World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER.
RE-OPENING 01.02.24
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7.
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
Architecture / Interior
Graphic Design / Typography
Photography
Fashion
Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction / Horror
Transgressive / Visceral / Abject
Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle
Film / Video
Painting
Sculpture / Installation
Performance / Dance / Theater
Drawing
Sound / Music
Curatorial
Group Shows / Collections
Periodicals
Out-of-print / Rare
Posters / Ephemera / Discs
Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
1994, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 29.5 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Heart Deluxe / Tokyo
Outo Shobo / Tokyo
$400.00 - In stock -
Very rare photo book by Japanese photographer Ikko Kagari, published in 1994 in Tokyo. Kagari made a number of these extraordinary, extremely questionable, surreptitious infrared photography collections in the 1980's—1990's, featuring secret "close-up photography" documenting clandestine sexual activities in public places — groping and upskirt photographs taken on packed Tokyo Metro commuter trains, in nightclubs, on escalators, couples making it in public toilets, parked cars and in parks with infrared strobe techniques reminiscent of Kohei Yoshiyuki's incredible Document Park *the two often featured side-by-side in books and journals). Chikan Rush (Molester Rush) is entirely made up of the infamous rush hour train carriage photography, and has become one of the most sought after. Cover-to-cover b/w reproductions of Kagari's grainy, blown-out infrared images that blur all lines between voyeur/participant and simulated/real, make for disorientating, sometimes claustrophobic, uneasy viewing. But they are also absolutely stunning, effective photo books that feel as conceptual as they do devious. Including many selections from Kagari's "Document Commuter Train" (1982), as featured in The Photobook: Vol. III, by Parr & Badger, Kagari's fleeting in flagrante scenes capture erotic desire and criminal impulse engulfed by the soft folds of entangled garment fabrics with stunning technique. He went so far as to publish a how-to book for amateurs! Thankfully the 2000s saw the introduction of women-only carriages on the Tokyo Metro, relegating such expertise to history.
NF copy with VG dust jacket and obi. Only a small pressure mark to the back cover, otherwise Near Fine, beautifully preserved copy.
1994, Japanese / English
Slipcase (w. obi), corrugated envelope, unpaginated book, 29.7 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
B-Sellers / Japan
$200.00 - In stock -
First book edition of Scene of Death, a rare 1994 death photo collection, published by B-Sellers in Japan only, compiled by Noriaki Nakagawa, Hitomi Komukai, and Yoichi Shihata. An elaborate and beautiful production of the macabre. Housed in an illustrated slipcase with illustrated obi-strip and further within a stamped, labelled, corrugated envelope, housing the bound book containing 64 monochrome photographic plates reproducing images from "Atlas der Gerichtsmedizin", an absolutely fascinating collection by Weiman / Prokop, first published in 1963. Atlas der Gerichtsmedizin was originally a serious German scientific reference book for criminal investigators and those in the medical field — a photo book scrapbook of thousands of images of graphic human death scenes — suffocation and strangulation, drowning and death by water, death by burning and electrocution, crimes of passion, abuse and neglect, and more. In turn, this visual opus became a bible of reference imagery to a wave of musicians, artists and authors during the industrial avant-garde, from Throbbing Gristle to Paul Buck to Atrax Morgue. This meticulous and unique Japanese offering further influenced many Japanese artists in the 1990's.
"We believe the scenes of death is, in one sense, the most erotic of human nature. It is at the time of death that man no longer can attempt to control his inner self and therefore the real self appears vividly. Here we have opened the doors to a topic that is usually not only hidden but also shut out of the minds of man. Please share our excitement and take a glance into the world of hidden eroticism"—Scene of Death blurb.
Very Good copy throughout. some edge wear and damage to obi strip, light tanning to box.
