Apr 18, 2014
Apr 11, 2014
Jan 1, 2014
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 4, 2013
Surrational Instructions
Surrational Instructions (3):
To open the sounding device:
Place a small spoonful of wasabi
directly on the container plate, add two drops of lemon water and one
half-microgram of salt; move your face away when the flash-paper
ignites the wick. When the spool has fallen over the mouse-basket,
inhale the high tides; flush the remaining polar stars into your
wandering garden without delay.
To reveal potential phrases left unsaid
with fading light:
Throw used cannisters with extreme
prejudice into the melted star irons at the end of the block; wait
for nightfall and paint on the wall with most moonlight that you are
saturated with stars; the day will begin again when you swallow the
moon. Then the words you seek will emerge from melted garland
splashes.
To refresh the device when there is no
incoming sound:
Count to six, break open the disposable
heuristic grate, climb down the pipe, and shatter the multicolored
glass. Pile up the debris inside a butterfly cloak and insert a
broken watch; after a fortnight you must swallow the sun to enable
the picture viewer.
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 19, 2013
SFT Halloween Communique
The
Sadean-Fourierist Tendency recently declared that 'Halloween will not
end this year' and encouraged everyone to continue wearing costumes or
dressing up until 'after Christmas season' or longer, in order to
promote 'gothic sex appeal' and 'awareness of pleasure' in the midst of
'the lack of a reasonable priceless economic system' on whose noxious
absence the shopping malls continue their 'recuperation
of imagination.'
Further, they announced 'the end of repressive decorum' by suggesting that people boldly announce their desires to their surroundings at any time in the form of a song, joke, poem, spell or insult. The message was delivered from the air; tiny golden boxes containing ornate scrolls tied with red ribbons rained across town. Once the parchment was unrolled, it dissolved in a purple flash after two minutes, causing a slight burn to the hands, and leaving the smell of roasting onions.
Further, they announced 'the end of repressive decorum' by suggesting that people boldly announce their desires to their surroundings at any time in the form of a song, joke, poem, spell or insult. The message was delivered from the air; tiny golden boxes containing ornate scrolls tied with red ribbons rained across town. Once the parchment was unrolled, it dissolved in a purple flash after two minutes, causing a slight burn to the hands, and leaving the smell of roasting onions.
Aug 9, 2013
Jul 5, 2013
Jun 23, 2013
Apr 8, 2013
Mar 5, 2013
Feb 14, 2013
Jan 28, 2013
Dec 25, 2012
Nov 28, 2012
Nov 9, 2012
Sep 18, 2012
Aug 23, 2012
Attempt to think of a room
The room falls into the sea from the north as if cliffside. It could be out of
sorts with air surf anti matter gum threads opening in the southeast. It's the
roots of the sea in the bowling vessels that stabilize the angle. It's a fold
along space where echoes collect, leaving lines on the floor, living shadows
with which to dance and write, to break into the world with this rolling
unconscious of history.
The room opens onto a cliff in the other direction, stalking higher and
higher an obsessive angle leading gravity down to the airport valley and
Colombia slough to the north. Wet snakes slip through rivers and seas to the
north west of the room. From time to time there are fireworks in the fans.
Whispers, breaths of wind in dust memes of apocalypse stirred by the raccoons of
turgid fury.
The tunnel's exit is an obstacle course that doesn't hold its shape.
---Attempt to poetically psycho-geographize a room, and think in extended and
microscopic spacial terms.
Jul 30, 2012
Jun 17, 2012
Qkcofse: Flywheel Imp
My second album of experimental noise and ambient improvisation has been released via suRRIsm-Phonoethics and the Free Music Archive. Here's one link to download or listen:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Qkcofse/Flywheel_Imp/
May 3, 2012
Apr 2, 2012
Mar 14, 2012
Patricide Four: The Sound of Surrealism
Many surrealists have written about music and sound in the last several decades, most notably LaDonna Smith, Davey Williams, Johannes Bergmark, Franklin Rosemont, Paul Garon, Ted Joans, Hal Rammel, Ron Sakolsky, Michael Vandelaar, Eric Bragg and otheors. Patricide Four is following in a similar vein, but doesn't include or reference all these authors in its tentative examination of surrealism and music. The book is one contribution to the study of this enjoyable subject and makes no claim to completeness. The limited edition publication also includes a 42 track CD.
