p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Stevie Smith, interesting. We’ve been in touch about the PGL thing, and thanks so much! ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. I figured that you had known Ed one way or another. Yes, David is a super champ to put together that book. Ed’s work really needs to be out there and living. ** Bill, Hi, B. The Paris Ass Book Fair, you know, it was nice. Cool atmosphere. Most of the people sharing/selling their zines and books and things are kind of all doing slight variations on the same thing: juxtaposing somewhat edgy photos of cute alterna-trendy guys in collection form, so there was a sameness, although always sweetly and enthusiastically intentioned. Some exceptions. My friend Florent does this quite outstanding queer zine called Congrats! and was there with a new issue. The best bookshop in Paris, After 8, was there with a lot of great books. A few other highlights. No excellent stories, but a pleasant thing. Oops, the tempo, the scrambling, but that’s exciting, but that’s easy for me to say. Awesome! ** Kai, Hi, Kai! Yeah, it’s a great, must-have book, I think. I’m hoping we’ll have the Berlin PGL thing locked down in the next several days. Waiting for date and confirmation. No, Jürgen Brüning had nothing to do with this film. It was produced by a French production company, Local Films. Jürgen produced our first film, ‘Like Cattle Towards Glow’, and that was the end of that. Bon Monday, man! ** Misanthrope, Great! You won’t be sorry if you get his book, trust me. So interesting about your phobias. I used to know someone who was deathly afraid of dolphins and whales. Even a drawing of them would give her a nervous breakdown. I think my only phobia is extreme heights, of being in outer space. Especially space walks. Just thinking about them can give me a panic attack. Whenever I’m watching a movie that takes place in outer space, I have to grip the arms of my chair, and I get cold chills and vertigo. I think that’s all, phobia-wise. That I can think of. Well, sweet deal about the doc appointment and the new doc. Great news, man! ** politekid, Oscar! Hey! So cool to see you! Zac and I were just talking about you and wondering how and what you’re doing the other day. Wait, reading in a bookshop is an infraction? What kind of … wow. Good riddance? Is that okay to say? You’re going to do till work at the Tate Modern? That does sound intense in a kind of energy-involving way, but the prospect does cause a level of excitement. Maybe I’m giving ‘Tate Modern’ too much coolness, but, yeah, me, I’m into that job of yours. If you remember, report on what it’s like. Because I’m interested and can’t quite imagine what that’ll be like. Oh, shit, yeah, do whatever to ward off depression. Don’t go there. That’s no good. I’ve had terrifying nightmares pretty much every night of my life, but the good thing is, I don’t remember them except for about a second after I wake up. Anyway, I seem to be okay (if, yeah, weird) despite that, if that’s any consultation. Great about the two new scripts! I mean, I’m me, but they sound fascinating, and, yeah, ideally the staging and props issues aren’t yours, for better or worse. Man, I hope one or both of those gets green lit when the time comes. When do you hear about the competition result, fingers ultra-crossed? And, wait, the sound installation text. That’s exciting. Where is the installation? How do I find the instagram advert? (I’m not on instagram, but I can peek). I have this idea that I’d like to get to London to see some stuff like the Kathy Acker retro and maybe the Charlie Fox curated shebang and, if so, maybe the timing will be apt for your thing too? Yeah, I wrote about art for a long time. I was, and I think still am, a Contributing Editor of Artforum, although I haven’t written for them in over a decade. Some of the art writing stuff is in this book of my essays/journalism called ‘Smothered in Hugs’, and the rest is in old issues of art magazines like Artforum, Parkett, and others. That’s very nice of the Cabinet guy — Martin? — to say. Man, really, so good to see you! Let me know more when you feel like it. Take good care, and I hope all those things-in-waiting blossom. Blossom? Yeah, why not, blossom! ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s a wonderful book. Worth pre-ordering. Nice about the serious progress on The Call’s public face. I’m only on Facebook, but I’ll try to remember to check the Twitter feed, or … isn’t there an easy way to share one’s Twitter feed on Facebook? I feel like people in my feed do that a fair amount? ** James, Hi. Saw your email in my box. I’ll get to it pronto. ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff! We just became friends on Facebook, which is odd because I thought we already were. Huh. Hope stuff’s way cool on your end. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yeah, what’s that saying … ‘cross that bridge when I come to it’? America’s good at facile statements. Actually, the French are too. I don’t think I’ve seen Penny Lane’s films, but I’ll try to rectify that absence. ** Okay. I thought I would give all of you what I hope will be charming break of a post today. See you tomorrow.
