Wednesday 24 July 2013

In The Zone




In a hazardous world, our guardians delineate zones of greater safety and exclusion.




Employing erasures and amendments, they remain vigilant to shifting situations.




Beware though; not even they can shield us from the power of an unrelenting sun.





Tuesday 23 July 2013

Written City 8: Messages From The Past


Leicester, July 2013

For those not completely deafened by the present, the city often reveals the story of its past lives in whispers of revenant meaning.  Here are three lovely examples I found recently.  Two were captured in the field over the last couple of weeks...



Leicester, July 2013

...whilst the third bobbed to the surface as I sorted through my photo-archives.  I guess you could tell a whole story about the history of popular entertainment or even the fugitive nature of cinematic illusions with this one, if you felt so inclined.



Nottingham, October 2010



Thursday 18 July 2013

Belgrave Gate Project 5: Completed Studies



Apologies once again, to those of an easily offended disposition, for the mildly obscene imagery included in my current painting work.  I hope that, as explained in my previous post on the subject, it’s artistically justified in the larger context of the ‘Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall’ pieces and the source imagery that feeds them.


Study For 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Paper.
20 cm X 20 cm, 2013

My recent progress seems as painfully slow as it’s been all year but, thankfully, there has been no diminution in enthusiasm for the ideas I’m engaged with.  Anyway, the blessed school holidays are finally upon us and, after fulfilling a brief prior commitment, there’s nothing left to stop me getting properly stuck in again for the next five weeks.


Study For 'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Paper.
20 cm X 20 cm, 2013

Today was the first proper full painting day of summer and I’ve already polished off these two studies that have been hanging around in a partially completed state for too long.  I intend to produce a series of these in parallel with the medium sized panels to which they relate.  Two of those are well under way and I’ll embark on a third in the next few hours. 


'Belgrave Gate: Cave Wall 2', Work In Progress, Acrylics & Paper Collage
On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2013

Put that way, things don’t sound quite so sluggish.  It’s always been my intention that the studies should feed into the actual paintings as they evolve to explore possible approaches more organically.  With more time available to me, I hope this procedure will start to justify itself more obviously in real time.

Must get on…


Monday 15 July 2013

Old Motors


My Dad's 1960 350cc Velocette Viper

Last July I wrote a post about my late father's old Velocette Viper motorbike.  After his death, the bike was donated to the Lincolnshire Vintage Vehicle Society's Road Transport Museum in Lincoln where, after a full restoration, it has taken its place in the permanent collection.


Inside The Lincolnshire Road Transport Museum, With 1953 Reliant Regent
Goods Tricycle, (Centre).

The LVVS had an informal open day featuring many of their smaller vehicles recently, so I took the opportunity to have another look at the Velo along with many of the other interesting old vehicles on display.  It was good to see the bike in a place where he spent plenty of his evenings and weekends for many years.


1937 Ford V8 Shooting Break

1939 Jaguar SS

I'm not much of a petrolhead really but do enjoy looking at the sculptural forms and period engineering of these ageing machines.  There's something delightful about the automotive styling of an era before computer aided design, when aesthetics were pursued for reasons other than mere efficiency and micro-accountancy.  Certainly, it's impossible to imagine anyone ever producing again something as rakishly elegant as the immaculate SS Jaguar, or indeed, as charmingly eccentric as the three-wheeled Reliant plumber's van.


1954 Bedford CA Fire Brigade Van

Not Exactly A  Period Restoration But The Big Kid In Me Still Enjoys
Cars That Look Like Cartoons

The SS Jaguar Demonstrates Real Period Bling

Of course, what road transport may have lost in stylistic panache and individuality, it has gained in reliability and mechanical refinement.  Old British motorbikes were notorious for leaking oil like proverbial sieves.  It amuses me to see that my Dad's old Velo is no exception.


Why Would Anyone Abandon A Logo As Good As This?


...And Who Would Bother To Fit Chrome Hub Caps And 
Wheel Arch Panels On A Working Vehicle Today?



Sunday 7 July 2013

Zomby: 'With Love'





It’s almost impossible to get a handle on the complex multiplicity of Dance Music these days.  Indeed, any attempt to construct a family tree of extant beat-based genres would actually result in more of a thicket of tangled branches and suckering offshoots.  British producers always had the knack for finding interesting hybrids and mutations in standard forms with the potential to become global phenomena and, in the 21st Century; such healthy disregard for genre orthodoxy feels like by far the most creative way forward.

