​Liner Notes for Marcus Fischer’s Monocoastal

 

“The Portland, Oregon–based musician Marcus Fischer invited me to write liner notes for his album Monocoastal on the 10th anniversary of its release by the 12k Records label, run by Taylor Deupree. The reissue, on glorious vinyl for the first time, with a cover image by Gregory Euclide, will be released later this month, on June 18. 1. This Second Hum. There is music that one might hum, and there is another musical hum entirely. The latter is music as hum, music that approaches the quality, the substance, of hum itself — music that both envisions and enacts a deeper hum, something that the listener is not merely entranced by but ensconced within. ...”

disquiet (Audio)

12k (Video)

marcus fischer - sound + art from portland, oregon (Video)

Discogs (Video)

Soundcloud (Audio)

YouTube: Marcus Fischer studio performance & live rig rundown // ambient tape loops with guitar and Eurorack, Marcus Fischer |  Whitney Museum | Live Performance Full

​What Happened During the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, One of the Worst Episodes of Racial Violence in U.S. History

 

“In February 1915, Thomas Dixon, author of popular novel The Clansman, and D.W. Griffith, the director who adapted the book into the film Birth of a Nation, lobbied then-president Woodrow Wilson for a screening at the White House. The two were sure their story would get a warm reception from the ‘well documented racist’ and onetime scholar who produced a five-volume History of the American People, in which he portrayed the South as ‘overrun by ex-slaves who were undeserving of freedom,’ as Boston University journalism professor Dick Lehr remarks. ... The moment was pivotal for the birth of the Civil Rights movement, he argues in a recent book. Following the country’s entry into World War I, it also lit the fires of what novelist, composer and executive director of the NAACP James Weldon Johnson called ‘Red Summer’… a summer of lynchings, lootings, burnings, shootings and other violence. ...”

Open Culture (Video)

NY Times: What the Tulsa Race Massacre Destroyed

NY Times: 100 Years After the Tulsa Massacre, What Does Justice Look Like? (Audio)

W - Tulsa race massacre

LOC - Tulsa Race Massacre: Newspaper Complicity and Coverages

Freddie McKay / Augustus Pablo - I'm A Freeman (1973)

 

“... Never contracted to one label or producer Freddie recorded sparingly over the next few years. His second album, 'Lonely Man', released on Dynamic in 1974 and produced by Warwick Lynn and Neville Hinds featured a further version of 'I'm A Free Man'. Essential seven inch records such as the captivating 'Rock A Bye Woman', first released on Rad Bryan's Hot Rod label, helped to establish his legendary status. Versioned by Horace Andy and Jah Bull as 'Ital Vital' this ever popular record is regularly played out by discerning selectors. Another version of 'I'm A Free Man' for youth producer Leonald 'Santic' Chin (Leonald Chin), and complete with mournful melodica, proved massively popular and provided the rhythm track for one of Augustus Pablo's most memorable early outings 'Hap Ki Do'. Freddie's chilling version to Dennis Brown's monumental 'At The Foot Of The Mountain', produced by Eddie Wong, entitled Won't Get Away' was yet another certified classic from this period. ...”

Reggae Collector

W - Freddie McKay

Bandcamp: Freddie McKay/Santic/ Pablo (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

YouTube: I'm A Freeman, SoundCloud: McKay/Augustus Pablo "I'm A Freeman"/"Hapkido" (Monica's)

​15 Essential Italian Neorealism Films You Need To Watch

 

Obsession (1943)

“In Italy, fascism and cinema had always been in a strange relationship. After millions of deaths, years of war and violence; fascism left only two positive things behind: Venice Film Festival and Cinecitta. Fascism, as a consequence of WWII, left thousands of people homeless in Italy; and of course, filmmakers studioless. Great Italian Studio Cinecitta, established by Benito Mussolini in 1937, was damaged significantly during the battles and bombings. This led the filmmakers to go into streets, to experience live action. ... From humanism to communism, from liberal to socialist, this new generation searched for new ways to tell stories of post-war Italy (even, Europe), to formulate a story by keeping the budget low and to hold Zeitgeist in palms of their hands. ...”

