Another Dip Into the Past...

Returning to the stone circle as subject matter, and another painting, after the recent 'Castlerigg' example, based on historical sketches and a particular photograph taken on location during a snowstorm.

The circle is not, like Castlerigg, an ancient monument, but, rather, a more modern structure, erected in the 1960s on the top field in Flint, North Wales, to commemorate the staging of the 'Eisteddfod' cultural festival - a feast movable all over Wales - in the town, and is composed of twelve standing stones arranged in circular form with a further collection of stone laid in the centre, in the style of a plinth with irregular 'steps' on all four sides. The tallest of the standing stones (probably the slightly most distant one as represented, at the left-hand edge of the plinth) is perhaps 6 feet in height.

Growing up there, and in the top end of town, it's something - a thing, an object, composed of objects, a static arrangement like a still life in the landscape - that I encountered on very many occasions, indeed daily over a period of years, more often in passing, sometimes to stop and contemplate. At various points, I photographed and drew the circle, and it is these records as they exist that inform this particular painted image, which thus embodies both specific and more general memories.

'Spectral Stone Circle #1: Snowstorm'

oil on canvas/16" x 20"/June 2019

The size of the painting is rather smaller on this occasion, a deliberate attempt at experimentation with questions of scale, and, whilst retaining evidence of its brush-marked, hand-made nature, has less thickly physical a surface than the larger Castlerigg predecessor, not least in an attempt to communicate something of a 'spectral' nature which is an idea that I'm considering exploring as a theme from an interest in the nebulous concept of 'hauntology', something introduced into my frame of reference via music and related artwork (primarily the wonders of the Moon Wiring Club and the Blank Workshop) about ten years ago and which continues to exercise a particular fascination.

Back at the Easel...

Presenting today the early stages of the current work-in-progress, another 4′ x 2′ ‘widescreen’ canvas upon which has been sketched the early stages of a second woodscape composition closely related to its predecessor and of which there is as yet not a great deal else to say.

The work was carried out over the course of Saturday afternoon, this activity to the accompaniment of a selection of the new release from the Moon Wiring Club, celebrating in generously expansive style the 10th anniversary of & comprising, musically, an LP (entitled ‘Exit Pantomime Control’) and triple CD set (‘When a New Trick Comes Out, I Do an Old One’), some of the artwork of which is pictured below (there’s also an A2-sized double-sided poster folded within the CD package, detailing its contents and featuring more of the inimitable illustrations of the sort on show), and a book too (also ‘When a New Trick…’) – a veritable cornucopia of sound and visuals as, indeed, each of the issues from the Blank Workshop and fictional town of Clinkskell are, what have come to be a much-anticipated annual treat after the clocks have gone back and the seasonal gloaming descends and envelops.

As ever, the music is both familiar and strange (more so than usual this time, with remixes and re-imaginings from the substantial archives), accents recur but are subjected to tweaks and new treatments, ghosts rematerialising in fresh guises, moods benign, contemplative and unsettling shift within the continuum – it’s rich fare upon initial encounter that frequent revisiting will reward as we move inexorably from this year into next.

Now – given the seasonal crimp on available painting opportunity (fundamentally, an insistence upon natural light conditions) – when’s the next chance to paint and listen?

White Pears #18

Today the opposite of tomato is Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty

(Re)presenting the very latest in the series of paintings taking a selection of the whitewashed model pears as subject/object-matter, the final all-over surface being the result of a single two-hour painting session yesterday afternoon, the textures again being layered upon each other as the process progressed to a point of conclusion, as observation prompts constant revision until something of a representation of the thingness of things in space, Braque's tactile space, is achieved, producing another palpably physical thing, its surface described by light as are the models' & their immediate environment.

