Thursdays: poems and collages by Ace Farren Ford

16.10.2023

Moloko+ compiles poems and collages by Ace Farren Ford:

In the edition Thursdays Moloko+ compiles the poems that Ace Farren Ford published in his 4 Thursday chapbooks: A Year of Thursdays, Escape from beneath the Valley of Thursdays, Exiled once more to the Island of Thursdays and Love Theme from Thursdays plus a chapter of previously unpublished poems Beyond that farther Mountain of Thursdays. These older and newer poems are combined in the book with a fine selection of Ace’s collages done between 2010 and 2022. Beautifully designed by rag from Vienna, this edition presents a wide view of Ace’s long practice as an artist and poet. Thursdays pays tribute to this multi-talented West-Coast legend.

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New: very rare white-cover version of Ira Cohen’s ‘From the Divan of Petra Vogt’

16.10.2023

Very rare white-cover version of:

Ira Cohen – From the Divan of Petra Vogt

From the Divan of Petra Vogt was published by Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam in 1976. The final version of this sought-after edition – with poems and photographs from Kathmandu by Ira Cohen – has a black silkscreened cover and a purple title page. However, as a try-out a handful of copies were put together with a white cover and a white title page in 1976. One of these very rare white-cover versions has now been made available from the Sea Urchin archives. The condition of this edition is fine with only minor smudging of the cover.

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New in our Moloko+ catalogue: Taste Tribes – Nischen

01.10.2023

New in our Moloko+ catalogue:

Taste Tribes – Nischen

In September 2021 Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in Berlin organised a series of events to commemorate the Zodiak Free Arts Lab which was founded in 1968 by Beuys student Conrad Schnitzler together with Hans Joachim Roedelius and Boris Schaak. One of the three HAU venues is the building where at the time Zodiak brought together visual art, performance, music and film. Taste Tribes performed live at that venue during the Zodiak celebrations, that is three musicians of the band, the fourth – Alfred 23 Harth – having been prevented from travelling from his hometown Seoul to Berlin because of the corona restrictions of the period. Like Alfred 23 Harth, who had founded his own free arts centre in Frankfurt around the same time as the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in Berlin, the other three musicians of the band have ties with Zodiak. Wolfgang Seidel’s first encounter with the concept of completely free music took place at Zodiak, Günter Müller developed a collage-like technique in music similar to Zodiak founder Conrad Schnitzler’s, and Hans Joachim Irmler is one of the founding members of Hamburg’s early experimental band Faust, of whom Wolfgang Seidel used to be a member too. All four musicians explore and combine various artistic disciplines in their works and question traditional artistic boundaries. As such Taste Tribes formed a fitting tribute to the Zodiak Free Arts Lab in September 2021. In Berlin they performed live as a trio, but on the CD ‘Nischen’, which has been released on Moloko Plus in 2023, Alfred 23 Harth contributions to this fine free-improv tribute have been included. Alfred 23 Harth also took care of the graphic design of the 7-track CD, Robert Schalinski provided the cover art.

Column One rides again!

01.10.2023

New from Moloko+:

Kärma Burg – Die Versuche des Naum Kotik / Column One – Mädchen in schmutzigen Schürzen

Jointly released in March 2023 by German labels Fragment Factory and 90% Wasser, the double-disc set Die Versuche des Naum Kotik / Mädchen in schmutzigen Schürzen is a multimedia production masterminded by Column One. Officially the Berlin collective, with its core members Robert Schalinski, Jürgen Eckloff and René Lamp, disbanded in 2016 but this film and accompanying soundtrack prove they are still very much alive and kicking ass. Fact and fiction as well as sound and image playfully interact in this edition. The film Die Versuche des Naum Kotik – here released on Blue-Ray – was put together over a period of more than ten years by the fictitious filmmaker Kärma Burg aka Jürgen Eckloff. The starting point for this comprehensive production spearheaded by Eckloff and co-produced by other members from the Column One circle was the 1907 publication The Emanation of Psychophysical Energy by the Russian neurologist Naum Kotik (who really existed and lived from 1876 to 1920), in which the possibility of thought transference is scientifically investigated. Eckloff himself plays the part of Naum Kotik’s grandson, who tells about the experiments of his grandfather in a non-existent but convincing language, subtitled in German and English. Other scenes in the film are played by Column One members, and yet other ones were constructed through stop-motion animation techniques. The semi-scientific theme of the film, its black and white shots reminiscent of expressionist cinema and its animations which bring to mind the Czech stop-motion experiments of Karel Zeman and Jan Svankmajer, form an enchanting and captivating whole with a distinct mid- to eastern European feel. Add to that the crystal clear soundtrack Mädchen in schmutzigen Schürzen by Column One, which comes as a separate CD in this release, and the beautiful packaging of the two discs by Robert Schalinski, and there is no doubt that this is one of Column One’s finest productions.

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Jeremiad Chants poster illustrated by Peter Pontiac

01.10.2023

New in our Collectible catalogue:

Jeremiad Chants poster illustrated by Peter Pontiac

A limited number of mint copies of the promotional poster for William Levy’s Jeremiad Chants, silkscreened in 1979. Jeremiad Chants, subtitled An Absolute Polemic, was published independently by William Levy and illustrator Peter Pontiac in 1979. With a print run of only 500 copies and Fluxus artist Willem de Ridder for a designer, this little book is a Rosetta stone of the European counterculture. Levy’s seductively packaged but caustic chapters, often previously published in underground magazines, would form the core of his larger Natural Jewboy, which was to be published by Ins & Outs Press two years later and would also have Peter Pontiac and Willem de Ridder as partners in crime.

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