell? Is it just sexual content, or does it block sites and places because of politics or something? Strange. My magical vibes if any are oriented towards propelling you in the direction of the day room. ** Misanthrope, That document sounds like seriously no fun, but god love the income it triggers. No doubt: Kayla having sun. Bridge of sighs. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yeah, I increasingly think the hacking thing is random and probably part of some assault on a bunch of WordPress blogs and sites, looking for sites that the bot can get into easily. The problem, in that case, is that when it can’t get in, it doesn’t give up. I feel like this could keep going for months or years. I’m trying to ignore it, but it’s not easy, and the blog is functioning noticeably more slowly on my end — it can take minutes to upload a jpeg now that used to take 10 tops seconds, for instance — apparently as a result, which is a massive drag. But … blah blah. Oh, your love is scary in a cool way. We have lots of pigeons living around my window, so it’s easy to imagine too. Love de-aging Iggy Pop 40 years and serving him a big bowl of split pea soup, G. ** David Ehrenstein, I’m so sorry about your friend. That’s terrible. I watched him sing in your video, and it was lovely. Hugs. ** Tosh Berman, Ha ha, I just read this exact comment on your Facebook page not 1 minute ago. It’s like your yesterday’s press release. I like it: trippy. Most of my friends in LA have been hardly going out if at all for, like, a year, whereas here in Paris everyone has been going out, riding the metro, looking at art, seeing friends, etc. pretty much since the first lockdown was lifted last May. Completely different attitudes towards pretty much the same situation/ restrictions. Very interesting. ** T, Hi, T. Really nice to see you! Other than the hacking thing and its stressfulness, things are pretty okay considering all the you-know-what. Very nice about the rent thing. Wow, not bad. And you have brand new surroundings, which I hope is as refreshing to the senses as it seems. I’m happy those books jumped out at you. ‘Crime and Punishment’ … I read that so long ago I don’t remember almost anything about it. I’ve been in Moscow three times, but not for quite a while. I found it oppressive and depressing for the most part, but it seems to have transformed a lot recently. I … can’t think of any Russian authors I’ve read in recent times, which is an absence I should rectify now that you mention it. So, no on the current front. Historically, I’ve liked, well, Nabokov obviously, Bulgakov, Gogol (I think), … I remember really liking M. Ageyev’s ‘Novel With Cocaine’. Take care, my friend, and enjoy the windfall and the re-contextualisation. ** schlix, Hi, Uli! Awesome! You good? Warmest and healthiest wishes and vibes from here to you. ** Steve Erickson, Interesting. Are people doing DMT a lot nowadays? I can’t remember the last time anyone I know (of) said they did it. Everyone, Steve has reviewed the … and I quote … ‘lame Netflix thriller…satire?…whatever’ ‘I Care A Lot’. Sounds like his review is a lot more highly recommended than the thing. ** Jack Skelley, Ah, a Skelley reverie thanks to Mr. Glove! I hope he knows. I’ve been thinking about re-listening to ‘Get Up With It’, and your mention puts that in the fated category, so … You were at Napili recently, wow! I don’t think I’d recognise it much, or at least the surroundings. Like on the other side of the road were nothing but pineapple fields forever, and I looked at photos at some recent-ish point, and they’re all gone and replaced by MacMansions and shit. We can talk trips on Zoom and bore all those lightweights to death! Sure, my Franciosa story is yours, all yours, yours alone even. ** Mark Gluth, Hey, Mark. Very happy he made his goal! I seem to still be far from the vaccine. They’re very picky over here. Spring has kind of sprung here too, and, yeah, it’s pretty welcome. I read a new novel by Jim a while back — he and I email sporadically. I liked it a lot. I wonder if it’s the same novel. I don’t remember images but I could be spacing. How is your work going and what is it? ** Brian O’Connell, Brian, hello! The ‘Class Action Park’ doc is fun, but, you know I’m a huge amusement park guy, so I’m easy, but, yes, I think I can say it’s fun. I saw ‘All About Eve’, but, really, so long ago that I don’t remember such about it other that it being good. Yeah, I have all kinds of problems with Facebook like any sane person does, but the connectivity there, such as it is, is pretty valuable and keeps me. My Tuesday wasn’t much as the planned things got delayed, but it was, you know, not unpleasant. Anything dazzle you today? Or even twinkle you? ** John Newton, Hi. I only took LSD back in the days when it was pretty much high grade and pure-ish and not cut with much other than a little strychnine. I can’t imagine that the LSD today is in the same realm, but I don’t know. That bad trip lasted about 8 hours, and I don’t remember much about it, and I didn’t remember much about it at the time. A friend, also on acid, stayed with me to try to steer me through it, and I vaguely remember being aware of him sometimes. I was seriously wiped for a couple of months afterwards, could hardly talk for weeks, but then I got real again. My obsessions? Too many to list, really. I have lots. Between the blog and my books, I think they get pretty much laid out. Yours? Mm, since I was a young teen my mantra has been ‘Confusion is the truth’, and I think that was what I learned from LSD. And I got a lifelong distrust and lack of belief in generalisations. Both of those were hugely helpful. But I didn’t have any big revelations on LSD mostly due to the LSD revelation that generalisations are bullshit. ** Right. I’m sending you to a kind of hell today. You’re welcome. See you tomorrow.

