Carl Abrahamsson

Atlantean Art & Occult Poland

September 10, 2013

I hope to see you in Gdansk, Poland, this weekend, Friday the 13th (!) to Sunday the 15th. I’ll be lecturing (well, speculating is probably a more apt term) about Aleister Crowley and Rudolf Steiner at the Lashtal Press Conference, and look forward to that a lot. Gdansk is a beautiful city and I have dear memories from when Cotton Ferox played there in 2008. Speaking of which, Cotton Ferox will return to Poland on the 17th of November, to perform at the Trans/Wizje festival in Warsawa. More news on this event will follow as we get closer to the date. I will also have an article in the issue of T/W that will be released for/at the festival. The theme of the article is the human being’s need for magical play, externalized through dolls of various kinds. The theme of the concert, however, will be something completely different: temporary dissociation. “What else is new?”, right? Alchemy, antimodernism, anachronism or just Atlantean art? I try to keep up with the...

Gathering of the Tribe: Beware of Brilliance!

September 8, 2013

Quite a while ago I got my hands on Mark Goodall’s book Gathering of the Tribe – Music and Heavy Conscious Creation (Headpress, 2013). I thought I’d read it and write the review without much ado. Boy, was I wong! Actually, I’m still stuck in the book… Help! But this is not because that it’s hard to penetrate or difficult in any way. On the contrary. I’m still stuck because I want to. Goodall’s HEAVY journey through a multitude of various musical styles is simply so brilliant that I want to stay in this deranged stream of wonders and frights forever. What appears at first to be an eclectic guide for record collectors is in actual fact a real mind opener in itself. Not only because of the incredible weirdness Goodall describes, but also because of how he does it (and his friends too). This is a brilliant, illuminating and highly well written book. Try this out for size: Cosmic Sounds, Jazz and the Spirit World, Freaky Folk, The Law of Octaves:...

Elisabeth Punzi & The Mushroom Clouds

September 5, 2013

After having worked with so much weird music together since 1989 or thereabouts, Thomas Tibert and me decided that it would be fun and challenging to make some real pop music instead of the usual Cotton Ferox-structures. So that’s what we did, from 2009 and onwards. The Mushroom Clouds were now catapulted into an unsuspecting cosmos. Back in 2010, we had amassed a bunch of tracks that were very conventional, yet trippy and perhaps even intelligent. Then we gave some serious thought to the vocal issue. Who could vocalize our vision? The best answer to that question was within reach: Gothenburgian chanteuse extraordinaire Elisabeth Punzi of Whipped Cream-fame drifted into the studio like elegant royalty and, as they so frequently say on TV these days, “delivered”. The first result of this collaboration is the EP called EP I, which is available in the digisphere from September 5th, 2013. Beauty and the Beats: Elisabeth Punzi flanked by Mushroom & Clouds, 2010. There...

Roving Report 2013-35

September 1, 2013

Howdy people! Autumn has now officially begun and there’s a chill in the air to prove it. Wonderful! Time to get back to working routines and an evaluation of the times we live in. Some recent developments deserve special mention, and this little missive is meant to be a condensed update of sorts. To celebrate autumn, Highbrow Lowlife today release an album by Cotton Ferox called A Mega Golem Official. Some of you may remember this piece from Vicki Bennett’s Radio Boredcast project back in 2011-2012, but now it’s out there on its own: Spotify, iTunes, Wimp, Amazon et al… Wherever you usually shop or stream, it’s there. The Mega Golem is a project that is well under way now. It’s a magical creature (vide the Golem in Meyrink and others), that is made entirely out of art. Currently several artists are helping me to build this new life form. This official Mega Golem transmission constitutes the being’s penis and testicles. This in no way implies...