NeuroSoup at Hip Death Goddess Event
By Krystle Cole - May 13, 2010
Hip Death Goddess – a celebration of the psychedelic and surreal through live performance, film and projection. Live music sets from contemporary psychedelic bands Wolf People and The Lucid Dream. A selection of avant-garde films by Kenneth Anger. A screening of the documentary Dope (1968) by Sheldon Rochlin and Diane Rochlin (Flame Schon). Invocation of the Hip Death Goddess – dances performed by Ultra Violet Violence conjuring manifestations of the subconscious mind. Krystle Cole is our ‘virtual hostess’ providing ‘psychedelic mentoring’ through video narratives that beautifully expound the underlying inspiration for the event. The event is hosted within the Bedford’s circular ‘Globe Theatre’, lit by the Bardo Light Show’s hand-manipulated oils, chemical slides and video effects, and accompanied by an ongoing psychedelic soundtrack from the last five decades.
Sunday 30th May, 3pm – 12am, Globe Theatre at The Bedford, 77 Bedford Hill, Balham SW12 9HD, London. Tel. 0208 682 8940.
Train/tube: Balham. £8 Entry.
For further information about this event please email: info@hipdeathgoddess.org
Wolf People:-
London's own Wolf People play at 8pm. Their latest album, Tidings ...Stitched together in a style reminiscent of Faust or early Mothers Of Invention, the songs lay nestled in snatches of field recordings, winding tapes, squealing feedback, studio outtakes and the voices of dead relatives. The tunes themselves are full of hissing guitars, distorted blues harmonica, acid rock, mystical flutes and crackling tape, often based on updated versions of classic blues structures and half-remembered English folk songs.
For more information see:-
http://www.myspace.com/wolfpeople
The Lucid Dream:-
The Lucid Dream play at 5pm. Formed in Carlisle in January 2008, The Lucid Dream fuse a love of drones and psychedelic sounds, combined with the ability to condense this into the perfect song.
'Reverb-drenched majesty, the likes of which we haven't really heard for the best part of two decades. Listening to it makes the past twenty years seem like just a bad dream'. - THE FLY
‘The Lucid Dream stand out as bright as a lighthouse beam. The vibrations coming off this band are interstellar, I truly see this band leading the sonic underground in the near future. Its drone rock with the colour spectrum turned up to the 'blinding' setting. Having toured with Sonic Boom recently you get the sense that the baton was being silently passed on. All that pass their way must shimmer in the neon sunshine they create'. - SHINDIG MAGAZINE
For more information see:-
http://www.myspace.com/theluciddream08
Ultra Violet Violence:-
The event will incorporate dance by Ultra Violet Violence, purveyors of bespoke dance and here as Invocation of the Hip Death Goddess ...the psychedelic Goddess resplendent in her mind-blowing glory! Symbolizing the death of the ego and the onslaught of cosmic consciousness she takes on both wrathful and peaceful aspects depending on one’s state of mind and willingness for one’s identity to be dissolved and absorbed into the Godhead. This is the vision we want our audience to leave with and remember.
For more information see:-
http://www.myspace.com/ultravioletviolence
Krystle Cole:-
Published author, ‘psychonaut’, and psychology student, Krystle Cole shares her psychedelic experiences in her book Lysergic and through her filmed narratives on her website Neurosoup.com. Lysergic describes her involvement with LSD chemists Gordon Todd Skinner and William Leonard Pickard. Pickard and Skinner had an LSD lab in a missile silo in Kansas. When it was busted by the DEA, it was reported to have been producing 90% of the world's supply. Throughout her time with them she took many rare psychedelics such as mescaline, ergot wine, DMT, ALD-52, 2-CI, and others. Her book and movies explain what each 'entheogen' felt like and how they have spiritually impacted her life. Krystle is the virtual host of Hip Death Goddess introducing the event and sharing some key experiences with the audience throughout the day via prerecorded videos.
For more information see:-
Dope (1968) by Sheldon Rochlin and Diane Rochlin (now Flame Schon):-
Dope is screened at 10:30pm, and is 90 minutes in duration. Shot in the lilting, evocative style of filmmakers Sheldon and Diane Rochlin, the film-celebrated for its subversive content-was shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975. Praised as a film "ahead of its time” by Ricky Leacock, the Rochlins signed a distribution contract with Leacock-Pennebaker. But just as the final editing was completed, the distribution arm of Leacock-Pennebaker went bankrupt. The film has remained an underground indie classic ever since.
This is a feature documentary about a young girl’s descent into drugs. Shot in late-sixties London, we see ravishing Caroline--black makeup around her eyes and tattooed head to toe--become a junkie. We come to understand not only the drug lure of the era, but also the soul of a free spirit who is caught in the grip of forces she cannot penetrate or comprehend. Like a butterfly caught in a web,
Caroline struggles against her fate, but its seductive attractions threaten to vanquish her.
For more information see:-
Kenneth Anger's films:-
A selection of Anger’s films will be screened throughout the event.
In attempting to induce an altered state of consciousness in his viewers, Anger dispenses with traditional narrative devices, although his films definitely tell stories. Using powerful esoteric images and, especially in his later works, extremely complex editing strategies that frequently feature superimposition and the inclusion of subliminal images running just a few frames, Anger bypasses our rationality and appeals directly to our subconscious mind. The structure common to his major works is that of a ritual invoking or evoking spiritual forces, normally moving from a slow build up, resplendent with fetishistic detail, to a frenzied finale with the forces called forth running wild. The films directly pertinent to this description that fully develop it both within their own contexts and in regard to each other are Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Invocation of My Demon Brother and Lucifer Rising.
Kenneth Anger's films are available at:-
The Bardo Light Show:-
Inspired by the projections of Mark Boyle and Joan Hills, and the Joshua Light Show in the 1960s, the BLS researched, hoarded kit, and experimented to develop an authentic psychedelic light show. Liquids are at the heart of the light show… mixed with chemicals, boiled, squished and literally obliterated on the screen and in the minds of the viewers using overhead projectors and original 1960s equipment. Analog is "mashed up" with digital footage and effects, which are manipulated, live, using video editing/effects processors. The process is “hands-on”, mechanical, and driven by a healthy trust in chaos.
For more information see:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwIBzNPUKQo
http://www.myspace.com/bardolightshow
