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Weekend links 667

Design by Yusaku Kamekura.

• “Music and intoxication have gone hand in hand since prehistory, but the relationship of music and cannabis is particularly strong and complex, says Jono Podmore, a former habitual smoker, as he investigates a groundbreaking new study which may get us closer to understanding these links.”

• “[There] have been many instances of persons, who thought themselves metamorphosed into lanterns, and who complained of having lost their thighs.” Public Domain Review offers words to the wise from An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons (1768).

• “Mathematicians have finally discovered an elusive ‘einstein’ tile.” Emily Conover explains. I thought Roger Penrose had already discovered these but none of his aperiodic patterns are created by a single tile.

• Wes Anderson does science fiction…maybe. After watching The French Dispatch last month I’d caught up with the Anderson oeuvre so it’s good to have something new to look forward to.

• 20th century Japanese poster art. Related: Jason Booher on creating a cover for a book by Carlo Rovelli.

• The Winners of Smithsonian Magazine’s 20th Annual Photo Contest.

• New music: Ghost Town Burning by The Lonely Bell.

• Anthony “Surgeon” Child’s favourite music.

• RIP Raoul Servais, animator.

• East Of Asteroid (1976) by 801 | Asteroide (1978) by Joël Fajerman & Jan Yrssen | Asteroid Witch (2022) by Ghost Power

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Entrance of the Fish Frogs (1919) by Fritz Schwimbeck. Via.

• “This bold chunk of fiction comes garlanded with the promise that it is written in Polari, the historical cant of British gay male society. This turns out to be not quite true—Polari was only ever a vocabulary, rather than a full language—but it certainly indicates where we’re heading; back to the late 1960s, when Polari had its heyday, and far out into the choppy waters of linguistic transgression. The largest part of the book is taken up with what purports to be a typescript of the ‘anarcho-surrealist’ memoirs of one Raymond Novak. The tersest summary of Novak’s literary stylings might be to say that Julian and Sandy, those Polari-dishing stars of Round the Horne, meet Bataille and Breton—and lose.” Neil Bartlett reviewing Man-Eating Typewriter by Richard Milward. • Related: You’ve got male: British beefcake photos from the 1940s to the 1970s.

• Among the new titles at Standard Ebooks, the home of free, high-quality, public-domain texts: Can Such Things Be? (1893) by Ambrose Bierce, a collection of weird fiction that includes the story that gave the world the name “Carcosa”. Also The Hashish Eater (1857), Fitz Hugh Ludlow’s account of his drug experiences.

• “…despite the book’s title, there is very little explicitly sexual here.” Hunter Dukes on Cultus Arborum: A Descriptive Account of Phallic Tree Worship (1890), a privately-printed volume believed to be the work of Hargrave Jennings.

• New music: Tenere Den by Tinariwen, Offworld Radiation Therapy by Memnon Sa, and Die Untergründigen by Alva Noto.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Japanese buildings that are shaped like the things they sell.

• At Unquiet Things: The papercut art of Ivonne Garcia.

• Mix of the week: DreamScenes – March 2023.

• Hashish (1968) by West Coast Natural Gas | The Hashishins (1970) by Ry Cooder & Buffy Sainte-Marie | Hassan I Sahba (1977) by Hawkwind

Weekend links 663

Weird Tales celebrates its centenary this month (although the first issue was on the shelves in February, 1923). Thirty years later, one of the last issues from the initial run had Slime by Joseph Payne Brennan as the story featured on its cover. The magazine maintained a viscous consistency if nothing else. Tentacular art by RR Epperly.

• A big surprise in yesterday’s Bandcamp Friday was the announcement of Singularity, a new album by synth ensemble Node. Or new-ish since the previously unreleased recording is almost 30 years old:

Singularity is the legendary “lost” Node album. Recorded at the same time as their original sessions in 1994 this has DiN stalwart Dave Bessell join Buller & Flood alongside original member Gary Stout who was later replaced by Mel Wesson for the two DiN releases. Presented here for the first time, mastered to modern standards but otherwise untouched and in its original form and recorded to two track with no overdubs.

Node have never been very prolific—two decades separate their first album from their second—so this was very welcome. The new release includes a bonus addition of the 16-minute version of Terminus, one of their best pieces which has only been available previously on a scarce CD-single.

• Steven Watson at Print Mag on skeuomorphic magazine design that turns print into play. Now I want to design a book that fits inside a cassette box.

• RIP jazz giant Wayne Shorter, and David Lindley, co-founder of one of my favourite psychedelic groups, the incredible Kaleidoscope.

• S. Elizabeth at Unquiet Things on The Sensitive Plant, a poem by Percy Shelley illustrated by Charles Robinson.

