tradition & personality vs conformity & convention

bespoke shorts: Men In Chairs by N. Quentin Woolf

2010-03-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

I remember exactly how all this started. It started in a bookshop, like a lot of things in my life have done. It started two years ago, when I sat down to read an extract from one of the books on sale, and fell in love; not with the author, but with the bookshop’s armchair, which had fair swallowed me up. It was like coming home. Pull yourself together, I scolded myself; but it wasn’t as easy as that. And reader, I’ve done a bad thing.

Look, this has precedence, OK? Martin Amis, humouring some hack from the Beeb by granting an interview, joshed that it was a badly-kept secret that writers spend a lot of their time writing, and a lot of it reading. This was in the context of describing his working day, and he said it whilst sitting on an elegant sofa (or couch, or settee, depending on you and yours), an object of repose between whose rolled arms and camel back one could easily picture the leisurely Amis conducting the latter of the tasks described: leafing through a contemporary novel or three; perusing a magazine; re-reading a Guardian article about how people like to stick the boot into Martin Amis and wondering whether smiling once in a while might not go a long way. No wonder the enfant terrible of 80s lit-fic reads a lot: he evidently has a lovely nice bit of reproduction Regency upon which to do his reading. Seeing Mart and his sofa was like seeing a man with his faithful dog. They were meant to be together.

Nor is Mr Amis alone. In a TV advertisement currently doing the rounds, the near-messianic actor Kevin Spacey seeks somewhere to sit down. His voiceover manages to transform this ordeal into a quest for Nirvana and transcendence, but a comfy chair is what he’s after, bless him; in a sequence of scenes, he parks his posterior on a variety of lifestyle-enhancing perches – in the balcony of the Old Vic, at a shoeshine bar, and so on – before ultimately attaining enlightenment as he sinks into a particular airline’s first class seat. Ahhhhh. Feline bliss settles upon his mug (indeed, the tenor of this selection process has been cat-like from the get-go). By Jiminy, Kevin looks happy to be sitting down.

You might wish to dismiss Mr Spacey’s sponsored game of musical chairs, and by extension perhaps this article, as flip, frivolous, unimportant. But, quite apart from writerly concerns, for a man six and a half feet tall, the question of sitting arrangements is weighty. You try sitting for the seven hours of a transatlantic flight with the wings of the headrest buried in the base of your neck, a backache because the seat has been sculpted for the full curve of a normally-sized spine rather than for the lower half of yours, and your kneecaps either up your nose all the way to America or wedged into the hinges of the fold-down tray (which now can’t fold down), certain to be instantly broken if the person in the seat in front so much as clears their throat. Mr Spacey is, according to IMDB, five feet, ten-and-a-half inches tall, so he understands these things; although one rather suspects he may be rather better positioned with respect to circumventing them.

And it would be pretty easy to bang on for five hundred words or so about the profusion of slights and inconveniences offered by seats of all sorts to the man of height, but I’m not going to do that here. Suffice to say, I think, that Mr Spacey’s experience, as depicted in that one ad, at least, appears to exist only in parallel to my world, which is a world where all the furniture seems to have been made for elves. To recreate the sensation for yourself, buzz down to your local public library and sit on the diddy furniture in the kiddies’ section [note to self: should this have a legal disclaimer?]. That mild embarrassment you feel, that sense of transgression: that’s what it feels like to be big. So imagine sitting in a chair one day and discovering that you felt normal, as though the chair had been tailored exactly to fit your frame, and that it was because this was the perfect chair; and that it belonged to someone else.

It would be fair to say I returned to that bookshop. In fact, I worked there for several years, running writers’ groups and teaching classes. It wasn’t solely on account of the chair, you understand, but late in the evenings, when everyone else had gone, I would luxuriate in the comfort offered by that most perfect of chairs, feeling whilst in it like I belonged in the world, a man reprieved from a sentence of imprisonment inside a doll’s house. On several occasions I nodded off through sheer tranquillity – it was that sort of chair. The rest of the time, out in the real world, whenever passing any furniture retailer or antiques grotto I’d be lured in by the temptation to try out their wares, only to emerge a while later, sobered and wiser. A comparable chair was not to be had. Oh, I could describe it to you, reader, but would you see the real beauty of it? You are, after all, not me, or so I’ve been led to believe. Were I tell you that it had a high back, and wings for that late hour when your lolling heavy head needs to be softly caught, would you nod approvingly? If I delineated its perfect balance of uprightness and comfort, its ability to make you feel simultaneously alert yet relaxed, empowered and at rest, would you see these things for the minor miracles they are? One suspects the whole descriptive venture might be on a par with trying to persuade one’s pals of the physical perfection of one’s beloved: no amount of eulogising can surmount the problem that your audience might happen to prefer blondes, or Scandinavian half-back recliners, or whatever. Associate whatever image you must with the signifier ‘chair’ so that it becomes cet objet du désir for you, too. Then imagine seeing it every day; watching the arses of others lowering into its thick, firm cushion; flinching as strangers made it creak as they shove it about.

Like Amis said: when you’re a writer, you read. It’s an imperative: reading is the nutrition your mind requires in order to create. This chair situation was preventing me from consuming words, at least within my own four walls. In the last year – until very recently, in fact – my rate of reading had dropped to a level I’m too ashamed to share. My work was suffering. I was reminded of that the horseshoe-nail that prevents a kingdom from falling, in the old saw.

My partner, having spotted my unbridled chair-lust and pieced two and two together, had hatched a plan. She little appreciated the specificity of my chair needs, however, and when she unveiled, at Christmas, an armchair bearing more than a passing resemblance to the bookshop one, my heart first leapt in huge gratitude of her perceptiveness and thoughtfulness and generosity, and then it sank. What if the chair were too small? Rather, what if, as usual, I was too big? I approached the chair with trepidation. I sat down in it.

It was too small. It was way too small, which was odd, given that it didn’t look so (its dimensions, actually, seemed more-or-less identical to those of my dream chair). I feigned complete satisfaction, rubbing the arms of the chair in the way people on DFS commercials do. I felt like my world had fallen apart – the furniture fetishising part of it, anyway. I was distraught.

So it’s all worked out fine, then, in the end. Since my partner gave me that uncomfortable chair, I’ve been reading far more than ever before – as an opening gambit I polished off Bolano’s 2666 in under a week – and I’ve been sitting in my chair, at home, feeling like a human being of ordinary proportions. Like Kev and Mart, I’ve found my place in the world. Sometimes my cat joins me.

Only occasionally do I come close to detection. Now and again, one or other of my creative writing students, yanking the old wing-backed armchair into place, will say, “Didn’t this chair used to be a different colour?”

And I’ll say I don’t remember.

****

N. Quentin Woolf is a writer and broadcaster who regularly contributes to bespoke's pages.

He also runs several writing workshops and events. For more information visit:

workshops@nquentinwoolf.co.uk

What's In It For Me?

2010-02-17T09:23:00.001-08:00

Wednesday 17th Feb - Saturday 27th Mar 2010

WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?

NEW DISPLAY STRATEGIES

Whats in it for me?

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New Display Strategies present Whats in it for me?, an alternative history of exhibitions, artefacts, artists, their public and the few that buy things.

New Display Strategies is a think-tank formed in 2008 to generate creative strategies for exhibiting cultural artefacts in an age of academic and corporate collaboration. NDS pride themselves on dislocating a culture via its representative artefacts and their means of display. NDSs charge is to re-edit history from their position of pantheistic ornate excess; in doing so producing rich masterplans that can sustain complex and successful institutions.*

Whats in it for me? is part of NDSs ongoing historical reading of the decorative arts over the past 5000 years. NDS will map out their alternative history for artists and craftspeople marked by a sustained examination of their interaction with social, intellectual and divine elites. The pyramid, both a symbol of society and as a space ship/celestial vehicle, is a dominant motif in their research. Via pyramidal projection, the viewer will be transported from ancient Egypt to the literati of the enlightenment, making a brief stop with the doomed l'honnete hommes of the French aristocracy, before finishing amidst the brouhaha of post-modern furniture design.

Whats in it for me? celebrates a longstanding cross-cultural heritage of exploitation in the creation of public culture and decorative art, exploring how power has shaped and determined artistic production throughout history and how this age-old tradition of cultural exploitation is painstakingly maintained to this day. As Marshall McLuhan once said: good taste is the refuge for the witless.

From the sans-culottes to the sans-papier, New Display Strategies takes a sans limites approach to the roles of the haves and have-nots in cultural production.

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*The title of a collaboratively authored text produced by New Display Strategies in 2008. The text can be downloaded as a pdf above.

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Whats in it for me? extends and enhances themes explored in NDSs previous presentations at Auto Italia South East and the John Jones Project Space. For more information visit: www.newdisplaystrategies.tk

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New Display Strategies: Whats in it for me? Is the eighth exhibition in an ongoing programme curated for Seventeens basement space by Paul Pieroni. The exhibition will run concurrently with Graham Dolphins solo exhibition Burn Away Fade Out in the main space.

SEVENTEEN 17 KINGSLAND ROAD LONDON E2 8AA

E : info@seventeengallery.com

T : 44 (0)20 77295777

F : 44 (0)20 77294083

An Ode To Basket Mouth...

2010-02-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

Disagreement means no agreement,

In Lagos, Accra and Conakry,

100,000 men marching like the man,
revolution not chaos is the plan,
International thieves and political beasts,
No nation, one nation, one Africa,
You won't die, can't die... In fact, you're not dead,
Left turn, right turn, about turn,
Let's start again,
Basket Mouth, what are you going to sing about?
Colonialism, Subliminism and historical hypnotism.
From Alagbon Close to the Atlantic Ocean,
shallow thoughts and rivers ahead,
From Kalakuta to the shrine,
Your message plays close to the mind,
Teacher, Father, Son, Master,
Fela's horn calms the disaster.
On the second day of August a continent mourned,
but you didn't die that day, in fact; you were born.

Rap thrown by: Ade Bankole// Image courtesy of: Lemi Ghariokwu

Kool G Rap: Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

2010-02-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

In today's hip-hop world of half-hearted lyricism, over-zealous hype men and instant legend status, let's take a step back and appreciate a true master. Out of and always representing the neighbourhood of Corona Queens, NYC, his name is Nathaniel Wilson a.k.a Kool G Rap, the "G" representing “Genius” and by law, its not a boast if you are actually telling the truth, as it is in this case. Without dropping any of his infamous verses or tracks here (collectively, they range from being too numerous to mention, too vicious in their content to straight up outrageous), let's give mention to DJ Polo and The Juice Crew, as the Kool G Rap story isn’t complete without with their presence. DJ Polo, with whom G Rap started laying down tracks way back in mid-1980’s and his click the Juice Crew, originated by Cold Chillin’ supremo Marley Marl, and that also served as the stable for the likes of Big Daddy Kane and the Biz Markie.

Armed with a trademark lisp and a unique multi-syllabic rhyming delivery, often imitated but never surpassed since, G Rap’s wordplay, story telling prowess and subtlety were legendary. Where his contemporary the Notorious BIG famously name checked Robin Leach, G Rap did too but with more delicate eloquence. In between legendary albums such as 'Road to the Riches', 'Wanted: Dead Or Alive' and '4, 5, 6' some with the aid of Polo and some without, G Rap found the time to appear on other artist tracks on numerous occasions and more often than not, made them his own, most famously on Mobb Deep’s ’The Realest’, M.O.P’s ’Stick To Your Guns’ and Papoose’s ‘Thug Connection’. With Italian mobster references so popular in rap, he could claim to the innovator of such a culture culminating with his third solo album being entitled 'The Giancana Story'. No other rapper since hip-hop’s conception has ever made the word “mother****er” sound so refined and poetic

While MTV, that indispensable source of real hip-hop (wink!) could only grant the man with an "honourable mention” on their greatest hip-hop artists of all time list, the real irony is those that flood the list probably wouldn’t have picked up a mic without G Rap’s influence.

I’m not saying he is the best but, I easily could. Don’t take this a sermon, this is just a message to the new school and those that don’t know, the real blueprint was made by this man. With the recent passing of Michael Jackson still fresh in our minds, let’s not wait until Kool G Rap is six feet deep before we elevate him to where he should be, and that’s as a King of this art form. Big Pun, Notorious B.I.G etc, legends though they may be, are simply tenants in G Rap’s building and the rent is still definitely due. Genius.

words: Ade Bankole

Pop Song Of The Decade... According to bespoke

2010-02-17T06:53:00.000-08:00

Drums please!

And the award goes to Scissor Sister's 2004 version of 'Comfortably Numb', however I am shocked that its taken me this long to realise it.

Best known as a tune for the great Pink Floyd and how fitting they would pop up here too. The 'sisters' and vocalist Jake Shears do make it their own but without treading on the toes of the original.

Its rare for me to listen to a song from start to finish. Maybe its the world we live in, everyone's a dj, whether playing in a club or just fucking around with your itunes, songs dont really get the airplay they deserve.

Anyway, I happened to be waiting for someone in a cafe recently and the aforementioned song came on the air. The way its built up, the vocals, instrumentals, everything is just a monumental effort on the part of the Scissor Sisters (and producer Tiga). Yes, it sounds like a Bee Gees joint at times but so what, the Bee Gees had it going on.
Seriously listen to it again and you'll get the idea of what i'm saying, its almost perfect. At no point do you think: "this or that could have been done this way etc etc"

A great pop song, is like a time capsule. In a hundred years, you could listen to this tune and get a feel for what the music climate was like in the noughties. Pop, techno, disco, soul etc and a spot of sampling to boot but whether this is a sample may be a BIG understatement, but really there are so many layers to this song, its all there.
This song really encapsulates different styles, both musical and in life.

Now who did I send this award out to?

Words: Mason

Pa's Delights

2010-02-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

A little lowdown on some records that my Dad used to own, because they are now unofficially mine.

1. 'Gumbe' by E.K. Nyame.

I recently found out my father speaks some Ghanaian dialects (as well as Igbo and some Arabic) and this is a great highlife tune, built on the call and response tradition found in African and Latin music. E.K.Nyame (pictured) was a great band leader in his day and is seen as a major player in the highlife genre. If you find any of his records then yeah

2. 'Amigo' by Black Slate.

Somewhere in the vaults of this site is a piece on Black Slate and finding this 7" the inspiration for it This here is a grooving, bouncy reggae tune straight out of the crate. Funny how the singer pronounces Amigo as "Omigo", I love this tune, one of the few reggae numbers I can stomach.

3. 'No, No, Joe' by Silver Connection

Anyway, here is a Big disco tune I found in his box. I'll confess, I love disco, or pretty much anything with audacious strings providing the pulse to it. Think Love Unlimited Orchestra and anything made from the same roll of fabric. That moment in Serge Gainsbourg's 'Melody' when the strings come in (I time it just after the 3 minute mark on the track) might just be my favourite moment in music period.

Words: Karim Buchannon

Simbad & Titonton Duvante present… ‘AVANTI’

2010-02-16T14:26:00.000-08:00

If form is temporary and class permanent, then 2004‘s AVANTI, yes 2004, is one example that solidifies the rule.
The architects of this filthy, bouncy, dancefloor jump-off; globe-trotting, piano and alto sax proficient Producer/DJ Simbad aka Marathon Man/Les Barons and NYC-resident Titonton Duvante, a pioneering figure in America’s broken beat scene and a well-schooled pupil in the traditions of early Detroit techno.
Having collected over 5 years worth of crate dust and debris, AVANTI is still as relevant, still as fresh and still as capable getting you up off your seat, period. Hell if it comes across corny, but it really is just ‘one of them ones‘. And deservedly so, it finds its way onto the pages of bespoke.
As Simbad explains: “Music can kill you. But it also has the power to heal too. Time is a true test of anything’s worth. On this track, we tried ‘keeping it analogue’ and the results are there to be heard and felt.”
Being a spontaneous reaction, AVANTI sometimes emit’s a scruffy and unkept sound but it also manages to retain a certain euphoric sincerity. It also resonates like an ever-evolving work-in-progress but one that could also happily contradict itself by sounding like a representation of ’that’ moment in time.
The creation of this track was far from spiritual nor did it knock on the door of the cosmos, it’s just the familiar story of two musicians working towards a common goal but simultaneously challenging the others creativity.
From the sanctuary of Simbad’s east London studio and accompanied by real 1980’s synths, keyboards, drums, and some home-cooked scats and vocals, his and Duvante’s creative water broke, and AVANTI was born. "We just jammed in the studio, playing
live keyboards, at times simultaneously and recording it all over a ruff beat we made quickly, it was very spontaneous and that’s why we had to divide it into a few parts!
“My method usually involves lots of live instruments, drums, horns, perx, and old-style keyboards like Roland Sh-09, Prophet 600, old pedals, old analog desk (Studio Master 24/8) and loads of outboard equipments (compressors & reverbs) although I don’t use these much anymore. Mainly it’s all recorded in Logic 4.7 on a G4 Mac or in Logic 7 on G4 PowerBook. Monitor wise, a Tannoy Little Red 1979. Usually my gear comes and goes, luckily a few friends lend me bits for a while so the studio set-up varies from season to season."
AVANTI is an encounter of different cultural styles; dancefloor, boogie, techno, whatever etc and wherever you wish to file it under. But more significantly, it’s a sign of our musical times. Inspired by, and inspiring to, any artists who dare to mix and expand the colours of your mind. Work-in-progress or the finished article? Maybe the paint has yet to dry on this collaboration.

words: Karim Buchannon

The Extended Heads get to talking

2009-12-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

From Sweden´s second city Göteborg, or Gothenburg, if like me you are not native to the land, comes the garage-punk-electro and generally fire hazardous sound of The Extended Heads. They are Gustaf Malmros (Guitar/Vocals/Percussion), Mikael Gustafsson (Bass/Percussion) and Pontus Torstensson (Percussion).

So we at bespoke sent some questions and scenarios to the band (in a fill-in-the-gaps style) and sat back to see if we knew them better after. We did, but have a look for yourself.

Interview: Ade Bankole

Image: The Extended Heads

1. The Extended Heads are best described as... pure joy.

2. The side-project the Extended Head is... in an experimental solo-project, Gustaf Malmros is collecting sounds, creating rhythms, cutting and pasting.

3. The best and worst thing about being in the Extended Heads is... (best) Pontus' (drummer) leather vest, (worst) he's landlord of the rehearsal space.

4. At our live shows/performances expect... a dancing zebra.

5. If any dead musician could cover one of our tracks it would be... Jimi Hendrix doing a version of our track... 'Paranoid Pothead' in a... Captain Beefheart-style.

6. Songs that we secretly like but hesitate to admit to are... None.

7. Being from Sweden (Gothenburg) affects our image and sound because... of the weather. Too much time to think, too little to do.

8. The worst way to categorize the Extended Heads sound is... No opinion

9. If we had to choose between a wedding or a bar mitzvah to play a live show it would be... ''a Wedding'' because we love romance blessed by God.

10. A year from now, the Extended Heads will be... extended.

www.theextendedhead.com

www.myspace.com/x10dead

''Quote.Unquote''

2009-12-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

"When men who have nothing discover that they have one another, they
combine into units that are incalculably formidable"

- Quote from Attica prison massacre investigation (1971)

“A slowly acting poison
Will be given to the favourite one
The dark horse will bring glory
To the jailer and his men
It's always much more sporting
When there's families in the pit
And the madness of the crowd
Is an epileptic fit.”