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Onoe Caponoe Blood Moon(City Hunt) ‘Onoe Caponoe is a true individual in a sea full of clones. A truly unique voice, hailing from an unknown area of London, that rises above the endless conveyor belt cacophony of ‘road rap’, ‘drill’, ‘trap’, ‘grime’, ‘mumble rappers’, ‘cloud rap’, ’undrerground rappers’ etc… Onoe carves out his own corner of the galaxy that is truly his own amidst a sea of noise that sadly, all sound the same… Having refined his vision through years of painstaking experimentation, Onoe has travelled to realms most rappers would never dream of going.’— High Focus
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DEAFKIDS Mente Bicameral ‘DEAFKIDS is one of the most exciting bands I have heard in a very long time. They are a unique psychoactive journey of Brazilian polyrhythmic percussion, hypnotic chanting, and aggressive repetitive raw punk all echoing out from another dimension. Having had the blessed opportunity to play several shows with them in Europe and Brazil I can say that without a doubt, they are something new and mind blowing created from something old and primal. Their youthful energy is contagious and their wisdom and deep knowledge of sound is beyond their years. Although raging and distorted, these sounds are medicinal, like some sort of sonic Ayahuasca.’— Steve Von Till
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Geneva Skeen Los Angeles Without Palm Trees ‘The opening track of Geneva Skeen’s new album, Sonorous House, sets a quite scary mood with its recordings of a Mojave desert wind storm. For the rest of the album the storm settles down a bit: the atmosphere changes into a (relatively) calm night mood in Los Angeles Without Palm Trees. Flutter In Place, the album closer, features a recording of the world’s largest colony of Mexican free-tailed bats departing their cave to roam the summer night air of Southeast Texas. But this album is not built from environmental recordings alone: ‘sounds on this album are both recorded and produced. Interspersed are a variety of electronic instruments and processes, and compositional techniques that are variously clear-cut or intentionally buried by digital processing.” Two of the tracks are entirely created using only her voice.’ — ambiantblog.net
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Eraserhead Fuckers live @ Thought//Forms Gallery ‘Eraserhead Fuckers is a noise-hip-hop project that somehow lives up to the name with his confrontational performance style and brutal beats.’— Queen City Sounds and Arts
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Yves Jarvis That Don’t Make It So ‘Intimate, isolating, scattered and collected. These contradictions shape the experimental world that Yves Jarvis calmly inhabits and confidently explores on The Same But By Different Means. Montreal’s lo-fi maestro, formerly known as Un Blonde, returns with another lengthy tracklist of expressive soundscapes where guitars are wide-ranging in technique; arrangements are rich in melody; keys gently bounce around jazz chords; and percussion skips in and out of bars, sounding more like tumbling accents than rhythmic maps. Much like his previous work, instrumentation is sparse. Sustained notes serve as cushions that either fill those gaps of instrumental rest or mellow the spritely jives of his wide-ranging idiosyncrasies. No matter the tempo, it’s all rather soothing.’— Exclaim
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Dis Fig Watering ‘Felicia Chen is usually associated with spinning intense electronic DJ sets under the guise of Dis Fig. At one point during the recording of her debut album PURGE, Chen conveyed to her label boss, Geng, who runs the New York City-based PTP, that the vibe of the music was like anguished Portishead meeting the bass swamped tendencies of the Bug.’— Phillip Miynar
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Michul Kuun Be / Have / Oh ‘Michul Kuun (aka NAH) is a producer, percussionist, and visual artist currently splitting his time between Philadelphia and Antwerp. A staple of Philly’s rich avant-garde scene, MK is a prolific sound sculptor who’s developed a dynamic synthesis of textured noise and confronting percussive rhythms. Performing live with little more than a drum kit and various samplers, he channels a frenetic energy that teeters on the edge of violent hostility and playful chaos.’ — WAV
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JH1.FS3 Pipe Talk ‘JH1.FS3 is the duo of Frederikke Hoffmeier and Jesse Sanes. Though each figures individually in the now-generation of industrial noise—as Puce Mary and Liebestod respectively—JH1.FS3 delineates a more subtle “cinema of the ear.” Here, their words are spoken amidst a savvy re-assembly of 20th century avant-sonics: music concrète, technique extension, and pure electronic sound.’ — Dais Records
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SB The Moor FEELS RIGHT :O ‘On “Spirit Realm.Final”, non binary CA based rapper SB THE MOOR takes the extremes from “Pillows” and “MNFST.dstnii” and a swarth of self released cassettes and mix tapes and pushes them even farther into the psychedelic netherworld that is their mind. This record truly defies categorization, it’s at once both haunting, beautiful, chaotic, poised, explosive and contained, seamlessly bridging hip hop, post rock, noise, industrial, and avant garde. These terms seem to contradict each other but upon opening your ears to “Spirit Realm.Final” and the work of SB THE MOOR, you’ll find beauty, chaos, anger, confusion, and even peace in the complicated dichotomies of our very existence.’— hk
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Matmos The Crying Pill ‘Pushing off from the restricted palette of their last album, the critically acclaimed Ultimate Care II, which was composed entirely from the sound of a washing machine, Plastic Anniversary is also derived from a single sound source: plastic. At once hyper-familiar in its omnipresence and deeply inhuman in its measured-in-centuries longevity and endurance, plastic supplies, surrounds and scares. Seemingly negligible, plastic is always ready to hand but also always somewhat suspect, casting toxic shadows onto the everyday. True to form, the band have assembled a promiscuous array of examples of this sturdy-yet-ersatz family of materials: Bakelite dominos, Styrofoam coolers, polyethylene waste containers, PVC panpipes, pinpricks of bubble wrap, silicone gel breast implants and synthetic human fat.’— Thrill Jockey
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FET.NAT Soft Purse ‘FET.NAT hail from the small city of Hull, located across the river and the Ontario border from Ottawa, the Canadian capital. Fittingly, they’re a band that straddle musical and cultural divides: Atop the group’s spasmodic rhythms, lead singer and lyricist JFNO delivers his fragmented sing-speak in a hybrid franglais dialect. Hull’s greatest claim to fame, though, is that it’s a party town, a late-night destination for 18-year-old Ottawans eager to take advantage of Quebec’s lower legal drinking age. FET.NAT’s music is hardly the stuff of college-pub playlists, but for all their jarring sonic intrusions and tripped-up time signatures, they know how to entertain. If you can’t exactly dance to their music, you can certainly convulse enthusiastically.’— Stuart Berman
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Triad God So Pay La ‘黑社會 Triad, Triad God’s follow-up to his debut seven years ago, acts as a sequel to NXB: similar thematic underpinnings, Cantonese lyrics, experimental production accented with fashionable electronic music. But by virtue of technological progression and cultural shifts, the significance of these methods has changed. In considering Triad God’s nebulous, transcultural, and cryptic new album, it’s more necessary than ever to consider its context in the decade’s technological and musical trends. It’s true that such an analysis could (and should) be applied to any contemporary release, but such framing seems especially pertinent to 黑社會 Triad, a visionary and timely reaction to the global network’s impact on forward-thinking art, its dissemination and consumption, and the criticism that rises in its wake.’— Alex Brown
