Babes of the Abyss Playlist

As with I did with Dog Days' Nights, I am celebrating the conclusion of  Babes of the Abyss by assembling an 8Tracks mix of music I either listened to while writing the story or that I associate in some other way with the series.  It is a strange and varied collection of sounds with the only common thread being a gauzy layer of decay and reverb.  Many of the songs share a raw and unmastered aesthetic that matches well with both the general vibe of the Swingshift worldview and the often chaotic creative process behind the stories.

There will be more Swingshift in 2011, and Cheer is still available for depraved holiday enjoyment.  As always, thanks for all of your support.

01 cv313 - Subtraktive (King Midas Sound Dub)
she might be right

02 Gonasufi - My Only Friend (Hezus mix)
“Please, stay even though you know my reality”

03 Rolling Stones - Dancing with Mr. D (alternate take)
L-Girls theme - “A drink of Belldonna on a Toussaint night”

04 LA Vampires vs. Zola Jesus - No no no
strung out soundtrack to late nights at the club El Cambion

05 s. maharba - Tell a Lie
“millions of hearts have been broken, just because these words have been spoken...”

06 Demdike Stare - Bardo Thodol
several stories deep below Canal St.

07 The Stone Roses - Shoot You Down (lost demo version)
our man has big plans and a full moon swagger

08 Skeletons & Sobansa Mimanisa - Kiwembo / Unstuck
“Things are in motion ...Get out and get lost.”

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

"A patch of lightening rolls its way through the fog and across the water’s surface. The air pressure is dropping. My ears fill with echoing Latin. My knees buckle as gravity goes fluid for a brief moment. Best guess, this is the time. "

The damp and dramatic conclusion of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

Full moon, Saturday night. Dick crashes a Meridian orgone siphoning ritual and brings his own pyrotechnics. BJ plays the heavy, Jonesy drives the getaway car and the cat returns to life on the run. And, it all goes down with a swagger.

There is one more multi-chapter story in the Swingshift trilogy. It should kick off in January.

Thank you all for the support.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

"Three flights down through narrow stairwells lit by flickering fluorescents. Then, we cross a dark empty sub-basement. The speed surges in my veins from the exercise. The immersive silence fills my ears with malicious insectiod whispers and twists my thoughts into intricate knots of paranoia."

Babes of the Abyss - Part VI is live at T21.

In the penultimate chapter of  Babes of the Abyss, Swingshift proves the old adage that you can find anything in Chintown, including an orgone vacuum/bomb. 

I once heard a member of the NYPD's Trademark Infringement Unit tell the story of chasing an old woman, and knock-off watch salesperson, through a labyrinth of basement tunnels several stories beneath Chinatown.  Since then, I have had a fascination with Canal Street's bootleg culture and the secret architecture of Chinatown.  On more than one occasion my curiosity has gotten me chewed out in Chinese by ladies like the older lady in this piece.

Next time: the suspense filled, soaking wet climax of Babes of the Abyss. (I wonder if that phrase will bump my google ranking.)

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part VI

Swingshift Archive

The Night of the Whore-hopper - 2010 edition

"There are too many whores in politics these days, but the night of the whore-hopper is coming. Many will be called, and 9 out of 10 will be chosen-- to be herded down the long slippery ramp and into the bottomless sheep dip, where they will wallow and struggle helplessly (some of them drowning) until their bodies are disinfected by powerful acids, vapors, and the fumes of terrible lice medicines that will fry their brains like bacon left too long in the microwave....

The end will not come quickly, like it says in Revelations 22:7. First will come the shit-rain, then the sheep dip, and after that, the terrible night of the whore-hopper, which might last 1,000 years." - HST - Better Than Sex

Well it is going to be interesting at the very least.  Quick, totally unfounded, predictions: 

Republicans pick up 45-50 House seats and 9 Senate seats.  Rand Paul becomes Mitch McConnell's worst nightmare.  Joe Lieberman holds the Democratic caucus hostage for the next two years.  Neither party learns a damn thing and double down on idealogical short sightedness.  Discouraged, voter turn-out drops to 20% in 2012.  Politicians rejoice as we continue our decent down the slippery ramp and into the dreaded sheep dip.  

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

"That sorted, I got down to work banging together a binding ritual to capture and incapacitate my girlfriend. It is not the sort of thing my old man touched on when he explained the birds & bees. However, I would be lying if I told you this was the first time it had come up. "

Part V of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.
 

This chapter is a personal favorite.  All the peculiar elements of the series, dark humor, occult elements, horror tropes, intoxicated shenanigans are all at work her in the service of some complex personal ideas and emotions.  When I revisited this chapter for a last round of edits, I had one of those moments of estrangement from the text.  The words felt new to me, as if they had been written by someone else.  It is always a strange sensation and this is first time I experienced it writing this series.

 
Thanks, as always, for all of your support.





Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Brandon Graham Comix

Brandon Graham instinctively knows what comics (and the world) needs most - Frank Zapa and a girl eating a banana in the shower.

I love how, in Graham's stuff, sharp insight and emotional depth rise from surreal bits of wordplay and visual puns.  That lobster in the last frame puts a melancholy smile on my face. 

