I’ve been spending my time preparing the new Gil De Ray album, designing artwork for the book of lyrics and art which will accompany its release, making videos to promote its release and also rehearsing for the first gig on the 24th at the Poetry club in Glasgow next week. It’s a full time job with no salary.
To relax i make these drone soundtracks that i listen to while reading. Since the last episode i read Norman Ohler’s Tripped which is an intriguing history of LSD from Albert Hofmann’s early experiments with Ergot in 1938 through it’s uptake by the Nazis and the CIA throughout the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. The myriad of mind control programmes overseen by Allen Dulles and Sidney Gottlieb are in my mind better served in the books “Chaos” by Tom O’Neill and “The Poisoner In Chief” by Stephen Kinzer but if you haven’t read those books this is a decent starting point. The irony is those experiments led to the biggest counter cultural movements of our time and perhaps the greatest artistic endeavours ever seen, heard or witnessed. but i digress.
The subject of control is the theme for this month’s podcast and was part inspired by watching the fantastic film “Kinds Of Kindness” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos who also directed “Poor Things” the adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s novel. It has the core of the cast too with Emma Stone and Willem Defoe starring alongside Jesse Plemons and Margaret Qualley. It’s a strange triptych affair of a movie and i was particularly inspired by the soundtrack by Jerskin Fendrix (who also soundtracked Poor Things). The music is minimal and repetitive and incredibly atmospheric without resorting to musical cliches as most film music does. Check it out if you haven’t already.
As i mentioned earlier, i’ll be playing alongside my good friend The Jonny Halifax Invocation next week, if you happen to be in Glasgow, come along it will be a great night.
Enjoy the music, until next time
Love
Gil X
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