DSG: The Final Interview, plus Frieze essay

I was lucky enough to meet the shadowy, secretive collective of 'IKEA Anarchists', the Deterritorial Support Group, who transformed protest propaganda in 2011, and spoke to them for hours and hours and HOURS, for The Guardian's g2 section. One day I will publish the full interview, maybe. It's about 10,000 words long. Here's the much more concise Guardian feature.

"Some people asked me what it meant, but it means exactly what it says: the post-political is the most political. It hits the nail on the head. Mainstream politics is over. It's over! It's us, capital and the fash. That's it!"

A week or two later, they closed down their blog, to a stunned response. Read their farewell statement here, and heed their call to carry on the struggle into new territories: here are ten of their exciting suggestions.



Relatedly, my essay for Frieze about the "graduates with no future", thinking big, and about the forging of a new utopianism, is now online. It's been wonderfully titled 'And Then?'.

Jamais Cascio, a leading thinker on geo-engineering and scientific futurology, recently coined the term ‘charismatic megafutures’, which he defines as ‘grand visions of tomorrow that are more evocative than they are meaningful’. While obviously no-one should strive to be lacking in meaning, charismatic megafutures are exactly what we should be looking to create; if they are more evocative than they are workable for now, then so be it. This is the necessary next step in the emergence from the shadow of capitalist realism; first, to be able to imagine another world – then, to create it.

MUSIC WRITING ROUND-UP KLAXON

Here's several 1400 word album review essay pieces for The National.

Pulp's 80s Fire Records re-issues, socialism, lyric-writing and Sheffield.

2011: a year in grassroots protest music, or how technology and the networked revolutions changed protest music, from Tahrir to Wall Street.

Rustie's 'Glass Swords', hoverboards, and Glasgow architecture.

Wiley's 'Evolve or Be Extinct', creative compulsion, Wil's mortality, and modern auteurs.



Here's a feature about The Rise of Afrobeats for The Guardian. Seriously, check out that Abrantee mixtape and tell me it's not amazing.

And at the front-line of, er, silly major label PR stunts, here's what happened when The Guardian sent me to try and find Kanye West in Shoreditch.

On The Guardian Music podcast talking about Adam Harper's Infinite Music and playing/discussing Wiley's incredible new African-style riddim 'F Off'.

I also did talked about grime and politics at Exeter University, and they hilariously ripped off one of my g2 covers for the flyer (oh and the g2 piece itself is here):



Oh and I did a conference in Sweden on modern protest music (with Peaches!) - here's me and fellow Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey at the conference looking like, in my housemate's words, a Nordic metal Right Said Fred covers band (thanks Paul). Here's the video of our panel:


Songs of protest - The political power of music in 2011 from SKAP on Vimeo.

The Futurist Cook-Book

Right. I haven't updated links on here for way too long, so here's lots at once. This is a feature for The National about the Italian Futurists, and what happened when they took their notoriously radical art, wit, wisdom and proto-Fascism into the kitchen. I even tried out some of the recipes. And they took pictures of me wearing an apron.

You just can't buy camel meat in my local supermarket - and I don't have the right equipment in my kitchen to pass an electric current through a cube of beef before serving it. I was also dubious about the effects of filling candied citrons with chopped cuttlefish, or stewing meat in a mixture of coffee and eau de cologne.

Thanks to Alix Campbell, of the awesome Vintage Cookbook Trials blog, for the loan of the book.