Mirror Mirror is an intriguing, engaging piece of performance art that speaks to us in 2023 about gender, relationships, consumer capitalism’s baleful effects on our self esteem and the power of social media.

By drawing on European avant garde resources in the construction of their art and music Hawklords were able to articulate both the alienation and mundanity of labour under capitalism and an internationalist revolutionary working class position in opposition to (transnational) capital.

A superb relook at the importance of the avant-garde and radical arts pedagogy in an important period in UK arts, art education and music.

Marie Arleth Skov is a Danish art historian living in Berlin who recently wrote the book ‘Punk Art History: Artworks from the European No Future Generation’. Tim Foster spoke with Marie about punk art and the themes explored in the book.

This was one of the most intense, important, relevant multimedia performance art installations you will ever see. The musicians as both aural creators and canvas for a stream of projections. Visual art, sonic sculptures, nuanced intelligent interrogations of neoliberal capitalism and its baleful effects. An alarm call for a soporific society. A destruction of the Ideological State Apparatus.

Tim Foster dives into the life and career of Lora Logic and Essential Logic.

On this album Ruts DC reaffirm their position as part of that Counterculture.

If the last album was like a report on the political and social state of Britain…this is like a reflection of the emotional and psychical effects of that dysfunctionality and alienation, the feelings and experiences of those who have experienced them directly and via the disordered consequences in other’s lives.

Tim Foster spoke with Gavin Butt about his new book ‘No Machos Or Pop Stars: When The Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk’.

At points in the evening it was an encounter with the sublime. I actually felt a sense of hope as I listened to their music, that despite war and climate change and perpetual inequality and oppression maybe, just maybe, the human race could have a positive future after all.

The songs on here are just as taut, tense and relevant as they have always been. This isn’t some laid back rehash for nostalgic old punks to listen to while they clean the car on a Sunday morning, this album means it. No lazy escapism or nostalgia here.

Truly revolutionary music isn’t just about lyrical content it is also about form, structure, texture.

The fact that they were so closely associated with the counterculture meant that they continually got it in the neck as ‘aging hippies’, but they were hugely influential on the early punks. Members of the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned etc were all fans, but it was their anti-establishment, anyone-can-do-it attitude that had just as much of an impact as their music.

We got together because we wanted to have a band, sing about some experiences, let our voices be heard in regards to certain issues that we don’t agree with, and to give visibility to other issues that are still taboo.

…by fulfilling the Situationist’s ideal of disrupting the top down discourse of individualised dysfunctionality, breaking the spell of ‘the spectacle’ and deliberately creating environments of participation GIS may be one of the few bands that have come close to fulfilling punk’s potential.

This band is important. They remind us that neoliberalism is construct not nature; it’s corrosive effects can be resisted. I don’t know what effective protest looks like at the moment, but this feels like part of it because it’s an affirmation of what makes us human; reminds us of what life is meant to be about: community, trust, hope.

Track Not Found? Think Kate Bush with a punk sensibility – imagine she grew up listening to Nirvana and Riot Grrrl hooked up with Natasha Khan and started a band.

Arterial Movements is another chapter is the unfolding story of an important band, it doesn’t just reproduce what’s gone before but subtlety moves things along…”I think that the newer material is slightly more complex than some of the previous releases. We’re currently finishing off new material for a long player, and there will be some nice surprises for people on it”.

…Henry Cow embraced capital C culture with both hands and tried to integrate its fringes into a new mainstream. We didn’t just want to speak to our peers or our own generation. We were inclusive and directed our music at anyone prepared to listen…

A collection of writings and photos that say more about modern life and politics in Britain than a thousand tabloid newspapers. It’s pissed off and angry but never self indulgently dark

There is no radical resistance in simply consuming music and adopting a disobedient identity. Simply saying “I don’t consent to this” with a t-shirt or a hashtag, is not enough – yet so many of us have swallowed it as being the epitome of rebellion. Action is derided, but performative angst is universally acclaimed. To break out of this trap you need organisation and direction