One of the most obvious demonstrations of this has occurred in recent years as Dubstep splintered into multiple, interesting new directions at the hands of a number of forward thinking luminaries, including Kode 9, Burial, Shackleton and indeed, Zomby. They all prove the futility of pigeonholing styles and that, whilst acknowledging the strands within it, we should think of rhythmic electronic music far more holistically.




Whilst the pseudonymous Zomby lacks the heart-rending melancholy of Burial, or the sheer abstraction and conceptual ambition of Sam Shackleton, he has proved himself skillful at deconstructing numerous pre-existing ‘traditions’ of dance music and reassembling them into something identifiably his own.  Although sometimes cast as an anarchistic wind-up merchant, 2011’s ‘Dedication’ album revealed him to be capable of both sophistication and emotional depth, despite its gunshot samples and sketchbook tendencies.  The titles of these albums suggest he is emotionally invested in his music far more than he is merely showing off.  ‘With Love’ certainly continues the trend but, this time, in the form of an extensive double set comprising two distinct halves.  In that respect, it emulates Shackleton’s most recent album [1.] and, it must be said, gives it more than a run for its money.


Z For Zomby

The first half of ‘With Love’ is where Zomby demonstrates his magpie tendencies most overtly.  Indeed, the shiny, faceted mask, behind which he often hides, seems a most appropriate accoutrement.  Having commenced proceedings in relatively familiar dark, Dubsteppy style, he opens himself up to a much wider range of influences and signifiers.  ‘If I Will’ combines glockenspiel tones with a chopped and diced vocal sample retaining a definite skip in its step and more than a hint of Flying Lotus’ aesthetic.  ‘Isis’, relies on a strict metronomic structure to create a tension with romantic, piano figures not unlike those that wander pensively through so many old Massive Attack songs.  ‘It’s Time’ looks straight back to old school Rave with potty-mouthed exhortations to lose it and air of euphoric psychosis.  Zomby’s love of that era is well known and air horn sounds punctuate many tracks on ‘With Love’, often at unexpected junctures.


Reflecting The Many Facets Of Contemporary Dance Music

And so it goes on, through Hip Hop and Techno inflected tracks, and the welcome return of busy, time-bending Drum & Bass rhythms in ‘Overdose’ and ‘777’. ‘Rendezvous’ and ‘All The Things You Do’ emulate Burial’s pitch-shifted vocal sound but within a slightly more percussive framework, whilst elsewhere, sampled references to lost sound systems are married to more contemporary, ticking rhythm patterns.  The splendid ‘Vi-Xi’ comes across like a Jamaican MC competing against a distant Hardcore rave.


Smokin'

The lazy, clichéd reference for this kind of music is usually of a sojourn through dark city streets replete with shadowy atmospheres and lurking danger.  It’s not a wholly inappropriate simile for ‘With Love’ but nowhere near the full story.  In fact, I prefer to see the first section more like a journey through a mental music collection or stored sound-related memories, real or imagined.  It’s significant that both Zomby and Burial wax nostalgic over a bygone Rave Age neither could really have experienced first hand, and that clearly, the aesthetics of recreational sound can be loaded with long-term, emotional resonance.





The short track lengths, abruptly cut endings and overt versioning of a single idea, (often programmed in succeeding tracks) are familiar Zomby trademarks and still very much in evidence here.  He makes no real attempt to hide either his short attention span or experimental, scattergun method.  Initially, this made me regard his musical statements as somewhat impromptu but I’ve come to appreciate the honesty over his modus operandi and willingness to allow individual tracks to stand as ideas or sketches rather than building a polished, homogenous edifice.


In The Hood

Despite that, the album’s second half does work more like a unified suite.  If the suggestion of alienated urban foreboding is again a tempting reference, I still feel it’s only one possible interpretation.  There is a general solemnity throughout these tracks, with slow paced Trap beats and profound bass dominating.  The sense of Zomby exploring variations on the same theme also adds to their overall sense of unity.  Nonetheless, repeat listens reveal a wider sound palette and more varied degrees of illumination than is initially apparent.




Opener, ‘Black Rose’ is built around shimmering gamelan chimes and next to no percussion.  It is far more darkly romantic than it is threatening or bleak.  ‘Glass Ocean’ is allowed to shuffle a little and pitches its melodic elements to prioritise wistfulness over anything darker.  In ‘I Saw A Golden Light’, illumination really becomes a major component and, despite portentous bass, its identity derives from a repeating cycle of single piano notes counterpointed against droplets of melodic synth.  The impression is of a city viewed through a curtain of illuminated raindrops.




