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

Telecult Powers sets from Neon Marshmallow Fest 2010 now up at the Acid Marshmallow site – Check them out here

Oh, and this is a bench page where you can check out some amazing sets by Grasshopper, Excepter, so many more!

Oh, and hey, check it, Telecult Powers were asked back for the 2011 festival. Looks like we are the only repeats, thank you Matt & Dan, you guys are fucking angels, and we are fucking touched. Not that neo-christian angel shit, but real Old Testament badass ones.

http://excepter.bandcamp.com

Soundcloud

Project Room by excepter

Excepter – The Last Dance by excepter

Previously released on vernal equinox 2010 as cassette-only
limited edition of 100 via Temple of Pei (Sold Out).
Two side-long edits of live material from 2009.
One side recorded on vernal equinox at Glass Lands NYC.
One side recorded at the Issue Project Room NYC.
One side 808 beat box blast.
One side post-show drone zone.
All material unSTREAMed.

q

Detroit is physical Myspace.

For those of you not aware of the storied past of Myspace, it’s a social network that was born out of the need/want to show maximum cleavage to get maximum friends.  Friendster began banning accounts for boob luminaries like Tila Tequila, so Myspace cloned Friendster line for line and allowed people to show everything short of their cervix.  Myspace also made any change users asked for with no regard for user experience.  As a result, MySpace caught on and became a giant.

Myspace also allowed users to turn their pages into a virtual wasteland full of sparkling blingees and tiled animated wallpaper.

However, every day, Myspace wakes up and looks down the barrel of a loaded shotgun and contemplates a swift end because it can’t make enough money to feed its family.

Now, a few amazing souls have decided to customize Detroit with a RoboCop statue near Imagination Stadium.  Mayor Bing has said no to spending city dollars on a statue of its most famous robot law enforcement officer, which in turn inspired the creation of http://detroitneedsrobocop.com/.

Please take a look and consider donating $1 to a very important cause.  With the impending end of Myspace due to complete lack of profitability and a userbase consisting completely of 12 year old males who aren’t inclined to buy the kinds of products that pay advertising premiums, we need to do everything we can to keep the dream alive!

We stopped in Portland with Kyle Clyde & ISA Christ, weird place.

Some kids from Tennessee thought ISA was bringing news of a plague. Amazing.

I just came across some promo videos of Alan Moore from the Swamp Thing days, he has some interesting things to say about comics, horror in general, working with Bissette & Totleben, and even a brief mention of The Watchmen as an upcoming project.

July 10th – Planet of the Apes Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968. Three American astronauts crash on a planet where the inhabitant-rulers are civilized, articulate apes who hunt humans like animals.. Starring: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans; 20th Century Fox; Rated PG; 112 minutes Watch the Trailer

Check out the rest of the schedule here, including Repo Man, Zardoz, Illustrated Man plus more more more – http://www.coneyisland.com/films.shtml