This past month Psychogeographic Review has been reading:

‘Ian Nairn: Words in Place’ – Gillian Darley and David McKie (2013)

Through his column in Architectural Review, several ground-breaking books and a number of BBC documentaries, Ian Nairn taught a generation how to look at the built environment.  Always a controversial figure, Nairn’s views are perhaps just as relevant now as they were in the 1950s and 1960s.   Compiled by Gillian Darley and David McKie , this collection is a good introduction to Nairn’s work

‘The View From the Train: Cities & Other Landscapes’ – Patrick Keiller (2013)

Patrick Keiller’s latest book brings together a number of off-cuts and oddities from his admirable  body of work and can be read as a companion piece to his series of Robinson films.  In some ways his explorations of and musings on the built landscape can be compared with those of Nairn.  But while Keiller may lack the sense of urgency and anger that drove Nairn, he more than makes up for that with his wit, lyricism and political astuteness.

‘Public Figures’ – Jena Osman (2012)

Jena Osman is one of the US’s finest contemporary poets and reviewers.  This recent essay-poem with photographs takes as its starting point a number of public statues in Philadelphia.  She tracks the gaze of each statue and, forensically, creates a searing indictment of the misuse of military and civil power.

Meanwhile, we were listening to:

‘The Man Who Died in His Boat’ – Grouper (2013)

Grouper is the name used by American musician and artist, Liz Harris, for her solo projects.  This, her eighth album, was in fact recorded at the same time as 2008’s Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill and bears much of the same hallmark sound: ethereal voices drifting in and out of acoustic phrases and analogue drones.  The result is dreamlike, intoxicating and strangely claustrophobic.

‘Rival Dealer’ – Burial (2013)

A new EP from British electronica artist, Burial.  Unlike his previous releases, the three tracks of this one are thematically linked by a single concept, that of bullying.

‘Marquee Moon’ – Television (1977)

One of the key albums of 1977.  Whilst often labelled as the American East Coast scene’s response to the UK punk explosion, Tom Verlaine’s masterwork is in fact a potent reminder of the ‘new’ genre’s New York heritage.

And watching:

‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ – Joel & Ethan Coen (2013)

The Coen brothers manage to create a totally believable early 1960s Greenwich Village for this, their latest comic-drama release.  The story centres on one week in the life of Llewyn Davis, an emerging talent on the vibrant folk music scene.  This fictional character is partly based on the story of a real singer-songwriter, Dave Van Ronk.  In passing, we also become aware of another artist ploughing the same furrow.  He calls himself Bob Dylan, but we don’t learn too much about what happens to him.

‘Gloria’ – Sebastián Lelio (2012)

Subtle and beautifully written, Sebastián Lelio’s film is set in present-day Chile and stars Paulina García as a middle-aged woman finding her feet and moving on after divorce.

‘Carnival of Souls’ – Herk Harvey (1962)

I owe a debt to Alex Cox and his magnificent Moviedrome series from the 1980s for introducing me to this 1960s cult classic.  Produced on a shoestring budget, this genuinely scary film stars Candace Hilligoss as a bewildered and painfully vulnerable woman who seems to survive a car crash, but then finds herself in a nightmarish zone between one world and the next.