Taste of Cinema

 

Bitter Rice (1949)

​The Impressionist Art of Seeing and Being Seen

 

Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight - Berthe Morisot (1875)

“The still of the seaside, away from the noise and gossip of the city. Lapping waves, gentle breeze. It's a bit overcast, but why complain? We’re on vacation. Impressionist paintings, after decades of auction records and print-on-demand posters, have become the most reliable crowd-pleasers of European art. Pretty light. Happy haystacks. Believe me: In 1875, they were hardly so soothing. They were views of a society rocketing through modernization, and losing its bearings as it accelerated. ...”

NY Times

Impossible Owls: Essays from the Ends of the World - Brian Phillips

 

“In his highly anticipated debut essay collection, Impossible Owls, Brian Phillips demonstrates why he's one of the most iconoclastic journalists of the digital age, beloved for his ambitious, off-kilter, meticulously reported essays that read like novels. The eight essays assembled here--five from Phillips's Grantland and MTV days, and three new pieces--go beyond simply chronicling some of the modern world's most uncanny, unbelievable, and spectacular oddities (though they do that, too). ...”

goodreads

amazon

Laurie Spiegel - Waveshaper TV. Part 1 of 3: Bell Labs

 

“This is the first in a 3-part video interview series with the seminal electronic & computer music pioneer. In Part 1, Laurie recounts her years working as an in-house composer, developer, and programmer at Bell Labs. Part 1 - Bell Labs (now streaming) = 9min 16sec. Part 2 - Voyager (Jan 28) = 7min 42sec. Part 3 - The Expanding Universe (Feb 04) = 7min 53sec. The full-length Laurie Spiegel interview is over 50 minutes long - it's practically a mini-documentary! - and it will be available exclusively to our Patreon members, who also get early access to all of our interview video Episodes. You can read up on Waveshaper TV on Patreon, and support our mission to document electronic music history. ...”

Mod Wiggler (Video)

2011 May: Laurie Spiegel, 2012 November: Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe, 2014 February: The Interstellar Contract, 2015 September: Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music, 2015 October: Laurie Spiegel: Grassroots Technologist, 2016 June: Meet Four Women Who Pioneered Electronic Music: Daphne Oram, Laurie Spiegel, Éliane Radigue & Pauline Oliveros, 2017 January: Resident Visitor: Laurie Spiegel's Machine Music, 2017 July: Space, Energy & Light: Experimental Electronic And Acoustic Soundscapes 1961-88, 2017 July: Watch Aura Satz’s short film about Laurie Spiegel, 2019 January: Obsolete Systems (2001)

Habibi Funk: The Scorpions & Saif Abu Bakr - Jazz, Jazz, Jazz

“... This album happens to be my first conscious connection with Sudanese music. Habibi Funk must have already existed for a year or so but I had not yet come across any recording from Sudan that I felt fitting in the context we set for our self. I remember I did some quick research in the aftermath of the auction (which I obviously did not win) to gather some information about the band but apart from some vague bits and pieces I could not find anything. In most encyclopedic overviews of the Sudanese music scene of the 1970s the band appeared as a mere footnote. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: Nile Waves, Hilwa ya Amoora

​Gowanus Canal

 

 

Ratzer Map, Discovery Editions

“The Gowanus Canal (originally known as the Gowanus Creek) is a 1.8-mile-long (2.9 km) canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the westernmost portion of Long Island. Once a vital cargo transportation hub, the canal has seen decreasing use since the mid-20th century, parallel with the decline of domestic waterborne shipping. It continues to be used for occasional movement of goods and daily navigation of small boats, tugs and barges. ... The canal arose in the mid-19th century from local tidal wetlands and freshwater streams. By the end of the 19th century, heavy industrial use had caused large amounts of pollutants to drain into the Gowanus Canal. Various attempts to remove the pollution or dilute the canal's water have failed. Even though most industrial tenants stopped using the Gowanus Canal in the middle of the 20th century, the pollution was never remedied. ...”