The most interesting material concerns surrealists and interested others engaged in music, noise, and sound collage pursuits. There are a series of questions presumably put together by editor Neil Coombs which are answered to various degrees by Bergmark, Bragg, James Nice, and Matthias Schuster. All who replied share some common ground in that they value chance, improvisation and the subconscious, and all feel that surrealism has directly or indirectly influenced the work of 20th century musicians, although Nice gives more credit to Futurism and Dada. Nice seems to have a biased view which relates more to past rather than present surrealism. The question regarding the aural medium and surrealism is posed to him with surrealism being situated in the past tense which I find curious. His interview also contains several factual errors, but I’m intrigued by the compilation Surrealism Reviewed CD he released in 2002.
Among the responses to Coombs’ questions, there is agreement that a kind of magic or alchemy is involved in music making, although these phrases are described in poetic metaphorical terms rather than in a mystical context. When speaking of sound collage, Bragg makes an analogy with alchemy because the assembled fragments or basic materials when subjected to transformation, produce a new whole. Also of interest are the answers to the question regarding the difference between surrealism and avant-garde sound. Bergmark and Nice said there is no difference, with the former placing emphasis on the creators’ self-identification and intention, while Schuster said there was, because to him avant-garde sound is more cerebral than surrealist sound which comes from different angles. I tend to agree more with Schuster here because conceptual sound works seem to come from, or speak to different levels of cognitive process than surrealism might. I agree there are parallels and overlaps.
There is a section entitled ‘Writing on Sound by Various Artists’ which contains Ron Sakolsky’s account of the aborted/postponed book project on surrealism and sound with Franklin Rosemont who died in 2009 as well as his own topical musings. There’s an excerpt from Breton’s Silence is Golden essay which originally appeared in English in 1946 as well as in Franklin Rosemont’s What Is Surrealism compilation of Breton’s texts in the late 1970’s, which proves Nice wrong that Breton wasn’t interested in music. Breton’s comments about unifying hearing and sight through awareness of inner poetry and inner music which are inseparable offer many points of departure. Edgard Varese who mingled with surrealists in the 1950’s chimes in along with W.E.B. Dubois, Humphrey Jennings, E.L.T. Mesens and Erik Satie. Horace Mayer Kallen writes on swing, Michael Vandelaar on black music, and there’s an excerpt from my noise article which appeared in Hydrolith. There’s also a dialogue between several people from a 1947 Possibilities magazine.
Other contents include Bill Howe’s automatic texts written in response to the sounds of Charles Mingus and Johannes Bergmark, Richard Misiano-Genovese on sonic awareness and sleep deprivation, Kevin Logan on sounds of destruction, Adrian Dannatt on Welsh concrete sound poetry, my prepared guitar piece, and two Bergmark articles related to Christopher Small, the latter of which is a response to a critic of his first article written for Swedish music circles. There are various points of interest and things I disagree with within these articles as well as a handful of more literary pieces, but it’s hard for me to take much of an interest in the latter because of my desire to return again and again to the writings on sound.
The audio CD contains more than an hour of sounds from contributors. Of the most interest are the 18 sonic exquisite corpses which editor Coombs has compiled from loosely themed 30 second segments sent by different musicians and sound artists; these tracks were then randomly edited and layered together. I find the dense subtleties of these tracks rather engaging. There are also a few remixes of these audio corpses by people other than Coombs. While I generally enjoyed the music, it seems worth it to ask what is it that makes some of these sounds necessarily surrealist? There are a lot of electronic and ambient tracks and very little from the jazz, blues minimal improv, or urban/field music end of things for example. I’m not saying this is the editors' fault, and nor do I want to prioritize traditional musical forms in a surrealist oriented compilation, but it would have been nice to hear more diversity to round out the CD.
