Emin's on the map

Just a quickie. I know she's not everyone's cup of tea (and I've gone off her drastically since I discovered she was a raving Tory that resents paying a high rate of tax) but I can't help but find Tracey Emin's sketches really enchanting and/or haunting.

I managed to pick up one of the tube maps today with her interpretation of it on the front.

I'm one of those sycophantic London-lovers who thinks the tube map is a work of art as it is, but this edition is really welcome- such a beautiful sketch. It's a personal take on the map, might be seen as a bit indulgent, but if I had to make my own version of the underground map, it would certainly only contain ten or twelve stops at the most.

There's a good article about it here.

If you can't make your mind up about Emin, I definitely recommend you read Strangeland. It really changed my mind about her (this was pre-Tory discovery) and made me be more forgiving about her art work, which even now with my bubbling resentment of her, I can't help but love, particularly her sketches, textile work and light installations.

Also, on her entry on the Feminist Art Base, where all artists have to write a statement about their relationship with feminism, she says: When I had my interview for art school in 1983, one of their questions was: “What do you think of Feminism?” My answer at the time: “I don’t.” By that I meant that I didn’t think about Feminism. Of course that’s changed a lot now. I often think about feminism, in an everyday way and in an historic way. But to be honest, being a woman has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do. Apart from fuck a man really hard up the arse. I’ve never had penis envy, but I’ve often wondered what it must be like. I know that just having a penis definitely affects your wage packet, but I’m not bitter and twisted. I’m grateful to all the women that work so hard to enable women like me to have a voice. And I’m still shouting.

Which I think is so typical of her, it's very aware, very paradoxical and very exposed. Still not sure I think Tory values can really coexist with feminism, since the crux of feminism is about removing hierarchy and power, but it's still an interesting statement. 

Bog People

I have just bought The Bog People by P.V Glob, I read it years ago when I worked at Leeds University Library and have wanted a copy for yonks.



I first became familiar with the Bog People when studying Seamus Heaney in my undergraduate degree, who had a bit of an obsession with them, especially in his 1975 collection North. In a nut shell, bodies have been found in bogs in Northern Europe from as far back as the Iron Age, perfectly preserved due to the chemical balance of the bogs, often showing signs of torturous murders, presumed to be sacrificial.

This book by P.V. Glob is fascinating, and was groundbreaking in its publication in 1965, though has lost some of its edge over time, as views about the nature of the deaths (and in some case even the genders) of the bodies are fairly contested. Many now believe that some wounds weren't infact inflicted while they were living, but rather incurred due to the weight of the bogs above them. It's a gripping read regardless.

I bought it second hand on Amazon, unable to find a copy in any of the bloomsbury second hand book shops, and the seller included an article from the Guardian in 1998 inside of it, which was a very nice touch.

It's incredible the extent that these bodies have remained in tact (google them!), it's no wonder that when many of them were found, it was assumed that they were recently murdered people.

There's more information at this website, the site's a bit style over substance for my liking, but there are some oral histories and such on there which are quite interesting.

Also, an interesting read about Heaney's bog poems here.

And a more contemporary news piece about the bog people from the National Geographic.

Strange Fruit Seamus Heaney

Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.

They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring
What had begun to feel like reverence.

How about I be me (and you be you)?

Happy International Women’s Day! While I’m sitting in the house waiting for a washing machine man, I thought I’d celebrate one of my very favourite women, and her triumphant new album.

Sinead’s had a bit of an inconsistent back catalogue. For me, Her first two albums were stunning (Lion and the Cobra, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got) as was her fourth, Universal Mother (a personal favourite), her other two original albums were a bit hard to stomach for me, Faith and Courage, aside from a few good tracks was a bit tired I thought, and Theology (original in the sense that they weren’t covers, but interpretations of scriptures…) was nice, but a bit melody-light. Her other three albums were cover albums- which are all brilliant, but difficult to judge against her earlier masterpieces. I think it’s patronising to say that How about I be me (and you be you)? Is a “brilliant return” simply because she hasn’t been anywhere, she’s still been consistently producing music since the late eighties, and even when it wasn’t as strong, it’s always been challenging and worthy of attention, it’s not a “return to form”, it’s just a continuation of the fascinating evolution of a singularly mind-blowing and unique artist.

