worm

shite, i've ordered way too many books now. it started with a discussion with max over the Pirate's Dilema, which led to me borrowing Heath and Potter's 'The Rebel Sell', Iain Sinclair's 'Disappearing London' and Thorstein Veblen's "The Theory Of The Leisure Class". The latter especially fitted into a couple of books i'd got from the library, histories of victorian london, a theme i'd begun to dug into. I'd also ordered Peter Ackroyd's 'London: A Biography'. So far, i've gotten through 'The Rebel Sell' and 'The Theory Of The Leisure Class', a quarter of 'London: A Biography', and a history of the London Underground which a guy at work lent to me. Then with Ruaridh's upcoming psychogeography themed peformance for the gig this sunday, it seemed to be the underlying meme to much of my recent reading material, so i just finished another book i had got, Merlin Coverley's 'Psychogeography' which provided a good overview of all the overlapping themes and ideas which fall under the umbrella name, plus a short bio/description of most of the notable names associated with the practise. From that I've ended up on an Amazon spending spree and now have before me a selection of books thats gonna take me weeks to get through:
Peter Ackroyd's 'Hawksmoor' (which i just realised is where Warren Ellis must take inspiration for his Jack Hawksmoor character in The Authority).
Robert Louis Stephenson 'Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde' (only 88 pages - surely thats not correct??)
Daniel Defoe's 'Moll Flanders'
I'm sure there is some Stewart Home and JG Ballard on they're way too. oh, and a copy of Bill Drummond's '17'!

I was gonna write some music reviews but i think i should stop procrastinating and get some reading done. Just a quick note then of three things i've been quite into recently - Growing's 'All The Way' album is pretty strange and noisey for a drone album, going pretty organic techno at points; The Ragga Twin's retrospective on Soul Jazz 'Ragga Twins Step Out' is fucking awesome, and today i picked up Madlib's new 'Beat Konducta Vol. 5 Dil Cosby Suite' which is sounding pretty good too.

Labels: books, psychogeography, reviews

Thursday, August 21, 2008

art and geography

dang, i just finished reading the comic of Persepolis last night - it's *really* good, quite heavy going at times being confronted with the amount of persecution and injustice, and one of those books that really opens your eyes to your own ignorance of matters.
It's very much up there with Joe Sacco's Palestine and Art Spiegelman's Maus as political commentary and a personal tour of troubled times and countries.

This morning I tried to start reading Guy Debord's 'Society Of The Spectacle' but have to admit i found it immediately annoying, with such paragraphs as

"To the extent that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream becomes necessary. The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned society which ultimately expresses nothing more than it's desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep"

The central tenet i could gleam from it was how society holds illusion in greater esteem over reality, which at first i could accept as something similar to the Buddhist story 'Fingers Pointing at the Moon' whereby people interpret the sign instead of what the sign is pointing to.
However the more i flicked through 'Society Of The Spectacle' it seemed more like it was against all forms of abstraction. Yet, in my mind that is exactly what gives art or life it's meaning - things by themselves are dumb, buildings mean nothing except a pile of bricks, a drawing is merely a squiggle on a piece of paper - its the meaning we imbue in such things that give us context and a sense of history, why we attach emotion and feelings to objects, time and place.
I'm sure it's just me being overly simple - maybe i need to sit down in the pub with someone and have them explain Situationism to me with a more human voice than Debord's!

From all my reading of historical London recently, my reading path has been guiding me towards some psychogeography reading, which should hopefully allow me handle my end of a conversation in the pub with Max or Ruaridh! i've started readin Merlin Coverley's 'Psychogeography' which seems pretty good based on the opening chapter, and looks to cover the origins of psychogeography from Debord (spit!) in Paris during the '50s; retrospective validation in the writings of William Blake, and Thomas De Quincey; and through into more recent work covered by writers and filmakers like Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Stewart Home and Patrick Keiller (whose "Robinson in Space" film is astounding - max owns a copy of this and it would often get put on as a surreal backdrop to our house parties or a strange post-club viewing experience!)

