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Showing posts by Nathan Budzinski about Uncategorized

Real North

Nathan Budzinski

Recently I listened back to Glenn Gould's influential 1967 radio documentary The Idea Of North, part of his Solitude Trilogy. It features the voices of people who have had a 'direct confrontation' with the remote northern region of Canada's vast wilderness, describing the practical ins and outs of living there.

Gould was known as one of the greatest interpreters of Bach's Goldberg Variations. But he famously retired from live performance and instead spent long hours locked away in a studio, discovering ever more minute scales of perfectionism while cutting together choice recordings of his playing in an effort to create the most honed versions of the Variations.

He made the Solitude docs using what he called a 'contrapuntal' editing technique which mixed together multiple voices. It can sound noisy with the voices cancelling each other out in a kind of disorientating babble. But sometimes certain words and phrases leap out in quick succession, "endless", "ice", "nothing", "year after year" etc, creating a montage of verbal images.

At first it sounds odd that these intimate and warm voices are talking about such an expansively inhuman and cold place. Further into the recording a voice says: "You can't talk about the North until you've got out of it." And here's where the listener's journey enters into a more fictional space, the idea of The Idea Of North. Not only is the doc about hearing first-hand accounts of what the 'real' North is, it's about remembering it, re-imagining it and re-telling it from a distance.

Throughout the hour long broadcast the sound of a train rumbling along leads the listener towards this idea of North. There aren't any noises of nature like biting wind, wolves howling or footsteps crunching in the snow. Just the muffled sound of the Muskeg Express chugging its way further north along the tracks. The voices could have been recorded anywhere, but Gould places them inside the sonic and psychological space of a train. It's a space loaded with symbolism about fate, destiny, migration and nationhood (much like radio is too in the latter case). This mental space is also akin to that of Gould's perfect Goldberg Variations: it's a close, intimate and even claustrophobic space where one can focus intensely to the point of an epiphany (or hallucination). And though the people in the Idea Of North go to lengths to debunk myths about the north and of a macho 'northmanship' seducing travellers further and further north, the doc still creates a fantastical space, or at least a space where most anything could happen. For Gould, the north, is "a convenient area to dream about, spin tall tales about, and in the end, avoid."

In his book The Spiritual History Of Ice: Romanticism, Science, And The Imagination, Eric G Wilson writes about this blurred borderline between real and imagined spaces: "Fantastical worlds can become real in two ways – in the systems of the tyrant or the visions of the liberator. Likewise real spaces can become fantastical in a twofold fashion. On the one hand, a tyrant might fictionalise a physical space so that he can exploit it [...] On the other hand, a liberator might transform a humanised region into the sublime laws sustaining the cosmos. A poet might release chthonic energies underlying city grids."

[caption id="attachment_1348" align="aligncenter" width="407" caption="Mercator's Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio, map of the Arctic, 1595 (click to enlarge)"][/caption]

The Idea Of North documents first hand experiences with the real north, but it also documents Gould's journey towards a productive north, mapping a place of serenity and contemplation over vast and empty tundra. Surrounded by frozen calm, Gould's single-track journey is drawn towards an imagined centre point where the constraining delineations of reality cease and imagination can take over. It's at the centre of the world where the mind can focus on smaller and smaller points of attention, tapping into the creative chthonic energies emanating from the magnetic zero degree. But for Gould it's a place best visited rarely as an obsessive mind is easily subsumed by this vast fantasy, no matter how far away the body is.

Nathan Budzinski

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Sonar 2009: Konono N˚1

Nathan Budzinski

Another new vid: Congolese group Konono N˚1 were set to play at last year's Sonar festival but unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute due to visa problems... The video below is of their soundcheck about a half hour before their scheduled set on friday 18 June. Though the lighting is low it's definitely the clearest view I could get as once the hall filled out it was nearly impossible to stay still from everyone dancing!

Sonar 2009: Konono N˚1 from The Wire Magazine on Vimeo.

Nathan Budzinski

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"High"

Nathan Budzinski


American artist and musician (and bandmate with Mike Kelley in The Poetics) Tony Oursler recently opened an exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in London. The show, which runs until October 3rd, features a mixture of his work from the 90's along with new work from this year, if you're familiar with Oursler's art then there won't be many surprises for you, but it's still well worth a visit. Using sculpture, painting, video projection and sound, Oursler combines a hand-made DIY aesthetic with images of obsessive habits such as chain smoking, internet addiction and compulsive gambling along with the sound of indistinct mumblings and sharp angry whispers. Wandering through the darkened galleries as the emanations from each work overlap with one another creates a sense of being in a space of conflict and psychological violence; as if caught up in an argument between a roomful of tatty puppets, disembodied heads and ghostly voices. This, along with the recurring image of smoking cigarettes and loops of neurotic reorganisation, creates a feeling of haggard claustrophobia as if afflicted with the cabin fever caused by sitting in front of a computer for far too long, exacerbated by the effects of nicotine withdrawal. Although this sounds somewhat distressing, the effect of being immersed within and jostled about by his work is a satisfying type of sensorial overload, even sometimes fun as the repetition and knee-jerk compulsiveness of the pieces become ridiculous.

