David Stubbs – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 253

• “Creativity is visual, not informed thought. Creativity is not polite. It barges in uninvited, unannounced—confusing, chaotic, demanding, deaf to reason or to common sense—and leaves the intellect to clear up the mess. Above all else, creativity is risk; heedful risk, but risk entire. Without risk we have the ability only to keep things ticking over the way they are.” Revelations from a life of storytelling by Alan Garner. Related: Tygertale on Garner’s Elidor (1965), “the anti-Tolkien”. The BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Elidor remains unavailable on DVD but may be watched on YouTube.

• “One of my revelations was to reverse everything I’d been taught. Making lettering as illegible as possible falls into that way of thinking.” Psychedelic artist and underground cartoonist Victor Moscoso talks to Nicole Rudick about a life in art and design. Related: “I’ve gotten a lot of bad write-ups in newspapers over the years and they like to refer to my stuff as ‘kitsch’…Well, my stuff is way fuckin’ kitsch. It’s kitsch to an abstract level, you understand. It’s fuckin’ meretricious.” I love it when Robert Williams kicks the art world.

• “…a cerebral, challenging, visually stunning piece of 1970s American science fiction that enweirds the human perspective by challenging it with a nonhuman one.” Adam Mills on the inhuman geometries of Saul Bass’s Phase IV.

• “[Delia Derbyshire] taught me everything I knew about electronic music.” David Vorhaus talks to David Stubbs about White Noise and why he prefers the latest technology to old synthesizers.

• Costumes from Alla Nazimova’s film of Salomé (1923) have been discovered in a trunk in Columbus, Georgia.

• Mix of the week: The Ivy-Strangled Path Vol. I, “music for a residual haunting” by David Colohan.

• At Dangerous Minds: Queer, boho or just plain gorgeous: photographs by Poem Baker.

• Grimm City, a speculative architectural project by Flea Folly Architects.

• Mad Max: “Punk’s Sistine Chapel” – A Ballardian Primer.

• In Search of Sleep: photographs by Emma Powell.

• Drains of Manchester

• Road Warrior (1985) by The Dave Howard Singers | Warriors Of The Wasteland (Original 12″ mix, 1986) by Frankie Goes To Hollywood | Drive It Mad Max (Super Flu Remix, 2009) by Marcus Meinhardt

Weekend links 223

Step Up (2014) by Angelica Paez.

• Lots of attention this week for Kevin Martin whose latest album as The Bug, Angels And Devils, is out now on Ninja Tune. The previous Bug release, London Zoo (2008), was a fierce collection that stood apart from the Grime pack not only for its guest vocalists but also for being informed by Martin’s broad range of influences: industrial and extreme electronics, heavyweight dub, metal and avant-garde jazz. Martin was interviewed by The Quietus and FACT who also asked other musicians to choose their favourite Martin recordings. Elsewhere, The Wire has Swarm, a track not included on the album.

Related: Martin’s four superb compilation albums for Virgin Records have been deleted for years but are worth seeking out: Ambient 4: Isolationism, Macro Dub Infection Volume One & Volume Two, and Jazz Satellites Volume 1: Electrification (Virgin cancelled volume 2). From the NME, 1995: Kevin Martin’s Ten Commandments For All Time.

• “…it never becomes quite clear why two grown men would want to write to each other in the guise of a horse and a cat.” Henry Giardina reviews The Animals: Love Letters Between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, edited by Katherine Bucknell.

• Shufflepoems: A Deck of Poetry by Lydia Swartz. “100 cards, four suits, one stanza per card. Shuffle for a new adventure every time.” The project needs a last-minute push to gain Kickstarter funding so if this sounds interesting go, go, go!

• The Haxan Cloak’s favourite heavy metal albums. Metallica’s Master Of Puppets still gets my vote. More from The Quietus: David Stubbs on the Werner Herzog soundtracks of Popol Vuh.

• At Strange Flowers: Waking the witch, a remembrance of occult artist Rosaleen Norton and other characters from Sydney’s Kings Cross area, with news of a planned Norton documentary.

• A nine-note motif has for decades signalled “Asian” in popular music. Kat Chow looks at the history of a musical stereotype.

• Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the subject for entrants in the Folio Society’s latest illustration competition.

• Irradiating the Object: Rhys Williams talks to writer M. John Harrison.

• Does the Sea Serpent Really Look Like an Art Nouveau Oar-fish?

• Schrödinger’s cat caught on quantum film.

• 70s sci-fi art: a Tumblr.

• Demodex Invasion (1995) by Techno Animal | Piranha feat. Toastie Taylor (2001) by Techno Animal | Poison Dart feat. Warrior Queen (2008) by The Bug

Weekend links 220

Untitled painting by Aleksandra Waliszewska.

• Ben Wheatley’s forthcoming film of High-Rise by JG Ballard now has its own Tumblr. This will no doubt be spoilerific so I won’t keep on visiting but it’s there if you require it. More Ballardianism: “Worshipping the Crash” at BLDGBLOG.

• “Aickman wandered through the sixties fantasy landscape like some curmudgeonly fetch, returning from the fin de siècle heyday of the ghost story.” Boyd Tonkin profiles Robert Aickman, writer of peerless “strange stories”.

• At Dangerous Minds: “Raise a glass to Cthulhu at the Lovecraft Bar”. Looks more like a Captain Nemo bar to me (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but I appreciate the gesture.

But to demand that a work be “relatable” expresses a different expectation: that the work itself be somehow accommodating to, or reflective of, the experience of the reader or viewer. The reader or viewer remains passive in the face of the book or movie or play: she expects the work to be done for her.

Rebecca Mead on The Scourge of Relatability

• “Space as a paranoid, static rumble featuring: 20jfg, Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason, Coil & Eduard Artemiev”. 20 Jazz Funk Greats on the pleasures of the Solaris soundtrack.

• What do Hawkwind, Harry Nilsson, Stereolab and The Supremes have in common? David Stubbs examines the legacy of Neu! and Klaus Dinger’s “Dingerbeat”.

• A reminder that A Year in the Country features a host of worthwhile links and associations for the Hauntologically persuaded.

• Rouge Louboutin, an ad by David Lynch. Related: An improptu biscuit ad by the Eccentronic Research Council.

• Mix of the week (a year old but no matter): JG Ballard Zoom Lens Mix by Bernholz.

• At 50 Watts: More illustrated sheet music covers by Einar Nerman.

• Five book cover designers and the books that inspire them.

• Tove Jansson would have been 100 this week.

• Pangaea with modern borders

• Solaris: Dream (1990) by Edward Artemyev [sic] | Solaris (2000) by Photek | Simulacra I (2011) by Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason