Tuesday, December 24, 2013

John Sinclair – Mohawk

Artwork by CHU: www.schudio.co.uk



John Sinclair – Mohawk CD release coming soon on Iron Man Records

John Sinclair – “Mohawk” cd

Released Monday 24th March 2014 by Iron Man Records

John Sinclair, the renegade poet, scholar and cultural revolutionary releases his new album on Monday 24th March 2014. John, has been described as an Archetype of the 1960's art, music and literary synthesis, and who today, is still kicking with both feet on his trajectory for cultural transformation. His new record features ten tracks from his book of verse: always know: a book of monk. Twenty poems planted firmly in a single-shot session, and carefully trimmed down to ten exhibits for this album. Beatnik poems, great odes and personal reflections of the Be-Bop jazz persuasion, all flowering together.

First conceived of in Detroit City, spring 1982, and developed throughout the 1980s with streaks of fresh edits leading right up to the session itself, John navigates some of these texts for the first time in over twenty years, free-styling his energized sincerity and attention to every word, transforming the text on the page into his unique unmistakable spoken word.

The music was written and arranged by Steve Fly who mirrored John’s poems in the music by initially combing the tempo of the original songs recorded by John ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker and Thelonious Monk.

Steve The Fly is a native of Stourbridge UK, now an Amsterdam resident who plays drums, spins vinyl, writes novels and literary and cultural commentary. He also maintains a flock of websites and works in various other art forms without visible restraint. His other music projects have included New Flesh, Garaj Mahal, Temple Dragon band, of course he is now full time with John Sinclair.

These songs are further utilized by John’s poetic method so that each title and the rhythm of his poetry can piggy-back upon the same song title, and rhythm, of an original composition set in history, for extra rooting. Steve put down drums, turntables, cello-bass, flute, and glockenspiel, shooting to play around the vocal lead lines and diverse expressions from John.
“to take the hair off
the sides of the head
& leave just a strip
along the top,
scalping pretense
for the baldness of statement
building a new music
on the bones of the old”

— John Sinclair from the title track “Mohawk”
The album was recorded diligently by Tim Egmond at Ei Studios, Amsterdam and passed along to Simon Reeves at Framework Studios, Birmingham for mastering.

Tim Egmond is a music producer, engineer and studio whizz, based in Amsterdam, who has worked with scores of international and locally based artists on a wide variety of projects.

Simon Reeves has completed many projects for Iron Man Records already and he has been described as one of Birmingham’s finest independent studio engineers who has worked with bands from Napalm Death to Police Bastard, and a host of other brutal metal and punk bands.

All artwork was cradled and visualized by the post-industrial imagination of CHU; The Black Country, tech savvy, rule-breaking, progressive wordsmith and thinker – an ardent advocate of aerosol painting and its vanguard for over 30 years with global public works and murals, 3D perspective illusions and many group shows, under his Walsall leather belt. CHU’s work has included projects with Banksy and Jamie Hewlett among many others, and he has been described as the ‘Escher of UK street art’ and founder of Graffiti Bastards.

The album is to be released by Birmingham based Iron Man Records whose releases have included The Nightingales, Howard Marks, P.A.I.N (Propaganda And Information Network), and Police Bastard, amongst others.

The album will be beautifully packaged in a double gatefold cd wallet with artwork by CHU in full colour and a ten page booklet. John Sinclair will be appearing in November through to March to promote the new album. Mohawk illustrates the kind of care and attention a John Sinclair record deserves. After all, he kinda helped start this underground art explosion.

All Press Enquiries Sean Newsham: sean@mutante-inc.demon.co.uk
John Sinclair – Mohawk CD released on Iron Man Records 24th March 2014


ARTIST:  John Sinclair
TITLE:   Mohawk
LABEL:   Iron Man Records
FORMAT:   CD  Double Gatefold Sleeve / Digital Release to follow
RELEASE DATE:  24th March 2014
FILE UNDER:   Rock
Cat No:  IMB6022



Steve Fly 33.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Here, thought mutants

 Here, thought mutants

And so we approach the birth of the cyber-magus culture, back and forward to the world of magicians, shaman, warlocks and telepaths. A transtime, trans-space temporary gathering of like minded entities, here, fluttering together in the blink of a eye.

Swarm intelligence practised by real Indian swarmi, ferrymen for other entities wishing to pass into the rivers of timesplace. Here, outside the usual channels of communication, here, await the time-lords, the masters of astral projection, and the arts of mind transference prose comedy.

Here, in the everywhere but nowhere space are the new cryto-kids, those who have mastered ADHD and schizophrenia to produce fantastic cloaking devices for entities based upon an altogether, different series of identities, each unique, each potentially threatening to authority, each with a familiar trait of somebody else. Here, the new space cadets, operating on the other sides of time, in here and out there, swarming throughout the matrix, the holographic film, bleeding around all edges, are gathered for play:

Play: That age old vitalizing verb that combines experiment and co-operation, the rules come later. Here, in the noplace-place the heads are gathered, those who can talk and write out a paradox without whigging out about it.Those who see negative entropy and making new art forms in a similar frame of reference, here it is playtime, beyond language or category, here in the primordial ooze, the womb of all creation and destruction, the digital cloak room of the electronic man's overcoat, the damn sentence i put to you. Here we stand or sit as shaman, warriors upon the electronic frontier. Invisible martyrs out of the physical world, thought mutants here.


--Steve Fly 23.

prince greenwald guardian of the ice poet of snowdon by Steve Fly

oh just damn it
poetry
fucking spies want
my eggs

help from
green world
snow'd on

pine trees
ice glaze
stinging tea tree
of truth

 emerald green
secrets of snowdon
hermetic secrets

prince greenwald
guardian of the ice
poet of Snowdon?

--Steve Fly