I’ve tried writing this piece about the Sound Swarm in Hamburg a half dozen times. It won’t come out. It was too tremendous a labor, should have written in installments.
Summary: the Sound Swarm is a rolling loudspeaker orkestra, a loose choreography of bicycles whose together form a distributed mobile sound system to be used for direct action interventions or just ripping a whole in the fabric of everyday life.
Aggregated into sub-swarms according to our tools: ants with megaphones hats, birds with home-made resonant 5-gallon bucket speaker systems, fish with a collection of 80’s boomboxes, and bees with megaphones mounted on tall crutches. Each of these groups was fed a distinct audio channel via four fm transmitters mounted on the queen bee, a type of chariot built from two tall bikes with a cockpit in the center for the sound controller. The queen is armed with so many batteries, cables, gadgets, and antennas that it looked more lunar landing craft than anything for use on this planet. One of the festival curators called it “something from the next century”. We can only hope she is right, that the art of the future will be made from junk, powered by human sweat, and defy the law.
Being in the cockpit had to qualify as one of my personal favorite “performance” experiences, as we rolled off curbs, over cobblestones, through grass, dodging police, sometimes cowering under a plastic sheet during brief rain showers, while controlling five-channels of sound spread across thirty moving speakers in a chaotic mass of hundreds of bicycles pouring through the dark streets of an unfamiliar city.
Like any worthwhile performance, the police department provides the last act with a siren-lights-as-disco-party crescendo. Have a look at this newspaper piece. Later there will be some video of the performance/action. Until then these stills of the preparation.
I give up on trying to describe this more, just want to say thanks to Kampnagel for being a festival willing to take risks, and to this iteration of the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination for being a team solid enough to realize such an idea.
We all know Nike’s shit reputation, to the point that their swoosh has become something like a symbol for labor exploitation. Nike may be the most aggressive about wage-explotation, but the others follow closely.
I usually end up shod in adidas because their logo is the least offensive. Looks less like a brand than some harmless racing stripes, although mine are about to get improved with some duct tape.
Empire is not some kind of extraterrestrial entity, a worldwide conspiracy of governments, financial networks, technocrats, and multinational coroporations. Empire is everywhere things are working. Everywhere the status quo reigns.
We were born inside the catastrophe and with it we have drawn up a strange and peaceable relation of habitat.
In “traditional societies” isolation was the harshest sentence that could be passed on a member of the community. It is now the common condition.
But what is most striking… is not the arrogance of the empire but the weakness of the counter-attack.
The quotes above are from a book titled The Call, last week I played a benefit for it’s alleged authors. They are often called the “Tarnac Nine” after their home of Tarnac, a quaint village in France’s most remote & least populated region. Flowers line the hamlet’s empty cobblestone streets, in every way it seems the least likely place to start the coming insurrection. But that’s not what the French state thought when they sent 350 paramilitary police on a raid in November of 2008.
They are accused of writing a pair incendiary books (The Call, The Coming Insurrection), and some acts of sabotage. They state’s case is weak, and futher undermined by a sympathetic French public that has seen this raid for exactly what it was: a PR stunt by the Sarkozy regime. Le Monde even gave the defendants a full page editorial to write whatever they like. Imagine for a moment the New York times giving an op-ed page to some accused insurrectionary terrorists. There has been very little media on the Tarnac raid in the anglo press, although this below is a gem-
Maybe it has something to do with revenge?
Remember back when the world’s leaders couldn’t plot in peace, when any meeting of the powerful was marred by the racket of helicopters, exploding tear gas canisters and shouts of the multitude? The vengeance of the state toward this rebellion has arrived, nearly ten years after the high-water mark of our collective resistance. Revenge is a dish best served cold, but it’s more likely that the current global wave of repression is arriving tardy because of the torpid velocity of police investigations, compounded by a lack of evidence, or in many cases even a significant crime.
Maybe I’m too cynical or paranoid. It could be true that the French state is so naive & delusional they they honestly believe that these peeps were on the verge of fomenting a violent revolution.
In any case it’s important to support the accused. Although it’s even more important that others pick up the torch, figuratively and literally. ¡Venga jaleo!
