Crowned By The Spider Lwa

The Zoarites – ASPIRE-{2}-YUGGOTH

It is fitting that the first records I ordered from the new Bent Crayon location (now in the second floor of the 78th Street Studios) are the new Afro Noise Vol. 1 Parts 1 and 2 from William Bennett’s Cut Hands. William Bennett’s work has long been a topic of conversation between the proprietor and me so it only makes sense.  Sorry I missed it when it was released on cd, I just felt I had to wait until the vinyl knowing fully well they would be elegantly packaged and high quality like all the recent Whitehouse reissues. No regrets here. Interesting thing about the packaging, the covers are vévé style illustrations that I can’t seem to find the origin of. Would be interested in finding out if they are new designs by the illustrator (Mimsy Dubois) or if they have a traditional base. They don’t look like any vévé I’m familiar with but that just exposes a gap in my knowledge. The cover of Vol. 2 features three skulls and what look to be modified tombstones, so maybe Baron Samedi and some of his baron friends?*

The records are outstanding, the title Afro Noise sums up perfectly what they contain. But check it, his isn’t a Graham Greene noise record, a Brit in the jungle storming around like a mad dog looking for a spot of gin sneering at the savages. Cut Hands comes across as exploring it more from the Maya Deren school, completely immersing himself in the drum music of Western Africa and Haiti and the religions and art that surround it. Maybe he hasn’t, but the quality of music has no outsider boundaries to it. A fascinating thing about it is it doesn’t sound that different from many of the traditional voodoo records in my collection. There are a few clues, a lot of time stretching on a particular track, but other than that it stays closer to the source than I expected.

Thinking about it, Noise and Voodoo have a lot of similar traits. Both are essentially about leaving your head (or as Lon Milo Duquette would argue going really deep into it). Trance inducement is the name of the game. Plenty of noise types try to get away with the junkiest most fucked up equipment they can force a sound out of,  and voodoo thrives in some of the poorest regions of the world. Voodoo drummers don’t have the luxury of going to the nearest Guitar Center and picking up a drum, as the best noise musicians are never the guys that go there with Mom’s credit card and make a pedal chain. Both noise and Voodoo have plenty of frauds and fakers involved. Oh yeah, and most people don’t want a noise venue next door as most people would probably wince if they lived next door to a voodoo peristyle. The ceremonies in Brooklyn generally started around 1 or or 2 am and would go until 6 or so.

William Bennett provided Radio Web Macba an African percussion mix which is outstanding, listened to it yesterday while I was writing copy about ferns for my day job.

Disclaimer: When I was doing my own noise/Haitian/Brazilian drum experiments (Mysteres du Serpent) I thought at the time I was referencing more SPK, Voudon Gnosticism of Michael Bertiaux, Kenneth Grant Typhonian weirdness, and the various Voodoo cults down here in New Orleans. Maybe on an unconscious level I tried to separate myself from what I had heard from the Whitehouse camp previously, most particularly 2007′s Racket. I am extremely proud of the Mondo Neptune cassette and it touches on similar themes as Cut Hands, but where Cut Hands is more polished and methodical Mysteres du Serpent is a bit chaotic. Perhaps Cut Hands is more cinematic where Serpents draws from New Orleans’ rich Discordian tradition? Two different beasts drinking from the same well.

* I brought the records by famed New Orleans mambo Sallie Anne Glassman’s Island of Salvation Botanica this afternoon. She said she didn’t recognize the source of the vévé illustration but she was also in a hurry to get her precious akita Ayizan to the vet. She said something about the arrow language which I can’t find any information on anyway. If anyone has more info on the cover designs please give me a shout, either in the comments, by email: witchbeam@gmail.com or you can tweet at me twitter.com/templeofpei. I’ve been off the twitter since I started working full time but I still check it occasionally.

Suggested reading: KANAVAL by Leah Gordon/Voudon Gnosis by David Beth

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:

Pompa Gira: The Queen in Red

His latest features Pompa Gira, one of the orixas worked with by practitioners of Umbanda and Quimbanda in Brazil. Female beauty, sexuality, and desires are her domain, all of which is represented in Hagen von Tulien’s piece.

For more information on how to purchase please contact him direct at his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/hagen.von.tulien

* I’m sure there is lots of other work he does within the system that goes beyond illustration, just not being a member or privy to their secrets I would prefer not to venture a guess what those works would be.

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Side note on the Voudon Gnosis tip: Looks like Telecult may be performing in the Columbus, Ohio area December 27th with Lightning Path, also  members of the La Societe Voudon Gnostic. I recently purchased their latest Bandcamp release and would highly recommend it to others: http://lightningpath1.bandcamp.com

I would like to stress the may be performing part, still ironing out details. Will post a confirmation as soon as we figure it out.

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!

After some prodding on Twitter documentary filmmaker Floyd Webb revealed some of his interview with Michael Bertiaux on vimeo.

I recently did a small piece about the film Searching for Count Dante over at the WFMU blog, check it out here.

Side note: I had lunch with Bertiaux over the summer and one of the things we talked about was Count Dante.

Cat sitting an amazing Crowley collection. This was just one shelf.

The Crow Hill Gnostic Temple is Sister Jillian & Witchbeam.  Together they explore astral time travel, insect lycanthropy, and cosmic meditation via gnostic revelation and sensory stimulation.

8/14 Mudlark Theater, 1200 Port Street, New Orleans
w/ Proud Father, I have two wolves inside of me

8/24 Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA
w/ Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Nova Scotian Arms

8/25 Bandwagon, 474 Haywood Road, Asheville NC
w/ Concern

Will have copies of the new Telecult Powers cassette Stars are the Eyes of God, plus the ISA Christ/Telecult collab Golden Abulis.