PTV & White Stains: “At Stockholm” revisited

Genesis P-Orridge at around the time of recording AT STOCKHOLM. At Stockholm was the first full length album by White Stains. After a turbulent first year of existence, circa 1987-1988, the band had evolved from loud psychedelic rock to considerably more experimental vibes. A great instigator of this change was Thomas Tibert, who became an integrated member late 1988. This intersectional dynamic is clearly audible when listening to material from the era. Compare, for instance, the two final “93” singles (The Awareness and The Result) – essentially pop music in contemporary clothes – with the first ever White Stains performance at the Hultsfred festival of 1989: violent and experimental ad-libbing. Other interesting things happened at the time too. I made plans with Genesis P-Orridge to set up a Scandinavian spoken word tour for a mini-version of Psychick TV, ie Genesis and then wife Paula. There were some poetry festivals occuring here at around the same time, so we...

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Sinnelag: a dark state of mind

Only once in a while do I retract from long term musical partnerships (and then only temporarily). Usually collaborations are fun and rewarding within a Third Mind framework. Usually they bring out entirely unexpected music that would have been impossible to make on my own. However, I’ve come to notice that it works the other way around too. When I’m totally alone with the audio structure spirits, the communication becomes transcending in a much more brooding and darker way. Sure, I can recognize elements and attractions that are mine and mine alone, but I’m more and more surprised in the solo setting these days. It’s as if the Third Mind has become the norm and in long term musical partnerships one gets the hang of it after a while. The unexpected becomes the expected. Not creatively Kosher. Some years ago, I started making music on my own again. This time without any concept or umbrella (like an “album”). I was just curious to see where the...

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Atlantean Art & Occult Poland

I hope to see you in Gdansk, Poland, this weekend, Friday the 13th (!) to Sunday the 15th. I’ll be lecturing (well, speculating is probably a more apt term) about Aleister Crowley and Rudolf Steiner at the Lashtal Press Conference, and look forward to that a lot. Gdansk is a beautiful city and I have dear memories from when Cotton Ferox played there in 2008. Speaking of which, Cotton Ferox will return to Poland on the 17th of November, to perform at the Trans/Wizje festival in Warsawa. More news on this event will follow as we get closer to the date. I will also have an article in the issue of T/W that will be released for/at the festival. The theme of the article is the human being’s need for magical play, externalized through dolls of various kinds. The theme of the concert, however, will be something completely different: temporary dissociation. “What else is new?”, right? Alchemy, antimodernism, anachronism or just Atlantean art? I try to keep up with the...

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Gathering of the Tribe: Beware of Brilliance!

Quite a while ago I got my hands on Mark Goodall’s book Gathering of the Tribe – Music and Heavy Conscious Creation (Headpress, 2013). I thought I’d read it and write the review without much ado. Boy, was I wong! Actually, I’m still stuck in the book… Help! But this is not because that it’s hard to penetrate or difficult in any way. On the contrary. I’m still stuck because I want to. Goodall’s HEAVY journey through a multitude of various musical styles is simply so brilliant that I want to stay in this deranged stream of wonders and frights forever. What appears at first to be an eclectic guide for record collectors is in actual fact a real mind opener in itself. Not only because of the incredible weirdness Goodall describes, but also because of how he does it (and his friends too). This is a brilliant, illuminating and highly well written book. Try this out for size: Cosmic Sounds, Jazz and the Spirit World, Freaky Folk, The Law of Octaves:...

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