Tunisia is a small nation with a ridiculous amount of tourism, but the impact is small because crackers are penned up in fantasy-island prison complexes called “Zone Touristique”. Big respect to the genius who dreamed up tourist apartheid, the walled compounds, the excursions only under the careful watch of wardens. The only flaw: the financial benefits only line the pockets of a few (see below).
Driving anywhere in rural Tunisia forces you to pass directly through the center of an uncountable number of miserable towns. They are notable only for their consistent lack…. here you will find neither parks nor plazas, there are no shade trees, no space for pedestrians or bikes, the buildings have no thermal mass for moderating the intense heat, and of course there are no solar panels in this sun-baked desert. Reminds me of the bleak prairie states where I grew up, swapping the green of grass for that of Islam.
Each town does have at least one supersize billboard featuring the crooked mug of Mr. Permapresident. Aside from self-aggrandizing propaganda, there is one other thing the state provides in spades: police. The medieval custom of city guards is still in vigor, your first clue of an approaching village is the pair of omnipotent cops, oddly trimmed in white patent-leather, conducting security stops.
Beyond the forgettable towns, deeper into the desert, the landscape swallows humanity’s dull folly. Stunning salt plains, decomposing mountains, views so wide and deep that you can see the curvature of the earth. Palm-shaded oases nourished from tricking creeks, stolen swims in hidden lakes and waterfalls. Homeless camels, sprinting rodents, many birds. You can sleep in a palm hut, in a mud cave, or in a faded colonial hotel, in any case you will likely be the only guest.
Another pleasure is Tunisia’s distance from the straightjacket of wahabism, the current pop sensation from the Saudi crucible. Magic still exists here, or at least low-income people who believe in magic, if the number of Zaouias scattered across the land are any indication. A Zaouia is a sufi mystical sites that mark the tomb of a marabout (saint). Active mysticism means that music, dance (and often trance) survive within their original social context, not as a packaged re-creation.
I don’t usually mention gigs, this will be an exception. Le Fest took place in the desanctified cathedral of Romano-Moorish design at the acropolium of Carthage…. AND it was a perfect audience. Love it when people cheer and whistle while I play, especially when it’s an informed public that can trainspot instruments & rhythms.
This was recently broadcast on various Catalunya tv stations. I avoided seeing it because interviews of self are always godawful embarrassing. This is a rare exception because the producers, Walkie Talkie Films, have crafted it so well.
Look at a map of the world, now put your finger on the place about which you know absolutely nothing, a place you imagine to be perfectly empty of any significance. You are probably pointing at central Siberia. At least in Mongolia you might imagine yurts and yaks, in the ’stans you imagine men with beards fighting in the mud, or for instance the vast interiors of Canada you imagine moose, tar sands, or eskimos. I’m currently in the place least popular in the euro-american imagination. What is here?
Bigness. The scale of everything in Siberia confirms the theory that people, given nearly limitless space, will supersize everything. Restaurants are built to host at least a hundred souls, spoons are so large they barely fit in your mouth, roads wide, sidewalks sometimes even wider. Maybe humans build cultures in proportion to the sky- the more sky we see, the larger we fabricate an environment to rival it?
Sky. Tyumen airport has as many helicopters as airplanes. North of here, in the oil fields, it’s impossible to build or maintain landing strips. Ditto for roads. It is the very definition of isolation, all about bogs and forest, mostly birch mixed with thin coniferous trees. When not frozen solid it’s a paradise for insects: ticks that carry lime disease, fat mosquitos with dangling legs, furious ants and many varieties of spiders. I imagine there were once bear, but between sport and the chinese gall-bladder market, you don’t see any bear or other wild mammals. Sad to observe that, even here, humans have crowded out the rest of the species.
There are semi-abandoned wooden villages an hour from the city. “Semi” because while we explored a derelict grain factory an angry man chased us us off. The houses in these villages are made of logs, over their lifetimes (hundreds of years) the log houses have developed a slant following the direction of prevailing winds, looking a little bit like those model houses featured in the famous nuclear blast tests, frozen in that brief moment before they totally disintegrate.
