My reaction to the London disturbances, which I witnessed first hand, is online at Trebuchet Magazine. To some on the left it will be heretical, yet I don't believe this is the time for self-censorship or keeping diplomatically silent about what you see happening in front of you. The fact that England's public institutions are rotten, corrupt and violent doesn't mean that what happened wasn't at its heart an ultra-Thatcherite kleptocratic insurgency rather than the liberating revolution some would like it to be...
Montage by Vera Bremerton. Next Friday I'll give an experimental presentation at Noise=Noise on the strange parallels between the sonic and conceptual dystopianism of Doctor Who and first generation British industrial music. Dr. Who exposed mass audiences (often very young) to a combination of experimental electronic sound and dystopian themes, a combination that could also summarise industrial music. Dr. Who frequently presented post-apocalyptic scenarios of mutation, mind control and para-militarised societies and, in the process, at least implicitly criticised actual political and technological developments of the time, particularly those associated with the Cold War arms race. Due to budgetary constraints these visionary scenarios were often realised in a rudimentary ad hoc fashion; an approach that also applies to industrial. The early industrial groups highlighted the most serious social and political themes using very primitive electronic equipment, creating a kind of...
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