1994 / 1995, Japanese / English
2 Vol. set, hardcovers (w. corflute envelope slipcases) in box, 196 + 182 pages, 32.5 x 23.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sequoia / Tokyo
$500.00 - Out of stock
"I dedicate this book to all lives"
Very rare, highly collectible cult classic two-volume death photo book series, SCENE Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, published in 1994 and 1995 in Japan only. A lavish production, with both heavy books printed in hardcover filled with high-quality reproductions of anonymous, uncredited corpse photography, seemingly sociopolitical photo-journalism of human massacre stripped of text/language as a confronting stream of graphic images in conceptual photo book form. SCENE presents an unwavering, unapologetic exploration of a world usually hidden from view — the dead and death. Not for the faint of heart. Compiled by Kunio Shimizu and Yoichi Shibata for publisher Hirofumi Nagashima, each book is housed in elaborate button-and-tie-bound corflute envelopes, Vol. 1 in black, Vol. 2 in silver. Select plates have been featured in the pages of Kotaro Kobayshi’s underground publications TOO NEGATIVE and ULTRA NEGATIVE from the same period.
This extra special copy was issued as both volumes together in publisher's printed box with seldom seen single promo sheet included for each book (inserted into each book). The ultimate complete edition of this underground photo classic. HEAVY in every sense.
Both books 1990's dead stock with only standard storage wear from button-bind pressure to envelopes/wear to button metal, box with yellowed tape seal (opened) and general storage wear/age.
1992, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound), 96 pages, 18 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by
Mole / Tokyo
$320.00 - Out of stock
Rare first edition of one of the greatest kinbaku photo books ever published, Bind by Akio Fuji. Published in 1992 by Mole Gallery, Tokyo, to accompany Fuji's exhibition of the same name, Bind is now a classic photo book of masterful aesthetic bondage photography, featuring the rope work of Chimo Nureki, gloriously reproduced in lush black and white plates bound in silver-foiled cloth hardcovers. Exquisite compositions capturing the two artists at the height of their powers, and an important book and exhibition for bringing the world of kinbaku to the recognition of the fine art world in Japan the 1990's.
Akio Fuji (b. 1959) is a pioneer of bondage photography in Japan, founding the legendary bondage enthusiast circle "Kinbiken" in Tokyo in 1985 with rope master Chimuo Nureki (who also produced the magazines Kitan Club and Uramado), developing into the cult kinbaku bulletin Kinbiken Communications, with core contributions by both Fuji and Nureki, Katsuya Kasui, Masami Akita (Merzbow), Yuri Sunohara, Asoji Muroi, Akira Minomura, and other members of the circle. The object of the group was to study the beauty of bondage, observing the techniques of master Nureki through a membership with one of the most distinctive facets of the club being that the bondage women participate as members themselves. Says Nureki, “One of the main reasons I started this circle was to provide a facility for masochistic women, who are often misunderstood and therefore despised.” Kinbiken Communications remain one of the most desirable kinbaku publications of this period, the photography from which is showcased here in Akio Fuji's debut collection, featured heavily in Masami Akita's compilation of the “History of Bondage Photography in Japan”.
Fine copy.
1976, English
Softcover (staple-bound), unpaginated, 22 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Tao Productions / Hollywood
$140.00 - In stock -
Very rare copy of Arrogant Amazon vs. Bondage Burgler, one of legendary American bondage artist Robert Bishop's early illustrated story books of sadomasochism and bondage, published in 1976 by Tao Productions, Inc. in Hollywood. Quite possibly also written by Bishop, Arrogant Amazon vs. Bondage Burgler likely pre-dates his famous Fanni Hall stories, and features wonderful, nicely reproduced full-page examples of his iconic bondage artwork with soft airbrush gradients and exquisite details throughout, exclusive to this story. Includes illustrated advertisements for mail-order bondage films and other publications.
Robert K. Bishop (1945–1991) was a bondage artist and photographer from Michigan whose inventive artworks, rendered in pencil, ink and airbrush, featured heavily in the publications of House of Milan and Centurian Publications during the 1970's—1980s. He produced many cover illustrations for bondage novels by F. E. Campbell, as well as illustrating his own series of stories describing the misadventures of the character "Fanni Hall". His work was very influential to a generation of fetish illustrators and has become collectible within the sub-culture. Bishop died by suicide in 1991, at the age of 46.
Very Good copy. only light wear/age to staples. Former adult bookshop markings to cover (restriction sticker and price).
1975, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 28 pages, 20.5 x 14 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rosslyn News / Studio City
$45.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of "Patricia in Bondage", a 1975 illustrated story by Jack Owen, featuring 21 b/w female bondage ink illustrations, published by Rosslyn News Studio City. Includes illustrated backcover and (photo) advertisement for Rosslyn feature films (femdom). "This volume is to be regarded as a psychological workbook. A study for the serious student of unusual aspects of psychology".
