REVIEWS 3
29 DEC 2015
BRIAN JONES & PAN AT JOUJOUKA
Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka is a genuine "classic" "cult" recording, an authentic "talismanic" LP, and perhaps, as some claim, the very first World Music record. The gatefold sleeve and foldout insert could be magic carpets for certain persons in the right atmosphere. It has fascinated me for over three decades, and keeps returning to impart its knowledge like a tutelary ghost.
 |
|
The front gatefold sleeve of the original
1971 edition of the LP (Rolling Stones Records, RS-000).
|
Confusion, mystery and tragedy surround the record. Paul Bowles first introduced Brion Gysin to the sounds of the Sufi Master Musicians of the Ahl Serif tribe in 1950. Gysin was later taken to their village of Joujouka on the Mountain of Owls in the Moroccan Rif range by the Moroccan painter, Mohamed Hamri (who provided the front cover illustration to the LP), then the pair brought the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones (along with Jones' girlfriend, Suki Potier, and the recording engineer George Chkiantz) to the village in the Summer of 1967, when they recorded the Master Musicians of Joujouka live in the field on two portable Uher machines (not, as is often believed, during the annual week-long Rites of Pan Festival, Aid el Kbir, wherein a young boy transforms into the half-human, half-goat Boujeloud or Bou Jeloud, whilst dancing around a bonfire, then sparks in all directions as he cavorts through the darkened village, spreading PAN-ic and whipping the screaming women fertile. For more read Gysin's purple-prosed liner notes [PDF].
BRIAN permutates to BRAIN (behind), and Jones - who formed, named and originally led the Rolling Stones - finished producing the LP, then a month-or-so later he was thrown out of the band in June 1969, for wanting to take the Stones in a more out-there direction (and his heroic-but-disruptive drug intake), then less than a month afterwards he died a premature death in his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm (where AA Milne had previously penned Winnie the Pooh), swallowed up by the universal unconscious under somewhat mysterious circumstances, that granted him membership of the "27 Club" alongside Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others. ("No Jones, no Stones": they were shit after he left.)
 |
|
The famous sticker affixed to the front of
early editions of the LP sleeve to correct part of the
original title "plays with" to "presents".
|
It was finally released in 1971 as Brian Jones plays with the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (possibly to generate more sales amongst Stones fans; the Master Musicians of Joujouka being dubbed "The 4000 year old Rock and Roll band" on its promotional materials), the first-ever release on the Rolling Stones Records label, but contrary to some popular belief, Brian Jones does not appear on the LP. (The "plays with" part of the title was later corrected to "presents" by placing a sticker on the front cover, although the circular labels on the very first pressing [COC-49100] still say "plays with".) Jones however did do (or at least oversee) the editing and mixing, leaving all the incidental dogs barking and people coughing in, that imparts a raw, authentic flavour, real illusions out of sight.
 |
|
The front & inner gatefold sleeve of
the Japanese/USA Toshiba-EMI 1979 edition of the LP
(ESS-63009).
|
 |
Repetitive male-and-female vocal chants, flute, drum and horn melodies and improvisations coalesce over drones, the whole augmented by Jones' psychedelic stereo cross-phasing, echo, and other studio effects to birth a strange, haunting, trancefield that induces altered states directly, and can - especially when combined with great grass and the Dreamachine - transport the sensitive listener to the place of its origin: a primeval, phantasmagorical Interzone. (This is why the original vinyl album was formulated as two untitled, unbroken sides; the CD reissue separated the songs into titled tracks, that was not originally intended.) Glorious danger bites in terror hooves as Pan darts back and forth on his wild hunt, his healing fuck-whip amongst the swirling night of mysterious modulations, piping grooves possession-trance drunk from flaming cups, drums throb horns peal flutes eclogue, notes stretching up to the sky, like the Lupercalia of ancient Rome like the blackened-face pelt-wearing mumming plays of modern England, the two sides of the magic circle spirals spinning an undulating-amplified portal to the old ways of Everything Anywhere: a vital existence here in the flesh, there in the spirit, as you've always known.
 |
|
|
ABOVE: A helmet-haircutted Brian Jones looking gored out of his skull on the front cover of the poorly-mastered A Degree of Murder bootleg soundtrack CD. BELOW: The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Brian Jones attired in a Nazi SS uniform whilst stomping on a symbolic plastic child, for some reason. |
|
 |
In the same year he began making the Joujouka LP, Brian Jones (with guest musicians including Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page) also did the soundtrack for the obscure and allegedly avant-garde 1967 German film, Mord und Totschlag (A Degree of Murder), that starred his blonde-haired witch girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. The soundtrack is much better than the film, which is trite and really boring, the dialogue interminable. Pallenberg shoots her violent manfriend in self-defence, who was about to leave her anyway, then needs to dispose of his body, so she offers to pay a complete stranger bloke to do it, then they have edited-out sex, after which they faff about for ages, have edited-out sex again, faff about with an accomplice, eventually bury the dude, and faff about some more, as if they're going on holiday or it's all a big joke. The body is eventually dug up by an earthmover and swings at the end of a crane. It's a piston movie, the Cryptocracy's flagship sex-death obsession upfront with ambigrammatic backgrounds, obscene pink against a black swan. Amoral funhouse cult propaganda.
Whilst watching it on YouTube I abstracted and thought of screaming trains, racist funfairs, violet glasshouses, sluice rooms, tile superstores, clammy mannequins, crystal nipples, mechanical comedians, scab banners, New Labour witches, rabies manor, paedos in Alice. Overall, a marble-lined room with a block of Kendal Mint Cake in the centre, a sort of sugar buzz cult HQ. It is slow-moving and boring, one cares naught for the characters, only Pallenberg casting her cat-green eyes on the spiral stairs. Some say Jones was originally intended to star in the film (and that him in the Nazi get-up photo [above-left] is an unused promotional shot for it) alongside Pallenberg, but he beat her up during a holiday in Morocco in 1967, after which she left him for fellow Stone[r], Keith Richards, and so only did the music for the project.
Western rich decadent druggy esotericism meets Eastern poor honourable authentic lore paradigm was an interesting culture clash, but the West's money-fame-thing influence led to an internecine musical dispute in the early-1980s, that resulted in two separate groups, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka, who still disagree about who are the true one. Those in the former faction's camp include the remaining Rolling Stones, as in the late-1980s they returned to Morocco to record the song 'Continental Drift' with the Master Musicians of Joujouka for the Stones' 1989 Steel Wheels LP.