That said, I do think the new album is my favourite since Universal Mother in 1994, when I first heard it I was eight or nine, and it blew me away. It was a time when it wasn’t very fashionable to be a Sinead fan, especially being raised a Catholic, because people misconstrued her infamous Saturday Night Live pope-picture-ripping as an attack on faith, when it was really a (justified) attack on the Catholic Church in relation to the child abuse scandals that only surfaced fully in the public conscience about twenty years later, proving O'Connor the oracle right. Universal Mother had vitriol and anger (Fire on Babylon, Famine, Red Football), vulnerability and quiet moments (Tiny Grief Song, A Perfect Indian, Thankyou for Hearing Me) and pure poetry (John I Love You), I was staggered by it, and as much as I had been consumed by pop music at the time, I think Sinead was my real introduction to more alternative and challenging music. While How about I be me is not as challenging and nuanced as Universal Mother, it’s polished and it’s fresh and angry and beautiful and new, whilst still sounding utterly ‘Sinead’.

The stand out tracks are Take off your shoes, which is so angry and powerful and Queen of Denmark- a John Grant cover where her straight-laced take on a very witty song sounds as petulant and indignant as anything from Lion and the Cobra: “why don’t you bore the shit out of somebody else”. Reason with me is the most beautiful song, taken from the perspective of a “junkie”, it’s very self-aware (as the whole album is), compassionate and honest. Her cover of Song for the siren is only on the deluxe edition, but is the most gorgeous version of it since This Mortal Coil's.

It’s definitely the best album of the year so far (stiff competition from Perfume Genius, Lana Del Ray and the Cranberries, this year is shaping up to be another good one). If you’re a Sinead virgin, I recommend checking out her first two albums, and this one as priorities, and perhaps the career retrospective ‘She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty’ (the longest album title ever?) which is a collection of demos, covers and live versions and is much better than a generic greatest hits.

Long live Sinead, who is as beautiful as she ever was, contrary to what the self-hating women who write for the Daily Mail think. She’s a massive inspiration and I’m so pleased that the media have stopped banging on about her personal life and are focusing on how brilliant her new body of work is. I was lucky enough to get to see her last year after sixteen years of being a fan, which was the first time I heard most of the material on this album, and she was remarkable, her voice was unfaltering. Hopefully I'll get to see her again soon.

Buy it!

Rosemary's baby

I need to gush about how insanely brilliant Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin is. The film is definitely in my top five horror films of all time (perhaps top three), but I’ve only just got around to reading the book, thanks to @_LadyAlex’s recommendation, as it was on her reading list for uni. The premise in a nut shell is that Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse move into a new flat in the ‘Bramford’, which has a fairly murky reputation of Satanist ex-residents and high numbers of suicides and dead babies in the basement and so forth. They are taken under the wing of their next door neighbours, Minnie and Roman Castavet- an eccentric 60+ couple whose kindness becomes a bit stifling to Rosemary. Guy is an actor who is having a tough time getting his big break, and misses out on a big part to another actor, who, soon after the Woodhouses start spending time with the Castavets, becomes blind and Guy gets the role by default. Rosemary falls pregnant in a feverish dream sequence, and that’s all I’m prepared to say without ruining anything. The thing that makes this such an exemplary example of brilliant horror fiction, is how compelling the characters are, and unlike many horrors, you really care about the protagonist. Also, the character of Minnie Castavet is perhaps the most subversive “protagonist” ever, she is endlessly infuriating, but her gaudiness and sheer campness makes her an incredibly endearing character. Rosemary is such a complex character in the most accessible way possible, she's bright but extremely niave, unfalteringly trusting, and hers is eventually a story of crushing loneliness. Definitely read it, it will blow you away. In spite of the fact I knew how it ends, the build up to the climax had my heart racing. The film is so faithful to the book, it’s so phenomenal, it's hilariously funny, pretty heartbreaking, suffocatingly dark and genuinely horrifying. I can’t gush enough.

