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CAROL - BREAKDOWN / SO LOW 7″ (RE-ISSUE)

With electronics supplied by Micky Mike of the chillingly brilliant Snowy Red, these two tracks epitomise the cold wave genre in all of its glittery, melancholic splendour. Let a soft rain of synthetic beats wash over you, drown your sorrows, and open your heart. Purchase here: https://weyrdsonrecords.bandcamp.com/album/breakdown-so-low-7

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WHERE WITCHCRAFT LIVES...

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SEX CELLS (LIMITED EDITION COMPACT DISC AVAILABLE)

Pretty Ugly's first release has arrived in the swag-bag, 'SEX CELLS' by SEX CELLS, a lowlife DIY burst of squelchy synth riffs and sick drum rolls, with a heavy dose of devil-may-care laissez-faire. The seditious single 'Miriam' was released earlier this month, and now a three-track sampler is available in glorious compact disc form. Purchase it here: https://sexcells.bandcamp.com/album/sex-cells

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PRETTY UGLY INTERVIEWS DAISY PARRIS

PU: Let's start! Care to list the influences you channel into your artwork? D: It depends on the work I'm making. My favourite painters are Francis Bacon and Blinky Palermo. They do things with paint that causes paralytic vibrations. Their work sends me into a complete daze. Punk rock music has a very big influence on me, along with accents and language and overheard words. I collect these and often use them in my text based work. PU: You've been painting and practicing art from a very young age - do you remember what it was that first sparked your inspiration? D: I remember the first time I saw a Francis Bacon painting. My sister showed me a picture of one when I was in school, probably when I was 12 or 13. It was the first time I'd seen a painting that weren't pretty and I guess I've held onto that ever since. I owe a lot to the Medway art and music scene. I started going to see all the local bands when I was 12. I was originally just interested in the music and then I realised the people from that scene were all round artists. They did everything; writing, music, art and they were all so prolific in doing it. That's all I ever wanted to do since then. I spent every spare minute of my time painting, making things and learning music. People I idolised from the area kind of took me under their wing and supported me and gave me good opportunites. Everyone supported each other. I always go back to the art and music of Medway whenever I feel lost, it has a very big place in my heart. PU: In general, what's the statement you intend to portray when you produce a piece of artwork? What is it, for you, that puts your personal signature on everything you create? D: There's a few things going on in what I make. Mostly I'm only really interested in putting emotion and expression into my work. It's the only thing that is ever truly relatable. It can transcend from me, into the paint and out the other side. At the same time I'm interested in the physicalness of paint, what it can do and how it can be manipulated. The Medway Towns has this 'make do' ethic that has always stuck with me. I always just make do in my work. I'm a really quick painter, I suppose even lazy - I like to just get it done in one go. I paint at night in my bedroom with really bad light so I have to wait and see what it looks like in the morning. Even if I don't like it I wouldn't change it. The process of painting is super important and tender to me. I think it's really important to get used to the work you make. Make do, do what you want and keep making stuff. I feel like there's no time to dwell on bad work you've made, as long as you're doing something it's all good. PU: Out of your contemporaries - or artists you admire - who would you recommend our readers check out? D: Check out all my mates' work. Such a creative bunch who are always on it: Keep Sad, Catherine Holt, Katie Jordan, Laurie Vincent. There's a couple of artists who I found online that I'm completely mad about: Frederik Næblerød and Caio Fern. PU: And finally, what makes you pretty ugly? D: Some days I wake up and I am a ugly lazy lump and other days I wake up and I'm light and I get dressed and my hair is nice and I do a painting and I'm good. It doesn't matter how ugly or good I feel just as long as I'm existing. Everyone's got a bit of pretty ugly in them. Keep an eye on Daisy's projects: http://www.daisyparris.com/

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PRETTY UGLY INTERVIEWS ANDREW NIXON

PU: Can you tell us a little about your new project Fragments Of Space Hex, and how it differs from your previous synth studies under Deathcount In Silicone Valley?