See http://www.patricide.co.uk for ordering information or write to Dark Windows Press, 72 Llandudno Rd, Rhos-on-Sea, Conwy, UK.
The most interesting material concerns surrealists and interested others engaged in music, noise, and sound collage pursuits. There are a series of questions presumably put together by editor Neil Coombs which are answered to various degrees by Bergmark, Bragg, James Nice, and Matthias Schuster. All who replied share some common ground in that they value chance, improvisation and the subconscious, and all feel that surrealism has directly or indirectly influenced the work of 20th century musicians, although Nice gives more credit to Futurism and Dada. Nice seems to have a biased view which relates more to past rather than present surrealism. The question regarding the aural medium and surrealism is posed to him with surrealism being situated in the past tense which I find curious. His interview also contains several factual errors, but I’m intrigued by the compilation Surrealism Reviewed CD he released in 2002.
Among the responses to Coombs’ questions, there is agreement that a kind of magic or alchemy is involved in music making, although these phrases are described in poetic metaphorical terms rather than in a mystical context. When speaking of sound collage, Bragg makes an analogy with alchemy because the assembled fragments or basic materials when subjected to transformation, produce a new whole. Also of interest are the answers to the question regarding the difference between surrealism and avant-garde sound. Bergmark and Nice said there is no difference, with the former placing emphasis on the creators’ self-identification and intention, while Schuster said there was, because to him avant-garde sound is more cerebral than surrealist sound which comes from different angles. I tend to agree more with Schuster here because conceptual sound works seem to come from, or speak to different levels of cognitive process than surrealism might. I agree there are parallels and overlaps.
There is a section entitled ‘Writing on Sound by Various Artists’ which contains Ron Sakolsky’s account of the aborted/postponed book project on surrealism and sound with Franklin Rosemont who died in 2009 as well as his own topical musings. There’s an excerpt from Breton’s Silence is Golden essay which originally appeared in English in 1946 as well as in Franklin Rosemont’s What Is Surrealism compilation of Breton’s texts in the late 1970’s, which proves Nice wrong that Breton wasn’t interested in music. Breton’s comments about unifying hearing and sight through awareness of inner poetry and inner music which are inseparable offer many points of departure. Edgard Varese who mingled with surrealists in the 1950’s chimes in along with W.E.B. Dubois, Humphrey Jennings, E.L.T. Mesens and Erik Satie. Horace Mayer Kallen writes on swing, Michael Vandelaar on black music, and there’s an excerpt from my noise article which appeared in Hydrolith. There’s also a dialogue between several people from a 1947 Possibilities magazine.
Other contents include Bill Howe’s automatic texts written in response to the sounds of Charles Mingus and Johannes Bergmark, Richard Misiano-Genovese on sonic awareness and sleep deprivation, Kevin Logan on sounds of destruction, Adrian Dannatt on Welsh concrete sound poetry, my prepared guitar piece, and two Bergmark articles related to Christopher Small, the latter of which is a response to a critic of his first article written for Swedish music circles. There are various points of interest and things I disagree with within these articles as well as a handful of more literary pieces, but it’s hard for me to take much of an interest in the latter because of my desire to return again and again to the writings on sound.
The audio CD contains more than an hour of sounds from contributors. Of the most interest are the 18 sonic exquisite corpses which editor Coombs has compiled from loosely themed 30 second segments sent by different musicians and sound artists; these tracks were then randomly edited and layered together. I find the dense subtleties of these tracks rather engaging. There are also a few remixes of these audio corpses by people other than Coombs. While I generally enjoyed the music, it seems worth it to ask what is it that makes some of these sounds necessarily surrealist? There are a lot of electronic and ambient tracks and very little from the jazz, blues minimal improv, or urban/field music end of things for example. I’m not saying this is the editors' fault, and nor do I want to prioritize traditional musical forms in a surrealist oriented compilation, but it would have been nice to hear more diversity to round out the CD.
See http://www.patricide.co.uk for ordering information or write to Dark Windows Press, 72 Llandudno Rd, Rhos-on-Sea, Conwy, UK.
