Bill Kouligas’ label PAN has set itself up with a Vimeo channel. Kouligas says archival footage and videos from PAN artists will be uploaded in the coming weeks. Currently available to watch is Frieder Butzmann's "Spanish Fly" from 1979.
Have a listen to PAN MP3s in today's MP3
specials here.
Syd Barrett’s self portrait has been half inched from London’s Idea Generation Gallery. The robbery took place on Saturday 9 April, where it was part of the Syd Barrett Arts & Letters exhibition. Idea Generation Gallery is offering £2,000 for the return of the painting, which Barrett made for his then girlfriend Libby Gausden between 1961 and 1962. Gausden appealed for the safe return of the painting which has “huge personal value”.
The painting was on show for the first time, and was stolen in the middle of the afternoon between 2:15pm and 3pm. If you have any information about the theft, contact Idea Generation Gallery on 02077496850.
UPDATE: The painting has now been returned! The self portrait was mysteriously posted back to the gallery undamaged and intact.
Wire contributor Tim Lawrence is giving a series of talks at colleges in New York and Philadelphia, talking on the subject of queer theory and the evolution of American dance music. Networking and Contact: Competing Forms of Queerness on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-88 takes place at New York University, 14 April, 4-6pm. Big Business, Real Estate Determinism, and Dance Culture in New York, 1980-88 is on 15 April, 4-6pm, English Department, Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue. Closet Heterosexuality: The Queer and the Deleuzian in the Work of Arthur Russell, 20 April 4:30pm–6:30pm, Philadelphia Haverford College. Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor: A History, 1980-84, 21 April, Philadelphia Haverford College.
Aum Fidelity is releasing Planetary Unknown by David S Ware/Cooper-Moore/William Parker/Muhammad Ali. The disc marks the first collaboration between Ware and Cooper-Moore in 30 years, and is the first appearance on record by Muhammad Ali – sideman of Albert Ayler and brother of drummer Rashied Ali – in almost 30 years. Planetary Unknown will be released on 14 June, and the quartet will be playing at New York Vision Festival on 10 June.
Second bite of David Sylvian news in a fortnight: Sylvian will be the artist in residence for the 2011 edition of Norwegian music festival Punkt. Sylvian will be creating an audiovisual installation called “Uncommmon Deities”, and is curating an evening featuring John Tilbury, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset and Philip Jeck. Part of the evening will also include a live performance of Plight and Premonition, a two part collaboration with Holger Czukay from 1988.
Planet Mu will be showcasing Chicago Footwork producers, DJs and dancers for a UK tour. Hitting the road in the UK are DJ Rashad, DJ Spinn, and Chrissy Murderbot, (whose album launch party will form part of the tour at The Big Chill Bar), and dancers AG, Litebulb and others will be showing off their footwork skills at the 8th annual Breakin Convention at London Sadler’s Wells theatre, followed by a panel discussion. The showcase will be sticking around London for four dates. Brighton Jam (21 April), Leeds The Wardrobe (28), London The Big Chill Bar (29), London Village Underground (29), London Sadler’s Wells (30), London Corsica Studios (7 May), Bangface at Camber Sands Butlins (13).
German sound artist Rolf Julius passed away on 21 January, in the middle of preparations for Gray Music #1. The exhibition will display the work it was named after, along with others including 1982’s Music For The Eyes, plus recent works created in the months before Julius died, including Room Of Stillness II. Turin e/static, 14 April–16 July, 4pm–7:30pm.
Following the success of the DVD of Central Office For Information films, MisinforMation, Mordant Music has composed a score to the Luis Buñuel/Salvador Dali film Un Chien Andalou. The new score will be released by the BFI as part of a dual format edition (a Blu-ray and a DVD in the same box) of L’Age D’Or, with an HD transfer of Un Chien Andalou that includes both the 1960 score and a new score by Mordant Music. The box set will be released by the BFI on 23 May.
Shackleton and spoken word artist Vengeance Tenfold have collaborated on sounduk's Sonic Journeys, a collection of specially commissioned pieces asking artists to respond to specific stretches of landscape. Their Sonic Journey traces North and South Devon trainlines, from Exeter to Totnes and Exeter to Barnstaple, tracking the landscapes of each journey. The two tracks will be available for download from today until 8 October, and sounduk have also created PDF maps to accompany the journeys, available to download from the sounduk site.
Rush Hour and Gene Hunt are teaming up to release a compilation of forgotten 80s Chicago House tracks. Chicago Dance Tracks is largely sourced from reel to reel tapes given to Hunt by local producers including Virgo Four, Steve Poindexter, Ron Hardy, Larry Heard, Marshall Jefferson, and Mr Fingers. Hunt was given the tracks to play out in Chicago clubs, and most have never been pressed to vinyl or released at all. The source material means there’s not much in the way of production gloss, as master tapes of some of the tracks are missing or they’re rough cuts. There are 12 restored tracks, which will be released on CD and as a double 12” release with a booklet of artist interviews and flyers.