Gibside Hall

For the last module on my MA, I had to create a technology-based alternative interpretation of an underused heritage site. I chose Gibside Hall at Gibside, which in spite of being a National Trust property, is pretty much ignored in favour of the gardens and the smaller buildings, simply because Gibside Hall is now just ruins.

I've always loved the ruins, I used to go to Gibside with my parents when I was a child, and I always thought it was the most beautiful part of Gibside. I decided to make an audio guide of sorts, that was a monologue by a former resident of Gibside, Mary Eleanor Bowes, who had such an interesting life, and in her own strange way, was a bit of a late eighteenth century feminist figure. I also made a video of the ruins, so that people could access the interpretation remotely as well.

Here is the Tumblr page for it with some more information and the video. Excuse the crude video, my editing skills are limited (it was the first time I've used a mac for anything other than checking my facebook page). There are also some clumsy edits in the audio as well, but we didn't need to make a complete thing, it's really just a prototype to demonstrate what I would (employ someone else to) do if I was in charge of interpreting the site. My auntie Ann did a brilliant job of playing the role of Mary Eleanor Bowes.

Here are some pictures I took of the ruins. The whole collection is up on a flickr page here. The pictures enlarge if you click on them.

tomb of the unknown craftsman

For my birthday a few years ago, I got this from the Tate Modern, which I love. For christmas this year, Babs got me the new one made to accompany the Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman exhibition at the British Museum.







It's beautiful, can't wait to get some twin frames for them both. The exhibition is on until mid February, so go if you get the chance, it's brilliant, one of the few exhibitions you'll see where people actually laugh out loud as they walk around it. I took some pictures of Alan Measles' pilgrimage motorbike on my iPhone (it's not Alan Measles in the box, it's one of his stunt doubles).





Hope everyone had a good christmas.

Björk - Biophilia

Firstly, apologies to anyone who follows my twitter feed, or anyone I’ve spoken to in person for the last five months as I’ve been gushing rather incessantly about Björk, which tends to happen in the build up to a release, but usually not quite to this extent. Secondly, if her newest album, which came out on Monday 10th October, is not yet in your life, make it so, as it will change it.

Biophilia has managed to do what I thought was an impossible task, which is topple PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake off the top of my “best album of 2011” list to a respectable second. Not only that, but for me, this has been the most impossibly tense build-up to an album ever. By the time the album came out, I knew all ten of the tracks quite intimately, from the four formal releases and the show at MIF, and Bestival, and the plethora of live footage on youtube, but as a complete album it still managed to surprise and enthral.

When I first heard Moon at MIF I thought it was a fairly twee and childlike song, that was improved by the visuals, I liked it a lot, but it was definitely one of the few growers, which turns out to be one of the most rewarding and luscious tracks on the album, a great opener, the choral arrangements are stunning and the harmonies (particularly on the last “all birthed and happy” line) immense. The video has had a fairly mixed response on youtube, some saying it was a bad choice of song to make a video for, others saying it’s too obvious or looks cheap. I agree with none of those, for me it kind of embodies the entire concept of the album, integrating the visuals that are used live (the moon) the graphics from the apps, and the striking image of Björk that forms the artwork of the front cover. Also, I really like being able to see Björk up close in her videos, her strongest videos in the past are the ones that are almost intrusively close to her and where she’s exposed and real (see cocoon and hidden place). I think it’s worth saying that Björk is brilliant at picking the perfect opener of an album. Lots of people don’t really put much stock in track orders, but I prefer listening to albums than individual songs, so I think it’s really important, would Homogenic have been as epic if it didn’t start with Hunter? Would Medulla have been as jarring and dense if Pleasure Is All Mine didn’t open it?

