Smellin' Salts // May // 2013

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ARAF COLLECTIVE LONDON is a not-for profit organisation, with an aim to unite early career musicians, artists, writers, and performers seeking a testing ground for new projects or inspiration for new collaborations with an enthusiastic, interested, critical and creative audience. You don’t need proof of a paying fanclub to perform with us! You just need a great sound, a bad attitude,or a wild idea. We actively opt out of any commercial interests: the interests of Araf Collective are personal and reactionary; a creative site of resistance against ‘arts cuts’ culture... And before you ask...

‘ARAF’ (pronounced ‘ARAV’) is Welsh for ‘SLOW’. SO TAKE YOUR TIME AND ENJOY

THIS MONTH’S EVENTS:

ARAF COLLECTIVE LONDON are proud to present : ‘LIGHTHOUSE’ at THE WRECK no. 4,

Camberwell, 30.05.13

featuring

Abbey Bowden/ Kate Threlfall/SENSE

DEPARTMENT-

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE! And THIS, the FOURTH Edition of Free Zine...

SMELLIN’ SALTS featuring

THE BANDS, ART, REVIEWS, OPINIONS, and more!

FOR PERUSAL AT YOUR LEISURE!

>>>>>>>>>>FUTURE ARAF EVENTS FOR YOUR DIARY>>>>>>>>> 27/06/13-LIGHTHOUSE @ THE WRECK 5:

Dr Peabody, FEEL GOOD CULTURE, LIVE DJ SET !!!

08/06/13- THE BIG NOISE FESTIVAL 18/06/13-

JULY(DATE

DEADLINE: SMELLIN’ SALTS issue 4: OPEN CALL! : FRUIT MACHINE no. 2: Call for Participants

TBA)

ARAF COLLECTIVE LONDON THANKS PROFUSELY: Rob @ THE WRECK, ABBEY BOWDEN, KATE THRELFALL SENSE DEPT., Contributers to this issue: O.P.G., H.A., E.L., Sophie Armour,

Jack Samler, Justine Do Espirito, CARL P.S.HOARE, Leonore S., Holly Gable, And you, our Salt Sniffers and Lighthouse Keepers. P.S. Yes, SMELLIN’ SALTS is a nod to the mid-70s Punk Zine SNIFFIN’ GLUE:oh those heady days of tippex & xerox...


Irrelevant Houseplant, 2013. by Hazel A.

THIS MONTH ARAF COLLECTIVE PRESENTS... SENSE DEPARTMENT

Sense Department deliver ethereal yet glitchy, organic yet synthetic downbeat electronica to the Wreck this month. Hailing from Herne Hill and infused with the experimental courage of Brian Eno, these rhythmmakers are the guides to an outer-body experience. Their most recent release, ‘American Bodies’ is a journey into an arcadia of microchips and 808s; a delicate landscape poised between purity and artificially. Explore the sensual world Sense Department have manufactured.

KATE THRELFALL

Kate Threlfall born in Manchester and attended the famous Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). Drawing on a sea of references ranging from Stevie Wonder to Joni Mitchell, Kate brings a sound to The Lighthouse At The Wreck

that will save your soul. Since winning UK Jazz Radio’s Best Vocalist 2010, she has performed at Kensington Roof Gardens with Jazz FM, at Jazz Café with Keep The Faith Productions, and the opening of Boisdale, Canary Wharf, presented by Jools Holland. We welcome her to Camberwell with open arms and open ears.

ABBEY BOWDEN

Abbey Bowden’s influences include Sigur Rós, Patti Smith and Fiona Apple and this artistic pedigree has manifested itself in an exciting young talent. Her haunting voice has been across London and promises to resonate for years to come. Having performed with ARAF at LOOPART13 in Deptford, we are pleased to present Abbey Bowden to ARAF’s spiritual home in Camberwell, The Wreck.


>>ARAF NEWSFLASH >> SLOE GIN CAUSES SLOW GRIN >>

L

IGHTHOUSE at the wreck, 23.04.13 was the DOG’S BOLLOCKS. The Wreck

F R U I T MACHINE

REVIEW

Sophie Armour

welcomed the TALENTED TONES of Sharleena Ray, the BUSTING BEATS of Cease MC and the return of the ARAF regulars, the unquestioned kings and queens of canal-based glitch-garage, The Caulfield Beats. Smellin Salts Three was successfully distributed across South London with locations such as The South London Gallery, Camberwell Art College and Rat Records happy to share the ‘zine. Spread the Love like Jam....