Stephen Davis' book, Jajouka Rolling Stone: A Fable of Gods & Heroes (Random House, 1993), is a good companion volume to this recording. In a 2011 interview, he asserts that the original (allegedly 90-minute duration) master-tape recorded for the Brian Jones Presents... LP is no longer in the Rolling Stones Records' archives in London, but the aforementioned George Chkiantz has said he has a "slave" copy of it, so maybe this will see a release one day. Davies also recommends The Master Musicians of Jajouka (Adelphi Records, 1975 [probably Master Musicians of Jajouka: The Primal Energy That is the Music & Ritual of Jajouka, Morocco, Adelphi Records Inc., 1974, AD 3000]), "recorded by Joel Rubiner, mostly in 1972," and Tribe Ahl Serif: Master Musicians of Jajouka (Musical Heritage Society, 1975, MHS 3292/93), "a two-record set made by Arnold Stahl around 1971 ... The second record in this set consists of about 25 minutes of the Boujeloudiya, or music for the goat god Bou Jeloud." He adds that the "recording quality is excellent, and it features the large formation - 20 rhaitas and about 15 drummers - that Brian Jones recorded." These recordings feature the original (and best) line-up that played on Brian Jones Presents... Other commercially available examples seem too over-produced and sanitised.
For more on the folklore of the village of Jajouka and its musicians, including Boujeloud and the origin myth of the group, see Mohamed Hamri, Tales of Joujouka (Capra Press, 1975; republished by the Black Eagle Press, 2003).
The Master Musicians of Joujouka, Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka. Rolling Stones Records, 1971 (RS-000). In 1979 it was reissued on vinyl by Toshiba-EMI (ESS-63009), then reissued on CD in 1995 as Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka on Point Music (Philips Classics/PolyGram 446 487-2). The limited edition deluxe 2-CD box set released the same year (Point Music 446 825-2 & 446 826-2) includes additional graphics and more extensive notes by David Silver and William S. Burroughs. Disk 2 contains two full-length remixes produced by Cliff Mark. There is also an 8-Track Cartridge version.
POSTSCRIPT: After I first played this hypnotic record to my friend Barry Eggery - an archetypal old school "beardy weirdy", whose seer abilities opened up after a High Priestess injected puretone LSD into his cock at a Hell's Angels party back in 1968 - he experienced an epiphany and subsequent mystical life-change (not unlike a UFO close encounter), then claimed to have "telepathically sussed out" that:
Aside from the Rolling Stones, Morocco was also swarmed by other supposedly key 'countercultural' figures, including Paul Bowles, Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso (not to mention Scientology's Sea Org) - Men on a Mission, but who's? Leary was FBI; his acquaintance Burroughs was 'nearly' CIA; his closest collaborator Gysin was Canadian Intelligence. It's now mainstream news that the CIA funded American abstract expressionist painters in the 1950s-1960s, so why not experimental writers, etc., also? The JJ sounds were co-opted by the AA as part of their multi-pronged attempt to destabilise the First World's existing order; replacing it with the hash-fudged boylove weirdness version of Interzone Morocco mainly promoted by Burroughs and Gysin; Manufacturing the Deadheads and Breadheads like Mick "LSE" Jagger through an effective cloning process; establishing Eastern Philosophies that urged the thinking youth to gaze at their navels in a remote commune instead of fighting in the streets for a revolution. The Bowie Occult, bisexualist androgyne normalisation. The Graham Bond (Aleister Crowley) Organisation, Black Sabbath, Black Widow sorcery trappings, on stage magicians, the whole controlled by pyramid-tipped alien theoreticians.
19 DEC 2015
THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE
Its way prepared by the extended puff piece of Simon Ford's Wreckers of Civilisation (Black Dog Publishing, 1999) with Bible-like pagination and a fawning, uncritical tone, the world can now rejoice at the Second Coming of Thee Psychick Bible (King P-Orridge Authorised Version). First published with a lot less pages by Alecto Enterprises in 1994, this redesigned and much enlarged 2010 paperback edition constitutes perhaps the entire essential canon of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), the pseudo-paramilitary occult fan club-cult division of the pop (or rather strange uncle) group Psychic TV (PTV).
P-Orridge humbly attests that the present work "may become the most profound new manual on 'practical magick'," that could "change this 'world' and evolve our humanE species," but vulgar temporal concerns surround it in the form of alledged duplicate numbered copies of the supposed original, signed, limited and 999-numbered 2009 hardback edition (No.23 no less), and misleading advertising that the accompanying DVD one could seperately purchase, Thee Psychick Videos, described by the publisher, Feral House, as containing "impossible-to-find videos from P-Orridge archives of early Psychic TV and TOPY creations," wrongly inferred that some were the in the Nursery experimental ritual sex rites and (faked) mutilation First Transmission-type stuff seized by Scotland Yard cops in 1992, when they were in fact mostly just easy to obtain previously-released BBFC-classified Psychic TV music videos (8Transmissions8?).
It is elegantly designed, with cover flaps, and its 540 thick acid-free pages sit solidly in the hand like the life-sized brass dildo that P-Orridge commissioned and sent to record company executives back in the day. There's some great material in here for sure, including the essential Thee Grey Book, Thee Black Book and Thee Green Book, but the tome ends with some cringe-inducing e-mail exchanges concerning P-Orridge's sole ownership claim of the Psychick Cross™, which says it all really, and we ponder on what might have been. A representative free preview including the contents section can be read online.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Thee Psychick Bible: Thee Apocryphal Scriptures ov Genesis Breyer P-Orridge & Thee Third Mind ov Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. Feral House, 2010. Paperback, 540pp. ISBN: 978-1932595901. $29.95. Available from the publisher, etc. (Thee Psychick Videos DVD is available separately for $23).
07 JUN 2015
THE ESOTERIC SECRETS OF SURREALISM
The publisher of this book, Inner Traditions, has, under its various
imprints, previously put out the complete works of that mysterious
mover, Schwaller de Lubicz, plus books by his wife, Isha, the first (and so far best) English
translation of Julius Evola & the UR Group's Introduction to Magic, and Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy by Nik
Douglas & Penny Slinger, that first revealed to me, as a
wide-eyed teen back in the 1980s, both the existence and
possibilities of sexual magick. So in a light reverie I trustingly
decided to give The Esoteric Secrets of Surrealism a go.
Its author, the Frenchman Patrick Lepetit, is a Grand Orient Freemason and member of the Mélusine Network, and obviously possesses an active understanding his subject, for he has delivered to the world a scholarly but un-dry, wide scope, enthusiastic and precise, fully source-referenced text that is most enjoyable and almost impossible to put down. He quotes many excerpts from the actual documents under discussion for the first time in English, and all-in-all it's quite a treasure trove of the marvellous. Most of us are already aware of André Breton and Co.'s expeditions to the other side and Georges Bataille's wannabe ritual murder cult, Acéphale, but (unlike other books that promise much but deliver little) this substantial tome really delves deeper into the myriad occult influences behind surrealism, that include gnosticism, voodoo, tarot, alchemy, kabala, spiritualism, freemasonry and other secret societies, even the King Arthur-Grail mythos, that assisted the melting clock initiates' attempt to access and unleash the hidden powers of revolutionary creativity.
