Mother, Have A Safe Trip

My first novel, Mother, Have A Safe Trip, has now been out for a month. It's been very exciting to talk to people about what they think about the book. A mixed bag, but very positive feedback on the whole. I haven't really sent out review copies yet, but will do so soon. (If you have a blog or write for a magazine, please feel free to get in touch.)

I have so far received one great review already though, by Henrik Dahl from UK web site Psychedelic Press. Henrik knows a good book when he sees (and reads) one!

"... Abrahamsson clearly belongs to a tradition of western anti-authoritarian authors leaning towards libertarian or anarchist ideas. Whatever one may feel about the overriding sentiments of Abrahamson’s writings, Mother, Have a Safe Trip is a highly entertaining and thought-provoking novel. Chock-full of psychedelia, the book is also a much welcome addition to the far too few fictional works published dealing with psychedelic culture."

The review can be read in its entirety at the PSYPRESS site.

So far, there have been three different launches for it, and I've had a lot of fun talking about the book and listening to people's immediate feedback and questions. The first one was at the Norwegian Edda evening at Cappelens Forslag, the best bookstore in Oslo. Then followed legendary oasis Rönnells in dear old Stockholm, and now, most recently, very cool occult book- and stuffstore Catland in New York.

Fredrik Söderberg and myself at Cappelens Forslag. Photo: Christine Ödlund.

At Catland in New York. Photo: Phil English

Coming up is a book signing in Copenhagen, at Nekropolis. December 7th, 2013. I will also give a talk there, so drop by if you have the chance.

In preparation right now is an exhibition based on or connected with the book. It will take place at the Martin Bryder Gallery in Lund, and will contain pages and photographs that have been influential and instrumental in the creation of the book. More information about this will follow, but you can note the dates already now: January 11th to February 9th, 2014. The exhibition can travel, so please get in touch if you're interested in arranging something closer to you.

You can order the book from Edda. Very convenient! If you're in the US, you'll save on postage by ordering it from JD Holmes. Thanks.

All material on this blog is copyright © Carl Abrahamsson, unless otherwise stated.

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Re-inventing a square wheel?

Swedish label Kning Disk are renowned for their high quality special editions of works of art jam-packed with integrity and vision. A recent release, Tingens Vilja, further cements their position as a central space for truly unique and beautiful expressions.

Tingens Vilja is a nice little cardboard box containing two CDs and several printed cards. All of it produced jointly by Alexandra E Lindh and Dan Fröberg. The initial impression is one of meticulous diligence. Although apparently flirting with chance and discarding apparent order and structure, there is still an almost anal retentive vibe in the assemblage of the pieces. It’s very neatly and well put together.

The same goes for the very core of Tingens Vilja: the sounds. Although highly collage-based and free-flowing inbetween styles and sounds, there is an easily discernable supra-order involved that I guess could be termed the "soul" or glue of the totality.

Tingens Vilja is a beautiful work of art. That Dan Fröberg is a superb Klang Meister we already know from earlier projects. Together with Lindh, whose piano sections add a forceful fragility to the overall impressions, Fröberg concocts a sensuous and seductive trip through a vast array of emotions – mostly quite dark ones. It’s a teamwork that belongs in another, higher state of consciousness.

When I listen though, I know approximately what to expect, and I can't imagine that's the idea. Perhaps this kind of assembled sound art containing a collage modus operandi has actually become a quite conservative and predictable approach? Or perhaps I’m just jaded from having listened to too much experimental music?

There’s a zither, there’s nature, ambient sounds, Glockenspiele, birds, loosely lo-fied voices, atonal attempts, tonal tendernesses, hiss, noise, silence, electronic scapes and many other things in a very poetic and intuitive assembly. Lindh’s piano becomes a very human meme within this midst of subtle cacophony. Its (reverbed) distance makes it sound nostalgic in a way – like listening in on someone’s emotional past. This is intelligent structuring, like buoys in a deep sea of fairly well-known audio art tricks. Had this been done in a less sensitive manner, the entire project could easily have become too predictable, like someone trying to re-invent a square wheel in order to be different from all the other square wheel-makers (the ghosts of Subotnick, Throbbing Gristle, et al).

The packaging is very nice indeed, with its cards of equally nostalgic-emotional images from someone’s past. In all, it’s a looking back (?) into a timeless zone. One listens to the emo-ride of aural mementoes and at the same time it’s absolutely possible to play exactly that – spontaneous Memento – with the enclosed images. No rules, no co-players, just you and your emotional response to the audio-visual input.

Tingens Vilja means ”The Will of the Things”, and I can’t really tell whether this box is a pro- or contra stance. Do things really have a will? It doesn’t matter though. What matters is the ride through this psychic forest and the box as such provides pretty solid boots. It’s an enjoyable trek but, as often within forests, certain passages are eerie and haunted. Tingens Vilja is no exception.

This project is a joint release with the amazing antiquarian bookstore Rönnells in Stockholm, a place you really have to visit when in town. Or visit very often if you are a Stockholm resident. Simple as that.

KNING DISK

RÖNNELLS ANTIKVARIAT

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