Some Brighter Stars

I was recently asked to provide imagery for a Projekt Records double CD re-issue of Berkeley-based ambient composer Forrest Fang’s early works, Migration and Wolf at the Ruins. I’ve done several CD covers for Forrest and Project in recent years but the deadline for this one came up fast in early May. I found a handful of thematically fitting images and during the initial search, I came across this one, which I was inspired to push further in processing, applying a heavy blur with the intent of blending it with another image. Then I recognized that it was strong enough by itself. It has the vague feel of a starry sky mapped out on a grid. So it was left. We went with another, much warmer and more organic image.

After everything was sent to the pressing plant I got an e-mail from Forrest asking if I had anything else, this time for a re-issue of his very first LP, Some Brighter Stars. Yes, actually, now that you mention it! I’ll say nothing about the actual subject of the photo other than to mention that it involved a classic Modernist building from the 1950s. Sometimes the stars align themselves.

Dead Lake Scroll

Mysterious Scroll Fragment Discovered

If you’re like me, you’re the kind of person who turns to the Discovery, History and National Geographic channels to see some, well, discovery, history and something befitting the nature of a National Geographic we perhaps mistakenly recall as once being something better than its TV incarnation. But silly us. These channels are now home to programs like “Hillbilly Handfishin’”, “Sons of Guns”, “Amish Mafia” and other assorted reality-ish programs designed for people wearing glossy track pants, sipping on a Bud on the porch of their trailer home.

So why not just invent your own great “Discovery” program? Dispense with reality altogether. Most people do, if only to keep their sanity. I thought of this while recently driving through the Grand Coulee area of Washington State where an ancient ice dam break caused massive torrents of water to carve the landscape in several fell swoops. The archeologist who theorized this scenario in the early part of the 20th century (but who was poo-pooed by his peers until the landsat images from the 70s proved him right) may well have been a guest on one of the aforementioned channels had they not morphed into…whatever it is they are now.

So herewith, an image that set the archeological world abuzz within the last few weeks: proof of a newly discovered scroll fragment found along the banks of…Banks Lake, a highly-managed, largely sterile body of water whose secrets are only now coming to light. Early indications are that this fascinating discovery will shed some light on area inhabitants’ diets, entertainment preferences….and where you can get your 4×4′s wheel rims polished.

After Desire

This be the final version featuring “Plink” by Mina Totino.

This was created using a self-portrait in the flaking, glossy tiles on the side of a mid-20th century building on Broadway in Vancouver, one of less than a handful remaining.

Book cover time again. Here is another project for New Star Books, a book of poems by George Stanley whose last epic, Vancouver: A Poem was widely lauded in literary circles. If you know it, you’ll recall its cover featured a detail of a Roy Arden photograph that depicts a lone figure walking along Cordova Street outside the Woodward’s building before its demise.

The new book is also concerned with Vancouver…to an extent. Initially I honed in on one of the central poems rich in references to Broadway, a long, commercial artery in Vancouver that traverses east/west and has rarely shown any promise of cohesion or the ability to host much in the way of a neighbourhood feel along its many stops. But both George and I live in the same area where the street is the main thoroughfare and I recognize many of the places in his poems. The image in the first draft came from a spontaneous trip down to the medical district approaching the intersection with Cambie where the most radical transformation of Broadway is taking place. I like that it evokes a fading past while using a human form in a pose which (to me, at least) poses some questions about aging and refection.

But then. Rolf at New Star steered me to what he felt was the core sentiment of the collection reflected in the statement: “Don’t gaze into the abyss. Gaze out.” And so an altogether brighter, but no less mysterious, feel was sought. That’s where Mina Totino’s painting “Plink” comes in. And so it was. After Desire. Plink!

Chance Encounters

Ben Ashton at The Irish Heather, Gastown, 2013

Fiona Garden outside The Irish Heather, Gastown, February 2013

Sometimes life is pleasant and simple. One day a Facebook friend you’ve never met before comes into town, you meet up for a drink and the next thing you know, the iPhones come out and you’ve got a couple of nice portraits of a nice couple. In this instance; Vancouver-raised and now London-based photographer Fiona Garden and her fully English (in all the best ways!) artist husband Ben Ashton.

http://www.fionagarden.com

http://benashton.wordpress.com/tag/ben-ashton/

Easy Way. Hard Way.