I learnt a lot from this work, my stimulated mind returning strange and wondrous dreams in the aftermath, and I recommend it to both weirdo artists and occultist weirdos, some of who may realise that they have more in common than they first suspected. It seemed like, and could have been, a spiritual spy game, White Lodge vs. Black Lodge: the Surrealists using anything, especially the occult, to achieve their goal of knowing the marvellous in the mundane, as a counterpart to the Nazi SS Ahnenerbe organisation (although it could be argued they were seeking the same thing, but for very different purposes). Having some existing knowledge of both surrealism and the occult would probably help one get the most out of this book, as it gets into arcane areas, although there's an extensive Bibliography should one wish to get wise or wiser at a later date. Also included is a vibrant 16-page colour section of surrealist art. (For the undecided there's a radio interview in which the author discusses his book here.)
Patrick Lepetit, The Esoteric Secrets of Surrealism: Origins, Magic & Secret Societies. Translated from French to English by Jon E. Graham. Inner Traditions, 2014. Paperback, 512pp. ISBN: 1620551756. $29.95.
29 MAY 2015
A WRITER'S BRITAIN
We're back in the Cold War mid-1980s and
I decide to buy and hopefully enjoy this book before the world blows
up. I wasn't disappointed. It enabled me to fixate on the
'intellect', or rather, my Magic-Art Sense: the feeling possibility
state that was close-depicted in Ken McMullen's 1983 feature film, Ghost
Dance. So maybe books really are talismans, as some believe,
if you believe. A Writer's Britain thus helped pull me
away from the eerie suspicion that in the late-1940s aliens came and
offered their AI computer technology to the Shadow Government in
exchange for free reign abductions of humans. We grafted our own
emerging computer technology onto this ET backbone and here we are:
this alien-human interface, tellingly known as the "World Wide Web",
now underpins most of the world.
But the aliens have put a "Back Door" in the system (note John A. Keel's 1970 book, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse), so they can remotely monitor, interrogate, influence and who-knows-what us (note the constant sound and light bombardment containing subliminal messages used on the Branch Davidians during the 1993 Waco seige - a prototype of the addictive image-audio control system employed in the Internet). Meat eaters "under the influence" and "under the impression"... I contacted the aliens in a dream ritual to ask why they were really doing all this and an offstage vaudeville-type male voice told me to: "Keep the change."
The main premise of A Writer's Britain is the importance of Place. Just as the best fairytales were conceived or written in the woods, the best literature of other genres has been heavily influenced by the respective environment and atmosphere. The whole thing, past-present-future/seen-unseen there, seeps into the sensitive writer's mind; breathes it in; dreams of it dreaming. The book shows how Great Britain itself has filtered through poets and prosers of varying regions throughout the years, with great skill and sensitivity: one may cry or shout at certain points, overcome by its poignant charm.
The author, Margaret Drabble, speaks with authority, for she is an authority, not another (un-)great pretender spouting on the bandwagon, and she has an uncanny ability to deep-mine the data records then bring to light connected nuggets. My head's still glowing. The combination of her mastery of craft, the 121 photographs (31 in colour) by Jorge Lewinski (proper evocative before the cutesy, over-tweaked digital technology overload) and lengthy quotations from the writers in question adds up to something more than the sum of its parts. Glorious really. The lady takes a strong scholarly approach but it's not aimed at academic bores; the intended reader is any intelligent prole, and with a wider readership among today's creatives and their allies this book will hopefully assist the righteous and long-overdue resurgence of our beloved majestic island into the form it should be, as we reclaim it from the alien idol worshippers who are running it today or in the past.
I had long cherished the first (quite large-sized) paperback edition (Thames & Hudson, 1984), and regularly went through it for stimulus on many points, but I hadn't read it for many moons, and as my original copy be now well-thumbed and rather battered due to a daily rucksack-carry to and from work and thereabouts, I decided to buy a replacement, and was shocked to discover that it's now an overlooked gem, sadly relegated to the Amazon.co.uk 1p department. (Today it sold 36 copies; at 240 it will cult.) I was glad though that 30 years after this work's first publication, in 2009 the same publisher had brought out a new hardback edition (ISBN: 978-0500514931), but when it arrived I was dismayed to find it aesthetically sabotaged by the omission of all the photographs. Stay with the older, and wiser, version.
Margaret Drabble, A Writer's Britain: Landscape in Literature. Thames & Hudson, 1984. Paperback, 288pp. Profusely illustrated. ISBN: 0500273405. No price stated.
25 MAY 2015
LIMINAL ANALYTICS
Liminal Analytics is an US-based "Applied Research Collaborative" who are "Specialists in the Unattended, Invisible, & Overlooked." They investigate areas of liminal experience, that also plays with the transmedia principles of using image/word to spur action through the assumed authority of a perceived group presence, and, more obliquely, concepts of leaderless and decentralised organisations. Liminal Analytics have their hand in a lot of interesting things at present, such as co-hosting events at the Observatory Room in Brooklyn, focussing on psychical research topics, and - alongside Dr R. Andrew Chesnut, Chair of Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University - studying the development of the Santa Muerte cult. The main organiser, David Metcalfe, also edits the Limitless Minds section of Reality Sandwich. As most of the few realise at some point, the marginal is where it's at; anti-pop-orientated, seriously thought out and well-presented, so Liminal Analytics is certainly worth repeated visits.
28 APR 2015
THE BARREL NUT
Strange dream of bloody handheads, scary lighting effects, fruiting nuts, sleazy barrister vibe. Only his arse was real, and strange words emitted from the wisdom teeth: "We are approaching the Werewolf Dawn." Clock struck twelve and it was me cutting paper, paper cuts, cut/ups on paper. Loaded terms, neighbourhood art threat. Next morning woke up to a package from Dr Adolf Steg, that contained a close opus: The Barrel Nut, subtitled "Art By Noise", being a free A7-sized 8-page art/text microzine produced by Rob Hayler of Leeds-based recording label Radio Free Midwich (RFM). Its contents hail from the "no-audience underground" musicians who strongly presence the North, plus "affiliated parties." Contributions are welcome for this proposed monthly publication and previous issues can be freely downloaded so you can print and distribute them yourself (handy construction instructions are also provided). Those aware have realised that physical objects are the way forward, especially in the alternative sphere, so go to it.
19 MAR 2015
PERVS ON THE RUN
Apparently it is a serious criminal offence to solicit a non-existent person for sex, judging by the criminal convictions obtained due to the efforts of the American watchdog organisation Perverted Justice, whose adult members have tirelessly worked as undercover underage children in internet chatrooms to reel in the slime since 2003. This modus operandi came to wider notice in November 2004 via the American TV series, To Catch a Predator, wherein fake 12-to-15-year-olds issued home invitations to perps who were then caught by hidden cameras and eventual openly-filmed confrontations. Made by the Dateline NBC crew, it only snared males (as far as is known, to date no female paedophile has ever been caught by any of these sting operators).
The Metropolitan Police's Paedophile Unit have been using such internet entrapment in the UK since 2005, posing as underage child decoys on internet social networking sites to flush out nonces, and in 2007 the Unit began impersonating paedophiles online to attract real ones. This was made known and shown in the two-part ITV1 documentary series To Catch a Paedophile, first broadcast in September 2009, that seems to have inspired the pseudonymous "Stinson Hunter" and his earnest colleagues to set up their own private sting operations that same year, if not "taking the law into their own hands" then certainly appropriating its investigation and evidence gathering aspects.