Brandon Graham's livejournal.

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV

 






"I tilt my head in an attempt to keep the steady stream of blood from pooling in my eye sockets. I see BJ’s Glock lying amongst the pile of denim at his feet. I consider making a dive for it.  I am not planning to pull it on anyone. I am planning to shoot myself in the head. Death may be the only way out of this wretched hallway. I wonder if I can get the gun into my mouth quick enough or whether I should just take a fast but dirty slug to the temple."
 
Part IV of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.
 
This time out, Dick manages to infiltrate the mysterious club El Cambion only to spend most of teh night trapped in a maintenance corridor.  He is rescued by the dashing Samael who then gives him a personal tour of the clubs exclusive grotto of love.
 
 

 
 
Swinghshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part IV
 
Swingshift Archive
 



What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 2)

(photo by Shaun Bloodworth)

For fans of forward thinking electronic music the end of summer was overshadowed by the announcement that Mary Anne Hobbs would be leaving her radio show on Radio 1 after 14 years. I could carry on endlessly about how important this show has been to me personally and to the music I love. In recent years the focus on Mary Anne has deservedly centered around her championing of the Dubstep scene. However, for me it was in the years leading up to Dubstep’s emergence into wider recognition in 2006 that MAH was her most vital. The electronic music landscape was pretty bleak circa 2004 - 2005 and after her hero John Peel passed away Mary Anne’s Breezeblock was one of the only places you could hear fresh new sounds on a regular basis.

The blow of Mary Anne’s departure was softened somewhat by the series of climatic headline mixes lovingly assembled by some of her favorite producer/DJs. In particular the mix by Shackleton and the final mix by Kode9 and Burial were outstanding. Both mixes manage to be challenging, uncompromising and yet extremely intimate. They were the absolute best examples of what made the show such a special institution all theses years. You can d/l the final shows at the excellent CoreNews mix archive.

Two particular club nights stand out from the past summer. The first was Demdike Stare at The Bunker. On a night that saw a disappointing, technical difficulty hampered , live set from the Caretaker and the Mike Huckabee playing amazing edits from a reel 2 reel, the Modern Love boys stole the show. Taking the crowd from fathoms deep beatless meditations to hard driving, big system techno and back again with a spattering of exotic percusion and Turkish Psych thrown in for good measure. At points, when the bass opened up, the sound rattled all of the club’s duct work adding a layer of accidental percussion to the proceedings. Brilliant.

The other big night out was the mighty Dub War’s 5th anniversary. 5 being a sacred number for any Joe Nice fan you knew the place was going to full to bursting the shouting and stomping masses. Mala DMZ was joined by “secret guest” Skream for an extended b2b set of bass-bin destroying bangers. If you have seen either selector before (and if you haven’t I advise remedying that quick like), there were few musical surprises. But for once, in a club night that prides it self on being ahead of the bass music curve, it was all about straight forward celebration. Even serious technical issues could not keep the vibes down as all had come to skank it up until dawn.

As far as home listening, the last year or more has seen a fertile ground develop along the margins of the UK’s various bass/urban music scenes. Making things even more interesting is that many of the new sounds have more in common with classic U.S. dance sounds than Dubstep or UK Garage. Case in point the Juke and B-more influenced Work Them by Ramadanman, close sibling to the unstoppable anthem Footcrab. Other housier summer vibes were provided by Jam City's wonderful Ecstasy (refix) and Space Dimension Controller’s epic The Love Quadrant.



One of the best showcases for these various developing sounds has to Kode9’s DJ Kicks contribution which came out at the Summer Sostice and has been a touchstone for me all season.  Drawing from a wide pallet of cutting edge bass music, it’s Kode9’s attention to the essential low-end groove that unifies this mix, creating a whole that is far more than the sum of its tracklist. Other shining examples of a unified groove theory have been recent mixes from Oneman, Ben UFO and Ramadanman (who has to be the hardest working man in bass music at the moment)

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (part 1)

Despite efforts, the blog has fallen into a classic summer lull. Oddly, the lull was not borne of my annual “I’m too drunk in the sun to type” excuse. The oppressive heat and lack of funds moderated my summer shenanigans somewhat this year. That doesn’t mean there weren’t great times and enlightening cultural experiences but these things were less frequent and more intimate then in summers past.

This being the first day of autumn, I thought I would play catch up and hash together a random list of cultural morsels that nourished me through the summer heat.

If summer 2010 had a recurring iconography it was cephalopodic in nature. The cultural interest in all things tentacled transcended the previous subcultural preoccupations with Tentacle Hentai (yeah, I’m unwilling to dig for link there) and Lovecraft's Great Old One Cthulhu into a quirk of the zeitgeist more abstract and harder to pin down.

