The Mire

Plastic People under threat

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:46:00 +0000

photo: Dan Wilton/Red Bull Music Academy

The big news doing the rounds of London club culture last week was concerning the future of Plastic People, the longstanding home of the FWD>> club and a key part of dubstep’s history. The Metropolitan Police have applied to review the license of the club, citing reasons of prevention of crime and disorder and public nuisance. DJs such as Kode9, Theo Parrish and Mark Ernestus have regularly appeared there, and it’s one of London’s most intimate venues, a small space designed for close listening. An organisation called The Friends of Plastic People has been formed, which aims to help the PP management to comply with the licensing conditions.

On a personal note, I find this disturbing and bizarre news. Plastic People is certainly one of the most welcoming and most trouble-free places I've ever been to. Compare with the rest of the Shoreditch area – one of the most densely populated places for strip clubs and brothels in the whole of the UK, due to the nearby presence of the City – and it's baffling how police could conclude that crime prevention would be well served by focusing their scrutiny on this intimate club, where you'll generally find 200 odd fairly well-behaved music fans.

To me, I find it part of a slightly unsettling trend – urban music events are being regularly cancelled on the whim of the police, it seems, from the UK tour of rapper Giggs to numerous grime events over the years. The notorious Form 696 is apparently used by police to monitor grime events in particular, which requires addresses and contact details for all artists appearing on the night (which for a grime event can be many, many MCs). I can't be alone in viewing this as a gross invasion of privacy.

The problem here is that the police are essentially the sole arbiter of what constitutes safety in the context of club culture. From the outside, it appears they're more comfortable with busy, boozy, pubs and superclubs than intimate and self-regulating underground events. At a time when binge drinking is seen as a serious public health threat, it seems that police are unwittingly whittling down events into just the kind of mainstream, mass-market entertainment channels that encourages conspicuous consumption.

On Saturday, I went to another London club, Proud Gallery in Camden. Truly one of the most unpleasant clubbing experiences I've ever had, it was dangerously packed to capacity, full of aggressive punters packed into close-quarters, and with unsmiling security guards moving crowds from pillar to post to stop people congregating in the quiet areas. Is this the terrifying future of clubbing, where security guards make sure there's no disruption to the surrounding neighbourhood by packing clubbers in like cattle? Perhaps that should be horses, given the building's history. I mentioned the dangerous amount of people in there to a black clad, baseball cap wearing security guard at the end of the night, who merely shrugged. We walked away from the club, feeling like we'd narrowly escaped from a mass bar-room punch-up. But at least there was no crime or disorder on the street, eh?

As things stand, there are two ways to help Plastic People. You can sign the petition at petitiononline.com/PP2010/petition.html . The most important action, though, is via local letters sent to Hackney Licensing from local residents and businesses. Details of Hackney Council's licensing section can be found here. A Facebook group is also distributing information on how you can help.

A hearing on the future of the club’s licence is due to take place before 31 March.

UPDATE AND RIGHT TO REPLY FROM PROUD CAMDEN:

I got an email in response from Alex of Proud Camden. Here's part of it he asked to be quoted:

We stick to police capacity and have done since we opened.
We don’t allow any AIS security guards to wear headwear and never have. We also don’t allow any form of military clothing.
We try to make all our staff polite and pleasant.
We have to stop people congregating in fire exits, it’s simply the law. This annoys people obviously, but it’s the law, not us!
We were not over capacity and it was not dangerous. There are 7 sets of double width fire exits, 2 or more to each room, a fire alarm that cuts out the music and over 17 floor staff who are on the radio and there to watch for everyone’s safety at all times.
It was hot on Saturday night and that made the club unpleasant for an hour until the ventilation was cranked back on for the first time since summer.
There never has been a punch up and we pride ourselves on how safe Proud is and will continue to be.

We will review all procedures , and I am sorry you had such a bad evening, we honestly hate it when people have a negative time!

Acid flashbacks

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:00:00 +0000

“Will anybody under the age of 40 get that joke?” asks David Toop in the new March issue of The Wire, referring to the title of FennO’Berg’s In Stereo album. I’m a long way over the wrong side of 40, but still I ain’t laughing, mainly because, as David hints in his review of the record, In Stereo represents something of a muted return on the part of the original Powerbook trio. But the appearance of the album, not to mention its rather humdrum punning title, sends me back to a couple of unvoiced, and quite possibly half-arsed, notions that were prompted by the release of one of 2009’s most audacious records of digital sound processing, one which wipes the floor with In Stereo in terms of its conceptual rigour, and which happened to contain a pun in the title that could be got by at least three generations of electronic music aficionados.

