MARTIN HALL TIMELINE FOR THE AUTUMN OF 2010

To obtain a quick overview you’ll find a list over the most important Hall projects and activities during the autumn here. On our Danish version of the site there’s obviously a lot more info due to interviews and lectures on a local scale. August 30: Something Rotten! (new book about Danish punk-culture). September 2: Kinoplex (new Hall novel + audiobook w/ additional soundtrack). September 13: Live at St. Paul’s (new live-DVD). September 13: Pesteg Dred/SS-Say (cd-release). October 2: Subculture (Hall-essay in new anthology). October 12: Salon Midwelt (premiere on MH’s new tv-show which will be sent every Tuesday throughout October and November on Danish DK4). October 23/24: Kinoplex (Copenhagen). November 12: Kinoplex (Elsinore).

NEW BOOK ABOUT DANISH PUNK: ’SOMETHING ROTTEN!’

On Monday the 30th of August the first comprehensive book about Danish punk will be released, Something Rotten! written by Danish music journalist Jan Poulsen. The release carries the subtitle "Punk in Denmark: Painting, Music, Literature 1977-85" which emphasizes the extent and depth of the book’s scope as far as its subject area is concerned. The release is expected to be approximately 400 pages and – as logic goes – Hall will be one of its principal contributors. A special feature about the book is the fact that its author lets the main characters of the story tell it themselves. Through thorough research and almost a hundred interviews Jan Poulsen has put together a mosaic tale told by the leading figures of the Danish punk scene itself, i.e. a continuous story leading from the fragile beginning and well into the 80’s. Using nothing but the participants’ own voices the book will undoubtedly offer interesting insight into the milieu at the time. The book is released by Danish publishers Gyldendal and will furthermore contain an abundance of illustrations. Among the other contributors you can find names such as Claus Carstensen (professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts), Peter Peter (Danish punk act Sods/Sort Sol), Søren Ulrik Thomsen (poet), Fritz Fatal (singer in Before), Nina Sten-Knudsen (painter), Odd Bjertnæs (musician) and Lars H.U.G. (singer and front figure in Danish art-rock group Kliché).

NEW MARTIN HALL NOVEL OUT SEPTEMBER 2: ’KINOPLEX’

Kinoplex is the title of Martin Hall’s upcoming novel, his first piece of fiction since his literary breakthrough with The Last Romantic from 2005. The new title will be released on the 2nd of September by Lindhardt & Ringhof, one of Denmark’s largest publishing firms. The novel will also be available as an audiobook, a recording that will be produced by Hall himself. In comparison to its predecessor, ’Kinoplex’ is said to be a darker, yet plot-driven novel. The scenes in the book take place at two levels, the first being told from the narrator’s present position and point of view (24 hours on location in a foreign land), the other being a set of flashbacks explaining the current situation this character finds himself tangled up in (a story that goes back more 20 years in time). The book is a tale about the disintegrating identity of a man, an insight into a line of obscene arrangements and secret parties, as well as the story of a crime that is never unambiguously revealed. An important theme in the book is its focus on modern visual culture, i.e. the question of how our present day medias’ constant flux of visuals and excessive image manipulation affect our lives. What are the consequences of such an epidemic spread of visuals for our ability to navigate sanely through our lives? The novel is supposedly said to have been inspired by an authentic video footage, MH found on the internet during his research on the subject matter. During the writing of the book Martin Hall has received a grant from the prestigious Danish art institution The Danish Arts Council.

’KINOPLEX’ AS MP3-AUDIOBOOK WITH NEW HALL-SOUNDTRACK

Concurrently with the release of MH’s new book ’Kinoplex’ on September 2, the novel will also be released as an audiobook. This version will feature a line of new, original music written and produced by Hall in collaboration with Danish artist Christian Skeel. Minor parts of the production also feature producer Johnny Stage. The audiobook features 65 chapters divided into 81 tracks with a total duration of 5,3 hours (319 minutes). It will be released in mp3-format, i.e. as one dvd. The audiobook is read aloud by Danish rock-journalist Jan Poulsen – so far only in Danish!

NEW LIVE-DVD OUT SEPTEMBER 13: ’LIVE AT ST. PAUL'S’

On Monday the 13th of September Panoptikon releases Martin Hall’s critically acclaimed church concert at Saint Paul’s in Århus in October 2009 as a DVD. The release will be entitled Live At St. Paul's and will contain English subtitles in respect of MH's growing European audiences. The repertoire of the night stretches alle the way back from the Ballet Mécanique period and all the way up to MH's latest album 'Hospital Cafeterias'. Hall’s concerts during October and November 2009 were his first live-performances as a singer for more than three years. The reviews succeeding all events were fantastic: MH was reported to be at his peak as both a singer and a performer. The Saint Paul’s concert in particular received excellent reviews in both Gaffa (Denmark’s biggest music magazine) and Jyllands-Posten (Denmark’s biggest newspaper): Gaffa: “An absolutely outstanding evening ... you couldn’t ask for much more.” (5 out of 6 stars) Jyllands-Posten (Århus): “Beautiful and experimental … he let the highlights of his first 30 years of his impressive career speak.” (5 out of 6 stars).

