Just what is it good for?

This time on ACFM, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn respond to the Ukraine invasion with a conversation about war. Is it an aberration, or an unavoidable product of human power struggles? Are conflicts between nations better understood as a reflection of domestic divisions? And how is war used to divert the working class from progressive politics at home?

The gang think through these questions and more as they relate to global politics and the UK left, with music from Stiff Little Fingers, Rage Against The Machine, Robert Wyatt, Digital Mystikz and more.

Books &amp; articles: Deleuze & Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus / Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine / Michel Foucault – Society Must be Defended / Jeremy Gilbert – The Bennites’ revenge: how Jeremy Corbyn and his allies survived political exile / Keir Milburn – The August riots, shock and the prohibition of thought / Why war? A letter from Freud to Einstein

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Trip 23: War

We live in irrational times. From the resurgence of interest in astrology, tarot and occultism to the deepening influence of conspiracy theories and positive thinking, culture is experiencing a turn towards the magical. What does that mean for those of us on the "weird left"?

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn gather round the cauldron for an episode that will challenge believers and rationalists alike, with music from Siouxsie, Queen and The KLF. Up for discussion: Sigmund Freud, the I Ching, Puritanism, crop circles, Psychic TV, modern macroeconomics, the Pendle Witches, the fake religion of Discordianism and much more.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Wv61PS6qItwCBUluNcSFx">Spotify</a>.

Music: The KLF - 'Justified &amp; Ancient (Stand By The Jams)' / The KLF - '3AM Eternal' / A Guy Called Gerald - 'Voodoo Ray' / Miles Davis - 'Miles Runs The Voodoo Down' / Screamin' Jay Hawkins - 'I Put A Spell On You' / Queen - 'It’s A Kind of Magic' / Siouxsie &amp; The Banshees - 'Spellbound' / MC 900ft Jesus - 'Truth Is Out Of Style' / Lisa King - 'You’ve Got Magic'

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

Books and films: Sigmund Freud – The Unconscious / John Higgs – The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned A Million Pounds / The KLF – The Manual: How to Have A Number 1 The Easy Way / K Foundation Burn a Million Quid / Ben Myers - The Perfect Golden Circle / Robert Shea &amp; Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy

ACFM Trip 27: Magic

Recording of the Electric Lounge show 6/11/22 on https://housemasters-radio.com/ (the odd clanger included!)
Broadcast fortnightly, Sunday 2100-2300
Tracklist: 
The Elusive Man: Mainframe
Monty Luke: Wasteland (ft. Serana Arena)
Metropolitan Soul Museum: Never Say Never
Ataurean: Hope Springs
Splitradix: Lucan 303 Distribution Service
Carl Craig: Technoloambient (Max Dub)
Ed Chamberlain: Zarathustra
Minor Science: Blue Deal
Liaisons D: He Chilled Out
Vector Lovers: City Lights from a Train (2022 Version)
Elusive Intelligence: Chapter Two Into the Light
College & Electric Youth: A Real Hero
Connective Zone: Cyclic
The Field: No. No (John Tejada mix)
Yellow Magic Orchestra: Firecracker
Orthographic Figure: Every Moment
POLEJAM: Liking You and Your 48mm (W)heels
Sabre: Ghetto Prophet (Aera remix)
DJ. WAV: Eva
Ataurean: Elior
D5: Floatation Tank
Anders Llar & John H: Marax
CT Kibodo: Inphophysix Dub

Electric Lounge 6.11.22

The ACFM groupmind went into overdrive on last week's Trip, a wide-ranging conversation about the long and violent history of strikes. This time, Nadia, Jem and Keir take a closer look at cultural representations of worker organisation – that is to say, they sat themselves down with a huge stack of old movies and an extra-large bucket of opinions.

From blacklisted Hollywood dramas to bawdy British comedies, the gang survey nearly 100 years of strikes on screen – courtesy of directors like Danny DeVito, Sergei Eisenstein, Barbara Kopple and Boots Riley – and consider the changing public attitudes to labour and capital.

This episode contains some spoilers, so if you're not sure what happens to Billy Elliott in the end, proceed with caution...

Get bonus content from this episode and enhance your weird left experience by signing up to the ACFM newsletter: novara.media/ACFMnewsletter

Films: Strike / The Man in a White Suit / Salt of the Earth / I’m Alright Jack / The Working Class Goes To Heaven / Carry On At Your Convenience / The Rank and File / Tout Va Bien / Norma Rae / Matewan / Riff Raff / Hoffa / Billy Elliott / Made In Dagenham / The Full Monty / Pride / Sorry To Bother You

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

ACFM Microdose: Strikes on Screen

In this fourth episode of the newly relaunched Verso Podcast, Ben Miller and Amardeep Singh Dhillon join Eleanor Penny for a deep dive on the historical construction and ordering of sexualities into the categories we are familiar with today.

You can find Ben's book "Bad Gays: A Homosexual History", co-authored with Huw Lemmey, on our website at tinyurl.com/33655pe7

Inventing Sexuality | Ben Miller & Amardeep Singh Dhillon

"vo piangendo io tra voi" was written in response to the sonnet "Strani rupi, aspri monti, alte tremanti" by the 16th century Neapolitan poet Luigi Tansillo. “Strani rupi” is one of a pair of sonnets written in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption of the Campi Flegrei on the 29th September 1538, which dramatically altered the surrounding landscape and caused the formation of Montenuovo.

