Books and Magazines


published by Tenement Press & Prototype, 2023 Paperback; 140 x 216mm; 444pp; black-and-white images throughout Mario Dondero, Erica Baum, Jess Cotton, Rebecca Tamás, Raúl Guerrero, Stephen Watts, Helen Cammock, Salvador Espriu, Lucy Mercer, Olivier Castel, Lucy Sante, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Ryan Choi, John Yau, Nicolette Polek, Chris Petit, Sascha Macht, Amanda DeMarco, Mark Lanegan, Georgia May Jaeckle, Vala Thorodds, Richard Scott, Jonathan Chandler, Joshua Cohen, Sandro Miller, Hannah Regel, Nick Cave, Matthew Shaw, Daisy Lafarge, Jeffrey Vallance, Holly Pester, Matthew Gregory, Emmanuel Iduma, Joan Brossa, Cameron Griffiths, Levina van Winden, Imogen Cassels, Hisham Bustani, maia tabet, Aram Saroyan, Velimir Khlebnikov, Natasha Randall, Edwina Attlee, Jason Shulman, Aidan Moffat, Lesley Harrison, Oliver Bancroft, Lauren de Sá Naylor, Yasmine Seale, Will Eaves, James Hugunin, Glykeria Patramani, Cass McCombs, Will Oldham, Antonio Tabucchi, Elizabeth Harris, Nina Mingya Powles, Isabel Galleymore, Preti Taneja, Stanley Schtinter, Sophie Seita, Ralf Webb, Wayne Koestenbaum, Iain Sinclair, SJ Fowler, David Grubbs, Agustín Fernández Mallo, Pere Joan, Thomas Bunstead, John Divola, Adrian BridgetSeven Rooms brings together highlights from Hotel, a magazine for new approaches to fiction, non-fiction & poetry which, since its inception in 2016, provided a space for experimental reflection on literature’s status as art & cultural mediator. Co-published by Tenement Press and Prototype, this anthology captures, refracts, and reflects a vital moment in independent publishing in the UK, and is built on the shared values of openness, collaboration, and total creative freedom.

Anthology edited by Dominic J. Jaeckle & Jess Chandler – Seven Rooms

author N.Andrew Walsh,  published Wolke, 2021 500pp, photos, paperbackThe phenomenon of “graphic” scores has been a subject of fascination, controversy, and a flourishing of artistic talent since its inception in the aftermath of the Second World War. The scores of that age, despite their compelling visual presence, nevertheless remain elusive: the means of performance are obscure, and they resist conventional analysis. This study reconsiders graphic scores from the perspective of Information Theory, derived from studies of “ergodic” texts: the ergodic score requires non-trivial effort from the participants in its realization, becoming a cybernetic object that challenges our beliefs about what music is, how it works, and where to find its meaning. The sounds of a musical performance are the field in which a larger metamorphosis takes place: like the labyrinth, the journey to the heart of ergodic scores entails both risk and transcendence. This study illuminates ergodic scores from their theoretical foundations: the abstract theory of how they work, the history of exemplary figures from the postwar avant-garde—including such luminaries of the art as Yoko Ono, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Anestis Logothetis, Pauline Oliveros, and John Cage—and concrete analysis of selected repertoire. Using pioneering theoretical insights—and with the benefit of original archival research, interviews with the artists themselves, and decades of experience as a composer and performer of graphic scores—the author establishes one of the great attainments of the twentieth century as a living art.

ergodic scores of the postwar Avant-garde – labyrinthus - hic habitat musica

Sound American Publications announces its 27th issue, THE LIFE ISSUE, a reflection upon the smallness—and largeness—of living amidst a tumultuous, globally-shared moment..The Life Issue contributors include claire rousay, who writes about the many cuts accumulated while learning something new; pedal steel superhero Susan Alcorn recounts a battle with injury; composer Jack Langdon offers Sound American’s second fiction offering, a story of how the pandemic affects a fictional musician, presenter, and listener; composer Lea Bertucci interviews improvising vocalist Audrey Chen about identity, commitment to music, and motherhood; bass clarinetist Katie Porter lets us in on a quarantine’s worth of deep-questioning and the looping beauty of banality.Sound American’s ongoing series, “Sites of Formation”, celebrates the piano, featuring writing by pianists Pat Thomas (on Ahmed Abdul-Malik) and Cory Smythe (on Henri Pousseur), as well as Dr. Douglas Rust on the Elliott Carter Piano Sonata and Sound American’s editor, Nate Wooley on the Vangelis’s keyboard-heavy soundtrack to Chariots of Fire. This issue also includes writing by saxophonist Chris Pitsiokos on NYC guerilla concerts during lockdown and a roundtable discussion from members of the Catalytic Sound collective—Ken Vandermark, Luke Stewart, and Bonnie Jones led by Brock Stuessi—on their work to create a streaming platform as an alternative to Spotify.This issue’s Exquisite Corpse is an elegant, nostalgic site-specific work by composer, flutist, vocalist Ka Baird. The Life Issue also features a world-premiere, sixteen-page set of drawings with introduction by Lebanese-born, Berlin-based artist Mazen Kerbaj. The drawings feature his intimate, aching, everyday trek through multiple shutdowns.As we move on from a generation-defining year-and-a-half, The Life Issue allows some of the artists we love to speak intimately as people: people who happen to make art. Without requiring responses to the great traumas of the last eighteen months, the issues allows them to reaffirm their everyday humanity through the small injuries and victories, the days of nothing happening, and the ways that they try to fit in as small parts of a huge world. A unique issue of Sound American, it reaffirms the journal’s mission of making music for everyone in new and unexpected ways.

Sound American – The Life Issue

From 1984 to 2015, Korm Plastics released cassettes, vinyl and CDs. Following a brief hibernation, Korm Plastics relaunched in 2019 as a book publisher. The first book was a re-issue of Frans de Waard’s memoir of working for Staalplaat, This Is Supposed To Be A Record Label, previously published by Timeless Edition in France but unavailable for several years. The success of the second edition led to the publication of new books, which include reprints of fanzines (Vital, De Nederlandse Cassette Catalogus, BOH, Neumusik, Nul Nul, some with CDs), an English translation of a book about punk in the Netherlands (1976-1982), a book about The Legendary Pink Dots’ first ten years, Adam Morris’ fictionalised account of working for Killing Joke and The Orb, a catalogue of ten years of Modelbau (also with a CD), a collection of letters between Coil’s John Balance and Anthony Blokdijk, and Freek Kinkelaar’s musings on music.Korm Plastics founder Frans de Waard teamed up with designer Alfred Boland for this, their latest publication, The Annual. For a long time both had wanted to publish a magazine, which eventually became what they hope will be a regular yearbook with ‘everything you never knew you were interested in’. They invited their authors (present and future) to contribute an article, which led to a wildly diverse selection. From the history of turntablism, a 1985 interview with Roger and Brian Eno, a report on the Groningen punk scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Truus de Groot about her formative years, Kubus Kasssettes, vinyl hunting in Trinidad, the Perversita festival in 1989, concerts that ended in riots, Willem de Ridder’s Radiola Improvisation Salon, Ultra in Eindhoven, Gary Scott meeting Florian Fricke, Killing Joke/Joy Division, The Slits, contributions by GW Sok and Harold Schellinx and more. Illustrations by Miss.Printed, short interludes by Freek Kinkelaar and Frits Jonker, plus a comic strip by Bertin.

Frans de Waard / Alfred Boland – The Annual # 01