Wikipedia

BKLYNR: Dirty Dreamer (May 2013)

The Changing Faces of Red Hook, as Seen in Maps From 1770 to the Present

YouTube: Dredging Starts on the Gowanus Canal, One of America’s Dirtiest Waterways, Gowanus, Brooklyn | DiverseCITY

2016 May: GOWANUS! Brooklyn’s Troubled Waters

 

Gennaro Brooks-Church has converted his house into an ecological laboratory.

​Sans-culottes

 

“The sans-culottes (... literally ‘without breeches‘) were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th-century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime. The word sans-culotte, which is opposed to that of the aristocrat, seems to have been used for the first time on 28 February 1791 by officer Gauthier in a derogatory sense, speaking about a ‘sans-culottes army’. The word came into vogue during the demonstration of 20 June 1792. The name sans-culottes refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower-class status: culottes were the fashionable silk knee-breeches of the 18th-century nobility and bourgeoisie, and the working class sans-culottes wore pantaloons, or trousers, instead. ...”

Wikipedia

YouTube: UFH BASTILLE DAY SPECIAL: Fashion of Les Sans Culottes

 

The uprising of the Parisian sans-culottes from 31 May to 2 June 1793. The scene takes place in front of the Deputies Chamber in the Tuileries. The depiction shows Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles and Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud.

2014 February: French Revolution Digital Archive, 2015 July: A Guide to the French Revolution, 2016 April: Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France, 2017 March: Paris Commune 1871, 2018 February: Flash Mob: Revolution, Lightning, and the People’s Will, 2020 February: The French Rural Revolution 1789-1793

Possessed - Laurel Halo (2020)

 

“Laurel Halo presents an album’s worth of score provided for the 2018 experimental documentary Possessed by Dutch design collective Metahaven, produced in collaboration with Rob Schröder and Dutch Mountain Films. Her first foray into writing music for the screen, the album provides a rich variety of sounds, from aqueous, subterranean drones, to plaintive folk pieces for violin and cello, to uncanny pseudoclassical piano mutations. It’s fitting for Laurel Halo to move into the score world. ...”

Bandcamp (Audio)

London In Stereo

W - Laurel Halo

YouTube: Laurel Halo at Semibreve Festival 2020 (Live) 21:52, Possessed (Original Score) 1 / 12

​Antares

 

Antares between τ (lower left) and σ Scorpii. Antares appears white in this WISE false colour infrared image.

“Antares designated α Scorpii (Latinised to Alpha Scorpii, abbreviated Alpha Sco, α Sco), is on average the fifteenth-brightest star in the night sky, and the brightest object in the constellation of Scorpius. Distinctly reddish when viewed with the naked eye, Antares is a slow irregular variable star that ranges in brightness from apparent magnitude +0.6 to +1.6. Often referred to as ‘the heart of the scorpion’, Antares is flanked by σ Scorpii and τ Scorpii near the center of the constellation. Classified as spectral type M1.5Iab-Ib, Antares is a red supergiant, a large evolved massive star and one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye.  Its exact size remains uncertain, but if placed at the center of the Solar System, it would reach to somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Its mass is calculated to be around 12 times that of the Sun. ...”

Wikipedia

W - Scorpius

​Epic Iran

 

A room in the exhibition “Epic Iran” at the Victoria and Albert Museum that is devoted to Persepolis, the ancient city that was once the capital of the Persian Empire.

“The board game is roughly 4,500 years old. Shaped like a bird of prey, it has holes running down its wings and chest, where the pieces were once positioned. It’s one of a few dozen ancient objects that were set to travel from the National Museum of Iran for a spectacular exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum here. But they never came.Other artifacts that were set to be shown — as detailed and illustrated and in the catalog for that exhibition ‘Epic Iran’ — included a gold mask, a long-handled silver pan and a carved stone goblet. ...”