Nathan Budzinski

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Videos From Sónar 2008

Nathan Budzinski

Check out three video clips from The Wire's visit to Sónar 2008: The final performance of the Yellow Swans, a Mark Fell (of .snd) installation and a work by the Spanish artist Pablo Valbuena (both exhibited at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica)

Yellow Swans 20 June 2008:

Mark Fell Installation:

Pablo Valbuena Installation:

There's higher resolution versions of this through The Wire's main site here.

Nathan Budzinski

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TG Vids (and others...)

Nathan Budzinski

Check out some recent footage shot by Chris Carter of a jam during Throbbing Gristle's soundcheck in LA as part of their US tour which ends tonight in NYC with a sold out show... Next up is June 19th show in Copenhagen followed by two appearances on the 21st (the earlier show is already sold out) in London [check out their site for more info]

LA Soundcheck Jam from Chris Carter on Vimeo.

Also out there in the eVideosphere UbuWeb continue their expansion with a few interesting vids:
Craig Baldwin's 1995 film Sonic Outlaws which looks at copyright infringement, music and art including Negativland (and their run in with U2 and Island Records)

And on the TG theme, UbuWeb's also posted Tony Oursler's Synesthesia interview with Genesis P-Orridge (part of a series of interviews with Downtown NYC artists including John Cale, Thurston Moore, Dan Graham, Genesis P-Orridge, Kim Gordon, Glenn Branca, Laurie Anderson, Tony Conrad, David Byrne, Lydia Lunch, Alan Vega, and Arto Lindsay)

All of this along with some work by the digital artist Cory Arcangel (Wire #290) and Derek Jarman's 1993 film Wittgentstein

Nathan Budzinski

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Arkestra Get Busy In London

Nathan Budzinski

After being grounded in London by an erupting volcano in Iceland, the Marshall Allen-led Sun Ra Arkestra, added two extra evenings to their residency at Café Oto, both of which sold out in hours. Now, news from the BBC Radio 3 twitter feed tells us that they're continuing to make the most of their London, Earth-bound hours by heading in to the Jazz On 3 studios to record a special "Volcanic Session" for the show...

Nathan Budzinski

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The Wire Salon, Revenant Forms: The Meaning Of Hauntology

Nathan Budzinski

A new series of monthly events in East London curated by The Wire Magazine. The evenings will consist of readings, talks, panel debates, film screenings, DJ sets and live performances. The first instalment is Revenant Forms: The Meaning Of Hauntology at London's Café Oto, 1 April, 8pm, £4 on the door only

Mark Fisher (K-Punk) leads a panel with Adam Harper and Joseph Stannard debating the uncanny quality of so much contemporary audio, from spektral disco to dubstep, Hypnagogic pop and beyond. Plus screenings of films by Julian House (Ghost Box, The Focus Group), a live set by Moon Wiring Club and eldritch vinyl interludes courtesy of Mordant Music.

Below we've compiled a short online reading and listening list in anticipation of the event:

Ian Penman's Black Secret Tricknology, first published in The Wire issue 133

A transcript excerpt from Joseph Stannard's interview with Broadcast, which formed part of Stannard's cover feature on the group in The Wire issue 308

Mark Fisher's K-Punk blog
•Phonograph Blues
•Nostalgic Modernism

Adam Harper's Rouge's Foam blog
•Hauntology: The Past Inside The Present

Joseph Stannard's The Outer Church
•Revenant Forms: Future-Past Preview

Website of the label and design project Ghost Box

Jim Jupp's Belbury Parish Magazine

Mordant Music home to Baron Mordant, Admiral Greyscale, Sam Shackleton and more

James Kirby's (aka The Caretaker) History Always Favours The Winners

Listen to some tracks from Moon Wiring Club

Broadcast and The Focus Group "I See, So I See So"
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlVaRcNf9nc]

Phenomena And Occurrences, a Ghost Box film by Julian House.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ogUcIIn_cU]

Nathan Budzinski

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Parallel Voices: Missing Link - tix on sale now

Nathan Budzinski

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

Nathan Budzinski

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Flying Lotus 4/20 Broadcast

Nathan Budzinski


Flying Lotus will be DJing an internet broadcast to mark "4/20", an annual celebration of the Cannabis plant taking place today (20 April). Lotus will be joined by members of his Brainfeeder crew, including The Gaslamp Killer, Ras G, Daedelus, Teebs, Matthewdavid, Dr. Strangeloop and more. Tune in to the session at flying-lotus.com/radio, 20 April, 12pm in Los Angeles, 3pm in New York, 8pm in the UK and 4am in Japan.

The set is also in anticipation of Flying Lotus's forthcoming album, Cosmogramma, out 4 May on Warp Records. Cosmogramma is on pre-sale for 24 hours from the time of the broadcast. Buyers of the album also get a free art print by Flying Lotus along with the chance to win the original.

Nathan Budzinski

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