Necessary Violence: how I'll be voting in the Scottish referendum, and why...

This is a polemic.

It's important to understand that from the off, because while you will find impassioned yet logical argument over the next few paragraphs, you won't find a clinical academic text that presents mountains of figures and statistics and then claims that they represent the most probable future for a post-referendum Scotland.  No economist, pollster, business leader, social scientist or pundit of any stripe is capable of producing analyses which are entirely unbiased, due simply to the fact that they are human beings.  This, coupled with the great difficulty of predicting an uncertain future faced by even the most talented of such qualified 'experts', has made me somewhat wary of the "proof" produced by both sides in this debate regarding subjects such as currency, oil reserves, welfare spending, tax, EU membership, and so on and so forth.  These are non-issues for me when deciding how I will cast my vote on 18th September, because there simply doesn't seem to be any truly reliable way of predicting their long-term outcome in an independent Scotland.

I am much more interested in a principled argument, one in which we are on a much surer (if more abstract) footing.  My points are few, but I'm hoping they might kick-start a different line of debate in the few days we have left before Scotland goes to the polls. 

Before I explain my reasons for voting the way I will be on Scottish independence, I'll mention two very important factors (both of which have featured prominently in the debate thus far) that WON'T be influencing my vote.

THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE 'YES' AND 'NO' CAMPAIGNS

Political campaigners, whatever the virtue of their cause, are salespeople.  Their sole objective is to get you to vote the way they want you to; this is beyond dispute.  It is necessary to look past the often unsavoury tactics and conduct of such people and make up your own mind on the issues at hand based on the information available.  Often campaigners can play an important role in bringing such information to light, albeit one driven by their aforementioned ulterior motive, but bias is rampant (as has been amply evidenced by the recent conduct of the BBC) and thus a measure of voter discretion is always required.  Everyone, in short, has an agenda, but it's vitally important that it is the merits of a political cause, rather than the behaviour of its campaigners, that influences the way you vote.

A great deal of mud has been slung in the debate on Scottish independence, and neither side has come out of it particularly well, in my opinion.  Both sides have been guilty of scaremongering, smug self-righteousness, hypocrisy and cynical appeals to emotion.  The 'yes' campaign in particular have disappointed me; fuelled by the belief that being the perceived 'underdog' allows them to occupy some sort of moral high ground, many 'yes' campaigners' frequent displays of condescension and barely-concealed contempt for those who do not share their views have demonstrated a shocking lack of self-awareness.  Recent attempts to discredit the pro-union position in general by attacking the (admittedly shockingly bad) marketing efforts of Better Together smacks slightly of desperation, but mainly of cynicism.  None of which is to say that the 'No' campaign have generally been any better (they have frequently been worse), but I expected more from a movement which likes to associate itself with progressive politics.  (I should also stress that, obviously, many campaigners from both sides have managed to conduct themselves in a more admirable fashion as well.)

The point I'm making here is that nothing in the preceding paragraph, nothing about the conduct of either campaign, has had any affect on the way I'm voting.  Nor should it.

NATIONALISM AND ITS POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

I have no truck with nationalism of any kind.  I was born in England to English parents, but have lived in Scotland for 23 of my 30 years.  I could reasonably claim to be either Scottish or English, but consider myself neither.  Nationality is not an essential component of human identity, and is, historically speaking, a fairly recent development in human thought.  Nations are, as Benedict Anderson put it, imagined communities; if one wishes to imagine oneself as a member of a national community, one may do so, and a powerful sentimental attachment it can be, too.  But to assume that this national sentiment automatically translates into political legitimacy is fallacious in the extreme. (This issue is further complicated by people's persistent confusion of the very separate entities 'state' and 'nation') In the context of the debate about Scotland independence, recognising this fact has two main implications:

(1) A complaint frequently made by pro-independence groups is that Scotland is currently (and also historically has been) subjected to a Conservative government in Westminster which it did not, as a group of constituencies, vote for (the so-called democratic deficit).  However, just looking at the 2010 general election results, the same can be said of (a) Yorkshire & the Humber, (b) the North West and (c) the North East of England as geographical areas.  Why is it that, although several regions of the UK are currently being governed by a party for which they did not vote, only one of them (Scotland) should secede on this basis?  The problem with being part of a democratic state is that not everyone is going to agree with you, and you have to live with that.  After all, I (as an individual) didn't vote for the Conservative party, and yet I find myself governed by them - that's the nature of living in a democracy.  To suggest that it is a special outrage for Scotland to be in this position is to presume the special political legitimacy of the Scottish nation.  If it can be argued, with sound reason, that there is nothing morally or politically special about nations per se, then the case for Scotland to secede on this basis evaporates.  The only alternative is to argue that any region which disagrees with an election result can legitimately secede on this basis, but this is a patently absurd position, because where do you stop?  In any democracy, you cannot always be on the winning side.

(2) The protests of Scottish ex-pats who insist that they should have a vote in the referendum are without merit, because this is not about cultural heritage or the imagined national community (of which, despite their geographic remoteness, they can still consider themselves a part), but is about the possible formation of a brand new state, concerned with the present and the future, not the past.  The fact that this new state will bear the name and cultural identity of the nation known as Scotland is, in my opinion, quite incidental.  (I recognise that this a controversial point of view, and will expand upon it below.)

So if I've no interest in the conduct of the campaigns or in any notions of nationalism, what will be determining the way in which I vote?

A NECESSARY ACT OF CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE

Having read the above, you might assume that I'll be voting 'no' on 18th September, but you'd be wrong.  The reasons are three-fold: (1) the political system we currently live with is badly in need of reform (for reasons too numerous to list here) and, of particular concern to me, (2) the creeping privatisation of essential public services like Royal Mail, the prison service and the NHS, and (3) the possibility of decommissioning Trident and taking steps towards a post-nuclear age.

(1) However entrenched and mildewed the structures of Westminster and Whitehall, I believe that, given time (possibly decades) and a concerted, prolonged effort on the part of we, the electorate, its institutions can be made fit for purpose, and conducive to a healthier democratic system.  There is one major advantage that an independent Scotland can offer in democratic terms though, and that is a government which is more representative because - put simply - it governs a smaller population.  In his contribution to the Federalist Papers, James Madison (one of the founding fathers of the American constitution) noted that the greater the population and geographical area it represented, the less representative a government is.  This inverse relationship is what made possible the 'direct' democracy of Plato's Athens and Rousseau's Geneva (albeit with the former being built on slavery), and although an independent Scotland's elected chamber would be a long way from citizens' assemblies in an idealised city-state, the fact remains that, under an electoral system analogous to proportional representation, the make-up of any Scottish legislature will be more representative of the electorate's choices than a UK-wide equivalent.  Apart from the intrinsic democratic good of this state of affairs, such a system would also lead to less apathy on the part of voters, who would better flourish as citizens through being more engaged with a visibly representative political set-up.

(2) Much has been said and written about the privitisation of our public services, to the point where the familiar slogans and rallying cries seem drained of all meaning through overuse, and roll off campaigners' tongues as empty husks.  It's important to understand why we should be worried about the exposure of essential public services to the vagaries of the market, rather than simply decrying it. Put simply, there are standards of living below which we cannot allow people to fall.  Other than the need to preserve basic human dignity or some other more nebulous moral impulse, it is also imperative that we secure these minimum standards so that people may operate effectively as citizens within our society.  The most essential of these services is arguably the NHS, an organisation which is being slowly eroded by neoliberal forces, but I extend this category of essential public services to postal and prison services, welfare institutions and nationwide transport links (primarily rail).  These are all essential public services which constitute a universal human good for citizens, and allow them to live a minimally decent existence. (We could spend all day debating the definition of "decent" here, but there you are.)