Cold place/Cold war. I kept my mouth shut when the angry old man arrived. He lived his whole life struggling to meet wheat quotas for the motherland, sent his sons to fight in cold war battles against the proxy armies of the Yankee imperialists. Later his country “loses” to the west, embraces crony capitalism, and leaves him without any retirement or social security to live his old age like a feudal peasant. Then, adding insult to injury, some obnoxious american dj comes to this remote corner of the world to trespass in his grain silo.
May 9 in Russia is the big national holiday, ostensibly WWII victory day, nowadays a general excuse to be proud to be Russian. There is much goose-stepping of soldiers and waving of flags. Even Stalin get’s a comeback on this day. Despite his pact with Hitler, the gulags, and fast-tracking the USSR from revolutionary to authoritarian, people still fancy parading with his photo.
Gulags. The Long Walk is a worthwhile read, it rivals Shackleton’s tale as the ultimate “indomitable will of humanity” story. It concerns the escape of three prisoners from a Stalinist work camp as they walk across siberia, the gobi desert, and the himalayas to arrive in India.
Thinking about their travel makes me feel sheepish sitting here on the Trans-Siberian train, a mere 40 hour journey to Moscow in a comfy compartment, with two stern women guarding the wagon, tea service, and a power outlet. As a mild form of punishment I do have to share this compartment with a boyish professional boxer who insists on showing me pixelated fotos on his mobile phone of every girl he’s ever fucked, plus videos of them clubbing or hanging out on Thai beaches. You would think this could only last a few minutes, but in Siberia everything is so goddamn massive that the unwanted multimedia show has lasted most of the afternoon.
Domodedovo airport, Moscow, is kept secure by thin security guards topped by comically oversized military hats that cast shadows beyond their shoulders. The women guards wear improbable miniskirts complemented by thigh-high black leather boots with stiletto heals. There is a camouflaged soldier in one corner of the hall with a sagging belly & an equally sagging face. He protects the display of a luxury car that he will never be able to afford. There is a girl in the line with an exaggerated lolita look, sporting braids and denim shorts cut-off so high that you notice more camel-toe than fabric. There are many broad-faced people from central asia with smiles of golden teeth. The hustlers of unofficial taxis have the puffy faces of chronic inebriates. The airport terminal itself is futuristic glass tube; it is both still under construction and already falling apart, bare wires hang and tiles are missing. My mobile phone displays the network name in cyrillic, it could say anything, since I can’t pronounce it. Same with all advertisements, it’s all striving to sell something, but it’s not clear exactly what. Outside there are random gashes in the ground, as if they couldn’t figure out where to put the parking lots and tried a few different spots. A copse of trees survived the development. Airport employees have created an improvised park here with furniture made from stumps. Lovers kiss in a warm spring breeze heavy with diesel fumes. Insects and ants are swarming with the energy of creatures that have waited patiently through the frozen months. Although it is 9pm the sun is high in the sky.
The memo arrived late to my desk: Sevilla is beautiful, the center a tangle of pedestrian streets trimmed in mosaic, interrupted by plazas shaded by ancient trees or the odd Moorish palace. But like anything pretty, it’s suffocated under the gaze of it’s admirers. The Zemos98 festival that invited me was exceptional: it’s rare when festival organizers are radical AND well-funded.
The following night I played in the Casa Invisible of Málaga, one of the finest squats you could imagine. Finer than that. It’s a decrepit urban palace with it’s own lush patio garden. Architecture aside, the ambitious projects they mount socially engaged projects with a detail for arts & aesthetics. Ironic since Málaga is the epicenter of the Costa del Sol, the world’s worst example of mafia-style rightist policies that have bloomed a million concrete tourist bunkers, permanently destroying Spain’s southern coast. Foto: host Carlos in the vestibule of la Casa Invisible.
No visit to Andalucía is possible without a detour to visit cave-dwelling friends in Granada. People so superlative that we should wonder if leaving caves was really a smart move for humanity. Big perk: my host Carolina works at Eshavira, a tiny watering hole and humble venue for many local gitano musicians. Video: sunday nights performance, her name is Ana Cali.
