im reading Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami right now. normally i have a tough time getting into fiction these days but i enjoyed his book Kafka on the Shore a few years ago so im giving this one a go. im halfway through and its got lots of the same dreamy, surreal vibes as Kafka. its a little goofier too which im okay with. enjoying it so far!
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All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
I read The Road, and saw the movie. Tough subject matter but so well done. I also saw No Country for Old Men. One of my top 5 movies of all time. Have the book too but haven’t read it yet. So, I thought I’d give All the Pretty Horses a shot. It was great - no surprise there. He’s a fantastic writer.
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just started reading H.P. Lovecraft Ctulu mythology as he is the godfather of modern horror and fantasy in many ways. Stephen King was heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft!
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I like to read At the Mountains of Madness from time to time in the middle of winter.
Always a delight even after many rereads.
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Restarting the empire trilogy by JG Farrell. Read them in college about 20 years ago. About finished with Troubles, which seems to be the most admired one, although I didn’t love it then or now. I remember loving the second volume, The Siege of Krishnapur, so hoping that one holds up for me. The last one, The Singapore Grip, I have no memory of and is quite enormous.
Got on this kick from reading The Deluge by Adam Tooze, about the interwar period and how American finance reshaped the world order after WWI. Phenomenal read for those interested in history and economics.
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yup just started the Ctulu series very clever and brilliant style of describing dark, dank and smelly environments and induce fear! I want to read Clive Barker Books of Blood next. I think HP Lovecraft, Clive Barker and Stephen King are masters of horror stuff. Funny because so many died young as authors and King looks like a very creepy dude!
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Why? I dunno, I’m not really an “ambient” guy so it took me a while to start after getting it on a whim, but I think it’s a lot more than that. Also wanted to keep reading about music related topics and try to get some respite from the absolute mess happening in the world, but even though he was writing in the mid-90s Toop had some pretty prescient things to say about the internet and where it would. But actually helped highlight the good as well as the bad, so there’s that. Some really insightful stuff for anyone doing on any kind of music imho. There’s an accompanying compilation but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
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Just finished this one about how technology has been weaponised by certain actors, really interesting but also a bit depressing:
And just started this one, I gave up on book three of the Southern Reach Trilogy but really enjoyed the first two and also Hummingbird Salamander - hoping ti gets its hooks into my brain:
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I just finished to read it as well. I didn’t know what to expect.
There is a lot of reference I do not have (artists, track etc…).
Some chapter were pleasant, other didn’t really interest me and I never really got what each chapter was about - lots of personnal experience he did.
All in all I wasn’t convinced and I didn’t take much out of it. Might be a different read with a more solide music background.
Edit: while reading I found a couple of playlist of the mention tracks in the book on Spotify.
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I just finished another read through of Lovecraft from Call of Cthulhu to the end, and there’s a hell of a lot to enjoy. The Colour Out of Space, Whisperer in Darkness, Shadow Out of Time, Dunwich Horror, so much good stuff.
I’m currently reading Arthur Machen’s Three Imposters, which is enjoyable so far. Definitely influences by Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights as well as the translations of 1001 Nights that were doing the rounds at the time of writing.
Also rereading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which remains one of my favourite history books.
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oh nice! Yeah it is good reading. So much was influenced by Lovecraft. I do want to read many things later by Alexandre Dumas and the Discworld series.
None
Because I make music instead
(I do enjoy reading, though, but I enjoy making music even more)
(sorry for this totally useless post)
Sweet, thanks a lot.
Yeah, I guess it also helps that I’ve been thinking a lot about music as/and meditation recently, and it’s kinda unexpectedly landing pretty squarely in the same space.
I like the gonzo/stream of consciousness aspect - lots of funny details about the UK squat/crusty ambient scene - but mainly joins the dots between a lot of things I’m into like folk musics, John Lee Hooker, Adrian Sherwood, dub, Coltrane, Arthur Russell, Walter Gibbons, My Bloody Valentine, Kraftwerk, Aphex, David Lynch, Detroit techno, Sakamoto, Larry Heard, Marshall Jefferson and many others, as well as stuff I’m less familiar with like Debussy and Satie. “Ambient” in a very broad sense. And in the context of the emergence of the internet as a conduit for global culture - easy to forget that side of things now with all the snooping propaganda mills, definitely something we need to bring back. Anyway, I guess if I wasn’t so well primed for this it probably wouldn’t be hitting so hard, but for me it’s one of those right book, right time situations.
Also a lot of Eno, and whatever else you say about the guy he’s a living breating quote machine:
“It’s faith music”, Brian Eno says. “If you believe in it, l’m sure it will work. I can switch between minds. I can say, ’ believe and I like them’ and I can say, ‘No I don’t, they’re just unconnected rubbish, it’s just guys jamming and not really knowing what they’re doing’”
(Re free jazz, but really it could be about a lot of things)
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I’m about halfway through Recursion by Blake Crouch. Very interesting take on the human mind and time travel. Really enjoying so far and can’t wait to see how it ends.
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This is a pretty wide-ranging oral history of different German musicians who came together in the ‘60s. Quotes from the musicians tell the story without any additional info offered by the author, which is occasionally confusing but very immediate.
I learned more about the lives of artists I already liked (Klause Schultze, Tangerine Dream), remembered to revisit others (Popul Vuh), and started appreciating music I hadn’t (Can, now listening to TAGO MAGO and EGE BAMYASI).
There’s something both inspiring and a little sad about hearing how freely a lot of the players lived in those days, as young adults. There were some negative experiences (e.g., people who reacted badly to psychedelics) but a whole lot of growth and good music that came out of the way the people in the book lived day to day. I’m not sure I can imagine living that free of fear of consequences now, but I’m glad they did.
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i think im going to start Giovannis Room soon. one of my friends gifted me the book and ive been meaning to read it, so.
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Discovered this one coming out in a few weeks - What Art Does. Like many I’ve always liked Eno’s ideas, and people come at him from a lot of different angles. Mostly musical, but he was always an inspiration in the multimedia space to me also.
I particularly liked his diary published from the nineties (it has a reprint now at Faber and Faber, too) - one of my favourite quips of his was that screen savers were the most interesting thing that had yet come out of computers lol.
Anyway, looking forward to the new book when it releases, likely will track down the reprinted diary also. There’s also a video below where he explains what the new book is about.
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Just finished a couple of fabulous books by the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse
Septology III-VII [Septologien]
and
A Shining [Kvitleik]
The style of writing is so minimalistic and unique it makes me immerse completely and at the same time calms me down. Sheer beauty.
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