Shameless self promotion - A Chapter in The Secret History of a Musick Yet To Be

I've just had an article what I did rite published in a real live magazine. Said magazine was put together by a motley crew of Cultural Studies students from that poncey hole, Goldsmiths College, London - its got some really good stuff in it, and is well worth a little look. Unfortunately, all the paper copies have sold out (already!) but you can read it here.

Anyhow, down to the important stuff...the article I wrote is called "A Chapter in the Secret History of a Muzick Yet To Be" (the title is borrowed from a line in Thomas Pynchon's fabulous novel Mason & Dixon) and its about all sorts of interesting stuff like the magical properties of music, the use of music as an instrument of torture or a means of control. Its about the War on Terror and the closing of borders in the post 9-11 world. Its also about the possibility of a mass musical exorcism of evil control systems. Maybe its a bit tongue in cheek, but maybe not. If you're remotely interested in any of that stuff (or in the work of Brion Gysin/William Burroughs/Throbbing Gristle/Genesis P.) then go and have a read over here. If you're not interested then maybe this opening paragraph will whet your appetite:

In July, a bulletin on the MySpace page of a group of Moroccan musicians sent my mind wandering down some strange paths, got me thinking about music as a technology, as something people use to perform certain actions. Indeed, music is possibly one of the oldest technologies available to humans, a means of communication, a playful way of strengthening communities, and a form of transport to carry us out of ourselves. It's also currently used to terrorise, dehumanise and narcotise individuals and populations around the globe, in ways that allow us to draw tentative lines connecting spaces that seem to be in different worlds, the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the detention centres of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay or Diego Garcia, and the shining consumer wonderlands of the modern shopping mall or office space; spaces of chaos, control and of a particular, possibly perverse idea of freedom. We'll start our wanders around this strange territory in a place where the magical possibilities of sound are acknowledged and celebrated, a place where we might hear echoes of a future music of radical potentiality, a sonic weapon to counteract the narcotic spell cast over us, a musick yet to be.