Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • A socially situated erotic

    A socially situated erotic

    Enigmatically named band releases enigmatically titled record featuring enigmatically titled songs (other than ‘Full Trance Effect’). I like some enigma in my groove, it makes me pay attention. Urban Homes emerged from a largely punk background (so their potted biog on the Altin Village & Mine Records website has it), and owing to drummer difficulties… Read more

  • Mutually constituted histories

    Mutually constituted histories

    British commercial comics have always been an idiosyncratic little world, in comparison to the vast American scene with its division of labour, standardised conventions, and industrialised processes. When 2000AD came along in 1977 it was written by a bunch of iconoclasts and radicals, determined to see what they could get away with before questions were… Read more

  • The bright glare of professionalism

    The bright glare of professionalism

    We were welcomed to the (deep breath) Antonio Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum of Palermo by a dole of small turtles, lazing in the fountain in the entrance courtyard, to the great delight of Spawn. Clearly taking equal pleasure in the water and the sun, which they scaled one another to bask in, their happiness was… Read more

  • Connected food

    Connected food

    The first time we brought Spawn to Edinburgh to callously abandon her tearful little face in a soulless new-build apartment block, we were directed by a recommendation in our hotel to a nearby ‘Italian’ restaurant. We ate there, possibly twice, and we ate there again when we came to visit, when we came to collect… Read more

  • Downtempo crepuscular negotiations

    Downtempo crepuscular negotiations

    I don’t know who the DJ Fontana is who remixed this album, but it’s presumably not Elvis Presley’s drummer, who died last year at the age of 87. There is some minor overlap in track names between this record and the first Black Gold 360 release, but I couldn’t tell you how much it sounds… Read more

  • Time travelling curatorial aesthetics

    Time travelling curatorial aesthetics

    The visible surface of a museum, which is to say its collections as they are displayed, tells you what sort of institution it is. Its description of itself, on the other hand, and the way in which it verbally interprets its collections, tell you what sort of institution it thinks it is. The Galleria Regionale… Read more