© Tom Waits

“You can make it thru these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
Well I don't think so
But I'm gonna take a look around it though
Blue, I love you”

© Joni Mitchell

"I'm like the farmer, planting words, people are seeds,
My truth is the soil, helps you grow like trees,
May the children come in all colours, and change like leaves,
Behold before you, one of those prophetic MCs."

© Nasir Jones (pictured)

“Just how blind will America be? (Ain't no tellin')
The world is on the edge of its seat
Defeat on the horizon. very surprisin'
That we all could see the plot
And claimed that we could not. (Alright)…

America!
The international Jekyll and Hyde
The land of a thousand disguises
Sneaks up on you but rarely surprises (Yeah!)
Plundering the Asian countryside
in the name of Fu Man Thieu.”

© Gil-Scott Heron

Edit: Mason

The Last Offering: Kaneng Lolang

2009-10-21T09:07:00.001-07:00

Kaneng Lolang’s journey of a thousand steps has seen her touch the floor in many a land spanning many a continent. Fresh from releasing her debut EP “The Last Offering“ out of the creative dungeon that is Brooklyn, NYC, bespoke asked her at this moment in time to take a brief glance at her own reflection and tell us a bit of what she saw. Let’s begin.

Words & Image: Kaneng Lolang// Edit: Ade Bankole

Who is Kaneng Lolang?

Kaneng Lolang is a somewhat successful biochemical experiment of Berom and Bulgarian components. I began as an entertainer for the illest of small fish perpetrators in the shady bars of sunny Lagos to thus far find myself as a visual artist, film maker, dancer and musician. “The Last Offering” is a brief seam through the primal, west African and Balkan folk, blues and free-jazz, to the psychedelic, soulful glory of
the recent past and finally, to a space freed of association. Essentially, it is an introduction to my sonic home and a personal artistic statement made in New York, the furthest away I have been from my cultures of origin. My musical mission wishes to grow to defy the gravity of the momentary, the main intention being the creation of my own musical vernacular. If you will be my ally in this undertaking, I will host the spirits to your splendid favour.

What is my most vivid childhood memory?

Being 7 years old in Komi, Siberia. Which at the time was a place the Russian government denied the existence of. It's where the victims of Stalin’s Gulag were sent to perish in forced labour camps, eventually it ended up being land for natural resources raping, with mass graves and all. A Cold, brilliant, bright day in the town square, curiously observing an old man swig pink aftershave from an ornate fake crystal bottle. His pleasured grunt as it trickled down his throat. Vodka was banned you see, it made the workers lazy.

Who are the vocalists that have influenced me?

The world is old and common spirits host our music, more so I feel an adoration, affinity to other vocalists. We nod at each other across time and a spiritual parallel. A few, Diamanda Galas is the unsurpassed truth. It’s a sad shame that there are people out there that would limit themselves by seeing her as just a goth. She affirms life. An awe-inspiring vocalist and a devastating pianist. Beyond mere talent, this great woman exists. The world needs to do itself a favour and buy out “Guilty Guilty Guilty“. The incredible Colette Magny. Vladimir Visotsky, Esma Redjepova, Eugene McDaniel’s” Headless Heroes of The Apocalypse is one of my favourite records. Here is a black man in the 60’s with all its uprisings and civil rights movements, who was able to see beyond his own condition to save his raging monstrous wail for what happened not to his own people, but to the native Americans. The grunts and howls of my Great grandmothers. So much to love and loathe about Eugene S. Robinson! The heroes of the Ajegunle slum in Lagos. By far the most resourceful artists I know of. They do not compromise their vision, be it criminal or musical. I love the tone and intention of folkloric singers, the pre-industry manner of thrusting out the voice is grandiose, an ode to the truth, be it the tortured wailings of the Balkans, the early blues, ritualistic praise songs or west African deity summons. I believe the human voice springs from a mysterious source, it fashions itself from psychic material. I hold no ownership of my voice. It springs from depths I am yet to understand, all I feel is that at this moment in time my ancestors, the battered, the shunned ex-goddesses and gods are awaiting good news in exile.

Cats or Dogs?

I hate cats. They are not pack animals, only manipulative opportunists, like low women. I am perpetually stunned at the claim of their supposed mysticism. Cat faeces contains a parasite which leads to mental illness and schizophrenia. Scientists are even working on a vaccine for cat owners. No shit, it’s serious. Cats are nature’s chemical warfare against us. I am likely to be tolerant only when encountered on the streets, surviving, what they do best. I trust dogs, though by tradition, my people eat them. I suspect that may be messing up our karma.

What are my fears?

The possibility that I may not be able to resolve certain issues solely through my art, that I may have to resort to other means. The possibility that cultural identity may no longer validate my kind of human hybrid. It may be that all that ever is, is spiritual reality. Geographical reality, artificially created nation states, the fractured, degraded communities of my origin do not hold me and allow me to be myself. I question the success of my chemical make-up. There are people I’d love to have killed, and the fact that I am okay with it frightens me at times. But its all love of course. It’s all from the bottom of my heart. I accept my fears.

For a free download of Kaneng Lolang’s “The Last Offering” go to www.kanenglolang.com
Myspace.com/kanenglolang

Chasing Chinese U.F.O’s in conversation with the ebullient Xiaolu Guo

2009-10-21T03:55:00.000-07:00

Xiaolu Guo has pissed off her publisher. It wasn’t meant to end up like this.

“I told them I was writing a detective story,” says the 35-year-old author. “But not very far into it I realised I do not know how to write this form. It’s very masculine. So I decided to write something else and hope they wouldn’t notice.”

To readers of her previous works, the quirky How Is Your Fish and her chick-lit smash The Chinese/English Dictionary for Lovers, a gentle romance in broken English, news that Guo does not naturally churn out testosterone-fuelled thrillers will come as no surprise. What does surprise is that Chatto & Windus ever imagined that that’s
what they’d get.

“They were not very happy with this one,” she admits, meaning, UFO In Her Eyes, her latest publication. It is ostensibly the tale of a small southern Chinese town becoming the epicentre of a flying saucer mania. However, the UFO plot, delivered mostly as transcripts from police interrogations of the sole witness, is subterfuge for delivering a sketch of China’s socio-political growth spurt over the last half-century, from the naivety of feudalism via Mao and the reds to full-blown capitalism and Superpower status. Not, probably, what the publisher had in mind from the pinafored Guo. But their objections
were not merely thematic. “They were very reluctant to publish in hardback at all,” Guo ruefully tells her small audience, at the reading I attended. “They said it looks too much like a film script.”