Private enterprise is not concerned with moral minimums, or even greater efficiency, unless they contribute directly to increased profits.  This is a fact.  All other considerations take a back seat to the maintenance of the bottom line, whatever lip service might be paid to corporate social responsibility by company spokespeople.  As neoliberal pundits are always so keen to remind us, such conduct is neither moral nor immoral, it simply is.  Make of that what you will (I would argue that to be amoral is itself an immoral position).  Often the quickest way to enhance profits is to cut costs, which means that increasingly privatised public services will be slashed further and further, while politicians carp on and on about the supposed "efficiency" which this arrangement will bring to their delivery and implementation.  This trend of privatisation will be incredibly difficult to reverse, as there are vested financial interests for the wide range of capitalists who bid for government contracts, and the politicians whose campaigns they fund and whose pockets they will line with directorships further down the road.  Even under a Labour administration at Westminster, I don't see this trend reversing itself, and I think the best we can hope for is a halt to it, barring some gigantic upheaval in the political and/or economic spheres.  Remember, it took a world war for the welfare state to be established in the first place.

(3) Talk of a gradual reduction in the size of worldwide nuclear arsenals (with an ambiguous timeframe) is not helpful if we wish to take serious steps towards a post-nuclear age.  What is needed instead is a powerful symbolic gesture by one of the developed world's nuclear powers, namely the decommissioning and removal of their nuclear deterrent.  Idealistic perhaps, but someone has to put their guns down first, and as all three main Westminster parties are in favour of retaining Trident in one form or another, that someone will not be the UK.

Do I imagine that an independent Scotland will be a land of milk and honey, the socialist utopia envisaged by the SNP and others in the 'yes' campaign?  Certainly not.  Quite apart from reality's depressing tendency to fall short of theory, the much-vaunted Scottish leftist tradition is rooted in a political identity which has been forged by centuries of opposition to the London metropole; once you remove that conservative (small "c") counterweight, what becomes of that political identity?  We'll see.

However, the three issues listed above are all problems that cannot be solved within the current political set-up in the UK.  When a system is as entrenched and resistant to transformation as the one in which we currently find ourselves, refusing to admit serious reform through conventional channels, then only an act of violence can bring true and lasting change.  To those (like me) of a pacifistic persuasion, this is an uncomfortable conclusion to say the least, but one must have a very narrow definition of the word "violence" to imagine that such an act can only consist of guns and guillotines.  Breaking away from the UK to form a brand new state is an act which would be simultaneously destructive and creative ("the ultimate creative act", in the words of National Collective), and most certainly an act of epic constitutional violence.  It is, however, a necessary act of constitutional violence.  Necessary because, to achieve a decent chance (not a certainty) of (1) creating a more representative political system, (2) safeguarding essential and morally imperative public services, and (3) taking a genuinely meaningful step towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons, we need to, in a way, rip it all up and start again.  Conventional paths of political reform in the UK are not fit for purpose, and instead we need to commit an act which is as forceful as it is symbolically powerful.  That act is Scottish independence.

In line with my thoughts on nationalism, the fact that this new state would bear the name and culture of the nation known as Scotland is, to me, incidental.  I do my best to think of it as "State X".  What is important is that we, as autonomous citizens and dignified beings, have been presented with a decent chance (again, not a certainty) of forging a new political community which can be a better place to live and exist as engaged citizens, taking a hand in our own political flourishing.  Scottish independence could be that highest of political ideals, a bloodless revolution.

I've been too simplistic in this piece, but I didn't want to spend too long on it with the short time left to us before the polls open.  I'm hoping that it might encourage more debate on the topic, and at the very least make people think a little harder about their political decisions, which is frankly the least we can do as responsible citizens.

Jim Taylor

14th September 2014

'JAMES GRAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE' and 'KIDS' by Not A Teepee

 

My attempt to catch up with the ever-growing output of the prolific Not A Teepee collective continues, and we now come to an EP originally released in August, the grandly-titled James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose.  Having this tragic historical figure as a theme for the record inspired a mainly sombre collection of tunes from the collective's contributors, the tone being set by the sinister white noise and spoken lyrics of Matricarians' opener Battle of Justice Mill.  Sarah J Stanley's bleak but beautiful John's Gonna Write Me A Love Song is a modern folk ballad, with stunning vocals and an ever-so-slightly menacing synth drone, while Teepee newcomer Future Galloway serves up a slice of psychedelic surf-rock with You Can Break My Body But Not My Soul.  Les Pelicans make yet another fine Teepee appearance with the gritty and groovy Royalty, and the ethereal folk-blues of Kitchen Cynics' Written On The Eve Of His Execution provides a nice shift in style on the penultimate track.  The EP closes with the tender acoustics and haunting vocals of Not A Love Song by John Hekert, a jovial response, no doubt, to Sarah J Stanley's earlier assertion.  James Graham... is another eclectic triumph for Not A Teepee, and also features a stunning cover from Dutch artist Sanne Oorebeek. 

