20/7/2013 I do like it...I am chuffed to bits, today... This afternoon, I got some more stock for my book stall. Not only that, but I came across a copy of Shakespeare's As You Like It, but not just any copy... On the cover, it features the initials "O.A & L.B". Inside, one can find two lovely pictures. The title page tells us: I have done a little bit of research and it looks like the initials refer to Oscar Asche, a Norwegian-Australian actor, producer and director who worked on the Australian and English stages, and his wife, English actress Lily Brayton. They are the people in the pictures, and they were very, very big indeed in the theatre world!
This copy refers to the time when Asche and his wife managed His Majesty’s Theatre in Haymarket, London (they had become managers of The Adelphi in 1904). I have only found one listing for this book on the internet: HERE. Does that mean that it is pretty rare? I love it when this happens. 18/7/2013 The past month has been busy...I haven't touched The Book of Thoth for about a month... During the week, I've had some work to do - the bills need to be paid! - and at the weekend, well, we haven't been home much, lately.
I haven't got time to write a long blog about it, but I'm a lucky girl because Matt ArtPix took the plunge yesterday evening and posted a wonderful blog full of lovely pictures summarising our busy month... Expect a cute pooch, some steam engines, a masonic hall, some classic cars, a church tower and a few pictures from the Village Green festival. Our last vintage fair of the summer is next week and in August, we do not have any events planned. We will be taking a break to write and create. Matt ArtPix has a few events lined up for the end of the year so go to his NEWS PAGE for more details! 11/7/2013 Bookish humourSomeone shared this image on Facebook and you have to admit, it's cute. Loads of other ones HERE. Lurvely if, like me, you're obsessed with books!
10/7/2013 A little bit of promo...This Saturday is Village Green, the arts and music festival organised by Metal Southend.
The culture magazine Level 4 has produced a pocket edition of the mag, and in there, you should find a review of I Am a Muse, as well as an ad for Arcane Publishing and one for Matt ArtPix! :-) I am really pleased to have my little book in there. I will post a scan of the article in the review section next week. About two weeks ago, I finally finished my review of The Eden House's gig at The Lexington and sent it, together with some photos, to the guy who puts all the articles online at La Magicbox. Unfortunately, it looks like he's so busy that he still hasn't found any time to post it, and it has been sitting there for a fortnight... Therefore, I have decided to put the article here in the meantime. The photos are not very good as my trusty "gig camera" doesn't work anymore... When the review is up on La Magicbox, I will come back to this blog and link it (there will also be a French version of the article on there.) Supporting were Jordan Reyne (whose new album The Annihilation Sequence I have reviewed HERE) and Red Sun Revival. *Update 24/07/2013: the English and French versions of the review are now on La Magicbox website: ENGLISH FRENCH THE EDEN HOUSE – RED SUN REVIVAL – JORDAN REYNE The Lexington London, UK 9th June 2013 The launch of The Eden House’s second album Half Life (reviewed by me HERE) feels like some kind of laid-back, good spirited family affair. The Lexington hasn’t got the barriers and the overzealous security meat-heads that so often spoil the gig-going experience. We are left free to enjoy some of the best music around without the corporate beer and the idiots watching the bands through the tiny luminous screen of their smart phones. I first came across New-Zealand artist Jordan Reyne last October when she supported Fields of The Nephilim at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Tonight, Jordan is smiling, relaxed and chatty, her tumbling curls looking ablaze under the red lights. She is a charismatic performer and born storyteller armed only with an acoustic guitar and a machine that mixes sounds and vocals live. Her work is an intoxicating and intriguing mixture of folk and industrial with a dark heart and a fascinating and fluent narrative core. Her set mixes songs from her brand new album, The Annihilation Sequence, and from the previous one, the excellent Children of a Factory Nation. She also plays the powerfully evocative The Proximity of Death from her 2009 album How the Dead Live, a real treat! Another highlight is the stunning, hauntingly visceral The Narcissus – from the new album – a track that burrows itself under your skin and makes your hair stand on end. To see Jordan perform it gives the song the flesh and bones it crucially requires. Thundering machines beat the rhythm of Factory Nation and a mosaic of sounds inhabits London, whilst A Woman Scorned is incredibly poignant in its bare simplicity. A truly riveting performance. I didn’t know Red Sun Revival before I checked them out ahead of tonight’s gig. A relatively new band – formed in 2011 – comprising of accomplished and experienced musicians, the quartet has already built up a faithful following. Their music is a rather traditional gothic rock, full of sweeping melodies and heavy hearts. Frontman Rob Leydon’s sonorous, emotional voice is delightfully theatrical and suits the music perfectly. As the set goes along, I warm to them and their meticulously crafted, perfectly delivered songs. I particularly like Christina Emery’s violin, which really adds an interesting dimension to the tracks, as on Nothing To Hide, Running From The Dawn or the very Fields of the Nephilim-inspired My Child. Red Sun Revival's Rob Leydon is most certainly a much-in-demand musician as he has just officially been announced as a new member of The Eden House, replacing the very busy producer Andy Jackson on guitar. Back on stage as well is Jordan Reyne, who tonight will be one of two main vocalists, together with Laura Bennett.
