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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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.

Interview with Ramuntcho Matta in The Odd Magazine

Ramuntcho Matta.
Photographer: Oona Matta

 

The Odd Magazine 31 is now out, and among other goodies contains an interview (in English and French) with musician and artist Ramuntcho Matta. In the interview, Ramuntcho talks about people such as his father, surrealist artist Roberto Matta; Ira Cohen and William Burroughs; but most of all about his friendship with Brion Gysin. He also chats about his music and visual art.

Dye Hard Press author Arja Salafranca presents workshop

 

Arja Salafranca, author of The fire in which we burn and Beyond touch, both published by Dye Hard Press, will present a workshop on the poetry and music of Leonard Cohen, together with musician and composer Siya Makuzeni, at the Market Photo Workshop on Saturday 14 October, as part of the African Women Writers Symposium.