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October 31, 2003
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RECENT READING
Aurora Fernandez Per: The Public Chance: New Urban Landscapes (Spanish Edition)
Absolutely wonderful compendium of urban design and architecture projects worldwide. (I have the English edition rather than the Spanish this link points at.) (*****)- John Birmingham: Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney
A fantastic read. Thoroughly subjective, impassioned, personal and slanderous. Well researched and hefty, but written with a light touch, it takes apart the Emerald City, revealing it to be both impossibly dark and essentially conservative. Along with The Fatal Shore and a few others, essential reading in terms of understanding the city. (*****) Gary Hume: Toyo Ito: Sendai Mediatheque
As with the Seattle Public Library book in this series from Actar, I've been poring over this over the last year, pulling details and insight into recent work. A good resource, well-produced. (*****)Office for Metropolitan Architecture: Seattle Public Library
Decent overview from the Actar series. I've been using this heavily, along with the Sendai Mediatheque title, in work over the last year. (*****)- Christos Tsiolkas: The Slap
Clever yet eminently readable novel of modern Melbourne manners. Written with the devilishly compelling page-turnability of a good grown-up soap opera, it's also a smartly structured and beautifully nuanced depiction of contemporary Australian urban:suburban society, warts and all. (*****) - Steven Carroll: The Art of the Engine Driver
Lovely evocation of late-'50s Melbourne suburb, and of the railways just before the heart was ripped out of them. Not just a warm nostalgic costume drama, but with rich atmosphere and complex themes rippling beneath the surface. (****) Geoff Dyer: Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi: A Novel
Hugely enjoyable, as ever. One of the finest British writers around. Not autobiography, but autobiography. Fiction, and non-fiction. Travel writing, and not travel writing. Hilarious and occasionally moving, learned and light, warm and bad-tempered, revelling in facile reactions and almost immeasurably deep. A mess of contradictions that establishes a coherent world-view. Which is a contradiction in itself, of course. Beautifully turned prose too, apparently effortless but almost certainly not. (*****)William H. Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
Amazingly, I'd never read this in linear fashion, from cover to cover, until recently. Quite brilliant, clearly, and written so well. With humility and grace, wit and candour, insight and experience. Although focused primarily on New York of the '70s, it's still essential. (*****)- David Malouf: 12 Edmonstone Street
Wondrous writing on memory and place in this famous set of short vignettes by Malouf. (*****) - Robert Freestone: Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful, 1900-1930
Not quite as advertised, and solely focusing on seeing the cities through the 'city beautiful' idea, but a good history. The writing could do with a bit more pep, but an extremely useful reference book on a subject that warrants further exploration. (****) David Peace: GB84
Not sure why it's taken me so long to read this, as I'm a big fan of David Peace's writing and this book is set in and around the early-80s Sheffield of my youth. But it was well worth the wait. Peace fictionalises the miners' strike, and the extraordinary events of 1983-85 as Britain teetered on the edge of large scale civil unrest. But it's only just fiction, no matter how brutal it seems. A brilliant evocation of the time, and a social fabric stretched taut to breaking point. (*****)R. Klanten: Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design
Pretty thorough compendium of examples. (*****)J. G. Ballard: Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography
Hugely enjoyable read. His life is incredible and humdrum all at once, which explains a fair bit of his writing. You feel there's a lot more he could tell, but his books have rarely outstayed their welcome. (*****)Cormac Mccarthy: The Road
I don't recall being quite so affected by a book before. Absolutely extraordinary, particularly if you read within one day. It left me speechless, shattered and reflective. (*****)Julianne Schultz (Editor): Griffith REVIEW 21: Hidden Queensland (Griffith Review)
Very good issue. Although it pores over the same old ground again and again from numerous angles, it ultimately reveals a fascinating, multiperspectival portrait of a place. Beneath its becalmed, languid easy-going surface, QLD has the scars of an extraordinarily rich half-century of history; a set of stories and characters well drawn out here. (****)Conny Freyer: Digital by Design: Crafting Technology for Products and Environments
Excellent overview by Troika. Some lovely projects - although many seen before, a few I hadn't - and decent essays. A useful marker of what is now a discrete area of work/play. (*****)Frank Duffy: Work and the City (Edge Futures Ser.)
