Sea Urchin Editions

New in our Sea Urchin catalogue:

GEORGE BACOVIA - ON ART

First published in 1946. English translation by Sea Urchin, 2024. Hand made edition of 15. Translation, artwork and design: Ben Schot. Depicted sculpture by Dimitrie Paciurea.
€ 15,00

Gheorghe Vasiliu was a Romanian poet who named himself George Bacovia after his native town Bacău. Bacovia was born there in 1881 and distinguished himself as a talented draughtsman, violinist and poet while being educated at the Prince Ferdinand Gymnasium, now located at George Bacovia Street in Bacău. After having moved to Bucharest to study Law in 1903, Bacovia made the acquaintance of poet and critic Alexandru Macedonski, at the time the spearhead of Francophile Symbolism in Romania. Bacovia read his famous poem ‘Plumb’ (Lead) at Macedonski’s salon that same year and made a huge impression on his host and his literary acolytes. Bacovia’s star was rising in Bucharest, but suffering from bad health and depressions he had to return to Bacău and only finished his Law studies at the University of Iaşi in 1911, when he was already 30 years old. Instead of becoming a lawyer, Bacovia held various jobs at literary reviews, offices, schools and ministries, from which he more than once had to resign because of his failing health and depressions. Bacovia was committed to sanitoria several times during his lifetime. In 1933 Bacovia and his wife permanently settled in Bucharest, where he died in 1957.

Bacovia’s poem ‘De Artă’ appeared in his compilation ‘Stanţe burgheze’ in 1946. Back in Bucharest after having retreated to Bacău for more than twenty years and Romania under Soviet occupation since 1945, the poet recollects in ‘De Artă’ the days when he was part of the capital’s inner circle of Romanian Symbolists. In condensed lines, often no longer than a single word, Bacovia vividly and lovingly sketches the atmosphere of decadence of those days. ‘De Artă’ has been translated into English and illustrated by Ben Schot, who published the poem as a hand made Sea Urchin edition of 15 copies. On the gold flyleaf of the edition one of the chimeras has been printed that Romanian Symbolist artist Dimitrie Paciurea produced in the 1920s. Dream on!

George Bacovia - On Art Back in Bucharest after having retreated to Bacău for more than twenty years, Bacovia recollects in his poem ‘De Artă’ the days when he was part of the capital's inner circle of Romanian Symbolists. Bacovia vividly and lovingly sketches the atmosphere of decadence of those days. ‘De Artă’...

Putting together the first copies of a new Sea Urchin chapbook. ON ART: English translation of GEORGE BACOVIA's poem ‘De artă’ (1946). Hand made edition of 15. € 15,00. Let me if you're interested.

New in our Collectible catalogue:

ED VAN DER ELSKEN - EYE LOVE YOU

First printing published by Unieboek BV – Van Holkema & Warendorf, Bussum, 1977. Language: Dutch. Design: Dick de Moei
Condition: Fine.
€ 35,00

Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) was born in Amsterdam, where he was trained as a stonecutter and sculptor until 1944. Inspired by the photojournalistic Picture Post and Weegee’s ‘Naked City’ he shifted his interest from sculpting to photography in the late 1940s. When he tried his luck Paris in 1950, he took up a job printing photos in the darkrooms of Magnum agency. There he met his future wife, the Hungarian photographer Ata Kandó, who was twelve years his senior and was part of the bohemian rive gauche. Through the friendships and acquaintances of Ata, Van der Elsken became one of the best-known documentalists of that seminal post-war scene. Van der Elsken divorced Ata in 1955 and moved back to Amsterdam, where his photo novel ‘Love on the Left Bank’ – starring Australian bohémienne Vali Myers – was published by De Bezige Bij one year later. The influential edition was to be the first of some twenty photo books published over the following decades.

Van der Elsken’s photo book ‘Eye Love You’ was first published in 1977. The book about “happiness, sorrow, suffering, death, strife, courage, vitality”, contains 164 pages of candid fullcolour photos shot by Van der Elsken during his travels all over the world for various magazines. The condition of this first printing is fine.

Ed van der Elsken - Eye Love You First printing, 1977. Condition: fine.

