Mutable favorite Jason Grote is working on a new project: HABIT, an installation piece by David Levine, which uses a three-character “realistic” play Levine commissioned from Grote. The actors will move into the installation and perform Grote’s play over and over again on a loop. Among other things, it’s a riposte to those who claim that “experimental” playwrights do what we/they (depending on whether or not you think Grote’s experimental) do because we/they “can’t” write “normal” or “well-made” plays. Open rehearsal May 1. To learn more about the piece click here.
Still-recognizable Figures: A Review of Jameson's Amazing Adult Fantasy
Matt Dube
Originally published at H_NGM_N
A.D. Jameson is a pretty much a monster when it comes to corrupting familiar characters, folding, spindling and mutilating existing forms, and generally bankrupting your appreciation of traditional narrative. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Read More
Fish Cake Attack
Mutable Sound of the Month
Fish Cake Attack was written and recorded in a single day for a short film entitled Monkey Hour, about a young woman with a graveyard shift slowly losing her mind and haunted by a strange gorilla. The film was written and directed by Adrianne Jorge as part of Video Salon Night, a semi-monthly experiment from the first few years of the new millenium in which a film was shot and edited in a single day with all in-camera edits. Many of the stories were bizarre pilots to shows would never see the light of day. A divorced couple cop buddy film featuring a senior citizen adoption crime ring for example, or a psychadelic rock group whose music is used as a weapon of mass destruction on the homeworld of an alien posing as their manager, and the Monkey Hour was no exception.
Most of these films included live soundtracks recorded on the premises in the days previous, and we have selected this particular song for its wonderful bone-chilling scream and because it is a prime example of the amateur aesthetic was the foundation for Video Salon Night. Fish Cake Attack was written and recorded by Annie Heringer (lead guitar & vox) and Dalton Eljer (guitar) of the Box Kites, as well as Corey Tatarczuk (bass), and Cathy Cathodic (drums). “My pussy’s black! Fish cake attack!”
To learn more about Monkey Hour and other films made at Exile as part of the Video Salon Night series, go here.
Mutable is pleased to present a unique musical experience every month or so by ourselves or someone we’ve been introduced to. These are from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world. Send tracks to mail@mutablesound.com along with credits and a brief description.
What devil possesses her?
Episode 22
Archibald has a little heart to heart with Poppy. The narrator is still going on about his covert powers. The man passed out in the puddle out front is just now coming to his senses. The headmistress uncovers two of her staff in a compromising position. What more could you want?
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Cast and Costumes
in Product
Mutable is proud to introduce the first American release by French artist Germain Caillet, also known as Paplib. It’s a truly captivating album that crackles with intrigue, holding back just enough to demand our attention, while still enfolding us in a pillow of warmth, emotion, and hallucinatory nostalgia. It’s a dreamlike sound that brings to mind contemporaries like Panda Bear or Juana Molina, and also has a timeless feel, taking cues from luminaries like The Silver Apples or Robert Wyatt.
Caillet, formally of the band Bellyache, plays everything on Cast and Costumes, and submerges us in a bath of sound that feels effortless and expansive. The surreal landscape of his songs are punctuated with arrangements that move from sparse to epic and back again, utilizing an arsenal of guitars, cellos, drums, lo-fi loops and his distinct voice. It’s clear that English is not Caillet’s native tongue, but he has adopted it for most of the album, and sings with brave abandon that is both endearing and transcendent. It adds to the otherworldliness of his sound, as though he is visiting us from planet France, and delivering an urgent message to the English-speaking world. The message seems hopeful, though there is a stream-of-consciousness flow to his songs that suggests this is more of an album of personal discovery, and there are no concrete messages at all. Paplib is a true visionary, navigating space and melody with a unique grace, creating an album that soothes and educates us with every listen.
All songs written, performed, and produced by Germain Caillet
Performed in Rennes, France
Cover art by Germain Caillet
1. Camera Behind the Cameraman
2. Xylocaine
3. Coco Smile
4. Flying Lezard
5. Het (Icy Drops)
6. Eyom Nod
7. Slimy Smile
8. Voodoo Politics
9. Cast and Costumes
Digital album available to stream or download now!
