Carl Abrahamsson

Joachim Nordwall: Ignition

Joachim Nordwall of Ideal Records fame is a highly productive fellow also when it comes to his own musicmaking. Although predominantly busy with the band Skull Defekts, his solo oeuvres pop up frequently and contain different kinds of aural expressions. This one, ”Ignition”, is a record filled with warm, fuzzy ambient music. Atmospheric, minimalistic, non-demanding and quite often beautiful in its simplicity.

The best parts are the long, droning segments, with very small nuances floating in the sonic spheres, like evanescent clouds on a really hot summer’s day. It’s mysterious enough to keep the attention alert yet relaxing enough to not become scholastically boring.

Occasionally the sounds impose themselves on a sacral space in a more traditional sense – sounds of organs of different kinds evoke old churches and sinister goings on. This also leads on to other possible associations, with one being horror films. Much of the ”Ignition” CD would work wonderfully well in some Mario Bava giallo thriller from the 1960s, complete with saturated technicolor pastels, demonic possessions, slasher violence and hitchcockian nymphs screaming away as some mad monk lustfully puts an end to all their sinning.

Echoes of John Carpenter also lurk beneath the surface, with warm electronic sweeps that build up and gradually take over. Most of this music seems performed on vintage analogues, so the Carpenterian resonance is not difficult to trace (or imagine).

”Ignition” is highly pleasant to listen to and to keep playing ambiently in one’s quite often busy background. In this day and age of fragmented listening, I really want to put across that this is a very good and very slow record. It’s a new kind of sacral music floating on top of waves of warm, fuzzy electricity. Buy it and listen to it.

Joachim Nordwall

Ignition

Ash International, CD, 2011

Eggleston's Chromes: an overdose?

A photograph from ”Chromes” © William Eggleston Artistic Trust / Steidl

William Eggleston (born 1939) is mainly known as an American photographer who has brought colour photography to new (art) heights from the 1960s and onwards. Not only by using particular printing techniques to really saturate the colours but also because he has developed a tradition of seeing and working that up until the 1960s had been almost trademarked by black and white photography (adherents): the mix between Walker Evans’ ambitious anthropological curiosity and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s poetically geometrical everyday snapshots and portraits.

In Eggleston’s world, predominantly the American South, there are cars, bars, gas stations, fields, supermarkets, fast food, lost souls, dreamy stares, signs, streets, reflections… All of which constitutes the essential everyday life for many of us, even if we’re far away from Eggleston’s Memphis. These hyper-American surroundings though, in which human beings almost act as ”extras” and only rarely as protagonists, have become Eggleston’s trademark. The distanced poetry of his images never cease to attract, surprise or fascinate.

In a recent book, ”Before Color” (Steidl 2010), a selection of Eggleston’s black and white photos from the late 50s and early 60s was presented, showing that the way of looking at things was already firmly established. In many ways, this early work can be seen as sketch work. When Eggleston found his epiphany in strong colours, there was simply no turning back.

But, as mentioned, the way of looking at things was already there. The flare, the detachment, the perspective had already been established. That’s one key to the Egglestonean mysteries. Another key is revealed in a funny story, presented in the film ”William Eggleston in the real world” (Michael Almereyda, USA, 2005) by his wife Rosa. Eggleston, ever the aesthete, complained to a friend that everything around him (referring to the surroundings) was so ugly and what was he going to take pictures of? The friend simply replied that he should focus on ”the ugly stuff”. And that Eggleston certainly has, diligently, to the extent that whatever was really ugly back then is now preserved as pieces of highly beautiful and lovingly deadpan Americana through his own creative perspective.

All of these seemingly commonplace environments, details and situations of the American South today function as both aesthetic and psychological time capsules, but also as something completely timeless.

Eggleston’s view seemingly never rests. It is apparent that he’s getting old – the recent book ”Paris” (Steidl, 2009), consisting of new images, plus his own drawings made while in Paris, is rather weak – but the magical moments of his eye-to-finger-to-camera are never far away. He never takes more than one exposure of each instantaneous attraction and seems happy to temporarily forget what he’s just taken a picture of. In many ways, this is exactly how human beings really perceive the world: in fragments, partially, in colour and of which most is immediately filtered out or forgotten. What remains are the valuable memories and the useful information. Just as in Eggleston’s photographs.

The most recent of Egglestonean tomes (a seemingly endless industry) is ”Chromes”, a monster of a boxed set containing three books. I’ll cut to the chase right away: ”Chromes” is very much the quintessential Eggleston presentation one needs to have. Where ”William Eggleston’s Guide” (1976) initially defined his work for a wider audience, it was still basically based on curator John Szarkowski’s selection. In the later ”Los Alamos” (images from the early 70s published in 2004) we can see a wider spectrum of the same era. And in many other volumes as well.