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HAPPY STRAPS - PLEASURES 1985-86

Re-release of the band's 1985 and 1986 cassettes by tapetopia, 2023. Hand numbered edition of 100 copies. Artwork: Laireen & tapetopia. Liner notes: Henryk Gericke.
€ 12,00

Happy Straps was deeply rooted in East Berlin’s alternative scene in the mid 1980s. Café Mosaik was a hotbed of the bohemian scene in Prenzlauer Berg, where dreamers, freaks and artists would meet – ‘negative elements’ who would positively charge each other’s batteries or drive each other insane about their prospects of finally being allowed to leave the GDR. At Café Mosaik Chris Schwartinsky and Jörg (‘Heini’) Heinemann, who had founded the band in Frankfurt-Oder in 1983, met Claudia Böhme and asked her to join the band as a singer. In this line-up the band illegally opened for various GDR bands with state permits, which Happy Straps themselves never bothered to apply for. In the rehearsal space of one of those official bands – Feeling B – Happy Straps found refuge and Feeling B’s casio player Christian ‘Flake’ Lorenz, who would later become the keyboardist of Rammstein, contributed to both Happy Strap cassettes. The two Happy Straps tapes were released in editions of 50 copies as ‘What a Pleasure’ in 1985 and ‘Last Pleasure’ in 1986. But by the end of 1986 all band members had left the GDR to start new projects in the West, such as Gunjah, Johnson Noise and Rammstein. Tapetopia’s cassette ‘Pleasures 1985-1986’ combines both Happy Straps tapes.
(based on the liner notes by Henryk Gericke)

tapetopia is a series of releases based on cassettes from East Germany’s 80s underground, particularly from the East Berlin Mauerstadt music scene, featuring original layouts and track lists. For over 30 years after their initial “release” the music on these tapes was neither available on vinyl nor CD, but they were important statements in the canon of the GDR subculture. Despite the miniscule number of original cassettes in circulation at the time many of the bands were popular in countercultural circles, a factor that made them highly suspect among the government’s own inner circles. tapetopia is run from Berlin by Henryk Gericke.

Happy Straps - Pleasures 1985-86 Re-release on C50 of Happy Straps' 1985 and 1986 cassettes.

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SM**MA - NAME OF THE FRAME

CD released on Moloko Plus, 2021. Originally recorded by Ju Suk R**t Meate. Artwork: Ace Farren Ford. Design: Robert Schalinski.
€ 15,00

Sm**ma came into being in Pasadena, California on November 23, 1973, when several friends decided to experiment with music, despite having no formal artistic or musical training. They developed a ‘band without musicians’ concept, only allowing real musicians to join in when special parts were required. In the course of time Sm**ma (which was a perversion of the band name Magma) developed a so-called ‘primitive suburban folk’ approach to music. While being aware of the dominant music scene of LA of the period (Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fischer), those musicians only remained a distant influence. John Cage, Harry Partch, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Buckminster Fuller and many other great minds of previous generations were more influential than Sm**ma's contemporaries.

Most Sm**ma members moved to Portland, Oregon in 1975 while at the same time becoming involved with the Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), to which they contributed LPs, cassettes and visual art. Sm**ma’s approach of playfully paying tribute to the great music of earlier generations, deconstructing contemporary music and pushing music into new territories has always generated a small but expert number of admirerers from all over the world. So far over 100 people have performed, recorded with, and/or helped work on Sm**ma projects. Since the passing of Ace Farren Ford in 2024 the core of the current members are: Ju Suk R**t Meate (Eric Stewart), Oblivia (Jackie Stewart aka Rock and Roll Jackie) and Dennis Duck (Dennis Mehaffey).

Moloko Plus has now released the beautiful Sm**ma CD ‘Name of the Frame’, which contains recordings from the late 1970s and early 1980s plus a long solo recording by Ace Farren Ford from 1974. Artwork by Ace Farren Ford forms the basis of Robert Schalinski’s excellent design of the digipak. All tracks originally recorded by Ju Suk R**t Meate with final editing done in Portland, Oregon in April 2021.

Sm**ma - Name of the Frame Recordings from the 1970s and early 1980s.

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JEAN-JACQUES LEBEL - KOZMIK ZIGZAG

12" vinyl released by Slowscan in 2023. Edition of 250. Artwork: Jean-Jacques Lebel. Design: Johnny Van de Koolwijk.
€ 25,00

Artist, writer, curator, theorist, and activist Jean-Jacques Lebel (Paris, 1936) has been a spearhead of the avant-garde since the 1950s. Lebel formed an early link between the European avant-garde and the American Beat Generation, introduced Happenings to Europe, was one of the creative minds behind the May 68 revolt, organised the Festival de la libre Expression (which evolved into the Polyphonix festivals), provided first French translations of works by Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs and has curated large exhibitions on Francis Picabia, Antonin Artaud, Henri Michaux, Pablo Picasso a.o. La Maison rouge in 2009 and Centre Pompidou in 2018 dedicated comprehensive shows to Lebel’s works, views and international connections.

