Received an email from Brian Butler last night about his upcoming ritual performance at Art Los Angeles Contemporary Fair January 21 at Barker Hanger. Always interested in his work (I wrote about his and Kenneth Anger’s Technicolor Skull LP at WFMU recently), this sounds like a pretty sweet time. Not much more I can say abou it, so I’ll just regurgitate the press release:

January 13, 2012 – Los Angeles-based artist Brian Butler will debut Union of Opposites, his most ambitious work to date, at Art Los Angeles Contemporary, Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 5pm in conjunction with Annie Wharton Los Angeles, in the Ruskin Theatre (across from The Barker Hanger) at the Santa Monica Airport, 3000 Airport Ave, Santa Monica, CA 90405.

Regarding the timing of the performance Butler notes, “I am pleased to be debuting Union of Opposites at LA’s top art fair and especially pleased that is coincides with the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival.” Spiritual and aesthetic experimentation have played an integral role in shaping the history of Los Angeles. From the occult rituals of Jack Parsons and Aleister Crowley to the examination of such traditions by Mike Kelley and Wallace Berman, the interconnectedness of LA’s spiritual past and its artistic dissection have been alive for generations – in the works of Kenneth Anger and in the founding of many local religious cults. Butler’s interests and practices with the occult tap into the strange and dangerous stories that dig into the roots of LA and its art making.

Union of Opposites is an experiment in ritual magick, combining the use of sound and light with the intent of creating a collective out-of-body experience. A film screening will transform into a live performance in which the artist and his team execute an occult rite inspired by Aleister Crowley’s mysterious Ritual of the Mark of the Beast. In this incantation, Butler explores ideas of reversal and the use of geometric figures as channels of occult power. The work will feature a spontaneously improvised soundtrack that experiments with the effects of sound frequencies and rhythmic chanting on our chakras and mental state.

Butler’s interest in expanded cinema will fold the performance space into the work. He views the film, performance and musical accompaniment as a singular entity, where the performers will “expand from two dimensional screen to three dimensional existence” as themes of astral projection and projective geometry interplay with the auditory and visual stimuli.

Butler—who has communed and consulted with occultists and magicians from Europe to South America—explains that “magick is an art unto itself. In a sense, is the art of living in a creative and free way.” Influenced by the work of British arch-occultist Aleister Crowley, Butler believes that magick is conducive to and “complements” all manner of creativity, helping practitioners access different parts of the mind as well as spiritual realms. Butler explains: “The occult is defined as the hidden levels of the mind or the hidden information about how things work…A really intense performance is like hypnosis. You go to a certain state of mind and your presence brings those around you to the same place.”

Brian Butler is an artist, filmmaker and musician living in Los Angeles. He has been included in: “Projections” curated By Aaron Rose at Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles; “Bright Morning Star” curated by Natxo Checa at Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon, Portugal; and the 2nd Athens Biennale. His films have screened at the Tate Modern and the Cannes Film Festival. He recently had his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at LA><ART, a solo gallery show at Annie Wharton Los Angeles and a performance in collaboration with Kenneth Anger at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

As a musician, he has recorded and/or performed music with artists such as VON LMO, Rozz Williams (Christian Death), and Moving Units. He is currently a collaborator with Kenneth Anger in both Technicolor Skull as well as numerous film and exhibition projects. Butler’s recent writing has centered extensively on the occult, publishing in Disinformation’s Book of Lies as well as working on numerous documentaries and experimental films exploring the subject.         

Dig her Q & A with intrepid noise journalist Raymond Cummings for the Village Voice.

… and I feel this is the greatest movie she has sent over:

Few bands have left a bigger crater in their wake in 2011 than the duo of Telecult Powers. Witchbeam and Mister Mathews have been brewing up some of the best electronic stew for a while now but never has it been more condensed and ready to bathe in than on their first vinyl sacrifice, Zion Traveler. Easily one of the year’s best albums, Zion Traveler takes synthetic time traveling to a whole different place.

via Hexed by Telecult Powers | | Foxy Digitalis.

Pulled the veil a bit for Foxy Digitalis, thanks Brad for saying what’s up, thanks for taking the time.

You looking for a copy of Zion Traveler? Check these Babylon motels, probably can help you. If they aren’t listed in the catalog send an email. Perhaps they want to make sure you really, really, really want it:

Bent Crayon

Discriminate

Tomentosa

Mimaroglu Music Sales

Been rereading the Robert Anton Wilson cannon a bit, thank god for the Cosmic Trigger. Woke up a few days ago remembering that I have been a Discordian all along. Was excited to find out that Discordianism was birthed here in New Orleans, very close to where I live. Hail Eris!

Amazing photo taken in rural Ohio by a dear friend.

Edit: Check out 1:20 for the truth on the rapture -

Help him generate some funds at his Kickstarter.

June 24, 25, 26 @ The Silent Barn, Ridgewood.

