Asking because those of you who are as exercised as I am about the proper recognition of music that’s written by women might like to join this splendid initiative from Heather Roche and the Southbank Centre. They’re having a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Sunday 2 September, with the aim of adding more female composers to the site’s database. Annoyingly, I will be away in Denmark then, having an actual holiday (cloning urgently required).
Here’s what they say:
If you’re in London, grab your laptop and come and join us at the The Royal Festival Hall, where we’ll provide support and socialising for fledgling editors. Or: set your laptop up and participate remotely; we’ll be live streaming the event via Facebook and tweeting throughout the day with the hashtag #ComposingWikipedia.
Currently, only 17% of Wikipedia’s entries about people are about women and only 10% of Wikipedia’s contributing editors are women. Creating a Wikipedia entry is a simple and effective way to raise the profile of a composer. It’s also not difficult to do: Wikipedia has become easy to use with a Visual Editor and lots of clear resources.
Pictured above, Lili Boulanger, one of the composers whose music is currently receiving wide acclaim and recognition in part thanks to this ongoing upswing of consciousness – a full century after her untimely death.
ELVIS PRESLEY week celebrations take place this week and now a UK fan in the last recorded footage before the King’s death has opened up on the meeting.
While the first advertisement was noted in the London Underground, close to a former residence of Richard D. James, further advertisements began to appear in Turin, New York City, Los Angeles, sending fans into a frenzy as they attempted to work out when new music might be appearing. Now, it seems that their wait might be over.
Taking to Twitter earlier today, Aphex Twin’s record label, Warp, shared a press release which is ostensibly an announcement for a new EP named Collapse.
While the press release is partially obscured with a similar-looking effect to the previous advertisements, some fans have decoded the message, and have remained just as confused.
In addition to an array of cryptic messages (one such highlight includes defining ‘collapse’ as “a series of movements that match the speed and rhythm of cake”), the press release also gives a strange retelling about the history of Richard D. James. However, it does end with information regarding the track-listing of an upcoming project.
Since this message was shared, fans have done even more digging in hopes of finding more information about the release, with some dedicated diggers on Reddit uncovering information from Amazon that reveals the new Collapse EP will be released on September 14th.
As it stands, Aphex Twin’s last major release was the Cheetah EP, which followed on from 2014’s Syro, his first full length in thirteen years. Syro was also announced by a rather cryptic method, which saw strange advertisements appearing all over the world before the record was ‘officially’ announced via the dark web. Needless to say, Richard D. James doesn’t do things by half measures.
More recently, the BBC released a short documentary which attempted to shine a light onto some of the most puzzling aspects of Aphex Twin’s history.
“Does he really write songs while asleep after training himself in the practice of lucid dreaming?” the documentary questioned. “Does he drive a tank round Cornwall? Did he once live in a bank vault in the middle of the Elephant And Castle roundabout? Does he own a submarine? Does his DJ tech rider include a food processor and sheets of sandpaper? Does he move among his many fans on electronic dance music forums online, often trolling them and stirring up these very myths?”
We Are What We Sing 