That this is no mere impression is confirmed buy the fact that Guo and
an actor are able to perform half an hour’s dialogue from the book without any textual abridgement.

A sense of disappointment is actively fostered by the author. An accordion player has been drafted in ‘to do anything he can to make the reading less boring’ and repeatedly Guo brings up the low sales figures of the book. She handles and curtails the Q+A as though embarrassed. All very curious. But one senses disingenuity; as a seasoned film-maker, one who reputedly secured funding from Channel 4 by marching into their offices and demanding it, this particular lady is surely made of doughtier stuff than this performance suggests. She has written a serious book, and knows it. She believes in the material to the extent that she is preparing to film the thing (a process no doubt helped by having the script already in the bag). So why the long face?

Perhaps she is suffering transition pains – culture shock. The figure of the alien recurs in her work. The transitionary linguistics of the Dictionary were no doubt a synecdoche of the author’s own minimal state; now, as an auteur three continents from home, her work
evokes the country she’s left behind, through the avatar of the scrutinised peasant woman: the deracinated observer: the innocent abroad.

“For my next project, I want to write a third-person novel set entirely in Europe, but without Chinese characters,” she tells me. She insists the story must be in third person; yet this fact seems to trouble her. “Without an ‘I’ figure it because so cold, so impersonal,” she says. This apparent refusal of Guo’s to allow herself to identify with the West is odd; but perhaps that’s the point. She seems anxious not to fit in. The UK has, it seems, embraced her idiosyncrasies (by way of contrast, she points out that she could not
have published a book like Dictionary in France, where the literary establishment would have scoffed at a text in broken French), nevertheless, she confounds expectation, wilfully upsetting poor Chatto & Windus and her burgeoning chick-lit readership in one fell swoop.
Indeed, perhaps the outsider persona is one she wants to maintain. When one audience member asks how, having been a film-maker, she ended up as a writer in England, she positively recoils. “I haven’t ‘ended up’ here,” she says.

The concept of a final destination is perhaps anathema to Xiaolu Guo. Rather, she is interested in the spaces between things: between art-forms; genres; countries; politics. She is focussed on the act of crossing over; on paradigm shift; on the process of developing out of one thing towards another. The concept of ‘ending up’ is, in her eyes, entirely alien.

Words & Interview//N. Quentin Woolf

Bruno, My Love

2009-10-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

We say it’s hard to pick our favourites when it comes to many things, be it friends, countries, or pieces of art. Despite the wealth of choice of literature available and the intense differences between many a writers, I have come to a place where I can not only appreciate, but truly adore a writer.

Bruno Schulz was a Polish Jew, born in 1892 is a small down of Drohobycz in Galicia. Apart from creating drawings and a few magnificent pieces of writing, his life mostly revolved around teaching drawing and handicraft in a small-town Polish school. He was a man of a feeble health and an almost incurable state of self-perceived inferiority and insecurity. His life was an endless conflict between providing financial support for his extended family and carving out moments of freedom in which he was most creative. His life ended in 1942, when he was shot dead by a Gestapo officer in a street of his home town.

Despite not being widely known on an international scale, Bruno Schulz is regarded as one of the greatest Polish-language stylists of the 20th century. The quotation below referring to Jacob, Bruno’s father, could easily be pointed at the writer himself.

“It is worth noting how, in contact with that unusual man, all things retreated, as it were, to the root of their being, rebuilt their phenomenon down to the metaphysical core — they returned to their primordial idea, only to betray it at that point and lurch into those dubious, daring and equivocal regions which I shall here succinctly call the Regions of the Great Heresy.”

Descriptive to the point of transcending the nature of objects and states presented, Bruno Schulz’s writings are characterised by a language of incredible depth and colour. The simplicity of the prose’s content is transformed, liquefied, and brought to its very essence in light of the language used to portray it.

“But even further from the light there were cats. Their perfection was alarming. Locked up in the precision and meticulousness of their bodies, they knew neither deviation nor error. They sank for a moment into the depths of themselves, to the bottom of their being, then they froze in their soft fur and grew menacingly and ceremonially serious, while their eyes grew as round as moons, soaking up the view into their fiery craters. But a moment later, cast out to the edge, to their surface, they yawned in their nihility, disappointed and without illusions.”

Due to his entrapment with teaching and poor health, and above all, lack of free time, the body of his most popular written work includes only two collections of short stories: The Street of Crocodiles and Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. In 1975 a collection of Schulz’s letters was published in Polish as The Book of Letters. Several works have been lost or burnt, including some short stories from the early 1940s that the author had sent to be published in magazines, and his final unfinished novel The Messiah.

This works have inspired other creations such as the adaptation of The Street of Crocodiles by the Quay Brothers.

Bruno Schulz’s writings and life have been described in more detail in a book by the Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski entitled Regions of the Great Heresy.

Words: Paulina Wojnar

The Ruckus: Black Slate: A throwback to 1974

2009-10-21T03:49:00.000-07:00

“I went downtown this morning… This IS Black Slate Rock, So Rock On”

Black Slate were formed in 1974 in London, with members hailing from mostly London, Jamaica and Anguilla. Under different guises such as B. Slate and Disco Reggae Band Black Slate, they found work initially by opening concerts for touring Jamaican acts, such as Delroy Wilson and Ken “Is It Because I’m Black” Boothe.
In 1976, they hit the U.K. reggae charts with the anti-mugging anthem “Sticks Man“, toured the U.K. in their own right in 1978 and landed a hit in 1980 with "Boom Boom”.
Having formed their own TCD label and having a minor hit with "Mind Your Motion", they also backed Dennis Brown when he played live in the U.K. Also in 1980, their rastafarian rallying call, "Amigo", was picked up by Ensign Records, and broke into the U.K. singles chart, reaching number 9. This success was mirrored in Europe where they received welcomed airplay and some chart appearances notably in the Netherlands.
An album, Sirens In The City, followed on Ensign the following year. The band released two further albums in 1982 and 1985, but little was heard of them after that. All together they released four albums between 1979 and 1985 and they, much like Steel Pulse had done, successfully represented the British reggae sound of the 1970s and the early 1980s. They were Black Slate.

Words: Ade Bankole

How not to see the 53rd Venice Biennale as an amusement arcade… (Or as a destination of any sort).

2009-10-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

When our man-about-art, Josh Love told us he would be making multiple trips to this year’s Venice Biennale (including one by bicycle), we asked him for a no-holds-barred account of this journey. He delivered!

