Category: library

I read the above this week, and decided to buy the full series for eleven quid (UK) (US+)

I wanted an easy reading comfort book, and what I like is a clever, miserable British detective dealing with disgusting crimes. This hit the spot well enough that I finished it last night and ordered the rest of the series today. I recognise one of Ed James’ special tricks in the book above from his Fenchurch series, but this is a better-built book, with more texture and more attack. I’m faintly amazed it’s not already a tv show (except that British crime shows these days tend to be cosier, with leads who are more bland functionaries than the slightly mad horrors I tend to enjoy more).

Honestly, sometimes, writing a series of detective novels seems like the victory condition to me, and I admire any writer who can talk a publisher into it and then just keep going.

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I loved the work of Philip Jeck, and saw him perform live several times. He died in 2022.

He collaborated with others often, and his label, Touch, has released this to “join some of the dots of Philip’s life.”

CONNECTED:

• OXMARDYKE, Philip Jeck & Chris Watson
• The Apparatus Of Philip Jeck
• Jeck Yoshihide Tetreault
• Philip Jeck, VINYL CODA I – IV

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This months CD comes with a beautiful drawing by one of my witchiest friends Daisy Black. Daisy is an Artist, Performer and general feral being. Each CD comes with a postcard printed on 100% recycled card.
The WITCHLORE EP by Laura Cannell is part 10 of Brawl Records ‘Year in LORE’ series.
The series features a Limited Edition CD (100) – Signed and numbered by Laura alongside the digital release and video.
Composed, performed and produced by Cannell, WITCHLORE leaps into the world of synths, strings and bass recorder. Flitting between two worlds, instrumental and electronic. Laura’s transient music often evokes both the ancient and the contemporary. In the ‘Lore’ series, her signature instruments of overbowed violin and an array of recorders are complimented with the addition of octave violin and chordal drones, tapping into deeper resonances.

I’ve used the Bandcamp app to create a LORE playlist of all these EPs to date as walking/sleeping/reading music.

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99p on Amazon (UK) (US+). I don’t believe I’ve read John Gray before, and I’ve seen this book described as “nasty, brutish and short,” which checks a lot of boxes for a winter evening read.

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Can’t remember when I came across this trove. I suspect it was the result of a late night eBay trawl twenty-odd years ago.

The last gasp of the days when words went down on manual typewriters and paper and then processed through photocopiers, and the hope that the long-arm stapler still worked and you wouldn’t have to fold the staples shut with your thumbs.

There was a time when I was a little obsessed with Dick’s work. I still think there’s a fair argument to be made that Philip Dick is the authentic sound of the last half of the American 20th Century.

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I had a sample of this hanging around on the Kindle, and I finally opened it last night. The prose is the most marvellous pencil and charcoal sketching, and I think it fills in a crucial piece of my thinking this year about fragment writing. So I pressed the button. (Also, another Nobel winner whose work I needed to experience.)

THE YEARS, Annie Ernaux (UK) (US+)

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I seem to have bought the last copy of this!

By special request! Twenty-five years old! Issuing from the very tail end of the 20th century, this unusual and remarkable 70-minute Mellotron piece was recorded as a sleep aid for Cope’s then primary school-age daughters when the village bell-ringers re-started late night practice in preparation for the Millennium festivities. Circling around one simple repeated phrase but hand-played and without a metronome, this dreamy music is designed to be played on repeat throughout the night. This Head Heritage release celebrates Cope’s daughters and several of their friends still using this music both as a sleep aid and also simply to trip out. 

Julian Cope’s ODIN is one of my all time favourite records. His longform instrumental stuff is magical to me. I hope the sell-out triggers a reissue. I hadn’t heard this before, and bought it as soon as I learned of its existence anyway. No regrets. It’s waves of shimmering fog in orange-lit night streets, going around and around. It is likely to get ripped and stuffed into my phone for its intended use as sleep music. It’s also excellent thinking music.

It doesn’t seem to be online as a stream anywhere either. So this is just a log that I have it, I guess.

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