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For Election Eve 2020, Sault’s “Scary Times”

November 2, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

From their new Untitled (Rise) release

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/13-Scary-Times.m4a

on Forever Living Originals

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

It’s Been Going On and On and… The Devonns “Blood Red Blues (Protest Song)”

July 17, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from their recent self-titled release, The Devonns

on Record Kicks

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, Video

A Bullet of Exigent Thought in Sault’s “Don’t Shoot Guns Down”

June 29, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

Sault's "Don't Shoot Guns Down" can be heard at Riot Material. Get on it!

From the just-released Untitled (Black Is)

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/04-Dont-Shoot-Guns-Down.m4a

on Forever Living Originals

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, Video

Juneteenth in an Amerika Undone and a Nation’s Action Against a Coded Tongue

June 19, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

“Coded Language”

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/09-Coded-Language.m4a

by Saul Williams
from the Amethyst Rock Star release
on American Recordings

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Mind Within a Fisted Hand in “Read My Palmer, Laura”

May 12, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

by The Fantastic Twins

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/08-Read-My-Palmer-Laura-1.m4a

From Bongo Beats and Bankruptcy : The Sound of I’m a Cliché
Curated by Cosmo Vitelli
on I’m a Cliché [Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Blood-Borne Torpors and the Sound of Covicious Return

May 11, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

“Gyroscope”

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/04-Gyroscope.m4a

from Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi
on Warp Records

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

The “Problem of Subjectivity” Beneath Star-Shot Chimera and a Supine Sun

May 9, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from the recent Ubek II release

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/01-Problem-of-Subjectivity-_-Red-Dawn-Chorus-_-Red-Dawn-Reprisal-_-A-Machine-for-Cutting-Apples-_-Remote-Kontrolować.m4a

on Sucata Tapes

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Slow Delivery From Viral Malaise to Vaporizing Blasts of Mind

May 7, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

“Sweet Love For Planet Earth”

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/01-Sweet-Love-for-Planet-Earth.m4a

from the Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing release
on ATP

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Through Thinly Flesh the Corona Invades and Not But a Flash The Body Betrays

May 5, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

Pharmakon’s “Body Betrays Itself”

From Bestial Burden
on Sacred Bones

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, Video

“Primative Struggle,” or a Cough Only a Corona Mother Could Love

May 3, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

From Pharmakon’s Bestial Burden

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/04-Primitive-Struggle.m4a

on Sacred Bone

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

As Covid Spreads, So Too the Space for Covert Sound

May 1, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

New work from Daniel Avery & Alessandro Cortini
From Illusion Of Time

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/05-Inside-the-Ruins.m4a

“Inside The Ruins”
on Phantasy Sound

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Tony Allen, Nuanced Drummer And Creator Of The Indelible AfroBeat, Dies

April 30, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

Tony Oladipo Allen
Drummer of Protest, Drummer of Peace

1940 – 2020

♠
Below, from No Accommodation for Lagos

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/02-African-Message.m4a

“African Message”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

As Man Slips Through Volatile Lands, Feed Not On Dollars And Dow

April 22, 2020 By Cvon 1 Comment

“Oil,” by Xi

The song “Oil,” from XI, both suits and most certainly honors this day, Earth Day, when a barrel of oil arrives on the global markets utterly worthless — a negative sum that is not only ironic but undeniably apt.

To that end, Happy Earth Day everyone! Let’s take this day to commit to healing this incredible planet and, more essentially, to changing the way we live on it: lightly, with love, and with infinite respect for each other and the very terrains that give birth and lend majesty to our truly miraculous existence.  C

Pre-release of “Oil” by XI  
Lyrics: Reid Wilkie; Music: Eddie Hultén
Instagram: @reidwilkie   |   @eddie.hulten

@EarthDayNetwork
@poetsorg (Academy of American Poets)
@ThroughtheFlowerArtSpace
Artists for the Earth  |  Artists for the Earth Registration.

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Prince BeProud: Moodymann’s Sinuous “I’ll Provide”

April 17, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from the recent Sinner release

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/01-Ill-Provide.m4a

on KDJ Records

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Bacchanal Euphonies In Yaeji’s “Money Can’t Buy”

April 6, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

feat. Nappy Nina
from What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/05-MONEY-CANT-BUY-feat.-Nappy-Nina.m4a

out now on XL Records

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

In Memory of Wallace Roney: “Venus Rising”

March 31, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

From Blue Dawn – Blue Nights, released just months ago . . .