      

October saw the release of the thirteenth release by the Teepee collective, and marks two whole years since the beginning of this bi-monthly musical endeavour, a milestone which is worthy of recognition.  It's appropriate that the release which marks their second anniversary should be characterised by such a varied range of approaches to a shared theme, for this variety has really been the chief strength of the collective as a musical unit over the last couple of years.  The theme of Kids thus inspires the whimsical filth of The Bobbits' jaunty stomper Mr Wiggles, the unashamed fun of JD Russeau's (somewhat Deus-esque) nostalgia trip Awesome Space Quest, and the slow-burning folk leanings of Teej Kapowski's reinvention of a children's staple, Happy & U No It!.  At the same time, the EP's theme is interpreted as a mournful story of young love by Matricarians' piano-led lament Little Sally Walker, a sonic rendering of pubescent awkwardness by Sarah J Stanley's unambiguously titled soundscape Periods and Boners, and a dreamlike evocation of childhood conveyed by the trembling falsetto of Kitchen Cynics' If I Was A Worm.  Despite its myriad styles, Kids is a record that remains consistently satisfying throughout, and long may such eclectic and entertaining offerings be forthcoming from the contributors of the Not A Teepee collective.  Here's to another two years!      

As always, the collective's releases are available for streaming and free download from here.  

Soft Machine Legacy at Frankfurt Jazz Festival (Oct 2012)

 

A stunning performance captured during the Legacy's performance at the Frankfurt Jazz Fest last month.  While the newer material can't quite compete with the classics (Karl Jenkins' Song of Aeolus and the late Hugh Hopper's Facelift were easily the highlights), there are still moments of brilliance.  

John Etheridge and Theo Travis' guitar/sax interplay is particularly thrilling, and although John Marshall perpetually looks to be on the verge of collapse, he remains a great drummer.  Etheridge's playing still has the virtue of favouring ragged soul over clinical precision, and Travis' work with loops and effects adds a spectral dimension to his woodwinds.  Roy Babbington's bass does a good job of anchoring the dextrous yet funky grooves, and Keith Tippett doesn't overplay too much in his role as 'special guest'.  Of course, you have to expect some noodling with Tippett, but much of his soloing is breath-taking, and it's nice to hear the Softs with some keyboard again.

Over the course of nearly a decade which has seen the release of four albums, Soft Machine Legacy have cemented their place as worthy successors to the original Soft Machine, celebrating the past whilst looking to the future.  I think it's about time they dropped the "Legacy" altogether. 

The closest thing they've got to a website:  http://www.johnetheridge.com/softmachinelegacy/

Intellectual Property and a Free Culture

 

Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture was first published in 2004, but remains just as relevant eight years later.  Even though the technology which Lessig wrote about has radically evolved in those eight years, the significance of the principles underpinning his work has never waned.  This is because Free Culture is about nothing less than the future of intellectual property in the internet age and the fundamental importance of a free, public culture to continued human creativity.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, despite Lessig's occasional over-reliance on the problematic term "common sense", and his unflinching belief in the inherent virtue of the framers of the US constitution.  This latter point should come as no surprise, however; the book is concerned almost entirely with the American legal system in particular, and as such Lessig's arguments must necessarily be based upon a process of constitutional interpretation.  But from a normative perspective, an approach which asks "is this constitutional?" rather than "is this morally right?" can be hugely frustrating, for the one thing that interests me most about the book is its conception of 'property', and in particular, what it is about intellectual property specifically that makes curtailing the rights of ownership over it morally justifiable.  I am talking, of course, about the limited nature of copyright terms, a subject which takes up a large part of Free Culture, including Lessig's very personal description of a case he himself brought before the Supreme Court in 2002.

