Playlist 2

As threatened last month, here’s another selection of the music playing in the background as I painted over the last few weeks…

‘R.I.P’, Actress

Darren Cunningham’s newest Actress album is no disappointment, adhering to his familiar methods whilst pushing the sound into somewhat new territory.  Working out of the tradition of Detroit Techno, Cunningham employs strict repetition to construct particular sound worlds with relatively little sense of progression.  There’s a sense of brief, degraded aural moments being sampled, layered and looped for us to inhabit as mostly static environments.  What is revealed through repeated study is a wealth of hypnotic nuance and textural subtlety.

The two previous collections displayed a particular quality of aridity in their sound.  That’s still partially present but now things seem rather more fluid with a tendency toward a certain limpid pastoralism.  Tinkling chimes and hints of melody move several tracks further from the dance arena and into more ambient territory.  Rhythmic structures privilege softer pulses and muffled kicks over crunchy snares, (although ‘The Lord’s Graffiti’ and ‘Iwaad” buck that trend enjoyably).  The track titles hint at a possible theme or even some religious intent but the music is so abstract it’s really neither here nor there.

‘(Untitled)/(Unissued)’, The Byrds

I’ve a massive soft spot for the Byrds beyond their reputation as jangly Dylan interpreters.  This extended version of their half live - half studio double album from 1970 represents a late phase with only Roger McGuinn remaining from the original line up.  What I love most are the two songs ‘Chestnut Mare’ and ‘Lover of the Bayou’, (the latter in live and studio versions).  The first teeters miraculously between the corny and the sublime, conflating sexual conquest with the pursuit of a horse and features a properly transcendent middle section.  The second marries all the Voodoo clichés of Delta-noir with a guitar sound and vocal performance that are plain dirty.  Live, it’s terrific, - the studio version might be better still.

‘Instruments Of The Middle Ages & Renaissance’, David Munrow & The Early Music Consort Of London

David Munrow Squeezes Out Another Top Tune

A recent radio play set in the Middle Ages reminded me of my interest in early music.  This covers a wide range of styles and instruments with the two discs each showcasing the periods in the title.  Unsurprisingly, the first is earthier and fantastically archaic whilst the second highlights the grace and refinement of the Renaissance sound.  What’s not to like in a recording that features Bladder Pipes, Portative Organ, Hurdy-Gurdy, Tromba Marina, Crumhorn and Sackbut?

‘Too Young To Die: Singles 1990-1995’, St Etienne

Back before anyone had heard  of Hauntology, St Etienne attempted to blur past and present  with electronic dance-pop, postmodern sampling and bags of English charm.  They didn’t always fulfil their promise and could be underwhelming live but did make brilliant singles.  There’s not a weak one on here and it’s the perfect soundtrack to a sunny Saturday morning.  Worth it alone for the lines, “I heard she drove the silvery sports car / along the empty streets last night.”

‘Fox base Alpha’, St Etienne

See above.  The first, and probably best, of their albums sets their stall out really well.  I remember the attention it got in 1991 and it still sounds fresh.

‘Loveless’, My Bloody Valentine

Another album from 1991 and a startling exploration of extreme guitar distortion and song forms buried under layers of abstract texture. It’s acquired a misleading mythological status since, resulting in much online comment about this year’s re-mastering and causing me to replay my original CD version.  I doubt I’d notice much difference really, due to the tinnitus induced by hearing them play it live back then.

As sonic cathedrals go, it’s almost up there with…

‘Sugar Baby Love’, The Rubettes.

A bunch of session men set out to make a buck and end up making great art as well.  A regular guilty pleasure of mine on Spotify.

‘Street Halo EP / Kindred EP’, Burial

Burial’s music transcended the Dubstep genre beautifully a few years ago when he emerged.  I played his two albums to death but he dropped off my radar lately so I’m playing catch-up with this collection.  I find his music serves a similar function to that of Massive Attack and last year’s collaboration was no surprise.  Both transform familiar rhythms into something more reflective conjuring palpable urban Dread.  Both evoke deep melancholy, nostalgia for warmer times or yearning for tenderness in a cold world.  Both prioritise quality over prolific output.

That last point is crucial.  Burial’s singular, nuanced sound might tire easily but these EPs suggest there’s mileage in it yet.  The track ‘Kindred’ extends the familiar palette of skittering beats, pitch-shifted vocals, surface crackle and environmental ambience into a mini-epic over eleven plus minutes.  Its distinct movements and multiple subtle transformations build an expansive sound world.  The following ‘Loner’ and ‘Wasp Ashtray’ both depart from the familiar two-step rhythm template, referring more overtly to the raves he never attended.  Some liken this music to the sound of lost dance euphoria disappearing from memory.

‘Windowlicker’, Aphex Twin

Exploring Gender Politics The Aphex Way 

After excavating Mike Paradinas’ back catalogue recently, it was inevitable I’d revisit some of the Aphex stuff too.  These three songs cover three very different bases, signifying Richard D James’ refusal to take his talent too seriously.  The first subverts Hip-Hop and asks awkward questions about sexual commodification in a typically perverse video.  The second twists Drum & Bass into every possible deformity.  The third does something sweet with a clockwork music box.

