ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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Memorable communion with audience
A worthy trip down a memory lane of musical innovation, principles and messages that still matter in our current austere times, writes MIK SABIERS
IRREPRESSIBLE: Heaven 17 in action
[Andrew Hurley/flickr]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
Heaven 17
London Roundhouse
WHEN the BBC banned Heaven 17’s debut single Fascist Groove Thang for its left-wing lyrics in 1981, it took two more years before the band’s most well-known single – Temptation – almost hit the top spot.
This slow burn mirrored that of The Human League, who formed back in 1977 but only saw commercial success with Don’t You Want Me once founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware had left the band to form Heaven 17.
The Human League’s first two albums, co-written by Ware, may have been innovative, but weren’t necessarily commercial with tracks like Circus of Death, Life Kills and Being Boiled.
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