The 12″ vinyl ‘Kozmik Zigzag’ that Jan van Toorn’s Slowscan has now released, contains pieces that were recorded at Lebel’s home in Paris in 2021, a performance together with jazz improvisations by Joëlle Léandre in 1993 and a talk (in English) between Lebel and Andres Pardey of the Tinguely Museum, Basel, in 2022. The artwork of this beautiful release is by Jean-Jacques Lebel himself, the design of the sleeve by Johnny Van de Koolwijk.

Jean-Jacques Lebel - Kozmik Zigzag Pieces that were recorded at Lebel's home in Paris in 2021, a performance together with jazz improvisations by Joëlle Léandre in 1993 and a talk (in English) between Lebel and Andres Pardey of the Tinguely Museum, Basel, in 2022.

Now in our Collectible catalogue very last copy of:

CAMERON JAMIE - INNER PLANETS (signed)

Published by Walther König, Cologne, 2013. Languages: German/English. Editor & Essay: Lynn Kost. Design: Cameron Jamie & Silvio Waser, Buffet für Gestaltung. Condition: As new, signed by the artist.
€ 20,00

‘Inner Planets’ is a bilingual artists’ book by American artist Cameron Jamie (1969). It was published during Jamie’s installation of the same name at the Palmenhaus of the Old Botanical Garden of Zürich in June 2013. The installation, in which 43 ceramic masks were hung from the roof of the glass building like a colourful galaxy or a pantheon for visitors to look up to, was curated by Lynn Kost. Jamie’s artists’ book combines views of the installation with photos of the individual masks and close-ups of their glazings and of drawings that reveal unifying elements. The result is a strangely beautiful book that combines savage and expressive masks with elegant textures and introspective lines. Inner Planets… You don’t know whether you’re looking up or in.

The book also contains an essay in German and English by Lynn Kost, is as new and has been signed by Cameron Jamie, who also added a small drawing on the title page.

Cameron Jamie - Inner Planets Book published during Jamie's installation ‘Inner Planets’ curated by Lynn Kost at the Palmenhaus of the Old Botanical Garden of Zürich in June 2013. The condition of this copy is as new. Signed by Cameron Jamie.

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - BEING ON THE BEAT

CD released by Moloko Plus, 2020. Compiled by Ralf Friel & Rex Joswig. Designed by Robert Schalinski.
€ 15,00

German writer Jürgen Ploog worked as an airline pilot for 33 years. Transience and crossing borders were integral to his existence and writings until his death at the age of 85 in 2020. Ploog’s early literary output gravitated naturally to the cut-up method that William Burroughs and Brion Gysin popularised in the 1960s. His early experiments at cut-ups were published in the satirical magazine ‘Der Metzger’ and in the German Beat magazine ‘Gasolin 23’, which Ploog founded with Carl Weissner and Jörg Fauser in 1971. Since then the cut-up technique remained an essential component of Ploog’s prose, at first prominently present – for instance in his hardcore cut-up novels ‘Cola-Hinterland’ (1969) and ‘Die Fickmaschine’ (1970) – and later subdued and overlain by loose episodical structures. ‘Pacific Boulevard’ (1977) and ‘Nächte in Amnesien’ (1980) are examples of those later logbook-like works. The CD ‘Being on the Beat’ was compiled by Moloko’s Ralf Friel and Herbst In Peking’s Rex Joswig and released in 2020 as a tribute to German cut-up master Jürgen Ploog.