Good copy with some wear, buckling, some moisture staining to spine, rusted staples.
1984, English
Loose-leaf pages in plastic sleeve, 30 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
ADN / Milan
$90.00 - In stock -
Rare copy of Italian electronic/experimental/industrial fanzine ADN, issue No. 6, published circa 1984. One of the great pioneering European experimental music fanzines of the period, this issue comes unbound as loose-leaf xeroxed pages in original issue plastic bag, and features articles/interviews/discographies/graphics on/with Art Zoyd, Bourbonese Qualk, Die Form & Nulla Iperreale, Esplendor Geométrico, New 7th Music, Smegma, Steve Feigenbaum, along with cassette listings for the phenomenal ADN label. Virtually never seen! Texts all in English.
ADN was an Italian electronic/experimental/industrial label based in Milan, run by Marco Veronesi, Piero Bielli and Alberto Crosta (with Carla Crotti also involved at some point). ADN was established in 1983 as the first Italian fanzine for experimental new music published in English. The very first issue was called "L'Amore del Nipote" which set the trend for all labels as acronyms of ADN. The fanzine published 8 issues through to Spring 1986, with the later issues (co-released with "Skeletal Work") including optional sampler cassettes. The booklet and cassette idea carried on with the series of various artist releases called "Out Of Standard". Most of their early releases were ADN Cassettes. For their vinyl releases, post new-wave and industrial music came out on the label 'A Dull Note', whilst avant-garde and "RiO" Rock In Opposition (left-field experimental rock) releases came out on 'Auf Dem Nil'. There was also a short-lived CD label 'Alma De Nieto' and some other name variations. A few 'Auf Dem Nil' releases were also branded "Recommended Records Italia"... Artists included Riccardo Sinigaglia, Pascal Comelade, Die Form, Nu Creative Methods, Cinéma Vérité, Vidéo-Aventures, Doxa Sinistra, Merzbow, D.D.A.A., Reportaż, Nulla Iperreale, Roberto Mazza...
Very Good in original bag w. sticker.
1985, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 54 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
ADN / Milan
Skeletal Work / Biella
$90.00 - Out of stock
Rare copy of this special collaborative issue of two of Italy's most important electronic/experimental/industrial fanzines, ADN from Milan and Skeletal Work from Biella, issue 7 and 5, respectively, published Summer 1985. Bumper issue featuring articles/interviews/discographies/graphics on Borbetomagus, Coil, Lol Coxhill, Yoshiaki Kinno (Onnyk/Allelopathy label/Fifth Column label), Anima (Paul and Limpe Fuchs), Craig Burk, Bump, loads of reviews, along with listings for the phenomenal ADN label. Virtually never seen! Texts all in English.
ADN was an Italian electronic/experimental/industrial label based in Milan, run by Marco Veronesi, Piero Bielli and Alberto Crosta (with Carla Crotti also involved at some point). ADN was established in 1983 as the first Italian fanzine for experimental new music published in English. The very first issue was called "L'Amore del Nipote" which set the trend for all labels as acronyms of ADN. The fanzine published 8 issues through to Spring 1986, with the later issues (co-released with "Skeletal Work") including optional sampler cassettes. The booklet and cassette idea carried on with the series of various artist releases called "Out Of Standard". Most of their early releases were ADN Cassettes. For their vinyl releases, post new-wave and industrial music came out on the label 'A Dull Note', whilst avant-garde and "RiO" Rock In Opposition (left-field experimental rock) releases came out on 'Auf Dem Nil'. There was also a short-lived CD label 'Alma De Nieto' and some other name variations. A few 'Auf Dem Nil' releases were also branded "Recommended Records Italia"... Artists included Riccardo Sinigaglia, Pascal Comelade, Die Form, Nu Creative Methods, Cinéma Vérité, Vidéo-Aventures, Doxa Sinistra, Merzbow, D.D.A.A., Reportaż, Nulla Iperreale, Roberto Mazza...
Very Good copy, some light wear/marks.
