Strange Attractor presents The Glasgow Working
15 February 2012,
at The Old Hairdressers,  27 Renfield Lane, Glasgow.
Doors: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Price: £5.00

To celebrate the opening of Objections to an Empty Mind at The Hidden Noise gallery [see below], Strange Attractor presents a night of talk, music and film.

∞ Phil Baker, author of Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist, presents an illustrated talk about the artist and his work.

∞ Magick Concrète : a mediumistic improvisation for phonomantium and guitar, featuring Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor) and Drew Mulholland (Mount Vernon Arts Lab).

∞ The London Nobody Knows (1969, 60 minutes): James Mason presents a wry view of unseen London, based on the books of Geoffrey Fletcher – a psychogeographer’s delight.

Tickets available online or at Monorail in Glasgow

Objections to an Empty Mind
Austin Osman Spare with Richard Brown
Hidden Noise, 1/1, 24 Hayburn Crescent, Glasgow, G11 5AY
17 February – 17 March 2012 – Free Admission
Opening times: Thursday – Saturday 12 to 5pm or by appointment

By The Natural Death Centre
488pp, 3 x A5 PB in slipcase, £24

Available May 2012
– only from the Natural Death Centre.
PRE-ORDER NOW TO SAVE £2

Postage Options

UK £22.00 GBP Europe £24.00 GBP International £28.00 GBP

The Fifth Edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s acclaimed handbook, the essential guide covering the practical, emotional and spiritual aspects of death and dying. This new, expanded edition comprises three volumes in a beautifully designed slipcase.

Founded in 1991, the Natural Death Centre is the leading charitable organisation advising on all aspects of dying and bereavement as well as consumer rights and environmental matters concerning your own funeral or that of a loved one.

This thoroughly updated and revised Fifth Edition of their celebrated handbook is now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

The third book in the package is a comprehensive directory of UK burial sites, funeral directors and stockists selected and recommended for their ethical and environmental qualifications.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
The Natural Death Centre is a social entrepreneurial, educational charity that gives advice on all aspects of dying, bereavement and consumer rights in this area. It gives support on family-organised and environmentally friendly funerals and run the Association of Natural Burial Grounds. Since its inception in 1991, the NDC has sought to inform, empower and inspire the public in all matters relating to death and dying, and in particular to increase awareness of funeral choices outside of the mainstream.

Update: We’re celebrating the exhibition by offering London’s Lost Rivers at the reduced price of £9.99

The fantastic and learned folks at Maggs Bros (counterculture division) are hosting an exhibition of unusual London photographs by SF Said – who took the amazing Polaroids for our London’s Lost Rivers: A Walkers Guide – and Jon Savage, author of England’s Dreaming, the essential critical history of punk in 1970s England.

The exhibition runs from 22 March until 19 April at
Maggs Counterculture, 50 Hays Mews, London W1J 5QJ.
Entry is free, Mon-Fri 11am-15pm.
Original photographs and prints will be on sale.

Download the PDF catalogue here

Full details will appear here on the site in time, but until then here’s a peek at some of what we can look forward to:

– The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition
A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook (left). Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.  [September 2012]

– The Influencing Machine by Mike Jay 
A revised and updated edition of Mike Jay’s The Air Loom Gang (2003), a true tale of 18th century mind control, revolution and madness.  [May/June 2012]
‘One of the greatest books you’ve never read’ – William Gibson
‘A wonderful book…exceptional scholarship and psychological insight’ – Oliver Sacks

– Savage Pencil presents Trip or Squeek’s Big Amplifier
The collected Trip or Squeek comics. Over 100 strips, as featured for the past ten years in The Wire magazine. Savage Pencil’s (aka Edwin Pouncey) acerbic, lysergic, razor-sharp observations on music, art and life.  [July/August 2012]

Strange Attractor is also involved with two forthcoming exhibitions at Maggs Gallery in Mayfair, London:

From the Westbourne to the Wandle:
Jon Savage’s Uninhabited London photos and SF Said’s London’s Lost Rivers Polaroids
for Maggs Counterculture, at Maggs Gallery, 50 Hays Mews. London W1J 5QJ
Thursday 22^nd March –Thursday 19^th April

Maggs Counterculture and Strange Attractor present ‘Unstable’.
New and old artwork from Battle of the Eyes (Savage Pencil and Eyeball), Joel Biroco, Julian House and Cathy Ward, at Maggs Gallery; 50 Hays Mews. London W1J 5QJ
Tuesday 8^th May – Friday 8^th June 2012,  Monday to Friday 1030-1700. 

More details soon all of the above, and some other very exciting books planned for later in the year.

‘Off The Page 2012 takes place 24–26 February 2012 at the Playhouse Theatre, Whitstable. £40 weekend pass/£12 Friday pass/£20 Saturday pass/£15 Sunday pass. Tickets available via Ticketweb.’