‘Being on the Beat’ is a lovely and varied collection of 23 recordings by Ploog himself, friends and affiliated artists such as William Burroughs, Alfred 23 Harth, Tarwater, Herbst In Peking, The Same, Rex Joswig, Jan Herman/Carl Weissner and others. The accompanying 14-page booklet, like the CD sleeve designed by Robert Schalinski, contains interesting texts by Thomas Stemmer, Thomas Antonic, Alfred 23 Harth and Phil Shoenfelt, photos and collages by Jürgen Ploog. What a beautiful and fitting tribute to Ploog this release has turned into!

https://www.sea-urchin.net/audio-video/moloko-plus-audio-video/various-artists-being-on-the-beat/

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ANNA NIARAKIS - SUNRISE OVER NOTHING

Jojntly published by Moloko Plus & Sea Urchin, 2021. Language: English. Drawings: Ben Schot. Design: Anneke Auer.
€ 15,00

Twenty poems and eight drawings interact in this slim poetry compilation that was jointly published by Moloko Plus and Sea Urchin in December 2021. Anna Niarakis’s concise and intelligent poems capture universal themes such as death, love, loss and the passing of time in a clear and original language, while the images they evoke flare passionately against a backdrop of existential absurdity. Schot’s ‘hard black’ drawings reject all shades of grey and bring together deliberate and accidental lines in images that appear to be on the verge of obliteration. ‘Sunrise over nothing’ is then a fitting title for this powerful combination of poems and drawings, which was even further invigorated by Anneke Auer’s refreshing design.

Anna Niarakis was born in Athens, Greece on 10 May 1979. She lives in Paris, where she works as a Professor of Systems Biology at the University of Evry, Paris-Saclay. Among her earlier poetry compilations are ‘Lab Notebook’ (Charamanda Publications, 2010), ‘The Fishphone’ (Gavriilides Publishing, 2015) and ‘The Angel’s Share’ (Bibliothèque Publications, 2019).

Ben Schot (1953) is a Dutch artist and publisher from Rotterdam. He has illustrated works by Georg Trakl, Gustav Sack and Georg Heym for Moloko Plus and has run his own publishing house Sea Urchin Editions since 2000.

Anna Niarakis - Sunrise over nothing Jointly published by Moloko Plus & Sea Urchin. Poems: Anna Niarakis. Drawings: Ben Schot. Design: Anneke Auer.

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GUSTAV SACK - PARALYSE

Published by Moloko Plus, 2021. Illustations: Ben Schot. Design: Robert Schalinski.
€ 15,00

‘Paralyse’ is the German title of a novel that Gustav Sack (1885-1916) conceived and started in 1913 but never had the chance to finish. The novel was to revolve around the delirious ideas and fantasies of a poet/philosopher who, like Sack’s inspiration Friedrich Nietzsche, suffers from dementia paralytica in the final stages of syphilis. In a letter to his fiancee Paula Harbeck Sack explains that the main character of his novel will be “physically completely miserable, incapable to recollect or think logically, while lapsing into the wildest, most fantastic yet optimistic delusions; a glowing embrace of life and at the same time helpless as a child”. Moloko+ has now published the opening chapters of Sack’s hallucinatory novel, in which the main character’s syphilitic deliria gradually manifests itself and contrasting ideas fuse in a sublime nihilistic fire. Designed by Robert Schalinski and illustrated by Ben Schot this book is another fine publication in Moloko’s expressionist series.

Gustav Sack (1885-1916) grew up in the German village of Schermbeck, close to the Dutch border and the industrial Ruhr district. He attended the grammar school of the nearby town of Wesel and did German Studies and Natural Science at the universities of Greifswald, Münster and Halle before dropping out in 1910. Sack developed an interest in literature during his grammar school days, when he discovered Shakespeare, Shelley, Byron, Schopenhauer and many others and started writing himself. His wild and intoxicated student days were reflected in his first novel ‘Ein verbummelter Student’, written in 1910 when Sack was 25 years old. Despite Sack’s high expectations the novel was rejected by a Munich publisher that same year, but determined to pursue a career as a writer, Sack moved to the Bavarian capital anyway in 1913.

In Munich – in those days a mecca of German bohemianism – Sack and his future wife Paula Harbeck got in touch with the literary avant-garde and the first generation of expressionists. But the outbreak of World War I and his inevitable mobilisation made anti-militarist and anti-nationalist Sack decide to leave the country and take refuge in Switzerland. Being treated as a deserter by both the German and Swiss authorities, finding his financial support cut completely by his family and being separated from Paula, whom he had just married, left Sack financially and emotionally bankrupt. He returned to Germany in 1914, reported to the military authorities and was sent to the trenches of the Somme front a month later. In poems and an extensive correspondence with Paula he documented the insanity of the trench war for the next year and a half. After having been arrested for misconduct and insubordination, Sack was transferred to the psychiatric ward of a military hospital, where he stayed for a while and then was reunited with his wife. In 1916 they moved back to Munich. Just as Sack had reconnected with the avant-garde circles there and Paula had managed to raise interest in his work, Sack was sent to the front again – this time to Romania – where he was killed in action a couple of weeks later. None of Sack’s major works saw publication during his lifetime, but through the efforts of Paula they were published posthumously and then were acclaimed by leading authors such as Thomas Mann, Ernst Jünger and Theodor W. Adorno.