Apart from being genuinely funny, not to mention an accurate indicator of what the actual music might sound like, as an album title, Acid In The Style Of David Tudor was a genius piece of sloganeering on the part of Florian Hecker. Talk about encapsulating the complex social and aesthetic evolution, not to mention the psychological make up, of an entire scene in one fell swoop. I didn’t know he had it in him, but Florian nailed the trajectory of a generation of current electronic music practitioners, who came of age in the long 80s afterburn of Industrial culture, were animated by rave’s psychotronic machine music and the systematic praxis of the first wave of post-war electronic music pioneers, and are now forwarding the march of digital sound out of the basements and the clubs and into the private gallery spaces of the 100 mile city.

In this regard, Florian himself could the archetype, the classic case study. But I suspect that Peter Rehberg and possibly also Christian Fennesz might recognise aspects of their own back stories in such a formulation. Jim O’Rourke too, if you factor out the rave connection, although Jim is perhaps more an example of those other dominant models in contemporary experimental digital sound work, the autistic autodidact, the perverse polymath. Certainly the music these three make together on In Stereo sounds like it could have been produced by individuals who once stalked the warehouse parties of Northern Europe in TG inspired leathers and combats but now slouch around the bright white interiors of sonic art biennials dressed in Paul Smith suits and charcoal grey shirts buttoned to the neck, no tie.

But there was an irony at the centre of Florian’s concept, in that David Tudor beat him to it by about three decades. Tudor’s 1976 piece Pulsers was described by the composer as an exploration of “the world of rhythms created electronically by analog, rather than digital, circuitry”. More to the point, it sounds weirdly like Marshall Jefferson, the Acid pioneer, getting to grips with the idiosyncracies that had been accidentally hardwired into the Roland TB-303, the Acid Machine itself.

In the sleevenotes to the 1996 Lovely Music CD Three Works For Live Electronics, which contains a version of Pulsers that was originally released on LP in 1984 and was assembled and mixed by Tudor with Nicolas Collins, John Cage’s favourite piano player writes: “With analog circuitry, the time-base common to the rhythms can be varied in many different ways by a performer, and can eventually become unstable.” Jefferson’s first record proper, released in 1985 (a year after Pulsers) under the name Virgo, was titled “Go Wild Rhythm Track”, so I reckon Chicago’s experimental House authority could get to that.

Several minutes into Pulsers, a tape of Takehisa Kosugi improvising on an electronic violin is inserted into the mix, and all of a sudden the track sounds more like Henry Flynt jamming with the Drummers of Burundi. But play the first few minutes of it back to back with Sleezy D’s Marshall Jefferson-produced “I’ve Lost Control” back to back with any of the tracks on Acid In The Style Of David Tudor and don’t tell me you can’t hear some occluded synchronicities rearing up to wipe the smirk off Florian Hecker’s face (unless that irony was intended, of course, in which case Florian is even smarter than I thought).

Netaudio survey: How does the Internet influence your music habits?

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:23:00 +0000

The Netaudio festival (an offline festival for online music) are calling out for participants in a short survey about the effect of the internet on how people make and listen to music. It should take about 10-15 minutes of your time and has some prizes up for grabs to those who complete it, including a copy of our very own The Wire Primers, a Last FM membership subscription, a copy of Nicolas Collins's Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking and a copy of Steve Goodman's (aka Kode9) Sonic Warfare: Sound, Effect And The Ecology Of Fear amongst other goodies.

Click here to go to the survey

Adventures In Modern Music 4 February 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:46:00 +0000

Tonight's episode will be broadcast live from Berlin in a special Transmediale festival edition. Hosts Chris Bohn and Derek Walmsley will be joined by Family Battle Snake man Bill Kouligas and Wolfgang Müller, musician, artist and founder of Die Tödliche Doris. 21:00-22:30 (BST), 104.4 FM for Londoners, streamed live at resonancefm.com for the rest of the world.