Other Occasions Not Minded
in Product
If you haven’t had the opportunity to witness a Crank Sturgeon performance, let us fill you in on what you’re missing: imagine a lanky, largely naked man, hooded in a sort of paper-mâché fish head. A tangled bevy of wires emits from this fish man to a carefully arranged assortment of toys, tin cans, plastic tubes, a well-seasoned guitar, and probably something you’d never expect could emit a sound. What comes next is an inexplicable blend of theatrical frenzied fervor and earnest, emotional noise-making. His is a truly unique voice, straddling the world of noise and performance art.
Malcolm Felder became acquainted with Crank Sturgeon and the man behind it, Matt Anderson, while studying art in Boston, and were Mission Hill roommates for several years. In the years to follow, Anderson would hone his Sturgeon persona, tour the world, and distribute countless recordings of his sonic cacophonies and bizarre rantings, eventually setting up camp in the wilds of Harpswell Maine. Meanwhile, Felder moved to New York and began Lineland, an outlet for his instrumental electronic compositions, releasing a couple albums on Audiodregs, and recently touring the states with Animal Hospital. His music takes the listener on a journey to undiscoverable lands filtered through the synth-driven prism of his overarching vision.
As a hand behind Mutable Sound, Felder says he really wanted to release a Lineland album that was appropriate for Mutable. “I wanted something that breaks from the peaceful, wordless universe of Lineland, something more meandering and experimental.” he says, “Collaborating with Matt seemed like an exciting way to do that. Though it seems our approach is at opposite ends of the spectrum, there is a humanness to his brand of noise that I love, and working with his material was immense fun.” The album they’ve crafted bridges noise, melody, spoken word, and electronica, creating a world of music that can be at times infectious, at times challenging, at times funny, and at times sublime. As Crank Sturgeon says:
Back along (a year or two ago), there was an original version of this recording: a funny little sneaky-do that snuck its way under the covers as a cassette called, “do that plural”. The little beastie was a nasty bite; an amalgamation of four-track folk slubber, rude poems, bonks in the night, and veritable murmurs of aqueducts. Around this time, I’d likewise shot Malcolm the disc of these recordings, not thinking, and perhaps unblinking of what potential rebirth could emerge. Little did I know what curves of the earth Malcolm would interpret and discover in the clumps and frottage of lo-fi bruit and mumbles; finely inking his lands with lines and striations that took a bumpy cassette and pushed it through an extruder pellet device, giving you this shrill dance of oscillation and mirth. It would be an understatement to just say that I’m in awe of his final meltdown. Instead of emailing me a mere salmon grin, Malcolm has undone all the doing, and it’s an occasion I do not mind whatsoever.
Recorded in Harpswell ME and Chicago IL
Written, performed, and produced by Matt Anderson and Malcolm Felder
Cover art by Matt Anderson and Malcolm Felder
1. chanteuse and able tramp
2. do that (((plural)))
3. hairpin asp
4. thirty nine asthmatician in general
5. slovene clover hop
6. swan song; ticking on
7. sî
8. clasp of as
9. vertigum otto/schwing eschew
10. final minded
Digital album available to stream or download now!
Cannibal Manifesto
Oswald de Andrade
(We here at Mutable originally found the below manifesto in the excellent online journal Exquisite Corpse, put out by Andrei Codrescu and translated from the portuguese by Mary Ann Caws and Claudia Caliman. However, it was first published as Manifesto Antropófago in 1928 and is considered the starting point for the Brazilian modernist movement. It is a cry for return to the soil and freedom from colonial control. To learn more about the contemporary state of Brazil, a good place to start would be the remarkable film, City of God, a crime drama based on real events in the slum of Rio De Janeiro by the same name.)
Only Cannibalism unites us. Socially. Economically. Philosophically.
The unique law of the world. The disguised expression of all individualisms, all collectivisms. Of all religions. Of all peace treaties.
Read More
Amazing Adult Fantasy
in Product
A D Jameson, lost and innocent, narcissistic and corrupted, has been dreaming his way through the past thirty years, the dying breaths of the fictional 20th century. In his dreams he made many friends: the alien puppet ALF, cantankerous, threadbare, and living in a casket; Luke Skywalker, middle-aged, mustachioed, and hateful; and Bonnie Raitt, the ceramicist, shining spotlights onto sand and cancer.