Available from Sea Urchin:
https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/moloko-books/gustav-sack-paralyse/
and from Moloko Plus:
http://www.molokoplusrecords.de/finder.php?folder=Print&content=143

Gustav Sack - Paralyse Gustav Sack's unfinished novel, 1913-1916

in stock last available and still sealed copy of:

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS - RADIO TEARDROP

Audio CD/interactive CD-ROM, published by The End Is Here, 1997.
€ 20,00

45 minute one track produced from 1973-1995 CD, stereo sound collage by Destroy All Monsters, mixed with random radio noise, Japanese noise samples (Violent Onsen Geisha, Otomo Yoshihide), old DAM riffs and spine-tingling artwork. Limited edition of 500 copies, with artwork by DAM.

This audio CD is also an interactive CD-ROM playable on the computer with random artwork and texts by artist Dennis Summers.

Destroy All Monsters - Radio Teardrop Stereo sound collage by Destroy All Monsters, mixed with random radio noise, Japanese noise samples (Violent Onsen Geisha, Otomo Yoshihide), old DAM riffs and spine-tingling artwork. Limited edition of 500 copies, with artwork by DAM.

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BEAUTIFUL NOISE - THE SOUND OF BOB RUTMAN

CD released by MOLOKO PLUS, 2021. Recorded live at Coventry Cathedral, 2007 and Bleibeil Studio Berlin, 2020. Photography: AnnA Motterie. Produced by Jestram & Joswig.
€ 15,00

Robert (‘Bob’) Rutman died in June 2021. The CD ‘Beautiful Noise – The Sound of Bob Rutman’ is a loving tribute to Rutman and his music produced by his friends Bernd Jestram and Rex Joswig from Berlin and released on Moloko Plus from Schönebeck. The CD contains recordings of a live performance by Rutman at Coventry Cathedral in 2007 and material – ranging from Rutman’s music to b***y limericks in his voice – recorded by Jestram and Joswig in Bleibeil Studio Berlin between 2015 and 2020. The CD comes in a gatefold sleeve and an 8-page booklet with an interview of Rutman and photos by AnnA Motterie.

Bob Rutman was born in Berlin in 1931. His mother was Jewish and had to escape from Germany with her son when the N***s rose to power. Rutman attended refugee schools in England during the Second World War and settled in the USA after having completed his education in 1950. He worked as a salesman in Texas before enrolling in art school in Mexico City, where he married and fathered a child. Together with his wife and son Rutman returned to the US in 1962 and started an art gallery in New York City. The gallery, called ‘A fly can’t bird but a bird can fly’ became a venue for multimedia events, in which music, film, poetry, theatre and visual art were combined and Rutman often collaborated with the poet Philip Lamantia and the sculptor Constance Demby. With the latter he developed his first sound sculptures in 1966 and 1967.

After having moved to Maine and having opened another gallery there, Rutman developed sound instruments from large sheets of metal with steel strings (steel cellos) and swinging steel rods (bow chimes), which he played with a bow. The Central Maine Power Music Company, founded in 1970 with Constance Demby as one of the members, was the first of Rutman’s ensembles to use these instruments in compositions and multimedia events. Rutman returned to his native Berlin in 1989, where he studied Tibetan meditation and music and taught himself to throat sing. From that time his American industrial steel instruments were tuned to match his throat singing and his various Steel Cello Ensembles opened up to non-western instruments. Rutman continued to work, study and teach other musicians in Berlin until his death at the age of 90.

Beautiful Noise - The Sound of Bob Rutman Recorded live at Coventry Cathedral, 2007 and Bleibeil Studio Berlin, 2020.