In true Petrarchan style, the poet imagines himself wandering round the post-eruption landscape, contrasting his own sorrows with the desolation that he sees around him. The guitar represents the landscape, presenting a 27 bar grid in five defective versions. The saxophone represents the poet. Its music divides the grid into five subsection, each of which makes a different journey through nine different variative types.

I composed "vo piangendo io tra voi" between May and July 2021 for the Duo Galeano/Javaid, with funds made available by Artists Scholarship North Rhine-Westphalia. The Duo gave the work’s first performance at Kraftwerk, Chemnitz on 19th October 2021.

This recording is of a performance given at LOFT, Cologne by the Duo Galeano/Javaid on March 7th 2023.

vo piangendo io tra voi

Is surrealism a style of art or a mode of living? How can irrationality be a political position? Nadia, Jem and Keir follow a thread of off-kilter expression, from Dadaism and André Breton’s manifesto through to Situationism, punk and Afrosurrealism. 

The gang explore the importance of surrealism to socialist thought and anti-colonial struggle, considering Meret Oppenheim's fur cup, Lenin at the Cabaret Voltaire, surrealist women's art, Freud’s ideas of the subconscious and a canon of surreal songs from Ivor Cutler to Devo.

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Music: Ivor Cutler - 'Life In A Scotch Sitting Room' Vol. 2, Ep. 11 / Anton Giulio Bragaglia - 'Fotodinamismo Futurista' / Eric Satie - 'Gymnopédie No.1' / King Crimson - 'Moonchild' / Devo - 'Jocko Homo' / Prince Fatty & Shniece Mcmenamin - 'Black Rabbit' / Caberet Voltaire - 'Nag Nag Nag' / Prince Paul - 'Introduction to Psychoanalysis (Schizophrenia)' / The Coup - 'Oyahytt 

Books:  Robin D. G. Kelley - Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination / Helena Lewis - Dada Turns Red: The Politics of Surrealism / Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams / Joyce Mansour's poetry / Dorothea Tanning - Chasm: A Weekend / Phosphor magazine / Simon Reynolds - Rip it Up and Start Again

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

ACFM Trip 37: Surrealism

Kevin Ochieng Okoth joins PTO to discuss his new book, Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics. We talked about the concept of Afropessimism and why Kevin believes it relies on a fundamentally parochial, US-centric understanding of Blackness and we discussed how it's leading theorists mischaracterise the work of thinkers such as Frantz Fanon, to advance the idea of the impossibility of solidarity between Black and non-black people. We went on to discuss Kevin's idea of Red Africa - a notion inspired by the second wave of radical African liberation movements and thinkers, that were sceptical of the first wave of African socialists, many of whom who had taken the view that traditional communal elements of African culture were inherently socialist. Recorded before the escalation of the Israel-Palestine crisis, we do touch on the question of Palestine regarding Frank B Wilderson III - the most prominent advocate of Afropessimism - and his extraordinary claim that Palestinians have more in common with their Israeli oppressors than they do with black people.

Red Africa w/ Kevin Ochieng Okoth

Dolly Parton was right, as usual, when she revealed that "it costs a lot of money to look this cheap". But who decided rhinestones were tacky in the first place? Style is a matter of taste, yet taste itself is a a matter of money, morality and identity, as the writer and critic Nathalie Olah reveals.

Olah's new book, Bad Taste: The Politics of Ugliness, is an expose of the industries of taste-making in an image-obsessed world, as well as a critique of the impact taste has on our sense of self-image and belonging. In this episode she talks to Eleanor Penny about the allure of minimalism, why posh people don't care about style, the evolving meaning of the hoodie and our right to eat supermarket pizza.

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Novara FM: Why Posh People Have Bad Taste w/ Nathalie Olah

The ACFM gang get together for the last time this year to deliver a Festive 50! Keir, Jem and Nadia select the best bits of culture and politics from 2023, including music, films, books, games, strikes and actions.

Unwrap to find sci-fi blaxploitation, comedy history, gobby glam-punk, Judge Dredd, a fresh angle on Silicon Valley billionaires and much more.

Thanks for listening to the show and for all your support this year – we couldn't do it without you. https://novara.media/support

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: A Festive 50 For 2023

Music has the uncanny power to stir up big feelings, which makes it an obvious vehicle for political statements of hope, anger, despair, or how to cast your vote. In this Microdose episode to accompany ACFM's Trip on Protest, Jem takes us through 60 years of plugged-in protest music – no strumming folkies or broadside ballads this time. 

From hip-hop campaign boosters to new wave takes on British imperialism, from anti-landlord lyrics to a requiem for the post-war dream, it's a narrated playlist revealing the manifold methods of musical persuasion.

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".

Music: Marlena Shaw - Woman of the Ghetto (1969) / Iggy and the Stooges - Ballad of Hollis Brown (1973) / Max Romeo - Rent Crisis (1974) / Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster (1978) / Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver’s Army (1979) / Pink Floyd - The Gunner’s Dream (1983) / Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (1984) / Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - Jesse (1984) / Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning (1987) / Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Television, The Drug of the Nation (1991) / Asian Dub Foundation - Jericho (1995) / Le Tigre - My My Metrocard (1999) / Ms. Dynamite - It Takes More (2002) / Gina Birch - Feminist Song (2021) / The Coup - The Guillotine (2015)

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: A Festive 50 For 2023

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