Currently Open Tabs On Google Chrome
I’ve tried - god help me I’ve tried - to like classical music. My father was a musician in the army for nine years before I was born: a position one could hold, at that time, without having to enter battle. He played every instrument under the sun. He blared vinyls from his 90s hi-fi. One of my earliest memories is him and my brother practicing trumpet in the living room. I had a childhood friend who was a musical prodigy, playing piano and oboe. He now teaches composition at a prestigious UK university. I had every opportunity to get into classical music, but I couldn’t. For me composition began at Webern, went through The great postwar composers - Feldman, Cage, Stockhausen - and dissolved into the avant-garde mush of extreme noise, sound art and present day musique concrète that has so emphatically defined my life. I don’t know why Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos have cut through for me other than to say: in the past I thought I could distinguish classical music as another genre, i.e. I don’t want to listen to classical music because I’m in the mood to listen to techno. The Brandenburg Concertos have made me realise classical music is a different mode of consciousness entirely…
…all of which is a pretty good segue to this tab I left open from Bandcamp. The project of a voice, its two shadows hit me up on social media after they found my Orphanage (for Ami Yoshida and Utah Kawasaki). That Yoshida, a member of of a voice, found and repeatedly shouted out my love letter to her and Kawasaki was one of those underground music nerd moments that teenage me couldn’t have imagined. of a voice recently linked up this 2002 release by Yoshida which would, give or take, have been a year prior to me discovering her.
‘Champagne & Reefer’ by Bongzilla
Glasgow-based visual poet/Ian Hamilton Finlay scholar extraordinaire Greg Thomas (who is also one third of the excellent Food People) cited this track in an Instagram story. I always felt, albeit with my limited knowledge of rock scenes, that psychedelia was woefully under utilised by metal bands. It always seemed like they took the prog end of psychedelia, producing bands like Dream Theatre or Tool and I guess The Mars Volta (but the metal heads I grew up with never listened to them). Bongzilla have that dirty, bluesy weight of sound that suits blissed out drug vibes so well. Top marks. Heavy af.
I love learning that natural occurrences we take for granted have a strong ecological function. I recently found out moss retains moisture and, therefore, regulates the surrounding environment. There’s something haunted about bogs. I mean, they’re built from dead things. They speak to me of the social world: that people who are pushed to one side are often those that create more diversity, more life, and thus a healthier world. Which sounds very trite in the cold light of text but fuck you I wrote it.
Power failure knocks out London Underground lines
This sent me into a minor social anxiety spiral: wanting to message my London people to make sure they’re OK but not wanting to bother them because they’ve probably got more important things to do rn than add me to their to do lists which further puts me in the dark as to whether or not they’re OK which makes me want to message them… In the end, reason - that it was just the London Underground and not the whole city - won out. This, with what happened in Spain and Portugal recently, makes me realise just how lethal it would be to have a longterm power outage. It makes me think, Oh, shit. Should I buy candles? Should I buy spam? What food lasts years without needing to be cooked? Am I a prepper now? At what point does this make me a prepper?
I first heard about this from film curator and good egg Holly Rowland. I’ll always be happy if seemingly inaccessible movies get attention. I’ve been a bit exhausted by just how many coming out movies LGBTQ+ cinema needs, whether I think they’re good or not. Castration Movie looks like a welcome alternative, something that returns to the fuck you-ness of the early films of Todd Haynes or Gus Van Sant or Gregg Araki. Although, let’s be honest, Araki never lost his fuck you-ness. In any case, I’m glad this is getting reported on and isn’t another glorious eccentricity collecting dust on Ubuweb. I look forward to watching it at some point.