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ROLF DIETER BRINKMANN - NO ONE KNOWS MORE

Published by Moloko Plus, 2023. Language: English. Translations & postscripts: Mark Kanak. Design: Kai Pohl. Artwork: Judith Schwietzke. Photos: Ulrike Pfeiffer.
€ 20,00

Rolf Dieter Brinkmann‘s short life and career came to an abrupt end when he was hit by a car and catapulted into the air on Westbourne Grove, London in 1975. Crossing the road to a pub on the opposite side he had forgotten that people drive on the left in the UK. By that time Brinkmann’s star as a poet, writer, and translator had been rising in Germany and his work had won him both critical acclaim and a fellowship at Villa Massimo in Rome. Brinkmann had visited London many times before. His friend Ralf-Rainer Rygulla had lived there for three years – making a living at Foyles booksellers on Charing Cross Road – and had introduced him to Tony Godwin’s Better Books across the road. Godwin had met Lawrence Ferlinghetti in San Francisco in 1964 and had modelled his Better Books after Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore. Consequently, in the 1960s Better Books was one of the few places in Europe (together with Barry Miles’s Indica Books) where countercultural literature from the US was available. Both Brinkmann and Rygulla took inspiration from Ted Berrigan, Frank O’Hara, William Carlos Williams, Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg and other American poets, writers and publishers and in 1969 they published German translations of their favourite authors in their influential anthology ‘ACID. Neue amerikanische Szene’. But at the turn of the decade Brinkmann withdrew from Germany’s literary scene and concentrated on writing in his apartment in Cologne, where he lived with Maleen Kramer and their son Robert. His poetic opus magnum ‘Westwärts 1 & 2’ was written the following years and was awarded the prestigious Petrarca-Preis posthumously in 1975.

‘Keiner weiß mehr’ is Brinkmann’s only novel. Moloko Plus has now published the first English translation of this novel (or rather, anti-novel), which counts as one of the most innovative German literary works of the 1960s. According to translator Mark Kanak’s blurb on this beautiful edition NO ONE KNOWS MORE ‘offers an insight into the emotionally-fraught marital and personal lives (and thoughts) of a nameless couple and their child in late 1960s Cologne. The text, which graphically recounts the protagonist’s travails in an at times obsessive hypnotic inner monologue, was considered groundbreaking for its time in German-speaking literature. First published in 1968, the book remains a unique linguistic milestone, for which adjectives such as “obscene,” “brutal,” and “brilliant” were frequently bandied about in reviews when describing the meticulous rendering of the (mis- and non-) adventures of a man who at every step is incessantly questioning the world about him.’

Rolf Dieter Brinkmann - No One Knows More First English translation of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann's groundbreaking novel ‘Keiner weiß mehr’ (1968). Translation and postscripts: Mark Kanak for Moloko Plus. With photos by Ulrike Pfeiffer.

New arrival from SLOWSCAN:

JULIEN BLAINE - EXTRAVAGANT CIRCUS OF THE MOUTH

12" vinyl released by Slowscan, 2023. Edition of 250. Design: Johnny Van de Koolwijk.
€ 25,00

French performance artist and poet Julien Blaine was born as Christian Poitevin in Rognac in 1942. Already at the age of twenty he published his first poetry magazine ‘Les Carnets de l’Octéor’ and turned to action poetry with his piece ‘Rep éléphant 306’, in which he interviewed a circus elephant, two years earlier than Michael McClure’s famous poetry reading to lions. In 1976 Blaine launched ‘Doc(k)s’, an international magazine which brought to light and documented new directions in poetry. Apart from his pioneering magazines and performances, Blaine organised leading poetry festivals and events in Marseille and Lodève in the 1980s and 1990s. He abandoned action poetry the next decade, instead turning his creative output to confrontational “demonstr’actions” and “déclar’actions” which focus – often in collaboration with other artists – on physical and lingual poetic interventions. Throughout his work Blaine uncompromisingly explores the bare essence of poetry, its impact on the audience and its function in society. For several years now he has published his revolutionary poetic research in his magazine ‘Les Cahiers de la 5e feuille’.

Slowscan Vol. 60 brings together eleven pieces by Blaine under the title ‘Extravagant Circus of the Mouth’. Beautifully designed by Johnny Van de Koolwijk the album manages to bring across and document Blaine’s explorations of poetry as a powerful human creation. The album comes in a colourful offset printed sleeve with a double-sided insert. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the show!

Julien Blaine - Extravagant Circus of the Mouth Slowscan Vol. 60 brings together eleven pieces by Blaine under the title ‘Extravagant Circus of the Mouth’. Beautifully designed by Johnny Van de Koolwijk the album manages to bring across and document Blaine's explorations of poetry as a powerful human creation. The album comes in a colourful o...