Cover of EVENT, Spring, 2013

Ah, Hawai’i. So much to answer for. Something struck me as just right about this when I came across it on a trek up to the top of Diamond Head on the island of Oahu, Hawai’i. The hard, simple reality is that this improvised, unofficial sign served to give hikers an option of turning left for a gradual, view hike in the open air or turning right to face a vertical set of concrete stairs that led to a lengthy cramped tunnel. In either case you ended up at the same place; a crowded former military observation post overlooking that most beige of tropical cities; Honolulu.

After seeing a performance of the Electric Company’s “Initiation Trilogy” in December, I was completely smitten by the third piece, an adaptation of the work of Elizabeth Bachinsky. After getting in touch to compare notes on the possibility of somehow collaborating in future, she asked about images for use on the cover of EVENT. This made the grade for us both, very quickly. We hope it’s both funny and cryptic at the same time.

The issue will be on newsstands soon. So get out and support BC writing!

Bandit of Stature

Harold Budd, Seattle, 2007

Some retirements are more fruitful than others. So it is with composer Harold Budd. After the better part of a half century of music-making with the likes of Brian Eno, The Cocteau Twins, Daniel Lentz, Fila Brazillia et al, Harold, having had a son very “late in the day”, decided to pack it in. Devotees of his irreplaceable expressions of impossibly beautiful music were crestfallen.

In 1980, while fully immersed in the post-punk world of Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Eyeless in Gaza etc. I often found myself in a special, quiet clearing made possible by Eno’s peripheral “ambient” projects, one of which, “Plateaux of Mirror: Ambient 2″ with Harold Budd, took hold of my imagination and launched a lifelong interest in Budd’s achingly serene, crepuscular music.

While his music has proven to be as eternal as our technologies will allow, the same can’t be said of his early master tapes…or of any of us, really. So a sigh of relief was heard when his “retirement” proved short-lived. In the last few years he has embarked on a seemingly endless schedule of recordings, collaborations and publications with Robin Guthrie, Clive Wright, Keith Lowe et al. His latest CD, a suite of string quartets, has just come out on Darla records. It’s called “Bandits of Stature”.

This photo was taken prior to a splendid gig in a converted church in Seattle with Robin Guthrie as part of the 2007 Decibel Festival. We went for dinner afterwards and discussed rare books and the application of the word palimpsest to the state of his master tapes. This wasn’t a bad thing but an acknowledgement and re-framing of the endless process of layering and composting that our efforts to create in this life are randomly subjected to. The next day Robin told me the same thing was happening to the Cocteau’s early masters.

When Harold is finally gone I will remember his sense of humour, quick wit and his response to an overly earnest piano technician’s query over the precise tuning of the piano for the evening’s concert; “Why should I care?”

“Hearing Protection Required Beyond This Point”

Main front turret gun sight on the USS Missouri. Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i.

The BBC recently published an article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20400030
on the sounds of war, on the effects on people of hearing sirens, missiles, explosions and so forth during wartime. The latest tit-for-tat display of mutual terrorism being conducted in Gaza was used as a starting point. Audio samples of sirens, explosions etc. are provided. In one you can hear the ocean, then the shipborne Israeli guns releasing volleys landwards, thudding with enormous concussive effect.

The earliest sample they have is a recording of something my mum always told me about experiencing growing up in England during the Blitz; the sound – then silence – of the “Doodlebugs” over London. It was the sound of a very distinct, German-engineered engine that propelled a crude rocket towards civilian areas and just…stopped. And dropped. Silence – then as now – marking an interval between anxiety and sudden panic.