NY Times: Looking Beyond the Ayatollah to the Treasures of Iran

V&A: Epic Iran (Video)

Guardian - Five thousand years of mystical magnificence: Epic Iran at the V&A – review

 

A folio from the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp, Tabriz, about 1523 – 35. The Sarikhani Collection

'I make these collages and write': Alice Notley's visual art

 

Alice Notley reading from ‘When I Was Alive’ at her MoMA PS1 show. 

“Alice Notley’s one and only exhibition of her visual art in the United States was in 1980 at MoMA PS1. The press release, written by Notley, notes that her collages are made ‘of paper (potential trash) from the poet/artist’s life, pieces of illustrations from favorite cheap books, sidewalk discoveries, and things she could see on the floor, from her chair, and was too lazy to throw away.’ Notley’s nonchalance toward her materials should not be mistaken for a lack of aesthetic intensity. Like her visionary poetry, which she has written and published continuously for over fifty years, Notley’s visual art is defined by intricate layers of presence and association as well as common themes: light, femininity, and irreducibility. ...”

Jacket2

W - Alice Notley

Poetry Foundation: My Fans By Alice Notley 

Poetry Foundation: Notes on  ‘Runes and Chords’ By Alice Notley

Poetry Foundation - ‘Spirit Flows From Pieces’: Alice Notley’s Collage Art

“Parthenon Fan,” 1992

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

 “Wild Combination begins with interviews of Russell's parents discussing their youngest offspring's childhood. The film describes how Russell as a young boy is obsessed with Timothy Leary and insecure about his acne. Leaving Iowa for San Francisco in the late sixties, he joins a Buddhist collective and befriends Allen Ginsberg. Russell decides to move to New York in the early seventies, where he starts working as the musical director of the Kitchen and becomes part of the downtown scene of artists, sharing an apartment building with Allen Ginsberg and Richard Hell. Russell engages in nearly every music scene the city has to offer: disco at David Mancuso's Loft, rock at CBGB, minimal composition at the Kitchen, and Allen Ginsberg's poetry recitations. In 1978, Russell begins dating Tom Lee, whom he stays with until his AIDS-related death in 1992. ...”

Wikipedia

Guardian - My streaming gem: why you should watch Wild Combination (Video)

Criterion (Video)

2015 November: Love Of Life Orchestra ‎– Extended Niceties EP (1980), 2015 September: Arthur Russell, 2017 January: Instrumentals (2007), 2017 April: The Infinite Worlds of Arthur Russell, 2018 December: The World Of Arthur Russell (2004), 2019 May: Another Thought (1994), 2020 May: Vanished into Music

​60 minutes of music that sum up art-punk pioneers Wire

 

“... It’d be a stretch to say that Wire was the first art-punk band, given that much of the New York proto-punk scene (such as Patti Smith and Television) had ties to the art world, and a lot of the arty musicians that inspired Wire (such as Roxy Music and Neu) were skating on the edge of punk years before the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. But at a time in rock ’n’ roll when ‘art’ meant something either aggressively avant-garde or pretentiously progressive, Wire offered an attractive combination of the experimental and the accessible. Even at its inception, when the band was redefining what a song could be by writing and recording minute-long vignettes, the music usually had actual melodies and riffs—or, at the least, interesting sounds that could pass for a hook. ...”

AV CLUB (Video)

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979, 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979), 2014 July: Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980), 2015 April: The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums, 2015 July: Pink Flag (1977), 2015 December: The Peel Sessions Album (1989), “Dot Dash”, "Options R" (1978), 2017 June: Outdoor Miner / Practice Makes Perfect (1979), 2017 November: Live at the Roxy, London, 2018 June: Wire at Maxwell's (06-12-1987)

Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965 - David H. Rosenthal

From The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 1988: “Hard Bop, as a dominant school of jazz, flourished between 1955 and 1965—a decade unrivalled by any other in jazz history for the number of musically brilliant records that were issued. ... In addition to these magnificent recordings—and many others could be cited—the period also witnessed an outpouring of superb music that, while not quite up to the level of the records just mentioned, was notable for its passion and beauty. The foundation for this music was ‘bebop,’ a style that flourished in the late 1940s, whose high priests included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Bud Powell and composer Tadd Dameron. ...”