'White Pears #18'

oil and acrylic on canvas/10" x 14"/December 2015

(detail)

(detail)

(detail)

 

 

In Other Matters

It's delightful to be able to report that once again it's Moon Wiring Club season, with, on this particular occasion, a veritable cornucopia of three simultaneous releases, comprising the vinyl LP 'Why Does My House Make Creaking Noises?', the CD 'Playclothes From Faraway Places' & the glossy brochure 'The Lovely Day', the latter expanding upon the music's accompanying 'explanatory' artwork (which of course only serves to deepen the overarching (non)sense of the curious and uncanny goings-on in Clinkskell) which is, as ever, such an integral part of the whole.

 

The artwork is of course ravishing, whilst the music contained within, in both its analogue & digital forms, marks a development from the signature sound - although the familiar elements are there, the de-/re-contextualized, disembodied, clipped terribly English found voices, etc - into something noticeably more 80s' electronic, more synthesised sounding, more danceable dare one opine (albeit as a non-dancer), the drum machine beat-driven 'tunes' alternating with more atmospheric, beat-free pieces where one can feel the ghostly mists coiling: it's wonderful stuff, comfortably unsettling in the best possible way, utterly compelling. Nice one, again, Mr Hodgson (& the cast of characters).





Badge(s) of the Day #18 & 19 (Vasas & Raba ETO Győr)

Today the opposite of tomato is listening to 'Bap-De-La-Bap' on the walk to work

Today’s pair of related exhibits from the European football club pin badge collection again features a Hungarian club, although on this occasion moving out from concentration on Budapest to the provinces, & specifically Győr, a city whose team has undergone many a name change over the years since its formation in 1904.

Hence, these rather lovely vintage objects represent, respectively, Vasas ETO, as they were known from 1957 – 65, & then Raba ETO, from 1965 – 85, during which latter period they won, consecutively in 1982 & ‘83, two of the four Hungarian championships to the club’s name: it would have been at this time that Raba would have come to my attention, courtesy of the discovery of & a subscription to World Soccer magazine, as something of an exotic name to be admired & supported, aided by the team’s sporting of green & white colours, which invariably helps in aesthetic terms.
The internet discovery & subsequent ‘must-have’ acquisition of the Raba badge, indeed, has proved to be the catalyst for the collection itself, so it occupies a special position all of its own in this regard, as the striking Art Deco-esque design of its form & typography marks it out as something particularly fine & glamorously different.

Delving back into history, the club’s first championship was achieved in 1964, thus under the Vasas banner, who subsequently reached the semi-finals of the European Cup the following spring, unfortunately to succumb to Benfica: had Vasas prevailed, as in an ideal world they should, what a fantasy final it would have constituted, versus our beloved Internazionale.

Coming up to date, the presently &, alas, more prosaically-named Győri ETO (although they’ll always remain ‘Raba’ here at TOoT) are Hungary’s reigning champions, although currently somewhat off the pace in the defence of their title, a situation compounded by last weekend’s surprising 0 – 3 defeat at then second-bottom Mezőkövesdi (which, new to the scene, is another in the seemingly endless supply of wonderful Hungarian names), which result enabled the victors to leapfrog MTK in the league table (see Monday's #14).

Stop the Presses,
for an announcement has been made concerning the coming availability of a new Moon Wiring Club musical release, entitled 'A Fondness for Fancy Hats', in both CD & tape cassette form.

World Cup '74 #10 (Vicente Pernia)

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Continuing with the current World Cup ’74 ‘hauntological’ project, this drawing is another to take as its original source (then undergoing various digital procedures of scanning & size manipulation before emerging as an A4 print that serves as the immediate physical reference) a ‘stamp’ taken from the FKS-published collectors’ album ‘Wonderful World of Soccer Stars World Cup 1974’.

Via the drawing process (that itself is the subject), the portrait subject that coalesces within the matrix of toned graphite squares, in a representation of the pixelated print, is on this occasion Vicente Pernia, another of those players selected for inclusion in the FKS album but, subsequently, not actually the final Argentina squad for the tournament, thus establishing a particularly ‘ghostly’ & peripheral relationship with the 1974 World Cup, hazier even than my own memories.