This equation of points of sound with points of light characterizes much of the remaining album.  ‘Quickening’ achieves it with soft metallic chimes whilst ‘Reflection In Black Glass’ dispenses with a beat and allows pointillist notes to play across surfaces of washed synth just as its title suggests.  ‘Sunshine In November’, (the clues really are in many of these titles), uses piano and cascades of electronic notes in a beautiful, beatless sketch, evoking the heartening effect of winter sunlight.  If the album’s title track closes everything out in a sombre, downbeat fashion, it does so only after numerous moments of uplift and considerable beauty.





Ultimately, I think Zomby has assembled the various components of ‘With Love’, into something rather monumental and loaded with emotional reverberations.  Certainly, as a fifty-something with dodgy legs, I’m always appreciative of how he and many of his compatriots seek to shape programmed rhythms into a rewarding listening as well as purely physical experience.  Organised in two strikingly different ways, ‘With Love’ acknowledges the alienation of modern urban life but demonstrates how it can also be circumvented via the various tropes of electronic Dance Music.  Whether this is best achieved through fondly remembered dance floor communion; via an aesthetic appreciation of the play of light on the city’s fabric; (or even by shared experience with a romantic partner), is for the listener to decide.





[1.]:  Shackleton, ‘Music For The Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs’, Woe To The Septic Heart, 2013.



Also Listening To:


The Jimi Hendrix Experience, 'Electric Ladyland'.

Leo Kottke, 'Leo Kottke'

Portishead, '3'

Portishead, 'Glastonbury 2013', (BBC Broadcast, 28 June 2013)

Mount Kimbe, 'Cold Spring Fault Less Youth'

Pantha Du Prince, 'XI Versions Of Black Noise'

Blind Faith, 'Blind Faith'

The Fall, 'The Infotainment Scan'



Saturday 6 July 2013

Written City 7: Entropic Gates 1


West Leicester, June 2013

These industrial steel gates close off a car breaker’s and repair yard not far from Leicester’s old Great Central Railway station.  I first photographed them back in 2011 when they displayed the visually glorious effects of the long-term, heavy corrosion consuming both their original paintwork, and the tangle of subsequently applied graffiti tags.  I was very attracted to them for some time before they eventually provided the inspiration for the third panel in my ‘Sick 1’ quartet of paintings, completed in March 2012.






Not long after that project was completed, the gates were renewed, appearing first in heavy, industrial primer, (as documented in April 2012), and subsequently, under a top coating of utilitarian dark grey enamel.  I’m sure the company proprietors behind the gates felt they now presented a smarter, more business-like face to the world but I couldn’t help feeling a certain diminution in the neighbourhood’s visual riches.


'Sick 1', 2012, Acrylics & Paper Collage on 4 Panels,
60 cm X 300 cm (Overall), 60 cm X 60 cm (Each Panel)
'Sick 1 (C)', 2012, Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel (With Sand & Plaster),
60 cm X 60 cm

This whole area, close to my home, is one I pass through regularly and have documented on numerous occasions already.  I remain drawn to its mix of neglect, dilapidation and layers of industrial history, punctuated by the various businesses still hanging on with varying degrees of fortune.  Despite the considerable age of certain architectural remnants here, (not least the station, railway arches and burnt-out Friars Mills factory), the general mood is of impermanence and ad-hoc opportunism.  After their renovation, the steel gates’ main significance to me became as a symbol of the endless processes of urban decay, repair and regeneration that always fascinate me.  They had clearly entered a phase in which entropy was to be held at bay, for the time being at least.


West Leicester, April 2012

Friars Mills, West Leicester, August 2012

However, my journeys made past the gates in recent weeks reveal a new crop of graffiti tags blossoming across their impassive grey surfaces.  Corrosion has made no inroads as yet, so the stark calligraphy remains insolently ‘on the surface’ and unmediated by any natural chemistry.  Substrate, surface coatings and criminal damage still maintain a standard, layered hierarchy and it’s not impossible that attempts will be made to paint over the tags, at least in a temporary stand-off.  Nevertheless, through the intervention of the aerosol bandits, it already feels like a new phase of the greater entropic cycle has begun all over again.


Postscript:

I should point out that I mean no criticism of or judgement on the companies operating behind these gates.  I'm sure that what one person's 'visual riches' are another's constant irritant.  Whilst I see my my own role here as an artist/observer, I also seek to maintain a subjective response to the urban environment.  Obviously, I can't realistically trumpet such an attitude  without admitting there are are at least three sides to this story.