Feb 14, 2012
Feb 10, 2012
Jan 15, 2012
Angye Gaona
Colombian writer and surrealist comrade Angye Gaona is accused of drug trafficking and rebellion by a police state regime, which could result in an up to 20 year prison sentence. In a tense political climate the case seems motivated by repressive interests as she is a well-known cultural critic and activist. Her trial is to begin on January 23rd. More international attention in the interests of solidarity with poetry and free speech is called for. Follow the links below for more information.
http://les-risques-du-journalisme.over-blog.com/article-mobilization-for-the-colombian-poet-angye-gaona-97064304.html
http://robberbridegroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/act-now-to-defend-poet-angye-gaona.\
html
http://www.facebook.com/events/316979401670258/
http://les-risques-du-journalisme.over-blog.com/article-mobilization-for-the-colombian-poet-angye-gaona-97064304.html
http://robberbridegroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/act-now-to-defend-poet-angye-gaona.\
html
http://www.facebook.com/events/316979401670258/
Dec 26, 2011
Dec 20, 2011
Inner Sound Masks
Sado-Masochism is an endless, so-small Crazy Jane that has not been the other manifesto amongst us in my drunk tankards which persist to listen entranced as a number of different senses.
Love's quest is the brooding abstractions bearing lone vast silence of freed inner sound masks in social villages, confirming totemic exile wilderness of distinct heresy behind the world-soul torture.
--Word collage based on dice rolls
Love's quest is the brooding abstractions bearing lone vast silence of freed inner sound masks in social villages, confirming totemic exile wilderness of distinct heresy behind the world-soul torture.
--Word collage based on dice rolls
Dec 1, 2011
Class War Karaoke #16
I've a short track included on the 16th edition of Class War Karaoke compiled by Anthony Donovan, Adrian, Jaan Patterson and friends. It includes 58 pieces of music, 11 short-films, and contributor texts.
Click on the title above to access the sounds and related links, or copy/paste this link to listen or download:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Classwar_Karaoke/0016_survey/
The texts are available here:
http://classwarkaraoke.blogspot.com/2011/08/0015-survey-31st-august-2011.html
The films can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL51540144A91D127D
Click on the title above to access the sounds and related links, or copy/paste this link to listen or download:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Classwar_Karaoke/0016_survey/
The texts are available here:
http://classwarkaraoke.blogspot.com/2011/08/0015-survey-31st-august-2011.html
The films can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL51540144A91D127D
Nov 25, 2011
Patricide 4: The Sound of Surrealism
Patricide 4 - 'The Sound of Surrealism' is now available as a book and CD
package.
The CD includes 42 tracks from Johannes Bergmark, Jude Cowan, Bedwyr Williams, Eric Bragg, Ribitch, Matthias Schuster, Minima, Daniel Lehan, Eze Chimalio, Richard Sanderson, Lesley Guy, Neil Webb, The Sonic Egg, Leona Jones, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Kevin Logan, the Patricide International, and more.
The book features:
Bill Howe : Automatic Texts
Johannes Bergmark : Music is a Verb! Music is Nothing
Jude Cowan : Orbyhage
David Berridge : The Ears of Claude Cahun
Brandon Freels : Bull's Eye
Joe Pulver : A Dull Clatter of Proper Teacups
Shibek : Noise Walking with Prepared Guitar
Vincent Dachy : Vocal Chords
Kevin Logan : I Need the Noises of Destruction
Richard Misiano-Genovese : Sleep Deprivation
Paul Buck : Spread Wider Than Before
Adrian Dannatt : On the Welsh Sound Scene
Ron Sakolsky : Unheard Soundscape
The book also includes extracts from and new translations of writings by
Edgard Varèse, André Breton, Virgil Thomson, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Erik Satie, Michael Vandelaar, E.L.T. Mesens, and more.
For ordering information, see
http://www.patricide.co.uk/
package.
