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The Mire

A family affair (Wire edit)

In April 2002 Jake Walters photographed Alice Coltrane at her home in Santa Barbara for the cover of The Wire 218 . One of the extended family members hanging out at the shoot was Alice's teenage nephew, Steven Ellison. Ten years on, and Ellison is now better known as Flying Lotus, patron saint of downtempo beat makers, and now Jake has photographed him for the cover of the forthcoming October 2012 issue of the magazine . So we couldn't resist a pose with a copy of that issue graced by the numinous presence of his late, great Aunty Alice, and here it is. The October issue, complete with more images from Jake’s shoot, will be on sale from next week and on its way to subscribers from the end of this week. The digital edition will be dropping in from the ether on Tuesday.

The Portal

Ex-Easter Island Head links

August 2012

Follow Ex-Easter Island Head's choice links of the web. The Liverpool based minimalist group is featured in an article by Abi Bliss in The Wire 343.

The Portal

Peter Strickland's Portal

August 2012

Follow film maker Peter Strickland's top choice of the web, including sites devoted to favourite Soviet bus stops, visual music and more. Strickland and his film Berberian Sound Studio are the subjects of an article by Daniel Spicer in The Wire 343.

The Portal

London Sound Survey Portal

July 2012

Read Ian Rawes of the London Sound Survey sound map website's top picks of web links. Rawes and the London Sound Survey are featured in The Wire 341 in an article by Nathan Budzinski.

The Mire

Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space

Since 2008 Jan Jelinek has been releasing recordings from the archives of an electronic ‘outsider’ musician, Ursula Bogner . Born in 1949 and employed as a pharmacist for Schering, she devoted her leisure time to exploring electronic sound, constructing a home studio, attending workshops and building up a body of tape and synthesiser pieces that reverberate with a ghostly, eerie intimacy. Except, of course, she probably didn’t – Bogner is widely believed to be one of Jelinek’s various musical personae, despite his carefully constructed story of a chance meeting with her son followed by the donation of an archive of reel-to-reel recordings, photos and writings. After the first Bogner release in 2008 – a compilation of fragmentary works dated ‘1969-88’ – another, more fully realised album, Sonne = Blackbox , followed in 2011. This release took the tale further, coming with extensive documentation of Bogner’s research into esoteric areas such as space travel and Wilhelm Reich’s theories of ‘orgonomy’. More recently, Jelinek...

The Portal

Reinhold Friedl's Portal

June 2012

Follow the composer and Zeitkratzer founder's top picks of the web. Friedl is the subject of The Wire 341 Invisible Jukebox, tested by André Vida.

The Mire

Remix, remake, remodel

Is the term remix redundant? Music has been begging, borrowing and stealing since day one. But does a remix denote more about the working process than the actual nature of the track? When so much is on long term loan, where's the dividing line between say, a prodigiously used sample and a remix? Is 'remix' just a label that's used top-down, from label to listener, to make sure you're accessing an audience efficiently? Perhaps the trouble is that remixes are often half-baked, passed around on short deadlines to every Tom, Dick and Harry with a URL, touted as 'exclusive', when it's one from a bag of ten or more quick-fix mixes that add a lazy beat or beefed up production to give a track a longer shelf life. (The plague of bad blog-House mixes that were recycling Pitchfork-hits for desperate music bloggers got so bad The Hype Machine built in a 'no remixes' functionality.) It's the churnalism of music production....

The Portal

Ruth Ewan's Portal

May 2012

Find out about artist Ruth Ewan's top picks of the web. Ewan's work is featured in The Wire 340 in an article by Agata Pyzik.

The Portal

Bass Clef's Portal

May 2012

Follow Ralph Cumbers aka Bass Clef's top picks of the web. Cumbers is featured in The Wire 340 in an article by Joseph Stannard.

The Portal

Awesome Tapes From Africa Portal

May 2012

Follow the choice links of Brian Shimkovitz, the man behind the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog and label, and author of the Collateral Damage article in The Wire 340.

The Mire

Going underground (Disco re-edit)

The Loft staff Thanksgiving party, 1979. Photo: Don Lynn A number of disco revivals around at the moment – a four CD box set of Tom Moulton's remixes of tracks issued in the early-mid-70s by Philadelphia International; four new volumes in the Disco Discharge archive series; a ruffneck mix of vintage disco obscurities posted online by Chicago Footwork producer du jour Traxman – all serving to remind us that the more the world sinks into the mire of capitalist folly the more prominent disco becomes. As the breathless press release accompanying those Disco Discharge releases puts it: "The new installment couldn't have come at a better time as history repeats itself, when the going gets tough, disco gets going!" But buried in that sentiment is the main reason disco is still derided by so many so-called serious music types. When the going gets tough, disco gets going...

The Portal

Benedict Drew's Portal

April 2012

Follow artist and musician Benedict Drew's choice links to cartoons, music and other online ephemera. Drew is featured in The Wire 339 in an article by Nick Cain. Drew's Gliss exhibition takes place at London's Cell Project Space, 19 April–27 May.

Essay

Collateral Damage: Phil England

April 2012

Circulating music as resource-free downloads might reduce carbon footprints, but the fast turnover of the computers, MP3 players and mobile phones we play them on costs the Earth plenty, argues Phil England.

Essay

Collateral Damage: Phil England

April 2012

Circulating music as resource-free downloads might reduce carbon footprints, but the fast turnover of the computers, MP3 players and mobile phones we play them on costs the Earth plenty, argues Phil England.