Repellentzine

Simon Reynolds on Postpunk

We met with music-writer Simon Reynolds to talk about his new book on postpunk.

Rip it Up and Start Again:  Postpunk 1978 – 1984

Simon Reynolds

Penguin Group

It’s a fine time of year for postpunk.  Perhaps Penguin has chosen to delay the American publication of Simon Reynolds’ chronicle of the dirty, crisp, muddled, excited, and ambitious music responding to the overtly gray cultural landscape until late February to ensure a proper context.  Few records can make as much sense on six block walk under slate skies and through freezing temperatures as one of the holy books of postpunk, such as Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures or Wire’s Chairs Missing.  Reynolds succeeds at shedding a good deal of light on this previously underconsidered collection of artists, records, and events by revisiting sites and sounds thrilling yet bleak as that Pennsylvanian groundhog’s promise of six more weeks of winter.

Interview after the jump...

INTERVIEW: HAFLER TRIO

Wider Oceans : and intimate interview with (sir) Andrew M. McKenzie

[interview August 2005]  [edited January 2006]

text: TJ Norris

             

Since 1982, Reykjavík-based The Hafler Trio(one Andrew M. McKenzie) has delivered a broad scape of sensory aural work that is as immediate as it is distant. In the last three decades, by creating the equivalent of either a building implosion or Millenium-turning fireworks, he’s shape-shifted sound compositions like a virtuoso of tantric atmospherics. His “wallet” packaged series, which includes The Sea Org (1987), Ignotum Per Ignotius (1986) and A Thirsty Fish (all re-issued from the archives by Korm Plastics), stand noteworthy among his long history of production.  The elements of this series each include a CD and co-conspiratorial booklet of texts and images that package and confuse, thus allowing certain dialogue with its audience and intrinsic constituents.  The Hafler Trio is virtually and primarily a solo project but has incorporated a variety of other collaborators from time to time to present live shows that are as exhilarating and obtuse as anything from the history of Dada, Fluxus, etc.  McKenzie has formulated a sabotage-styled class of verse that is simultaneously circular and self-defined and run-on and nebulous.  While the Hafler Trio might seem to produce work contrary to popular culture, the foundations for and components of it stand ready before our eyes and ears.  But what, you are correct to ask, is it exactly that this mysterious “trio” does?

INTERVIEW: EYE

Discussing what we see with Eye

Text: ben baumes

The scene at the Gavin Brown gallery at Passeryby in the warehoused nexus between Manhattan’s Meatpacking District and Chelsea for the opening of “Ongaloo”, an anticipated new showing of multi-media and collage work from Japanese musician and artist Eye, meets expectations.  The wind off the

Hudson

cuts through leather and blazers with equal ease, a collection of scruffy viewers mingle beneath bicycle-littered scaffolding to smoke and drink beers in bags in the hope that something more will happen.  The bar at Passerby is unapproachably packed and Lenny Kravits, of all records, lends an additional level of banality.  Inside, however, and despite the gallery-bright lights, conversation sparkles in hushed packets and everyone half-glimpses at the mad, chaotic assemblages while waiting for the craftsman to perform.  Soon enough those formerly on the other end of cellphone calls arrive to make the gallery more impenetrable than the bar.  Eye fights his way from his best attempt to hide near the bathrooms and takes up two orbs and a microphone as rock critics and noise fanatics try and get a place where they can see.  Half a glorious hour later, the whole lot rightfully calls the whole thing brilliant and get on to making further plans.   The next day, the gallery shows signs of serious wear, but looks, perhaps, even better when populated by an abandoned drum-kit, forgotten pint glasses, and other assorted trash.

