Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture - Friday 17th January - Goldsmiths, London

Next Friday I will be in London to deliver the third annual Mark Fisher Memorial Lecture at Goldsmiths.

It's at 6 pm at the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre - and it's free, open to the public, with no booking required.

If you can't make it down, there's a livestream https://www.gold.ac.uk/live-stream/

Here's a foretaste:

Bridging the Chasm: the Promise of Music

In this third annual Mark Fisher memorial lecture, Simon Reynolds looks at the centrality of music – specifically popular music - in the K-punk vision. Talking about the formative postpunk era that lastingly shaped his outlook and his expectations for pop, Fisher once declared: “Music wasn’t only about music.” Through the prism of Fisher’s thinking as it evolved over two decades, Reynolds explores changing ideas about the relationship between pop and politics: the power that music has held out for successive generations, and the challenge of activating music’s promise in the world beyond.


Later that night there is a post-lecture party at Goldsmiths Student Union, with bands and DJs - including Mark Leckey playing some tunes. Full line-up and event info at Xenogothic.

                                    

the aural trawl recalled

Last year's aural trawl produced a meagre haul of bliss, but here, by popular request, are my faves of 2019 (+ one non-fave )

snacks

Billie Eilish,  “Bad Guy”
Billie Eilish, “Bury A Friend”
Dababy, “Suge (Yea Yea)”
Saweetie, "My Type"
Burna Boy feat. Future, "Show & Tell"
Holly Herndon, "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt"
Thaiboy Digital feat. Ecco2K, "Baby"
Tame Impala, "It Might Be Time"
Offset, "Tats On My Face"
Selena Gomez, "Lose You To Love Me"


meals 

Baron Mordant, Mark of the Mould
Vanishing Twin, The Age of Immunology
The Caretaker, Everywhere At The End of Time
Moon Wiring Club, Cavity Slabs
Ana Roxanne,  ~~~
Solange, When I Get Home
Meitei, Komachi


frozen dinners

Various, Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental & New Age Music 1980-1990
Ernest Hood,  Neighborhoods
Various, All the Young Droogs: 60 Juvenile Delinquent Wrecks, Rock’N’Glam (And a Flavour of Bubblegum)
Insides, Euphoria
Moon Wiring Club, Somewhere A Fox Is Getting Married (Vulpine Remix)
Gong, Love From the Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973-75


^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If frozen dinners and fresh-made meals were lumped together, Kankyō Ongaku and Neighborhoods would be equal-place  #1.

The miserly number of meals is no surprise really, as the lack of appetite on my part in recent years for Masterpieces this year verged nearer and nearer outright aversion - and Masterpieces seem to be preponderantly what's on the menu these days.

What is surprising and disheartening is the paucity of bite-size bliss. The radio has been my friend all decade but the things that brought delight in recent years - trap / AutoTune rap'n'B / mumble, mainly - seemed to run dry in 2019. Or perhaps I just overdosed on that sound.

Apart from Billie, hardly anything on Top 40 jumped out at me (Billie jumped out by not jumping out, as I noted here).

Some of the tracks above are like dwindling pleasure-dribbles eked out from a sound-paradigm that's run its course...  or a tendency reaching a kind of baroque finale (e.g. the ultra-precious vowel-broke braided-breath style of singing, with "Lose You To Love Me").

Talking of the Zone of Fruitless Intensification

Nearly forgot - the Unfave!

Vampire Weekend, Father of the Bride

After several attempts that only got a little way in before I had to bail, finally, during a long journey, I made another kind of lengthy arduous trek: listening to the entirety of the fourth Vampire album. Eucch - everything that was enjoyably precious and dainty in the first two albums has now definitively become prissy and over-ornamented. What is the sound Koenig & kru are aiming for here - Lindsey Buckingham '80s solo album meets Dave Matthews Band with a bit of Wilco thrown in? And did I mention that it's long? The debut (which still sounds so fleet and fresh) clocked in at under 35 minutes, a canny return to the manageable proportions of the classic LP; Contra was similarly short n' sweet and left you wanting more.  But FotB, in its middle-aged spread, leaves you wanting less. Or in my case, wanting none.