Personally the main agent of this tentacular assault was China Mieville’s excellent novel Kraken. Kraken is an immersive work of urban fantastic. Set in modern day London, it’s plot centers around the theft of the preserved specimen of a giant squid from the British Museum an act that exposes a hidden culture of peculiar cults and practitioners of esoteric arts that thrives beneath the city’s surface. My absolute favorite moment in the novel is an argument that breaks out between an evil animate back tattoo and The Sea (minor spoilers: The Sea always wins). Appropriately, I read the novel on the beach and with plenty of The Kraken: Black Spiced Rum. Kraken Rum is tasty tar-flavored (in a good way I swear) liquor that awakens a peculiar form of nautical madness in he who dare partake of the sweet black liquid (also it makes a wicked Dark & Stormy).

I’m not usually one for summer movies, but I thought Inception was as good, if not better than, the hype. You couldn't say that about a lot of movies this year. I also really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think both films re-purpose the classic big Hollywood thriller. Inception brings the metaphysical subtext to the forefront and uses CGI shock and awe to find new methods of insight into the internal life of its characters. Dragon Tattoo takes the exhausted 1990s suspense thriller (think cleverly titled Morgan Freeman / Ashley Judd vehicle based on novel by famous author) and scrubs it clean of cliche and patronizing sentimentality. The film actively works against your generic preconceptions, thereby knocking the viewer off guard and opening up space for her to be thrilled and terrified again.

On Netflix, I was recently hypnotized by The Red Riding Trilogy. The pace and texture are absolutely engrossing but it is so very bleak. I feel like I haven’t quite figured out what makes it such an enthralling experience yet. I’m trying to get up the bottle to watch it all again.

The best thing on television this summer has yet to come to the US. Moffat and Gattis Holmes for the 21st century, Sherlock, is one of the most intelligent and exhilarating pieces of television in recent memory There is a wonderful mix of original Holmes spirit and mythology with invigorating modern narrative and visual styles. The acting is first rate, you cannot take your yes off of Cumberbatch’s Holmes for fear of missing some lovely nuance and yet Martin Freeman, as an Afghanistan veteran Dr. Watson, more than holds his own, adding depth to a show that could easily become one dimensional and shticky. Sherlock premieres on PBS in the US end of October. I cannot recommend it enough.

I also love Brian Cox’s new science series Wonders of the Solar System. Cox’s excitement for science is wickedly contagious. The show does a amazing job of moving from the very small, personal and even mundane to the unfathomably large. Wonders is the perfect title for the series. When at it’s best, it instills in you a palpable feeling of wonder for the immensity of the universe that you may not have experienced since you were a child.

I don’t read many comics these days. The shelf space for non-super hero, original pulp comics has shrunk considerably but there are still a few wonderful gems to be discovered. Best of the lot as far as I’m concerned is Brandon Graham’s King City. Graham’s world building vision and attention to minute detail generate a thoroughly immersive alternate reality. There is an energy and a surreal flavor to KC that reminds me of classic Milligan and McCarthy books from the 80s. While the visual style re-purposes manga and European influences into something totally unique.

Ba and Moon’s Daytripper is personal favorite as well. Daytripper manages to be both narratively light and nimble and still pack a very powerful and personal emotional punch. I think this is the product of both the creators unique visual storytelling abilities and the ingenious narrative device that hinges the individual stories together (I’m not going to spoil it for you, you’re going to have to read it yourself)

The full color, Marvel published, return of Casanova has been a joy. If possible, i may love the book more now than the first time around. My friend J.B. Love’s Boondock Saints two-parter with BS’s creator Troy Duffy, In Nomini Patris is a filthy, fast paced, romp, that takes the condensed essence of what makes the films so much fun and adds a fine layer of depth to the Bros. MacManus mythos (the title returns with another limited series, The Head of the Snake,next month . Some serious grime and grit can also be found in Kody Chamberlain’s Sweets, an atmospheric crime procedural set in New Orleans. With two issues out so far Sweets lured me in with gorgeous art and a subtle narrative pace and then left me wanting more. Thankfully the next issue is due out in a few weeks.

[I’m going to put a pin in here and pick up tomorrow with the summers best music.]

Dog Days' Nights Playlist

I have cobbled together a random playlist of tracks that I either listened to while writing Dog Days’ Nights or that have, in my mind, a connection to the story. I slapped the tunes into an 8Tracks mix for your enjoyment. It is interesting that these are very different sounds than my standard everyday soundtrack.

I will try to assemble another playlist at the end of Babes of the Abyss (Zola Jesus and The Rolling Stones will certainly make appearances).





00 RAW - Dog Days
intial inspiration for the title (among other grander things)

01 Thom Yorke - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
wake up on your feet vibes

02 The Whitefield Brothers (feat. Guilty Simpson) - American Nightmare
lock-up at the 6-0

03 Spoek Mathambo - Control
South African electro-house cover of Joy Division - perfect loft party joint

04 Gonjasufi - Duet
possible theme song for CSI: Bushwick 420

05 Cliff Edwards (aka Ukulele Ike) - I’ll See You In My Dreams
I’m still not sure why ukulele music is playing in the background

06 James Blake - CMYK
Dee's lament

07 The Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble - Dark Night of the Soul
exactly what it says on the tin

08 Bei Bei & Shawn Lee - East
Rodriguez’s action theme

09 Oneohtrix Point Never (feat. Antony) - Returnal (christian fennesz remix)
“you've never left, you've been here the whole time”

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

"As best I can tell, through the bad in browser translation, HandiMandi is a forum for Eastern European transsexuals who are also home improvement enthusiasts. Even by .ru standards, it seems a little too obscure to be for real. Judging by the jarring amount of unintelligible grammar in the posts, either the site is the world’s greatest spam-bot magnet or most of the traffic is shady bastards like me leaving obscured covert messages."


