The Pleasures of the 'Text(e)

                        

Owen Hatherley remembers the petite 'n' portable pocket-size "Foreign Agents" series of books published by Semiotext(e) - a format that was the little black dress of critical theory. Wistfully recalling a time when all things semiotic and (post-)structural were sexy, Owen traces how these contraband-seeming catalysts to delirious pretentiousness exerted an unlikely influence on certain elements within the UK music press. Which carried through to the blog wave of the 2000s and thence to Zero and its breakaway Repeater (now reunited, hoorah), also in the business of compact paperbacks packed with ideas. 

The piece is a Tribune tribute to the late Sylvère Lotringer, obviously - and the music connection / music-crit reception makes a certain sort of sense given that he moved in the orbit of NYC punk and No Wave.

Porto Pop

 I'm off to Porto in Portugal for a festival in celebration of music writing, Porto Pop, where I'll be performing alongside compatriots John Robb, Vivien Goldman, Don Letts and Martin Aston.

My talk is on Sunday evening November 28 and it's titled "A Fast and Partial History of Pop Writing" 

More information about the festival line-up, location and event times here. 

 And another Kieran P-R piece - this time on the inventor of (no really) dariacore, an 18-year-old called Zeke who records under the aliases dltzk and leroy. 

"Hit play on a dariacore track, and within two minutes you might hear PinkPantheress; a squeaky-bed sound effect; the YouTuber Fred Figglehorn hollering, "Hey, it's Fred!"; a dolphin squealing; Vanessa Carlton making her way downtown; police sirens; and Yeat rapping, "She eat me up like it's Benibachi." The basic template is a breathless mishmash of recognizable songs pitch-shifted and layered over each other."

So mash-ups, even more mashed?