1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 14, January 1991 features: STATE OF THE ART FOR TODAY'S ARTIST by the Bureau of Control; THE MAGIC OF BIGAMY by Dr. Al Ackerman; SENSORIA MEDIA-TORS; CODES AND CHAOS by Thomas Wiloch; CASSETTE REVIEWS by Paul Neff; PRINT REVIEWS; TAPE-BEATLE NEWS; REPORT from the IOWA CHAPTER of the AGGRESSIVE SCHOOL of CULTURAL WORKERS; and much more!
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
1991, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 15, August 1991 features: Plans for an INTERNATIONAL NETWORKING CONGRESS 1992, THE WAR AND THE SPECTACLE by the Bureau of Public Secrets, CODES AND CHAOS by Thomas Wiloch, THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF eSCHATOLOGY by Ben G. Price, CONFESSIONS OF A POSTERIST by Barney Rubble, A NEW YORK EXPERIENCE by Eliza Blackweb, THE NEED FOR PLAGIARISM by Karen Eliot, TAPE-BEATLE NEWS, Reviews and Listings of Audio and Print Productions From Around The World..
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
1992, English
Softcover (staple-bound), approx 60 pages, 21.5 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Drawing Legion / Iowa City
$35.00 - In stock -
Very rare issue of Retrofuturism, the sporadically appearing hyper-media magazine edited by The Tape-beatles, a multi-media and experimental audio art group that formed in Iowa City in December 1986, informed by musique concrète and heavily involved in the new networked mail art, cassette and ‘zine sub-cultures of the late 1980's. Retrofuturism was one of their many editorial periodical projects.
Retrofuturism no. 16, March 1992 features: The group NEGATIVLAND presents THE CASE FROM OUR SIDE in their dispute with Island Records; The IMMEDIAST UNDERGROUND unveils its plans for SEIZING THE MEDIA; Stephen Perkins and Mark Palmer offer new insights concerning the subject of PLAGIARISM: is it a BASTARD CHILD, or is there some TRUTH IN DOUBLING? And, of course, the usual columns, reviews, and listings of other marginalia from around the world. RETROFUTURISM, the sporadic quarterly, uses only the finest ingredients, and encourages your input into the process.
Very Good copy, aged staples/edges.
2024, English
Softcover, 596 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Published by
Headpress / Oxford
$62.00 - In stock -
In the early 1980s, video technology forever changed the face of home entertainment. The videocassette - a handy-sized cartridge of magnetic tape inside a plastic shell - domesticated cinema as families across Britain began to consume films in an entirely new way. Demand was high and the result was a video gold rush, with video rental outlets appearing on every high street almost overnight. Without moderation their shelves filled with all manner of films depicting unbridled sex and violence. A backlash was inevitable. Video was soon perceived as a threat to society, a view neatly summed up in the term 'video nasties'.
CANNIBAL ERROR chronicles the phenomenal rise of video culture through a tumultuous decade, its impact and its aftermath. Based on extensive research and interviews, the authors provide a first-hand account of Britain in the 1980s, when video became a scapegoat for a variety of social ills. It examines the confusion spawned by the Video Recordings Act 1984, the subsequent witch hunt that culminated in police raids and arrests, and offers insightful commentary on many contentious and 'banned' films that were cited by the media as influential factors in several murder cases. It also investigates the cottage industry in illicit films that developed as a direct result of the 'video nasty' clampdown.
CANNIBAL ERROR, a revised and reworked edition of SEE NO EVIL (2000), is an exhaustive and startling overview of Britain's 'video nasty' panic, the ramifications of which are still felt today.
2024, English
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 456 pages, 24 x 33.5 cm
Published by
Les Presses Du Reel / Paris
Sprint / Milan
$90.00 - Out of stock
Out of the Grid presents a critical selection of 100 Italian zines from 1978 to 2006 that display a broad spectrum of social, political, aesthetic, and technological changes in the use of language and communication strategies across the territory of self publishing.
Widely mapping Italian society, particularly youth culture—over an extended period that can be symbolically defined as the "post-movement" and "pre-internet3.0"—, this outpouring of creativity gave visibility to small, imaginative and technical shifts on paper that made mimeographs, photocopiers and offset machines tremble, and often erupted into the need to communicate through other mediums. The titles selected originated from different scenes—musical, social, artistic, literary...—within which the distances between authors and readers is eliminated. To help navigate this multitude of subcultures, each zine is introduced by a profile that provides further analysis and information. No specific structure has been imposed, leaving room for the specific characteristics of each project to emerge. 100 titles ∞ paths.