Thunderbolt was definitely my favourite song live. See this video from Bestival of what an intensely brilliant live experience it was. To see the tesla coil working in the flesh was surreal (at MIF, not so much at Bestival, where it was quite lost on the stage, I didn’t even realise it was there until I saw a video afterwards) I worried the more extreme instruments in this project would seem gimmicky, but the tesla forms a really hypnotic bass line, that at first I thought was lacking from the studio version, and to an extent I still do, although it really kicks in about halfway through, the initial introduction of it is too understated an affair for my liking, it’s literally electrifying when it kicks in live. For me, the lyrics in Thunderbolt are amongst some of her finest, and single-handedly show those who think of this album as some sort of didactic science lesson that at its core it’s a very human album, particular highlights for me: ‘No one imagines the light shock I need/ and I’ll never know/ from who's hands deeply humbled/ dangerous gifts as such to mine come and ‘My romantic gene is dominant/ and it hungers for union’. The choral arrangements again are off the scale, no one does it like Björk. Tesla bass or otherwise, this is my favourite song from the album, and probably enters my favourite songs of all time list. Really looking forward to receiving the manual edition in the post as it will include this live version, which could potentially be the definitive version so far. I’d love to see this as a single with a video, and perhaps a more bass-heavy remix.

Crystalline was the lead single, with a brilliant Gondry video. I prefer the album version to the single version, the way the drum and bass finale fades in is brilliant, and it works so well. It’s worth mentioning that Omar Souleyman’s remix of this track is also brilliant. Cosmogony was another that instantly captivated on a first listen, I was subconsciously already familiar with the melody, as one of the first teasers for the album was this video, which is Wonderbrass playing an alternative arrangement. Again, staggering lyrics: ‘they say, back then our universe/ was a coal-black egg/ until the god inside/ burst out and from its shattered shell/ he made what became the world we know’, I’m really excited at the possibility of the Wonderbrass arrangement with Björk’s vocals, that could be truly epic. Like Crystalline, the album version is different to the single version (the Serban Ghenea mix) and is probably better too.

Dark Matter and Hollow are likely to be some of the most jarring songs of the year, with Dark Matter being a brooding but ultimately beautiful gibberish piece (the choir and organ version included on some releases is my preferred version) and Hollow is quite unlike anything I’ve heard before, sort of sits alongside Ancestors from Medulla in that it’s quite primal and rootsy in the most barbaric sort of way and requires work in order to fully engage in it, but once you can pick out the melody it becomes a brilliant song, the choir repeating the lines ‘trunk of DNA’ and the ‘jewel-after-jewel-after-jewel’ repetition are real high points. I think Virus is an example of Biophilia at its most beautiful, and also, makes me think that aside from the concept and the extremely unconventional time signatures, that Biophilia is essentially a very simplistic album in terms of song structures, this is also another song that reiterates my thoughts that it’s a very human album as well: ‘The perfect match/ you and me/ I adapt, contagious/ you open up, saying welcome’.

Sacrifice is one of my favourite tracks, it’s really tender and the final refrain of ‘your generosity will show in the volume of her glow’ is stunning, I love when the flickery Vespertine-esque beat kicks in about half way through the song. I’m disappointed that this is the only Biophilia track that doesn’t feature on the live album, as the live version of this song ends with a choral version of said refrain and the harmonies are enchanting, I have a bootleg version courtesy of @VintageVeevers but I’d love there to be a higher quality live version at some point.

The last two tracks strike me as a more successful attempt at how Volta concluded. In this case Mutual Core, which ends with perhaps the most exciting 40 seconds of beats on the album and then the serene and heart-achingly good Solstice. I always felt that Volta should have ended with Declare Independents which assaults your ears with a barrage of chanty protest, I always found My Juvenile a bit of an anti climax, it always stood out like a sore thumb on the album for me. But on Biophilia, the come down from the (albeit brief) insanity of Mutual Core leads perfectly into the hypnotism of Solstice, which ends the album at its most intimate and raw. Really can’t wait for some Mutual Core remixes, it is a phenomenally good song.