He invites you now to join both him and them; his lips shape your name. For his dreams have also been about you; he’s been searching for you for a long time. Lie down beside him; allow him to drape his glittery silver fur coat across your shoulders. He’ll fold his hands and bow and whisper. He’ll hand you a gumball that’s grown stale inside a locket. He’ll hand you a gem that fell down from the moon. Together, you’ll sail across the ocean on his wok rat, nibbling his tree pig. Together, you’ll enter these fantastical tombs.
Samples of Jameson’s writing can be found on our website. To read his story, Rock Albany! go here, and to read his story, 7 Movie Reviews, go here.
Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
168 Pages
$12.95
Now Available
When will the narrator stop talking?
Episode 23
The narrator is having a bit of a nervous breakdown. Apparently, he’s a defrocked priest that lives on a Shanghai junk? Gundrun and Jack are discovered by the Headmistress in a compromising position.
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Video: The Pigeon Game
The Pigeon Game is a documentary on the disappearing culture of homing pigeon racing in New York City made by Mutable favorite, Annie Heringer. Unknown to most people, there are still men and women who raise birds on their rooftops and race them from distances up to 600 miles. The scenes of Marlon Brando at his pigeon loft in On the Waterfront may have secured the sport in the history of the city, but The Pigeon Game proves that the tradition still exists today among a small but dedicated group of fliers.
In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.
Glitter Tracks
in Product
Imagine a helicopter evacuation in the midst of a sort of American Idol Armageddon immediately followed by pillow talk between Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling as they age and crumble to dust. This is the sort of album that touches the spinal chord while leaving your tongue free to roam through memories of loose change and backrooms, the home you’ve never been to, and that stretch of highway you’ll never forget. It was mostly recorded over several days in 2008 on a small island in Lake Cobbosseecontee, Maine, and mixed down in Chicago by Lineland’s Malcolm Felder. “We love destructive innovation. We use modern-looking people.” This could become a rallying cry.
Songwriting Credits:
1, 7, 9, 12: Felder
2, 4: Eljer
3, 6, 8, 10: Heringer
5: Alejandro
11: Felder/Eljer
Recorded in Winthrop, Maine, and Chicago, Illinois
Production by Malcolm Felder
Cover art by Annie Heringer
Thanks to everyone at Exile, Mick & Deb Felder, Howard Huang, Jason Allen, Noah Sheldon, and Wallace Stevens.
1. White Space
2. Driveway Sale
3. Hot Song
4. Standing at the Gates
5. Oye Mama Oye Papa
6. Black Juice
7. What’s Gonna Happen
8. Quarter
9. Oakland Gardens
10. Tabernacle
11. Glitter Tracks
12. Oakland Gardens – Lineland Mix
Digital album available to stream or download now!
Wilfred Owen's War
Poetry
Apologia Pro Poemate Meo
I, too, saw God through mud, —
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.
Merry it was to laugh there —
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.
I, too, have dropped off fear —
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;
This is Not a Review: of Café Flesh
Gabriel Boyer
It’s 1982 and the adult videotape market is just beginning to surge. Stephen Sayadian is in the process of making his second feature film, with the usual complications of the b-movie director: the entire film had to be shot over the course of eleven days in a small studio in the heart of downtown L.A.; electricity was being illegally patched in to power the equipment; and extras were recruited from a nearby blood bank and methadone clinic. The film was Café Flesh, a post-apocalyptic cult pornographic science fiction dystopian satire designed and directed by Sayadian (under the pseudonym “Rinse Dream”) and co-written by Sayadian and Jerry Stahl (credited as “Herbert W. Day”), most famous for his work on ALF, Thirtysomething, and Moonlighting, and later as the subject of the 1998 biopic Permanent Midnight.
Read More
Huang and Wu on the street with friends.
Episode 24
The narrator has certain ulterior motives. We learn more about Archibald’s back story. Boo Boo can no longer be controlled because she has been freed by the tentacles of imaginary bears. However, at one point, her face will be on fire. The doorbell rings. Who could it be?
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Mutable Author Tells All!