* (restored)
—-

 

Post-rock first appeared in inverted commas and it might have been better if it’d stayed there. But it didn’t, and it looks as though we’re stuck with it. Still, never mind:

 

1. Bark Psychosis, “Scum”

As usually happens with genres, the label has provoked no end of anguish among artists and audiences, all understandably protective of their identities, keen not to be cashed out for the convenience of lazy journalist slags.

 

2. Slint, “Breadcrumb Trail”

I think post-rock is a label in the same way punk is a label: “Never Mind The Bollocks” sounds nothing like “Horses”, which sounds nothing like “Ramones Leave Home”, which sounds nothing like “The Feeding of the Five Thousand”, which sounds nothing like “Double Nickels On The Dime”, which sounds nothing like “Bad Brains”, which sounds nothing like “The Scream”, which … yet, when we talk about punk, we kind of understand what we mean. We understand that we’re talking about an attitude, a discipline, moreso than about how loud the guitars are and whether you can hear the words.

 

3. Mogwai, “Rollerball”

What I’m saying, then, is that post-rock was a useful label during a phase in pop music when the fabric of what a band / performance / recording could be was getting playfully tailored into new shapes. Of course, this goes on all the time, often un-apprehended. The cyclic view of history as applied to pop music doesn’t sell any significant number of inky newspapers, which used to be considered an important thing. But more importantly, a label could be a license to create.

 

4. Disco Inferno, “Footprints In Snow”

It probably isn’t important to point out where this stuff comes from, exactly, its precedents. They’re well documented. More important than any one figure, I think, is access to technology. I’m pretty sure about this: throughout the 80s and into the 90s, a bunch of affordable, viable studio technology emerged, meaning that it was no longer absolutely necessary to be Brian Eno or Trevor Horn before you could spend days playing around with samplers or synthesizers to see what happened. Conventional wisdom has it that this is part of how acid house happened; I think the same forces were at work here, too.

 

5. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, “Moya”

It’s also tempting to consider a lot of this music as oppositional, or at least pointedly individual. To take one example: for a long time I didn’t care for Godspeed, for exhaustively thought-out reasons I won’t bore you with. But, as I’ve realised, what happens in Godspeed’s music is defiantly their own thing. The reverent, solemn pacing of their music is as purposeful as the presentation of their records and live performances. That I used to bridle at this, then, was my problem.

 

6. Stereolab, “Super-Electric”

A drone can be a powerful thing. It says things like “I persist,” and “I contain multitudes”. Anyone who’s had the chance to hear Charlemagne Palestine’s “Strumming Music” or Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “One Note Samba” will have heard how a simple group of notes repeated over and over again can reveal animation and interest in a way that seems simultaneously magical, irresistible and defiant. In isolation, like in the Palestine performance, a drone can be beatific. Forced to exist among other musical events, a drone can feel inconvenient, itchy, destabilising. It can be, particularly in Stereolab’s music, the presence of an active resistance.