A: Well... Fragments was born out of Hypnotic Synth jams with a friend (Ciaran Mackle) back in 2013, when we had very little equipment, maybe a synth each and a few pedals... Style wise I think it's a lot looser and psychedelic. We'd get nicely toasted on smoke and wine... Cheap polish beer in Ciaran's case... And just hit record. So most of that tape is one shot recordings bar a few embellishments here and there. How does it differ to the Deathcount stuff... Well that's me allowing myself to go in and layer stuff a lot more and think about where it's gonna go... Originally going for a slightly darker vibe and a whole heap of Gnaarly Arp's, but the sound is evolving all the time and the new stuff is way more out there.

PU: Vinyl has had its renaissance, and now cassettes appear to be having theirs with labels such as Extreme Ultimate and Reckno, and features such as Tristan Bath’s Spool’s Out… Releasing mainly on tape yourself, what would you say is the appeal of music on cassette?

A: Ah man, they're just really cute little bits of plastic, there is a slight bit of nostalgia coming to play but for the most part... I never quite got the mp3 generation and I don't use a mobile phone or computer so when tapes started appearing at gigs on bands merch tables with neat packaging and all manner of colours, I immediately dusted off the Ol' Walkman and jumped in feet first. I was so stoked when Matthew from Extreme Ultimate asked me to put out a tape. The result was killer and the new Fragments one with stunning artwork by Caitlin O'Connor is a triumph... Those guys really now how to put together a package, and sell it.

PU: In May, you performed a live rescoring of F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu – what was it about the film that attracted you towards it sonically?

A: To be honest my first port of call was Metropolis... But we coudnt get the rights. So Nosferatu got the green light and I got to write my first Horror score. Sonically it was great, slightly daunting at an hour and a half, but fun and challenging. The idea was to not take anything away from the movie, not to overpower it but give it an extra dimension, kind of have this bubbling underneath or in-between the image on the screen and hopefully make people feel the movie rather than have a score that overpowers it. I think it worked and as a result I'm performing it at Supernormal festival and again at the P.C.C. around Halloween, and I'm working on another two movies which I'll announce soon.

PU: Cinema has always been conceptually connected to music – what film(s) would you say has had the most influential impact on how you make music?

A: I'm gonna go straight to John Carpenter and Alan Howarth for that one. The Fog, Halloween (Especially Halloween 3), Prince Of Darkness, those solid bass notes, eerie drones and cold pads are just unreal. He really knew how to equalise the image with the sound... A master all round.

PU: What film soundtrack would you pick to score your life thus far?

A: Hmmm... Something with a pulsing synth score, I like the idea of walking around with a John Carpenter bass line narrating my every move. Maybe Assault On Precinct 13, yeah I'll go with that... On repeat!

PU: Extreme Ultimate has described your latest tape as “a sci-fi odyssey of truly cosmic proportions” – can you tell us what inspires you creatively about the infinite reaches of space?

A: Firstly shouts to Matthew from EU For writing that. Infinite reaches of space... It's probably a combination of 80s Sci-fi and Hallucinogens. From Buck Rogers to Flash Gordon via Jodorowsky and L.S.D. I'm pretty sure they all have a part in why I do what I do and why I sound like I sound.

PU: Who from your musical circle would you recommend we start listening to?

A: ASHPLANT for sure, that's Ciaran Mackle who is the other half of Fragments, he's writing some killer minimal dubby techno excursions. Also Mike and Sam from TEETH OF THE SEA have a mind blowing new project called HIRVIKOLARI using Modular synths and Trumpet... Check it out, it's huge.

PU: And finally, what makes you pretty ugly?

A:The ever growing and all knowing gap between my two front teeth.