The Jazz Annex

W - David H. Rosenthal

amazon

Walter Benjamin - Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (1969)

 

“German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940) was a writer, a philosopher, a critic, a spiritual sceptic, and, most of all, a collector. Benjamin collected ideas, concepts, books, and small items of personal cosmic worth. Illuminations is a collection of Benjamin’s essays—critical and otherwise—chosen and edited by philosopher Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a scholar on institutionalized evil, tell us that collecting was ‘Benjamin’s central passion’ and that he had a destructive affinity for the past. ...”

The Examined Life

Walter Benjamin on Information vs. Wisdom and Storytelling as the Antidote to Death by News

[PDF] Illuminations

amazon

2015 September: In praise of dirty, sexy cities: the urban world according to Walter Benjamin, 2020 September: On Benjamin’s Public (Oeuvre), 2020 November: When Waking Begins

Glen Brown And King Tubby - Termination Dub (1973-79)

 

“Originally a singer, Glen Brown first ventured into production in the early '70s, releasing his distinct creations through homegrown labels. However, financial constraints ultimately led to a lack of success, with Brown unable to press as many copies as he would undoubtedly have been able to sell. Regardless, he continued to produce, turning out a series of excellent records during the second half of the decade. The rhythms Brown oversaw during those years, as performed by drummers Carlton Barrett and Carlton ‘Santa’ Davis, bassists Aston Barrett and Lloyd Parks, organists Winston Wright and Earl Lindo, and many others of similar stature, stand up to virtually anything from the roots era. ...”

Holland Tunnel Dive

Discogs (Video)

amazon

YouTube: Termination Dub (1973-79) [Full Album]  49:01

​Debatable: Has the Pentagon covered up space aliens?

 

Former Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who worked to fund a Pentagon program for U.F.O. research in 2007.

“At some point next month, U.S. intelligence agencies are expected to brief Congress about recorded encounters between military personnel and mysterious flying objects appearing to defy the limits of known human technology. Yes, U.F.O.s. And yes, explained to the same branch of government that once had to ask Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook works. ... How did we get here, and how should we take the suggestion — made by a former C.I.A. director, among others — that these U.F.O.s are of alien origin? Here’s what people are saying. ...”

NY Times (Video)

​Dawn Delight: Catch the Total Lunar Eclipse on May 26th

 

“If it feels like a while since the Moon took a deep dive into Earth's shadow, you're right. The last total lunar eclipse occurred on January 21, 2019, followed by four penumbral eclipses in 2020. Wait no more! On May 26th, observers in the western half of North America, western South America, East Asia, and Australia will once again see the Moon fully eclipsed. This eclipse will be short and sweet much like the total solar variety, with the Moon spending just 15.9 minutes inside the umbra, Earth's central shadow. The brief visit is due to two factors. First, the Moon passes well north of the umbra's center with its northern limb nearly tangent to the umbra's edge. Minutes after it enters the shadow, it pushes out the other side. ...”

Sky & Telescope

W - Lunar eclipse

YouTube: Total Lunar Eclipse | Griffith Observatory | May 26, 2021  3:40:52, “The Flower Super Blood Moon Total Eclipse”: online observation – 26 May  2021  2:01:35

Official Secrets - Gavin Hood (2019)

 

“... The whistle-blower in ‘Official Secrets’ has only one memo to print out, a modest if mighty task that here looks like, well, a woman anxiously using an office printer in bad lighting. One of those ripped-from-the-headlines jobs, ‘Official Secrets’ revisits how a British intelligence officer, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley), tried to stop a war. In 2003, a few months before the invasion of Iraq, Gun received an email that had been sent to her division in Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (a.k.a. GCHQ). It was from Frank Koza, identified as the chief of staff for the regional targets division at the National Security Agency of the United States. ...”