I recently took a tour of the “Last Great Battleship”, the USS Missouri which is moored in Pearl Harbor, bow to bow with the sunken, oil-burping remains of the USS Arizona and her crew. For Americans, these two ships in proximity represent both the beginning and the end of World War 2. The Arizona was sunk on December 7th, 1941, ensuring the US entered the war. The Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay, on September 2nd, 1945, was the site of the formal declaration of surrender by the Japanese.

It was odd to overhear tour guides going on about powder charges, projectile size and range in precisely measured detail and with child-like enthusiasm. Tourists seemed genuinely impressed that it took 6 bags of powder (weighing however many pounds each) to lob a projectile (measuring whatever) over a distance of (who, exactly, cares?) miles to deliver its payload (of it really doesn’t matter). All I could think about was the horrific sound levels endured on either end.

As the day wound down I asked if we could get inside the main gun turret. Entry was normally off-limits, physical access was awkward and the space inside hot and cramped. I remember seeing documentaries where battleship main gunners wore massive hoods and bulged hearing protection. I always thought that could never be enough. I asked the guy who let us in if any of the old crew ever showed up for a reminisce. Sure they did. And how was their hearing? Gone. These guns are silent now and the men who fired them live with diminished hearing.

Meanwhile, all over the world, new generations are becoming accustomed to a whole new range of sounds.

More to do with books…

Paradis, clef en main.

This is a portrait from the night of October 16th, 2012 of literary translator David Scott Hamilton whose work on Nelly Arcan’s “Exit” was nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 2011. Both the book (translated from the French) and David’s sensitive, nuanced treatment of the material is astonishing. This is derived from a single iPhone shot in existing light.

My design, featuring the work of Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun.

I seem to have done another book cover, this time for a collection of poetry by First Nations writer Marie Baker, also known as Annharte. It will be out this fall from New Star Books.

The painting is by Salish artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun and is reproduced as a full, double page wrap. For the cover I took the minimal path and, in some small measure, have evoked the feel of an early Blue Note jazz LP cover.  That is, hopefully, after serving the nature of the material inside. But jazz and poetry seem to get along in general.

Words, Words, Words

The final version!

Coming this fall from New Star Books is the latest opus from George Bowering, a collection of essays and memoirs that includes the inspirational telling of how the author paid for a set of dentures. Well, there’s other stuff too, like a bunch of stuff about other writers and poets…and some guy named Shakespeare. But there are many better than I at writing about writing so I’ll stick to writing about images.

I’ve photographed George a few times now. There’s no shortage of laughs with George during these sessions and when his name is mentioned the first image that comes to my mind is a laughing set o’ choppers. So when Rolf at New Star asked me to do his latest book cover, the solution was clear: a set of wind-up chattering teeth. The trouble is that good ones are not exactly “thick on the ground” as they say. So after some searching I found two pairs. I used the Hipstamatic test photos of the first pair for the 1st comp (see below) but it was deemed too “clean”.

Then a second pair arrived from Atlanta by post and came in an original box from 30-odd years ago complete with golden orange/yellow text set in the much-maligned “Souvenir” font, a favourite for cheap novelty packaging in the ’70s. And there was a diagram of instructions on the back, in case there was any operational confusion(!) I shot the diagram using Instagram, faked the Souvenir font for the title, set the rest of the cover text in Freight and everybody went home happy.

The End.

The first version. I still like this one.

Pigment & Sound: Etienne Zack & Scott Morgan (aka loscil)

I recently shot two of my favourite artists; painter Etienne Zack and ambient musician Scott Morgan (aka loscil) both of whom are currently based in Vancouver (though Etienne is soon headed back to L.A. for a spell). These are two alternate takes which contrast with my earlier post of older B&W film portraits. Improvised quickly and on location, they keep the palette simple to keep the focus on character. It’s always interesting to be reminded of what remains consistent (or not) in approach over the years.

Scott has a new CD coming out on Chicago’s Kranky label titled “Sketches from New Brighton” and when I caught up with Etienne, he was doing some exploratory work involving fans and paint for a new piece to be shown in London later in the year. Etienne’s had a busy spring and had a series of well-received exhibits of his whip-smart and delightfully confounding paintings here in town. Keep an eye out for his work when you can.