Something new is happening in Clerkenwell. Billed as “a sweet ideas-jam”, Fruit Machine takes place in the cosy, modest-living-room-sized upstairs room of the Three Kings pub, wallpapered in old newsprint and complete with arm chairs, sofas and dim lighting. The room is small but full of people, gathered round in close quarters to hear one another speak. People are here to share their ideas, but there is none of the rigid structure and fear of judgment that comes with an open mic night. The group is upbeat and incredibly welcoming as new people squeeze onto the sofas, ready to speak and to listen. There are stories, powerpoint presentations and essay readings, all interspersed with bits of poetry and informal conversation. The vibe is that of a formalised pub chat. People interject and contribute, but don’t take away from each speaker’s ability to teach us a little of their own experience.The talks are varied and colourful, featuring clips of music and film, and discussion of all sorts: from the history and architecture of multiplex cinemas to the influences of Ray Charles.For a few hours, this humble living room was the friendliest place in London. You paid nothing on entry, and left with new ideas, new connections and a free pot of jam. You can’t say fairer than that. - STANDARDLONDONEVENING.wordpress.com FRUIT MACHINE NO. 2, JUNE EDITION NOW RE-LOCATED BACK TO CAMBERWELL! OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS! ARAF COLLECTIVE’s MOUTHY YOUNGER SISTER EVENT, FRUIT MACHINE, is an OPEN FORUM IDEAS-JAM/ DISCUSSION GROUP HELD IN a PUB.

IDEAS JAM AT THE PUB, 2 !

OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS EXACT DATE & VENUE TBA. LOOK OUT FOR DETAILS. SOMEWHERE IN CAMBERWELL,

ANYONE is WELCOME to present/ discuss on ANY TOPIC for 10 minutes, to a friendly pub audience. DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE with us? Want to show us an art work in progress, read us a poem, give your opinion on something, show us your research, etc. over a pint? AV equipment is available. SURPRISE US! DROP US AN EMAIL!


FOUR TET - ROUNDS (re-release) a review by JACK SAMLER A landmark album from the master of experimentation 13th May 2013 was a day of significance in the world of electronic music: it marked the decade anniversary of the release of Four Tet’s seminal, epoch-making third album, Rounds. To celebrate, Domino launched a rerelease, including the tantalising addition of seven typically innovative, contortedly shining tracks mixed and recorded live by Hebden in Copenhagen. Four Tet has been at the forefront of a new-wave defiance that has been growing across UK producers steadily over the last 15 years: he fosters a refusal to accept the mundane predictability that so much of today’s EDM is focused around and feeds off. For Hebden, two decks, a mixer, some keyboards and trusty laptop present a platform from which to create and experiment with sounds that shake and stimulate you to the very core. Simply, for this ground-breaking curator of musical patterns, boundaries exist to be pushed and broken; conformity is a concept to be shunned. As an album, Rounds epitomised this forward-thinking, challenging attitude. It was the beginning of a fresh wave of serial experimenters and has been cited as an influence for producers as wide-ranging as Floating Points, Mount Kimbie, Jamie xx and Caribou. After his work within the 90’s band Fridge, Hebden saw some success with his first two solo projects, Dialogue and Pause; however, it was with Rounds’ release a decade ago that the music world really stood up and took notice: this was an unprecedented ten-track journey that took listeners on a twisted path through synthesised jazz, bass-heavy trip-hop, melodic grime, post-rock purity and melancholic, meandering folk. Four Tet demonstrated that he can be exactly what you wanted him to be: hot and cold, fast and slow, all-dancing and all-thinking. If such a thing exists, Keiran Hebden showed that he was, and still is, the pensive raver – a pirouetting oxymoron contained within a riddled paradox. He recently expressed “direct rebellion” at being labelled ‘folktronica’ – no wonder: when releases are as diverse as his, you can’t put this man’s sounds into a box. There isn’t one big enough. Some of Four Tet’s greatest productions are contained within Rounds: “She Moves She” incorporates off-beat rhythms with blissfully inappropriate string and harp melodies to form one of the sunniest tracks this side of 2000; “As Serious As Your Life” is quintessential, raw, trip-hop that pulsates with dense energy and pace; “My Angel Rocks Back and Forth” is…well, it’s beyond description and comparison, isn’t it? Musical science just doesn’t cut it. With Four Tet’s productions moving increasingly into dance arena, the rerelease of Rounds gives old fans a chance to indulge in a touch of his primitive, early sounds, while opening up the ears of those who haven’t yet been acquainted. Fling in the exclusive live recordings from Copenhagen and there’s something for everyone: this is a sure-fire winner from one of the heavy-weights of improvised experimentation.