Now, The Eden House is probably one of the best live bands around, but tonight, we are in for a very special treat indeed. Joining Stephen Carey(guitar), Simon Rippin (drums) and Tony Pettitt (bass) are Bob Loveday on violin and five of the female vocalists who appear on the new album, Half Life – and I’ve got the feeling that if Monica Richards hadn’t been living in the US, she would have been here tonight as well to sing Bad Men. Seeing The Eden House live is a masterclass in musicianship and excellence: Stephen Carey and Tony Pettitt play with a quiet concentration which is nothing but impressive; Jordan and Laura sing with gusto and passion but I would have liked their microphones to be set on a higher level; their beautiful voices are getting slightly lost, overpowered by the sheer might of the music. Three songs from the first album Smoke and Mirrors – God’s Pride, All My Love and Sin – remind us all of why we fell in love with the supergroup in the first place: this unique, intoxicating mixture of grandiose melodies, dark undercurrents and epic sense of the dramatic. Live, liberated from the shackles of the recording format, the beautiful monster that is The Eden House’s music comes alive and finally has a face, a body and a soul – albeit, much like Frankenstein’s Creature, it is made of a multitude of components: singers, musicians, moods, genres… And just like said Creature, it is so incredibly strong and powerful, we can literally physically feel the music taking possession of our senses in the small venue. The mainly instrumental Timeflows keeps the promises of its title: it rumbles like a swollen river of sound flowing across a wild, unforgiving landscape. Soul singer Queenie Moy confidently takes possession of the microphone for Hunger, whilst Anathema’s Lee Douglas is joined by Jordan and Laura for her pitch-perfect, rousing City of Goodbyes. The playful Phoenix J enchants us with her sunny presence and First Light, during which Bob Loveday gets a little pipe out and plays the little bird fleeting around PJ’s head. It is all so heady that when we are denied an encore because of venue time restrictions, we feel a tad lost. And we therefore exit onto the busy Pentonville Road, convinced that we have witnessed something special and magical. It was a privilege to be there. You should have been too. My review of Jordan Reyne's fantastic new album is now online in both FRENCH and ENGLISH, on LA MAGICBOX.
The English version appears below: Jordan Reyne is a multitalented musician whose universe is compelling, complex and original. A true DIY artist, she uses technology to produce her music, on her own in her home studio, and generously shares experiences and technical tips via regular newsletters and blogs. First and foremost experimental, Jordan manages to escape categories: her work encompasses dark folk, Celtic, industrial, electronic and steampunk, but her influences go way beyond those genres. I can detect a writer’s approach beyond the music: there is a solid narrative core here, fuelled by imagination, research and observation; Ms Reyne’s albums are full of places, characters and ‘found sounds’ that intertwine to tell stories that focus on the human experience and condition, an approach both anthropological and philosophical. Her two most recent albums were set in the past – How The Dead Live was about the pioneer women who arrived in New Zealand in the mid-19th century and Children of a Factory Nation was set at the time of the Industrial Revolution. For The Annihilation Sequence, the musician has come back to the present time and set her eyes and ears on London, a monster of a city that attracts and repels all at the same time. This is not some kind of psychogeographical album; it captures personal experiences and deals with the way the metropolis can play havoc with human interaction and exacerbate one’s flaws and desire for recognition. Dark, brooding electronics have replaced the industrial, more mechanical flavours of previous releases. As ever, Jordan’s vocals are an important feature of the album: expressive and versatile, they carry the mood of each track: sinister and dangerous, soothing and seductive, hurt and defensive… First track The Annihilation Sequence features martial drum beats and a sample of a speech by British Prime Minister David Cameron. It sets the tone for the album: everything in life is political, and we are either exploiter or exploited. Then a series of nameless urban characters enter the frame; each could represent a concept or a facet of the human character: The Player, The Gentleman, The Narcissus, The Cab Driver. The first three are themselves the twisted actors on the London stage of life. The Cab Driver takes us on an evocative drive around the West End. The cabbie represents the everyday man witnessing the unravelling of the action and detects the shallowness behind the glamour of his clients; despite his lucidity, he cannot help looking into his rear mirror and turns into a voyeur. The twisted electronics and sharp spoken word in The Player convey a build-up of tension