The Horse Hospital has carved out a unique place among London'snumerous arts venues, serving as central headquarters for the moreeccentric fringes of the underground and avant-garde media and culture.They've hosted art exhibitions from the likes of Joe Coleman, MarkRyden, David Tibet and Steven Stapleton, in-person readings from PeterSotos and Adam Parfrey, as well as film screenings, DJ sets and liveperformances from various personages too numerous to mention. Recentlythey've expanded into experimental radio broadcast, hosting afortnightly hour-long show on London's Resonance FM. The show reflectsthe obsession shared by The Horse Hospital's curators for pop-culturemashups, audio distortion, easy listening dimentia and transgressivemusical forms. Far from the gimmicky "The Strokes meet ChristinaAguilera" of Freelance Hellraiser or the bland over-processing ofartists like Knifehandchop, Horse Hospital Radiois a sidereal window into our collective pop-culture imagination,performing a series of variable-speed exorcisms of the extreme ends ofthe musical spectrum. Programmed by the inimitable Mister Sloane, Horse Hospital Radio Volume Threeis a free-form continuous DJ mix that plunges Johnny Mathis into a gaschamber, vents in the laughing gas and sprinkles the whole mess withdialogue snippets from George Ratliff's Hell House. GreenVelvet's rave flashback is slowed down until it resembles a funerealpsychedelic march into a zero-gravity rabbit hole. The siren sounds andthe mix takes a sharp left turn into the joyful drum n' bass insanityof Lightning Bolt and a quick drop into the tweaking aggression ofhardcore dancehall, and it's off into a hypnotic, 10-minute quagmire of18 Cent's "In Da Club" genetically grafted onto the flip instrumentalside of The Neptunes-produced "Grindin'" by The Clipse, pitched downand time-stretched to slow-motion tribal pummeling. Punk godfatherBertie Marshall pipes in with an abbreviated rap about his favoriteprescription painkillers. These post hip-hop mutations come courtesy ofThe Penalty for Harbouring Partisans, partially the work of artist IanJohnstone, John Balance of Coil's new partner in aesthetic terrorism.Jhon Balance can be heard towards the end of the track, blanklyintoning "Nothing's too sad for words." Some uneasy digressions intograting noise and black metal follow, including a stunning marraige ofThe White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army" to the murky sludgecore of SunnO))). Complete with bizarre shout-outs from Michael Jackson and VincentPrice, the whole thing washes over like passing out watching MTV on alethal mix of Quaaludes and DMT. But more than that, it's able toreveal thrilling new dimensions of trash culture and extremeexpression, pointing to a possible new direction for the cultural heirsof the post-industrial milieu.Read More
