Minimal Compact – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 455

• At Expanding Mind: Tarot expert Mary Greer talks with Erik Davis about Tarot artist Pamela Colman Smith, the Golden Dawn, the art of illustration, Jung’s active imagination, Smith’s musical visions, and the recent study of Smith’s life and work, Pamela Colman Smith: the Untold Story.

• Almost five years have passed since the last album from Earth (if you discount the Bug vs. Earth collaboration Concrete Desert) but the band will release a new album, Full Upon Her Burning Lips, in May. Cats On The Briar is a taster.

• Charles Bramesco on Sergei Bondarchuk’s astonishing 7-hour adaptation of War and Peace. I watched the whole thing last weekend: all superlatives are justified.

• The History of the Future: James Conway on leaving Australia for a life in Berlin and publishing. Related: Where is Rixdorf?

• At Spoon & Tamago: Keisuke Aiso‘s artworks, including the Ubume sculpture that became the face of the Momo Challenge hoax.

• Mixes of the week: Secret Thirteen Mix 282 by Tourist Gaze, and Big Sister’s Scratchy Singles Vol 1 by radioShirley.

• Alexander Rose on the 26,000-Year Astronomical Monument Hidden in Plain Sight.

• Rebecca Cole and Janise Elie go in search of the Brocken spectre on Burley Moor.

• M. John Harrison: Critical Essays, edited by Rhys Williams and Mark Bould.

• Forest of Resonating Lamps – One Stroke, Cherry Blossoms by teamLab.

• Tour de France: Jonathan Meades selects 13 exercise-bike Classics.

• At Greydogtales: The Cthulhu Mythos for Beginners.

• The Black Tower (1987), a short film by John Smith.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Jean Rollin Day.

• Ishmael Reed doesn’t like Hamilton.

• Babylonian Tower (1982) by Minimal Compact | The Tower (Black Advance) (2007) by Mordant Music | The Tower (Empty Fortress) (2007) by Mordant Music

Weekend links 439

Cammell & Roeg’s Performance (1970) was marketed in Italy with all the restraint for which the Italian film industry has long been celebrated.

• “To the good men I offer the hand of friendship, to the foes of our sex I offer resistance and annihilation!” We Women Have no Fatherland (1899), a novel by Ilse Frapan, is the latest title from Rixdorf Editions.

• More Edward Gorey: Mark Derey discusses his biography on the Virtual Memories Show podcast. Related: Edward Gorey’s Calling Cards, a spoiler-heavy investigation.

• “It starts how most horror films end, and it just keeps building and building, crescendo on crescendo…” Ben Cobb on the original (and, for me, only) Suspiria.

• The next compilation release from the excellent Light In The Attic label will be Kankyo Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980–1990.

• Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air (1970) is a short film by Will Hindle.

• Film producer Sandy Lieberson and author Jay Glennie on Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg’s Performance.

• “Wes Anderson‘s offbeat debut as a curator drove a storied museum’s staff crazy. The results are enchanting.”

• Above Water, Inside, a video by James Ginzburg from his recent album, Six Correlations.

• For the LRB Podcast: Iain Sinclair and Patrick Wright discuss living with buildings.

• Not necessarily the best ambient and space music of 2018: a list by Dave Maier.

• “The net is not a good guide to book prices,” says Mark Valentine.

• David Bennun on 30 years of the Pet Shop Boys’ Introspective.

• Mix of the week: XLR8R Podcast 568 by Young Marco.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Chris Marker Day.

• Introspection Pt. 1 (1969) by The End | Introspection (1984) by Minimal Compact | Intro-Spectiv (1996) by Chris & Cosey

Made To Measure

When you’ve sated yourself on a group’s back catalogue there’s always the solo albums. In the case of Tuxedomoon there are a number of these to choose from, thanks to several of the band members being both multi-instrumentalists and talented songwriters. Some of the more offbeat solo outings may be found among the albums released as part of the Made To Measure series, an offshoot of the excellent Belgian record label, Crammed Discs. Crammed have been Tuxedomoon’s label for some time, and seem increasingly unique in a world where independent labels tend to cater to narrow genres and small, select audiences. Crammed’s roster of artists is extremely eclectic, ranging from the expected Euro-pop and dance releases to a wide range of traditional and contemporary music from around the world.