Copyright is a legally sanctioned monopoly over a piece of creative content (eg. a book, a play, a song, etc) held initially by the creator of that content for a (theoretically) limited time, after which the work passes into the public domain, where it is owned by no-one and everyone.  It is possible for creators to sell their copyright, in which case these exclusive rights are transferred to another party, but this does not (again, theoretically) extend or commute the term of copyright in any way; it will still eventually expire, and the work will still pass into the public domain.  While the term of copyright lasts, copyright-holders either have complete control over the use of their work, or are at the very least to be financially compensated for every use of that work and also of any derivative works (eg. movie adaptations of books, plays written using pre-existing characters, etc), unless that use can be shown to be a legitimate case of "fair usage", an ambiguous concept which is - according to Lessig - fiendishly difficult to defend unless you have deep pockets for paying lawyers.

Considering these facts, it seems to me that the most interesting thing about the intellectual property of copyright is that exclusive ownership of it can only last for a limited time, before it passes into the communal ownership of the public domain.  This makes intellectual property stand out from other types of property; if you own a house, a car or just a table - or indeed any tangible object - provided that it has been justly acquired, you are free to dispose of it or utilise it as you wish at any time (within the confines of the law).  This right of ownership in indefinite; you retain this right until you die or until you voluntarily give it up by selling or giving the owned object to another person.  By contrast, the right of ownership over copyright expires after a limited term set by law, no matter what the wishes of the owner might be.  This 'limited' nature of intellectual property ownership is a distinction which is central to many of Lessig's arguments in Free Culture, and is of great importance to understanding the key debates about the future of copyright in the digital age.  The question I've been pondering is, what is it about intellectual property specifically that justifies such restrictions on ownership, when these restrictions do not apply to the ownership of tangible property?

The intangibility of the property in question seems to me irrelevant; either you own something or you don't, whether that thing can be physically touched or not.  Lessig seems to agree that the tangibility of the property in question is a moot point, but makes only limited efforts to explain what is special about intellectual property when it comes to justifying restrictions on ownership.  From what I can discern, though, two distinct lines of argument emerge from Lessig's text which offer a moral justification for restrictions on the ownership of intellectual property, where no such restrictions exist for the ownership of tangible property.  Both of these arguments would thus have to be overcome by the authors, composers and organisations (described by Lessig) who continually lobby for the legalisation of perpetual copyright.  The first argument concerns the overwhelming societal benefits of maintaining a free, public culture.  Extolling these, as can be inferred from the title of the book, is Lessig's main concern in Free Culture.  The second is an argument which Lessig touches upon only in passing, but for me is rather compelling; that the fundamental nature of intellectual property is unique, because such property is the product not just of human labour, but in part of a shared, public culture.

I shall consider these arguments in reverse order.  First I must ask, what is property?  The liberal definition of property enshrined by western democracies can trace its origins back to John Locke, who averred that since a man owns his own body, and thus the labours of that body, whatever he chooses to 'mix' that labour with becomes his property.  This is a highly simplified version of the argument, but the sake of expediency it will have to do.  In a capitalist system, of course, workers do not gain ownership of whatever they work on, but instead receive an exchange value in the form of money which is (theoretically) equivalent to the amount of labour they have committed.  Nonetheless, the principle remains the same, for they then own this money until they exchange it for goods which then become their property.  An individual therefore secures ownership of tangible property through a contribution of some kind on their part, whether this is monetary or laborious in nature.  The implicit argument which runs throughout Free Culture is that intellectual property, by contrast, cannot be owned in this way, because it is by its very nature a product not just of the contribution of a limited number of human beings, but also of the shared, public culture which they inhabit.