 

7. Tortoise, “Glass Museum”

I find it interesting to think about the relations between a lot of this music and vocals. In an earlier draft of this piece, I wrote that if there was any unifying concern of the music considered under this label, it might be that it desires deep reflection in the listener. That’s not quite sufficient, but I think there’s something to it. Somewhere and often, speech seems to have become a problem.

 

8. Bowery Electric, “Fear Of Flying”

Then again, words might only get in the way. The songs on Slint’s album Spiderland are sinister, elliptical stories set to measured, pacing music that feels disconcertingly like what brooding on deep hurts actually feels like. As the gathering storm of the last song on the record finally breaks, the narration becomes inaudible for a few crucial seconds, and the thread of exactly what awful thing was going on becomes forever lost to the listener. But the scariest song on this frightening record is still the instrumental.

 

9. Gastr del Sol, “Every Five Miles”

If we want to think about the practice of making music like one or another of these examples, we might start by thinking about manipulating context, as a director and editor manipulate the context of a shot in a film. For Don Caballero and Labradford, song titles become super-verbose, turned against their function, (“In the Absence of Strong Evidence to the Contrary, One May Step Out of the Way of the Charging Bull”) or otherwise disappear altogether (“S”, “Recorded and mixed at Sound of Music, Richmond, VA.”). Meanwhile, GYBE’s records materialise in editions that combine the haphazard and inscrutable with the painstakingly deliberate.

 

10. Miles Davis, “He Loved Him Madly” (part 1)

“Haphazard and inscrutable and painstakingly deliberate” would also be a fair description of Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him Madly”, a funereal elegy for Duke Ellington that sprawls like a luminescent jellyfish in a deep dark sea. The animation in this limpid music is animation in space, in timbre, and in utterance. Spliced and mixed down from hours of improv, it drifts, seemingly motionless, but under the surface it teems with meaning.

 

11. Labradford, “Lake Speed”

Portentous brooding isn’t the only permissible mode, even if some people seem to think otherwise. If this practice of music is truly open, after all, that means it must also being open to being upbeat, melodic, even charming. It might be an unlikely prospect that the Jonas Brothers will get together with Jim O’Rourke to do an album of faith-crisis-themed tropicalia with extra VCS3, but it doesn’t feel altogether impossible.

 

12. Do Make Say Think, “Classic Noodlanding”

There is something that I find particularly satisfying about any sort of music or theatre or cinema that attempts to engage with these concerns of space, context and utterance. I have some fussy, half-formed notion that doing so enables these artforms to access the audience’s imagination in the same way that fiction does, but I don’t have the theory chops to back these sorts of assertions up. Ultimately all I know is that it involves me in ways other music, including some of my favourite music, does not, and I like that.

 

13. Mono, “Follow The Map”

I know that I respond to recognising that people are trying to achieve something. It doesn’t have to be something brand new. I think there is a unique thrill that comes with witnessing a particular quality – I originally wrote ‘tangible effort’, but I might as well write ‘daring’ – that doesn’t come with anything else.

 

14. Pluramon, “Time (catharsia mix)”

It’s also a question of faith: willingness on the part of the listener to hear “He Loved Him Madly” as a drifting elegy is pretty much all that keeps it from sounding like a guttering jam session by a band that can’t remember how to play “Mood Indigo”. The listener has to be daring too.

But given the choice between someone who’s precisely in control of his utterance, and someone who might well fuck it up but is absolutely committed nonetheless, I’ll always opt for the latter. When we’re asked to bring something of ourselves to a performance or a film, we’re asked to do work. It’s always easier and more pleasurable to work with people who take care with what they do.

 

15. Fridge, “Five Four Child Voice”

I think the post-rock label identifies a phase in musical history where this sort of experimental play was something people became excited about. But I think that some of the music from this time remains so rewarding because of its interplay with more familiar forms and aesthetics. I think that experimentation for experimentation’s sake can often be valuable or remarkable, but I don’t think it’s often as daring or rewarding as expression is.

Critical theory or this or that other baggage isn’t necessary to either understand or justify wanting this sort of discovering-experience with music, because when you get ahold of it you feel a sensation that’s completely immediate. It’s a sea of possibilities, as P. Smith puts it, and we can walk into the waves any time we like.