Anyway, Blah blah blah, I didn’t imagine this would be such a long review/rant/verbalorgasm. I read an Independent review t’other day which gave the album 2 stars out of 5, and then an NME review (which was very well written considering the usual trendy tripe they come out with) gave it a 9/10. This made me think it was quite a divisive album with varying levels of success for people, but in fact the majority of reviews are favourable, maybe the Independent writer is just a fool. On the shuttle bus to the ferry on the way back to Bestival I had to butt in to someone’s conversation as I heard him say “the Cure were the highlight, Björk was quite boring” with a rather lengthy rant (as you might be able to imagine) about how people who don’t like Björk or can’t appreciate the pure magic of her work are lazy and unwilling to be challenged by music. While perhaps that was a bit extreme and I don’t really believe it, I do think that Björk is the most important and progressive artist today, and she will be lauded as one of the great innovators and geniuses of our time and Biophilia will be one of her many masterpieces to cement this. To sum up: Biophilia is a FUCKING TRIUMPH.

the stranger's child

Finally finished ploughing through Alan Hollinghurst's newest tome (although ploughing suggests it was laborious, which it was anything but). I definitely recommend it, for me it was even better than The Line of Beauty and The Folding Star.



I won't toil through the plot too closely, just read it if you're interested, but it's divided into five parts and spans from 1913 to 2008, and like his previous works, it's focussed on upper class, highly educated literary sorts, and the main theme, for me, is the evolution of a literary reputation, in this case, of Cecil Valance, a poet who dies in the first world war whose fairly second-class poetry is subsequently romanticised by his death. The principle character, whose perspective is rarely the one the reader is privy to, is Daphne Sawle, unusually a female, as Hollinghurst's previous books have been notably short on female characters and certainly female perspectives.

It's a stunning book, a much more literary read than I'm used to, I feel more intelligent and self-aware just from reading it. It's also unquestionably queer as well, less forcibly so than his last books, and with less implicit sex, but I'd say 90% of the males are either definitely gay, bisexual or sexually ambiguous. But this isn't gratuitous, the fluidity of sexuality is an important aspect of the plot.

I was lucky enough to attend a book reading by Alan Hollinghurst at the New Bloomsbury Set which was hosted by Gay's the Word bookshop. He was a great reader, very funny and quite self-effacing as well. He also signed my copy of the book too.



Anyhoo, I definitely recommend this if you want something quite heavy to get your teeth into, it's extremely rewarding and the flow of the prose, as ever, is poetic.

fenwick lawson

A few months ago when I was at home, me and Babs (the mothership) visited Durham for the day, and I spotted this piece of public art in Durham's Millenium Square:



I took a picture of it on my phone because it was sufficiently maudlin and out of place to tickle my fancy. It's only today, when looking up Fenwick Lawson (who is responsible for one of my very favourite pieces of art, The Pieta in Durham Cathedral) that I realised it was him that did this piece as well, which is called The Journey. It's pretty obvious now, given that stylisticly and thematically it's quite similar, and also because he's a Durham local as well.

Look up the Pieta if you haven't seen it, there aren't many really good pictures of it online, but you get the idea. Aside from the tedious religious theme, the Pieta is the most emotive thing I've ever seen, it's so simple, but it oozes with sadness and, I'm in danger of spilling into hyperbole here, it's sublime and ethereal.

That's all.

MIF - Sinead O'Connor and Bjork

So I just need to gush about this weekend. I saw Sinead O'Connor and Bjork who were both performing as part of the Manchester International Festival. Babs (AKA the mothership, my idol, legend etc.) bought me the tickets for my birthday and it was one of the best weekends ever.