Part III of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

In this chapter, we venture to the dark backwaters of the internets where Dick flexes his best spam-bot impersonation. MacEndroe re-emerges at the end of the sordid paper trail surrounding the El Cambion nightclub. The cat steals a few more scenes and both Ed/Lou and the L-Girls make appearances.

My apologies for the spacing and formatting glitches. They should be sorted out shortly.



Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss – Part III

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

“Meeting a girl’s friends is a tricky tight rope act. A little flirting never hurts but too much flirting will yield you enemies for life. I quickly decide that my best strategy, as is often the case in awkward social situations, is to throw a ludicrous amount of charm and booze at the situation. By the time I order the third round of shots and run through my greatest hits of self-deprecating stories, it is as if we are all old friends.”


Part II of Babes of the Abyss is live at T21.

The Allied bennies come on cool and slow. We discover the reason behind Rodriguez’s surprise social call and the NYPD detective and the charmed feline form a sinister alliance.

Then Dick settles in to his new role as the boyfriend. He meets the lovely L-Girls and glimpses a well-chiseled shadow from Qarin’s past from across a crowded room.

I'm thinking of assembling a Swingshift playlist. Zola Jesus v. LA Vampires is definetly the soundtrack for this chapter.




Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss

"I wake to the familiar sensation of my brain trying to burst its way out of my skull. I manage to turn the AC to full blast and pull a sheet over my head to hold back the day a few more minutes. I close my eyes and let frantic images of the previous night’s debauchery scroll by. Glimpses of fevered copulations, teasing, taunting, bordering on violence and ending, as has become common, with me handcuffed to the headboard."


Babes of the Abyss a new storyline in the Swingshift series is live at T21.

The story picks up a few weeks after the events of Dog Days' Nights. It is built so that a reader could jump in to the series now with minimal confusion. However, it also fits within a larger narrative for the series.

Babes of the Abyss should be a little sexier and a touch more surreal than the previous story. It will see our man Dick operating out on his own in a bizarre underworld, pushing himself well beyond the break of sanity. I you enjoy it.




Swingshift: Babes of the Abyss - Part I

Swingshift Archive

Happy Birthday - Rose Sélavy

“I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.”

A happy 123rd Birthday to Marcel Duchamp the OG (original game-changer).

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2

A sequel to my original Unified Bass Theory mix, again I tried to draw from a broad spectrum of underground BASS sounds, mining the fertile margins at the edges of UK Funky, House, Dubstep and West Coast beats.

The mix has a serious summer vibe, custom built for both sun drenched afternoons and sweat soaked late nights.

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2 by kelcey

1) Gil Scott Heron - New York is Killing Me
2) Eprom - Bubble
3) Free The Robots - Orion's Belt Buckle
4) The xx - Islands (Untold remix)
5) Jose James - Warrior (SBTRKT remix)
6) Grace Jones - Love You To Life (Digital Mystikz remix)
7) Ikonika - Yoshimitsu
8) Pariah - Orpheus
9) Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me
10) F- Energy Distortion (Untold remix)
11) DJ MA1 — High Definition (Deep Teknologi remix)
12) Hardhouse Banton - Rein (Roska remix)
13) MJ Cole - Phoenix Riddim
14) MJ Cole - AO (MJ's Open Your Gob dub)
15) Girl Unit - IRL (DVA's Hi Emotions remix)
16) Karizma - I.C.U.
17) A Made Up sound - Sun Touch
18) Zero 7 - Ghost sYMbOL (Julio Bashmore remix)
19) Altered Natives - Raaatid Einstein
20) Argy & DJ Gregory - Our Drums
21) DVA - Ganja
22) Hypno - Over the Top
23) Kentphonik - Hiya Kaya (Rocco Deep mix)
24) Roska - The Sheppard
25) Hot Chip - I Feel Better (Ill Blu remix)

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

“In my own sudden moment of action, I slam the study door shut and bolt the lock. This leaves me alone in the small room with a near catatonic Murzim, moaning and clutching his balls, and a massive, sinister demon dog. It is perhaps the dumbest decision I have ever made but I have an irrational faith in my secret weapon.”


Part VII of Dog Days’ Nights is live at T21. This is it, the frantic conclusion. This installment is a twisted riff on a classic mystery cliche, where all the players assemble in the study for the big reveal. Only here, the players include a demon, a pack of street dogs and an enchanted cat.

Dog Days’ Nights is the first of three interconnected story lines in the series. The next story, Babes of the Abyss, will go live in a couple weeks.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VII

Swingshift Archive

R.I.P. Rammellzee

All humans are spectators to Art in the second dimension. We are only recording recepticles for energy’s knowledge for the build procedure.

[...]

