I was seeking a soul resembling mine

I was seeking a soul resembling mine, and I could not find it. I searched throughout the seven seas; my perseverance proved of no use. Yet I could not remain alone. I needed someone who’d approve of my nature; there had to be somebody out there with the same ideas as me. –Stanza 13 of Maldoror via Dennis Cooper who has a series of posts concerning Les Chants de Maldoror (1869) – Comte de Lautréamont in a version illustrated by Salvador Dalí.

Electronic soul music

Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing [YouTube] (1982)

The S.O.S. Band’s “Just Be Good To Me” [YouTube] (1983)

Both built around the Roland TR-808.

Digression number one: Night Nurse [YouTube] (1982).

Digression number two: Cutty Ranks and the Sleng Teng riddim [YouTube] (1985)

Digression number three: Dawn Penn’s No No No [YouTube] (1992)

No No No is the original Queen Majesty rhythm out of Studio One (then for Steely & Clevie – which is the version with the “Wake The Town” sample)

See also: eighties groove

Rarities from Dennis Cooper’s record collection

Dennis Cooper, whose blog I recently discovered, posts prolifically, and here the entries from the rarities of his record collection, some items of which he found in 1974 (when he was 21). It has been a special interest of mine to discover what the collections are (music, art, books) of artists I know.

Manhood (1939) – Michel Leiris

Manhood: A Journey from Childhood into the Fierce Order of Virility (1939) – Michel Leiris [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Originally published in 1939 as L’Âge d’homme. This edition translated from the French by Richard Howard in 1992. Susan Sontag dedicated a chapter to it in Against Interpretation. The painting on the cover of this edition is by Northern Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach. [Sept 2006]

Via The Wire’s review of David Toop’s Ocean of Sound.

Ocean of Sound (1995) – David Toop

Ocean of Sound (1995) – David Toop [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

Its parallels aren’t music books at all, but rather Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Michel Leiris’s Afrique Phantôme, William Gibson’s Neuromancer … David Toop is our Calvino and our Leiris, our Gibson. Ocean of Sound is as alien as the 20th century, as utterly Now as the 21st. An essential mix. –The Wire magazine.

An incredible breadth an depth of knowledge. Recommended 10/10

See also: David Toop – 1995 – music journalism

Animals are divided into:

Photo of Borges, credit unidentified

Animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies. —The Analytical Language of John Wilkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of animals (Borges) [Sept 2006]

Published in:

Other Inquisitions: 1937-1952 (1952) – Jorge Luis Borges
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

See also: taxonomy – Borges