‘NO MAN’S LAND’

BLUE ELEPHANT THEATRE, CAMBERWELL Navigating our way through the quiet backstreets and estates of Camberwell, we aren’t quite sure if we’ve come to the right place. But then we see it: the illuminated blue elephant, with an arrow pointing us toward an open door, faintly lit. The tracks of London are so trodden, it’s hard to find things that feel hidden. But here at the Blue Elephant Theatre , where we’ve come to watch the appropriately named No Man’s Land, we’ve beaten our way through the bushes to a hidden gem. The Blue Elephant Theatre gives you that feeling that you’ve stumbled across something wonderful: something you want to tell your friends about. A bit like a theatrical speakeasy. Inside, an atmospheric makeshift bar greets you before you are called downstairs to the intimate theatre with its pillow-lined benches. Tonight, the sound of JJ Stilwell’s double bass, tinged with irresistible jazz, reverberates as we wait for the action to unfold. No Man’s Land turns out to be a strikingly imaginative, exciting piece of theatre, transporting us back to the days of WW1 and the early days of radio. Alexandra Krassa is a captivating lead, portraying Ailsa, a young girl who retreats into her imagination during both the war and her coming of age. Among the rest of the superb cast is Richard Keiss as Alfred Moon, the bumbling radio DJ who wonders if anyone is listening. Ailsa is, and this mysterious voice becomes her illusory guide as she explores her own imagination. Aside from dialogue, the action is portrayed through imaginative movement and mine, with a double bass soundtrack giving the production an aural edge to match the visual creativity happening on stage. In collaboration with Glass Eye Theatre, who use the methods of French Teacher Jacques Lecoq in physical theatre, movement and mime, The Blue Elephant pulls off a production which triggers the audience’s imagination as much as it portrays Ailsa’s. The perils of war and shell-shock, the early reception of radio and the power of young people’s creativity – it’s all here. Emerging into the quiet backstreets once again, it’s hard to believe that all this is happening in such a hidden space. We felt privileged to have stumbled upon the Blue Elephant, and advise you to do the same. www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk .>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Seen/heard/experienced something you want to review? Long for your writing to appear in print? CALL ARAF COLLECTIVE LONDON TO-DAY! NO WIN, NO FEE GUARANTEE / NO CASH FOR GOLD


HARD TIMES: THE LONDON SCENE SOPHIE ARMOUR

In his latest book, How Music Works, David Byrne sets out what he believes are necessary circumstances to foster a ‘scene’, based largely on the factors that came together to turn CBGB into the musical hub it was in the 1970s.He prescribes an appropriate venue, various rights for the musicians, a sense of alienation from the mainstream and a certain relationship between bands and audience. But the point that stands out is Byrne’s assertion that “rent must be low – and it must stay low”. The Talking Heads frontman describes the “squalor” he and his bandmates lived in on the Lower East Side of Manhattan when they were first starting out. “Cheap rent allows artists, musicians and writers to live without much income during their formative years,” he argues. “It gives them time to develop, and it gives creative communities that nurture and support [and] their members time to form. Everybody knows that when these neighbourhoods get gentrified, both the locals and the struggling creative types get pushed out.” Of course there is a lot of truth in this, but it raised in me a certain amount of concern for my own city. London has run out of cheap rent. However much of a relative bargain you may think you’ve found in Peckham, you’re probably paying double what you would for a bigger place in Birmingham, Newcastle or Glasgow. I have witnessed first-hand what happens when people graduate in this city and remain determined to keep living here. Those equipped with first class honours in the arts – a fine achievement to be sure – find themselves struggling. You hand in your dissertation, you finish your final performance, you drink at your degree show, and then you give yourself a summer holiday – a few weeks of doing nothing in recuperation from a third year upon which everything rested. Eventually, you start applying for jobs. Full of optimism with a pinch of naïvety, you shoot for the big time. Real graduate jobs in your chosen field with real aboveminimum-wage salaries. You get nowhere.

