Next year is already here
Another amazing year just passed by. What happened? Why? When? It’s safe to say that it’s been one of the most intense years so far for me, and I’m very happy about that.
Already in January there was musical action in a new way. Vanessa Sinclair, my wife of approximately one week at the time, and I headed out on a mini-mini-tour of Gothenburg and Stockholm. In Gothenburg we played at the legendary Aniara bookstore, joined by the mighty forces of Joachim Nordwall. Then in Stockholm at even more legendary bookstore Rönnells, joined by Den Arkaiska Rösten. Vanessa was focused on reading material from her book Switching Mirrors (published in November of 2016), and both book and performances were well received by enthusiastic audiences.
All throughout the year, we also recorded a lot of new music and cut-ups. Our first ever proper release was Cut to fit the mouth, a cassette on American label Arcana Machine. This album will also be released digitally early 2018.
A cut-up project that grew and grew and grew was Lunacy. What started out as a Vanessa cut-up of texts about the moon led to musical pieces for them, and then a whole film. We were helped in this endeavor by a crowdfunded campaign that allowed me to buy a super 8 film scanner and scan massive amounts of film material from my archive. A big thank you to those who contributed!
Parallel to the cut-up & music projects, we have also made films to many of the musical tracks we’ve created. If you’re interested you should definitely check them out on my Vimeo page.
There were many books too. California Infernal – Anton LaVey and Jayne Mansfield as portrayed by Walter Fischer sold well and created a nice stir in terms of reviews. The film Mansfield 66/67 helped it along (and vice versa), and I feel that the interest in this weirdly seminal and seminally weird relationship has the potential to grow even more.
Tom Benson: Visionary was published early in the year, and was the result of many years of to-and-fro work together with Benson’s widow Marja Sipola Cuss. I am so very proud to have published this book of images by one of the most talented and peculiar Swedish artists ever. Surrealist, erotic, psychic photo montages from the depth of the human soul, exquisitely conveyed by a master mind/hand. Please check out this book if you haven’t already.
Especially nice in regard to Visionary was to make and see the print of the image William Dreaming, showing William S Burroughs in a very relaxed state of mind. A classic image in every possible way. (It’s sold together with a limited hardbound edition of the book.)
The Fenris Wolf 9 (co-edited by Vanessa and me) was published more or less exactly one year after the successful conference Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult that we co-organised in London in May 2016. We had a nice release party in New York in May and could celebrate this very nice project with a full circle return. The material in this issue is basically all the papers (and more) from the conference and provides many, many hours of intelligent and thought-provoking reading.
I’ve written more than ever before and there were/are many books in preparation for 2018: Occulture – the unseen forces that drive culture forward will be released in March by Inner Traditions. It’s an anthology of essays, lectures and texts from the most recent years and has already gotten some nice reviews. The book can be pre-ordered now (follow the link in the title)!
The An Art Apart project that was originally a series of documentary films will now be published as a book, scheduled for autumn of 2018. The interviewees are Andrew McKenzie/The Hafler Trio, Vicki Bennett/People Like Us, Charles Gatewood, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Gustaf Broms, Michael Gira, Kenneth Anger, Angela Edwards, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, John Duncan, MV Carbon, Mark McCloud, Val Denham, Joe Coleman, Stelarc, Alison Blickle and Gea Philes. You now understand that this will be a must have book!
I recently published In Too Deep as an e-book. It’s a phantasmagorical series of portraits and vistas from the annual ”adult entertainment expo” in Las Vegas. I will publish two follow up books as e-books during 2018. I visited this expo almost ten times between 1995 and 2010 and have taken thousands of photos of porn stars and fans. Looking back at these images now, I’m amazed I survived. Well, mentally at least! This is something I want to share with you so please check out In Too Deep and the coming books.
The Fenris Wolf 10 is scheduled for release late spring 2018. It will be a bumper of a book, to celebrate dear old wolfie turning ten. More news on that will follow in my newsletters and here at the site. Make sure to stay updated by signing up for the newsletter.
And then back to music… There were several records from the archives that were released digitally via Highbrow Lowlife and all the other digisphere channels so please check them out. I also added several recordings of live stuff to Highbrow Lowlife’s Soundcloud page, which could be interesting if you’re a fan.
On that note, 2017 also saw the end of an era for my long time project with Thomas Tibert: Cotton Ferox. We played our last concert in Stockholm early September 2017, performing improvised live music to Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan (a.k.a. Witchcraft through the ages) from 1922. Now we work as separate entities, and I wish Thomas the best of luck in his musical (and other) endeavors. It is in a way fitting that one of the dearest releases for me from 2017 was a lavish re-release on Ideal Recordings of White Stains’ (my previous project with Tibert) Work Workings. Two old cassettes that were now re-released as brand new cassettes. Another full circle moment of pure joy.
During 2017, I started doing webinars/online lectures. It has been great fun; especially the interacting with the participants/attendees. Videos of the lectures are always posted online, as are audio recordings for those who prefer ”podding”.
I will present new lectures on at least a monthly basis so make sure you don’t miss out by signing up for my newsletter at the site.
There are many projects in the works for 2018. New records, books and films, and also lectures in vivo and online, plus many other things. Vanessa and I are preparing a traveling ”package” of an exhibition with collages and cut-ups, with an opening night of a performance and film screening. This could also be combined with lectures and/or workshops. Please feel free to get in touch if you’d like to arrange something where you reside.
As I’ve written more and more about magical theory and practice over the most recent years, I found it suitable during 2017 to also create an egregorian experiment, and delve into sharing in a new way. The Society of Sentience was actually created several years ago, focusing on dream research with just a small number of people in the Stockholm region. But now the SoS takes a couple of giant leaps forward and offer both theory and practice internationally. It’s not so much me ”setting up shop” after decades of work in other structures as it is stretching out a curious hand to an environment beyond the one I already know so well. For more information about the SoS, please visit our site.
Thank you for being interested and for being part of my 2017. It’s been an absolutely amazing year and I know that 2018 will be better yet. See you there and then/where and when!
With love and best wishes,
Carl Abrahamsson
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