Free your mind and stay weird: An interview with Bart de Paepe in The Odd Magazine

 

Bart de Paepe is a musician and artist living in Belgium. Since 2005 he has curated Sloow Tapes, which has released a substantial catalogue of music and poetry. Of his latest album, Zürahümnah, Forced Exposure says it  ‘is an immediate and immersive dive into solitary inner and outer worlds of light and darkness…. a mysterious journey through detached time and space.’

You have been influenced by psychedelia, and this is reflected not only in your own music and art but also in much of the music you have released under Sloow Tapes. What is the relevance of psychedelia in 2026?

Maybe now it’s more relevant as ever considering all those right-wing conservatives in power everywhere whose only interest lies in creating a control-freak environment of paranoid nationalism against civil liberties. Free your mind and stay weird, I say...
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Prose without borders

 

I am honoured to have had some prose poems accepted for this anthology, which is due to be published by Sulfur Editions in September 2026. Prose without Borders is edited by Mohsen L Belasy and Ghadah Kamal Ahmed.

Like sucking in the elixir

 

Off to the land of the Incas

 

Dye Hard Intervew: Ramuntcho Matta: Expanding human capacity

Credit: Oona Matta

Ramunchto Matta is a French composer and interdisciplinary artist. He has worked with people such as Don Cherry, Brion Gysin, John Cage, Chris Marker,  and Robert Wilson. He has released 34 solo CDs and collaborated on about 20 other albums. He has exhibited his visual work in Paris, New York, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Tokyo, and Rome.

A book titled Hello Yes Hello: 30 Dialogues, containing conversations between Kathelin Gray and Ramuntcho Matta about Brion Gysin and William Burroughs, was published by Moloko Plus in 2025, and Ce que Brion m'a dit de Gysin (Marcel le Poney) in 2026.

Your father was the Chilean surrealist painter Roberto Matta, who knew writers and artists such as Andre Breton, Joyce Mansour, Max Ernst, and Robert Motherwell. I imagine your childhood must have been interesting, with many famous artists around you. What was it like?

Everything was normal.

It was “normal” to sleep in a closet with holes in the door to be able to breathe...Read more.

No matter what sign you are

 

Where has the line disappeared to?

 

Five collages by Gary Cummiskey published in Blood + Honey

Tell me about the forest

I must say I am chuffed to have had five of my collages published in the US-based journal Blood + Honey.

You can view all five collages here. 

Liberators of the mind

Liberators of the mind -- the latest exquisite corpse collaboration between Paul Warren and Gary Cummiskey.

Playtime

Playtime, a collage by UK artist Paul Warren, was inspired by the story of that name in my collection Off-ramp, published by Dye Hard Press in 2013. Off-ramp was a finalist for the 2014 Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award.

Bring me up

 

How patterns support the transition

Exquisite corpse collaboration with UK artist Paul Warren.
 

Staring into a Renegade eye

 

Renegade eye is a selection of 18 collages by Gary Cummiskey, published by new imprint Turquoise Press. Renegade eye is available as a flip-book on Heyzine. 

You can also download it as a PDF here.

Gary Cummiskey is a South African poet, writer and publisher of Dye Hard Press. His latest poetry collection is Somewhere else, published by Graffiti, Kolkata, in 2024.

I want the sun to shine

 

Just another Saturday

 

Sun Song

 

You can always change your name

 

When she walked through the door (la mere! la mere!)

 

Just then, the weather changed

 

Ambigious beatitude