Tag: England

Aleister Crowley, sacred art
Mysteries

Aleister Crowley’s Secret Society of Magick and Excess

youtu.be/H3HUFslBfTU

Self-promoted as the “Great Beast 666″ from the Bible’s Book of Revelations. Slandered by the British press as the “Wickedest Man in the World.” Yet, theatrical occultist Aleister Crowley pioneered a radical re-imagining of self determination through managing paranormal spiritual entities, shaking up early 20th Century polite society. He founded the libertine religion of Thelema, and through sex rituals and extreme drug abuse emphasized the not-necessarily-wicked ritual practice of Magick. 

Cuernavaca, under the volcano
Literary

Death By Misadventure: Malcolm Lowry’s Gin-Sopped Volcano

youtu.be/wma61_wfHqg

Malcolm Lowry’s 1947 masterpiece “Under the Volcano,” about the fervid last hours of an alcoholic ex-diplomat in Mexico, is set to the drumbeat of coming internal and external conflict. Autobiographical and reflective of the expatriated trust-funder in a futile search for an artistic home, the perpetually inebriated master got lost along the road toward his own abyss, and died under suspicious circumstances, out-of-print.

Chris and Cosey, Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle
Sound

Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Emotions Broke Noisy Ground

http://youtu.be/MBzR0iIzMNU

The first band ever to be called “industrial,” Throbbing Gristle’s confrontational live performances and use of disturbing imagery, mixed with pre-recorded tape samples and special effects, created a distorted sound performance, quite ground-breaking in its time. Spinoff bands Psychic TV and Chris and Cosey continued to shock and beautify into the 1980s.

Delia Derbyshire, the Delian Mode
Sound

Delia Derbyshire: ’60s Science Fiction Sound Art

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPJ6GMXM3E&feature=kp”

Watch “The Delian Mode” a documentary on the innovative electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, who worked from 1960 to 1973 at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. She utilized both real-life and ‘artificial’ electronic sounds in her compositions using a musical style known as Musique Concrète.