• Christopher Parker at Smithsonian Magazine asks “Did Salvador Dalí paint this enigmatic artwork?” Yes, he did.

• Tangerine Dream in 1973 playing Atem live (with pre-recorded drums) on Spotlight, an Austrian TV show.

• New music: Mohanam by Shakti, and Area Code 601 by William Tyler & The Impossible Truth.

• At Spoon & Tamago: Bento boxes inspired by notable Japanese architecture.

• At Tentaclii: Ian Miller cover art for metal albums.

• Northern lights seen across the UK.

• New Blue Ooze (1970) by Kaleidoscope | Ooze Out And Away, Onehow (1986) by Harold Budd/Simon Raymonde/Robin Guthrie/Elizabeth Fraser | Ooze (1986) by 23 Skidoo

Weekend links 662

Pierrot le Fleur by Marina Mika.

• I’ve been saying for years that Andrzej Zulawski’s On the Silver Globe should be given a proper blu-ray release, and that’s what Region B viewers will receive soon courtesy of Eureka. Andrzej Zulawski: Three Films will be released in May, a set that comprises the director’s unfinished SF film, his debut feature, The Third Part of the Night (1971)—which I still haven’t seen—and also The Devil (1972), which I have seen but only as a poor copy that’s been circulating via illicit channels for many years.

• “The album’s 18-minute, multi-section standout Jenny Ondioline acquired a crucial role. It became the first track I’d play whenever I boarded a train, slipped on my headphones, and settled in beside an anonymous rail rider.” Hayden Merrick on travelling across the USA to the sounds of Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements by Stereolab.

• At Aquarium Drunkard: E. Hehr explores musical exotica via Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies & Other Exotic Delights, “…a compilation that touches upon the noir side of exotica, far more gritty and raw compared to the lavish production on the esteemed exotica albums from Capitol and Liberty.” I own this collection. It’s a good one.

“My own experience,” Leda muses “tells me that more love goes into the thought of homosexuality than the practice.” Other gays are neither radical heroes nor the pathetic, self-hating fairies of, say, Mart Crowley’s Boys in the Band. This frankness makes Love, Leda a singular work; a contemporary portrait of working-class gay London in the years running up to decriminalisation that neither flatters nor sensationalises. In doing so, Hyatt transforms gay sex and love from an abject taboo to a deeply human intimacy.

Huw Lemmey on Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt, a candid tale of gay life in the Britain of the 1960s

• “It became something like a ritual, an exhumation of long-unheard music reanimated as glacial drones and ghostly symphonic movements—the sound of the cathedral transmuted into an enveloping shadow of pulsation, echo and glitch.” Orgelwerk by Ted Reichman.

• Max Richter answers 50 questions. Sleep, Richter’s 8-hour ambient epic, is still my favourite among his compositions that I’ve heard to date: 8 CDs and a blu-ray disc from Deutsche Grammophon.

• RIP Alastair Brotchie, publisher of books at Atlas Press, and biographer of Alfred Jarry. Also a commenter here on one occasion when he corrected an erroneous photograph caption.

• A trailer for Suzume, a new feature film by Makoto Shinkai. Related: A Gathering of Cats.

• The story behind Jack Pierson’s homoerotic new photo book.

• The Strange World of…Phew.

• Why Do I Still Sleep (1983) by Popol Vuh | Sleep I (1995) by Paul Schütze | The Dreamer Is Still Asleep (1999) by Coil

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Mobius Strip II (1963) by MC Escher.

• Old music: Warp Records is reissuing two recent Jon Hassell discs later this year: The Living City (Hassell’s ensemble playing live in NYC, 1989) and Psychogeography (Zones Of Feeling) (remixes from City: Works Of Fiction), which will be available as standalone releases or bundled together as Further Fictions together with Hassell’s Atmospherics book.

• “His library is an immense and enviable wellspring, a demimonde of objects by murky creators who for decades have gnawed away at the inner organs of polite society.” Steven Heller talks to Glenn Bray about Library, an 800-page collection of scans from Bray’s trove of books, comics and print ephemera.

• New music: Tsathoggua, the latest in the Lovecraftian series of Cryo Chamber Collaborations which reminds me that I’m still missing the more recent entries. Also the non-Lovecraftian Coil by Ian Boddy.

• “Music is a way to express yourself beyond words,” says Hildur Gudnadóttir.

• See this year’s winners of the annual Close-up Photographer of the Year competition.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…Ishmael Reed The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974).

• A few new photos of Michael Heizer’s City in the Nevada desert.

• City Of Night (1994) by David Toop & Max Eastley | City As Memory (1995) by John Foxx | City Appearing (2013) by Julia Holter