Soundtrack:

Moon Wiring Club ‘Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets’ & ‘A Spare Tabby at the Cat’s Wedding’ LPs

A first listen to the new Moon Wiring Club LP release of ‘Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets’, having already sampled the related CD issue, most atmospherically ‘soundtracky’ in its nature, jolly good accompaniment to both the contemplative drawing process & the snow scene outside, & a rare & long-overdue outing for the vinyl version of ‘A Spare Tabby at the Cat’s Wedding’, stonkingly good & a worthy companion to the CD of the album, both played on our rather lovely old 1960s’ vintage Ferguson record player which itself seems to be enjoying its relocation to our new Sixties-built bungalow.

World Cup '74 #9 (Ramon Heredia)

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Sometimes a drawing as it appears, in itself &, as here, on screen, simply can’t even begin to hint at what’s been going on behind (the scenes), the circumstances that have played out during the course of its processing. And, rather than signifying a failure to communicate, to express, sometimes that’s not necessarily a bad thing, that art can serve as the anchor in a veritable sea of changeable events, as is & has been the case in this particular instance.

Whatever, & being the latest in the ongoing World Cup ’74 series, the grid structure of graphite-toned squares that this drawing presents, in the now-familiar manner as that has developed, manages, as otherwise blank façade, to conceal not least the physical relocation (eventually) of the operations of both TOoT & Faire-la-Bise, to a place where rather attractive studio space & light is available. This being the case, the drawing was actually processed in no fewer than three separate locations, also including a session at the site of TOoT’s original physical base in addition to the new & previous ones (where it began life).

What the drawing represents, re-mediated & de-photographized via the drawing process, is an A4 monochrome print of a scanned & digitally manipulated image of an original sticker from the FKS collectors’ album ‘Wonderful World of Soccer Stars World Cup 1974’, featuring, as its particular subject, Ramon Heredia of the Argentina squad as proposed by that publication &, it transpired, as actually selected for the tournament, during which he played in all six of his country’s matches & scored the first of their goals, in the 2 – 3 defeat to Poland. Prior to the World Cup, Heredia had very recently featured for his Spanish club, Atletico Madrid, in both of their matches against Bayern Munich in the European Cup Final & its replay which, alas, resulted in a 0 – 4 defeat.

Soundtrack:

The Triffids ‘In the Pines’
Broadcast ‘Haha Sound’
Vic Godard & Subway Sect 'We Come As Aliens'
Moon Wiring Club ‘Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets’ (CD)

Tiffin Time

A veritable treat indeed today, especially for anyone with inclinations towards & familiarity with the work of the Moon Wiring Club: slab cake to accompany the tea at 'wirk'...

Early One Morning (I)

Rising nice & early with the thought of perhaps indulging in a little light drawing before being required to fulfil the temporal demands of the day job, the visual day began immediately upon opening the window blinds, to be greeted by the sight beyond the limits of the back garden, of a patch of mist floating over an area of the playing field & enveloping the goalposts situated there. Both eerie & romantic in its way, with the inclusion of the wood panel garden fence in the photographic picture, suitably mossily patinated in itself, there seemed something also of the melancholy aesthetic of George Shaw (soon to be exhibiting in a must-see retrospective at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in his home town of Coventry, images & memories of the familiar haunts of which provide the grist to his creative mill, of course) in such a scene, unpopulated, autumnally damp & somewhat forlorn as it appeared & felt in the uncertain light of the dawning day.

One could/can sense the sounds of the Moon Wiring Club, both comforting but disconcerting, creeping in from the woods, on the mist…

Drawing Another Blank...

Today the opposite of tomato is 'a schism with an ism'


graphite & watercolour/20x30cm

Once again a sheet of A4 paper, purposely folded & creased into a grid format & lightly, randomly crumpled (the subsequent top left corner, indeed, being already so, upon finding-choosing the sheet), drawn from life, in as-habitual natural light conditions, on 1:1 scale, the 'allover' image thus coinciding with the limits of the flat picture plane, this time observed & processed in landscape format, as presented.