Masters: Interview with Nublu founder Ilhan Ersahin | Listing of Nublu's New Releases

Nublu Records 12 inch New Releases:

They are:

kudu - bar star
love trio in dub feat. u-roy - lovers rock
our theory feat. erik truffaz - yeah, that's right
and
forro in the dark feat. seu jorge - suor de pele fina

there will be full-length releases from kudu, our theory, and love trio in dub soonafter.

www.nublu.net

Interview with Nublu founder Ilhan Ersahin
Words Dominic

contact: dominic@lifelineevents.com

Dominic: Who did the design work in transforming the space, a vacant dance studio, into the Nublu club?

IE: I designed Nublu together with my wife, and the concept was born at the same time I was producing Love Trio's first album. The initial idea started long before that.

Dominic: Why do the same bands play the same nights every week? Is this merely a function of loyalty or does it have something to do with art?

IE: Art is what we are, and art it will be. This is the whole reason. What else is there to live for? And with that comes loyalty if the artist is executing his or her inner self honestly, and is willing to share, and is in the same kind of mindset as we are. To have bands having their own night, and building their repertoire and confidence, just makes sense to me.

REPELLENTSOUNDS: Interview with KID606

KID606

Words and interview: Trent Wolbe

Photos: bb

Miguel Depedro is Kid606, a true American pioneer. He's made a living digitally destroying and reconstructing worlds of music in a way no one else should even bother trying to copy.  As a musician, he's had hordes of releases on labels including Ipecac, Carpark, Fat Cat, Mille Plateaux, and his own label Tigerbeat6. As a label-owner, he's served the music community heartily by bringing artists like DJ/Rupture, End, Cex, and even the legendary noise master Merzbow to a whole new generation of electronic music enthusiasts.  Most recently, he's started a second offshoot of Tigerbeat6 called Shockout (the first was the copyright-unfriendly Violent Turd subsidiary) and released a chilled-out white10" on the Portland-based Audraglint label called "Sugarcoated." (since this interview was conducted, Miguel has released Resilience, and it's, umm, incredible -- ed.)

TRENT WOLBE: Hey!  What's up?

MASTERS : An Interview with Kenny G : WHAT ELSE CAN THIS THING DO? : Words: BB

You don’t hear coughing on the radio. You just don’t. So when the coughing goes on … and on and on and on and on -- on a loop for something over five minutes -- you can hardy make sense of it. Infact, you can hardy do anything but try and restrain the cramping in your stomach. No one expects that of radio (even the Howard Stern fans), and no one turns to their computer and actively types in w w w dot w f m u dot org and calls up a live stream for a show called “Anal Magic with Kenny G”. Because that’s absurd and seemingly shouldn’t exist in any sort of reality.

But it does. And thank high heaven.

For years now, the members of the tri-state area that foolishly tune in to 90.1 or 91.1 FM or the intrepid souls that call up a live stream at WFMU (and even the supremely weird cases that actually listen to archives of this lunacy) on a Wednesday afternoon between 3 and 6 have had to deal with the absolute horsepoop of one Kenny G, a certain individual intent on having a go with what radio should or could be and happily presenting the most intensely trying – yet somehow amazingly enjoyable -- show on radio.

Ken Goldsmith, ehh -kay-ehh Kenny G, is actually a bratish pain in the words rump that grew up on Long Island, went to art school, and then somehow (sorry mothers) made a career out of being a difficult artist. Actually, Kenny worked damned hard to sell some sculptures and visual art works only to decide he’d rather be a poet. After producing a series of fake books, Kenny wrote some real books including 111, a collection of words and phrases ending with the schwa sound arranged as an epic poem, Soliloquy, a exhausting transcript of every word uttered in a week, and Fidget, a running commentary on every movement the author made in a day arranged, again, as an epic. Kenny concurrently turned his attention to UBU web, a collection of strange utterances, sound poetry, concrete poetry, and other avant-garde material easily lost in the maelstrom of modern thought and cultural production. Despite all of that, Kenny also maintained a strange and severe love of music and collecting. To focus that energy, he kept up a radio show on Jersey City’s WFMU, a free-form, non-profit station supplying the world with unexpected sounds and, more importantly, character.