Words & Images//Josh Love

It may sound strikingly obvious, but don’t forget it’s a Biennale. As I found myself roaming around the Gardini trying to attend to as many Pavilions as time would allow I had that moment of simple realisation, it’s not about seeing it all. Not only is that task (almost) humanly impossible, there’s just no point. This may sound redundantly simple but the art of experiencing things does not really work when your in the frame of mind that you just have to take it all in. I’m not alone in finding myself border on the flippant in disregarding most of the shows.

Almost aligning each pavilion and palazzo to a state of good, bad or just the plain ugly. This may sound like an inserted get out clause, allowing
time to be the determining factor in what could be construed as my miscomprehension. Or, I could be addressing taste as the determining factor in viewing a Biennale. Neither is the case.

Compare Venice to an amusement park set in a serene city where you’re ten
years old again. Your parents have just walked through the entrance with you, you’ve complied a mental list of every ride you just have to go on, everything looks attractive and enticing, and yet you end up on the tea-cup ride first. Slightly let down yet still giddy with anticipation for the next ride, you join the queue for the biggest and the best roller coaster ‘ever’, only to find the queue is four days long and your pass only three. This isn’t synonymous with everyone’s experience of the Biennale, namely the 300 or so who did manage to get a booking to see Steve McQueen at the British Pavilion in the first few
days, nor anyone who appreciated the National Pavilion(s) to ones immediate right when entering.

But lets just say that’s how you found it. In the dizzy moment of twofold realisation that I wouldn’t be able to see the Steve McQueen film, and that this wasn’t the worst thing ‘ever’ to have happened, I found myself recognising this childish trait in others around me. There will always be shows which require attention you can’t muster to
actually be engrossed in the work. Likewise, exhibitions which let you down after a commitment of time, but this isn’t what a Biennale is about. It’s fundamentally showcasing nationally funded commissions. Commercial spaces exhibiting the artists they represent, and a few unsigned, uncensored, spaces located in various private palazzo’s.

In which case seeing it all is as broad as encompassing every amusement arcade in Disney Land. After having faltered in finding anything exceptional on my first trip to Venice, other than its comparison to an amusement park, which came
retrospectively anyway. I decided to make my second trip slightly more epic. Just in case my initial assumptions were correct; that the Biennale was an all round let down, I embarked on a cycle trip from London to Venice, knowing full well that it’s the journey that counts anyway. Along with a friend, we set ourselves two weeks to get to Venice and four to really engage with the Biennale. Not to go into the trip in too much detail (namely altitudes, durations, locations, platforms and stations) we set out from Dunquerke,
through Belgium then northern Germany down to Bavaria, through Austria and out into northern Italy.

Although it may sound quite fast on paper, its not. Italy was by far the least exciting country on the trip. Once you hit the Austrian/ Italian border it’s all down hill. Carrying around 50kg up 17% gradients wasn’t too much fun, whilst all the while praying for the next descent (typically 17% too). The descent from Bössen towards Venice being all down hill was initially fantastic until we realised the entire route from there on in would be on cycle lanes. After travelling on off-road tracks and scenic ‘b’ roads,
pedestrian’s nature is not what your used to. It’s not too dissimilar to the Arsenalle at the Biennale, in so being pedestrian’s in a museological sense. Every natural element along the cycle route had a descriptive plaque almost aesthetically indistinguishable from the Biennale’s. Both seemingly a requirement for engagement.

In truth I hadn’t seen the Arsenalle on my previous visit four weeks before (I was only working on a National Pavilion and one disastrous private pavilion) and so had set my hopes high for what was to come. The curatorial pretence for the Arsenalle, ‘Making Worlds’, is such a broad encompassing title so as to remain vague even whilst trying to piece together its reasoning. The first ‘world’ you encounter is a multi-channel African (style) hut installation by Pascale Marthine Tayou entitled ‘Human Being‘.

Without being too presumptuous it could be said that the first meeting point with ‘other words’ is still a post-colonial dictation of ‘otherness’. This is slightly unfair seeing as Tayou is actually from Cameroon and is using culturally relevant styles and mannerisms from the region. This however is irrelevant for the curators intent. Tayou’s practice may be in dialogue with cultural symbols from Cameroon, but the other works in the show are not (as a whole) and positioning ‘other’ (other being the key word) worlds as specific cultural dependencies at the very start is an instant signifier of the lack of rigour invested in the exhibition. I state this because it’s far too common to encounter shows relying on museological structures within which to read the work due to deficiencies in the curatorial approach.

It’s a backdrop which is more of an entrapment that sucks the life out of a show. I don’t normally have to do this but, after a mere ten minutes in the Arsenalle I had to escape for a moment of contemplation, and a fag. I felt conned. After cycling over 1,600 kilometres to see this (much more investment than a train, a plane and a boat) I’d spent €8 (the price of a pizza in some places) on showcase that was not even a show.

Just to make sure you do get your monies worth though I do recommend getting the boat from the café to the Adach (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage) pavilion. It is quite possibly the best example I’ve ever seen of an over paid design agency constructing a space for art which houses no art.

It is architecturally well put together, stylistically consistent and much like other projects I’ve worked on for them. I consider it a reverse metaphor for the Arsenalle as a whole, whilst the Adach pavilion has little-to-no art in its walls it does have structure. Abu Dhabi also just happens to be the end of culture. This is a grounded statement, if you look at the UAE pavilion its reinforced. Taking the didactic language of late conceptualism the UAE curator has arranged an almost talking head, listen to me (doubt anyone’s got the patience) installation talking about the making of the exhibition and UAE’s global representation and cultural presence.

The text piece to the left of the entry into the UAE pavilion recounts a list of ‘issues’, which in the literal sense read like an individuals emotional issues representative of a seven-nation conglomerate. Just because a nation can identify the fact that it’s stigmatized globally as being a cultural void, and voice this as fact/ as art doesn’t make the issue approachable. It’s as if the UAE have recognised a formulaic system wherein art is seen to be the space to talk in an open, even playing field about a deep rooted ‘issue’ (whilst all the while plugging itself). It’s akin to a trade fair you have no professional interest in, like me attending an estate agents fair (which the Adach pavilion funnily enough is).

Let down and humiliated, I was told I couldn’t even sit on the grass, I left, feeling more exhausted by the Biennale than the cycling.

The Venice Biennale runs through to November 2009, and is nothing like an amusement park, it is though, a trade show of work I have little interest in. For more information on the trans alp cycle route get in touch (now that’s worth it).

Bespoke Shorts

2009-10-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

Kisses of wax

The best season commenced in September, and October was the best of them all. Its beginning smelt of relief, of fog and mothballs. Old jumpers came out of the trunks just in time for making the wine. Grapes and spiders squirting through their toes - some of the old would finally smile. Widows in black aprons came out a few weeks later to help with the corn: they stripped the last harvests of many lifetimes by hand.
Aurelia, Cinta and Ginota sat on low stools. Coarse hands and knees apart -in my Grandfather’s yard- they peeled away as they talked. Every year it would be the same story and that’s why it sank in.