Parallel Voices: Missing Link - tix on sale now

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Tickets for the Carsten Nicolai curated Parallel Voices: Missing Link at London's Siobhan Davies Dance Studio (sponsored by The Wire) will be going on sale from 8 February. The three day event, which features talks and performances from Blixa Bargeld, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Christian Fennesz and Chris Carter amongst others, takes place 17 - 19 March with tickets priced at £15/£10 (multibuy ticket) or £9/£6 per night... Get them while you can as there is very limited space available at the venue!

Click here for more information

Tales Of The Uncanny

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:03:00 +0000

The Exotic Pylon's Jonny Mugwump is launching his hauntological tale-telling show tonight on Resonance FM. Weird Tales For The Winter is a series of eight programmes, broken down into chapters as follows:

Monday 25th January: Moon Wiring Club - "Minuke" by Nigel Kneale

Tuesday 26th January: West Norwood Cassette Library and Matthew de Abaitua – "The Dinner Party Wars" by Mathew de Abaitua

Wednesday 27th January: Dolly Dolly – "Death, Taxes and the Fireplace (being a story concerning love above all):

Thursday 28th January: Belbury Poly and Lawrence Norfolk – "His Name was Legion" by Sir Andrew Caldecott

Friday 29th January: Radio Joy (LIVE) – "The Haunted Beach" by Johny Brown

Saturday 30th January: Mordant Music – "The Bells Will Sound Forever" by Thomas Ligotti

Sunday 31st January: Vanessa Daou – "Love Among the Shadowed Things"

Monday 1st February: John Foxx - "When You Walk Through Me"

You can listen in London at 104.4FM or online at www.resonancefm.com.

More info here.

Otomo Yoshihide & FEN: Reader ticket offer

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 12:36:00 +0000

Readers of The Wire can get a special ticket offer from London's Cafe Oto for their forthcoming two day residency with Otomo Yoshihide and friends, 4 - 5 February.

FEN, or Far East Network, is a collaboration between Otomo Yoshihide, Yan Jun, Yuen Chee Wai and Ryu Hankil; well known figures in the experimental music scenes of their respective home cities Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore and Seoul. This will be their first UK performance together.

Regularly, tickets are £10 in advance and £12 on the door with a £18 two day pass also available. Readers of The Wire get a special price of £8 per night.

To buy tickets click on the below links:

Day one, 4 February, 8pm

Day two, 5 February, 8pm

Check out Cafe Oto's website for more information on FEN and the artists.

The Wire At CTM

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:33:00 +0000

The Wire will be in active attendance at the Club Transmediale festival in Berlin in February. On 3 February Tony Herrington will be moderating a panel on Interface and Instrument Design: How Technology Affects Music featuring Takuro Mizuta Lippit, Robert Henke, Yutaka Makino and Christopher Salter. The panel is at 19:00 at the HBC venue. On 4 February, Tony Herrington and Biba Kopf will host the magazine's weekly show on Resonance FM live from the festival. Finally, on 5 February The Wire Sound System will play a late night listening set at the WMF Lounge between 23:00-03:00.

In the meantime, the festival has released the CTM.10 Audio Compilation as a free download. The compilation features tracks by Hildur Gudnadottir, Aoki Takamasa, Guido Möbius, Glass Candy, Etienne Jaumet and Scuba, among others, plus a trailer for the film Making CONTAKT about Richie Hawtin's CONTAKT project.

Destroy All Monsters: Hungry For Death

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:38:00 +0000

Ann Arbour [Arbor], Michigan's Destroy All Monsters collective are having a show of their posters, flyers, photographs, blueprints, drawings, banners, magazines, records, and various other ephemera culled from their archive and exhibited at London's Space gallery 22 January - 20 February.
Accompanying the exhibition will be Freek Summit, a gathering and discussion featuring poet and former MC5 man John Sinclair, The Wire's own Savage Pencil, DAM member Cary Loren and other guests on 23 January. Places are limited so contact Paul Pieroni: paul.spacestudios.org.uk to book.