The Stinson Hunter crew's intrepid ops have rocketed British Reality TV to a whole new level, as, whilst always remaining anonymous, they attract paedophiles by pretending to be underage boys and girls online (using the standard cop procedure of making sure the target knows he/she is talking to a child from the first contact, as mentioned in To Catch a Paedophile), arranging a meeting, then showing up to confront and interrogate the dirty old men who have foolishly taken the bait, and are filmed then fully named-and-shamed on the Stinson Hunter website. The perps' erubescent shock and feeble explanations, their subjective reality shattered in an harsh instant by exposure to a more objective paradigm (including being showed their sent penis photos and lewd messages) makes magnetic, gripping viewing. It's like a postmodern version of the Roman Colosseum, the baying popcorn sofa crowd cheering-leering at the character assassination inflicted by the righteous, and decidedly non-armchair, gladiators. This is heavy stuff effective. A lot of those targeted have been subsequently convicted and at least one of them, Michael Parkes, has killed himself.
It reminds me of those eerie rogues galleries of kerb-crawler mugshots curated by the American Police, where the bewildered whore-lovers are subjected to photographic rape, their faces starkly exhibited to all-comers for eternity, in order for the men to suffer a punishment of shame that may be far worse for some than the small monetary fine. It's as if these vulgarly-paraded "Johns" have taken the prostitutes' place, or have joined them, both now on lurid public show. Who is exploiting who? Who guards the guards?
The popularity of Stinson Hunter videos, and the fact that to set-up a paedo-hunting team all one needs is an internet connection and the bottle, has resulted in new teams springing up all the time to work the jailbait-decoy-ambush ploy in the UK, such as Letz-go Hunting, Daemon Hunter, Dark Justice, The Online Predator Investigation Team, The Hunted One, Guardians of the North, Chris Fear, The Nonce Hunters, etc.
Such fervent activism has been taken towards its logical conclusion by the Russian ultra-nationalist vigilante organisations Parents of Russia and Occupy Paedophilia that emerged in late 2012, preparing the way for the next year's laws introduced by Putin's government against "pro-gay" people and the distribution of "gay propaganda". These intolerant hate groups operate in the classic independent cell structure style - apparently with impunity - and are radically inimical to all "LGBT" (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) humans. Occupy Paedophilia are especially keen. Active in around 30 Russian cities, they claim to only target paedophiles, not homosexuals (but add that most just happen to be gay and male), and as a proactive travelling kangaroo court have executed many hundreds of fake-ad trap-attacks (that they call "safaris") on hopeful rubes who are subjected to filmed detention, interrogation, humiliation and physical punishment, all uploaded to the internet.
Examining this extreme direct action street justice vigilantism, occult researchers have noted that the homosexual victim is often forced to drink heterosexual urine from a bottle, or it is simply poured over their head, as shown in the frank Channel 4 TV documentary, Hunted: The Terror Facing Gay People in Russia. Whether this ritual practice is a consciously deliberate attempted sympathetic magic folk cure or some unconscious emergence from the "group soul" towards this end is not known at present, but warrants further study.
One could assume that these Russian groups had unofficial approval until international public outcry and negative press coverage forced the Russian authorities to arrest them. In this context, note that the Stinson Hunter 2014 Channel 4 TV documentary, The Paedophile Hunter, has been rewarded by the media establishment, winning two BAFTAs and the Royal Television Society's Best Single Documentary award in 2015. (Hunter also received donations totalling £32,661 from 1798 people on his Kickstarter account in the month after the documentary was first broadcast.) Although paedo-hunting teams in the UK have their critics on the Left, Jim Gamble (former director of the national Child Exploitation & Online Protection agency) has recommended that such clandestine groups should become legit by the setting up of "a volunteer army" of a thousand "digital detectives" working for the police. I don't see this happening soon, only civilian paedo-hunting being made illegal, because the authorities are no doubt concerned that these members of the public will one day catch an MP- or Royal-paedo, and none of the normal methods to sweep it under the carpet can be utilised.
It's certainly a weird phenomenon, where both the pervs and the good guys are equally-fixated predators searching for their respective prey. Whilst I appreciate the paedo-hunters' frustration at the lack of police attention to the matter, maybe a better tactic would be to stay away from any suspect meetings, notify the police and send them the evidence, so the police can meet the suspect instead, then arrest them professionaly. Otherwise - especially if any needless aggression is used or a public outing of the uncharged suspect is made before trial - the suspect could press assault/intimidation or contempt of court charges on the hunters that get the case dismissed, leaving the nonce free to molest real children.
In this regard, perhaps the most professional civilian operation in the UK are the Internet Interceptors, a team of parents founded in November 2015, who hunt throughout the country and whose main inquisitors are two females, who manage to get more explanations out of the suspects than the more aggressive male-dominated hunter-teams, who have been known to shout out in public places that they've caught a paedo, confiscate their car keys and/or mobile phones, physically restrain them and threaten them with violence if they try to get away. Those performing Citizen Arrests also have a Duty of Care, that could be lacking if the arrestors are not impartial because they (understandably) detest the arrestee. It could even cause the suspect to be beaten up or even fatally lynched by bystanders, without due process.
There's also the problem of media-justified copycat confrontations, and psychopaths being attracted, who realise they can use paedo-hunting to abuse people with impunity and gain kudos and ego-swell from online comments, etc., in their 15-minutes-of-fame. Another problem is the old drawback of vigilantism: fingering the wrong person. What if someone hacks an innocent man's internet account, uses it to groom a jailbait decoy and arrange to meet her for sex, then get the innocent man to show up at the same time and place but for a totally different reason, like a job interview? The opportunities for the bribery and blackmail of suspects may also tempt paedo-hunters of lesser moral fibre involved in the field, and the above could even become an excuse for the pervert cult within the UK Government to lower the age of consent to 10-years-old, to prevent such abuse of innocent suspects' (and of course guilty paedophiles') human rights. (Also, as the hunters presumably use 18+ chat sites, if the decoy states that they are 15-years-old or under, the suspect could use the defence that they genuinely believed the decoy to be an adult playing a kinky role, as in the "age play" scene.)
The filmed hunter-suspect meets may be done to send a warning message to other potential perps, but judging from the amount of new videos being continually uploaded it's not having much effect. They at least make the rest of us realise the dangers out there and the sheer number of active nonces about. To paraphrase John Philpot Curran or Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - but what to do?
06 MAR 2015
CHRIST & THE MASTER THERION
This book was reasonably priced but it's yet another
sub-standard Amazon PoD production, for the front and back covers
curl up in the hand like one of those red plastic Fortune Teller Miracle Fish or rectangular
flowers reaching towards the Sun. I pressed the book under a heavy
even weight for a few days to try and flatten it, but to no avail:
Amazonian publications have a mind of their own. But at least the
actual pages are quite thick and don't snake as much as other
examples. Other awkward aesthetics of the book: no Index; the
publisher is unclear (either A&PRMM Press Editions or
the Assembly of the Knowledge & Wisdom of Solomon); no
contact address or website given; note references are 1, 2,
etc. in the text, but i, ii, etc. in the actual
notes section; a few choppy text layout anomalies.
