My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.

The new Swans album is finally out, albeit with a delay on orders due to ‘overwhelming demand’. Nonetheless, you should go to the Young God Records Webstore and buy it. Why?  Michael Gira himself can explain:

“What, are we all supposed to be hippies or anarchists with rich parents or something? I work extremely hard at what I do, with considerable financial and personal risk involved in the making of the music, and the same scenario applies to just about everyone else I know that’s made the disastrous decision to make music a career, so we deserve to be paid for our efforts. You wouldn’t expect a book by an author you admire to be free, nor would you expect an electrician to come to your house and rewire it for free. How are we any different? This is our work, what we do for a living (of sorts), and if you like the final results, buy it, you spoiled brat.”

 

While you’re waiting for it to arrive, you can listen to some of the new material on their Myspace page.

Deryk Thomas

Deryk Thomas is an English artist whose paintings I'm extremely fond of.  Each painting is a dichotomy of youthful innocence and feverish debauchery; a colourful yet murky imaginary world filled with the cheery faces of a still-cherished but distant childhood, darkened somewhat by the inherent cruelty and corruption of humankind. I never feel less than humbled and awe-struck when I look at these works of art, as I hope you will too. From the biography on Deryk's website:

"Putting aside all thoughts of markets and commerce, I simply paint pictures that come to me... I see my art as being staunchly traditional, typically protestant and surprisingly / unnervingly moral... I welcome basic, innocent elements; good intentions, naivety of vision, inevitable pollution of ideas from exposure to far too much mass media, limits of personal process etc... These are essential parts of any interesting struggle... I'm interested in the romantic notion of authenticity and feeling... I enjoy my capacity to love and hate in equal measure, and I'm forever inspired by those vast cosmological things that render all human endeavour tiny in comparison...”

If you like Deryk's work you can buy limited edition giclee prints of several of his works here. The website features charming descriptions of each print written by the artist himself which I highly recommend you read. His art can also be found on various Michael Gira-related album covers - several of his bunny paintings were featured on records by Swans and a number of the images above adorn the more recent album We Are Him by Angels of Light. All these records are remarkable works of art in their own right so do yourself a favour and grab them if you haven't already.