Made To Measure Vol. 1 (1984). Painting by Fernand Steven.

From 1984 to 1994 the Made To Measure series released over 30 albums that represent the more esoteric side of an already fairly esoteric label. All of the early releases were numbered, and Tuxedomoon happen to be on the first release, Made To Measure Vol. 1, together with Minimal Compact, Benjamin Lew, and Aksak Maboul. The series title refers to all of the music being “made to measure” some pre-existing work—film, theatre, dance performance, etc—although some of the later releases were simply an excuse to put out new music by an established Crammed artist. In addition to the first release, Tuxedomoon members Blaine L. Reininger, Peter Principle and Steven Brown were regular contributors to subsequent albums. Two of the Steven Brown albums, A Propos D’Un Paysage (MTM 15, 1985) and Douzième Journée: Le Verbe, La Parure, L’Amour (MTM 16, 1988) are marvellous instrumental collaborations with Benjamin Lew that are very different in tone to Tuxedomoon but well worth seeking out. Brown also recorded a soundtrack album, De Doute Et De Grace (MTM 22, 1990), with readings by actress Delphine Seyrig. The series has been discontinued in recent years but the MTM numbering was resurrected for the latest Tuxedomoon album, Pink Narcissus, which is MTM 39.

Desert Equations: Azax Attra (1986). Photography by Georg Gerster.

I’ve still not heard all of the Made To Measure series, and I don’t like everything I have heard—I have to be in the mood for Hector Zazou’s quirkier moments. Aside from those mentioned above, the notable releases for me would include Desert Equations: Azax Attra (MTM 8, 1986) by Sussan Deyhim (here credited as Deihim) & Richard Horowitz, an album that led me to acquire almost everything Sussan Deyhim has recorded; If Windows They Have (MTM 13, 1986) by Daniel Schell & Karo; Nekonotopia Nekonomania (MTM 29, 1990) by Seigen Ono; Water (MTM 31, 1992) by David Cunningham; Sahara Blue (MTM 32, 1993) by Hector Zazou; Glyph (MTM 37, 1995) by Harold Budd & Hector Zazou. Sahara Blue exemplifies in miniature the eclecticism of Crammed Discs, being a tribute to Arthur Rimbaud featuring (among others) John Cale, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gérard Depardieu, Khaled, David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Lisa Gerrard, Sussan Deyhim and Tim Simenon.

For those wishing to explore further without shelling out on mysterious, unknown quantities, I’d recommend The Made To Measure Résumé (1987), a compilation of tracks from the first 16 MTM releases, and an ideal introduction to the series.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Subterranean Modern: The Residents, Chrome, MX-80 Sound and Tuxedomoon
• Tuxedomoon on La Edad de Oro, 1983
• Tuxedomoon designs by Patrick Roques
• Pink Narcissus: James Bidgood and Tuxedomoon

Weekend links 127

M15, The Whirlpool Galaxy photographed by Martin Pugh. The overall and deep space winner of Astronomy Photographer of the Year, 2012.

• The Final Academy, the series of William Burroughs-themed events that took place in London and Manchester in 1982, will be celebrated at the Horse Hospital, London, on 27th October. Academy 23, a publication edited by Matthew Levi Stevens, will include my report on the Manchester Haçienda performances.

• “Architects are the last people who should shape our cities,” says the thrillingly pugnacious Jonathan Meades in a piece from his new writing collection Museums Without Walls. Andy Beckett reviews the book here.

• Ex-Minimal Compact singer/bassist Malka Spigel talks about her new album, Every Day Is Like The First Day, which can be streamed in full here.