”Chromes” very much brings out more of the same, but in a far, far superior way. Of course much of this is based on personal preference or points of view, but I do think there’s a specific reason for the project as such. In volume one there’s an image of Eggleston himself sleeping on a bed. Ending the final volume is a similar picture, although taken when he has his eyes open. That kind of intrapersonal narrative is not something we’re used to in the apparently free-floating work that Eggleston usually presents. It’s as if he’s commenting on the value of this specific body of work (or, rather, era) as supreme. A waking up phase or trip.

And it truly is. Not only in the sense that there are a lot of images here that have never been shown before, but also because they’re so immensely rich in poetry, colour and detached amateur anthropology. In a great documentary on Eggleston and his work (”William Eggleston: Photographer”, by Rainer Holzemer, 2008), he recounts that someone asked him what he takes pictures of. The answer came (slowly) in two words: ”Life today”. And that really sums it up. Eggleston, the eternal stroller, armed with a great way of looking at things and a camera or two, is simply doing what he’s doing. Nothing more and nothing less. There’s something highly philosophical about the way he does it and the way it turns out, but I doubt that he’d ever see it that way himself.

Is it possible to overdose on William Eggleston? Maybe. ”Chromes” is a borderline experience. But there’s something so inexplicably poetic about his images that make them defy usual patterns of analysis. Although the view can be recognizable, there’s still always something new that surprises. ”The ugly stuff” has never been so beautiful as in Eggleston’s photographic communications. That, I guess, will be his legacy: a preservation of his outer and inner surroundings expressed in his very own way, for others to be amazed by.

The main thing is that his legacy is already alive. Not so much in the hordes of young photographers trying to re-create instead of re-seeing themselves, but in these very impressive volumes. I rarely go bananas over art books, but I really did when I got my hands on ”Chromes”. It’s all beautifully done in every possible way, but more important is that there has simply never been a more relevant or beautiful selection of Eggleston’s work in one batch, like here. ”Chromes” contains a master at work, waking up to the possibilities of not only using saturated colour photography as a means of expression but also of a loose, cool, detached, désinvolture lifestyle as a means of seeing and understanding what’s really there around you. ”Life today”. Camera optional.

William Eggleston: Chromes

Steidl, 2011. Three books in slip case, 728 pages

Hip Pocket Sleaze: Obsession time!

I have often admired people obsessed with collecting. I understand it’s the same kind of psychological catch whatever is collected and that the collected is just a visible sign of a general malady of sorts (or perhaps ”mechanism” is a nicer term). I’ve come across it mainly in friends who are record collectors and – malady or not – I am often envious of their passion. Because that’s how the benign aspects of collecting appear: as a passionate obsession that gives life meaning.

The less benign forms can take on more possessive elements, not unlike those in people dependent on drugs or alcohol. That is, if the dose is not there or if some outer force is manipulating the stability of the self-created dependency, the boat is rocked and sometimes even wrecked. I’ve never seen this in my friends, I’m happy to say, but know of others whose marriages and other kinds of relationships have been nothing but chimera in comparison with the precious possession/obsession in question.

John Harrsion is a passionately obsessed writer from Australia who took a liking to the seedier sides of life while a teenager in the late 70s in the outskirts of Melbourne. An avid collector of comics, model kits and paperbacks since then, he has had a chance to actively ponder the collecting in itself as well as the collected material, in that he’s always written about his passions. This leads to wonderful insights and revelations for the rest of us, as mere amateurs and wanna-be-collectors.

”Hip Pocket Sleaze” is a delightful book based on Harrison’s intuitive construction or self-reflection. It consists of sections on the history of paperbacks, their publishers, their cover artists (key people, as the covers and catch phrases were basically what sold the books), interviews with other collectors and a run-through of several of Harrison’s own favourites.

Well inside the book, we are thrown right into the void of sensationalism, reptile brain stimuli, bright colours and, let’s not forget, unintended cultural barometers. In many cases the sensationalist paperbacks of the 1950s and 60s were signs of what was taboo or controversial at the time. In many ways parallel to exploitation cinema (and there were often tie-ins between these two forms), the pulp paperbacks provided lurid titillation more than pro or contra arguments in current affairs. But perhaps it isn’t too far fetched to say that the thematic visibility filtered through the pulp fiction was at least to an extent helpful, for good or bad, in paving the way for cultural developments (liberalisation of drugs, gay rights, women’s sexual liberation, the acceptance of occultism and other fringe movements, moral standpoints in current crime affairs, etc).

If something current was controversial enough, there was always a chance of making some money. Although the goal was certainly only to make a profit, the thematics of these seedy literary creations were part of a Zeigeist mind that was indeed changing at this time in Western culture.