NY Times - ‘Official Secrets’ Review: Betraying Her Government for Her Country (Video)

Guardian - Official Secrets review – Keira Knightley shines as a very British whistleblower (Video)

W - Official Secrets

amazon

YouTube: OFFICIAL SECRETS - Official Trailer [HD] Keira Knightley

May 25 Should Be a Day of Mourning for George Floyd

 

“Carrying Casket”, by Jammie Holmes, Library Street Collective.

“When the protests started in the streets of Denver last spring, days after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, I watched dozens of people marching with anguish and affliction on their faces. Several of them were crying, or clearly had been. When I watched the video of the final moments of Mr. Floyd’s life, I myself felt the telltale symptoms of grief: a clenched stomach; a surge of adrenaline; and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. As they unfolded over the next days and weeks, the protests seemed like a moment when Black grief — a feeling familiar for Black Americans after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till and so many others — might finally become collective grief for the rest of America. ...”

NY Times: Opinion

 

“George Floyd’s murder felt like everything was the same and nothing was the same, said Miski Noor, an activist in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a white police officer a year ago on 25 May. ‘How many times have we seen Black death go viral?’ asked Noor, the co-founder of Black Visions, which advocates for abolition, an approach to public safety that does not involve the police. Noor, who helped found the group in 2017, knows that to abolish policing you also must confront systemic racism and the weight of history. And Noor also knows as the child of Somali immigrants, that the issues are global. ...”

Guardian - One year on, how George Floyd’s murder has changed the world (Video)

NY Times: A Timeline of What Has Happened in the Year Since George Floyd’s Death

NY Times: One Year Later

George Floyd Memorial Center plans Day of Enlightenment (Video)

​Two portraits of one lowdown saloon in 1919 Greenwich Village

 

“The Village has always had dive bars that attract locals and luminaries. But The Golden Swan, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street, might have been the first—and the most notorious in its day. Inside this Irish tavern dating back to at least the 1870s, writers, artists, activists, and assorted Village characters of the 1910s gathered to drink. (National prohibition was looming, after all.) While the front of the tavern may have catered to locals and Hudson Dusters gangsters, bohemians made the back room—aka, the Hell Hole—their own. Charles Demuth was a fan of the Swan. ...”

Ephemeral New York

​Chess in the arts

 

Honoré Daumier (1863), The Chess Players

“Chess became a source of inspiration in the arts in literature soon after the spread of the game to the Arab World and Europe in the Middle Ages. The earliest works of art centered on the game are miniatures in medieval manuscripts, as well as poems, which were often created with the purpose of describing the rules. After chess gained popularity in the 15th and 16th centuries, many works of art related to the game were created. One of the best-known, Marco Girolamo Vida's poem Scacchia ludus, written in 1527, made such an impression on the readers that it singlehandedly inspired other authors to create poems about chess. In the 20th century, artists created many works related to the game, sometimes taking their inspiration from the life of famous players (Vladimir Nabokov in The Defense) or  well-known games (Poul Anderson in Immortal Game, John Brunner in The Squares of the City). ...”

Wikipedia

Chess in the Arts

The Chess Players — John Lavery (1929)

Andrea Belfi & Machinefabriek ‎– Pulses & Places (2009)

 

“This ninth release in the Brombron series (hosted by Korm Plastics) comes from the absurdly prolific Machinefabriek and Italian electro-acoustic musician Andrea Belfi.  For this project, Rutger Zuydervelt plays guitar and organ, while Belfi concentrates on drums and assorted percussive instruments. While the mood of the music is consistent with Machinefabriek's propensity towards atmospheric, detailed ambience, there's a markedly more organic aspect to this music that sets it apart from most of the Dutch composer's collaborations. The presence of Belfi's live, acoustic drums puts a very different slant on this music, bringing a kind of swaying, somnolent rhythm to the first piece, while Zuydervelt's layered drones map out a woozy trail. ...”

Boomkat

Bandcamp (Audio)

W - Andrea Belfi, W - Machinefabriek

Discogs (Video)

YouTube: Pulses & Places (Full Album) 34:13