Jeff Keen – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 724

Dr Faustus Conjuring Mephistopheles (1928) by Eric Ravilious.

• Materialising in July from a cloud of sulphurous smoke: The Devil Rides In – Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The Rockult 1967–1974. Cherry Red Records, home of the well-sourced, well-researched multi-disc compilation, might have been channelling my inner desires with this one, a Sabbath-esque soundtrack to the Occult Revival. I ordered it faster than you can say “Hail Satan!”

• A Series of Headaches: Shakespeare’s First Folio meets the London Review of Books. “In this film, letterpress printer Nick Hand pulls apart the whole process, from making ink from crushed oak galls to heaving the levers of a replica Jacobean press, and shows how we produced our own (almost) authentic version of the LRB circa 1623.”

• Alan Moore will be subject to greater attention than usual in October. In addition to the forthcoming Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, the month will also see the publication of The Great When, the first novel in his Long London series. Bloomsbury now has cover art to go with their description of the novel.

• Mad Dogs & Englishmen: Faust On Virgin Records: An extract from Neu Klang: The Definitive Story of Krautrock by Cristoph Dallach, “the first comprehensive oral history of the diverse and radical movement in German music during the late 60s and 1970s.”

• Alien life is no joke: Adam Frank on combating “the giggle factor” in the search for extraterrestrial life.

• At Colossal: Lauren Fensterstock’s Cosmic Mosaics Map Out the Unknown in Crystal and Gems.

• New music: Ritual (evocation) by Jon Hopkins; Time Is Glass by Six Organs Of Admittance.

• At Unquiet Things: The Gentle, Jubilant Visual Poetry of Tino Rodriguez.

• At Retro-Forteana: Colin Wilson, Philosopher of the Paranormal.

• DJ Food on Jeff Keen’s Amazing Rayday Comic collages.

At Dennis Cooper’s: Alan Clarke Day.

• Krautrock (1973) by Faust | Krautrock (1973) by Conrad Schnitzler | The Kraut (2007) by Stars Of The Lid

San Francisco by Anthony Stern

The flip-side of the kitsch London of Smashing Time can be found in this frenetic short made a year later which presents a fragmented view of that other locus of the Paisley Era, San Francisco. Director Anthony Stern avoids the usual longueurs of silent documentary by chopping his footage to bits to create a tour through the city streets that’s as frenzied as the films of Jeff Keen. The bonus is a score by The Pink Floyd (from the days when they still used the definite article) playing an exclusive version of Interstellar Overdrive. That alone makes one wonder why this film hasn’t received more attention over the years.

Stern’s film reminds me of Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), another short work which is frequently as frenzied and also features scenes filmed in San Francisco. In addition, both films feature some ritual business: Stern shows a group of freaks in a psychedelic house with the inevitable naked woman cavorting for the benefit of clothed men; Anger is rather more serious with shots of a full-blown Crowlean ceremony. Anthony Stern today has established himself as a very accomplished glass artist; you can see his glass work here and watch San Francisco here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Smashing Time
• Berlin Horse and Marvo Movie
• Kenneth Anger on DVD again

Berlin Horse and Marvo Movie

Two experimental films by British filmmakers. Berlin Horse (1970) at Ubuweb is a hypnotic piece of minimalism by Malcolm Le Grice who subjects found footage of exercising horses to a series of loopings and filterings that push the degraded images to a point of textured abstraction. Of note with this film is the equally minimal and repetitive score, a piano loop created by Brian Eno. This was before he gained prominence as a member of Roxy Music but the slight piece of experimentation points the way to his post-Roxy career and his ambient investigations. Berlin Horse is available on DVD from Lux, with a selection of Le Grice’s other shorts.

Marvo Movie (1967) at Europa Film Treasures is a typically frenetic work by Jeff Keen, four minutes of heavily cut-up sound and vision with collage, animation and multiple exposures throughout. Despite the year of its creation, the effect is less psychedelic and more like an amphetamine rush.

• Malcolm Le Grice at YouTube
• Jeff Keen at YouTube