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Prefab Sprout Orchid 7 ‘The way Paddy McAloon operates as an artist belies logic. Following the chronology of his career and separating the facts from mythology quickly becomes impossible. Entire albums get scrapped; old songs find their way onto new projects; stories seem too good to be true. If he had never released I Trawl the Megahertz, it might have been one of these legends: a work unlike anything else in his catalog that denies all of his strengths yet feels almost autobiographical. Newly remastered and reissued as a Prefab Sprout album—it was previously released as a McAloon solo LP in 2003 and largely ignored by both critics and the public—it now stands as one of the peaks of his strange, brilliant career.’— Sam Sodomsky
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Rian Treanor ATAXIA_D1 ‘The roots of Rian’s playful sound are directly linked to his love of the music he grew up with. Coming from Sheffield, you can hear elements of industrial, synth-pop, bleep, extreme computer music and speed garage at play. From Cabaret Voltaire to Warp and beyond; the sound of his city has been, and is, an integral part of his musical development and is still a direct influence. Last year, he noted in an interview that “I’m not a computer programmer, I’m not an articulate person in that kind of way. I’m a visual artist.” Now he elaborates “I meant more that I’m a visual thinker.” Drawing and visual art have been a fundamental part of his life “since I was a child. I got really into graffiti as a teenager and around the same time I got into mixing and these both developed together.” You can sense the mind of a visual artist at work in his music which is also reflected in the artwork he created for this project.’— HH
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Cake! Now that’s what I wanted to hear. ** daniel, Hey, whoa, Daniel, so sweet to see you! Thank you for the Collier Schorr add. Why I didn’t find that work in my lengthy searching is quite a mystery. I hope you’re doing just wonderfully well. Everyone, Daniel, who you recent people around here probably don’t know, is kind of a genius, and he has most understandably added this to yesterday’s flower arrangement. ** _Black_Acrylic, Every few years someone claims to have invented an odor app, and it always turns out to be hoax. It’s too bad. I remember your ‘Eaux d’Artifice’, is that possible? Everyone, Another fine flower thingeroony to retroactively beef up the show yesterday, this one by the fine fella/artist Ben ‘_Black_Acrylic’ Robinson who defines it thusly: ‘I made a sort of floral artwork myself back in 2004 for my Degree Show in Dundee – Eaux d’Artifice, which was silk flowers with Alexander McQueen Kingdom perfume in Evian water.’ Yay, you’re officially coming to PGL! That’s so great, thanks! And I’ll finally, finally get to meet you in the flesh! ** liquoredgoat, I tried Billie Eilish. I don’t know, I think it’s just not my thing. I have no feeling for Lana Del Rey’s stuff either. But now Avril Lavigne on the other hand … ha ha. Joke. As my gig above must make obvious, I guess. Thanks for getting ‘MLT’. Yeah, I assume you mean the hardcover with the Sue De Beer cover photo. Yeah, I love that cover, and it still depresses and pisses me off that the publisher refused to use that cover on the paperback, giving it instead the worst book cover I’ve ever had, because they said the cover was too disturbing and had harmed sales, so instead they gave the paperback the most boring, vague, can’t-even-focus-your-eyes-on-it dull cover imaginable, and, boy, that really helped the sales, ha ha. Oops, sorry, sore point. Yeah, don’t let that block become a thing. Ignore it, press on, and you’ll be whipping out something awesome any hour now, you bet. ** Bill, You deserve beaucoup flowers. Awesome about the demo. Pant, pant. ** Steve Erickson, Great about the good start to your series! Interesting, I didn’t know about the BBFC website. Huh, I’ll check it out. I did see that about the Ferrara retro. And I wish I was there since I realise I think I’ve only seen maybe four of films. ** Okay. Here’s this month’s new stuff-filled gig. I think it’s maybe a bit more eclectic than the last few, so maybe something there will hit your own personal zeitgeists. See you tomorrow.
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