Keep an eye on Andrew's synth escapades: https://andinixon.bandcamp.com/

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BITCHCRAFT: BAD GIRL ESOTERICA IN CINEMA

On the brighter side of things is Saxana (1972), a fun Czech fantasy in which a cute teenage witch finds herself flung into the modern world after having been frozen in time for three hundred years. It also boasts a funky soundtrack courtesy of Angelo Michajlov, which is worth checking out on its own (recently reissued by Andy Votel of Finders Keepers). Now retreating back into the darkness a bit, there's British folk horror The Blood On Satan's Claw (1971), where a group of peasant youngsters in a pastoral village somewhere start growing the devil's skin and everything gets a tad spooky. We're fans for the character of Angel Blake alone, a seventies sex-comedy blonde turned primitive cult leader (with killer eyebrows). Then there's Black Sunday (1960), an Italian gothic horror loosely based on the same Nikolai Gogol story as Viy, in which Barbara Steele takes a glorious turn as the vampy Princess Asa Vajda. Cue crypts, castles and crucifixes. From Poland, Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) involves a convent plagued by demons, in which the nuns indulge in blasphemy, hysterics, devil worship and sexual depravity. And finally, we recommend two pseudo-documentary dramas on the history of witchcraft, the Czech Witchhammer (1970) and Swedish/Danish Häxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages. Of course, there are far more movies of esoteric note that we could have listed here, but we can't give all our secrets away that easily can we? Do a bit of scrounging and see what shows itself to you from the annals of spooked-out cinema. We implore you to go on a bit of a filmic witch hunt.

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SORCERY AND SWEETS AT THE ATLANTIS BOOKSHOP’S 93RD BIRTHDAY BASH

Last Saturday, our beloved Atlantis Bookshop celebrated its 93rd birthday, and Pretty Ugly by chance (as, again, is often the case with magick) just happened to be there to celebrate. The whole shop was festooned with towers of pink and yellow French Fancies, amongst other sweet delights, and we were lucky enough to enjoy a glass (or two) of Pimm’s as we perused those dusty shelves, packed with intriguing tomes on everything esoteric the mind can conjure up.

Atlantis is known as the oldest independent occult bookshop in London, and since 1922, has entertained all manner of magical sorts with proper informed conversation and (in the tradition of British witchcraft) well-brewed cups of tea. This is what makes Atlantis far more than just a bookshop – it’s a meeting place for all those invested in, or even just intrigued by, occult practice of all kinds. In its formative years, its basement served as a gathering place for the likes of Gerald Gardner and the Order of the Hidden Masters.

We advise anybody with a healthy occult curiosity to head over there and spend an afternoon chatting with the staff (they most certainly have some tales to tell). You never know quite what you might come out with, but we guarantee it won’t be what you expect.

The Atlantis Bookshop; 49A Museum Street; Bloomsbury; London; WC1A 1LY

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LOUISE HUEBNER’S ORGY OF SOUND

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SCIENCE IS SEXY

Okay, critters - so here's some perversity for your perusal. From 20 November 2014 until 20 September 2015, the Wellcome Collection in Euston is playing host to The Institute of Sexology, a fascinating and challenging exhibition which, to quote the press release, 'investigates how the diverse research, methods and collections of sexologists have shaped our ever-evolving attitudes towards sexual behaviour and identity', with exhibits ranging from 'Alfred Kinsey’s complex coded questionnaires to Samoan jewellery to sex machines'. Pretty Ugly will be heading along to give it a thorough probing, courtesy of our voyeuristic tendencies, and consequently reviewing our experience. You should pay a visit too - this is for the good of academia! You might learn something useful.

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MANIFESTO #3

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MANIFESTO #2

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MANIFESTO #1

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A PRETTY UGLY COVER - FALLING IN LOVE

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GIRLS AND GUNS

For decades, cinema and its static twin, the camera, has pursued an erotic romance with 'girl and gun' iconography, from the gunslinging heroines Bonnie Parker and Thelma and Louise, to the revenge-hungry vixens of exploitation flicks such as They Call Her One Eye. But where exactly does this fascination originate from?

It's not complicated. The allure of a foxy young thing holding what is essentially a phallic object in her manicured hand is not difficult to understand. Crawling even deeper yet beneath the sexual subtext, there's the paradoxical imagery of a young woman (sugar and spice and all things nice, remember) and something that is usually the preserve of the ultra-masculine.

Ultimately, we are seduced by this outward projection of the violence inherent in even the most (apparently) innocent places. But no one is innocent, and girls are just as mad, bad and dangerous to know as their male counterparts.