graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
And so to another diptych drawing of the more neatly, apparently almost deliberately folded examples of aluminium can ‘roadkill’, this time a particularly slimline instance of the form. As ever, there’s something unavoidably Cubist in appearance about such planar reshapings of what one knows once to have been a proper three-dimensional object-in-the-round. For the first time, in taking advantage of an especially fine early morning, the drawing was processed ‘en plein air’, with the lightly-faceted surface of the found object picking up the shifting patterns of light, the drawing thus providing a composite record of such rather than a fixed point as a photographic image would.
Soundtrack:
Moon Wiring Club 'An Audience of Art Deco Eyes'
There’s something going bump in the night, even though it’s still light well beyond 10 pm, & that something is the sound of the Moon Wiring Club’s ‘An Audience of Art Deco Eyes’, being the most recent musical investment: quite how & why it’s taken so long to get around to doing so is a mystery worthy of the strange goings-on in Clinksell itself, the initial instalment of which the album constitutes, preceding as it did ‘Shoes Off and Chairs Away’. The overriding initial impression of ‘An Audience...’ is that it broods magnificently, being a thoroughly engrossing, ‘escapist’ experience in the manner of its successor, with the prevailing atmosphere frequently leavened by a jaunty, capering melodic interlude - like fleeting shafts of sunlight filtering through the overarching canopy of leaves as one is drawn inexorably deeper into the spooky, sinister woods - & snippets of humour.
Again, as may be observed in these illustrations from the CD booklet of various members of the Club, the retro appearance & air of the accompanying artwork complements the music perfectly, creating a rich, multi-layered & rewarding aesthetic; much more may be explored, of course, at the Blank Workshop.
By way of one those strange temporal coincidences, I also took delivery yesterday of a copy of Simon Reynolds’ ‘Blissed Out’, a book I’d been trying to track down (if only at a reasonable price, of course) for years & finally managed to do so from a seller in the US. As a collection of the writer’s earlier work, featuring pieces revised from original publication in the music press, etc (on subjects such as The Smiths, Pixies, Sonic Youth, & ‘oceanic’ rock as the term was coined), I’ve regarded it as an essential addition to the library, such examples having formed my introduction to Reynolds’ style & always compelling, thought-provoking, enlightening & entertaining content, enjoyed from first exposure to: he it was, indeed, who succinctly identified the ‘lovely, wintry sound’ of - in his review of - the Go-Betweens’ ‘Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express’.
It was the estimable Mr Reynolds, of course, who first alerted me to the very existence of the Moon Wiring Club, championing both ‘An Audience...’ & then in turn ‘Shoes Off...’, thus another debt of gratitude is owed. Again, nostalgia might be said to be in the air, but this will be a book to be dipped-in-to & its essays enjoyed anew.
Note the cover design of ‘Blissed Out’, co-done by Vaughan Oliver of 23 envelope fame, very much in the style of many an independent album sleeve of the late 80s/early 90s: a suitable case for some present-day retro appropriation & re-presentation, surely?
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