‘The Keyboard King At Studio One’, Jackie Mittoo

Jackie Mittoo Chills Out At The Airport

When the sun actually shone for several consecutive days, something Jamaican seemed called for.  Jackie Mittoo was a member of The Skatalites and played keys on loads of classic reggae sessions as Musical Director at Studio One.  These instrumental cuts move through soul and R&B as well as reggae and feature plenty of Jackie’s ripe organ sounds.

Hand Painted

'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave, Spain.  Includes Hand Images
At Least 37,300 Years Old.  Photo: Pedro Suara (AAAS).

A news article about Palaeolithic cave painting caught my eye recently.  Using refined mass spectrometry techniques, a team including researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Barcelona have dated paintings at eleven Spanish sites much earlier than previously thought.  They measured elemental proportions in tiny samples of rock deposits adjacent to the paintings as described in a paper in 'Science', magazine, co-lead authored by Alistair Pike and Joao Zilhao.  I won’t pretend to understand the science but it’s described as both accurate and non-damaging to the ancient pigments.

Alistair Pike of The University of Bristol.  Photo: Marcos Garcia Diez

'Panel of Hands', El Castillo Cave, Spain.  Including Images of
Bison and Sprayed Discs.  Photo: Pedro Suara (AAAS).

Their findings undermine previous assumptions about the age of the earliest European artworks.  The oldest examples appear to date back to around 40.800 years ago putting them close to the earliest known records of modern Homo sapiens in Europe.  Seemingly, the hot debate in anthropological circles is now whether modern humans brought artistic behaviour with them from Africa and the Middle East, whether that behaviour accelerated as they came into direct competition with Neanderthals or whether Neanderthals themselves were involved in art practice.  The latter interpretation would undermine many established preconceptions about the supposedly primitive Neanderthals.  Could it be even possible that we learned the habit of Art from Neanderthals I wonder?

Sprayed Red Discs, El Castillo Cave, Spain.  Discs Like This Are At Least
40,600 Years Old At This Site.  Photo: Pedro Suara (AAAS).

I admit I’m pleased by this validation of painting as one of the earliest forms of human activity.  I’m also interested in the way many of the earliest images were apparently produced by blowing pigment around their hands to create negative shapes.  Positive hand-prints exist too and it’s possible to distinguish between males and females and to deduce that, as now, most people were right handed, (most of the prints show the free left hand).  It seems that even then, people were moved to spray onto walls to mark their identity or territory.

West End, Leicester, 2012

While I was thinking about this I remembered a couple of charming blue handprints I saw recently on a local wall and snuck out with the camera to record them.  Some things never go out of fashion.

Sources:

'U- Series of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain', A.W.G. Pike, D.L. Hoffmann, M Garcia-Diez, P.B. Pettitt, J. Alcolea, R. De Babin, C. Gonzalez-Sainz, C. De Las Heras, J.A. Lasheras, R. Montes, J. Zilhao, Science, 15.06.12

'Science: Cave Paintings From Paleolithic Spain Are Older Than Expected', Brandon Brynn, AAAS, June 2012

Shut

Having completed a second painting derived from my photographs of closed industrial shutters, (‘Closed 2’), I’m very attuned to finding more examples of the breed.  My image collecting excursions around Leicester often occur at weekends and take me into zones of light industry so closed shutters are not uncommon.  Here are a couple of my latest finds…

I love the battered dilapidation of the red shutters with their ad hoc signage and prominent padlock, (parking and security are major preoccupations in these places).  Red pigments are traditionally notorious for fading in ultra violet and these shutters demonstrate that beautifully.

The white shutters fill a wide entrance into a large, very shabby building in an obscure side street and loud roaring and crashing sounds punctuated by excited shouts intrigued me as I approached them.  It seems the building is now occupied by a youth project catering for local skateboarders in a classic example of urban transformation.  A cavernous space that once resounded to the sounds of industry now echoes with the noise of urethane wheels on plywood ramps.

Visually, both these examples demonstrate how an essentially blank corrugated surface can become captivatingly accented by the details of locks, door furniture, graffiti, signage and damage.  I love the idea that they are essentially the same but different each time and am wondering if the first two ‘Closed’ paintings might become part of more extensive series…

Completed Painting: 'Closed 2'

It interests me how ideas can sit around the back of your mind for ages and then snowball into something more important when their time arrives.  Things are always better left to develop at their own pace and allowed to emerge naturally.  Inspiration rarely strikes when striven for and an extensive bank of visual memories and the ability to make subconscious connections can be an artist’s best friends.

'Closed 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2012

A while back I showed my painting ‘Closed 1’ both in progress and finished along with its photographic source images.  I had photographed the red industrial shutters some years ago and assumed they were images in their own right.  However, when I started to consider different aspects of the theme ‘closed’ earlier this year they suggested themselves as an ideal motif and took on greater significance. 