The CD includes 42 tracks from Johannes Bergmark, Jude Cowan, Bedwyr Williams, Eric Bragg, Ribitch, Matthias Schuster, Minima, Daniel Lehan, Eze Chimalio, Richard Sanderson, Lesley Guy, Neil Webb, The Sonic Egg, Leona Jones, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Kevin Logan, the Patricide International, and more.
The book features:
Bill Howe : Automatic Texts
Johannes Bergmark : Music is a Verb! Music is Nothing
Jude Cowan : Orbyhage
David Berridge : The Ears of Claude Cahun
Brandon Freels : Bull's Eye
Joe Pulver : A Dull Clatter of Proper Teacups
Shibek : Noise Walking with Prepared Guitar
Vincent Dachy : Vocal Chords
Kevin Logan : I Need the Noises of Destruction
Richard Misiano-Genovese : Sleep Deprivation
Paul Buck : Spread Wider Than Before
Adrian Dannatt : On the Welsh Sound Scene
Ron Sakolsky : Unheard Soundscape
The book also includes extracts from and new translations of writings by
Edgard Varèse, André Breton, Virgil Thomson, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Erik Satie, Michael Vandelaar, E.L.T. Mesens, and more.
For ordering information, see
http://www.patricide.co.uk/
Nov 3, 2011
Question and Answer with random magazines
What's a trampoline?
A terrible error.
For magnets?
For snow!
How does it affect the funny bone?
It's the second guilty plea.
So what is the brilliant idea?
The jackass groin video.
Where does it snoop?
Your fragile, furious faith.
A terrible error.
For magnets?
For snow!
How does it affect the funny bone?
It's the second guilty plea.
So what is the brilliant idea?
The jackass groin video.
Where does it snoop?
Your fragile, furious faith.
Oct 7, 2011
Sep 18, 2011
Sep 1, 2011
Desire in a Book show
Friends from the St. Louis Surrealist Group have put this exhibition together. Click on the image for a closer view.
Aug 17, 2011
Surrealism in 2012: Towards the World of the Fifth Sun
The Surrealism in 2012 show opens in January 2012 at the GoggleWorks Center in Reading, Pennsylvania. Click on the title for more information.
Jul 7, 2011
Joel Williams, Patricide, Oystercatcher
I recently received nearly a dozen smaller-sized books from Joel Williams. They are wonderfully colorful with titles like Red Skies, Serpentine, Anatomy, and Landscape. Many of the intriguing and playful drawings and collages suggest oneiric machines interacting with, and like, bodies on the sub-atomic level. Nudes features numerous spherical shapes arranged on various landscapes, which provokes a variety of complex and subtle emotions. Red Skies is probably my favorite book, with its glossy mixes of reds, orange and yellow backgrounds and perturbing constructions of surrational machinery, but all the books are a marvel. Williams has been in various exhibitions and collaborates with the Chicago Surrealists.
Patricide 3: Surrealism and the Uncanny. This 200 page journal-sized issue examines The Place of Memory, Documenting the Uncanny, Revolutionary Moments, and Uncanny Poetics. Contributors include Neil Coombs, Nicholas Royle, Mattias Forshage, Renay Kerkman, Brandon Freels, Stephanie Skura, J.K. Bogartte, Joe Pulver, and others. Editor Coomb's essay on Buttes-Chaumont, Kerkman's piece on the Ouisi Board, and Forshage's commentary on horror cinema are among the high points so far. There is also a section on surrealism in the Middle East. Documentary photos include Portland's own sidewalk teeth. Go to www.patricide.co.uk to order a copy.
The Oystercatcher. An occasional magazine from Denman Island, Canada with a blend of anarcho-surrealist, creative, critical and regional material. Issue 8 features a Mayday introduction, collages and poems, reviews and commentary on Tunisia, the Ishmaelites, Haymarket Scrapbook, Surrealism and queer desire, Vanishing Art, notes on Vancouver counter-cultural history, and more. There is a collage by the departed Don LaCoss that springs the levers of objective chance. Send a donation for a copy; Ron Sakolsky, A-4062 Wren Road, Denman Island BC, Canada, VOR 1TO
Patricide 3: Surrealism and the Uncanny. This 200 page journal-sized issue examines The Place of Memory, Documenting the Uncanny, Revolutionary Moments, and Uncanny Poetics. Contributors include Neil Coombs, Nicholas Royle, Mattias Forshage, Renay Kerkman, Brandon Freels, Stephanie Skura, J.K. Bogartte, Joe Pulver, and others. Editor Coomb's essay on Buttes-Chaumont, Kerkman's piece on the Ouisi Board, and Forshage's commentary on horror cinema are among the high points so far. There is also a section on surrealism in the Middle East. Documentary photos include Portland's own sidewalk teeth. Go to www.patricide.co.uk to order a copy.
