OUT NOW 20.9.2012
(http://cfprod.com/fa/kuvat/SI8-cover.jpg)
Artist of issue: Rudolf Eb Er.
Essential experimental records featuring: Jeph Jerman / Hands To. Joe Colley / Crawl Unit. Justin Mitchell / Cold Spring & Satori.
INTERVIEWS: Tommi keränen (Testicle Hazard. Pymathon. etc). Loke Rahbek (LR. Caucasian Colony. etc) Bestializer. Michael Esposito. Kinit Her. Cremation Lily.
Field recordings article featuring Altar of Flies. Alfarmania. Eric Lunde. Hal Hutchinson. Jeph Jerman.
Essential noise relate books with Pekka Perä-Taka (Sick Seed. SSRI...).
Reviews.
52/B5 offset printed pages.
Now in perfect bound format with thicker cardboard covers!
Price 6 euro + post
Distributors get in touch!
out now and looking good!
Once again, an excellent issue.
The first thing to capture one's eye is the new format, with nice, thickers covers and an excellent print quality. They layout is quite balanced and easy to read. Eb.er's artwork is nothing short of beautiful.
With articles being not just interviews and reviews, but also the already familiar 'essentials' section, a really nice article on field recordings, and another shorter one about science fiction and noise, the zine is really starting to live up to its name..!
The interviews are all good. Enjoyed especially the longer ones (Keränen, Rahbek, Esposito), but also the slightly shorter ones (Bestializer, Cremation Lily, Kinit Her) were nice and informative. My absolute favourite was the interview with Loke Rahbek anyway. Having seen him perform live has made it obvious that there must be quite much of something, a vision, behind the art we witnessed and this just confirmed my feeling. A long, well articulated, in-depth and coherent piece with lots of interesting points, all in a nice and honest tone. Not only my favourite part of the issue, but also one of the better ones in the history of Special Interests in general.
great work, haven't read it completely yet, but definitely another success.
copies now in stock for Canadians: http://screamandwrithe.storenvy.com
Fantastic issue, this is definately best so far. Cover material is thick, professional like. Also changing the binding was a good idea. Love the looks. Maybe least content so far, but definately the best. Each issue has been clear development, future looks great!
Least content? Hmm, not sure. I guess it's just longer features. There's less ads and certainly not more graphics either, so more text - but just longer features.
I'm toying around with idea of making magazine bigger. Either c. 70 pages or even 100 pages. We'll see... Now when it's twice a year, more pages wouldn't hurt.
Ha! I guess it just felt like it, I don't know. Could be because the pages are now more 'tightly' together.
I read the new issue on the train down to Stockholm. Once again Special Interests proves its position as leading publication in this field, covering wide range of subjects in very passionate way. I think it not only works as a "fanzine" per definition but also brings up some interesting critical questions. The printing / heavy cover binding was great improvement too....
Quote from: absurdexposition on September 28, 2012, 06:08:16 AM
copies now in stock for Canadians: http://screamandwrithe.storenvy.com
any distros in the US carrying this?
Tedium House and soon Malignant and later more.
Nice one, I'm more then happy to pay the price for the new thick covers and print quality.
I think twice a year is great, I would rather see three times a year with 30+ pages then once a year and 90-100 pages.
High light for me: Field recordings article. More reviews in each number would be great, but I know how time consuming that can be.
Thanks for doing this!
Writing more reviews is not a problem. I just hope to keep balance ratio of reviews vs. other content like this. If more pages will be added, it will result some more pages for reviews.
Quote from: absurdexposition on September 28, 2012, 06:08:16 AM
copies now in stock for Canadians: http://screamandwrithe.storenvy.com
I just tried ordering twice, and there was an error completing the transaction, it doesn't show up on my card at all. MAY be a problem with your store, or may be that Paypal just hates prepaid cards.
damn. they were updating the PayPal API of Store Envy the other day and noted there may be some issues, if you try again now it should work. if it happens in the future just send and email and we'll do the transaction that way :)
Walked 2 1/2 miles from work to Joe Crawl Unit's magazine shop in oakland to get this magazine.
My first impressions are mixed, but overall the arrangement, packaging, and content is professional. It fit in perfectly at the magazine boutique. I showed it to my roomate and he said the iphone scan thing on the cold spring add on the back cover was lame, I have to agree with him. But I want that Sleep Research Facility CD, talk about field recordings...
Michael Esposito did a show in the bay area recently, I don't remember. I saw it advertised and wanted to go but I just missed it. He's doing a collab set with Vertonen this month, that should be excellent. Just purchased his collaboration with Francisco Meirino, very much looking forward to "milking that for all its worth."
Since Rudolf Eb.er did the artwork for this issue, It would have been great to see him also write some lines in the "Field Recordings" article.
Loved some of the many sections of the Loke Rahbek article! Excellent stuff. "You don't put that much energy in things that you would put when living in a place where nobody would take care of you" Especially Influence Of Artists
"It is difficult because none of them nothing to do with the sound, but the atmosphere these men were creating during their time, you get a feeling of necessity and seriousness about their work that noise music is lacking too often"
US Bestial Forces compilation review, I really loved it and agreed with it even though it was hard to stomach at points. Im glad I was left out of it, although It would have been encouraging to be included in it I liked that it starts with a positive hook: "As document of scene, as document of 2010'ish movement in USA, where power electronics has had massive uprise, US Bestial Forces is excellent." and then turns negative and pretty much stays that way: "However it would be simply foolish to think that vast majority of these bands could pull out interesting album that could be lined up in level of cult classics, or even contemporary highlights of genre"
Ouch! But yeah.
