wordsalad

Another review I promised some time ago. This was of the April 2 Wordsalad because I enjoyed it so much. Whether or not it's an absurd comparison to make the show reminds me of John Peel's programmes. You know that although there'll be a few things you really wouldn't want to hear again mostly you'll hear interesting pieces you want to chase down afterwards and that are all the more precious coming to you without introduction or contextualisation. For me that's important, I like to be able to make a judgement without having to fight through my own preconceptions first even if I end up looking like a dick.

This time what I found to be the standout pieces were. Well wait up - last time John Cage this time Merzbow - impeccable choice of music tracks to help stitch together the poems. I'm looking forward to the show with Truman's Water or for more extreme tastes Prurient. Anyway, standout pieces [links freely cribbed from Wordsalad] - Joan Retallack Existence is an Attribute, Johannes Gorannson Fox Heart, Tim Gaze & David Curnow Phonemes (from some time ago), Orchid Spangiafora Radios Silent, Sylvia Plath Departure of the Ghost, Oyvid Berg & Maja Ratkje The Mental Traveller, and Amanda Stewart Happily Ever Onward. If you listen to the whole show, and I recommend you do [and the archives] then I guess it's pretty obvious that my preference is for things that aren't slam poetry or what you might call conventional performance poetry. I prefer things that are textually and/or texturally denser. Which unintentionally makes my piece on this show anomalous being fairly sparse in both senses but by no means being conventional performance poetry.

Now I'd say for any show to have 7 out of 14 tracks I really love and nothing that I strongly object to is a pretty good strike rate. We need more shows like this. And although we have Penn Sound, Ubu Web and so forth it would be good for places like Last FM and Spotify - especially Spotify - to improve their spoken word coverage.