Labels: books, comics

Friday, July 11, 2008

chiiiday frat

ah! it's finally arrived - been quite hectic with people staying over the past few weekends, so i'm looking forward to two exceptionally long lie-ins in bed!

I'm prob gonna write off most of the weekend reading "The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross, as thats what has happened with the past three of his novels i've read. MartinD, from my work, turned me on to Halting State, a crazed near-future sci-fi novel set about 10-15 years in the future, about a security breach in an online world which has very real offline implications. Really good and addictive stuff - then Martin lent me a few others of Charles Stross - Glass House and Accelerando - both of which completely blew me away, with much more elaborate and completely believeable tech set in a post-singularity world.
"The Atrocity Archives" is his first novel i believe, about the meeting point between mathematics and alternative universes, with a firm tongue in cheek humour. I only started it this morning, but i believe one phrase from the book may sum up the contents - "the Turning-Lovecraft theorem".
His style seems quite heavily influenced by one of other favorite authors, Neal Stephenson, who is acknowledged in the opening credits, but Charles Stross very much has a voice and style of his own.

I got quite a lot of new music this week which should see me through the weekend too:

Grievous Angel - Belief Is The Enemy
Received my copy of this yesterday - its a double CD with full versions of the album on disc one and a mixed second CD using dubs of the tracks. Had it on quite a bit yesterday, and its really fucking good. Its dubstep kinda, but just feels more for some reason. The sound palette makes me think more drum 'n' bass, bringing to mind Remarc for some reason. That prob gives the total wrong impression about the album if you haven't heard it - the tempo is way slower than d'n'b, but has more energy than yer average half-step, utilising quite a lot of break-beats and rolling basslines. It just seems really original - taking a bunch of influences from dubstep, d'n'b, bassline and ragga techno, and outputting just a really good electronic album.

Voltaic - Abyss EP 12"
Rustie's electro project alongside Martin Patton. I don't know enough about the history of this project to write any background on it, and as i only received it this morning can't comment on the music yet - its two tracks written by Rustie and one from Martin, and also meant to be their last under the Voltaic name. Their last EP, Oxidize was excellent, and from all reviews this one should be pretty ace.

SND - 4, 5, 6
Mat/Fisk turned me on to this the other day, and I'm well impressed. I expected a sort clicks and cuts glitchy record, and it does start off that way, bring to mind Oval's 'Do While' on the opening track, but soon getting into some very off-kilter rhythmic craziness. I was surprised by how berlin-techno like it sounds, and easily going to appeal to fans of the Berlin/Bristol axis style of dubstep, tho not perhaps to the dancefloor as such. Some of it sounds familiar from their recent support slot on the Autechre 'Quaristice' tour, which all sounded excellent at the time but it's good to be able to delve in for repeated listen on headphones.

aiight - laterzzzzzzzzzzz

Labels: books, charles stross, grievous angel, reviews, rustie, SND, voltaic, weekend

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Pirates Dilema

I just finished a book this past weekend, "The Pirate's Dilema: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism" by Matt Mason, which i would highly recommend.
Basic premise is that a lot of new business models start outside the law before they become accepted and adopted by more mainstream culture. It argues that instead of legislating against such new 'illegal' methods, the market should be (and already is in many smarter cases) seeing it as the more cutting-edge competition that it is, and needs to rise to the change in order to remain relevant themselves.
The idea is quite simple, but the book itself is very well written and runs through a whole list of pop culture's origins to illustrate the point. Its a fun read and covers pirate radio, graffiti, the remix, disco, reggae, video games, hip hop/sampling, p2p, and how eventually each of these areas has given rise to whole profitable markets and new ways of looking at and consuming art/music/entertainment etc.
Have a look at Amazon for more of a description. The author also has a blog going at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/ following the same ideas. Theres a link on there today to a new article he has written for TorrentFreak which is well worth reading, dealing specifically with how the entertainment industry has to adapt to survive.

Labels: books, music industry, record industry, reviews