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Three JÜRGEN PLOOG related editions:

JÜRGEN PLOOG - LORRE IN METROPOLIS
(book published by Moloko Plus, 2021. With collages by Walter Hartmann):
https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/moloko-books/jurgen-ploog-lorre-in-metropolis/

JÜRGEN PLOOG - TAPES VON UNTERWEGS 1971-1976
(12" vinyl, jointly released by 90% Wasser & Moloko Plus, 2015):
https://www.sea-urchin.net/audio-video/90-prozent-wasser/jurgen-ploog-tapes-von-unterwegs-1971-1976/

UDO BREGER - IDENTITY EXPRESS
(book published by Moloko Plus, 2021. With a ticker tape by Jürgen Ploog)
https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/moloko-books/udo-breger-identity-express/

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CLAUS BÖHMLER - KLANGUNDKRACH

12" vinyl released by SLOWSCAN, 2014. Design: Johnny Van de Koolwijk.
€ 25,00

Claus Böhmler (1939-2017) was a Fluxus artist from Hamburg. In the mid-1960s Böhmler was one of Joseph Beuys’s students at the Düsseldorfer art academy. From 1974 to 2005 he himself was an art professor at the art school of Hamburg, where Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen were two of his students. Like Oehlen, Böhmler joined the ‘Lord Jim Lodge’: a mock secret society founded by Kippenberger and Jörg Schlick, the motto of which is ‘Nobody Helps Nobody’ and the logo of which consists of a sun, a hammer and a pair of breasts.

Böhmler took an early interest in reproduction techniques. Like sound works, readymades, radio and film, they have remained part of his work since the 1960s. ‘Klangundkrach’ is a Musique Concrète collage that was recorded in Hamburg in 1996 and released on vinyl by Slowscan in 2014.

Claus Böhmler - Klangundkrach Slowscan Vol. 24. Musique concrète, recorded Hamburg 1996.

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ED SANDERS - THE EX-TERR POEMS

Jointly published by Moloko Plus & Sea Urchin, 2020. Designed by Anneke Auer.
€ 20,00

Moloko Plus and Sea Urchin have joined forces again to publish ‘The Ex-Terr Poems’ by Edward (Ed) Sanders. The book, beautifully designed by Anneke Auer, combines new poems and glyphs by Sanders in his series of Bardic Glyph-Books. “These poems were begun in late January 2020, around the advent of my knowledge of the Corona Virus Invasion”, Sanders explains. “With my wife Miriam as videographer and great idea-person, for the last 14 years I have been writing and broadcasting a Saturday evening half-hour program, ‘The Woodstock Journal’, from 7 to 7:30 p.m. over the Public Access television studio at the Mescal Hornbeck Community Center in Woodstock. I bring a DVD of each show from home to the station, and send it out to viewers over station equipment. While each show is running”, Sanders continues, “I am free to write, work on my daily journal, or read. Last January 24, while The Woodstock Journal segment was being aired, I had a strange idea to write a poem about Sassy the Saucer. First I drew a Glyph of an extraterrestrial named Sassy, which, finished on the page, inspired the poem. Each Saturday evening, for the next 10 weeks, I drew a Glyph and wrote a poem about an extraterrestrial. Here they are, all fourteen of them.”

Ed Sanders (1939) is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. In 1958 Sanders dropped out of the University of Missouri and hitchhiked to New York City. There he founded the avant-garde journal F**k You/A Magazine of the Arts and, a couple of years later, his Peace Eye Bookstore, which turned into a hotbed of poetry, art and radical activism. In 1964 he graduated from New York University with a degree in Greek and founded the seminal countercultural band The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg. At the time Sanders’ subversive activities in the Lower East Side were described by William Burroughs as a “total assault on the culture”. An unstoppable anti-war activist, Sanders took a prominent part in the famous attempt to levitate and exorcise The Pentagon in 1967 and published ‘Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century: Selected Poems 1961–1985’ twenty years later. Sanders lives in Woodstock with his wife Miriam, where he has worked on his investigative 9-volume ‘America, A History In Verse’ since 1998. In 2018 he published ‘Broken Glory: The Final Years of Robert F. Kennedy’.

Available from Sea Urchin:
https://www.sea-urchin.net/books/sea-urchin-books/ed-sanders-the-ex-terr-poems/
or from Moloko Plus:
http://www.molokoplusrecords.de/finder.php?folder=Print&content=64

Ed Sanders - The Ex-Terr Poems Extraterrestrial Glyphs & Poems in times of Corona.