Anyhow, I'm a longtime fan of ordained gnostic bishop and ex-OTO Mr Greenfield's previous books on NAEQ6 and the UFO-Alien phenomenon (Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts and its sequel, Secret Rituals of the Men In Black), so I was intrigued to know of this present work, whose title refers to an obscure, previously unpublished essay by Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones, 1886-1950), who is best known in esoteric circles as the one-time feted "magical son" of Aleister Crowley and discoverer of the essential 31-13/GOD-NOT/AL-LA Key to the 1904 Crowley-earthed Liber AL vel Legis (see Frater Achad's Liber 31 [1918]).
Mr Greenfield has expanded upon the said Frater's essay in an attempt to reconcile (and possibly synthesize?) the Judeo-Christian and Thelemic traditions; Jesus Christ and Aleister "Great Beast 666" Crowley (the author states the somewhat curious fact that THE NAME JESUS and ALEISTER CROWLEY both equal 666 in Hebrew Qabala, as do the Hebrew words for MESSIAH [i.e. Christ] and SERPENT [i.e. Satan]). Mr Greenfield attempts this via a depth exploration of his psyche that has brought forth a series of visionary reworkings of Biblical-Apocryphal texts interspersed by a number of 'fictional' Interludes on more modern-day esoteric topics and personages, although it's not made very clear which words were written by Frater Achad or Mr Greenfield (Achad's contributions seem to be on pages 30-39, but may continue to the end of the chapter, and be elsewhere?). Perhaps this is a deliberate ploy, or the result of bad editing, but it detracted from, instead of assisted, my acceptance and understanding of the book.
There's no NAEQ6 here, and the writing style is different to his previous books cited above. I wasn't expecting all the archaic material and Crowley isn't mentioned much, nor comparisons between Christian and Thelemic texts, and more precise sources could have been mentioned to back things up - not just a list of other books. It seems to have been written as a gnostic thought-inducer rather than a scholarly treatise. I am intrigued at such a heretical concept of a Christianity-Thelema axis, but I don't really see a convincing case for it presented here. The Gnosis has assumed many forms over the centuries, but they are not necessarily compatible. Crowley was certainly interested in the Christian Mysteries, as his The Gospel According to St Bernard Shaw (Liber DCCCLXXXVIII) shews, and his formulation of the Gnostic Mass (Liber XV) with an officiating Priestess, Priest, Deacon and two Children, seems like an attempt to restore what Crowley believed to be the original worship rite of the gnostics and/or early Christians - but he also contradicts himself, referring to the Thelemite's True Will as part of and equal to the "Will of God" in The Message of the Master Therion (Liber II), then stating that "There is no god but man" in Liber Oz (Liber LXXVII). Plus he famously crucified a frog during a ritual to banish the ultra-strict Christian programming implanted during his childhood and capture Christ as a familiar spirit (The Cross of a Frog [Liber LXX]). Indeed, the very Lord of the New Aeon of Thelema, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, clearly states that he pecks at the eyes of the (Old Aeon) crucified Jesus (AL III:51). Repeated readings in the right mood could be in order, after watching the half-hour interview with the author.
Allen Greenfield & Charles Stansfeld Jones, Christ & the Master Therion: Christ, Crowley & the Dawn of a New Aeon. A&PRMM Press Editions?, 2012. Paperback, 230pp. ISBN: 1478292725. £6.39.
05 MAR 2015
IN THESE SIGNS CONQUER
This work by the "numerosymbologist" and "otherworld
traveller," Ellis
C. Taylor (subtitled: Revealing the Secret Signs an Age
Has Obscured), is one of those Magnum Opus attempts to
explain What's Really Going On, as previously attempted by William
Cooper's Behold a Pale Horse (1991) and David Icke's The
Biggest Secret (1999), etc. It deals with the type
of historical event/character analysis 'popularised' by James Shelby Downard and later Michael A. Hoffman II, that hinges on the
belief (fact) that the Remote Controllers use a combination of the
hidden (in plain sight/site) "twilight language" meanings of names,
dates, places, symbols, etc., along with regular sex/death rites, in
order to maintain and expand their insidious and sorcerous dominion.
Mr Taylor's book is written more from direct personal experience; it's not just another regurgitation of other peoples' work, that makes a welcome change in this field of literature. He examines the Remote Controllers' sardonic shenanigans in the UK and other countries in an original, insightful and thought-provoking way. There's a lot of psychic questing cum psychogeography-type material, plus explanations of Saturn, Venus, Time, unorthodox Biblical interpretations, a look at cognate famous Storytellers, and more. It's a heady, complex brew that requires your full attention, and will probably provoke some curious dreams.
A lot of this material appears to have been obtained by psychic means, and the Goddess weaves in and out on various levels. In several interviews Mr Taylor has stated that he does a lot of "daydreaming" (in its higher sense) to access the subtle realms, which sounds like a great experimental freeform approach, but know that this book isn't some twee New Age offering; what's here is matter-of-fact reporting, that covers some very sinister aspects of the Remote Controllers' workings. It seems to be Mr Taylor's mission to shed light on, and so banish, the Darkness that's in and interpenetrating this world, and after decades of esoteric research and otherdimensional close encounters with various entities he knows what he's on about (he's also done psychic detective work for the Australian police, who are not known for suffering fools).
The book would have benefitted from a separate editor to eradicate a few irksome things. For instance, despite the claim on p.205 that the letter and number meanings of Mr Taylor's personally-developed numerological system will be found in the "Esoteric Alphabet later in this book," there is no such chapter or section, nor even a table of the system's letter-number values, that would have been helpful (it seems to be covered in Mr Taylor's earlier works, Living in the Matrix [BiggyBoo, 2005] and The Esoteric Alphabet [BiggyBoo, 2008], a free e-book).
These things aside, this is a valid work, and I do recommend it to the serious researcher who is looking for the "real deal" on the groaning and long-overrun conspiracy-truther stage. Mr Taylor is a sincere, all-round good guy who has put a lot of time and effort into producing this book for the enlightenment of humankind, so make use of it. (He is also the subject of an upcoming full-length documentary, Ellis - An Indomitable Spirit, by Chris Turner. A clip can be watched here.)
Ellis C. Taylor, In These Signs Conquer: Revealing the Secret Signs an Age has Obscured. BiggyBoo Books, 2008. Paperback, 328pp. ISBN: 0955686105. £13.99.