Soon enough money becomes an issue, and ambition goes out the window. You apply for jobs in shops, restaurants and bars, and snap one up pretty quickly. You enter your new service role filled with joy and relief. You’ve done it. You’ve graduated and got a full time job. You start working according to a rota over which you have almost no control. Boss says you will work every Friday and Saturday night for the rest of your life. Boss says you will finish at midnight on Tuesday, and be back in work for 8am on Wednesday. You get knackered. You get no time to eat, see your friends or do laundry. You earn minimum wage: you have no money to eat, see your friends or do laundry. Ultimately, you can only just afford your bargain Peckham rent, but hey, at least you live in London. This is where the creative industries are, so this is where you need to be. But, as Mr Byrne has pointed out, when artists, writers and musicians have no money or, crucially, time to develop their ideas and talents, no movement or scene can be formed. And right now London is devoid of anything remotely resembling a coherent scene. So what if we all dispersed? Would our new-found time and pocket money foster exciting new music scenes, art movements and literary revelations, each unique to their own little corner of Britain? At the moment the music scenes of Birmingham and Manchester certainly look much healthier than our own. Or if, by some enlightened, socialist miracle, something was done about soaring rents in the capital, would we all rally together to form a movement? After a few months of working non-stop in soul-destroying jobs, what actually seems to happen is quite surprising. The pent-up rage of a graduate sick of being treated like an imbecile day in, day out forces them into action. People quit their full-time jobs, exchanging them for sporadic temporary work. They cut their hours to part time, plunging themselves into monetary poverty, but earning themselves valuable time. They start working nights to gain precious free time during the day. More than cheap accommodation, what artists need is a bit of resilience. It is those who are willing to sacrifice their living standards who are most likely to make a scene.


THE INTERNSHIP TRIANGLE JOY BROWN Between 1939 and 1965, Britain ceased to be industrial producing country. The industrial revolution had strangled itself and production was quickly being relocated to countries where the social advances in working class life were easier to overcome and ignore. Globalisation always looks for the best deals and ignores the human costs: comparethemarket.com. In the 1960s, British ‘Popular Culture’ itself fell into that void in production; Britain ruled not the waves but the airwaves and where once there had been slag heaps there were Marshal Stacks. This new ‘cultural production’, however, has something far more dangerous at its well-groomed heart than the mindless consumption it generated: It was cool and people would do anything to be part of it. The motivation for the mineworker was simple: I work 16 hours a day, risking my life working naked because of the heat, to earn a crust. The monetary outcome of this toil overpowered the horror that was working down a pit or in a foundry. Survival was the motivation for labour. However, what is the intern, what is their motivation for their labour and how will the worsening economic situation effect these ‘affective’ workers? Many writers have written about our current breed of ‘cognitive-cultural capitalism’ where labour is exercised on Photoshop and the Gallery. However, the clever conjuring trick of this changed terrain of production is that the affective, ‘I do it for love’, labour of the Interns is integral to the system. To look at the products of the cultural corporations is to look at the toil of the unpaid. Internship culture is the MASTERSTROKE of contemporary capitalism. ‘I love fashion so I will work without wages for 16 hours a day to establish myself in the industry’. All employers (a word that seems increasingly inappropriate - ‘owners’?) look for at least three instances of work experience before they consider you for a job. That is three terms of wealth creation before they consider you for PAID work.

That is three terms of wealth creation for the employers. If you do succeed in getting a job, at minimum wage of course, then you have actually worked for three employers for the pay of one job. In the eyes of the employers – all aware of this production line - that is better than buy one get one free: it is buy one minimum wage drone and get two free. Who can afford this? Who can afford to work but not to earn? It is too simple to write the internee off as the nice young girl or boy who can live at home with mummy and daddy and sit in a gallery six days a week. Of course with those with such links to disposable funds and small living costs make up the backbone of this faux proletariat, however, the all purveyance of the system of ‘Necessary unpaid experience’ has reached a point where those who cannot afford to work for free, have to work for free to attain work in the future. The intern creates a void which sustains the economic cycle; a beautiful trope. It must be recognised that educational institutions are complicit in this abuse, from the art school urging free labour in the galleries to the ideology of work experience. None of what I have just expressed will have come as a surprise. These false consciousnesses are obvious. However, I would like to ask how this system functions in the worsening economic situation? What happens when to survive one has to earn and yet to earn one has to work for free? It would suggest an unravelling of our current status of capitalism, the great conjuring trick of affective labour becomes itself unravelled. You might feel this is a time for celebration: time to socially rebuild the Garden of Eden. However, I cannot share your biblical optimism. The forest fire will inspire no fresh growth: the sapling remains firmly planted in the greenhouse of capitalism and will be trained across its trellis to produce the sweetest fruit, no matter what the weather. We are rotten to our roots and this prophetic unravelling merely weakens us to future disease. Genetically modified by cultural capitalism, affective labour is now firmly planted in our DNA. I offer no solution, no magic beans, just an awareness of our own status as GM crops in a rotational system. Can you offer a solution?