PESTEG DRED-LP AND SS-SAY-SINGLE RELEASED ON CD

A long awaited hole in the back-catalogue will be filled when both Hall’s obscure art-rock project Pesteg Dred and his later internationally renowned group SS-Say (both featuring the singer Inge Shannon in the vocal front) will be re-released digitally as well as on vinyl this autumn. The originally unreleased Pesteg Dred-album Years Of Struggle Against The Lies, The Stupidity And The Cowardice will be released on vinyl by the San Francisco based label Dark Entries and the SS-Say 12-inch single Fusion will appear on the New York-based Minimal Wave. However, already on September 13 (the same day as MH releases his critically acclaimed Live At St. Paul’s performance on DVD) Panoptikon will release the two above-mentioned records as one cd under the title I Have Seen You Through The Years, Worn By Different Faces in Scandinavia. This release features a remastered digital version of both recordings. However, we need to stress that re-release is marked by the fairly rough quality of the original material. Particular SS-Say has received a lot of international attention during the years. The first constellation of the band made its debut at the legendary William S. Burroughs visit in Denmark in October 1983, and ever since the reputation of the group has grown, both in Europe and in the United States – apparently because a French DJ kept playing the ‘Fusion’-tracks at the New York club The Batcave.

’KINOPLEX’ AS STAGE PLAY IN COPENHAGEN AND ELSINORE

Under the title Kinoplex: Fragments Of A Memory Journal the Danish theatre Københavns Musikteater (The Music Theatre of Copenhagen) will be performing a multimedia stage play of Hall’s new novel on Saturday the 23rd of October at 8 PM as well as Sunday the 24th of October (also at 8 PM). The production will be collaboration between the theatre and Hall himself. Three weeks later the show will be performed at the newly opened centre of culture in Elsinore, Kulturværftet. This enactment will take place on Friday the 12th of November at 9 PM. In the audio-visual form that characterizes all events at Københavns Musikteater, the performance will be a fragmented situation report put in music, words and images – a story outlined with invisible ink for those able to intercept it. The theatre version of ’Kinoplex’ will reveal a very different aspect of the novel than the one you get if you read the book; particularly the video aspects of the coming shows will have a significant impact upon the story. You can get a foretaste of the production at this site. The participants at all shows will be: Herbert Zeichner (narrator), Andrea Pellegrini (mezzo-soprano), Martin Hall (electronics, modular systems), Johnny Stage (guitar, treatment), Ida Bach Jensen (double-bass), Henriette Groth (piano, viola, clarinet) as well as Casper Øbro (VJ). Koncept: Martin Hall and Allan Klie.

NEW MARTIN HALL TV-SHOW: 'SALON MIDWELT'

On October 12 Martin Hall will be presenting his new tv-show, the highbrow talkshow Salon Midwelt. Starring as the weekly focus of attention he will have two new guests in the programme every week, everything from Danish queer-performers to literary celebrities. The following Tuesdays throughout October and November receivers of the digital canal DK4 will be able to see Hall every night at 10 PM. As a special feature Hall will be producing a new video for every night, either in collaboration with Territorium or Danish visual artist The Ocular One (Erik Hansen-Hansen). Among confirmed guests are Culture Minister of Denmark Per Stig Møller, the authors Kirsten Thorup and Thomas Boberg as well as queer-performers Miss Fish and Sandra Day. We’ll be bringing a full list of guests as soon as the planning of the programmes is final.

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TITLE: Kinoplex AUTHOR: Martin Hall RELEASED: September 2010 PUBLISHER: Lindhardt & Ringhof ISBN: 978-87-1142650-0 CATEGORY: Novel

TITLE: Live At St. Paul's ARTIST: Martin Hall RELEASED: September 2010 LABEL: Panoptikon CAT. NO.: OPTIK 23 CATEGORY: DVD

'Random Hold' Virgin, 1996 'Uden Titel' Lindhardt og Ringhof, 1998 'Metropolitan Suite' Music NetWork, 2001 'Kommunikaze' Lindhardt og Ringhof, 2001 'Camille' Music NetWork, 2002 'Das Mechanische Klavier' Panoptikon, 2004 'Den Sidste Romantiker' People's Press, 2005 'Facsimile' Panoptikon, 2006 'Catalogue' Panoptikon, 2007 'Hospital Cafeterias' Panoptikon, 2009