Sinead's set was perfect, I was worried it would be Theology heavy, which was her last album that I like, but never really bonded with, but it was so varied and spanned most of her albums, including some of my favourites from Universal Mother, (In this heart and Thank you for hearing me). The new stuff she did is pretty good, it sounds unquestionably Irish, but with reggae beats, so her covers album wasn't superficial and she's obviously heavily influence by the genre. She was quite timid when talking between songs initially, after singing 'No Man's Woman' she said "that's a bit rich really given that I've shagged so many men". I love how much she has embraced motherhood, she spoke about her kids a lot (and not in a sickening way) and she's wearing herself with pride as always, her voice is impeccable and her acapella version of I am stretched on your grave was gorgeous.

BJORK was mind-blowing. Definitely the best gig I've ever been to (before this, the best gig I'd ever been to was when she did the Hammersmith Apollo in 2007). It was such a complete piece of art, the visuals, the atmosphere, the choreography, and especially the fucking astounding music. For me, Biophilia seems like a really organic progression, given that all of her work previously, right back to Debut has been about the discords and harmonies between humans and nature, so this technology/natural world cocktail works beautifully for me. Judging by the new stuff (I think she probably did the whole new album), this will be her best work yet, the most immediately brilliant songs were (and I'm not sure these are the correct titles) Thunderbolt, Mutual Core and (I'm even less sure about this title) Cosmogony? (the one with the chorus about Heaven's bodies or heavenly bodies or something). Before the encore she did one just with those swinging pendulum things called Solstice, which was gorrrrgeous too. It's weird how instantly likeable all the new stuff was because normally I find it difficult to fully get into new stuff until I'm familiar with it. The highlights aside from those new songs were Where is the line, Mouth's Cradle, Sonnets/Unrealities XI (which brought a little tear to my eye) and OF COURSE Unravel, which really surprised me as I've seen her twice previously hoping to hear this as it's my favourite song in the world and she didn't do it, but this time it just crept out of nowhere in the middle of the set, it was heartbreaking, and yes, the tears did flow. I'm so impatient for the new album now, which I believe comes out in the autumn, for those of you who are going to one of the other dates she's doing: JEALOUS. It was life-changingly good.

Yours, a very overwhelmed Sean.

beaaautiful things

Just been clearing out some old stuff from uni, and found a big pile of records I bought when I was in my first and second year (2004-2006ish). I went through a phase of buying them to stick on my wall, I don't have a record player so they're not a great deal of use to me beyond their aesthetics. Luckily, my favourites are all pretty beautiful.

When I first got into music (1994) Cyndi Lauper and Sinead O'Connor were the artists that excited me most, perhaps odd choices for an eight year old boy, but never mind. They still stand out as two of the best pop singers in the world for me, I've seen Cyndi Lauper live three times now, and get to see Sinead for the first time in July as part of the Manchester International Festival (also get to see Bjork for the third time the following day).













(detail)





I love the artwork for True Colors, particularly the back. The newspaper skirts is one of my favourite things she wore, nice little nod to her first album too in the bottom right hand corner.













She's so bloody beautiful:



I normally like quite abstract and concept-heavy album artwork, but I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got is one of my favourite album covers ever, and it's just her face:





Here's a bit of miscellaneous:







Also, me and the mother went to Durham today (mainly to get my glasses fixed, but alas specsavers was closed). We went to the Oxfam bookshop and she bought me this:



If it's anything as good as the Naked Civil Servant or Englishman in New York then I'm in for a treat.

fallen bride

There's something quite poetic about this picture. Quite a beautiful visual of sadness and broken-ness. The odd thing is that the article says that she tried to kill herself when her boyfriend ended things with her while they were "making plans" to marry- surely that must be inaccurate, as why would she be wearing the wedding dress if they were just at the planning stage, seems more like a "jilted at the alter" sort of affair.

I always thought the most bittersweet visual of a woman on the edge was Esther Greenwood in the Bell Jar wandering round her house with a noose around her neck trying to find somewhere to hang herself, but the image of a woman framed by the folds in her wedding dress as she dangles over a balcony might just have replaced that.