Walter Abish was an Austrian-born American writer known for such novels as Alphabetical Africa (1974) and How German Is It (1980).
Tag Archives: experimental
RIP Genesis P-Orridge (1950 – 2020)
Genesis P-Orridge was and English musician and founding member of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV.
I first learned of P-Orridge in the late 1980s during the acid house period. I remember some of their Psychic TV material from the radio shows by Luc Janssen. However, I can’t seem to find the tracks that I heard at the time.
Where to begin? There is so much. Let’s start with the exceptional single “United/Zyklon B Zombie” (1978).
And let us add the album 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) also by Throbbing Gristle.
There was a time when I actually thought that these were jazz-funk tracks.
New listener, do not fear, it’s very experimental but actually not that hard on the irritation scale.
RIP Scott Walker (1943 – 2019)
Scott Walker was an American-born British singer-songwriter, composer and record producer.
First active with the band The Walker Brothers, Walker evolved from sappy and catchy recordings with an edge of sadness (“Make It Easy on Yourself“, 1965; and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)“, 1966) to more experimental work (Nite Flights, 1978).
He would continue this course of experimentation in his solo work, culminating with albums such as The Drift which was as scary as it was gentle, luckily not at the same time.
RIP Ken Nordine (1920 – 2019)
Ken Nordine (1920 – 2019) was an American voice artist, best known for his series of spoken word jazz poetry albums, the first of which was Word Jazz (1957).
He also recorded a version of Balzac’s risque story “A Passion in the Desert” (1955).