Weekend links 681

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All Cats are Grey At Night (2009) by Kenny Hunter.

“They found ways to do the impossible”: Hipgnosis, the designers who changed the record sleeve for ever. Lee Campbell talks to Anton Corbijn about Squaring the Circle, Corbijn’s documentary about the Hipgnosis design team. Peter Christopherson is shown in the accompanying photo but Campbell doesn’t mention him at all, despite his having been an equal partner with Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell from the mid-70s on. Many of those famous covers were photographed by Christopherson’s camera.

• A new book by Stephen Prince at A Year In The Country: “Lost Transmissions weaves amongst brambled pathways to take in the haunted soundscapes of electronica, the rise of the occult in the 1970s, cinema and television’s dystopian dreamscapes and hauntological work which creates and gives a glimpse into parallel worlds…”

• New music: Ambient Bass Guitar by John von Seggern, and Sturgeon Moon/Beaver Moon by Missing Scenes.

• How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City.

• Mix of the week: Tranquility by A Strangely Isolated Place.

Galerie Dennis Cooper presents…Snow Globalists.

• The Strange World of…African Head Charge.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Baudot.

Nights on Earth.

Transmission (1979) by Joy Division | Clandestine Transmission (1994) by Richard H. Kirk | Transmission (1996) by Low

Weekend links 679

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All this and the best tunes. Via.

• As noted last month, Space Ritual by Hawkwind turned 50 this year so here comes the inevitable reissue which in its most lavish edition will run to 11 discs. This isn’t as immediately attractive for me as the recent Calvert-era collection—I already own four different copies of Space Ritual, including the original vinyl—but I may feel differently a few months from now.

• At Wormwoodiana: Mark Valentine explores The Prophecies of N’Gai, something which sounds like a story from Weird Tales but isn’t.

• “Is function in the eye or mind of the beholder?” Steven Heller on Jacques Carelman’s Catalogue of Impossible Objects.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Yoko Tada began painting in her 80s. At 100 she’s publishing her first book.

• “The Magnificent Ambersons: rebirth for ruined Orson Welles masterpiece that rivalled Citizen Kane.”

At Wyrd Daze: Disco Rd 3: 23 pages 23 minutes. Free PDF, music mix, Discordianism, etc.

• A (brief) conversation with Milena Canonero, Wes Anderson’s costume designer.

• At Public Domain Review: Specimens of Fancy Turning (1869).

• New music: Móatún 7: Tetsu Inoue by Various Artists.

Arik Roper’s favourite album artwork.

• RIP Peter Brötzmann.

Table Turning (1973) by The Upsetters | Forever Turning (1995) by Scorn | Turning Towards Us (2008) by Redshift

Weekend links 678

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Interior of a Cathedral (1921) by Wenzel Hablik.

• The inevitable Cormac McCarthy features: “Cormac McCarthy took us beneath the surface,” says Kevin Berger at Nautilus magazine, publishers of McCarthy’s essay about the origins of language. At The Paris Review, three writers reminisce about reading McCarthy’s fiction.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: Bhupen Khakhar (1934–2003). “Su obra examina las implicaciones políticas y socioculturales de la homosexualidad en la India.”

Dennis Cooper’s favourite fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, art, and internet of 2023 so far. Thanks again for the link here!

• New music: Telepathic Heights by Hawksmoor, and Golden Apples of the Sun by Suzanne Ciani & Jonathan Fitoussi.

• Mixes of the week: DreamScenes – June 2023, and isolatedmix 121: Oslated & Huinali Showcase mixed by S-Pill.

• At Unquiet Things: Crystal Castles and Harmonious Heavens: Wenzel Hablik’s Glittering Utopias.

• At Public Domain Review: Wonder and Pleasure in the Oude Doolhof of Amsterdam.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Exploring Tokyo’s Hidden Shrines.

• At Aquarium Drunkard: Bush Tetras interviewed.

Ben Chasny’s favourite albums.

• RIP Glenda Jackson.

Utopiat No. 1 (1973) by Utopia | Utopia (2000) by Goldfrapp | Utopia (2013) by Brown Reininger Bodson

Weekend links 677

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Design by Neville Brody, 1980.

• My work soundtrack for the past couple of weeks has been non-stop Cabaret Voltaire so this is pertinent. Neville Brody designed many of the group’s record sleeves in the 1980s as well as this poster and another one that I’ve only seen as a small picture in the first Brody book. He was also responsible for the CV logo which I never managed to find in badge form.

• “Anger’s preferred mode of artistry in his last decades was self-mythologising, and while he would return to filmmaking late in life, it was less as hierophant than totem—the worn keepsake of a once powerful magick.” Ryan Meehan remembers Kenneth Anger.

• New music: Waves by Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson, Topos by UCC Harlo, and Zango by WITCH.

Kafka’s perpetual redescription of his plight suggests that throughout his writing life he was less interested in finding a solution or even arriving at a single, definitive formulation of the problem than he was in exploring the implications and complications of his situation from new, unexpected angles and crafting an ever-expanding lexicon of figures for its inescapability.

Ross Benjamin, the translator of Franz Kafka’s diaries, on the neurotic concerns that Kafka turned into art

• “Why are men seemingly always naked in ancient Greek art?” Sarah Murray investigates.

Artists for Bibi: an auction in aid of Arthur Machen’s great-great-granddaughter.

• At Public Domain Review: Unidentified Floating Object: Edo Images of Utsuro-bune.

• Steven Heller’s font of the month is Acorn.

• Old music: Moon Journey by Mort Garson.

• RIP Tony McPhee.

Kafka (1964) by The Rowdies | Kafka (1982) by Masami Tsuchiya | Kafka (Main Title) (1992) by Cliff Martinez

Weekend links 676

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Sleeve Study, from Kakitsubata (1998) by Paul Binnie.

• “London was not a project for me. It was the curse that never stops giving.” Iain Sinclair talking to Matthew Stocker about his new book for Swan River Press, Agents of Oblivion.

The Ultimate DMT Breakthrough Replication Compilation, a video guide to the DMT experience by Josie Sims. Related: Kristen French on what hallucinogens will make you see.

• At Spoon & Tamago: A return to Tokyo Genso’s depictions of an urban Japan transformed by vegetation and neglect.

• New music: The Shell That Speaks The Sea by David Toop & Lawrence English.

• At Bajo el Signo de Libra: San Sebastián de Mártir a Icono Homosexual.

• Cosmic views from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year, 2023.

Nakamura Mitsue makes a Noh mask from a single block of wood.

• Mix of the week: A mix for The Wire by Eleni Poulou.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Delphine Seyrig Day.

Of Ancient Memory (The Oblivion Seekers) (1994) by Jarboe | Oblivion (2001) by Lustmord | Oblivion (2004) by Redshift