I could go on with the criticisms that were spot on, but instead I feel like I could take this opportunity to state, for the record, that the Striations track came from excerpts of 2 separate live recordings. I added the intro sample and the outro piece was recorded separately in my garage, again with amplifiers and a tape player. Things are progressing beyond that. But if listening to so much of TAINT's work has taught me anything, its convinced me to "stop complaining and make due with what you have."
The "Newbie" bands on this comp that play live, regularly, are the ones to watch out for in the future. I took this review as an honest counterpart to the Heathen Harvest review, which I also enjoyed when it came out.
"Cunting Daughters who's noise and vocals sound piss weak after Nyodene D's heavily produced assault" I remember this moment too when I first listened. One of the major faults of this comp is, unfortunately, quality control.
"Slogun trademark vocal delivery simply instantly makes band stand out from everybody else" Best track of the comp. Imagine a new slogun b-card release.
"Heavy Breathing has perhaps slightly more interesting textures than many others" Heavy Breathing fucking rules. They have earned their spot in the last sentence of the "highlights."
"Is this really what I want to do and hear, or do I simply settle on substitute?" A constant problem for everyone no matter where you are from or how old you are. The final forms are all we have to judge the work by. But every individual is completely different and has a story to tell about why they are doing what they do, some of them set the conditions right, while others do not, and their work could reflect this.
The technology critique is a nice touch!
This is key:
"notice how you can get lured into bullshit if you don't constantly consciously challenge what you're doing!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbre
This magazine is obviously the product of some very thought out and developed work on all parties involved, as a fan of this music, I fucking appreciate their efforts.
"It is difficult because none of them nothing to do with the sound, but the atmosphere these men were creating during their time, you get a feeling of necessity and seriousness about their work that noise music is lacking too often"
There is one very big mistake with this issue. Loke Rahbek interview file was actually OLD and uncorrected piece. Process was, that we did meet twice in Copenhagen. First made the basis of interview and next time I prepared additional questions. Both of these conversations was done as live recording.
Levas (Terror) did transcribing job and I edited interview text and mailed to Loke to be proofread by himself. Sentences he wishes to rephrase clearer or make adjustments. And he did. And added plenty more comments - about his work and art etc...
Then when doing lay-out, I used file what appeared to be ready - but didn't realize there was the actual corrected file under other name (SI8-Loke-interview = wrong, "LRsi8-first-correction" = right)... It's not the end of the world, but this version is result of transcribed talking. Certainly his corrected version would have been more coherent and also more extensive. I have toyed with idea of posting final version online as file, for those who want more. But version what is in magazine, in my personal opinion, is very good as it is...
Quote from: absurdexposition on October 03, 2012, 06:10:26 AM
damn. they were updating the PayPal API of Store Envy the other day and noted there may be some issues, if you try again now it should work. if it happens in the future just send and email and we'll do the transaction that way :)
It still doesn't work for me.
hm, shit, that's strange. we've had a couple orders this month since you noted the problem, might be an issue with prepaid cards... if you want to try and send $8.86 to screamandwrithe [at] gmail ]dot[ com we can see if it'll work that way
to contribute to the thread: issue is good. feels like less pages as noted by someone else, but aesthetically the binding adds a lot. Rudolf Eb Er art looks great on a harder stock cover. haven't had time to dig into much of the articles yet, though.
All in all, issue #8 was a nice read. Would certainly appreciate more pages (ie. more content).
The interview with Tommi Keranen was a highlight of the issue for me. Having had the pleasure of meeting him in person, reading about his thoughts on various issues was interesting.
Considering my personal taste in music, I'd love to see more harsh noise-related content, especially interviews.
I have discovered Special interests in the last year and bought a few issues including this one, I really enjoy it and see how it has got better with each issue, I particularly enjoy the Essentials section as it gives me things to chase up and listen to.
for US buyers who want to save on shipping, issues 7 & 8 can be found at www.unseenforcetapes.storenvy.com
Bought issue 8 from Turgid distro a while ago. Professional execution. There seem to be a subtle shift in direction of the zine going on. Interesting. New section with influential books I see as natural progression. Informative and down to earth interviews. Interesting selection of artists and viewpoints. Overall a very good publication, but felt a bit "thin". An overall increase in pages would not hurt. I gladly pay a couple of Euros extra for that. Looking forward to the next issue.
Note: From here and onwards every single time I hear - or read something re Keränen, I will think only of him as the guy who have a 12" of Jean-Claude Eloy's "Gaku-no-Michi" (1979).
Next is bigger!
Remember reading that. I think this is a good choice and probably natural as well. Did you enlarge the font size a bit in issue 8?
I think the feeling of issue 8 being "thin" is not only connected to the content is presented inside or number of pages, but it also connected to the the material used. I am thinking of the more harder/thicker outwards cover - which is an excellent choice - in conjuxtapostion to the interior pages. Looking at this visually the outer cover in conjunction to the inner pages makes the zine be perceived as thin. This is more of an observation from my part. A good zine should always leave one hungry for more. This is one of the qualites SPI still holds up.
In early issues of SI, font was tahoma 6. When page size became bigger, it was increased to 6,5 and 7, depending on case. I think 6 is quite small, but 7 works just fine.
In some cases, there was little bit more air on page. Lets say 4 or 5mm between colums, instead of 3mm. And was there interviews where is one extra row of blank after question, instead of this solid block of text all the time...
There is not really any other "direction" with SI, than hoping to create longer and deeper interviews. Early days short pieces are gone. I think upcoming issue, interviews tend to be 6-10 pages per interview... What comes to musical styles, it's pure randomness. There is always bunch of planned interviews what do not happen, and each issue line-up eventually just becomes something which is not entirely planned. Next issue will have quite wide scale. From lesser known harsh noise to experimental artists known even from release on Sony/Columbia, hah!
Any copies of this issue still for sale anywhere?