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/07-Venus-Rising.m4a

on HighNote Records

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, Video

In Memory of Genesis P-Orridge: “Hamburger Lady”

March 14, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

From Throbbing Gristle’s D.o.A: The Third and Final Report

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/17-Hamburger-Lady.m4a

Hamburger Lady

♠

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
1950 – 2020

Genesis P-Orridge and her wife, Lady Jaye

Genesis P-Orridge and her wife, Lady Jaye

Godspeed!

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, The Line

Afro-Future Jazz From Shabaka And The Ancestors: “Orb”

March 13, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from Wisdom of Elders

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/07-Obs.m4a

on Brownswood [Read more…]

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Inspiriting Lightness In Lone’s “Blue Moon Tree”

March 10, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from Ambivert Tools Volume Four

https://www.riotmaterial.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03-Blue-Moon-Tree.m4a

on R&S Records

Filed Under: Riot Sounds

Youth Is No Excuse! But For The Mysterines’ “Hormone”

March 10, 2020 By Cvon Leave a Comment

from the Take Control EP

newly released on Pretty Face Recordings

Filed Under: Riot Sounds, Video

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The New Word

New Poems from John Biscello

Excerpted from Moonglow on Mercy Street
forthcoming on CSF Publishing

Birthing Pains

To see, everywhere,
brave little lights going up,
flares of hope and justice,
holding hands
to tip the scales
in a bond of solidarity,
a fire-chastened purge
and desire for change’s
holy golden grail,
the quest,
a blessed rhyme
and legacy,
with each and every
one of our hearts
breaking open
to scale the ribs of light
and become radical midwives
to a collective rebirth.

[Read More…]

The Line

Oliver Stone in Vietnam. A review of his new book, Chasing the Light, is at Riot Material

Oliver Stone’s Chasing the Light Chronicles the Great Director’s Journey Against a Raging Historical Backdrop

Reviewed by Alci Rengifo Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 352 pp., $25.20 If there is anything the year 2020 has shaken into the very fabric of our imperial society, it’s that nothing ever goes according to plan, rarely is anything absolutely assured. While a biological threat has upended not only our […]

Toyin Ojih Odutola's wonderful exhibition, A Countervailing Theory, at Barbican Centre, London, is reviewed at Riot Material Magazine

Stories of Creation, Stories For Our Time in Toyin Ojih Odutola’s A Countervailing Theory

at The Barbican, London (through 24 Jan 2021) Reviewed by Christopher P Jones Despite what intuition tells us, history is constantly changing. The revision of the past happens all around us and at all times, sometimes perniciously and sometimes for enlightened reasons. For her first exhibition in the UK, Toyin Ojih Odutola has done a brave and […]

Driving Whle Black, two books reviewed at Riot Material

Segregation on the Highways: A Review of Driving While Black and Overground Railroad

by Sarah A. Seo Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin Liveright, 332 pp., $28.95 Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor Abrams, 360 pp., $35.00 The New York Review of Books In 1963, after Sam Cooke was […]

A review of Sontag: Here Life and Work is at Riot Material

Losing the Writer in the Personality: A Review of Sontag: Her Life and Work

Reviewed by Michael Gorra Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser Ecco, 816 pp., $39.99 New York Review of Books Susan Sontag began to read philosophy and criticism as a teenager at North Hollywood High, when she still signed her editorials in the school newspaper as “Sue.” She read Kant and La Rochefoucauld, Oswald […]

Darkness Half Visible In Katya Apekina’s The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish

Reviewed by John Biscello The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina Two Dollar Radio, 353pp., $12.74 Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again In the name of nursery rhyme remixology, first let us […]

Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, is reviewed at Riot Material

Histories of Trauma in Heads of the Colored People

Reviewed by Patrick Lohier Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires Thorndike Press, 293pp., $32.99 Harvard Review In Nafissa Thompson-Spires’s debut short story collection, Heads of the Colored People, a doctor suggests that an adolescent girl’s sudden and overwhelming bout of hyperhidrosis is caused by anxiety, and then asks, “Is there a history of trauma?” […]

Lord Krishna speaks to Prince Arjuna about the Gita

Eknath Easwaran’s Lucid, Scholarly and Ever-Timely Preface to the Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita Translated by Eknath Easwaran Vintage Books, 122pp., $15.00 Many years ago, when I was still a graduate student, I traveled by train from central India to Simla, then the summer seat of the British government in India. We had not been long out of Delhi when suddenly a chattering of voices disturbed my reverie. I asked […]

A review of Kevin Young's Brown is at Riot Material

To Inter Your Name in Earth: a Review of Kevin Young’s Brown

Reviewed by Kevin T. O’Connor Brown: Poems by Kevin Young Knopf, 176pp., $19.29 Harvard Review In The Book of Hours, his 2011 collection, Kevin Young moved from elegiac responses to the sudden death of his father to reanimating poems on the birth of his son. His new collection, Brown, reverses the trajectory, beginning with “Home Recordings,” […]

