>Oscar Wilde’s Selfish Giant and other stories
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In a recent conversation about kids’ books it suddenly struck me that I hadn’t read Wilde’s The Selfish Giant for years. As a child I was obsessed with it. Retrospectively I think its appeal was that, like so many of the great fairy tales, it simplifies some fairly hefty issues without being too preachy. More importantly for a nervous five-year-old, it’s not remotely frightening, unlike some of the more bloody Brothers Grimm tales (if you read Hansel and Gretel it’s pretty harrowing stuff, cannibalism, witchcraft and all). Moreover, there was a beautifully psychedelic animation made of it in the 70s, posted above.
Will
PS – if you’re interested in fairy tales, 500 new ones were discovered in Germany by a historian named Franz Xaver von Schönwerth earlier this month. I’m trying to get hold of them at the moment, but in the meantime you can read about them here.
>Remix No. 1 By Rain Dog.
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Here is a remix of We should Be Swimming that our good friend Rain Dog has done. He is an up and coming talent who we think will go far. He has an EP out on net label Cut. Buy it now.
Get yer lug ‘oles round this one! And let us know what you think.
Iain
http://cutmusic.org/releases/cut006.php
http://soundcloud.com/rain_dog
>Le Voyage Dans La Lune by Georges Melies – Rework By Maria in the Shower
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>Hitchcock Dream Sequences
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>The Master and Margarita
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>Yo,
I just remembered that I have tickets booked for Complicite’s adaption of The Master and Margarita at the Barbican and I’m very excited… The original novel written by Mikhail Bulgakov is a damn fine book with one of the best opening scenes I’ve read in along time and Complicite in my humble opinion are one of the best production companies around. A very enticing opportunity indeed.
I was never the most avid theatre goer. Haunted by memories of turgid productions dragged to as a child, I equated theatre trips with a desire to drop ice cream on the heads below, desperately plotting some drama to aid an escape or generally becoming insanely bored and fidgety. I don’t think I really got over this trauma until I went to see a Disappearing Number in 2007 or 2008. This was one of the rare times I have witnessed a delayed emotional response to the arts. People (I’ll be honest and say ‘we’) didn’t cry at the end because it was sad. We cried when we left the entire Barbican complex because we were utterly spent. We’d been so successfully sucked in by the story that you’re not given a proper chance to react to the beauty of the images, movement and sound you’ve experienced until the curtain goes down.
Complicite seem to be obsessed with assaulting the audience on every single level possible without you really knowing it. This is a sound installation, concert and dance as much as it is a play. That they manage to do everything so differently, providing such a rich sensory experience whilst never losing sight of the need to remain enthralling and true to a riveting narrative is freakin genius.
Don’t go expecting to have the same experience. Just go because you shouldn’t miss this. Everything I have seen by them has been astonishing and different and The Master and Margarita will be no different.
Enough of my blathering. Go and get a ticket before they sell out: http://www.barbican.org.uk/theatre/event-detail.asp?ID=12872
http://www.complicite.org/flash/
Henry
>We Should Be Swimming Video
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>Hey,
Here’s our vid for new single We Should Be Swimming. Single comes out on 27th Feb and vid can be seen here and on youtube and the like.
Big thanks to Cagoule who made the video and the dancers Freya and Jo who nearly died of hypothermia.
Don’t forget we also have a NME awards on 27th to celebrate the release. All deets on blog post below!
Find info on Cagoule here: http://www.cagoule.tv/
ZW
>NME Awards Show at Cargo
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>F.C. Judd
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Public Information Records have released a collection of F.C. Judd’s music on an excellent collection called Electronics Without Tears (Great Title!) The previous stuff I had from him were all hissy vinyl rips, but these are all cleaned up and in excellent condition.
Mr Judd is often overlooked in the world of early electronics but his output and development in the field is just as crucial as Ms Derbyshire and Ms Oram and the rest of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
More info can be found at their website and below is a little sampler from the album:
F.C. Judd – Electronics Without Tears by Public Information
I’ve also just come across this program for those with a MAC: Berna. ‘It is a software simulation of a late 1950s electroacoustic music studio. Oscillators, filters, modulators, tape recorders, mixers, are all packed in a easy-to-use interface with historical accuracy.’ so says the blurb, but I’m still very far from mastering it or producing any satisfying sound on it what so ever! But I’m sure its possible.
Dom
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