Death is remanipulation only be electromagnetic knowledge energy leaving disease because of malfunction of inhabited diseaseculture, other deaths are only CHANGE. Electromagnetics’ knowledge disperses back into the course of the Van Allen Belt’s (in purity).

from the ICONIC TREATISE ON GOTHIC FUTURISM


I’m not sure how I originally came across Rammellzee’s Iconic Treatise on Gothic Futurism. The CCRU or Kodwo Eshun may have had something to do with it. The internet surely did. What I do know is that I was in no way prepared for the experience.

While Ramm’s music is excellent and truly foundational it was this pamphlet that really blew my mind. Reading it is one a unique experiences where even as you strain to make sense the text you are convinced the words and symbols are re-wiring your neurons without your consent.

Ramm:Ell:Zee >> Performer of the Equation >> Runner of the Transversus, may his eletomagnetic knowledge return to the Van Allen Belt.




video via @Hyperdub

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

Things are tense in the interrogation room. My story has run out of yarn but the promised revelations and actionable conclusions have not materialized. I am convinced there is something more, that the timeline is incomplete.


After a small delay, my bad, Part VI of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. In this installment our battered hero commits the unpardonable sin of sobering up and getting some sleep. A respite he pays dearly for. Also, our story returns full circle to the beginning and we discover a little bit about what is up with the cat.

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part VI

Swingshft Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

The Loft turned out to be an old two-story warehouse. A massive open common area comprised the front half of the first floor. It was sparsely furnished with junk store relics and curbside cast offs. A number of strung out party people were sprawled around the room or wandering about with a lack of focus specific to afternoon intoxication. Somewhere, unseen, someone was playing Victrola era pop standards on a ukulele.


Part V of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. Things are starting to come together. Swingshift gets a peek inside the Pop Magus study and re-affirms his distaste for rich men and automobiles. One more chapter before Part VII's high flying finally.



Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part V

Swingshift Archive

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

“What do you think I’m running here, CSI Bushwick?”

Rube eked out the sarcastic barb through smoke filled lungs. He handed me the smoldering ends of a once massive spliff. I slid it between my fingers gingerly, careful not to drop ash into the cooler that took pride of place on the table between us. I had brought the spliff and a couple of out-sized coffees as gifts of conciliation for showing up at Rube’s door so early in the day with such grisly luggage in tow.

“I didn’t know what the fuck else to do. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. I just knew it was evidence to something and that if The Heat got a hold of it I’d never know its secrets.”

“Well do you know its secrets now?”

“Well no. But that’s why I brought it to you. I thought you would Quincy this shit out for me.”

“OK, maybe I should clarify further. My apartment is not the morgue from the set of any forensic procedural on television now, or at any time in the history of the genre.”


Part IV of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It is the procedure heavy investigation portion of the story. However, since it's our man Swingshift he is mainly sitting around, drinking rye, getting stoned and generally shooting the shit with a cast of characters

It is my favorite episode of the story so far.




Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part IV

Swingshift Archive

Carl Sanburg - The People Yes

The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."

The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
"They buy me and sell me...it's a game...sometime I'll
break loose..."

from The People Yes by Carl Sanburg


Recently the word Socialism has been batted around by protesters and political pundits. Carl Sanburg's Socialism is not the perverted straw man of modern media shouting. It is instead something deeper, sharper and more meaningful. It is an acknowledgement of the glorious, primal drive or perseverance that human beings share at their most basic cores. It bears witness both the the glory of a modern world built from the brow sweat of resilient men and women and to the soul crushing hardships that the same world rends from their flesh.

Sanburg's words are terse, honed for maximum impact, not a syllable wasted. There are no victim's here, only those who have been done wrong, time and again, and who yet continue forward no matter how clumsy, mongrel and idiotic their stubborn progress may appear.

I had though about this poem since grade school. Then, in 2006, I was listening to n recording of Sci-fi author / futurist visionary Bruce Sterling's annual SXSW speech. 2006 was a pretty grim year and Sterling was bringing the The Fear™. Then, as a quasi-benediction, he closed by reading the above section from Sanburg's book length poem.

The conviction and emotion in his voice struck me like a cold slap across the face. A man for whom The Future was his stock and trade was read a poem from the depths of the Great Depression, the words resonanting as if they were crafted that very morning, was chilling. Since that moment this poem, sadly, becomes more prescient with ever passing year.

Buy The People Yes

Bruce Sterling reads from The People Yes at SXSW 06

Roger Robinson - Misuse of Magic

"14. The magician destroys an object only to restore it back to its natural state"

Roger Robinson reading from his excellent book Suckle.

Of course Robinson is best know as the vocalist for the mighty King Midas Sound but don't sleep on his written poetry. It is full of warmth and spirit while still cutting clean through to the emotional bone.