Edited by Dafne Boggeri with Sara Serighelli.
Contribution by Marta Zanoni; interviews with Dafne Boggeri, Gino Gianuizzi, Stefano Gilardino, Glezös, Fabiola Naldi, Lorenza Pignatti, Pietro Rivasi, Giulia Vallicelli [Compulsive Archive].
Graphic design: Dafne Boggeri.
Published with Sprint (sprintmilano.org) and O' (www.on-o.org), Milan.
1961, English
Hardcover (w. dust jakcet), 256 pages, 22.5 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Frederick Muller Limited / London
$110.00 - In stock -
Rare first 1961 hardcover edition of Secret Societies, Afghan author Arkon Daraul's absolute classic occult study, kept in print ever since its first publication.
"This unique and sensational book is the fruit of many years of investigation. The author, in order to make his material as complete as possible, has travelled through Europe and the Middle East to track down survivals of secret societies and has attended ceremonies held by clandestine organisations in the heart of London. He gives the reader details, never before revealed, of the causes of the rise-and fall of secret confederacies; and of the signs, passwords and secret writings used by such organisations. He describes such diverse entities as the underground groups of the Illuminati, the religious ecstatics of Russia, the dread Assassins of Persia and Arabia and the People of The Peacock of Britain and Iraq, and he reveals the secret initiation rites and rituals of magicians. The book shows that almost every social system has produced its secret societies, and that almost anyone you meet may be a member of one!"
Good—Very Good copy in Good—Very Good dust jacket. DJ has general wear and tear to extremities, foxing, tanning, clip to front inner flap. Book G—VG with foxing to end papers, previous owner's name, light tanning. Preserved in mylar wrap.
1959, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket, 215 pages, 22 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Rider / UK
$290.00 - In stock -
Very rare first 1959 hardcover edition, first printing of Eliphas Levi's grimoire masterwork, The Key of the Mysteries, translated from the French, with an introduction and notes by Aleister Crowley, published by Rider, UK.
Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a sage, poet and author of over twenty esoteric books. He began writing at 22 years of age and was imprisoned twice for the critical nature of his work. Eliphas Levi was steeped in the Western occult tradition and a master of the Rosicrucian interpretation of the Qabalah, which forms the basis of magic as practiced in the West today. The "Key of the Mysteries" represents the culmination of Levi's thoughts and is written with subtle and delicate irony. It reveals the mysteries of religion and the secrets of the Qabalah, providing a sketch of the prophetic theology of numbers. The mysteries of nature, such as spiritualism and fluidic phantoms, are explored. Magical mysteries, the Theory of the Will with its 22 axioms are divulged. And finally it offers "the great practical secrets." The true greatness of this work, however, lies in its ability to place occult thought firmly in Western religious traditions. For Levi, the study of the occult was the study of a divine science, the mathematics of God.
Éliphas Lévi Zahed (1810—1875), born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French esotericist, poet, and writer. Initially pursuing an ecclesiastical career in the Catholic Church, he abandoned the priesthood in his mid-twenties and became a ceremonial magician. At the age of 40, he began professing knowledge of the occult.
Good—Very Good copy in Good seldom preserved dust jacket. DJ has general wear and tear to extremities, chipping. Book G—VG with foxing to end papers/block edges, previous owner's name, light tanning. Preserved in mylar wrap.
1993—2000, Japanese
Softcover, 300—400 pages ea., 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sun Publishing / Japan
$300.00 - In stock -
Huge lot of 11 issues of Sabu, "Magazine For Men Who Love Men", the trailblazing gay erotic magazine from Japan, founded in 1974. All issues from the 1990s, with one issue from 2000 thrown in, 1993—2000, all featuring the gorgeous wrap-around (front and back) cover artwork by legendary gay erotic illustrator Ben Kimura (1947—2003). Packed with illustrations by Gengoroh Tagame, Gekko Hayashi, Go Mishima, Ben Kimura, and many other artists, at roughly 350—400 pages in each issue, Sabu is more of a book (a "mook" as it were). Filled to the brim with gay erotic art galleries, glossy hardcore erotic photography, loads of fetish and bondage materials, wild "bara" manga, classifieds/letters/sexmate messageboards, articles, ads for Japanese gay bars, clubs, saunas, dungeons, gyms, mail-order toys, publications, media, news and reports on international scenes, and much more.
