And another example of aesthetically-pleasingly-reformed subject/object matter (of the habitual 'found' variety), with once again the available synecdochal fragments of its iconic brand identity offering more than sufficient information to imaginatively (re)construct the whole.
graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour/30x20cm
Soundtrack:
Cabaret Voltaire 'Voice of America'/'Western Mantra'/'Red Mecca'
AR Kane 'When You're Sad', 'Lolita' & 'Up Home!' EPs
Miracle Legion 'Surprise Surprise Surprise'
Pavement 'Brighten the Corners'
Wire 'The A List'
Moon Wiring Club Solid Steel Radio Show mix
A largely ‘historical’ soundtrack, owing rather a debt to process, & specifically that of conversion from analogue to digital form, cassette to CD, having finally got around to the practicalities of doing so & subsequently enjoying something of a post-punk indulgence-fest (comfortably including the aesthetically-compatible sounds of Pavement – a fine ‘English’ word/name for an American band, to boot - within such a designation).
Also burned to CD for keeps has been Moon Wiring Club’s latest online ‘mixtape’, another fine example of the genre & addition to the growing collection of: the sourcing of found sound material & old electronica, & seamless collaging of it (exemplary research & development!) into a richly-textured & -satisfying ‘hauntological’ whole, creating an alternative world at a slight remove from the here & now, once again produces delightful results, constantly surprising & engaging.
On a related point, the process of re-reading Graham Rawle’s ‘Diary of an Amateur Photographer’ enabled the drawing of aesthetic parallels between itself – book-as-art-object & a narrative collaged together from all manner of found archive visual material - & Ian Hodgson’s sonic & visual creative project of the Moon Wiring Club, both being poignantly redolent of periods of a past still yet not too distant to have faded from memory but enough to be recognizably so, of referencing a time other than the contemporary.
Subtly-nuanced similarities abound, not least in the dynamic combination of a sense of humour & unsettling undercurrents, but most obviously in the ingenuity of the respective collage or bricolage techniques employed, ever admirably inventive as they are.
One can't help but think art-historically in terms of Rawle's 'Diary' (or that, rather, of his protagonist Michael Whittingham) with its cut up-&-pasted black & white photographs, newspaper advertisements & paper oft aged beyond yellow to a smoked, tan colour that recall the appearance & hues of Cubism: its overall appeal, & that of Moon Wiring Club, might be considered rather obvious to the aesthetic inclinations promoted here at TOoT.