 

16. Xinlisupreme, “All You Need Is Love Was Not True”

 

Music credits:

1. “Scum” by Bark Psychosis is on the compilations “Independency” and “Game Over”

2. “Breadcrumb Trail” by Slint is the first track on their album “Spiderland”

3. “Rollerball” by Mogwai is on the compilation “EP + 6”

4. “Footprints In Snow” by Disco Inferno is the last track on “D.I. Go Pop”

5. “Moya” by Godspeed You Black Emperor is on “Slow Riot For New Zerø Kanada”

6. “Super-Electric” by Stereolab is from “Switched On”.

7. “Glass Museum” by Tortoise is from “Millions Now Living Will Never Die”

8. “Fear of Flying” by Bowery Electric is on “Beat”

9. “Every Five Miles” by Gastr del Sol is from “Crookt, Crackt or Fly”.

10. “He Loved Him Madly” by Miles Davis is on “Get Up With It”

11. “Lake Speed” by Labradford is on their 1996 self-titled album.

12. “Classic Noodlanding” by Do Make Say Think is from “& Yet & Yet”

13. “Follow The Map” by Mono is on “Hymn To The Immortal Wind”

14. “Time (catharsia mix)” by Pluramon, featuring Julee Cruise & Keith Rowe, is on “Dreams Top Rock”

15. “Five Four Child Voice” by Fridge is on “Happiness”

16. “All You Need Is Love Was Not True” by Xinlisupreme is from “Tomorrow Never Comes”

 

Bonus tracks

16. Aerial, “M – AASS”

 

17. Rachel’s, “Moscow is in the telephone”

 

18. Stars of the Lid, “Dungtitled (In A Major)”

 

19., 20. Jim O’Rourke, “Not Sport, Martial Art” & “Fuzzy Sun”

 

21. Cul de Sac, “This Is The Metal That Do Not Burn”

 

A Silver Mt Zion, “God Bless Our Dead Marines”

 

22. This Will Destroy You, “Threads”

 

23. Clogs, “Lantern”

 

24. Don Caballero, “Delivering the groceries at 138 bpm”

 