Weird Tales For Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:12:00 +0000

Jonny Mugwump of Resonance FM's excellent Exotic Pylon show emails with news of an intriguing radio event happening towards the end of the month, something between a hauntological radio play and A Book At Bedtime. Looks well worth checking out. Each is broadcast at midnight (so you might wanna double check those dates nearer the time to avoid confusion). Here's what he says:

I've curated 8 pieces of weird fiction with sonic backdrops to be broadcast on Resonance 104.4fm from the 25th January to the 1st February that is something of a hauntological dream project. Do tune in as the pieces are absolutely extraordinary and have been recorded specifically for the project and have never been heard before

There is a webpage which is in the process of becoming a fully blown site here

25/01/10 – Moon Wiring Club- Minuke by Nigel Kneale
26/01/10 – West Norwood Cassette Library and Matthew de Abaitua – The Dinner Party Wars by Mathew de Abaitua
27/01/10 – Dolly Dolly – Death, Taxes and the Fireplace (being a story concerning love above all)
28/01/10 – Belbury Poly and Lawrence Norfolk – His Name was Legion by Sir Andrew Caldecott
29/01/10 – Radio Joy (LIVE) – The Haunted Beach by Johny Brown
30/01/10 – Mordant Music – The Bells Will Sound Forever by Thomas Ligotti
31/01/10 – Vanessa Daou – Love Among the Shadowed Things
01/01/10 – John Foxx - When You Walk Through Me

Here is the Exotic Pylon site for more info.

I've started to so I'll finish

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:43:00 +0000

UK readers may be interested to know that Stewart Lee, comedian, improv fan and sometime contributor to The Wire, was on the BBC's Celebrity Mastermind the other day, answering questions on Derek Bailey. You can still view the programme (in the UK at least) on the BBC's iplayer service. .

The Ex & Brass Unbound on camera

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Check out footage of the Ex's unreleased track "Double Order" put together as a teaser for their UK tour, 29 January – 6 February.

Tour supported by The Wire and produced by Qu Junktions featuring the veteran Dutch group, combining their precision-honed punk with the brass weight of Mats Gustafsson, Roy Paci, Ken Vandermark and Wolter Wierbos. Video by Emma Fischer. Full tour info here.

Into The Vortex on Resonance FM

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:46:00 +0000

Edited highlights of The Wire's Into The Vortex festival will be broadcast on Resonance FM between 10pm-1am GMT on 3 January 2010. The festival took place last October at East London's Vortex venue and featured live sets by Richard Youngs & Heather Leigh, Astral Social Club, Alexander Tucker, Alasdair Roberts & Gordon Ferries, Thomas Ankersmit, Broadcast, The Caretaker, The One Ensemble and The Band Of Holy Joy.

Netmage

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Bologna's Netmage festival has posted various film clips online of works by artists appearing at this year's event, including Cluster & Canedicoda, Carlos Casas, Rachida Ziani & Dewi de Vree and André Goncalves. They are worth a look, if yr interested in tracking current trends in AV culture, electronic arts, gallery films, etc.

The Wire Review

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Subtitled The Most Powerful Review Of The Most Powerful Magazine In Experimental Music, The Wire Review blog doesn't quite do what it says on the tin. Thankfully, what it does do is much funnier and more entertaining than that. We feel unable to comment further, other than noting that we are, of course, flattered once again by such close attention, and urging you to check it out...

Black Metal Theory

noreply@blogger.com (Anne Hilde Neset) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:27:00 +0000

A 6 hour Black Metal theory symposium, called "Hideous Gnosis: A gathering dedicated to the mutual blackening of metal and theory", happened 12 December in Brooklyn. Ben Ratliff, who wrote a Primer article on Tropicalia for us – recently reprinted in The Wire Primers book (Verso) – has this summary in New York Times. Meanwhile, Dominic Fox's Cold World, The Aesthetics Of Dejection and The Politics Of Militant Dysphoria, examining, among other things the music of Burzum and Xasthur, has just been released on Zero Books. Burzum's first new release in 11 years will be released in March 2010, called Belus. Varg "The Count" Vikernes, the group's leader, was released from Norwegian jail this summer after serving 16 years for murder. He now lives in rural Telemark, Norway.

Sensational cover party (NYC)

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Attention New York City crew. To celebrate Sensational's appearance on the cover of The Wire 310, the Wordsound people and Sens himself are throwing a bash in NYC tonight. Expect music, drinks and a bite to eat.

Here's the details:

Please join us as we celebrate Sensational’s December Wire Cover with drinks and
hors d’ oeuvres.