Excellent summary of issues around working environments by DEGW's Duffy - from numerous angles, taking in history and future. Very useful read, even if you sense there's much more to come here. (*****)Arjen Van Susteren: Metropolitan World Atlas
Beautifully designed reference book on urban form and behaviour, from the exceptional publishers 010. (*****)Models: 306090 11 (306090)
Fantastic collection edited by Eric Ellingsen, covering all aspects of models as pertaining to designing the built environment. Digital and analogue in all modes, and philosophical and aesthetic considerations besides. (*****)Andrew Stafford: Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden
Brilliant history of Brisbane, through its darkest years, as told through its popular music scene from the mid-70s on. (*****)
Recent Listening
Monoliths and Dimensions
Sunn 0))): Monoliths and Dimensions
Ye Gods, the most startlingly beautiful thing I've heard for a long time. Absolutely stunning. They say: "the most musical piece we’ve done, and also the heaviest, powerful and most abstract set of chords we’ve laid to tape"." Features Eyvind Kang, Julian Priester (!), frequent collaborator Oren Ambarchi and a Viennese choir. (*****)SND: Atavism
Brutal in its starkness, these ultra-precise, ultra-sparse clipped rhythms are the polar opposite of Sunn O))). (*****)Jon Hassell: Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street
(*****)Inland
Mark Templeton: Inland
(*****)Glass: Music in Twelve Parts
Philip Glass: Glass: Music in Twelve Parts
(*****)Filastine: Dirty Bomb
Not every track works here but those that do are fantastic. A rich stew of jump-cut rhythms and Hispanic samples, framed by an architecture of R&B. (****)Pan-American: White Bird Release
Typically seductive delicate ambient wonder. (*****)Various Artists: Pop Ambient 2009
A few quite lovely tracks on here, generally those featuring the brilliant Klimek. Others are pretty enough but a little insubstantial. (****)Flying Lotus: Los Angeles
Beautiful fractured rhythms and smeared fizzing neon samples. Wondrous piece of work. LA, indeed. (*****)Antony and the Johnsons: The Crying Light
Luminous, shimmering, iridescent. Seriously, quite lovely. Only a couple of off-notes; otherwise, a major progression. (*****)Balla et Ses Balladins: The Syliphone Years
Wonderful Guinean dance music troupe from the early-60s, recording on the state-owned Syliphone label. Sparkling guitar lines in particular. (*****)Principle of Intrusive Relationships
São Paulo Underground: Principle of Intrusive Relationships
Electric-Miles-ian stew, a meaty feijoada, stirred with bubbling rhythms. (*****)1897
Seaworthy: 1897
Recorded inside the Newington Armory heritage-listed arms depot in Sydney (built in 1897), and so redolent of cavernous reverberating chambers, this is full of lovely drones and fragments of picked guitar. Rather good. (****)Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Bill Callahan: Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
Lovely album from post-Smog Callahan (his own Clean Air Act?). The imagery is often bizarre yet tender, and his instantly recognisable voice and guitar now hoisted up a meatier production, and best of all, strings. (*****)Coward
Nels Cline: Coward
Fabulous new solo album from 'Patsy'. Hanging around Wilco has informed things a little here, but elsewhere you can hear the influence Ralph Towner, Thurston Moore, Derek Bailey, Fennesz, Rod Poole, Bill Frisell etc etc. But it's Cline, above all, and he's certainly eased himself into that august company now. (*****)Dance Mother
Telepathe: Dance Mother
Very saucy NYC art-pop. TV On The Radio-influenced (and indeed aided and abetted by TVOTR) but fresher, sharper. Beyond the studied hipness there's substance here too. [via Jace] (****)Le Journaliste
Anne-James Chaton & Andy Moor: Le Journaliste
Best record I've heard in ages. Impenetrable torrents of raw French over Moor's brutal guitar-led soundtracks. I heard this on DJ Rupture's show and was immediately intrigued. You will be too. (*****)Un Dia
Juana Molina: Un Dia
Fabulous of course. (*****)Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues op. 87 / Jarrett
Dmitri Shostakovich: Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues op. 87 / Jarrett
Anthony R reckons Jarrett's playing is better suited to Shostakovich than Bach. I wouldn't know but I'm very much enjoyed these at the moment. (*****)