What’s new about the current acknowledgments page is that it’s unsolicited—it appears like an online pop-up ad, benefiting no one but the author and his comrades. This is surely why these afterwords are often so garrulously narcissistic and strewn with clichés. The most radical experimentalist adheres to the most mindless acknowledgments-page formula; the most stinging social critic suddenly becomes Sally Field winning an Oscar.

Sam Sacks at the New Yorker on the blight of novelists’ acknowledgments pages. DG Myers at Commentary Magazine piles on.

• Another streaming album: Composed by Jherek Bischoff. Try Insomnia, Death & The Sea featuring Dawn McCarthy.

• Film of Lindsay Kemp being interviewed in 1977 about his production of Salomé.

• Electronic Performers (2004): a video by Machine Molle for the song by Air.

One of a series of Beardsley-like drawings by Djuna Barnes posted at Strange Flowers. The resurgent Ms. Barnes is mentioned three times in this Terry Castle review of All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen.

• Fictitious Dishes, meals from novels photographed by Dinah Fried.

• Life, the Dinosaurs & Everything: Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino.

• The Baby Died: Morbid Curiosities found in Old Newspapers.

• Portishead’s Adrian Utley gives a tour of his synth collection.

• Minimal Compact: Babylonian Tower (1982) | Not Knowing (1984) | When I Go (1985) | Nil Nil (1987).

Weekend links 25

A commemorative Borges coin.

He says, “Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms. Guided by the former, art turns into a copy of the environment’s objectivity or the individual’s psychic history.” There, of course, he sums up all of realism, no? “Guided by the latter, art is redeemed, makes the world into its instrument and forges, beyond spatial and temporal prisons, a personal vision.” That’s Borges.

• The Borges Behind the Fiction: Colin Marshall talks to translator Suzanne Jill Levine. Related: The Garden of Forking Paths.

• From The Quietus: Blondie in Conversation with William S. Burroughs by Victor Bockris, 1979; An Interview with Laurie Anderson by Robert Barry, 2010.

In 962 Abd-er Rahman III was succeeded by his son Al-Hakim. Owing to the peace which the Christians of Cordova then enjoyed […] the citizens of Cordova, Arabs, Christians, and Jews, enjoyed so high a degree of literary culture that the city was known as the New Athens. From all quarters came students eager to drink at its founts of knowledge. Among the men afterwards famous who studied at Cordova were the scholarly monk Gerbert, destined to sit on the Chair of Peter as Sylvester II (999–1003), the Jewish rabbis Moses and Maimonides, and the famous Spanish-Arabian commentator on Aristotle, Averroes.

Entry for The Diocese of Cordova from The Catholic Encyclopedia (1917).

• Professor Newt’s Distorted History Lesson. A riposte to the ignorance of the wretched Gingrich. Related: the Mezquita de Córdoba.

Jorge Luis Borges and a cat. Via.

• Joseph and His Friend—A Story of Pennsylvania (1870) by Bayard Taylor, America’s first (?) gay novel. Related: 20 classic works of gay literature.

• Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens at the Shaw Theatre, London, from 10–28 August 2010.

• Tristan Perich’s 1-Bit Symphony is released later this month. Café Kaput’s first release, Electronic Music in the Classroom by DD Denham, appears in September.

• “Just relax and enjoy it.” k-punk on the ambition and vision of David Rudkin’s Artemis 81.

• Chris Watson explores Alan Lamb’s The Wires: three audio recordings to download.

• Jonathan Barnbrook: Tuxedomoon fan, 1988, and Tuxedomoon designer, 2007.

• Rob Young’s Electric Eden reviewed by Michel Faber.

• Brian Eno gets the Warp factor.

• No Tears (1978) by Tuxedomoon; Atomic (1979) by Blondie; Everything You Want (1980) by Tuxedomoon; Next One Is Real (1984) by Minimal Compact; Hologram (2010) by These New Puritans.