Each issue Very Good—Good, with light wear and tear. Specific shipping costs may apply.
1995, Japanese
Softcover, 224 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Data House / Tokyo
$15.00 - Out of stock
"Sniff out!! Our fuckin' rotten brain.... Dedicated to all the gay guys in Japan"
???
The very controversial and very popular inaugural 1995 issue of Tokyo's Danger magazine. 90's nihilism publishing from Tokyo's "apocalyptic" Data House to file alongside Too Negative and End of The Century, Danger (or Dangerous), a "scientific" journal of lunatic subculture, launched onto newsstands with an in-depth international reportage on "Drugs", featuring articles on speed shooting, South American cartels, the world's rarest drugs, hallucinogenic plants from around the world from magic mushrooms to ayahuasca, how-tos/maintenance/cultivating knowledge, the history of ecstasy, sex on drugs, music on drugs, a drug slang dictionary, drug-related books and guides, world scene and dutch coffeeshop reports, xxx film director Fumiki Watanabe interview, an exploration of Japan's "dangerous documents", corpse museums, hitmen, sex criminals, "Your personality & cause of death", and genuinely horrible other tid-bits from the darker side of humanity.
Note: Aside from some photographs and violent and absurd cartoons, Danger is a "scientific" journal, filled with Japanese texts and info graphics.
Very Good copy, light cover/edge wear. 1995 edition, 1996 printing.
1985, English / Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket), 28 x 23 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Ryuko Tsushin / Japan
$160.00 - Out of stock
First 1985 edition of "London after the Dream" by Japanese photographer Herbie Yamaguchi (b. 1950, Tokyo). A wonderful, lesser-known Japanese photo book of Yamaguchi's images of London in a time of great turmoil, under the control of Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady'. Yamaguchi, who came from the experimental performance arts scene in Tokyo, immersed himself in the punk rock scene in London. Being penniless and without a studio, Yamaguchi shot the people around him, from his flatmate Boy George to Joe Strummer to The Slits, the hair-dressers to the squat kids, intimately capturing an radical musical moment in the city against the backdrop of class tension. London after the Dream collects the best of these photographs, chaptered through Yamaguchi's images of the city's youth, his young adult peers (including a spread featuring Johnny Rotten vis-à-vis Lady Diana), and Britain's older generation. The changing of the guard.
Very Good copy in VG dust jacket.
1995, English
Softcover, 432 pages, 22 x 27.4 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
MIY (Mind In You) Publishing Ltd / UK
$160.00 - In stock -
First and only edition of this enormous definitive history of House Music, self-published in Britain in 1995. Spanning Ambient, Techno, Jungle, Acid; from the DJ's to the raves; this huge book documents a cultural music and dance movement first-hand through the experiences and words of all the major DJ’s from the scene at the time including Larry Heard, Frankie Knuckles, Adonis, Norman Jay, Carl Cox, Fat Tony, Pete Tong, Alfredo, Fabio, Jesse Saunders, Grooverider, Juan Atkins, Sasha, Dimitri, Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Derrick May, Andy Weatherall, Jamie Principal, about 80 interviews and profiles in total, plus extensive reviews, reflections and photography of the scenes in Ibiza, Great Britain, Italy, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, etc., spanning all the major clubs and festivals of the time. The book's design also embodies the aesthetic of the movement at the time, with every page immersed in an insane sea of psychedelic, early CG graphic design, complete with a never-ending collection of rave flyers.
A true labor of love, this one-of-a-kind historical time-capsule is a must for any dance music collector.
1999, English
Softcover, 300 pages, 17 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Black Dog Publishing Ltd / London
$290.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first 1999 edition of this definitive resource on the work of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle.
"These people are the wreckers of civilisation", exclaimed the Conservative Member of Parliament Nicholas Fairbairn in 1976. His outburst was meant to describe four artists and musicians: Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Peter Christopherson and Chris Carter - members of the seminal band Throbbing Gristle. What "these people" had done to deserve such an epithet, and what they were about to do, is the subject of this book.
Throbbing Gristle are widely lauded as the band that invented industrial music, and their influence can be observed across today's musical landscape: from house and techno to industrial death metal. Wherever experimental electronic music is being made, Throbbing Gristle's influence can be felt.
