England`s Hidden Reverse – A Secret History of The Esoteric Underground 2e

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Sleazy und Balance, als Paar und Künstler (definitiv ein Begriff, den ich wo es nur geht, versuche zu vermeiden), atmeten die gleiche Luft aus wie ein Marquis De Sade, ein James Baldwin oder vermutlich auch ein Warhol. To enter into the work of any of these groups is to enter a world dense with intertextual references and allusions, to undergo a mind-expanding induction into a wider world full of strangeness and wonder, a recurring motif in Keenan’s own fictional work. Nämlich jenem, das ich zunehmend verspürte, als ich, vorm Bücherregal stehend, England's Hidden Reverse immer wieder auf später verschob. TG messily collapsed in 1981 after four albums, myriad bootlegs and a series of unforgettable live performances, but not before inspiring an entire scene of weirdos and outsiders armed with primitive synthesisers, tape machines and diseased imaginations. Also I feel the book is slightly marred by the inclusion of a new preface and afterword, both read as if Keenan has grown bitter and hateful since the first edition which is a shame as I think the music that was released for all the groups since 2002 has been great and has seen some interesting evolutions.

This new volume contains almost 100 pages of extra material culled from Furfur, a collection of interviews with musicians and artists whose careers intersected with the bands,’ initially published alongside Strange Attractor’s first limited edition of the book. We have a regular newsletter with the week’s new releases that goes out every Thursday or Friday too. There's loads of detail and eyewitness accounts given for time in the studio and early live gigs by the main players (supplemented with like-minded cohorts: Drew McDowall, Rose McDowall, Stephen Thrower and Thighpaulsandra, etc.

Where Keenan shines, and where he most clearly prefigures his work as a novelist – aside from This Is Memorial Device’s amusingly snarky use of music taste to tell the reader something about the characters – is in his argument that Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound sit at the heart of this hidden reverse of English culture. this new edition has a new foreward and afterward, the former seeming a bit bitter (though i did laugh when he took godspeed down a few pegs, and rightfully so). A new revised and expanded edition of David Keenan’s seminal secret history of the UK’s esoteric underground. This is such a beautifully produced book, testament perhaps to the power of independent publishers to produce work of care and precision beyond the usual bounds of the majors. From 2005 to 2015 he co-ran Volcanic Tongue, an online retailer and magazine dedicated to the enthused presentation of contemporary underground music.

The Current 93 tracks I've listened to have a maudlin charm, but rarely does the actual music have any spark. It fell out of print for 10 years, and was republished by Strange Attractor Press in 2015 with new material, before falling out of print again. Written over a period of six years and first published in 2003, the book flits between John Balance and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson of Coil’s original Threshold House in Chiswick and the old boys’ school they later moved to in Weston-super-Mare to Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound’s goat farm and visionary art environment in Cooloorta in Southern Ireland to the roof of a house in Muswell Hill where David Tibet of Current 93 receives a vision of Noddy crucified in the sky. Ich hatte ja an anderer Stelle bereits erwähnt, dass es mir allmählich unter den Nägeln juckt, wieder vermehrt musikalische Orbits abseits heimeliger 90er-BM-Kannonaden abzuschweifen.EDITION*** The secret history of the UK esoteric underground—aka the biography of Coil, Current 93 and Nurse With Wound—by Wire contributor and Volcanic Tongue co-founder, David Keenan. As well as the unparalleled joy of keeping the publication alive, you'll receive benefits including exclusive editorial, podcasts, and specially-commissioned music by some of our favourite artists. MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. i've always been attracted to these musicians and learned years ago about this book, which was sadly oop at the time. Stapleton was an obsessive record collector who journeyed to Germany to meet some of his musical heroes, before finally recruiting a couple of friends to make a noise album.

An expanded edition of the classic exploration of the English esoteric musical underground-with the first biography of Coil, Current 93, and Nurse With Wound. In spite of that and Keenan's implied snobbery (he wrote for "The Wire", after all), it's a good account of an overlooked grouping of non-musicians and visual artists, who created their own niches and are still active now (with the exception of Coil) - the photo section at the end of the book provides a great bonus to the text. I went on vet work experience placement instead of going to the last ever Coil gig, a decision I regret to this day.

It's a tragedy reading it in hindsight of John Balance's death, since we can see the chaotic impulses and self-destructiveness in some of his behaviour and music, and we know how it all ends. Sleazy talks about Coil’s relentless project to queer everything, creating a space in which certain artistic truths are only achievable through the perspective and experience of queerness.