WOEBOT

Perhacs, Perhacs, Perhacs.

Just read Carlin lamenting his inability to find Linda Perhacs "Parallelograms" at the Rough Trade in Portobello. Jesus that guy writes TERRIBLY (wink).

The really funny thing is that I bought the last copy of the record off that shop. It was me, largely on Jon Dale's recommendation: "I have this ridiculous love for hippie girls from the late 60s and 70s. Vashti Bunyan, Anne Briggs from the UK. And then the soft rock renegades like Judee Sill from the USA. (Oooh I love Joni Mitchell! Quick someone crochet me a bag for collecting flowers.) Perhacs is one of the best of that ilk, her stuff's a bit more psychedelic than the usual, just really really beautiful stuff. totally awesome!" I listened to it and it blew me away...

Carlin (who somebody recently described to me as being my nemesis, er give me a break!) is right with his coy electronica references. Check Linda from the linernotes: "In those days we did not have the massive computers to help us create music. But that is what I was reaching for when I wrote "Paralellograms". I wanted it to be like a Japanese air painting in motion, with the sounds moving through space creating the shapes of the words being spoken or sung, and for the shapes caused by the throwing of sound and tones from speaker to speaker to do what we can now do with "surround sound."

It's cute to read the recurring references to the crochet-like qualities of this work (not just Dale but the girl who sold it to me) against Sadie Plant's theories of the evolution of the loom into the computer in Zeroes and Ones.

Posted by Woebot at October 20, 2003 03:31 PM