"Wreckers of Civilisation recalls a time which despite volumes of print remains occluded, obdurate, even intimidating: that moment before the conservative reconstruction. To be awake in London in the late 1970s was to be plunged into turmoil: externally manifest in riot, internally within various forms of damage and depression and, if one felt brave or driven, extreme aesthetics. COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle mark the furthest reach of that impulse: even more so than Punk, they plunged into a technological and personal examination of the dark side - the forbidden, the taboo, the dystopian future on the doorstep. Today this might seem like science fiction or deliberate shock tactics, but then it seemed like reportage, front line dispatches from a convulsed country."
Heavily illustrated and complete with a chronological list of actions, concerts and exhibitions, discography, filmography, bibliography and much more, this heavy volume has become an invaluable and sought after resource on TG, COUM Transmissions, and Industrial Records.
Simon Ford is a freelance writer and art historian. He was previously Research Associate in Craft and Design and Curator of the Design Council Slide Collection at Manchester Metropolitan University, as well as being a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He received his PhD in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2000. He is the author of Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of COUM Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle (1999, 2017, Black Dog Publishing). His most recent book is The Situationist International: A User's Guide (2006, Black Dog).
Very Good copy.
1982, Japanese
Softcover, 112 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fool's Mate / Tokyo
$80.00 - Out of stock
Rare early issue of the world's finest "Euro Rock Magazine", Fool's Mate, from Japan. Fool's Mate Vol. 21 May 1982. In the 1970's—1980's, Fool's Mate (named after the 1971 Peter Hammill LP), edited by Masashi Kitamura with regular contributions by Masami Akita (Merzbow) and many other heads, was a vital conduit between emerging and metamorphosing avant-garde music cultures in Europe (Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Free Music, Electronic, Cosmic, Psychedelic Folk, Avant Pop, Rock in Opposition, Post Punk, Industrial, etc.) and Japan. No doubt responsible for the resonance of experimental contemporary music there during that period through to today, each issue of Fool's Mate during these early years was packed cover-to-cover with exclusive interviews with the artists, rare photographs and graphics, thematic genre/artist/label/artistic movement features, in-depth profiles/discographies/family-trees, catalogues, lyrics, letters, collage art, record, book, and live reviews, columns and an endless stream of concert and import/record store/label/venue/coffee shop adverts, all presented in a perfectly obsessive fanzine aesthetic manner, cut 'n' pasted across many paper stocks. The Americas and other realms, including new directions in Japanese alternative music, are all covered alongside their European counterparts, with many issues exploring key artistic and theoretical influences, such as Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Eros, Futurism, etc.
This issue with cover feature on "Female" artists in avant-garde music and culture, including articles on the history of women in experimental music (The Shaggs, Malaria!, Brigitte Fontaine, Suburban Lawns, Tamia, Lydia Lunch, Phew, Sandy Denny, etc.), interviews/in-depths articles on/with Nico, Dagmar Krause, The Slits, The Raincoats, plus features on This Heat, Lieutenant Murnau (Vittore Baroni), Grafika Airlines cassette label, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 4AD, Mike Oldfield, The Work, and much more. Highly recommended to any fan of such things.
Very Good copy. General wear/age.
1978, Japanese
Softcover, 96 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fool's Mate / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare early issue of the world's finest "Euro Rock Magazine", Fool's Mate, from Japan. Fool's Mate June 1978. In the 1970's—1980's, Fool's Mate (named after the 1971 Peter Hammill LP), edited by Masashi Kitamura with regular contributions by Masami Akita (Merzbow) and many other heads, was a vital conduit between emerging and metamorphosing avant-garde music cultures in Europe (Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Free Music, Electronic, Cosmic, Psychedelic Folk, Avant Pop, Rock in Opposition, Post Punk, Industrial, etc.) and Japan. No doubt responsible for the resonance of experimental contemporary music there during that period through to today, each issue of Fool's Mate during these early years was packed cover-to-cover with exclusive interviews with the artists, rare photographs and graphics, thematic genre/artist/label/artistic movement features, in-depth profiles/discographies/family-trees, catalogues, lyrics, letters, collage art, record, book, and live reviews, columns and an endless stream of concert and import/record store/label/venue/coffee shop adverts, all presented in a perfectly obsessive fanzine aesthetic manner, cut 'n' pasted across many paper stocks. The Americas and other realms, including new directions in Japanese alternative music, are all covered alongside their European counterparts, with many issues exploring key artistic and theoretical influences, such as Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Eros, Futurism, etc.
