Conversing with Resonance apparatchik Richard Thomas on Tenerife, anti-design, a Markson piano, ResoVision, and the recent student demonstrations.
Author Archives: jtreg
Wavelength – Clive Phillpot on Ray Johnson
Clive Phillpot, Super Librarian, started at Chelsea Art School before becoming director of the library at the Museum of Modern Art New York. One of the world’s leading authorities on artists’ books, Clive talks about Ray Johnson; mail artist and founder of the New York Correspondence School. Clive’s book; Ray Johnson on Flop Art was published by fermley press in 2008.
Wavelength – Maurice Seddon on cassette
Conversing with Captain Maurice Seddon, Royal Signals (retired) by telephone. Maurice is now 84. I played some cassette tape recordings he had made in the 1980s, all telephone conversations which Maurice would habitually record, perhaps since the 1960s but his memory is not what it was. One such conversation was with Fritz Fend, designer of the Fend Flitzer which developed into the Messerschmitt bubble car. I mentioned theremins to Maurice and he thought I said thermin which reminded him that he had recently bought a thermal hat which he now can’t find. The final track is Kaddish (Ravel) played on the theremin by Clara Rockmore with piano accompaniment by Nadia Reisenberg
Wavelength – Salvador Dali flexidisc
A disparate selection of 45rpm vinyl singles: 1. a flexidisc by Salvador Dali: L’Apotheose du Dollar. 2. Michael Prime: Skeet Hill, pipistrelle bats recorded feeding in Hollow Lane, Skeet Hill, Chelsfield. 3. Toshiyuki Kobayashi: Radio Gagaku. 4. Charles Aznavour: Yerushalaim. 5. The Hitmachine: IE OE AA. 6. Nokia Connecting People: mainpal inv. 7. Baby Jane Holzer: Nowhere. 8. Rude Ass Tinker: white label. 9. The White Stripes: Baby Brother. 10. Volcano the Bear: supplement to some copies of the LP Yak Folks Y’are.
Wavelength – George Barber scratch video artist
Guest this week is renowned video artist George Barber. “George Barber’s work on ‘The Greatest Hits Of Scratch Video’ is internationally known and has been featured in many galleries and festivals across the world. The Independent and Sunday Times ran features on it, and the tapes, unusually for video art, sold in record shops. His two famous works of the period, ‘Absence of Satan’ and ‘Yes Frank No Smoke’ are screened regularly and many of the other works are considered seminal in the history of British Video Art”. George Barber:
Wavelength – Songs of the Brokenhearted
“Give Me Love. Songs of the Brokenhearted – Baghdad, 1925-1929”. In February 1925 the engineer Robert Beckett, travelling from India, recorded 200 titles for a new series on HMV, the label allotted to the region. The sessions were organised by Meir Hakkak, the eldest of 4 brothers running a record, gramophone and musical instruments shop in Baghdad. The following year, Marcus Alexander took another 367 titles. These recordings were reportedly sabotaged by Hakkak. At the close of the decade it was the turn of the engineer Arthur Twine. Unhappily, in 1929, the new compound he used to create the masters made them fragile, and many were shattered or cracked en route to the Company’s manufacturing plant in Hayes, west of London. The music collected on this double LP compiled by Mark Ainley in 2008 (HJRLP35) is diverse; Kurdish improvisations and a Hebrew hymn amidst an array of erotic overtures and expressive distress from Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Wavelength – Destruction in Art part 9
Destruction in Art continued. Deconstructed theme tune composed by DJ Numpty followed by music by William Basinski from the 4CD series “disintegration loops”. Readings from The Destruction of Art by Dario Gamboni referring to incidents of civil disobedience, guerilla tactics and open warfare by the Women’s Social and Political Union between 1903 and 1914, followed by selected texts from 4 Dada Suicides (Atlas Press 2005). The reading fades briefly towards the end due to a technical glitch which might be a happy accident.
Wavelength – Chinese Experimental Music
The choice is yours: Tracks from a recent 4 CD set issued by Sub Rosa: An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music; An Overview of Experimental and Non-Academic Music in China. This anthology features 48 artists from within the Chinese area of influence. “j gmc” by Hong Qile, “Chi” by PNF, “Eat” by Li Wen Tai aka Vince Li, “It’s more than enough” by Yan Jun, “A dark knife” by D!O!D!O!D!/Li Jianhong + Huangjin. Intro and occasionally throughout: “Victory News Spreads Thru Mountain Villages” and “Tachai’s Bumper Harvest” (Tachai is the name of a commune brigade which is setting the pace in Chinese agriculture) Folk Instrumental Music from the Maoist era.
Wavelength – Andrew Greaves
Digital animation artist Andrew Greaves talks about “Unnatural Order” a 14 minute movie made in collaboration with Brian Marley. The film was screened for the first time at the Whitechapel Art Gallery; London Art Book Fair, as part of Oblique Texts/Visual Dialects film programme selected by William English. Andrew talks candidly about his past and the making of this film and soundworks. Andrew Greaves:
Wavelength – Destruction in Art part 8 with Ed Baxter
Auto-destruction in Art and Art in destruction: Ed Baxter remembers Art in Ruins and his own contemporary installations incorporating human hair gathered from barbers’ shops and a vast mound of used tea bags. “The cosiness of the war-years’ subway… of the mattress… of the priesthole… of the flophouse… of the bamboo cage. Of the public house. In the mausoleum of kitsch that shelters you from the storming sky hangs a photo of the now bearded Prince and the now blond Minister of Defence, his hair blowing like industrial scum in the Goose Green breeze, subliminally announcing the recovery of equilibrium.” Extract from ‘Filth’ by Ed Baxter 1985. To be continued…