Phill Niblock (NYC)
GX Jupitter-Larsen / The Haters (CA)
Gen Ken Montgomery (NYC)
AMK (CA)
Damion Romero (CA)
The Rat Bastard Experience (FL)
Tom Grimley (CA)
Vertonen (IL)
MV Carbon (NYC)
Mike Shiflet (OH)
Crank Sturgeon (ME)
IDM Theftable (ME)
Bran(…)Pos (CA)
Work/Death (RI)
Andrew Coltrane (MI)
Novasak (CO)
Fatale (IL)
BWT / ex-Is (IL)
KILT (NM/NYC)
Monsturo (CA)
Page27 (CO)
Postcommodity (OK/NM)
Brown (OR)
Jeff Carey (MD)
Liam Mooney (CA)
Twisty Cat (NYC)
Hex Breaker Quartet (NYC)
Kyle Clyde (NYC)
ISA Christ (NYC)
EID (NJ)
Rust Worship (NYC)

My first reaction to the CD was hey, this is really good. Sleepy creeper mechanized vibes all throughout. At some point I realized that I heard something similar before in the imaginary soundtrack I had for the film adaption created in my mind’s eye for The Oerg – 8 Papers. Oerg-8 is a humanoid that will exist in the future during a period of time when robots take over and harness the power of orgone energy for fuel. * Michael Bertiaux has documenting this in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, follow this link for a brilliant mind fuck of Cosmic Wombs, the Cat – Goddess of the Ancient Egyptian Magick, mystical-mechanical masturbation, etc.

So yeah, future roboto horror porn of the highest order. I listen to it in my car, gives me that feeling of impending doom but no sounds make me think my wheels are breaking down. Huge plus.

Opposition 1 (Together We Will End The Future) by OPPONENTS

* Grant Morrison used lots of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook for The Invisibles, and the Wachowski Bros. allegedly used The Invisibles for a blueprint for The Matrix… The Oerg – 8 Papers sounds pretty similar to the whole concept of the second and third movies. They should have just waited to fuse it with Speed Racer, that would have created OUTSTANDING results.

The biggest benefit is that one gets to experience a kind of life that isn’t available under normal circumstances. This especially applies to reincarnates, who require an accelerated learning curve. Most western societies these days are both risk and pain averse. Cults allow those who need to go through their own pain and anger to do it in a safe situation. Cults can become a microcosm of society, so people in cults can experience a far wider array of possibilities like service, obedience, leadership, as well as what it’s like to live without personal possessions, money, and personal freedom. Celibacy for a period is also a necessary psychic/emotional antidote in an over-sexed society. Possibly the greatest gift a cult bestows is when one leaves it. One emerges back into life with the opportunity to follow one’s own drummer–free of parental etc influences, and understanding the dire consequences of ever giving away one’s power again.

via OO-EE-OO, or My Chat with Timothy Wyllie About Angels, Cults, the Multiverse, & the Entheogenic Impulse – WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.

Commenters on WFMU can suck it tho.

A magical ritual on the grounds of Aleister Crowley’s Boleskine House in Loch Ness. This house was later owned by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.

Hex Breaker Quintet @ Champagne of Fests 4 Photo by KillerSharkWorm

End times are near, at least of this cycle. If your interested in what we do come and hang out -

September 17th - Hex Breaker Quintet /Husere Grav/Isa Christ /Gitche-Anahmi-Bezheu /Afterlife @ Port d’Or

September 25th – Crow Hill Gnostic Temple/Telecult Powers @ 21 Monitor, Brooklyn NY w/ Rebecca Gaffney, Jon Williams, Grasshopper, Chaos Majik, more…

October 5th -  Hex Breaker Quintet – Expo ’70 – Dead Line Connector – @ Zebulon

October 13th – Crow Hill Gnostic Temple Meditation session @ Launchpad,  721 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, then big show at Silent Barn, Grasshopper, Opponents, we are doing a collab with Bob Bellerue, other way cool shit.

October 16th – Telecult Powers, Slasher Risk, Self Avoiding Walk, Reviver, Danny Moore, Grey Market. Virgin Island/Broad Channel Bill’s, 210 E 8 Rd, NY.

October 23rd – Hexxxual Iceland? Telecult/Seth/Grasshopper freakout monster blowout with Nautical Almanac, Pizza Night dude Sam Goldberg, Forma, Wm. Berger djing.

& that is it. Thank you for being part of the Temple of Pei/Telecult Powers experience, we have loved every minute of it. Half of us will be gone from the NYC area October 31st so if you want to book either of us after that hit mister.matthews@gmail.com for gigs north of the Mason-Dixon, witchbeam@gmail.com for ones south of it.

Thank you, we love each and every one of you, goodnight.

Ps. If you love the trumpet part of Hex Breaker Quintet please don’t forget Grasshopper, the other half – grasshopperorama@gmail.com