This issue with cover feature on "Occultism" with features on the history of the occult in culture and its influence on avant-garde art and music, with in depth articles on Ash Ra Temple, Magma, Heldon, David Bowie, The Pop Group, This Heat, Kate Bush, Robert Fripp, and much more. Highly recommended to any fan of such things.
Very Good copy. General wear/age.
1981, Japanese
Softcover, 112 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fool's Mate / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare early issue of the world's finest "Euro Rock Magazine", Fool's Mate, from Japan. Fool's Mate Vol. 19 December 1981. In the 1970's—1980's, Fool's Mate (named after the 1971 Peter Hammill LP), edited by Masashi Kitamura with regular contributions by Masami Akita (Merzbow) and many other heads, was a vital conduit between emerging and metamorphosing avant-garde music cultures in Europe (Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Free Music, Electronic, Cosmic, Psychedelic Folk, Avant Pop, Rock in Opposition, Post Punk, Industrial, etc.) and Japan. No doubt responsible for the resonance of experimental contemporary music there during that period through to today, each issue of Fool's Mate during these early years was packed cover-to-cover with exclusive interviews with the artists, rare photographs and graphics, thematic genre/artist/label/artistic movement features, in-depth profiles/discographies/family-trees, catalogues, lyrics, letters, collage art, record, book, and live reviews, columns and an endless stream of concert and import/record store/label/venue/coffee shop adverts, all presented in a perfectly obsessive fanzine aesthetic manner, cut 'n' pasted across many paper stocks. The Americas and other realms, including new directions in Japanese alternative music, are all covered alongside their European counterparts, with many issues exploring key artistic and theoretical influences, such as Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Eros, Futurism, etc.
This issue with cover feature on "Psychic Youth" with features on This Heat, Robert Wyatt, Chris Cutler, Art Bears, Recommended Records, Throbbing Gristle, Keiji Haino, Fred Frith, Merzbow, King Crimson, Peter Hammill, Massacre, Holger Czukay, Can, The Cure, Bauhaus, Dome, New Order, Joy Division, P.I.L., Pungo, Neo Tendency, and much more. Highly recommended to any fan of such things.
Very Good copy. General wear/age.
1978, Japanese
Softcover, 109 pages, 25.5 x 18.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Fool's Mate / Tokyo
$80.00 - In stock -
Rare early issue of the world's finest "Euro Rock Magazine", Fool's Mate, from Japan. Fool's Mate April 1978. In the 1970's—1980's, Fool's Mate (named after the 1971 Peter Hammill LP), edited by Masashi Kitamura with regular contributions by Masami Akita (Merzbow) and many other heads, was a vital conduit between emerging and metamorphosing avant-garde music cultures in Europe (Progressive Rock, Art Rock, Free Music, Electronic, Cosmic, Psychedelic Folk, Avant Pop, Rock in Opposition, Post Punk, Industrial, etc.) and Japan. No doubt responsible for the resonance of experimental contemporary music there during that period through to today, each issue of Fool's Mate during these early years was packed cover-to-cover with exclusive interviews with the artists, rare photographs and graphics, thematic genre/artist/label/artistic movement features, in-depth profiles/discographies/family-trees, catalogues, lyrics, letters, collage art, record, book, and live reviews, columns and an endless stream of concert and import/record store/label/venue/coffee shop adverts, all presented in a perfectly obsessive fanzine aesthetic manner, cut 'n' pasted across many paper stocks. The Americas and other realms, including new directions in Japanese alternative music, are all covered alongside their European counterparts, with many issues exploring key artistic and theoretical influences, such as Symbolism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Eros, Futurism, etc.
This issue with cover feature on "Fantasy" in European rock and avant-garde music, features on fantasy art and literature, the Island Records label, Brian Eno, Klaus Schulze, David Bowie, special feature on Derek Bailey, Italian Prog, Peter Hammill, Ashra, Brian Eno, Tony Banks, Van Der Graaf, Genesis, Vangelis, Peter Gabriel, and much more. Highly recommended to any fan of such things.
Very Good copy. General wear/age.