During a break in the proceedings of the course of the drawing, a trip to Liverpool to visit the John Moores Painting Prize 2010 exhibition also afforded the opportunity to have a welcome potter amongst some of the Walker Art Gallery's other rooms, of paintings, sculpture, furniture & other objets d'art, to indulge oneself in time travel back through the history of art, from the twentieth century to medieval times, a privilege indeed, not least when encountering, for example, in the Late Italian Renaissance room, a Titian such as this illustrated:


Titian 'Supper at Emmaus'
oil on wood panel, c.1531-33

Under the circumstances of the drawings being processed at present, & the particular subject-object matter of, my attention was not unsurprisingly captured by a certain feature of the painting - an unfolded, sharply-creased, 'grid-formatted' white cloth draped over the supper table at which the figures are present, projected to the front of the scene, into the spectator's imaginative space, towards, indeed, the flatness of the picture plane, where there its apparent tactility might engage in contradictory visual dialogue with...


One of the many compelling features of any number of the historical paintings on view is, of course, the attention lavished upon the convincingly 'realistic' depiction of drapery & cloths, the rendering in paint of the surface qualities & textures of various fabrics, as might be appreciated from this second illustrated example (occupying a corner across from a wall featuring, amongst others, an early Rembrandt self portrait), from the 17th century Dutch tradition (thus traversing also considerable geographical distance in one's amblings from room to room):


detail from 'Portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia' Studio of Van Dyck
oil on canvas, c.1630-33

Obviously, it is the area of white cloth, & the subtle tonal variations upon the creases, crumples & undulations of, tucked-in at the throat & flowing down over the bosom of Isabella, 'The Governess of the Netherlands', which was & is my particular focus in the picture, but admire also the gold thread woven into & highlighting the sombre drapery to the left of the portrait.

Soundtrack:


K-Punk 'The Metaphysics of Crackle'
She & Him 'Volume Two'
Moon Wiring Club 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'
Mark Mulcahy 'Fathering'

Enjoyed the delights of the easy, Sixties-inflected, countrified pop charms of She & Him regularly & a great deal over the course of processing this particular drawing, such lovely songs well sung (by Zooey Deschanel, also their author, more familiar as an actress, not least as appearing in 'Weeds'), arranged & played, chanced-upon & loaned from the local public 'li-berry' (& how much quieter & civilized the environment there, properly in keeping with the finest traditions of such institutions, than prevails at the site of the day job, one might note...), having some time ago been informed of the album's existence via a suitably intriguing Guardian review of.

Also, & most appropriate to the approach of Hallowe'en, almost upon us, rumours emanate, like autumn mist, from Clinkskell of the impending threat of more bumps-in-the-night issuing forth from the collective efforts of the various mysterious members of the Moon Wiring Club...the anticipation is tremendous - indeed, tremulous, & palpable.

The Boddies Transformed...

graphite & putty eraser, with watercolour/30x20cm

This drawing-as-processed features as its subject/object matter the flipside of the found 'roadkill' can drawn immediately previously.

There's something about the overall grey & distressed, degraded off-yellow (with accents of rust) colour scheme of the object-within-the drawing-plane that particularly recalls many an example of 'Hermetic' Cubist painting, this then reinforced by the triangular form (although inverted from the archetypal predominant Cubist design), the folded, overlapping planes (with, too, the occasional curve sensualizing the 'intellectual' hard-edged geometry) & the incidence of synechdochal fragments of branded lettering & design (see Braque's 'Le Portugais', as used to contextualize the drawing a couple of posts previously, physically down the page or linked here).

