Friday 19 June 2015

CRITICAL WAVES RADIO

Detail from the Bike Cemetery, before it was defaced.
The first entry on here is a podcast that I made about the Bike Cemetery in Hackney Wick, now sadly, but perhaps inevitably, defaced, though some of the others are well worth a listen, too. Sonya Dyer, James O'Leary, Jo Coleman and Arthur Keegan-Boles' caught my attention, either via their subject matter or their execution, whilst they all are worth a listen (I have just spent an enjoyable evening doing exactly that).

Attentive readers might have noticed that I credit the Bike Cemetery Band or Bike Cemetery Brass in a lot of my recordings. They are named after this site, or rather, what this site was. The header to this blog, the fetching animation which scrolls the incantation "WOLF VANISH" across a zinc or aluminium strip going across a thoroughly graffitied wall, is taken from the Bike Cemetery as it was - obviously, sans animation. The podcast was made for the Critical Waves project, which is to encourage academics to find ways of making their research pod or radio-friendly (or at least amenable).

There are two programs on resonancefm to come, scheduled for Tuesday 23rd and Tuesday 30th June, 8-9pm, where some of the podcasts produced for this project will be played and discussed, mine amongst them. Tune in if you're around, or listen later online.

PERFORMANCE ART FACTION BOX SET

I have just had an essay published in a box set archive of texts and performance documentation by the ever-brilliant Performance ]S P A C E[, who champion the sort of performance work that struggles to find a home in our current dispensation. The box set is purchasable and well worth it (I will add a link to shop when I can find one), and a virtual copy can be perused here.
I performed at the launch last night, held at Live Art Development Agencies' place in Hackney Wick, providing me with an ideal context to pour anathema on hipster street artists and the area in general, combined with some thoughts on Jean Genet. I'm editing the video of it now, and it will be up in the next hour or two.

Saturday 6 June 2015

NEW TRACK - WALKMAN DUB




Just done an hour or so ago. The "Walkman" bit of the title is a reference to the sound of the beat (made with a '70s home organ beat emulator) which I then put through a reverb loaded with an impulse response made from walkman over-the-head style headphones - from the outside of them, obviously. I love that sound, although it was always irritating to hear on the tube or bus. It is now somewhat a thing of the past, because earbuds don't leak in the same way.
I hoped that the whole thing has something of that '90s feel, like a twisted nod to the likes of  Enigma (who were truly horrible), with their liturgical choir sounds and programmed beats - "chillout" bollocks for the end of history. I've been thinking a lot about the '90s lately, a "low, dishonest decade" if ever there was one.There may be more on this..