RECORD COLLECTION
The modernist, avant-garde British artist chooses a soundtrack to match, from the dark side of Floyd to the trout mask of Captain Beefheart. But he’s yet to set fire to a guitar, or a million quid…
Modernist, avant-garde British artist Gavin Turk is partial to a bit of prog, from Pink Floyd to Captain Beefheart and many more.
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon has always seemed to be in my life, I’m not sure how or why. I remember being about six years old and hearing it at home… but my mum and dad weren’t massively progressive musicminded. Dad played this loud, mad jazz, Mum liked things like ABBA and Helen Reddy. Dark Side seemed like it was in everyone’s home then, like everyone had a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History Of Time, but maybe they didn’t read it, or understand it properly. The same goes for Tubular Bells, everyone seemed to have a copy, but who was listening or understanding it? Anyway, one day, when I was about 11 or 12, I put Dark Side on the record player myself and properly listened. And then it was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ It was a crazy soundscape and very different to what I was listening to at the time, more pop music and ska, which was what was in the charts. We lived in south-west London, which seemed close to everything, but I sort of kept to myself at the time and when I did go out, Camden Lock was the place that attracted me. Camden was the centre for youth culture then, a world away from the suburbs.
The more experimental side of my music listening eased off a bit until I went to art school, first at Chelsea then the Royal College. I got to experience a lot of new-to-me music and Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart came into my world together, with Hot Rats and Weasels Ripped My Flesh. What impressed me apart from the sound of what he was doing was hearing that Frank had been asked to describe the genre of his music and he’d said, ‘It’s Frank Zappa music.’ That worked for me. That’s how I wanted my art to be viewed. ‘What art style do you do?’ ‘Gavin Turk, of course.’
It was an important idea just when I was finding myself, my identity. And then I dived into Trout Mask Replica. If that’s the first Beefheart album you listen to, well… good luck with that! [Laughs] But again, it was his own style, and yes, it sounded absolutely horrible at the start, but by a few listens it’s fantastic.
The art school soundtrack inevitably went down the path of krautrock. Kraftwerk had caught my attention making synth pop. Now I appreciated that they wanted to be viewed as art as well and would play galleries and art events, and it chimed with me for a band to do this, as well as liking the music they made. Then I heard Neu! by Neu!, and I liked what initially sounded quite simple and efficient, very German, but would then reveal itself as something rather complex and layered. I’d tinkered with the idea of being in a band; I was in a funny sort of art school collective called Retarder and we would play parties and things, a huge load of us on all sorts of instruments making a racket. I thought I could be a wooshy-synthy knob-twiddler but I was rubbish. I also tried my hand at DJing and it would be great for a while, everyone dancing and having a good time then I’d start to veer off into what I’d think was pop music – my weird music – and look up from the decks to see everyone looking at me, going, ‘Put some Chaka Khan on!’ So I’d put some Chaka Khan on and it would go back to normal [laughs]. However, a lot of bands came out of the art school scene then, and a little later, for a short while me and some of my contemporaries [the Young British Artists of the mid-90s] were viewed as part of the pop scene, too. That was quite nice, and fun.
Soundtracks by Can is an album I can put on and listen to it all day. This coincides with the dawn of digital streaming, sorry! Thanks to platforms like Spotify, and their ‘radio’ functions and algorithms, I can be listening to something I know by a band, then it will run on to all this other stuff by that band, sometimes versions of stuff that becomes more familiar to me and other Spotify users than the originals! [Laughs] With Soundtracks, Mother Sky is the track everyone gravitates to, but I find so much variety with all the other songs, and if I put it on, I can find myself happily listening to all the bandmembers’ solo albums too, such as the sort-of funk of Jaki Liebezeit, or the weird world of Holger Czukay. They are all such great musicians, there’s a lot to enjoy.
I knew about The KLF for their pop stuff. Then I heard Chill Out. It’s relatively little-known and it does chill you out [laughs]. It’s conceptual, it’s ambient with samples – some proggy, like Pink Floyd – and it’s art. I have a friend called Gimpo [Alan Goodrick] who was with them [in Scotland] when they burned a million pounds, he filmed [K Foundation Burn A Million Quid]. He saw one of the people there try to keep some of the money then they realised they were on camera! [Laughs] Now, Jimmy Cauty makes these miniature scenes [such as A Riot In A Jam Jar] and Gimpo goes off with Bill Drummond to do these sightseeing van drives around the M25 with KLF fans.
The ambient theme continues with Brian Eno’s Ambient
1: Music For Airports. I knew about Roxy Music and was always intrigued by the funny-looking balding guy in the make-up that made the weird sounds. Airports is tape loops, experimentation. It fits together beautifully. You can lose yourself in it a little. Of course, Brian does art, too. We’ve met, very briefly, in a gallery. I said, ‘Hello Brian! and he said ‘Hello Gavin!’ That’s my brush with the stars!
Not enough people know about Sandy Dillon. She’s an American singer-songwriter, quite rock’n’roll to look at, a bit like Mick Jagger in lipstick – and she sounds a little like him too.
But she puts so many interesting things in her music; orchestral, folk, jazz, blues, beats. Her vocal changes depending on character; Kate Bush to Captain Beefheart. She pushes her ideas but still makes accessible, catchy music. Pull The Strings is the album everyone should hear.
Finally, we end up on Jimi Hendrix and Are You Experienced. What can I say? He invented so much that we have in music today; psychedelic guitar, funky blues, heavy rock, ambient… this album has it all. It’s a tragedy he went so soon. This chat all started so hopeful, now I’ve ended on a tragedy. Oh well, that’s life! [Laughs]”
Gavin Turk’s Letting Go show will be exhibited at Reflex Gallery, Amsterdam, from October 19 - December 6. For more details, visit www.reflexamsterdam.com.
“I THOUGHT I COULD BE A WOOSHY- SYNTHY KNOB- TWIDDLER, BUT I WAS RUBBISH.”