Check a nice post by John Eden on all Robinson's books: here

Tristan Tzara - dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love

XIII

DADA is a virgin microbe
DADA is against the high cost of living
DADA
limited company for the exploitation of ideas
DADA has 391 different attitudes and colours according to the sex of the president
It changes ? affirms ? says the opposite at the same time ? no importance? shouts ?goes fishing.
Dada is the chameleon of rapid and self?interested change.
Dada is against the future. Dada is dead. Dada is absurd. Long live Dada.
Dada is not a literary school, howl

from dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love
- Tristan Tzara


If I have ever been seduced or corrupted by a particular dogma or orthodoxy it was the anti-dogma of Dada and if Dada has an (un)holy scripture to rival the Psalms it is the poems and manifesto's of Tristan Tzara. The austere earnestness of Tzara's emphatic declarations coupled with the puckish absurdity of the wordplay yields a novel sensation of extreme emotion borne of intellectual discourse.

Tzara demands that you join him in zealotic commitment to a cheap joke and in so doing liberates the reader from the mundane and conscribes her in his plot of poetical terror.


dada manifesto on feeble love and bitter love

also check out: How To Make A Dadaist Poem

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

"Rex steadied himself with one hand on the doorjamb, traced an intricate sigil in the grime above the dog’s head and muttered a short incantation that sounded like a Welshman learning Yiddish. It took him a few attempts to get his numbed tongue around the unforgiving syllables but eventually the door did not so much open as simply dissipate into the air. As we crossed the threshold, a rush of crowd heat, incense smoke and loud music enveloped us."


Part III of Dog Days' Nights is live at T21. It's a party/club scene. You knew there would be at least one. In this instalment we get the low down on Jimmy The Pop Magus, discover that our damsel in distress may not be so distressed and learn that The Muppet Show did in fact reach the shores of Norway.

This was the most difficult part of the story to write. There are a lot of moving parts and events in this section are essential to not only this story but those that follow. Keeping the action moving and the pace lively was a challenge. In the end I am pleased with the results.





Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part III

Swingshift Archive

W.S. Merwin - Youth

Youth

Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I

have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I

began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already

part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

from W.S. Merwin's collection The Shadow of Sirius.


For me, it is all about that final line; so full of insight that breeds wonder instead of complacency. The line is just on the verge of sounding cheap and clichéd. I wonder whether I would feel the same way about it if it had been written by the author in his twenties rather than his eighties? Either way, it lights my eyes every time I read it.

I'm a pretty young man but I feel I am on the cusp of the moment Merwin is invoking here; that place in one's lifetime where the adventures of youth become "part memory part distance".

There is a great Bill Moyers interview where Merwin, who has won Pulitzers in both 1971 and 2009, shares some wonderful insight into craft and process. This quote is a personal favorite:


"Poetry's really about what can't be said. And you address it when you can't find words for something. And the idea is, is that the poet probably finds words for things. But if you ask the poet, the poet will tell you, you can't find words for it. Nobody finds words for grief. Nobody finds words for love. Nobody finds words for lust. Nobody found — finds words for real anger. These are things that always escape words."


Youth and Good Night at Writer's Almanac

Buy The Shadow of Sirius

Interview with Bill Moyers

LBR8 in Popshot!

I have a new poem, cleverly titled LBR8, in the new Liberate issue of Popshot magazine. Contrary to images the name conjures, Popshot is not a pornographers trade mag. It is a wonderfully designed zine determined to drag poetry away from the stuffy university presses and into the 21C.

Each issue, twenty five short poems on a theme are chosen and handed over to twenty five brilliant illustrators who give each piece a visual accomplice. My poem is coupled with a fittingly irreverent illustration by the excellent David Sparshott.

More Popshot info: here

Excellent interview with Popshot's Jacob Denno: here

Cyrus Cassells - Beautiful Signor

Hear me when I say
our love’s not meant to be
an opiate;
helpmate,
you are the reachable mirror
that dares me to risk
the caravan back
to the apogee, the longed-for
arms of the Beloved—

from Cyrus Cassells - Beautiful Signor


There are two things in particular that I love about the work of Cyrus Cassells and this poem in particular. The first is the asymmetric lyrical quality of the verse. The rhythms are not straight forward, the line breaks and punctuation clip, join or contextualize thoughts and imagary with a seemingly free form liberty. Yet the words resonate with glorious lyricism. The lines undulate with a rhythmical freedom and a sensual richness of tone that perfectly accentuates the subject matter.

This lush sensuality in Cassells' poems is intertwined with a revelatory spirituality in a way that opens up both aspects to unique insight. At its best Cassells' work, especially in the book Beautiful Signor, melds the sensual and spiritual into one ecstatic sensation that is primal and familiar yet surprisingly revealing.

I got turned on to Cassells by artists/poet William Allen during a workshop he was teaching. At the time I was obsessed with the interaction between the spiritual and profane. However, unlike Cassells I was interested in smashing signifiers of both concepts together and documenting the shrapnel. By introducing me to Cassells' work I think Allen was trying to show me another way to get at the problem. I only sort of understood that at the time. It was one of those lessons I did not fully learn, or at least did not put in to practise, until years later.

In an effort to get both the blogging and poetical juices flowing, I'm going to try and share a few of my favorite poems over the next few weeks. There will be some canonical classics, some fresh unkowns and a few obscure artifacts but they will all be pieces that I have a personal affinity for.