It was the story of Cinta, the one of the three who had never lived in France. Fiery and ginger-haired, she had fallen in love with Raffaele in her teens. And now she was in her eighties -and by all means very old- in love with him she still was.

Raffaele had died some thirty years earlier, but never mind. Soon after they had met he had brought her to heaven where she fell pregnant and, for her, not much had happened since. Raffaele instead migrated to America where he had met his first wife. For four years he did not write and her letters were returned. Then he started sending money to little Raffaela who, by then, had been soaked in her mother’s sweat for -the story went- “Cinta In The Fields” bled more than other women but worked harder than the men. And then, at night, she moonlighted in the byres squeezing buckets in between her legs and udders in her hands.

Eventually he started spending his summers with her. Every fourth of July he would take a boat to her womb of no regrets. This went on for a few years. Maybe four or five until he too went to France and met his second wife.

Whatever the number of wives is as irrelevant to this story as it was to Cinta’s cob peeling mates. Surprisingly enough within this context, even the fact that he stopped sending money is just the detail. What mattered was that he always returned for their timely burning of candles at both ends. Master and mistress Cinta was both. Having saved more than enough to buy her own land, she provided her flame with the alibi of seasonal work. So that in summer -two donkeys at dawn on her estate- they would expiate the freedom few others had had. No cows pulling the plough of the woman who hadn’t been turned into a housewife abroad: just a man and no saint. Her Raffaele, the one and only who made her tremble in bed.

For my Grandfather’s yard, this type of language was strong. Yet, undisturbed, we all sank into the well of wrinkles radiating her joy. “Kisses of wax” is what she said of other men, making it plain clear that their lips were cold. For her darned socks and hard work had brought many suitors her way, in the course of her life unlit candles had rubbed against her to no avail. “Cold wax” that’s what they were.

Cinta has long gone but, in Caravino, the expression “kisses of wax” lives on. Young girls utter it plenty, probably not knowing where it comes from.

Simona Florio
Simona was born in Italy, in the Caravino province of Turin.
She now resides in London.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

“Tell me why, Colin,” said the Site Supervisor, over The Observer, “My hay fever plays up the minute you turn up for work? Eh? Why is that? Something not right with you.”

Colin shrugged helplessly, and tried to distract himself with work. The least favourite part of Colin’s job was making public announcements. He stuttered, and knew it; often his voice cracked on important words, and his supervisor would look through his half-moon glasses at Colin pointedly and make little sniffing noises. So it was, as from his little glass room Colin requested a cleaner attend a cappuccino spillage on the Northern Line, platform 4; his finger pressed hard down on the PA button, twelve black and white television screens reflected in his spectacles. He stumbled on all of the important words, just as he’d known he would. And, as expected, the supervisor looked and sniffed. And finally Colin watched as a passenger dropped her cappuccino on Platform 4, and he realised he’d gotten ahead of himself again.

The problem with second sight, Colin had long known, one of the many problems with second sight, was its indistinguishability from the other sort of sight, the sight that seemed to do for everybody else. If only it were to come in the vivacious visions of Joseph, or Scrooge or Carlos Castenada, that would be manageable, Colin reflected as he changed in the locker room, in front of the smeared tall mirror which would get smashed accidentally next year. Second sight, actually, was a constant, a confusion of present and past and future, all always tumbling together, and it made watching television very complicated indeed, what with all these shows on at once, and it wrecked Countdown. His infuriating habit of identifying the £250,000 box during the first five seconds of each Deal Or No Deal was one of the sins cited by his wife’s solicitors in a very long letter which also featured his bloody-minded insistence that she was going to have an affair with a man called Brad Winklestein. She’d never met anyone of that name, she’d pleaded over the course of several years, but it had dissuaded him not at all. Eventually there was nothing for it but to file for divorce from Colin, and the man at the solicitors office was helpful and in fact really very charming. A Mr Winklestein, as coincidence would have it. That, Colin had observed, appeared to be another significant problem with second sight.

However, the Winkelstein situation was a mere triviality, when set against the real issue. What his wife hadn’t known was that she was not to be the only person who would marry Colin. Colin had known, of course, for years. He knew exactly what his second wife looked like (she was quite a dish), that they would live happily in a home full of flowers, and have handsome children – he saw it all. What he could not see, however, was how he would ever meet her in his little glass control room, hundreds of feet underground.

CCTV monitors followed Colin’s progress as the escalators wretched him up to ground level, and the ticket barriers spat him out. On CCTV, he was an unremarkable man, with a shiny head. Out in the nondescript grey afternoon, which could just as easily have been a noon or a morning or nearly-time-for-tea, a camera suspended under a supermarket’s eves panned but lost Colin in foot-traffic on the Charing Cross Road; its time-stamp said four. At five-thirty, Colin emerged with unconcealed triumph from a TV-lit branch of William Hill. Second sight, he reminded himself, had its plusses, too.

And now it was six, and the florist had a bouquet ready, just like every other day (excepting Sundays, when she closed early and Colin had to make do with Saturday’s posy). He stowed it carefully in the rucksack alongside his sandwiches and vacuum flask, just as always.

His observation point, on the corner of Glazer Street, gave a great vantage of the Vision Express across the road, and there was some street furniture to offer partial concealment – one of those odd metal cabinets which serve the important municipal duties of giving hoodlums something to kick the doors off, and Starbucks patrons somewhere to pretend to forget their empty cups. He would watch from there until

“Nine p.m.,” the big, bearded Vision Express man had told him, many months ago. “We close at nine. Can I help with anything? An eye test maybe…?”

“No, no,” Colin had said, pushing his glasses up his nose, “It’s just that in my vision you were open. So she must come by before nine.”

“I see…” said the man, who didn’t.

“Sorry. My sight is 20/20. I see too well, if anything,” explained Colin. “These I just wear for the look.”

What he’d seen, he’d seen the first time he’d used Glazer Street for a cut-through home. It had been this tableau: the sightless Evening Standard guy selling papers, holding his white stick and feeling by instinct for change, outside the busy Vision Express as dusk drew around London and commuters swarmed blindly homeward. A perfectly ordinary evening, in other words. But then, seeming somehow to walk in a bubble all her own, had come the most beautiful woman Colin had ever seen: a real vision. Her. And she’d glanced his way, directly at him – she’d seen him – and smiled… and then vanished. Not in the way so many almost-lovers vanish, snatched into crowds, sucked into doorways, or going down instead of up. Not the way individuals vanished into crowds on CCTV. Just vanished. And, stranded alone again in Glazer Street, Colin realised that, she’d been a moment from the future. Someday, his second sight told him, she’d walk past the blind paper vendor, past the store, smile at him… He’d waited patiently in Glazer Street, that night, just in case; he’d asked the guy in the spectacle store about closing times; he’d even bought a bunch of flowers, but when nine o’clock came and the store turned out its lights, and its thousand pairs of glasses were left in darkness, he’d slunk ruefully home.

The flowers needed water, Colin had reflected. In his home, among the belongings left him by Brad Winklestein, he shared the flowers between two pint-glasses of water (his wife had taken all the vases) and wistfully admired the slender stalks, the luscious petals; the blooms like perfectly mascara-d eyes. From their bunch, they watched him. There were so many of them, it seemed. Colin double-took; suddenly, the room was full of flowers, on every surface: dozen upon dozen of little bouquets in pint-mugs, jam-jars, teapots… The room seemed feathered with petals, and sharp with the heady perfume. And then they reduced in number to the original two glasses, alone, watching him.

In his armchair, Colin had smiled to himself: a smile only he could see. So it was going to be a little while before she came, he saw. That was OK. He had time. He took off his watch, and contentedly closed his eyes.

N. Quentin Woolf

lit@nquentinwoolf.co.uk

www.nquentinwoolf.com

Andreas Kapsalis Trio: A New Chicago Outfit.

2009-10-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

The Andreas Kapsalis Trio, whose roots run deep in the city of Chicago, are a hypnotic and mind blowing act, fact. If you have ever watched the award-winning documentary, Black Gold, then you may already be hip to their sound as their collective talents can be heard throughout on the film‘s score. In a city that gave birth to the Smashing Pumpkins, R. Kelly, Twista and Tortoise -to name but a lines worth- the AKT have undoubtedly cemented their reputation as a Chicago musical force to be reckoned with. It’s about time the city’s best kept secret was let out.

Words: Ade Bankole// Image: Ed Oprondek

The Andreas Kapsalis Trio are as down-to-earth as the floor gets and represent everything that is good about the Chicago music scene; Rich, generous and ever-evolving. Formed in 2001/2, they are Andreas Kapsalis (Acoustic Guitar), Jamie Gallagher (Drums, auxiliary percussion) and Darren Garvey (Percussion, accordion, melodica, glockenspiel, ocean harp) and they are best described as an audacious alliance of eight-fingered guitar virtuosity, outstanding melodic themes, and rhythmic variation on percussion. Elements of americana, flamenco, Greek, African, and Arabic music are part of the mix, each receiving equal time.

In 2001, Andreas met Grammy award-winning producer/composer, Jim Tullio through a mutual friend. Not too long after their introduction, Jim expressed interest in producing the first EP, entitled “Bubblegum Enlightenment,” capturing Kapsalis’ original compositions on solo acoustic guitar, layered with percussion and drum tracks. Tullio encouraged Andreas to follow a new direction in arranging music for an untraditional ensemble. Despite Kapsalis’ scepticism, the blueprint was drafted, and he forged ahead to assemble a trio featuring two percussionists who could be inventive enough to help round out the frame of his composition and guitar style.
Jamie jumped on board towards the end of 2001, but Darren who was still in school at the time did not officially join until a year later. When he eventually stepped in to fill the position, he proved to be as unconventional as a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.

The word virtuoso is thrown about these days like confetti, but for Andreas Kapsalis, the word rings true due to him overcoming a severe hand injury that makes his playing style truly unique:
“I had been playing guitar for about seven years before my hand injury. Due to a carving accident, I severed a tendon in my pinky finger on my left hand (fingering hand) in an area referred to as “no man’s land.” I then had surgery to repair the tendon and was bound to a cast for some time. I became frustrated for not knowing the permanent effects of my injury and it was unclear whether or not the surgery would be a success.
“This eventually led to the initial exploration of extended tapping techniques with my only functioning right hand. So in a nutshell, my technique came from a hand injury and a desperate fear of the worst. My evolution as a player began through those months of relearning the guitar, using my picking hand as a fingering hand. The technique is also a major asset for creating and composing as a guitarist to this day.”

Unless you have walked the streets of Chicago, attended live shows and spoken to fellow musos, it is really hard to appreciate how important the music scene here is in the grand scheme of music in the US. Chicago has a home for almost any type of musical genre or style. Many talented musicians go there in order to refine their musical voices. The audiences are supportive and willing to nurture the growing diverse culture, helping to make it a creative Mecca.
Ironically though, the AKT found it difficult to get the project off the ground. Some Chicago venues and talent buyers resisted booking shows because of the group’s unique instrumentation. But if an instrumental, acoustic guitar, drums and percussion trio can build a reputation and find an audience here, then most artists would not find it all that difficult to carve out a niche in Chicago.

On the subject of the Black Gold documentary, Kapsalis explains how that was initially conceived: “I was awarded a composer fellowship grant from the Sundance Institute in the summer of 2005, which ultimately led to the opportunity to score Black Gold. I met the filmmakers during my studies at the Institute. Five months later, the movie went on to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, 2006. This was my initiation into film scoring, and the success of Black Gold brought about several other opportunities for me to compose for film.”

“Original Scores” is the Andreas Kapsalis Trio’s follow-up album to 2004’s self-titled debut, which along with several downloadable covers, are available on the trio‘s webpage including Pink Floyd’s “Money” and Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo A La Turk, the latter moving the iconic pianist so much that he personally wrote to the trio to thank them for their “interpretation” of music that he had only envisioned on piano.

With much acclaim coming from both sides of the industry and the demand for their sound ever-increasing, the secret is finally out and thankfully so.

Andreaskapsalis.com
Myspace.com/aktrio

Pilot Issue (000)

2009-08-05T09:43:00.001-07:00

Finally our water broke, and we can now announce the arrival of bespoke magazine. Musically we bring you the Chicago phenomenon that is the Andreas Kapsalis Trio, while we feature the rising star Kaneng Lolang... Also, we bring you retrospectives on the short-lived reggae band Black Slate, and walk down memory lane with the late, great Polish writer Bruno Schultz. Also on the literature front, we get intimate with Xiaolu Guo. and well as feature short stories from Simona Florio and N. Quentin Woolf. We have an illustration (see top of the Homepage) from Berlin-based Staffan Larsson and Johnny Karlsson. And our 'man-about-art' goes under the cover of the night at this year's Venice Biennale.