(A D Jameson, author of Amazing Adult Fantasy, out this coming fall through Mutable, talks with us about his influences, his loves, his hates, and his secret horror. His most recent story, Korawik Wattanakul, can be found at Harp & Altar. To read his extended bio, please go here.)
What does it mean to be a writer? Who are writers? What do they do?
For me, writing’s a form of thinking. It allows me to express ideas that I couldn’t express otherwise, because my memory isn’t good enough. And because writing possesses a logic all its own. It’s a meditative activity and a form of discipline that allows me to clarify some thoughts, and muddle others.
There exist more writers than people suspect, including all those whom “real writers” usually won’t acknowledge. There’s a disturbing tendency among high lit folk to not take seriously other writing, even if they enjoy it: genre fiction, commercial television, comics, children’s books, writing by actual children, zines, journalism. Also excluded: slam poets, performance poets, conceptual artists, and many others. This is elitist, short-sighted and unfair, not to mention a huge mistake. The people who wrote G.I. Joe and Star Trek are very much so writers. They wrote all over me! They wrote me!
Read More
Jacques Vallée & His UFO Friends
Your latest book, Confrontations, just came out this spring. Prior to that, you hadn’t been in the limelight much. What was your focus during that time?
Jacques Vallee: People assumed I had gone off to a mountaintop to philosophize. The reason that I dropped out of the UFO scene is that I wanted to do UFO investigations, and I was tired of going to meetings where the same things were continually rehashed. What it came down to was just a lot of talk. I think we’re a long way from understanding this phenomenon, and the only way we’re going to understand it is to stop talking to each other, and go back and talk to the witnesses. That’s what I wanted to do, and I wanted to do it first-hand. I wanted to be able to go to the site, meet the witnesses, and monitor what was happening over a certain period of time. So, I put the highest priority on first-hand cases that had not been reported to the press or to the UFO community because the moment the cases become part of ongoing discussion, they get polarized: the witnesses are bombarded with all kinds of questions; there are biases; the ego gets into it. I wanted to do a quiet kind of long-term research. In ten years, I accumulated over two hundred such cases. The book is really a summary of the more interesting of these cases.
Read More
The Crucible as a Oneman Show (Pt 2)
in Podcast, Bedroom Theater, Series
What were those girls brewing in the woods? What secret longings burn in Abby’s heart? Find out in this second installment of the Crucible as a Oneman Show, our Bedroom Theater production. The girls are up to something, but what will come of it? And what of John Proctor and his wandering stare? As read by Mutable’s own Gabriel Boyer
Bedroom Theater began when my roommate changed the light bulb in my bedroom and ended in a five-hour crying spree in the Nevada desert. There is no audience, only people performing for each other. For more on this, please see Welcome to Weltschmerz.
Video: The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Long before the more famous Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, L. Frank Baum himself made a series of Oz films with his company, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. The blow film was released in 1914, and was directed by J. Farrell MacDonald. It was the first film made by his esteemed company, and after its failure, Baum found it increasingly more difficult to find distribution, and eventually his production company went under, but we can still enjoy this amusing fantastical romp with its rectangular cardboard cat, Woozy, and its Lonesome Zoop, seductive statuette, and the loopy Patchwork Girl herself. Enjoy!
In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.
Headmistress Ursula
Episode 25
Simone Fairfax is possessed by the devil, and a stranger has arrived at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies, but right now we are going to take a trip down memory lane to Headmistress Ursula’s young adulthood in Shanghai and the stranger she met and how he changed her life, and not for the better!
A new episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies aired on a semi-weekly basis.
Kibo's Happynet Manifesto
James Parry
From: kibo@world.std.com (James “Kibo” Parry)
Subject: THE FUTURE OF THE NET IS AT HAND!
Distribution: world,alt,happynet,secretdistribution
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 1994 09:48:40 GMT
Approved: by all right-thinking persons everywhere!
P R O C L A M A T I O N & M A N I F E S T O
***********************************************
WHEREAS, the computer network named USENET has insurmountable flaws:
=> It is cluttered with thousands of disorganized groups.
=> It is difficult to use due to the various software interfaces.
=> It is infected with viruses, especially in the .signatures.
=> There is no formal rulebook and no official administration.
=> Bozos abound.
Read More