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Tag: Cannell

going going: 14apr26

Published April 14, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I have seen great minds of my acquaintance eaten by “the blockchain,” IoT, NFTs and now AI across the last fifteen years. I used to think of them as distanced, but now I think of them as gone. It seems like, when your brain gets wormed by one of these things, there’s not a path back. Reminds me a little of when people got what I always thought of as “Twitter psychosis” – typing their every waking thought into the machine, and other people ceasing to exist for them unless they were on Twitter too. I guess people do that with ChatGPT now.

I finally spent money on a proper steel watering can. I have bluebells and apple blossom, and the first hints of cherry blossom.

Arrived (while I was typing this!): AURORAE, Laura Cannell:

OPERATIONS: yesterday was mostly eaten by life admin, but I did get 400 words of material down and some thinking done. Just not enough. But there’s only so much you can do when a cat goes to sleep on either side of you.
STATUS:


READING: HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, Molly Crabapple (UK) (US+), THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenberger (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: SUNN O))), Sunn O)))


LAST WATCHED: Watched all five seasons of PERSON OF INTEREST, because I never did finish that show. Rewatched THE IDES OF MARCH, rewatched episodes of the unjustly cancelled FRANKIE BOYLE’S NEW WORLD ORDER: Frankie’s monologues were some of the best writing on TV at the time.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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1feb26

Published February 1, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I caught the mange that’s been circulating through the town. I am currently useless and will continue to be useless for a few more days.

New newsletter is out, includes notes on ai lobsters

TODAY:

Fashion writer/editor Tish Weinstock‘s newsletter is a riot.

There’s nothing like landing in LA to make you realise you’re definitely not as hot as you thought you were. In London, I rarely leave the house unless I’m going to dinner. i.e.under the cloak of darkness and wearing copious amounts of slap. And if, by some freak chance, I am out during the day, I won’t be travelling by foot, which means I’ll never be caught en plein air. But even if I was, because it’s so grey and depressing outside, I find that my wrinkles, bags and jowls tend to be miraculously, mercifully obscured. Well, not in LA, they’re not. Bathed in the golden light of the Chateau Marmont, I was reminded how old I really was: 185.

THE MEDIEVAL DRONE SOCIETY by Laura Cannell arrived and has been on repeat.

OPERATIONS: I did manage to get a foreword written for someone. But, honestly, I’m looking at that grindcore piece and thinking that’s not the worst idea.
STATUS: all is plague
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Ambient Daily 47 podcast
LAST WATCHED: BLOODSPORT. We rarely turn off a JCVD film in this house.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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BRIGHTLY SHONE THE MOON and GODDESSES OF ICELORE, Laura Cannell

Published December 12, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Next year I will probably buy more music by different people, honest. But I love her work and collector’s mania has set in at this point, I imagine. It’s basically muscle memory to buy her new work on sight.

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HAUNTLORE, Laura Cannell

Published November 7, 2025 by Warren Ellis

This arrived last week but I’m catching up on logging still. Have a listen.

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THE VISIBLE LIGHT OF OTHER WORLDS, Laura Cannell

Published September 12, 2025 by Warren Ellis

THE VISIBLE LIGHT OF OTHER WORLDS is the 12th solo album from the UK based Composer, Performer and Improviser Laura Cannell. Recently hailed as “The Radical Neo-medieval Musician Laura Cannell” by The Guardian. Her latest album evokes a strange new world between renaissance consort music, neo-classical & ambient music.

This is the sound of fog in a canyon light years from earth, the tempestuous flames of the sun’s surface, the imagined movement of sand in fields of dark dunes, the hurricane spirals of uninhabitable worlds. It is the residue and archived energy of long gone forests, the restless oceans and curving rift valleys of unknown lands in the untouchable reaches of the universe.

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A COMPENDIUM OF BEASTS Vol 3, Laura Cannell

Published September 1, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Time to catch up with my summer-break acquisitions. I am, of course, a sucker for all Laura Cannell’s work, including her year-long EP series projects. This one has especial “landscape soundtrack” vibes, for me.

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LYRELYRELYRE, Laura Cannell

Published May 30, 2025 by Warren Ellis

LYRELYRELYRE is the 11th solo album from Laura Cannell, the UK based Composer, Performer and Improviser. Cannell calls upon an ancient Lyre that was buried in the epic landscape of the Suffolk Coastline to sound once more. She wakes it from its 14 centurylong slumber and coaxes it’s shrouded sounds onto her new offering.

Cannell delves deep into the history of the lyre, finding a way to bring this ancient instrument back into the landscape it once lived in and into her fold of feral chamber music. The Lyre lives again alongside haunting bass recorders and double reeded battle cries of the crumhorn.


Takes me right back to the Laura Cannell gig at the Cafe Oto last month.

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A COMPENDIUM OF BEASTS Vol 2, Laura Cannell

Published March 17, 2025 by Warren Ellis

“Humans have always looked to animals to understand ourselves better, and though the bones may be the same, our needs and meanings have changed. This is like a modern day Medieval Bestiary in sound, but instead of collecting the real and imagined animals and beasts of the past to teach morals, I am trying to capture the feral essence of the beasts for a few minutes before setting them free again.

It feels like a catch and release of emotion, of sound and of understanding. The animals serve as inspiration for my playing, the instruments I play feel like creatures to me, they breathe and fly and spin off in unexpected directions.”

I remain in awe of the beauty of her work and her insane production speed. I love that she can generate a year of EPs as well as full albums scattered through each year. Absolutely inspirational.

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