The Oystercatcher. An occasional magazine from Denman Island, Canada with a blend of anarcho-surrealist, creative, critical and regional material. Issue 8 features a Mayday introduction, collages and poems, reviews and commentary on Tunisia, the Ishmaelites, Haymarket Scrapbook, Surrealism and queer desire, Vanishing Art, notes on Vancouver counter-cultural history, and more. There is a collage by the departed Don LaCoss that springs the levers of objective chance. Send a donation for a copy; Ron Sakolsky, A-4062 Wren Road, Denman Island BC, Canada, VOR 1TO
Jun 24, 2011
Jun 12, 2011
May 30, 2011
Leonora Carrington, Jean Benoit
I wanted to give a shout out to Leonora Carrington who recently died. She was 94, living in Mexico. Her contributions to surrealism and the creative world in general are immense; she led a colorful life of black humor and adventure, some of it tragic. Her imaginative works, critical spirit and intelligent revolt is an inspiration. So I honor her name now along with Jean Benoit who died last year. Let some of her paintings be placed randomly by Benoit's animated Sadean costume.
May 15, 2011
May 1, 2011
Apr 10, 2011
You Will Be Apalled (Five Books)
I told him, instead of feeling it shift position, these modern Romans’ words belched in frenzy.
My attention was captured. You will be appalled, to say the least; one thing leads to another.
Incidentally, the Philosophers’ Stone! A coherent picture of the universe, this steamy carnival. Pale enthusiast, in a word-- Universal Analogy.
An intellectual construction sank heavily out of sight, beloved woman clinging to some balcony.
But Newport, 1765, a crime of my own, into emblems--core of a paranoiac illness.
For the child as entirely new, to take on a more disturbing bulk, a carved doorway, I can still see.
Possession of the minds of desire.
Driven by vague resemblance differently.
The child must learn what you least expect.
--Mixed phrases selected by chance (with minor edits) from the following books:
Wrong Numbers by Franklin Rosemont
The Custom House of Desire: A Half-Century of Surealist Stories, ed. J.H. Mattews
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
Juliette by the Marquis DeSade
Waking up Screaming, H.P. Lovecraft
My attention was captured. You will be appalled, to say the least; one thing leads to another.
Incidentally, the Philosophers’ Stone! A coherent picture of the universe, this steamy carnival. Pale enthusiast, in a word-- Universal Analogy.
An intellectual construction sank heavily out of sight, beloved woman clinging to some balcony.
But Newport, 1765, a crime of my own, into emblems--core of a paranoiac illness.
For the child as entirely new, to take on a more disturbing bulk, a carved doorway, I can still see.
Possession of the minds of desire.
Driven by vague resemblance differently.
The child must learn what you least expect.
--Mixed phrases selected by chance (with minor edits) from the following books:
Wrong Numbers by Franklin Rosemont
The Custom House of Desire: A Half-Century of Surealist Stories, ed. J.H. Mattews
New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
Juliette by the Marquis DeSade
Waking up Screaming, H.P. Lovecraft
Apr 3, 2011
sPE_0100
I've added a track to Peak the Source, suRRism-PhonoEthics' 100th release. This three volume project features dozens of improvised, ambient, electronic, noise/glitch, and unclassified sound artists. Click on the title above or copy and paste the link below to download or have a listen.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/suRRism-Phonoethics_sPE_0100/
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/suRRism-Phonoethics_sPE_0100/
Apr 1, 2011
Mar 23, 2011
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