Buy Beautiful Signor

also check out Cassells' Soul Make a Path Through Shouting

Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part II

"Monday lost to weekend residue, I arrived Tuesday afternoon just in time for happy hour at the Thirsty Serpent. I settled in at the bar hoping to nurse a few whiskeys and read the paper. My hopes were promptly dashed when Tracey the bartender brought me a line of trouble with my rye. "


Part II of Dog Days' Nights is up at T21.

In this episode our man Swingshift begins to lay the tale out from the beginning. We meet our girl Tracey the bartender. We also meet a self-named man called Rube and get a glimpse into a peculiarly feline byproduct of the real estate collapse.

Part III should be up in two weeks.

Swingshift: Dogs Days' Nights - Part II

Swingshift Archive

Ray Caesar - Returns of the Day

Returns of the Day was one of the highlights of the recent Five Year Anniversary group show at Jonathan Levine gallery. I have been consistently having my head blown by Ray Caesar's work for some time now. However, this piece stands out as something new or at least unique in Caesar's catalog.

First there is all that lovely light and shadow play. The ornate molding, so quintessentially Caesar, whites out in the light flare on the left and is consumed by shadow on the right. Then there is the inclusion of motion and action. His previous work has often featured the posed or at least still figure. Here the composition is alive with the movement of the figure in to the frame and exquisitely the arc of the figures knife wielding arm slashing through the scene. The image is poised on the cusp of action, hung on the anticipation of violent menace (albeit violent menace perpetrated on a birthday cake).

However, the detail that really sucks me in to the piece is the peculiar spinal ridge that rises up out of, yet appears to be part of, the lovely lacquered table. So incongruous of the immaculate setting, so mysterious and oh so very shiny. Which leads me to one last observation. The luscious black of the lower half of this work, in all it's texture and fine detail, could this have been executed in another medium? The ability of Caesar's work to be as textural and lush as oil paint in a digital medium has always amazed. But could we now, in this piece, be seeing the high rez digital print outpace the storied medium of oil on canvas? It will be interesting to see what the artist does over this next year.

Swingshift: The Series

The familiar double chime of the subway doors stirs me. My head enveloped in a chemical fog, my eyes refuse to focus. I lean in through the blurred surroundings trying to decipher the warbled string of syllables running from the overhead PA.

“Avenue X / McDonald, next stop”


So begins my new black humor occult-noir series, Swingshift, for T21. It is going to be a woozy rawkus ride with our man Dick Swingshift at the controls. Dick is an old school shamus, straight out of grainy black & white films and dusty pulp novels. Dick is also a practitioner of the arcane and the occult. The series follows Dick as he stumbles his way through a complicated twenty first century reality hyper-saturated in technicolor and pop magick.

The first episode, Dog Days' Nights - Part I, is now live and new instalments will follow every two weeks. I am essentially making it up as I go along. To that end any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Please drop your thoughts and reactions in the comments here or feel free to shoot me an e-mail if your too polite to slag me off in public.

Also, if you missed the early Swingshift story Cheer, T21 has re-posted it as a nice introduction to the series.



Swingshift: Dog Days' Nights - Part I

Swingshfift: Cheer

Swingshift Archive

Conjurers' Dub (mix)

image via The Afflicted Yard

There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men
call Silence is Its Speech.
- the book of lies

For some time now I've wanted to assemble a mix comprised of the deep, dark, dubby tunes that soundtrack my late night writing sessions and dark nights of soul. This mix rides a thick black night groove through headier Shackleton productions, stripped back dubstep and echo drenched, slow burn dub-techno. It's laced with a haunting Tikiman vocal and The Space Ape's hypnotic delivery and bookended by TKDE's glorious doomjazz.

It's built more for head-nodding meditation than peek time dancing. A sustaining anti-lullaby for babes of the abyss

Conjurers' Dub (mix)  by  kelcey

(00:00) Demdike Stare - Extwistle Hall
(01:40) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Seneca
(05:35) Harmonia '76 - Sometimes In Autumn (Shackleton Remix)
(09:50) Shackleton - Asha In The Tabernacle
(15:35) Vindixatrix - Private Places (Shackleton & Mordant Music Version)
(20:50) Emika - Drop The Other (Scuba's Vulpine Remix)
(25:00) Pangaea - Dead Living
(29:20) CV313 - Subtraktive
(30:35) Rhythm and Sound feat. Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It
(38:00) STL - Checkmate (cv313 Remodel)
(39:35) Fever Ray - Seven (Marcel Dettmann remix)
(44:15) Martyn feat. Space Ape - Is This Insanity? (Ben Klock Remix)
(47:00) Red Shape - Dark & Sticky
(50:00) Pendle Coven -Uncivil Engineering (Calm Mix)
(52:05) Deadbeat - Teach The Devil's Son
(58:00) Beat Pharmacy feat. Space Ape - Ghostship (Deadbeat dub)
(62:00) Appleblim - Within
(65:15) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Embers

The Daughters of Erzulie

"I reach the corner of Washington Square Park and my feet freeze up short of the curb. My ears draw whispers from the bushes. My mind populates the shadows with darting figures. The small patch of artificial wild appears alive with menace. I gaze up at a towering elm with the moon nestled in its high branches. The Hangman’s Elm, as they call it on the walking tours."

