vi . vi . vii

vi . vi . vii

music player

Monday 21 May 2012

shallow pools - out now

gentle readers. might i happily report that my official debut spoken-word album, entitled 'shallow pools' is out now, and available as a limited edition hand-crafted cd and digital download from both the decorative stamp online store and my own bandcamp page.


each copy of the album also comes with one of the unique original hand-typed poems in the series, something rather special indeed. do think about securing yourself a copy, should time and funds permit, i would be most grateful indeed.

keep safe, be well

jamesreindeer

Sunday 20 May 2012

video evidence from the 1,2 piecefest

very happily i found myself invited to play at the very awesome 1,2 piecefest at the oetinger villa in darmstadt last weekend, a splendid affair, now in its third year, and curated by the very awesome adrian woodhouse and scarlet scamper from the knertz collective. a raft of amazing artists graced the stages, all of whom were absolutely smashing it indeed.


for my own part, i had the opportunity to be the first to take to the stage and got to perform a really enjoyable set of my more uptempo tracks as well as a number of really enjoyable freestyle pieces, one of which was captured by the steady hand of the mighty chryso. be sure to have a little look, should time permit.

keep safe

jamesreindeer


Tuesday 15 May 2012

shallow pools - coming soon

so. might i very excitedly take this opportunity to announce that, in completing the series of one hundred 'shallow pools' poems, i took it upon myself to record them with a view to creating my first official 'spoken word' album, already completed and ready for release on decorative stamp next monday.

spread over ten tracks, and hovering around the forty-five minute mark, the album is, what i personally believe to be, a really nice collection of moods, images and tones, and one that continues to carry the kind of sentiments that i have sought to convey with all of my musical enterprises.



due to the fact that the poems were originally composed as a series of one hundred hand-typed pieces, i have seen fit to prepare a limited edition series of one hundred copies of the album on cd, and shall make each one available with one of the unique poems.

so, please do begin to anticipate having yourself a listen and perhaps fixing yourself a copy when next monday rolls around, the album is really nicely packaged and something of a collectors treat with the unique poems accompanying them.

keep safe

jamesreindeer


Monday 14 May 2012

helicopter gunships

albeit somewhat more-belatedly than planned, we can at last unveil the marvelous video of my a cappella performance of 'helicopter gunships', created in conjunction with the very awesome adrian woodhouse for the knertz icings blog some moons ago when the winter still had a strong grip over the new years slow building.

i had been very much aware of the very cool icings blog since its inception and was over the moon when adrian invited me to get involved too, and since i was not so pressed for time as other 'on tour' contributors, being a darmstadt resident, i was keen that adrian and i take a decent amount of time to come up with something extra-special.


still, we are possibly two of the busiest individuals in gut city, so it was pretty tough to get our schedules to co-incide, in fact i think it took four or five moons even, but at last we managed to gather together in the basement of the decorative stamp compound to put together this rather sinister treat, something amusingly dark in comparison to that which adrian might normally be known for.

so, please do have repeated viewings, please do check out the icings blog, make friends with adrian on facebook, check out some more of his work, as well as that of the knertz collective more generally, and do anticipate some more iron filings and sellotape related news shortly.

take care

jamesreindeer


valve in forearm

an impossible to anticipate monday morning field report indeed. might i be so bold as to reveal that i have just now returned home from a most unexpected four-day episode spent recovering in a hospital bed from a relatively serious throat infection which beset me with great discomfort and high levels of fear and panic in the small hours of wednesday-night into thursday morning having returned home from a meeting with the wonderfully talented paulina stulin to aid me with the completion of my final 'nova conditions' manuscript.

i feel the need to share this information with you all, if only to explain my absence from all things decorative stamp and jamesreindeer-related since the middle of last week, a frustrating truth, largely due to the fact that there are serious amounts of projects afoot and not a moment to lose in working on them. sadly, a good deal of moments have been lost, but i am once again at near-full-strength and eager to bring everything back up to date over the coming days, so please expect a lot of news to emerge from both here and the decorative stamp as we wend our way towards mid-week.

