This past month Psychogeographic Review has been reading:

   ‘Scarp’ – Nick Papadimitriou

Nick Papadimitriou’s meditation on walking, landscape and his upbringing in North London under the shadow of the ridge of land he refers to as Scarp

   ‘Spring Returning: a selection from the works of James Farrar’ –                                    Christopher Palmer

James Farrar was a young airman who died in World War Two.  This is Christopher Palmer’s moving collection of Farrar’s poetry, prose, diary entries and writings on the music of Delius

   ‘Wales: An Archaeological Guide’ – Christopher Houlder

A comprehensive field guide to the archaeological sites of Wales; an invaluable tool for exploration as well as an entertaining read

   ‘The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft’ – George Gissing

A writer at rest reflecting on the quiet pleasures of life that he is at last able to enjoy in his final years after a lifetime of hardship and injustice

   ‘The Good Soldier’ – Ford Madox Ford

A portrait of deceit and hatred and one of the key works of early modernism

   ‘The Wasp Factory’ – Iain Banks

Gender, identity, myth and ritual; all brought to life with Banks’s pyrotechnic use of language

   ‘Father and Son’ – Edmund Gosse

Edmund Gosse’s ‘study of two temperaments’ – his recollections of a Victorian childhood, his loss of religious faith and the father whom he loved but constantly fought against

   ‘Journey Through Europe’ – John Hillaby

John Hillaby’s original and engaging account of his walk from Hoek van Holland to Nice via the Alps; a journey across a continent in flux

Meanwhile, we were listening to:

   ‘Gapland’ – Charles Swain and Lost Trail

Travin Systems’ Chieftain picks up North Carolina’s Lost Trail in his battered Escort as he slides across the slick bitumen and up into the timberline.  A four track exploration of their beloved backroads, backwoods and the nature of car travel with turning synths, descending haze and irresolute house http://travinsystems.com/

  ‘To an End’ – Helm

Captivating debut solo LP of drone and sound poetry from Birds Of Delay’s Luke Younger aka Helm.

   ‘Affinity’ – Affinity

Sadly neglected jazz/rock fusion album from 1970 featuring the extraordinary vocal talents of Linda Hoyle

   ‘Workingman’s Dead’ – Grateful Dead

Also from 1970: the Dead’s take on country, blues and folk laced with spine-tingling harmonies

And watching:

   ‘In the Fog’ – Sergei Loznitsa

Sergei Loznitsa’s bleak tale of collaboration and revenge in Nazi-occupied Soviet Russia

   ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ – Guillermo del Toro

A Mexican/Spanish co-production merging fantasy, myth and parable against the background of the resistance movement in the early years of Franco’s regime in Spain

   ‘Rumble Fish’ – Francis Ford Coppola

Coppola’s black-and-white homage to German expressionism and the French New Wave staring Mickey Rourke and a young Matt Dillon.

‘Felix: Lighter V. 4’ – Graham Hooper

Film of Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic free-fall (helmet-cam footage) reversed and slowed down to last as long as the Bond film ‘Skyfall’. See it on YouTube here