and pent-up aggression; The Narcissus is splendid and disturbing, swathed in sexual malaise. Jordan’s acoustic guitar is back for The Gentleman – a beautiful song introducing us to an aristocratic Marquis de Sade character – as well as for the hypnotic Pieces of Me. Bite (The Hand that feeds) is written like a folk story in which lost humans appeal to their absent god for guidance in a traditional-sounding prayer and The Wall evokes a bigger sense of fate, with fluid synthetic sounds and ethereal vocals that reminded me of some of Björk’s songs. Here again, we can sense the pervasive sense of history that has shaped Jordan Reyne’s previous releases. The Annihilation Sequence is a bewitching, powerful and chilling album by one of the most interesting artists around; it’s one of those releases that you listen to again and again, just marvelling at how it came to be. 18/6/2013 Something differentI've recently started writing music reviews after a four-year hiatus. I am not going to writing as much as I did between 2000 and 2009, as I need to concentrate on my books, but it is a nice writing challenge - although I am definitively rusty. I used to write everything from CD and gig reviews to label profiles and artist features and I even edited a music news page for about a year.
One day I might create a "music journalism" page on this website and put some of the articles I have written. In the meantime, if you wanted to have a look at a few things, go to LA MAGICBOX ARCHIVES. Under the "Reportages" and "CD etranger" headings, you will find loads of my articles! I have just done a live review of KLOQ at Chinnery's in Southend. There is an English and a French version. The picutres are not very good as my trusted "gig camera" is seriously playing up and I cannot use it anymore. I also think the resolution they've been saved at is a bit low. I (email) interviewed Kloq for Alternative Magazine back in 2008 when their first album came out... I've done a scan of the page and magazine cover (below)! 16/6/2013 EVENTS!I have been daring today and have splashed out (well, £6.99!) on a "studio display easel" to make my book display a tad more interesting at events! Next week is the first of a series of events we will be going to - a joint stall Matt ArtPix/Arcane Publishing! The first event, A Vintage Affair, will be next Sunday 23rd June at Hedingham Castle, a historic venue set in beautiful countryside. There will be loads of things to see and do! We are keeping our fingers crossed for dry weather... For more forthcoming events, please go to the Arcane Publishing events page!
We had a lovely - and very informative - time last Tuesday evening at the London Review Bookshop in Bury Street. It was one of those evenings that make me want to move back to London NOW.
We spent about an hour and a half in the erudite company of Andrew Whitehead, one of the co-editors of London Fictions, and three of the authors who have contributed to the book: Cathi Unsworth, Lisa Gee and Rachel Lichtenstein - three very different personalities and writing styles! London Fictions is a book about our monster of a capital published by the small press Five Leaves. Twenty-six contemporary writers write about writers who write about London! To my shame, I have realised that I haven't read any of the books on the list! I expect London Fictions to make me want to pick up some of them. The always captivating Cathi Unsworth has written about the L-shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, set in West London in the 60s - and she got quite a shock when she was told that the author was actually in the room with us! The very dynamic Lisa Gee talked about Zadie Smith's ode to the controversial issue of multiculturalism, White Teeth, and Rachel Lichtenstein about Simon Blumenfeld's Jew Boy set in the East End of the 1930s - without any notes! There is a lovely accompanying website, London Fictions, where you can read even more contributions - and get in touch if you wish to contribute to the project yourself! As a collector of vintage books, I love the section with the vintage cover artworks! I am looking forward to reading London Fictions, as my fourth book will be entirely set in contemporary London and will deal with the ever accelerating changes I have observed since I moved to the capital back in 1998. I wish to write about the high rise towers of glass and metal that seem to be sprouting out of the ground at an accelerating pace whilst the old buildings, sandwiched between the glittering tower blocks, stubbornly stay put, the only witnesses to the history of the city. I will also try and capture the uneasy relationship between the glossy corporate face of the city and a murkier, mysterious, edgy underbelly - imagined or real. By the time I start working on the book - I still have to publish two other ones before I settle down to write that one - London will have further evolved and developed beyond recognition. Who knows what I will find... |
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March 2024
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