Mark Pilkington’s talk is:

From the Akashic Jukebox: Magic and Music in Britain, 1888-1978
Magic and music are as old as humanity, but organised witchcraft, a British cultural export whose influence has been felt all over the world, is younger than jazz. In this talk, illustrated with images, music and rare recordings, Mark Pilkington, writer and publisher of Strange Attractor Press, explores British occultism’s origins in the bohemian groves of late 19th century London, and charts its impact on popular music and some of its players, from the rock ‘n’ roll years through to the paradigm shift of punk. The emerging stories glow with transcendence, ripple with mystery, honk with absurdity and are all too often shadowed by tragedy.

While Frances Morgan is part of a panel discussing:

Critical Mass: Music Theory in the Information Age

The advent of the blogosphere, social networking and e-books have capsized the traditional dynamics of cultural criticism. Today, anyone who wants to disseminate information or express a judgment on music has free access to the technology that will allow them to share concepts and philosophies on a global scale. But has this new theory-babble expanded the discourse around contemporary sound and music or shut it down, democratised debate or created a climate defined by wooly thinking and subjective axe-grinding?

More details here

I was born at the full moon atop a crescent-shaped hill, the main mineral found here (on Shooter’s Hill) being selenite, and I have a slightly rough-edged crescent birthmark on my left forearm … so I was obviously destined to be either a werewolf or a lunatic…

My first attempt at handling the subject was actually the blank verse play, written sometime in the early 1980s, which I ended up inserting into the final version of Somnium, and the hero of the book, Kit Morley, actually refers to it as a work he’d written in his youth… Come 2001, I decided to combine a certain amount of magical practice centred on Selene with writing the novel that became Somnium. The two things were pretty much inseparable, but that’s often the way Alan and I do Moon And Serpent things … the magic and the art combine in a creative process and the ‘working’ ends up as a ‘work’, in this case Somnium.

In a rare in depth interview, Somnium author Steve Moore reveals almost all to Aug Stone over at the excellent The Quietus, along with an extract from one of the book’s tales with tales.

You can buy the special edition of Somnium, signed and numbered by Steve and Alan Moore, with a litho print of John Coulthart’s cover artwork, here.

140 pages of new art and writing by Lisa Cradduck, Mark Fisher, English Heretic, Ken Hollings, Dean Kenning, Phil Legard, Mark Pilkington and Sarah Sparkes.

English Heretic is delighted to announce the delivery of Wyrd Tales 2: a salvaged miscegenation of occult pulp, speculative meta-fiction, neolithic fantasy and mythic sci-fi. Wyrd Tales 2 will transport you to the horrific record collections of R’lyeh and the submerged libraries of a comic book Crowley.

Within its lurid pages, futuristic crab men crawl and the Machiavellian spectre of Joe Kennedy plots. Reports come in from the east coast of radical cannibal cults, we scry the haunted inner cinema of Norfolk beaches and shamanic lights are seen in ancient Britain’s aeyr ways.

Featuring contributions by a renowned and talented roster of guest artists and writers, together with a CD of The Dunwich Mix Tapes’ by English Heretic, Wyrd Tales 2 promises to provide the magical vehicle for an archetypal voyage to England’s deep.

Available over at the English Heretic souvenir shop

SAJ contributor Catherine Isolde Eisner has a new collection of short stories, Listen Close to Me, out now, from Salt Publishing:

Subtitled Hidden Lives of Love, Madness, Murder, Loss and Deception, this new collection by Catherine Eisner traces often with darkest black humour the misadventures and behavioural tics of women driven by bizarre and sometimes criminal compulsions… These are tales that probe the intimate lives and crimes of unreliable narrators to prompt disturbing confidences told in voices from the sidelines that we wouldn’t normally hear.

‘Extraordinary writing. Mesmeric reading.’
Ambit magazine.

More info about the book here

With the shimmering peaks of Solstmas looming ever nearer, and Post Office queues growing ever longer, the last chance to order direct from SAP has now passed. We’ll continue sending books out over the festive period, but can no longer guarantee that copies will arrive before 25 December.

We wish you all a Merry Solstmas, and watch this space for news of our exciting 2012 titles.

English Heretic present Wyrd Tales 2

Saturday 10^th December
7.00 – 10.30pm
at Luminous Books,
3.5 Frederick Terrace
E8 4EW

Free entry!

Luminous Books is delighted to host the launch of Wyrd Tales 2. A salvaged miscegenation of occult pulp, speculative meta-fiction, neolithic fantasy and mythic sci-fi.  Featuring contributions by a renowned and talented roster of guest artists and writers and an accompanying CD of aural lagan,Wyrd Tales 2, promises to provide the magical vehicle for an archetypal voyage to England’s deep.

Wyrd Tales 2 includes art and writing by Lisa Cradduck, Mark Fisher, English Heretic, Ken Hollings, Dean Kenning, Phil Legard, Mark Pilkington and Sarah Sparkes.

The evening will include Performances and annotated readings by Ken Hollings, author of Welcome to Mars: Fantasies of Science in the American Century, 1947-1959, with live electronics and theremin backing from Indigo Octagon; Mark Fisher, author of Capitalist Realism and writer of the blog K-punk, Andy Sharp of English Heretic and DJ set by Dean Brannagan.