Soundtrack:


Moon Wiring Club
'Asda: the Music', 'A Field Full of Sunken Horses' EP,
'An Audience of Art Deco Eyes' & 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away'

A veritable Moon Wiring Club extravaganza to accompany the drawing process over the course of this particular instance, inspired by blissblog's flagging of & links to the generous freebies available via The Wire, in the form of a new MWC 4-track MP3 EP & a fabulous 'mix tape' featuring all manner of electronica & found 'nostalgic' sound clips, wonderfully creatively juxtaposed, the latter of which comes accompanied by its very own expertly-realised 'period' artwork. If all this weren't enough, further evidence of Mr Ian Hodgson's (for it is he) all-encompassing aesthetic & all-round genius is provided by a picture gallery featuring a short series of new book cover illustrated designs, with written explanation, in the finest traditions of this area of the artist's activity: treat yourself to & treasure these delightful gifts without further ado.

By way of one of those strange but deliciously serendipitous coincidences, following on but barely a week after the posting of the Moon Wiring Club 'ASDA' music mix, what should lead the 12th Feb edition of The Guardian's 'Film & Music' section but this article on the subject of the phenomenon of 'supermarket radio' stations, with particular reference to none other than Asda FM (in-store & also available online - how appropriate & convenient is that to expand the cyber-shopping experience)!
How wonderful might it be to shop along to MWC's mix, though...(with thoughts that the sometimes unsettling nature of events &, indeed, the generally spooky air of proceedings, might be likely to curdle the dairy products, or something!).

Creased-Up...

Today the opposite of tomato is 'An Audience of Art Deco Eyes'...& 'Blissed Out'


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?

Back to the Present

Slightly behind the times, as ever - by inclination & design, of course – a certain something, gracing the cover of a recent issue of Design Week, came to my attention. It transpired that the work illustrated – essentially iconic album cover designs of the 1970s/80s appropriated along with & restyled in the retro manner of time-worn vintage paperback books of equally iconic, instantly-recognizable design - was/is that of Huw Gwilliam, itself being part of a wider trend of such mixing-&-mashing graphic re-imaginings (as has become common practice in creating ‘new’ music from pre-existing sources, for example, a development of music’s long-established tradition of referencing its past), many of which might be found at the online Flickr community Make Something Cool Everyday.
Having owned such featured examples as ‘Technique’ & ‘Unknown Pleasures’ in LP format almost since their original releases (& retained them amongst the few examples from the once-extensive vinyl collection saved for posterity), it’s a delight to see such favourites sampled & recontextualized thus, represented in a contemporary idiom of digital art that yet, artificially aged, displays an historic aesthetic, appearing in a condition as might secondhand books, actually much as the original sleeves came to assume over time & much use. Such magpiesque ‘borrowings’ might leave themselves open to criticisms of nostalgia &/or ‘mere’ pastiche, of course, but, nevertheless, the results can be something new, fruitful & most enjoyable, visually & conceptually, as in such examples as Heath Killen’s ‘Modernist Editions’ album covers-as-pictograms, simple & direct.


Further to the subject of retro aesthetics & the mixing of, the creation of something new from archive sources, & returning to a particular personal favourite embracing both graphics & music, I recently received notification from source of Moon Wiring Club’s contribution to Bleep 43’s extensive series of podcasts, which proved to be a compellingly enjoyable listen, endlessly inventive with its source material of music & found sound clips, proper thoughtful, stimulating entertainment & ever so slightly bonkers, witty & unsettling in the finest traditions of MWC’s oeuvre. As always, it’s the sense of displacement created by hearing recognizable archive fragments – old TV station idents & commercial radio ads (the latter so cringe-makingly wonderfully cheesy & awful), snippets of TV celebrities (equally cheesy), public information films with their dire, portentous warnings - represented within a new context of electronic music – itself often of a certain vintage, with that stereotypically futuristic sound (ironically dating it so) of the pioneering forays into the form, but still incongruously combined - that lends proceedings a particular frisson & inspires such an atmosphere of delight at the degree of inventiveness involved in the endeavour.

Seasonal Sounds

It being now but a few short hours to Hallowe'en, this seems an opportune occasion to tell of an intriguing discovery indeed, courtesy of the good offices of the sagacious Mr Simon Reynolds, whose divine Blissblog maintains its position at the coolest point of the cultural zeitgeist: come with me, if you please, on a journey through time & cyber space, to the remote northern English village of Clinksell, isolated upon the misty moors, & where one may find the Blank Workshop & the strange but wondrous goings-on therein.