Holly Gable, a Second year BA Fine Art Drawing student at ARAF neigbours,

the Camberwell College of Art, sent us this detail photograph of her amazing A1 sized graphite drawing. Our Xerox machine barely does it justice! - hollygable@me.com


Leonore is also on soundcloud.com/cheeseandchalk and and every Wednesday at 10.30pm you can catch her on Very Loose Women on Resonance fm. - More drawings like this one at ascanaday.blogspot.co.uk. Send submissions for JUNE arafcollective@live.co.uk follow us: @ARAFCollective

check us out : www.arafcollectivelondon.com


Otto Muehl

Actionism, was arrested in 1991 for ‘sexual abuse of minors, rape and forced abortion’. Otto Muehl is a convicted paedophile and rapist who even created art in the process of his crimes, with some works depicting his actual victims being displayed in some prestigious art institutions. This raises some basic yet little discussed ethical questions. Under the assumption that art and life are two separate things, Muehl’s work is still praised among the art world and his work is publicly shown by major institutions, including Tate Modern with the recent exhibition ‘A Bigger Splash’. Even more recently, Otto Muehl’s photographs were on display at Frieze New York (10-13 May 2013) in the stand of Galerie Krinzinger from Vienna. By doing so, I argue that not only these prestigious art institutions show a great disrespect towards Muehl’s victims, but they also take a highly questionable ethical stance.

Art and life have never been two separate things. There is no art which isn’t about life, and art is part of society and by being shown publicly every artwork is a political statement. Paedophilia is to the eyes of society one of the most horrible, perverted crimes which can be committed. Artists are social actors and consequently they will never be above morals. I am not saying that Otto Muehl was a bad artist, just like the fact that Dominic Strauss-Kahn’s conviction with sexual assault did not make him a bad leader of the IMF. But when it comes to art, things are different. What I am saying is that I personally cannot Otto Muehl, one of the pioneers of Viennese look at Otto Muehl’s art without thinking

Although I am certainly not willing to banish artists and poets from the city like Socrates suggested it, I must admit that we do accept things from artists that we do not accept from ordinary people. Many examples could illustrate that. Just take the Jimmy Saville case, or the many BBC scandals, or even Dominic Strauss-Kahn, who was completely pushed away from politics after the Sofitel affair. Why so? Because these people were revealed to be dangerous for society; and despite how skilful Strauss-Kahn might be as a politician or IMF leader, no one can accept that he remains such a powerful politic figure after he was convicted with sexual assault.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates remarks that citizens tend to accept things in artists’ behaviours than they wouldn’t accept from ordinary people. Citizens, he says, accept that artists present them with horrible things that they would normally find disgusting and unbearable in real life. Somehow, Socrates says, artists are above morals.

is the art world capablE of making ethical JUDGEMENTS?

JUSTINE DO ESPIRITO

I am an art lover and I am part of the art world, but I consider that real life is more important than art. And when I see that the art world can be incapable of making some basic ethical judgements I am very tempted to give up on the art for the sake of life.

The case of Otto Muehl is unfortunately one of many cases in which the art world closes its eyes on artists’ crimes under the claim that you cannot combine art and life. I am not arguing that we should only deal with artists who are not morally condemnable, for this is impossible. What I am saying is that the art world should have some moral boundaries and to me rape and paedophilia should be beyond the limits of what the art world should accept.

of his victims, and those who show and buy his art, and agree on his works’ value (both artistic and monetary) despite his crimes are making strong political statements. And I take institutions like Tate and Frieze to be responsible for making terrible ethical decisions when showing Otto Muehl’s works and closing their eyes on his crimes for the sake of art history. Artists should not be treated differently from ordinary people.


ARAF COLLECTIVE LONDON PRESENTS

LIGHT HOUSE no.5

LIVE MUSIC

@ THE RECREATION GROUND

FREE CAMBERWELL DR PEABODY FEELGOOD CULTURE 27JUNE 7PM & LIVE DJS


This edition’s feline-fighter pilot cover art is provided by the Ace Carl P. S. Hoare. Like Maverick and Goose, he gracefully flies between art, illustration and fashion design We are pleased to welcome him to the ARAF flightdeck. ‘Chocks away....’ http://www.carl-hoare-at-barnets-salon.co.uk/ & http://hoareart.wix.com/hoareart


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