skug // english

On the German translation of the much-discussed tome by Simon Reynolds.

Translated into English by Friederike Kulcsar
»German version

»You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do«
(Henry Ford)

»He seems to attach himself to certain movements ...
Lemmy Kilmister: Idiot, I think is the word you want«

Text: Lemmy Kilmister* (edited by Noël Akchoté)
Photo: www.rocklouder.co.uk

In April Sudeten Creche will be on stage for the first time in more than twenty-five years, performing in London, Paris, Antwerp, Berlin and Vienna. skug caught up with Sudeten Creche during their rehearsal schedule to find out more about the songs they will be playing and some of the lesser-known history of this established but somewhat reclusive early 80's minimal electro duo.

Fotocredits: Martin Lloyd

Hiroaki Umeda is known for his works that combine choreography, soundscapes, imagery and lighting design. As a one-man company acting under the name of S20 he has been composing choreographies for other dancers since 2008. At the Tanzquartier Vienna he presented »2. repulsion«, a performance he created in 2010 for three dancers (Sofiane Belkebir, Yvener Guillaume, Soufiane Tiet) by commission for the Théâtre de Suresnes Jean Vilar. The other piece he presented on two evenings (26.03.-27.03.2011) was »while going to a condition«, a work that established his reputation as a first-class Japanese solo dancer who blends classical dance movements with HipHop elements, always keeping his feet firmly grounded while being in contact with rhythmic noises and minimalist video art. Backstage he talked about his first steps into the world of dance and explained his spatial concepts.

Fotocredit: Julieta Cervantes

»Ladies of Hip-Hop« is an annual festival, first held in Philadelphia in 2004 and now located in New York City. On the 8th of March 2011, the International Women's Day, the founder of the festival, Michele Byrd-McPhee, presented her project for the first time in Europe together with the »KosmosTheater Wien« and the Austrian association »Urban Arts & Culture«, a place in Vienna for art and politics explicitly dedicated to female artists. Michele Byrd-McPhee offered a versatile programme containing performances, workshops and panel discussions to broach the issue of female creativity within a male dominated Hip-Hop culture. skug talked with Michele and Tweetie, a famous Hip-Hop dancer and choreographer from the South-Bronx, about different aspects of Hip-Hop Culture and the female role in it.

Photo: Michele Byrd-McPhee, © Gabriel Bienzycky

skug interviews John Foxx on his new album »Interplay«, D-I-Y, ghosts, and the art of leaving.

Credits of all Photos: Metamatic

Lia Rodrigues is a Brazilian born activist and artistic director, trained in classical ballet in Sao Paulo in the 70s. Her work has won several prizes both in Brazil and overseas. In February 2011 she showed her latest piece »Pororoca« (2009) for the first time in Austria, together with a performance of »Such Stuff As We Are Made Of« (2000) at the Tanzquartier Wien. Her performance and dance style are inspired by the daily routines of Rio de Janeiro's favelas, constantly shifting the dancers' body language between familiar and exceptional expressions. (Foto: Pororoca 3 © Sammi Landweer)

Meg Stuart is an American choreographer and dancer now living in Belgium. She is a very important  figure in the European and International contemporary dance world, leading her own company Damaged Goods since 1994. We got the chance to talk to her and the well known Austrian Choreographer and Dancer Philipp Gehmacher together with the German visual artist Vladimir Miller about their new, physically intense piece »The Fault Lines« which they presented via Tanzquartier Wien in the MUMOK factory basement on 4th and 5th February 2011.


fotocredit: © Eva Würdinger

Even after years of terminological presence it remains difficult to pin down what a VJ does, what makes one a VJ, what legitimises a VJ, what a VJ is. Depending on the context, the terms »VJ« and »VJing« are used in such heterogeneous frameworks and are associated with such an array of different fields of activities that it would take several chapters merely to explain the term »VJing« and its nature.

This text, however, attempts to create an audiovisual dispositive which departs from common designations for VJs, and instead takes a detour around so-called video bands to display the many possibilities for novel audiovisual live art. This will be exemplified by Metamkine from France and Granular Synthesis from Austria.

Text originally published Nov. 2006 for VJ Theory www.vjtheory.net/art/metamkine_and_granular.htm

Andy Oppenheimer/Martin Lloyd (Oppenheimer Analysis), Jen Ellerson (Brave Exhibitions), Mark Warner (Sudeten Creche, Rossetti's Compass) @ Brave Exhibitions Berlin, 21.10.2010. Photo: © Kristal Burtrum

Back to the future. Or maybe tape labels have never really gone away. Anyway, I like the Connecticut based tape label Goaty Tapes because of its careful and naïve hand-collage layout that ties together a well-selected bunch of artists. A word with its founder; history student Zully Adler.

»I could demand in the contract that I have a 20 hour sound-check«

 From left to right, guitars: Evelyne Buhler, Eric Hubel, Reg Bloor and Greg McMullen, conductor: Glenn Branca, drummer: Libby Fab, bass: Ryan Walsh

» german Version, translated by Friederike Kulcsar

In French there is an odd common expression that I never quite got right as it obviously states one thing and its radical contrary at the same time: »On n'a pas tous les jours vingts ans« (»one doesn't turn twenty every day«). Twenty What/What »twenty«?

An interview with Pieter Schoolwerth about New York's groundbreaking Cold Wave label Wierd Records, joined by two of its highly acclaimed musicians, Liz Wendelbo (Xeno & Oaklander) and Sean McBride (Martial Canterel, X&O).

Photocredits: Liz Wendelbo & Sean McBride, Diana Daia

Der schwedische Klangkünstler Carl Michael von Hausswolff über seine CDs »Råttor«, »Maskar« und »Kryp«, Soundinterferenzen, Körperfrequenzen, Burroughs vs. Gysin, Neil Young und Kuratierungen von Sound-Installationen.

Fotos: Rainer Dragan

In early June, American-Japanese musician Terre Thaemlitz had been invited for a performance to the opening of the exhibition »The Death Of The Audience« in the Viennese Secession.

For about two hours, he played an acoustic piano piece. Dressed in a shiny gala-like dress, Thaemlitz just sat there, pouring drops of piano sounds into the gallery and creating an environment that oscillated between fragile, restrained and eruptive moments. Single chords delayed themselves to seemingly infinity. The projector next to the audience displayed various designs, text excerpts and statistics from »Soulnessless«, his big follow-up project to »Love Bomb«.

In the interview, Terre Thaemlitz talks about »Soulnessless«, his ideas about soul music, its technical aspects and its (dis-)connections towards the Western music industry.

For him, musicians and producers seem to be confronted with drastic changes in their working conditions due to an »easy access«-mentality in the MP3-era. He also focuses on current socio-political mechanisms which force society in general and queer positions in particular back to conservative concepts of cohabitation like families and clans.