24 FEB 2015
THE MAGICAL UNIVERSE OF WSB
With a kudos backup via the Foreword by David Conway - author of the influential Magic: An Occult Primer (1972) that inspired a fair few of today's big
names in the occult (Mr Burroughs himself recommended it) - Mr Stevens' book will probably shift a lot of
units. He is an intelligent chap and solidly into his subject (the occult/occult art
and artists), and this certainly isn't a bad book, but it's let down
by its presentation. The long-established Mandrake of Oxford used to
publish properly made tomes, but this is just another Amazon PoD
affair with the trademark wavy pages and curling cover. This copy
also had very thin pages so the overleaf-print showed through too
much. The text was very shiny also, thus difficult to read in some
lights, and could have been blessed with wider left/right margins.
Even the actual typesetting was below par, as the final paragraph of
page v and the captions to illustrations 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11 &
12 are all cut-off in mid-sentence. Does anyone involved care?
I had always regarded William S. Burroughs (WSB) as more of a parapsychologist than a magician, using wacky technology such as tape recorder and camera cut/ups, the dreamachine and wishing machine, etc., in a search to find a cure for his fear of possession and outside alien control, and before buying the book I learned that Mr Stevens was part of the subcultural occulture scene back in the day and knew a lot of the major players involved, so I was hoping it would be an in-depth look at exactly what WSB believed and did magically, gleaned direct from Mr Stevens' (and other peoples') previously unpublished firsthand experiences of actually working magic with WSB and/or hearing him talk about it, but it seems Mr Stevens only met WSB briefly once in the 1980s and no magic was performed or explained.
Thus this book is mostly a compilation of already-known (or easily found online) stuff like the Moka Bar curse, varying-hand anecdotes, etc., with an unspectacular photo section. Mr Stevens just didn't get the SCOOP, the Inside Story. Longtime hardcore WSB obsessives may not be too enamoured of it, but others may be surprised at some of the facts therein (WSB's joining the Illuminates of Thanateros in his 80s, for instance). For those new to the WSB Weirdness this book will be an inspiring goad to deeper exploration on many levels, although I feel the project is more suited as an expanding website augmented by hyperlinks and Fair Use audio/video clips.
Matthew Levi Stevens, The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs. Mandrake of Oxford, 2014. Paperback, 254pp. ISBN: 1906958645. £11.99.
22 FEB 2015
BLACK MAGIC TODAY
I'd been wanting to read this book - from
the glorious NEL 1970s zone - on and off for about twenty years. The
title did it, and the cover-girl; eye had high hopes for the work
when her shimmering form first walked through the escalator. She
evoked a strange primality; black in map oblivions. Last week I
again remembered my lust-target, so tried online and got a copy for
a few quid, but what a disappointment! I was expecting unfamiliar
lurid interviews with and spicy reports on obscene and obscure
modern practitioners, but this isn't really about "black magic today"
(late-1960s-early-1970s); it's more of a mish-mash history of magic
from ye older tymes, with dollops of conjecture, hearsay, and, I
suspect, made-up material. About the only contemporary black magic
information JJ provides are clippings from the tabloid press. It's
just one of those all-too-common lazy books that mine the bulk of
their material from popular titles I've mostly already read. No sexy
witchploitation photos inside either. Shame, especially as the
author had previously delivered King of the Witches (Pan,
1969), an interesting look at the funky world of Alex Sanders and
his coven, that was adorned with sensational pics.
Are there any redeeming features? Not really. Methinks it reads like it's the leftover background stuff originally intended for King of the Witches, and it's a bit too slim at just 128 pages. Hack work, crap work. Here are some of the idiotic highlights:
The mentally ill make up a large proportion of black magic adherents if only because their hallucinations feed the imagination of their companions [p.126].
This more accurately describes June Johns' own profession of journalism, that is built on collective in-house warp bias. They're the ones with the imping needles, casting doom across the nation. "If it bleeds it leads", as their axiom states regarding their output, that isn't exactly the sanest thought in the world. In fact, this bloodlust sounds rather Satanic...
Other deviates require a woman to administer an enema before they are capable of enjoying intercourse, and among these men, the practice of black magic can play a big part [p.84].
I've known quite a few black magicians and - as far as I know - none of them were aficionados of water jets up their rectums, although a few liked to apply "a big part" of themselves to the anuses of those consenting. This book may still redeem itself though; if I absorb the cover long enough I sense it will provoke a nocturnal dream-flight to the real Dark Sabbat...
June Johns, Black Magic Today. New English Library, 1971. Paperback, 128pp. ISBN: 0450006824. £0.25p.
16 FEB 2015
MAGIC: HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE
When I heard about the first-ever English translation
of a 1923 book on the occult written by a far-out German doctor who
was into "alternative sexual practices" (nudism, S&M and porn),
a copy of which was found in Adolf Hitler's private library and
annotated by der Führer's own hand, it sounded
most-fascinating-but-too-good-to-be-true, as indeed it was, but Dr
Ernst Schertel's Magic: History, Theory, Practice is still
quite a worthwhile and rewarding read (for edgezone weirdos like
this present reporter at least).
Herr Schertel (1884-1958) was later persecuted and then jailed by the National Socialists, but his Magic Book is now in the public domain, and ripe for reappraisal. JH Kelley, who has self-published it via his Catalog of the Universal Mind imprint, is an American copywriter/internet marketer but don't let that put you off, he seems sincere, judging from the interview he gave on the Mona Magick radio show, in which he stated that the original Hitler-owned edition was donated by a US soldier to the Brown University in Providence, USA (that is curious, considering all of the brown links to Hitler: Braun is German for 'brown'; he was born at Braunau am Inn; his future wife, Eva Braun, lived close to Braunau am Inn between 1928-1929, when they didn't know each other; he formed the brownshirted Nazi stormtroopers; The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror [Alfred A Knopf, 1933], etc., etc...), and wasn't widely known about until it was mentioned by author Timothy W. Ryback in an article published in The Atlantic Monthly in 2003. Mr Kelley got hold of a microfilm copy courtesy of the book's keepers, the John Hay Library at the aforementioned Brown University, plus a German 1923 trade copy, then used them to produce this English version, that was translated by three different people, ten pages at a time, that took a total of five years, according to Mr Kelley's website.
The book itself is rather short, but very concentrated, and does what its subtitle promises, covering the history, theory and practice of magic, and doesn't ignore its darker side. It is an absorbing read, you feel the author's subject-love intensity, but the letdown is the aforementioned far-from-ideal translation method, that sometimes warps Dr Schertel's already somewhat bizarre and unusual vision into something resembling Kenneth Grant on acid. Plus the book is not exactly "annotated" by Hitler, as the blurb boldly claims, not in the commonly-accepted manner. Hitler hasn't added a word to the text, he's just supposedly marked 66 passages with vertical lines in the margin (and due to the publisher's carelessness some originally unannotated sentences have become miraculously 'annotated'), but these 66 markings still gives us new insight into the man, if we believe it (also know that 66 is the number of the Dark Side of the Occult in Hebrew gematria. Coincidence?).
So, this special resurrected copy of Magic: History, Theory, Practice probably does hail from Hitler's private library (it contains Hitler's ex libris bookplate and was sent to him as a dedicated gift from Dr Schertel, who inscribed it thus), but Hitler hasn't actually written anything inside the book, he didn't buy it in the first place, and there's zero evidence of him either reading or even mentioning it - there's just some hand-scrawled vertical lines, that could have been made by anyone. But here it is: a Mystery Door, a Muse Fetish.