My new story, The Daughters of Erzulie, is up at Troubadour 21. It's my contribution to the excellent T21 horror series and is paired with another cracking essay by Chris Deal. You can find the previous installments of the horror series here. I recommend each of them highly.

Erzulie is my take on the classic ghost story, set in my old Greenwich Village stomping grounds. It owes a debt to Pete Hamill's brilliant novel Forever for it's initial inspiration and to Carly's exhaustive research into paranormal NYC.

I hope it's as much fun to read as it was to write.

Some days you wake up and...

During a rather dark and reclusive stretch of my life, this Jenny Holzer postcard always sat on my desk next to my laptop. I used it as a talisman (and judging by the drink rings also as a coaster), focusing my paranoid fancies onto something external and benign while I stared deep into the abyss. The casual, moderate voice normalized grand delusions into everyday occurrences.

To this day, when the days get short and the nights get cold, I wake to find myself repeating the phrase to myself. A mantra to get me through the morning dread.

End X 10

I've started off the new decade by digitally recreating a 10 year old mixtape. Copies of the original tape were given to a few friends with an early version of Music For End Times.

Nearly all the tracks in the mix were released between '95 - '99. It starts out with a bit of Illbient and Asian Underground sounds easing in to a run of Metalheadz style Drum & Bass rollers and than rolling out through some banging warehouse techno and over the top trance. In the spirit of the original there are still a few dodgy mixes left in.

Some of tunes still sound fresh to my ears (Jamie Myerson, Source Direct). Other tunes make me question the effects of sustained ecstasy use on musical taste (Drop Bass Network, Binary Finary). In the end it's a fun survey of the underground electronic sounds of the late 90s.

END X 10  by  kelcey

1) Toshiro Mayuzumi- The Creation of Eve (1966)
2) Mocean Worker – Detonator (1998) (palm pictures)
3) DJ Spooky – Sum Ill Shit (Clinton Street Dub) (1998) (asphodel)
4) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Nothing Without You/Tery Bina (The Dhol Foundation & Fun-Da-Mental Remix) (1997)
5) Osmani Soundz – Spiritual Masterkey (1997) (mango)
6) Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970)
7) Ian Pooley - Vital One (1996) (mille plateaux)
8) Jamie Myerson - Music For The Lonely (remix) (1997) (sm:)e)
9) E-Z Rollers – Soundclash ('99 edit) (moving shadow)
10) Known / Unknown – Rollers Edit (1999) (moving shadow)
11) Adam F – Metropolis (1996) (metalheadz)
12) J Majik – Face II Face (1997) (infrared)
13) Source Direct – Black Domina (1996) (science)
14) Elijah - Chiming Fugue (1995) (home entertainment)
15) DJ Rolando - Shining Path (1997) (Underground Resistance)
16) Luke Slater – Love (loved) (1998) (novamute)
17) Neil Landstrumm – Praline Horse (I Ate The Whole Bag Remix) (1996) (tresor)
18) Goio - Basic Needs (1995) (drop bass network)
19) Speedy J - Pannik (1997) (plus 8)
20) Kai Tracid - Tiefenrausch (Oliver Lieb Remix) (1999) (tracid traxxx)
21) Binary Finary – 1999 (Matt Darey remix) (1999) (wiggle)

Audrey Kawaski - Radiant Allure

One of the first things you notice in Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are the eyes of her gorgeous figures. These narrowed yet aloof eyes draw the viewer into the paintings seemingly against their will. Yet they give nothing away, no glimpse of emotion or psychology, just the gentle possibility of desire. For any sort of emotional theme or narrative the viewer must turn to body language of the figure or to the symbolic items, often animals, and often in silhouette, or the setting. Even than the curiosity which those enigmatic eyes have inflamed is only partially satiated.

Another striking feature of Kawasaki's work is the color pallet and texture. Using washes of oils on wood panels she is able to evoke a soft dreamlike tone. The grain of the wood rises gently through the thin paint at times flattening the image and drawing attention to the works superficiality. While in other places the play of wood grain and oil washes create a sense of depth and a complexity of textures.

I had not seen much of Kawasaki's work in person until very recently but personally the more recent pieces have an gained an attention to the use of light that has taken the work to another level. In the recent Jonathan Levine show, Hitorigoto was the first painting hung next to the door. It was the only piece in the show where the source of the soft melancholy glow, so essential to the allure and intrigue of all of the pieces on display, was made visible. What I find most interesting is that this soft light that emanates from below the image frame only touches the skin of the figures, never the setting or other imagery in the paintings.



In the striking Yuuwaku even the hairdressing remains unlit, flat and nearly silhouette while the warm lantern glow shimmers from the cheeks, shoulders and breast of the alluring figure. This contrast sets the figure apart from its surroundings and adds to dreamlike unbalance of the viewing experience. All of these techniques and details combine in the lush figurative painting of Audrey Kawasaki trapping you in that enchanted moment just after twilight when street lamps switch on, or here lanterns and candles are lit and the possibilities of a fresh night are yet to be exhausted.

Time-limited prints of two of Kawasaki's recent paintings go on sale for January 23rd at 3:00 pm PST. Check her shop for details.