This is something that in itself hasn’t really changed. The phenomenon is simply spelled p-r-u-r-i-e-n-c-e. But the main difference is that our own culture is all about evanescence. The lurid aspects are spewed out in daily tabloids and hourly blogs rather than objectified in attractive books and movies. And as you can’t really collect something as transparent as a blog, both the personal-fetishistic and the cultural barometer aspects are more or less non-existent today. In many ways a shame.

Harrison’s book therefore becomes a highly entertaining insight into an emotionally charged world that fulfils fantasies on many different levels. It’s nostalgic (back to the era, back to the teenager’s crystallisation) but never sentimental. It’s prurient, but most often on meta levels (the desire is here focused on the obejcts and not on the themes or contents). And it’s also well-written and pedagogically structured – in places almost like a school text book (”A Beginner’s Class in Sleaze”?).

What’s missing in ”Hip Pocket Sleaze” are the grand tableaux, with reproductions in full colour of all of these wonderful book covers. That would be an idea for a series of coffee table books along the lines of Taschen’s incredible series ”The History of Men’s Magazines”. Feral House’ volumes ”Dope Menace – The Sensational World of Drug Paperbacks” and ”Sin-A-Rama – Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties” are definitely great forerunners here, but there’s always more to be done.

Perhaps Mr Harrison feels inclined to plunge into an all colour coffee table format some time soon. I hope so. With ”Hip Pocket Sleaze” he has certainly proven that he can master his beloved pulp paperback format without any problems whatsoever.

John Harrison: Hip Pocket Sleaze – The Lurid World of Vintage Adult Paperbacks

Headpress, Paperback, 400 pages

Esoterra: occultural good times

Chad Hensley's Esoterra fanzine was probably one of the greatest American sources of inspiration and mind fodder for the disgruntled subcultural youth of the 90s. Wowee! Some 20 (to ten) years have passed! Incredible! That's why it's actually so nice to flip through this newly published tome, Esoterra – The Journal of Extreme Culture (Creation Books, 2010). Not only for the contents in themselves, but also for the time capsule aspect of it all.

It's a nice-looking book, with 320 packed pages of, as the title hints, "extreme culture". Names like Marilyn Manson, HR Giger, Alan Moore, Adam Parfrey, Genesis P-Orridge, David Tibet, Thomas Ligotti, Leilah Wendell, Stephen O'Malley, Boyd Rice etc, etc (and then some) stir up disparate currents in an overall desperate soup. But it still tastes well, and I think there's a great deal of nutrition in there somewhere.

It is very much a Zeitgeistish anthology, in what people write and talk about, and how they do it. But yet it still packs a punch. Many of the phenomena and people are still "cutting edge", some two decades later. This brings us to the really interesting question here: Has nothing happened since the glorious heydays of Esoterra, in terms of radical and thought-provoking culture? Well, I can tell you one thing that happened. The Internet happened.

By sucking up young minds' attention and fragmenting them, the Internet sort of deflated a gazillion creative cottage industries of fanzines, record labels, book publishers, etc. It was a fast and huge deflation process that temporarily weakened independent thinking and fertile underground culture. I can see that negative spiral slightly halting now, mainly as a result of young people waking up to see that the body beneath the Emperor's New Clothes is just plain ugly and unstimulating, unsexy and just basically a fecal rollercoaster with a lot of digital bling. It is NOT mere chance that Blog rhymes with Clog, right?

I think Esoterra still has an important function in this day and age of individual intelligence versus mind-numbing (I mean that in a negative way) collectivist "transparent" tendencies. What Hensley and cohorts did was basically to scan the territory, contact the shining lights and put them all together in a context that signalled "beacon". That's not a "social network", that's how a real network functions. And the glue or (I hate to say it) "interface" was printed matter and real, "physical" records. In Esoterra's case, just a small fanzine with strikingly powerful screenprinted covers, that gradually turned into an occasional magazine. It was a joy to receive them (and, mind you, to be in them too!).

This truly wonderful anthology draws some pretty dark and disturbing elements out of our chaotic times and into the light. Those elements wont crack as trolls, but rather impregnate the contemporary, stagnant culture we dwell in. It's not a matter of whether you agree with all of the oddballs included in the tome. It's a matter of ingesting nutrition rather than forcefeeding youself on bellyfodder from the "Cloud". Yes, that's it: this book is a real fresh potato that you just took out of the (under)ground, and not one of those ultra-processed, pressed potatochips that all the human zombies crave (and get).

Well done, Mr Hensley! What we need now is just some more. Not more of the same though, but of the truly different.

“Esoterra – The Journal of Extreme Culture” Edited by Chad Hensley.

Creation Books, 2010. ISBN 978-1-84068-166-6

The Esoterra website is right here!