A far more faithful and detailed translation/production are needed to really give Dr Schertel's work the respect it so deserves (example: for some infuriating reason, Mr Kelley has not included Dr Schertel's three-page Bibliography, although direct page scans of it are given in German on Mr Kelley's aforementioned website), but Mr Kelley has made the effort to bring a lost literary curiosity back to the shelf, and I for one was happy to make do with the present edition. Its numerous peculiarities certainly sparked my imagination, it shews promising leads, and has added a new and subtle credence to the Nazi Occult mythos.
Dr Ernst Schertel, Magic: History, Theory, Practice. COTUM, 2009. Paperback, 140pp. ISBN: 978-0578024578. RRP $18.95. Available direct from the publisher or Amazon and other usual places.
 |
|
|
Thane in 1935.
|
POSTSCRIPT: Another curious Nazi Occult tome featuring Herr Hitler is the 40-page stapled pamphlet, I Saw Hitler Make Black Magic (The Prosperos & Inner Space Center, 1973). It was written by Thane, a cool pseudonym of the American, Kenneth Walker (circa 1900-1989), a mentalist, actor, world adventurer, and pupil of the mystic Gurdjieff. He also co-founded and, as the "Dean", led a spiritual society named The Prosperos, that was chartered in Florida in 1956, named after the magician in Shakespeare's The Tempest, and based on George I. Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way School" concept.
First published as a newspaper article in the Cleveland
Plain Dealer in 1946, I Saw Hitler Make Black Magic tells the story
of Thane's bold activities in the anti-Nazi underground during
1937-1938. After his impressive demonstration of thought
transmission in sunny Nuremberg, Thane was invited to perform for
Herr Hitler, who was always on the look out for effective persuasive
mental techniques. Thane and Hitler then became friends, and lunched
together at der Führer's Eagle's Nest retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
Thane relates how the property was a magical laboratory, with rooms
set aside for astrology and other occult experiments, especially
visualisation, all designed to assure the Third Reich's success. The
latter technique involved detailed photomontages projected on the
wall, showing what was desired to occur, such as the German
occupation of Czechoslovakia, complete with Nazi flags and symbols
and Hitler parading triumphantly through the main streets of Prague.
Another example of this innovative artform showed Hitler standing in
a superior body-posture stance, his dominant arm outstretched above
the hapless British Prime Minister Chamberlain. Teams of
highly-trained visualisationists and projectionists sat for long
periods concentrating on these image spells of sympathetic magic,
regarding the dreams of the Third Reich as fact, to make it fact.
Predictably, perhaps, our hero Thane was eventually imprisoned by
the Nazis, but had a powerful evolutionary epiphany in custody, and
was released soon after.
Original copies of Thane's I Saw Hitler Make Black Magic are now very scarce and expensive secondhand. A new edition is available, although only to purchasers in the USA.
16 MAY 2013
ELVIS DIED FOR SOMEBODY'S SINS BUT NOT MINE
Mick Farren is one of those curious characters who has
done much to win his hero spurs but remains too much an outsider,
the limelight veering around him as if it's afraid of what he
represents; of what he HAS. A consummate maverick
trouble/merry-maker, Mr Farren was at the very epicentre of
1960s-70s counterculture, and seemingly everywhere: doorway man at
the UFO Club; editor/contributor to International Times;
Minister of Information for the White Panther Party (UK division);
partaker in the 1968 Grosvenor Square anti-Vietnam protest mass
march-cum-riot on the American Embassy; frontman of sub-subculture
band The Deviants (originally named The Social Deviants, who
recorded at least one LP, 1968's Disposable, on Triumph
Amplification...); co-organiser of Phun City, the first free rock
festival in Britain (a shambolic but influential event that possibly
kickstarted the whole nomadic alternative traveller movement);
pivotal roleplayer in the (dis)organised conspiracy that disrupted
the Isle of Wight rock festival to make it a free event; one of the
unruly Yippie-led gang that in November 1970 transformed The
Frost Programme into a temporary autonomous zone live on BBC
TV and uttered the word cunt for the first time on this medium.
Without doubt a fabby geezer.
He has continued to develop his music and writing as a groovy double whammy, infiltrating the mainstream in an attempt to deprave and corrupt (or at least kick the arse of) misguided Earthlings, his Caucasian-afro haircut of uncanny proportions doubling as a secret aetheric aerial that pulls fascinating offbeat insights and opinions in from Pan knows where. So it was great to come across Elvis Died, a many-paged compilation of his best work. Delving into it over a bottle of Jack Daniels and a few expertly-rolled Camberwell Carrots, I was initially struck by the wide outside margin, that seemed to invite or hallucinate lewd crude graffiti and obscene symbols from another dimension five hours ahead of us. Then I realised it was space for Mr Farren to add notes to his main text. King Elvis runs throughout the book but there's loads of other stuff in here, a wideranging friendly blast of topics, themes and styles spanning 40 years of honing work including The Doors, Che Guevara, Deviants' lyrics, fiction, nonfiction, previously unpublished, black leather jackets, the Jetex rocket-propulsion motor, the dark side of rock'n'roll, his adventures as an Englishman abroad (in America), a 'Don't' list, The Who, Lennon's murder, alcohol (including cocktail recipes), pubs, drugs, cigarettes, conspiracies, mad politics, insurrection, the occult, Bowie, Dylan, Zappa, cult films, poetry, aliens, blog entries, bees and outer space.
It's all worthwhile and enjoyable reading; he always delivers the lowdown and proves he's far apart from the burnt out nostalgia drag crowd where tomorrow is yesterday. Whether some of his memories suffer (or are enhanced?) from tongue-in-cheek or drug-hazed 'embellishments' seems superfluous, for Elvis Died reveals Mr Farren as one subversive motherfucker; a passionate, antinomian-fuelled revolutionary, talking and walking the part. The word-spells from his mightier-than-the-sword pen will surely overthrow (or at least cock a well-aimed, spirited snook at) the tyrannical orgy of fucking cunts who run this pain factory (at present). Let's hope this timely, vibrant and revelatory tome from Headpress will help warp future generations of conscientious heretics. If you fancy a taster of Mr Farren's wares, check out his Doc 40 blog.
Mick Farren, Elvis Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine. Headpress, 2013. Paperback, 432pp. ISBN: 978-1900486927. RRP £13.99. Available direct from the publisher or Amazon, etc.
POSTSCRIPT 29 JUL 2013: Unlike Elvis but true to the underground rebel archetype until the very end, two days ago Mick Farren died aged 69, on a Saturday night, after collapsing onstage playing with The Deviants at London's Borderline Club.