I was moderately satisfied with ‘Closed 1’ but felt there was something a little obvious or facile about it too.  Consequently, I started work on ‘Closed 2’ immediately in an attempt to discover why.

'Closed 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage
on Panel, 100 cm X 100 cm, 2012

I was happy with the composition comprising parallel vertical bands slightly abstracted from the original subject but this time I chose to vary their extent and distribution slightly in reference to the join between two shutters.  I also liked the idea of an essentially monochrome panel that could still display a wealth of nuance and visual detail within its own narrow parameters.  These characteristics all appeal to my old love of formal abstraction and an emphasis on the picture plane.  It seemed perfectly logical to work from the blue sketchbook study and related source photos I already had.

Seemingly, my issues lay with the textual elements and their interaction with the ground.  I retained the three modes of formal, semi-official and totally unauthorised text.  This time though I worked on degrading and integrating them into the ground more fully.  The subtext ‘Capital’ remains legible but only obliquely whilst the orange graffiti is now denuded of decipherable meaning to become primarily a formal motif.  Generally, it's become harder to discriminate between words on the surface and those floating above or lying beneath it. 

Obviously, ‘Closed 2’ is a refinement of, rather than a dramatic departure from, the first version but, I think, an improvement.  It seems I was after something harder to read (in several senses) and that I currently want words to be textural as well as textual.

Original Sin

I often agonise over the originality of my ideas and the work that results from them.  I suspect it plagues many artists and spending any time online can only exacerbate the feeling.  However intensely one engages with an idea, a few minutes of surfing usually reveals someone got there before you, (often years ago).

It seems we must absorb such insecurities even more in our age of digital image saturation and democratised creativity if we are to keep faith with our own work.  I’ve viewed countless websites, blogs, photostreams and the like that demonstrate there’s absolutely nothing novel in documenting signage, decaying surfaces, graffiti, torn posters and every kind of urban visual texture.  Deflating though this might be, is it not equally true of any other category of subject matter?  Indeed, the portrait, the figure, and multiple varieties of landscape are subjects that still engage new generations after millennia of exploitation.  The same now applies to different modes of abstraction and even familiar conceptualist tropes.

It only takes a short excursion around the city to reveal a welter of new visual stimuli that captivate as urgently as ever.  So, rather than discounting a familiar subject category, it seems preferable to surrender to the immediate thrill of its rediscovery out in the field.  That always feels new.  The real issue is what one does with the source material and the danger of lazy recourse to standard responses or expressive shorthand.  Chasing the chimera of originality is futile but It might emerge through revisiting a source or suspending judgement in a familiar situation.  

Increasingly, we inhabit a digital culture of thoughtlessly recycled and appropriated images.  Equally problematic is a standardisation of expression or accepted interpretations applied to a narrowing range of image types.  Graffiti as a signifier of alienation or wilful transgression is valid enough but also an obvious cliché.  Taking that as read we should question what else it might be.  Connoisseurship of public texts and investigation of each example’s unique qualities and possible implications might release less predictable emotional and intellectual responses.  To become immersed in the ambiences and physical substance of a city should be to make connections between myriad strands of human experience.

Actually, originality probably isn't the point at all.  It's probably better to simply ask 'what's my response to this?'.

Dead Kings

I write this in the midst of ‘Diamond Jubilee Weekend’.  Whilst I’m no monarchist, it’s all integral to the story our society tells about itself and coaxed me into making some tangential local psychogeographic connections.

The celebrations are all over the media and Radio 4 Extra, contributed a re-run of the marathon ‘Vivat Rex’ series.  Originally commissioned for the Silver Jube, it’s a monumental official tribute to royal history, the dramatic aristocracy of the time, (Gielgud, Burton, etc.), and the words of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  It reeks of deferential quality and climaxed this weekend with the oft-told account of the Tudor dynasty.  I recalled my own A-level History studies of the period.  The British strand of our course was also mostly a standard account of the ruling elite. If I’m honest, I enjoyed it immensely. 

Artist Unknown, 'Richard III'

A Dead End Indeed

Michiel Sittow (?), 'Henry VII', 1505

It so happens that many street names hereabouts commemorate the associated Battle of Bosworth and its protagonists.  Several plaques also relate the local legends of Richard III passing over Bow Bridge on his way to and from Bosworth Field and subsequent burial nearby after defeat by Henry Tudor.  A short walk with the camera was all it took to document this.

            

A Victorian plaque mounted on a singularly mundane little mid 20th century building marks the legend of Richard’s burial in the local Greyfriars monastery and subsequent disinterment for ignominious disposal in the River Soar.  A more recent sign credited to the Richard III Society explaining that story away as a 17th century fabrication also caught my eye.  They remain assiduous in their rescue of Richard’s reputation from the victor’s propaganda. 

Accounts, meanings and texts from different periods accumulate here on the margins of what is now a major arterial route through the changing modern city.  I took my photos as the traffic roared past oblivious.  The procession of multicultural pedestrians appeared equally unaffected.