Seven-inch sleeve design by Savage Pencil for Wrong Eye (1990) by Coil.
• “Can you use sensory deprivation to explore ESP? And then make music from the process?” Drew Daniel and MC Schmidt of Matmos decided to find out for their new EP. Related: Occult Voices—Paranormal Music, Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1905–2007 at Ubuweb. Details of the original CD release can be found here.
• Gorgeous Gallery: The Best in Gay Erotic Art is a new book by David Leddick featuring the work of contemporary gay artists. Howard G. Williams has a review at Lambda Literary.
• Trip or Squeek by Savage Pencil, a book collection of the artist’s comic strips for The Wire magazine, forthcoming from Strange Attractor Press.
The novels of the middle period are Burgess’s most vital because it was in these that he forged what we might now recognize as the Burgessian – the antic puns and wordplay, the etymological digressions, the opacity, the glamorous pedantry, the tympanic repetitions, and an alliterative, assonantal musicality that makes every sentence seem vivid and extrovert: “Seafood salt with savour of seabrine thwacking throat with thriving wine-thirst”; “the lucent flawlessness of the skin, of the long fleshly languor that flowered into visibility”; “he was in a manner tricked, coney-caught, a court-dor to a cozening cotquean”. This is Burgess’s description of an Elizabethan brothel: “He entered darkness that smelled of musk and dust, the tang of sweating oxters, and, somehow, the ancient stale reek of egg after egg cracked in waste, the musty hold-smell of seamen’s garments, seamen’s semen spattered, a ghost procession of dead sailors lusting till the crack of doom”.
Ben Masters on A Clockwork Orange and its creator, fifty years on
• A streaming album for the beginning of autumn, the self-titled debut by Eraas, available in a range of formats at Bandcamp.
• “How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict.”
• Ted Hughes reads from Crow. Related: Raptors by Leonard Baskin.
• Janitors of Lunacy: Jonny Mugwump remembers Coil.
Back in June I suggested Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ paintings as potential artwork for Penguin’s Modern Classics series. Last week Clive revealed that Penguin will be using one of his painted maquettes for a new edition of Equus next year.
• 150 Years of Lesbians and Other Lady-Loving-Ladies
• Color Sound Oblivion: a Coil/TG/related Tumblr.
• Tune in, psych out: the new black psychedelia.
• The Hills Are Alive (1995) by Coil | QueenS (2012) by THEESatisfaction | Goldblum (2012) by Oddience.
Neat addition of Buer on the Coil sleeve. I’ve never bothered to listen to Coil, mostly because of the negative things I’ve heard about William Breeze as a person. I’ll make sure to actually listen to some of their music.
I was wondering if you’ve ever drawn any of the Goetia demons; I can’t think of anything off the top of my head though I know I could very well be forgetting something. Really, the only thing I can think of is your work with Alan Moore’s Asmodeus painting.
I’ve got a nice reprint of the Goetia so I’m familiar with the descriptions but I’ve never done anything with it. Would be nice to do a series of portraits like the De Plancy but there are so many of the things I’d worry about running out of steam. One approach would be to do it like the Cthulhu calendar and use a variety of techniques.
That would be really neat and maybe even weird people out more than the Cthulhu calendar. Or at least the sad type of person that would be weirded out by that in the first place.
I understand, while I know you’re not a practicing occultist I know you’ve always had an interest in it. I’d buy a Coulthart illustrated Goetia in a heartbeat though.
I was just informed I listened to Coil’s “Wrong Eye” the other night and like it by a friend. Whoops.
When I looked it up Buer was on the sleeve.
I must have had a small stroke there. Feel free to delete that last comment. What I meant to say was; I have listened to “Wrong Eye” and enjoyed it. I just did not know what song it was until today. Sorry for the babble.
Thee Satisfaction are something special, aren’t they? They’re a very popular local act. Seattle seems to be a new epicenter for queer-positive hip hop. Rock is kind of out around here, indie rap is way in.
I would love to see you go-go-gadget-Goetia.
G: Wrong Eye is a bit of an odd one by Coil standards but they often used standalone singles for tracks that wouldn’t necessarily fit on an album.
Evan: That song is very infectious. Re: the Goetia, I like works that run through a series. The trouble is that the usual ones like Tarot cards and Zodiac signs are a very crowded field. Demonologies have the advantage of being fresher material.
G: William Breeze really didn’t have that much to do with Coil apart from playing violin on a couple of pieces. Coil were primarily Johnn Balance and Peter Christopherson so It’d be a bit weird to dismiss them because of Breeze. There’s not really a typical Coil track as they had so many ideas and different styles but there are a load of videos up on youtube if you’re interested – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztdatfUEW94&feature=related
M
Okay, I wasn’t particularly pleased with my reasoning for not listening to Coil…its just one of those things you realize down the line that make one seem terribly silly.
I’ll make sure to check out the link you sent me and some other tracks whenever I’m not at the office. Thank you for the information.