14 MAY 2013
UNTITLED 1-6
This was recorded back in 2006 in the UK's Eastbourne,
and we all do know what's "born in the East", don't we? All tracks
are allegedly 'untitled', hence the title, so why are they listed on
the cover as six number series': 07 10 | 04 39 | 18 19 | 13 33 | 05
09 | 13 11? Purportedly these are the durations of the tracks, or is
this a code? A telephone number? A safe combination? Remote-viewing
coordinates? There seems to be more numbers hidden in the cover art
that was created by one of the duo, Jason Williams. Numbers in duo,
a duo of players, and there's also a lot of difference happening on
each of the stereo channel duo...
The action starts with what sounds like the national anthem of some mutated inbetween nightmare and alien abduction country. Moves into lower astral disco. Machines gone wrong but right for this sphere. Strong, consistent attack. No voice yet. Here comes 2 with voice. Electronics sonics psychotics. Caterpillars over rough magnets. Throbbing here, with crunchy underlay. Vague end of jazz. Cleo Laine revolving in a cube of damp mattresses. 3 now, torture chamber storm. It's gone quiet, a set up. Pit and the Pendulum tension. Mr Spock on piano. Mellow yellow with a vibrator in. Nice tired time. "Mummy, what's that thing in the mirror?" A repeated cult chant rounds it off, with a breathing synth and buzzing klinkophone. Is this 4? Still minimal, worldview hum. Scratches rattle. Underwater table tennis sheen, or miked up ants carrying off a melting circuit board. The hum takes over, like a breaking possessed stereo. HAL's trumpet farts. The lady maketh another language words. Come to bed whisper, unintelligible. Pleasing continue in circles escaping. Miss Abstaract rides the waves she is. Lullaby silk imparts drifting long light to the ears. Twilight sheers. Think it's 5. Tape stretch. Rumbleon squawk taps a handless clock round a roulette wheel on Alchemical Street. The radio is alive. Right repetition. Elysian loops. Henbane fuzz twister blast-augments the composition. Lady gone gnomic. UFO engine radiance. Her voice builds to hypnotic sideways. This must be 6. Still low not in your face, but an outer part of your mind. The speaking female trance as altered. "Who are you for?" The doorway vocalised. Sine waves saluting. Pitch shift polishing the Black M. What the fuck's going on? Give me back my silhouette. Pots of tea become "pot for free" and the 'teatotallers' (who don't seem to exist) have gone on strike. Pixie robot atmosphere speeds, then back down to be your friend in the dark. A threat? Or confession? Telephone in the cellar tone, with silvered interference. Binoculars are a reaching tabula rasa, auto-da-fé. Something is rewinding; there's fog on the ground, clouds in the sky. Then the whole thing ends abruptly, leaving me on a different planet.
Untitled 1-6 is the borderlands, original mix of madness, coded, edgy. It exposes the fault lines of musical libertarianism with a curious energetic - things odd come out. You may not want to experience this too often, but at the right time it will sure hit the spot. Depends how much you've learned to listen.
Patrizia Oliva & Jason Williams, Untitled 1-6. Setola Di Maiale SM2430. CD released 2013. Recorded 2006 in Eastbourne, UK. 6 tracks. Total time 62 Minutes approximately. Get it here.
06 JUL 2012
BLOOD CIRCLE
We have two eyes: Impulse & Inhibition, who have
been fighting a long and terrible war against each other for
millennia. If the dog really is "man's best friend", as the saying
goes, is the man "God's worst enemy"? In Mr King's Blood Circle
the DOG, as a Satanic Reversal of GOD, obviously symbolises the
Devil, whom, keeping to this logic, is the authentic deity for
humanity, for He helps us realise that we should be at war with the
God of the Bible? TABOO = A BOOT, 1984-style stamping on your face,
but the real thing most feared is the Black Awakening, set forth
galore in this gloriously corrupting depravo-talisman that is a blatant neglected
gem from the widdershin heights of British paper horror.
The cover is perfect, distilling all previous occult-horror manifestations into one supreme, dark-thrill promise. But who is this "Bernard King"? A modest Google search yielded little result, and neither did other, more intense researches. Is he the Master, Guy N. Smith, crafting under a sardonic psidonym? It certainly reads like Smith: a confusive mixture of graphic violent gore and tongue-in-cheek humour that makes one wonder if he's taking the piss or just genuinely insane... Whomever the real author is, he (and it has to be a bloke) obviously had great fun putting this together and it's a real corker of a read:
"I... have yet to be Sataned, Magister," she whispered hesitantly ... As he spoke the Madonna left the circle and ignited the charcoal in a black iron censer set upon the altar in the west of the cellar. Behind it, against the wall, a stuffed alsation dog, penis prominent, horns screwed into its dead skull, reared above an inverted cross. Black candles in Georgian silver candelabra burned to either side.
The charcoal caught. The Madonna fed it with a mixture of myrrh and hashish.
"God is dog is dog is god," she intoned...
This do be the barbarous whorl of the Porta Inferi Coven of the Sons of Samael, a hardcore Satanic outfit running wild among the good people of Abbots Ringley. What brutal, twisted nightmares await the lovely, wealthy Andrea inside her secret vaulted room in the gloomy depths of Ringley Abbey? What nefarious filths will they evoke?
Mr King draws from authentic Left-Hand Path sources for his plot, and it looks like he's done a few more in this vein, like Witch Beast (Sphere, 1989). Blood Circle is the sheer essence of pulp: hard-hitting, over-the-top action thrills worked through the wildest plot, that some of us (if honest) want to be real, if only on the fantasy-escapist plane, that is already real enough. Crazen joy.
Bernard King, Blood Circle. Sphere, 1990. Paperback, 312pp. ISBN: 074740416X. RRP £3.50.
POSTSCRIPT: Dog-headed men, known as "Cynocephali", have been recorded throughout history, and it seems that there was a real-life dog-worshipping "Brotherhood of the Essenes" based in Potters Bar, Middlesex, UK, that had about 300 "carefully chosen" members, many of whom were "professional or otherwise educated people". In January 1966, their leader, known as "Leader", his presumed counterpart, a lady known as "The Centre", who wore a golden crown on her head, and other trusted initiates arrived at the British Museum in two black chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces to view the Dead Sea Scrolls the museum was then exhibiting.
This neo-Essene sect allegedly believed in a "King Dog" that died on the day of Christ's Crucifixion, and that dogs greeted departed souls and accompanied them on the journey to Heaven, "but a soul may only enter on giving certain responses to the dogs", these replies only being known by people who had been good on Earth. It's also reported that they held the belief that at the end of Christ's coming thousand-year reign over mankind, another King Dog would appear, along with the Kingdom of Heaven. Controversy arose when they were accused of ritually sacrificing a dog at Glastonbury Tor in December 1969 (see Egon Larsen, Strange Sects & Cults, Arthur Barker Limited, 1971, pp.182-184).
Further research has interestingly revealed that the past tense may be unnecessary, for a particular dog-revering organisation known as the "Brotherhood of the Essenes" still exists. (The Glastonbury Tor ritual dog sacrifice allegation was almost certainly an untrue invention of the sensationalist press, and I'm not suggesting that any group named the Brotherhood of the Essenes are in anyway related to the Sons of Samael or similar Satanic covens.)