Martin Langfield's Blog, page 3

The future is now

Finished “Agency,” William Gibson’s latest, 10 days or so ago and the ending still resonates in my imagination. Well worth the meticulous and fascinating buildup. A worthy sequel to “The Peripheral,” and like that novel very much about the present day, however richly the future/alternative worlds are imagined. I reviewed “The Peripheral” back in the day. Pleased to see much of it holds up for “Agency” too.

[image error] William Gibson and Martin Langfield at the New York Public Library, November 12, 2014....

Why protests in Latin America matter

I recently had the honor of writing a piece on Latin America’s protests in late 2019, and why they matter, for my good friends at News-Decoder. Here’s a link!

[image error] Photo by Martin Langfield, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1986.

“Three Letters” now on SoundCloud!

I made another soundscape, this one more ethereal, cleaner, less ragged. “Three Letters” is a reference to my current fiction project of the same name. It’s the last composition of one of the characters. for whom the three letters are USA, though each listener can imagine their own.
I’ve published it elsewhere under the old title “Bell and Sword.”

I’ve been experimenting with improvised, time-altered patterns on drums and other percussion to build evocative soundscapes, taking advantage of a...

17 seconds on Father’s Day

Because hell yeah.

Bell and Sword: now on YouTube too!

I made another soundscape, this one more ethereal, cleaner, less ragged. As part of this exploratory period I’m putting it up on a bunch of music and audio sites in coming days.

I am experimenting with time-distorted extracts of improvised patterns on drums and other percussion to build evocative soundscapes, taking advantage of serendipity and accidental discoveries along the way. The music resulting from this process aims to grab the listener’s attention with unusual sounds, suggest cinema...

And now on YouTube too!

I am experimenting with time-distorted extracts of improvised patterns on drums and other percussion to build evocative soundscapes, taking advantage of happy accidents and serendipity. The music resulting from this process aims to grab the listener’s attention with unusual sounds, suggest cinematic images in their imagination and slow the listener’s mind to a more contemplative state. In editing I choose passages that suggest transformation – moving from conflict to calm, for example, or he...

Bell and sword

I made another soundscape, this one more ethereal, cleaner, less ragged. As part of this experimental period I’m having CD Baby put it up on lots of music and audio sites in coming days. Enjoy!

(I haven’t stopped writing. But this is a very enjoyable way of clearing my mind and exercising other imaginative muscles, so to speak. Working across different media is an exciting extension of writing across different genres, as I have done before. Let’s see where it goes!)

Soldier’s Heart

I don’t know if this is a statement of intent, a marker of some kind or just an expression of how my mind is running off in unexpected directions, but here’s a piece of ambient music I made over the last couple of weeks.

“Soldier’s heart” is a 19th-century term, used during the American Civil War, for what was later called “shell shock” or “combat fatigue,” nowadays known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. The soundscape portrays a fever dream in which a shellburst and other sense impression...

Today is day one

I joined Reuters, the international news service, when I was 25. I did some thrilling, fascinating, challenging, occasionally terrifying things over the subsequent three and a bit decades. I got to be a foreign correspondent, an editor, a mentor and a member of journalistic teams large and small in a dozen countries, mostly in the Americas. I was sometimes also their leader. It was a privilege to work with some fabulous people throughout that time. Now I’m off on new adventures, the exact nat...

Day one

I joined Reuters when I was 25. I did some thrilling, fascinating, challenging, occasionally terrifying things over the subsequent three and a bit decades. I got to be a foreign correspondent, editor, mentor and member of journalistic teams large and small in a dozen countries, mostly in the Americas. I was sometimes their leader. it was a privilege to work with some fabulous people throughout that time. Now I’m off on new adventures, the exact nature of which will become clearer in the month...