25. Explosions in the Sky, “Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean”
—-

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. It’s less difficult vis-a-vis getting actually interesting films distributed here in France. There’s a solid network of cinemas and art spaces geared to that. But yes. With Zac’s and my new film, the plan is to initially roll the film out mostly through museum and art space screenings (plus certain festivals), which makes sense since that’s where we see a lot of the films we’re into. In the States, we learned from ‘PGL’ that there’s almost no way to get films like ours shown in actual cinemas. Even the seemingly adventurous theatres and chains really aren’t very adventurous at all. ** Dominik, Hi! Yeah, I wonder if I’ll ever know what the hacking is about. I just want it to stop, and it just isn’t giving up at all. Completely weird. Well, I really will believe it when I see it about the reopening here. This thing is completely unpredictable. So, so sorry about your new lockdown. Yuck. Ah, your love is into books, excellent. Love positioning himself in front of you and parting the Pandemic like Charleton Heston parted the Red Sea, i.e. thusly, but with a much, much better soundtrack, G. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. Good question. Certainly they are not physically doing the hacking since it hasn’t stopped for even a moment for over a week now. Big congrats and no small amount of envy: you getting the vaccine shot. How did the online interview go? As almost always with these US online things, they happen over here when I am dead asleep. ** Damien Ark, Hi. 11:11 is something else, yeah. Mike Carrao friended me on Facebook yesterday, so I guess I’ll find out if he’s truly an alien. AP is a helluva press too. Presses-wise, it’s a total embarrassment of riches these days. I’ll look for Mika’s book. Take care over there. ** Steve Erickson, Yep, 75 so far. But it’s supposed to come within my range ere too long. Me too, re: John, and you never know with him, but he seems pretty adamant that he’s finished with filmmaking, at least at the moment. ** Jack Skelley, We are, or, we were barrel makers indeed. Apparently. And people with the name Jack tend to jack off a lot. But your name is John, so I guess you just tend to  go to the bathroom a lot? Yeah, I remember Napili Bay really well. My family stayed there at the Mauian for the entire summer three years in a row when I was 14, 15, and 16. I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon on the TV in the Napili Kai rec room. I was there when I took LSD 24-hours a day for a month and had a gigantic mental breakdown that I don’t think I ever fully recovered from. So, yes. And, yes, re: the waves. One summer this actor who was very famous at the time, Anthony Franciosa, stayed there, and he was always strutting around on the beach showing off because he was so famous and everything, and one day he was wading in the water and a huge wave rose up and dragged him out to sea. They had to send divers to hunt for him, and they finally dragged his unconscious body onshore and revived him using mouth to mouth, and a huge crowd gathered, and it was so humiliating, and the crowd was laughing at him, and it was great. Did you ever go to the next cove over, just on the other side of the Napili Kai? I can’t remember its name. The waves there could go insane, thirty feet and more. But I’ll stop ‘cos I could blah blah about Napili forever. De-party. ** Mark Gluth, My pleasure, of course. Last I checked they seem to be raising a decent amount of funds. Hope they make their goal. ** Gus, Hey there, Gus! Good to see you, sir! People often tell me the blog is their waking up, coffee drinking company, and I like that for some reason. I’m glad you like Diarmuid’s book. I mostly do too, ha ha. Have you interviewed Elias already? My friend Zac and I hung out with him a bit one time in Paris, and I thought he was a super great guy. That journals story makes sense. When we were with him, he read out part of a short story that he was writing on his phone, and it was really good. Ha ha, Cubby Branch lives! Nice! Thank you for co-opting him. With a name like that, he deserves a bigger life. ‘Sister’ is my favourite SY album, which I think is why Thurston asked me to write those liner notes. I’m excited to read your story. Very cool! I’ll do that after I finish this. Oh, wait, and your other piece too. Bonanza. Everyone, Get your clicking fingers ready because Gus, fine writer and music artist who’s also part of the great and highly recommended music group/project California Girls, has two things that can be read — first a story starring the infamous Cubby Branch here, and, second, a short fiction piece … and here I quote … ‘which came out of this really awful workshop I did about making performance work out of these early sociological manuscripts about cruising but it became this bigger thing thinking about a failure to transcend in life and this obsession I have with Yukio Mishima’, here. Thanks a lot. I’m fending off the madness as best I can, and, if you’re amidst any madness, I hope it either backs off you or feeds your art. Take care. ** Misanthrope, Thank you. I would live in an amusement so fast it would make your head spin so fast. Get through the week fully. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. All I can say, as someone who avoids Twitter at almost all costs, is I hope your day away lasts a day at least. Mental health should be prioritised. My Monday … I promised to give something to this upcoming anthology, so I started to figure out what I could give. I watched a fun documentary called ‘Class Action Park’ about the late, extremely dangerous New Jersey water park Action Park. And … not a ton else. Today … I might talk to the producer guy about the new film’s budget and/or see a friend for a coffee and a walkabout. Yours? Did you manage to avoid Twitting and being Twitted at, for instance? ** John Newton, Hi, John. You sound like you’ve got your obsessions sorted, good. Ithink mine are sufficiently corralled maybe too. No, DMT started being easily available just at the time I stopped doing drugs. I just missed it. I was never particularly drawn to do it. It always sounded a bit too heavy and laborious in my friends’ recountings. I took A LOT of LSD. I just mentioned to Jack up above about taking LSD 24-hours a day for a month. I couldn’t really count the number of times. I was very into LSD for quite a while. It took two very serious mental breakdowns from very, very bad trips before I finally swore it off. Phantasialand in Germany is one of my two favorite amusement parks in the world, and I’ve been to a lot of amusement parks, so that’s saying something. It and Efteling in Holland are my favorites. Otherwise, in Germany, EuropaPark is a very good park. And Tripsdrill is a smaller park, but excellent. All of them are in the western part of Germany. All highly recommended if you get over to these parts. ** Okay. Today I’m restoring another old guest-post by the legendary and much missed d.l. The Dreadful Flying Glove. It’s lovely. Check it out. See you tomorrow.