Every wondered what it would be like to discover how artists and authors respond to the music of Mogwai? Wait maybe I need to contextualise that question a little…first let’s talk about Mogwai. They’re an incredible band from Glasgow, their albums are immense, guitar-based soundscapes that are so huge and epic sounding that it’s easy to give yourself up to them. I first fell for their album Happy Songs for Happy People, massive, propulsive guitar noise that is one of the ultimate brain cleaners.
Chroma Editions, a Glasgow-based publisher, contacted me about contributing a piece to their anthology of art works and writing inspired by the music of Mogwai. At the time I was playing around with a bunch of stencil art pieces created from extracts from my poems. It was fun, it made me think about the words in a different way, it gave me that chance to pretend I was as like a mini Glenn Ligon…which I”m most certainly not! I decided to run with that idea – so it became the first time I submitted a piece that was visual…and written.
Early on my biggest decision was which Mogwai song I’d use as inspiration for my piece. I thought a lot about the different ways I’d listened to Mogwai – where I listened, what I was thinking while I was listening, what the songs helped me to feel, even what I did with the songs and who I shared them with. I settled on the the soundtrack for Zidane: a 21st century portrait. A slightly unusual choice, but I’ve always been fascinated by the film – which uses a whole bunch of cameras to follow Zidane over the duration of a single match. The film is created by Douglas Gordon – probably most famous for 24-Hour Psycho – whose work is really great at exploring cinema, repetition, fame etc.
I began by transcribing the subtitles for the film, then I used this text as my starting point for the writing that would eventually become the stencil artworks. The text is taken entirely from words that appear in the film. It’s strange, but hopefully something like the strange world created by the music of Mogwai.
Le carré vert
Sound is three times magic, the solar wind
immersed in tone. When you are conscious
next to the ear of a son, memory
is nothing at all. A solar presence
ticking to be written. Step to the noise, decide
you are atmosphere. The floods
have happened; hundreds of toads wake.
You hear ivory-billed voice. Ordinary words:
car bomb, mine explosion, rescue, plasma
in a freshwater pond. As long as it lasts,
the game is another place. Decide for yourself.
You are never alone, the whistles, the insults;
You become everything experienced,
exactly what was going to happen.
After pulling this together I set about creating the stencil artworks that became my final contribution to the project.
Anyway, Vigilantia is a fascinating anthology, with a great mix of art at written pieces. Here’s the blurb: ’33 artists and writers respond to the music of Mogwai with a vivid collection of texts and mixed media combining essays, poems, painting, drawing, photos, assemblage, installation and graphic illustration. The result is a fascinating portrait as playful and mischievous as the band itself. it features work from: Paul Youdell, Clare Archibald, Matt Healy, Darragh McCausland, John McDougall, Sapphire Goss, Martin MacInnes, Richard Milward, Colm O’Shea, Arun Sood, Isabella Streffen, Pat Barrett, Shelley Hastings, Martin Jones, Iain Sharpe, Lee Ashworth, Rik Rawling, David Banning, Rico Craig, Josef Minta, Rose Ruane, Brian McHenry, Wendy Erskine, Duncan Harman, Maria Sledmere, Susan Tomaselli, Noel Hannan, Dana Tommasino, Alister Black & Jonny Cannon, Joanna Kirk, Andrea Caro, Naomi Frisby.’
It’s limited to an edition of 250 and all profits go to Refuweegee.
The cover for the anthology was created by the awesome Brian McHenry, who also created the cover for my most recent poetry collection Nekhau.
Rico Craig 