🌪 TL;DR Section 🌪
- The enduring power of the loop. Matt Unicomb tracks from Moroccan gnawa to William Basinski’s haunting The Disintegration Loops, tracing the sheer power of the loop to pull us into a trance. Must read.
- Kate Hutchinson’s (hi Kate!) excellent podcast, The Last Bohemians, is back for a second season!
- “We all found this combination comfortable because we could go from an uptown dinner party to a downtown loft party and fit in, while also being a bit different.” Isn’t that what we all want? God bless Warhol.
- Ying Ang has written a breathtaking short essay on motherhood for Huck.
- Geoff Travis is selling his records.
- The Picasso exhibition at the RA sounds sublime. It’s only on until April, so don’t sleep.
- Wondering what all the fuss is about when that lacquer factory burnt down? Here you go.
- Mica Levi, Vivienne Westwood, and Holly Blakey have put together a show which sounds absolutely incredible. In this WePresent feature / review I found Blakey talking about trying to find her way and balance ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture really interesting; “My work is divisive. Some people love it, a lot of people hate it. But I’d rather it not be polite”. Sounds perfect.
- Cosey Fanni Tutti is writing a book on Delia Derbyshire and I can’t wait until 2022.
- ”Our roots were in the culture that was stopped by Hitler; the school of Bauhaus and German Expressionism.” I’ve only ever thought about Kraftwerk within the frame of their impact on electronic music culture – I’ve never really thought about them within the context of German culture – so this tQ book review of Uwe Schütte’s book, Kraftwerk: Future Music From Germany, was interesting. Added to my reading list 🙂
- This Huck feature on the burgeoning Manchester avant garde club culture feels like it has serious echoes of the 1980s NY no wave scene… Through social and political upheaval comes beautiful and important art…
- Since I first bought his bootleg of Purple Music, everything I’ve seen of Jame 3:26’s I’ve bought on sight – this interview with him from Stamp The Wax is great.
- I am very mildly and totally normally a bit obsessed with Moses Sumney.
- I had no idea Kanye had moved to Wyoming.
- Format wars and the future of DJing is a subject often best left to other people to argue about on Twitter, but I enjoyed this piece from Harold Heath for Attack – it pulls on a broader range of voices, and as such doesn’t tread the same old ground.
- More from tQ, this time it’s a review of Sega Bodega’s debut album. Steven Dodd (hi Doddsy!) and I were obsessed with Sega Bodega in the early 2010s (when we were kind of like proto-sad bois, but don’t worry, we’re not sad bois any more), and the new album and this review make sense of some of that old obsession…
- Anthony Joseph has put together a nice collection of soca records for The Vinyl Factory.
- I’ve definitely never said these words before, but I think I might read this book from M. C. Richards on pottery. It looks great, and this quote has set my brain on fire a bit; “The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. […] We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. Any more than a man is wise only in his library.”
- This is definitely off-topic, but it’s a very moving account of loss and finding solace in stoicism from Jamie Lombardi on Aeon. I’m still skeptical, but this was enough for me to revisit a school of thought I’ve previously sacked off.
- Finally, I haven’t watched this yet (busy week pitching), but this talk that Lord Tusk gave at the Tate recently on artistry and culture looks great.
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