Wednesday, December 16th
6-8 PM (Open Bar)
Planet Thai
30 W. 24th St. (near 6th Ave.)
212-727-7026

RSVP to wordsound@aol.com or 410-733-0566

Parallel Voices: Carsten Nicolai

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:25:00 +0000

News just in that Raster Noton label boss Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto) has been invited by the Siobhan Davies Dance studio in London to curate their 2010 edition of Parallel Voices.

The event, subtitled "Missing Link" will feature talks, performances and installations, bringing together practitioners from the worlds of visual art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and science and will feature a new, large scale light installation by Nicolai.

Further information will be released closer to the event, which is set to take place 17, 18 & 19 March 2010 at London's Siobhan Davies Studio space.

[Reciprocess: +/vs.]

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:58:00 +0000

[Reciprocess: +/vs.], which was compiled to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Marseille-based BiP_HOp label and was given away exclusively to all The Wire’s subscribers with copies of the March 2009 issue, has been nominated for Compilation of the Year in the sixth edition of the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards.

The nominations for the awards were chosen by a jury that this year included Gudrun Gut and Alejandro Jodorowsky. Since 1 December the public (that's the rest of us) has been able to listen online and vote on the jury’s nominations. The winners will be announced in April 2010 at a ceremony in Paris.

To hear the nominations in all categories and vote on them go to the Qwartz site.

[Reciprocess: +/vs.] takes the form of an 80 minute piece of music assembled by BiP_HOp label boss Philippe Petit. The piece includes input from a host of underground musicians, including Cosey Fanni Tutti, Simon Fisher Turner, Eugene S Robinson, Jason Forrest, Lydia Lunch, Jean-Herve Peron, Jesu and others.

Technical service is resumed

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:52:00 +0000

Good article dismissing the wild and wooly rumours that Technics are to cease production of their 1200 record decks

Wave of the Wand

noreply@blogger.com (Derek Walmsley) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:09:00 +0000

Word reaches me that [Wooden] Wand has just confirmed a fairly rare performance in London tomorrow. How's about that for short notice, spur of the moment gig news?

(wooden) WAND (rare uk show)
HUSH ARBORS
RICK TOMLINSON (voice of the seven woods solo show)

at THE BETSEY TROTWOOD, FARRINGDON
DOORS 8PM, £5 ADM.

Macro mix doubleheader

noreply@blogger.com (Susanna Glaser) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Finn Johannsen and Stefan Goldmann of Berlin's Macro Recordings label have provided two excellent mixes for Wire readers. Finn's mix formed part of the latest Adventures In Modern Music mix presented by myself (and also featuring music by Cluster, Ben Frost, Lindstrøm And Christabelle, Gemmy and more) and is available here. Stefan's, meanwhile, has been offered to The Wire as an exclusive download and is available here. Enjoy!

Calling Out Of Context

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:47:00 +0000

The full programme for the ICA's Calling Out Of Context festival, which is sponsored by The Wire, is now available to download. It includes excerpts of iconic texts by/on David Toop, Cornelius Cardew, Arthur Russell, Jacques Attali, Derek Bailey, Michael Nyman, as well as full details of all the events in the festival,, including AGF and Mira Calix on 20 Nov, a night curated by The Wire

Tori & Reiko Kudo London residency

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Herrington) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:26:00 +0000

The first couple of faux-naif pop, Tori and Reiko Kudo of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, land up in London next week for a three day residency, with two solo shows at Cafe OTO on 6 and 7 November, and a final duo show at Kings Place on 8 November.

Cafe Oto: Tori solo
Cafe Oto: Reiko solo
Kings Place: Tori & Reiko duo

Supercollider 140

noreply@blogger.com (Susanna Glaser) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:18:00 +0000

I first witnessed live coding when a pioneering trio of the scene, known as Slub, composed/recomposed an ever-changing rabid techno beast at London's underground toilet venue Public Life. Almost ten years later there's a bona fide 'live coding' scene. Many are now members of umbrella collective Toplap, including Dan Stowell, who has recently curated a curious little project, which can now be downloaded freely under the Creative Commons licence. When Dan started tweeting snippets of SuperCollider code he expected a lot of "throwaway waffle" but collated also a bunch of really interesting things. "Not wanting this stuff to vanish into the ether", he's now collected the best pieces into a special download here. Many of these pieces are actually generative, so if you re-run the source code (the track titles) you get a new piece of music.