so, might i just now briefly hint at some of what is in store, including revelations of the next three decorative stamp releases, including the first official 'jamesreindeer' solo release [of sorts], some seven years after my first commercial available musical outing, another very special and highly limited re-release of an unexpectedly very popular album from the decorative stamp and the next offering from everyones favourite anti-rap-alt-folk duo... shhhh...

so til then, might i leave you with this small prose-poem i found myself assembling in the early hours of last night, a mildly-fictionalised and overly-dramatic version of the events of my last four days and a very clear indication that i am certainly far from the best patient one could hope to be... my intense fear of hospitals something of a burden at an instance like this. enjoy! or, cringe in horror...

...and, might i also be so bold as to offer some personal 'shout-outs' to the very, very awesome and very very patient miss nadia d'alò, for visiting me on a daily basis despite her chaotic university and work schedule, for bringing my lots of tasty treats to supplement the hospital food as well as some essential english-language reading materials and for putting up with my abysmal mood. to the equally cool miss wirginia lewandowski for sending me wonderfully kind sms wishes and whom i still owe a telephone call, and the very, very, very wonderful oskar ohslon and winterismyname for hailing me on my cellphone at regular intervals to keep my spirits lifted, and to one herr schmidt, my room companion who was most kind a supportive despite our language barrier... i am most grateful indeed... and to my dearest mother, father and sister, i must sincerely apologise that this may be the first you're hearing of this, but i really, really didn't want you to worry unnecessarily! 

keep well

jamesreindeer





valve in forearm

gentle readers. we find ourselves in foreign hospital bed, valve in forearm staring long at the words emerging on the page before us. insect chirps and birdcalls in the night. distant trailing language rising up from unknown rooms below us, the droning hymn of the occassional aeroplane sailing by, the rattling of mechanical blinds in the evening breeze, intermittent bleeps and hospital noises from behind the closed door. at some stages laughter and grim moans coming in. 

we have been trapped here for the longest while, a seemingly simple ailment soon becoming a matter of utmost urgengy; infection, blood tests, antibiotics fed intravenously. the gim food arriving on plastic trays three times a day, the sound of herr schmidt* dying slowly in the bed next us. we feel utterly lost and alone in this dark, strange place. there is a silence in the still of the night, in between the cackling and whining, in between the rattling and heavy breaths of the sick and helpless. 

we feel our way through the night, each sigh a step closer to complete abandon. we are watching the grey paint of walls, the rounded corners of the plastic light switch, the geometry of the waste-basket by the doorway. our mechanical bed groans and purrs with each press of its automated button panel. our water and salbei tea in rectangular glass jugs, white plastic lids, brown plastic mug, dropper, tablets laid out in blue plastic containers, foggy air inhaler attatchment resting in grey card kidney bowl. 

we gaze long into the silence and curse our luck, curse our failing body, wish that we could escape into the cool of the night. to race out within the green of the forested hills surrounding the hospital, ride the tramline back into the city, back to the calm solitude of the safehouse, our plants laying dying on the windowsill, one already tossed down to the courtyard through lack of water to stabalise itself amidst even the gentlest of winds. 

there is a strange long misery that holds us. we long for escape, but slowly cannot be sure what we want to escape for. what is there beyond these four walls, beyond the corridor that leads us to the bathroom, to the inhalation room, to the consultation room, even to the elevator that takes us down to the lobby and the few lonely benches sitting idle at the foot of the vast concrete building. 

where are we going to indeed. what ride are we hoping to take. we long to rush out into the night, but are more and more filled with the strange unfolding misery that there is indeed nothing else beyond this place. we are destined to feel hopeless and lost after this strange interval. we may leave this place but our path has been irreperably broken, or skewed in some awful fashion that cannot repair itself. we have somehow been shifted off our course and can no longer find our way back to that simple moment before the affliction of grim infection bore down upon us unexpectedly in the night, reducing us to a scarcely breathing panicked wreck, a pathetic shambles of skin and bone trailing unknown miseries into the spring night. 

we are frightnened and lost and clambering wildly at some unknown in the hopes of finding solace amongst the half-sleep, that it might lift us up into the miracle abandon of some impossible plain beyond all this worldly sorrow and corporeal grit. we are desperate to escape, to pass out into the open sky, to leave this sick and frail body, a frightened spirit emerging from valve in forearm.