Populated by an eccentric cast of stylish, sophisticated & somewhat arch personages, amongst the productions emanating from the workshop is the latest CD of the Moon Wiring Club’s music, ‘Shoes Off and Chairs Away’, very recently purchased & much recommended, not least as a pleasing object in itself, the disc being accompanied by a handsome booklet introducing one to various other aspects of the whole ‘Blank’ aesthetic, of which the front cover & reverse of the casing provide a tantalising glimpse:

One gets the picture: nostalgia is in the air, the retro stylings of the graphic design also serving as a visual analogue to the collaged method of the music where, to mostly languid, trip-hoppy beats overlaid with sometimes brooding basslines (& an occasional bossa nova) & recurring electronic melodic motifs (classic Minimalism as an element within the Cubist framework), fragments of disembodied voices (clipped, plummy, sometimes hammy, enunciated English ones of the type heard upon the BBC Home Service or 'Afternoon Plays' on the Light Programme of the past) manifest themselves, unsettling, eldritch, before echoing into the mysterious ether of the atmosphere generated.

The air is that of the soundtrack to psychological parlour games, played upon the unwitting victim by those of superior, sophisticated wit, characterised by sly humour & simmering menace, or of being lost in woods patrolled by eerie, wooden-masked figures, an overall spookiness, otherness, of the supernatural: one is reminded of Tales of the Unexpected (& the visual aesthetic recalls such a period, of the 60s - 70s as influenced by earlier styles, a very English mix of, e.g. Art Deco & the Victorian-Edwardian), of Hammer Horror in its milder manifestations, &, more recently, certain aspects of the Royston Vasey of The League of Gentlemen. All in all, visually & sonically, its such a beautifully realised conceptual whole, a fabulous conceit, complex & rewarding.

One's first thought upon listening may suggest early Boards of Canada as a general point of reference or departure, but (& an interesting coincidence occurs here, given my recent mention of them), Cabaret Voltaire lurk significantly in the background too, with their similar 'Radiophonic Workshop' aesthetic, their sampling of found voices - especially 'proper' English ones - & the uncanny sounds that create an atmosphere of unsettling mystery, of the inexplicable, of something or things 'out there': Moon Wiring Club seem almost to exist in a space - & a place all of their own (i.e. Clinksell, of course!) - between the Cabs & the Boards, but ultimately the effect is a singular one.
I was also put in mind of DJ Shadow's mighty 'Entroducing', its magic enduring, employing perhaps a similar sonic aesthetic of an electronic cut-&-paste technique & vocabulary of samples, loops & minimalist motifs, although the idiom is of course completely different: his sound is unmistakably American, urban, & the Moon Wiring Club/Blank Workshop's is quintessentially English & provincial-rural, if of a highly refined & sophisticated, 'knowing' nature.

But why not avail yourself of & be seduced by the 'little night music' so generously offered as a taster, of both 'Shoes Off and Chairs Away' & the equally intriguing preceding album 'Art Deco Eyes'.

Aside from the music, further examples of the Blank aesthetic include a periodical, book design & even a range of tempting Scrumptytons sweets, again perfectly, delightfully referencing the history of design & redolent of a lost, disappeared time in English socio-cultural life.

The Ideal Tiger contributes a wide-ranging post on the subject of Moon Wiring Club & the Blank Workshop, eloquently stated, introducing a number of fascinating theoretical cultural issues, not least the concept of 'hauntology' (via the always excellent k-punk), & goes on to term MWC most wittily & succinctly as 'haunted house music' (hence its particular topicality).

Something else I happened to notice, by way of strange, perhaps spooky coincidence, is the presence of a cat - that weird creature - lurking amongst the visuals accompanying both the Moon Wiring Club CD & 'Entroducing'...

Happy Hallowe'en!