The journey ended with a stomach-churning road up to the Alpujarras. Some 300 tiny white-washed villages scattered through the arid Sierra mountains separating the plains from the Straight of Gibraltar. They were founded by fleeing muslims pushed out of Granada during the final sweep of the reconquista. Many of the pueblos didn’t have road access until the last few years, which made them a useful hiding place for guerillas fighting the fascist armies of Franco. Nowadays they are full of the kind of people who are willing to trade many of the conveniences of modern life for a healthier ecosystem and lots of personal freedom. That’d be your usual collection of hippies, luddite rednecks, weed farmers, and foreign dropout artists. Foto: iron-rich stream, Pórtugos, Alpujarras.
Extra dirty! Extra bomb! Extra short fuse! Extra long flavor? New EP of remixes from Dirty Bomb now a la venta. Eight lovely tracks that shit on geography & genre, drenched in the sweat of Jahcoozi, Cardopusher, Ill Gates, Maga Bo, Electromeca, phowa, & Deep Throat X. Frequency is the lowest common denominator- put stress your subwoofer: get it right this very second via download, iTunes, or on 12″ vinyl.
Since this is a “personal” blog I’m obligated to tell stories while trying to sell you something…
A1. Opium Den (Jahcoozi remixes Desordenador)- Deservedly loved and respected Berlin heroes that somehow make ecstatic pounding bass music that speaks about serious themes like gentrification & the vacuity of hipsterism. We played together in Marseille once, they were wonderful.
A2. Discontinuities (Cardopusher remixes Singularities)- Just walking down the street in Caracas is an act of will. Doing so with dreadlocks down to your ass is asking for serious trouble, and trying to introduce audiences to music like breakcore & dubstep in such a context demonstrates a rare fortitude of character. Cardo lives in Barcelona now, he’s a neighbor.
A3. Hungry Ghosts (phowa remix) feat. Wire MC- I met the Jeremiah aka phowa at dawn in a crowd of sleep-deprived ravers at a music festival in the Canadian forest. He told me that he’d be coming to Barcelona. Everyone says that, but he actually showed up. Later in Vancouver he organized one of the most enjoyable gigs of the 2009 tour, at a derelict movie theater, followed by an afterparty so packed that it was drizzling inside from the sweat condensed on the ceiling.
A4. Desordenador (live version feat. cellist Amélie Bouard)- The day before I was due to fly to Reunion Island from Lyon, France, my accompanying VJ cancelled. The ticket permitted passenger name changes, with less than 24 hours notice we somehow found & confirmed cellist Amélie as a substitute invited artist. She heard my songs for the first time with headphones during the 12 hour flight to the Indian Ocean. Now we are a regular team.
B1. Pharma Sutra (Ill Gates remixes Fitnah) *only on the vinyl- Deeply lucky to have met this other Mr. Gates, a digital jack of all trades- producer, vj, and educator who is not afraid to get political. His contribution was too good to wait for this delayed release, we let it out digitally earlier on compilation, where it topped Beatport’s charts.
B2. Con Las Manos en la Masa (Deep Throat X remix) feat. Malena D’Alessio- They came up to me during a wild semi-legal street party in Tokyo with a CDR and saying, with polite smiling and bows, “japanese ghetto sounds,” later i saw them on stage rocking old school drum machines while wearing balaclavas. They are associated with the expanding situationist/anarchist scene there.
B3. Batalha Cotidiana (Maga Bo remixes B’talla) feat. Rabah- Maga Bo is my closest colleague & fellow bootstrap nomadic producer. Without each other we probably would have long ago given up on the precarious and often degrading attempt to survive via music. He spends half his year moving around (mostly africa), the other half in a cinderblock hut on the roof of a residential skyscraper in Rio de Janeiro.
B4. No Lock No Key (Electromeca remix) feat. DJ Collage- On tour in australia in 2007 I was gifted a few gigs of breakcore and found Electromeca’s work. It’s next-level grit, in his own words: “hectic B-Boys break-dancing in a puddle of motor oil, The Bomb Squad meets Russolo in a Z-movie disco-club, FM-radio harsh beats, dismantled stuttering beat-box, muddy boom-bap”