-

*it seems only fair to mention that herr schmidt wasn't dying at all, although it really did sound like it at intervals. he was a very lovely, kind man and, despite the serious-sounding nature of his ailment, he actually got to go home before i did... setting the record straight in his honour.

-


Thursday 3 May 2012

initial facts in the case of shallow pools

as those of you who follow my posts on facebook will already be aware, i have taken it upon myself to word one hundred poems under the collective title of 'shallow pools', which i intend to be revealing to the world before too long. still, before i do, i wanted to spend a moment briefly outlining the facts in the case and offer some insight as to my motivation behind the project as well as a little insight into my methodology and practice.

by pure happenstance, i find myself temporarily in the possession of an old mechanical typewriter, and wanted to take the opportunity to put such a glorious device to use, by way of utilising it to compose some new literary pieces. there is surely some truly wonderful tactile pleasure to be had in tapping away at the clattering keys, not to mention the delight of being able to produce entirely unique results with each new piece of paper.

still, the typewriter offers me a slightly different ingress into my own creative enterprise. my thoughts are drawn to david cronenberg's film adaptation of william s burroughs' 'naked lunch' and specifically the scene in which our fictionalised versions of kerouac, ginsberg and burroughs are collected in their favourite cafe and discussing the nature of 'true writing', if i recall correctly. ginsberg cannot be sure if 're-writes' can be seen as acceptable, as 'true', or if kerouac is right in saying that they are a form of self-censorship, of denying the truth. naturally burroughs then weighs in with his 'destroy all rational thought' motif to swamp their debate.


for my own part, i have always erred closer to the ginsberg methodology; initially outlining my themes, wording my text and then returning to perform, usually minor 're-writes' to achieve my desired aim, and how the modern personal computer is by far and away the perfect tool for this approach to working. we can clatter away, filling up whole virtual reams of paper, whilst safe in the knowledge that limitless editing options are available to us after the fact.

the typewriter, however, holds sway over our work in a very different way. this permanence of every keystroke, this rigid pattern of indelible words forming across the page, each one set in stone from the very first moment, not allowing us to go back, to make alterations, save for bringing correction fluid into play. we are forced to work with how the words first arrive on the page, and that is something very different indeed.

so, these 'shallow pools', this series of one hundred poems, is an exercise in my trying to lean further towards kerouac's approach, to let the words arrive as they do, in the order that they do, not looking back, not allowing myself to perform 're-writes', to dilute the 'truth' of the lines as they leave my fingers. it is a strange and fascinating exercise for me, and one that i keenly look forward to sharing with you all in due course. til then, 'destroy all rational thought'.

take care

jamesreindeer


Wednesday 2 May 2012

outside your doorway - vinyl out now

with much enthusiasm, we can at last announce that the amazing new 12" vinyl EP from the masterful 2econd class citizen is at last upon us, via the very wonderful equinox records, entitled 'outside your doorway' and now available to purchase from a wide variety of sources.


featuring three new songs from the wired-folk master himself, not to mention stunning contributions in the form of remixes from the near-legendary buddy peace and dday one, as well as the staggering miss jenny blackbird and my humble self reunited with our bold captain after some long moons on the epic 'insect forms'.



so, be sure to fix yourself a copy of the vinyl, or a digital download, should it be more suited to your particular needs, and be sure that your appetite has be whetted for the upcoming new album; 'the small minority', coming at the end of the month.

keep safe

jamesreindeer

vi . vi . vii

vi . vi . vii