Dispatch: Poems, by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Bloom how you must, wild: a Review of Dispatch, by Cameron Awkward-Rich

Reviewed by Flora Field Dispatch by Cameron Awkward-Rich Persea, 80pp., $12.69 Columbia Journal In poetry, a body becomes not just a vehicle through which we move about the world, but the lens from which we write that experience. What does it then mean to comment on the world from a body that exists at the […]

The Monument to Joe Louis, aka "The Fist," as sculpted by Robert Graham

Relic as Horrific Remembrance in the Monument to Joe Louis

by Max King Cap “My father was a little headstrong, my mother was a little armstrong. The Headstrongs married the Armstrongs, and that’s why darkies were born.” — Rufus T. Firefly, Duck Soup, 1933 He had done it before. One can readily find the photographs of his handiwork; two human torsos, headless, the legs amputated just below […]

Cornel West and his 2001 Preface to Race Matters: "Democracy Matters in Race Matters." At Riot Material.

Cornel West’s “Democracy Matters in Race Matters”

Preface to the 25th Anniversary Edition to Race Matters Race Matters by Cornel West Beacon Press, 110pp., $11.60 Black people in the United States differ from all other modern people owing to the unprecedented levels of unregulated and unrestrained violence directed at them. No other people have been taught systematically to hate themselves — psychic violence […]

Another Week in the Death of America

Samantha Fields, American Dreaming at LSH CoLab, Los Angeles Reviewed by Eve Wood The first verse of the Mamas and the Papas seminal 1960’s anthem California Dreamin’ begins with “all the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey,” at once establishing an atmosphere devoid of color, hope and youthful abandon, and certainly not a […]

Through the Lens of Race, and Jim Crow South, in Eudora Welty's photographs

Reckoning Race in Eudora Welty’s Photographs

by James McWilliams Two portraits; two men. Both are from 1930s Mississippi. The men are situated together, photos 22 and 23, both from Eudora Welty’s only published book of photographs, simply titled Photographs. If you could put a frame around both images it would be the Jim Crow South.

Kara Walker's Fons Americanus (2019) at Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern

A Gathering Of Ruins, And Simmering Consciousness, In Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus

in Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, London by Zadie Smith Kara Walker: Hyundai Commission edited by Clara Kim Tate Publishing, 144pp., $24.95 New York Review of Books Two women are bound at the waist, tied to each other. One is a slim, white woman, in antebellum underskirt and corset. A Scarlett O’Hara type. She is […]

Romare Bearden's Pittsburgh Memory, 1964. Two books on Romare Bearden, "An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden" and "The Romare Bearden Reader" are reviewed at Riot Material Magazine

Romare Bearden And The Collapsing Of Worlds Into Fabulant Forms

Reviewed by Sarah Elizabeth Lewis An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden by Mary Schmidt Campbell Oxford University Press, 443 pp., $34.95 . The Romare Bearden Reader edited by Robert G. O’Meally Duke University Press, 413 pp., $29.95 (paper) New York Review of Books Every year, Congressman John Lewis has made a […]

Donald Trump and the Corporate Fascist Takeover

Corporate Fascism And The Aesthetics of Politics

by Johanna Drucker Corporate fascism. We know the term. Now we will see the full ugly face of its wrath in the vengeful fury of Trump. Trump, like all opportunistic social phenomena, is an expression of a  trending wave of collective sentiment and will. He is neither sole cause (autonomous agent) nor simple effect (isolated […]

Wim Wenders Until The End Of The World Directors Cut. An in-depth review is at Riot Material Magazine.

The Unbound Promise Of The Full Five-Hour Masterwork Until The End Of The World

by Henry Cherry Until the End of the World is a film, like the best of them, that stands outside of genre. Part sci-fi epoch, part love story, part road movie, it begins and ends with an image of the Earth’s curvature. Made by director Wim Wenders, it is the culmination of his most successful […]

Shabaka and the Ancestors, We Are Sent Here by History, is reviewed at Riot Material Magazine

The Exploratory Instincts Of Shabaka And The Ancestors’ We Are Sent Here By History

on Impulse! Records Reviewed by Henry Cherry Shabaka Hutchings, the London based musician behind The Comet is Coming and Sons of Kemet, had just  released a second recording with his South African based project, Shabaka & the Ancestors when Covid-19 canceled the promotional tour along with everything else in the world. Hutchings spoke with NPR […]

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art. word. thought.