‘Upon These Might We Brunch’

Well, there’s been much musical joy at allumination central over the last few days, as Zali Krishna has launched his new album, ‘Upon These Might We Brunch’. It’s available for free download here, and is well worth checking out.

Rather than write about it, I went and filmed an interview with him, for this short film – which also includes two songs, too. Enjoy!

Enclosing Wild Orchids

For today’s post, allumination brings you – Iain Sinclair live! He’s reading from ‘Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire’ at the British Library, with musical and spoken word accompaniment from John Harle. Together, they create a rather wonderful aural collage; and, although my little N95 made them look rather blocky, it caught words and music pretty well. Enjoy!

Oh, and the single, full length film, lasting about twenty minutes, is available here at Vimeo, or here at Blip.TV.

Krishna at the Klinker, 02 07 09

Well, last week was a very cultural week, with Michael Moorcock, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore live at the British Library at one end, and Zali Krishna playing live at the Klinker at the other. I didn’t record any of the Moorcock / Moore / Sinclair triumvirate, but I did manage to get this – the opening section of Zali’s gig. Enjoy!

New story, new gig, new cool thing

A quick post, as there’s much news at Allumination Towers this week. First of all, even as we speak the new Black Static is hitting the streets, with my story ‘De Profundis’ in it, plus much other groovy stuff. You can order it from the TTA Press website, and it should also be available in Borders any day now.

Secondly, the recent discovery of a new, super heavy element is actually a cosmic sign that, once again, there’s a Graan gig coming up. We’re playing the Drones Club on Friday, June 19th, at the Others – 6-8 Manor Road, London N16 5SA.

As ever I shall be on vocals, performing over ambient metal mayhem with (after this week’s rehearsal) possibly a bit of Fall fuelled Renaissance blues heaviosity too. I think we’re on at about 9.00pm – alas, won’t be too big a post-gig night for me as I’ve got to be up at 6.30am the next day to help row Henry VIII from the Tower of London to Hampton Court Palace.

And finally, interesting conversations happening this morning about a possible multimedia event in August. No final detail as yet, but it looks like it could be very cool indeed. Watch this space… (and, as ever, KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES!)

<EDIT> Black Static 11 is now in Borders Islington, which I assume means that it will also be in Borders across London and elsewhere,  shelved with Interzone.

Hypnotic ways of passing time

Well, a quick musical post. First of all, just been doing some housekeeping and added the Graan website to my blogroll – if you haven’t already, check out music we’ve made here, from where you can also get to our Myspace page. Secondly, I’ve come across this rather lovely combination of puzzle game and music creator, and thought I’d spread the word. Enjoy!

Alas Davey Graham

Sad news today, as I see in The Guardian that Davey Graham has died. He was a (in very broad terms) a folk musician, drawing on everything from Bach to Indian ragas in the 60s to create something devastatingly new. No space here to do him justice – check out the obituary in The Guardian, but before you do that here he is in the late 60s piece ‘Cain’s Film’, about Alex Trocchi:

And here again in a noir-ish feature film, as Edward Fox does moody:

Here he is playing ‘Cry Me a River’ in the clip that first introduced him to the public:

And here he is being genuflected to on ‘Folk Britannia’:

tho’ to be honest, I wish on that last one they’d just shut up and let him play.

Eheu!

We gig Friday

Well, continuing my tradition of only announcing gigs on here at the last minute, a quick one to let you know that I’m performing spoken word with Graan at the Klinker this Friday 15th. The night begins at 8.30pm, at Tottenham Chances, 399 High Road, London N17 6QN – nearest tubes Tottenham Hale / 7 Sisters. Listen to a couple of test runs for the night here (I’m on the A tracks, Stellas vocalist Tim is on the T track) – otherwise, see you there. You’ll know me, because I’ll probably be looking like this (ta Zali for pic):

Moi reading at Voices of Experience in November

Electric Exorcist Miles

It’s a little known fact that ‘Dark Magus’, Miles Davis’ 1977 live album recording a 1974 concert in New York, made it into Q Magazine’s 2001 list of the heaviest albums of all time. It’s a ferocious funk metal attack, with Miles soloing dementedly over the top, that more than holds its own against heaviosity from luminaries including The MC5, Swans, Black Sabbath and Metallica. And it’s only one of the highlights of his extraordinary ‘Electric Miles’ phase in the 70s, where – as Julian Cope put it – he worked his way to an ‘epitome of music shamanism’ by creating a series of astonishing double albums that rock harder than a flotilla of out of control battleships crewed by demented Zen masters on speed.

They’re also a great way of flushing out last night’s cobblers; but alas, I can’t put them up here. Rather – go explore! Here’s Cope’s full article on Electric Miles. And then, go buy! Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agartha, Pangaea, Live Evil, On the Corner – all deep, dark, heavy and magnificent. What I can post is this, from YouTube – a rather murkily mixed 16 minutes or so of the Dark Magus band at its peak. Enjoy!

The return of the Entropy Circus

Well, it’s been a busy few weeks at allumination central; I’m packing the flat up ready to move, establishing myself as a freelancer, and (for various reasons) whizzing up and down the country between Hebden Bridge, Glasgow and London. So, alas, little time for weird pondering.

However, there has been time for music – and so, as a prelude to the full return of allumination, here’s some music from the mighty Zali Krishna. The clip below is my favourite one of his on Youtube; the rest are available at his channel page, here. Enjoy!

Roots of the Summer (and some great news!)

Well, I’m off to Devon and beyond for my summer holidays over the next week or two – with H, of course – so there’s going to be an August hiatus on the blog.

But, before I go, first of all some great news – Black Static have picked up ‘Changeling’, my story of homecomings, marital discord and fairy hunting. Very exciting! More news of exactly when it’ll be in print as I get it. There’s also another *interesting thing* on the go, but for the moment I’m going to keep quiet about that…

And in salute to the season, (and to come down a bit after last post’s more than a little manic X-rant), here’s the summeriest thing I’ve heard in a long time, courtesy of mighty South London dub inflected rapper Roots Manuva. Enjoy, and happy Augustitude!

And I couldn’t resist putting this up too – a classic tune, and a great video where Roots returns to his – erm – roots by hitting his old school’s sports day…