In other words, no writer, musician or artist creates in a vacuum.  Everyone is constantly inspired by what has gone before them and what is going on around them.  A piece of intellectual property cannot be considered solely as the fruit of one person's labour when that work has crystallised against the backdrop of a public culture which stretches far in both time and space.  This, Lessig seems to be saying, is why intellectual property is different, and why no-one can claim permanent ownership over a piece of artistic work even if they were ostensibly responsible for creating it.  As such, restrictions placed on the term of exclusive copyright ownership are morally justifiable.

The other, more explicit argument offered by Lessig for the special nature of intellectual property is a consequentialist one.  There is an overwhelming and self-evident benefit to a society, he argues, if a free, public culture is allowed and encouraged to flourish.  Society must therefore incentivise creators to contribute to this public culture by offering them a term of exclusive ownership over their creations, but this term must of course be limited as the overriding benefits of a flourishing public culture outweigh the private benefits of creators retaining unlimited copyright.  All artistic work must therefore eventually be allowed to pass into the public domain.  Lessig shies away from fully engaging with the rather socialistic implications of this argument, and this is an easy point of attack for libertarian critics.  However, the argument is a perfectly solid one for those who believe in the overriding benefits of public culture, and if it is backed up by Lessig's other, implicit argument about intellectual property being a partial product of public culture, it becomes a much more formidable challenge for advocates of perpetual copyright, the same advocates who have successfully lobbied Congress in the USA to extend the legal term of copyright again and again.

Why Lessig avoids engaging more directly with the special conception of intellectual property on which many of the arguments in Free Culture rest is unclear.  Perhaps he doesn't consider it an appropriate focal point for his book, or perhaps he wishes to avoid being labelled a socialist, and having to wade into additional debates about the nature of property.  But to my mind, the arguments he puts forth in the book are strengthened and clarified, rather than weakened and muddied, by an explicit definition of what it is that is special about intellectual property per se.  I'm sympathetic to Lessig's view, but then he and I appear to share many of the same assumptions, key among them being that Locke's liberal formulation of property is roughly correct.  Others with different sets of assumptions may find the argument more problematic, but for me, Lessig's two-pronged assault on creators' moral entitlement to perpetual copyright is a strong one.                       

FOUND SOUNDS and FLOORFILLERS by Not A Teepee

As I slowly and apprehensively work my way back towards regular blogging after a prolonged absence, I'm reminded of just how long that absence has been by the number of releases put out by the consistently great Not A Teepee collective in the interim.  They have, in fact, released three mini-albums during the time that I've been otherwise occupied with deeply worthy academic study, so for the sake of efficiency (and laziness), I've opted to review the first two of those releases together.  These are Found Sounds (released April 2012) and Floorfillers (released June 2012).

Musically, Found Sounds is characterised by the sampling suggested by its name.  Three of the record's four tracks make heavy use of crackly voice samples and white noise, meaning that the album sometimes makes for a difficult listen, but there are still riches to be unearthed by the persevering listener.  The jarring street sounds and vocal clips of It Is A New Day's Going Home give way to reverbed guitar arpeggios, sequenced beats and organ swells, making for a hypnotic combination.  The synthesised abstraction of Matricarians' Hilversum (My Father's Old Radio) hints at a central theme that no-one is playing, buried amongst a clutch of random radio clips, while Kitchen Cynics' Record Your Own Voice Record, 1960's might well just be doing what it says on the tin, albeit with a modicum of manipulation, featuring as it does a series of eerie audio snippets.  Erase After Listening by Katerwaul is the final song on the record, and bucks the trend of the preceding tracks by featuring nothing in the way of sampling.  Rather, a variety of background noise is created whilst tremulous voice and hammered piano chords sustain a tense, ethereal atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of the work of Anathema.  It forms a rather beautiful end to what is undoubtedly one of the collective's more challenging releases.

Not A Teepee release albums on a bi-monthly basis, and so by the start of June, Floorfillers was already available to stream and download.  Very much in the eclectic tradition of the collective, it sounds nothing like its predecessor, being much more song-orientated and characterised by the heavy use of electronic beats (no doubt inspired by the title of the album).  Sarah J. Stanley's Bpm up2 134 sets the tone with an infectious vocal hook and a pounding synth groove, followed by Matricarians' chiptune-inspired Synchro-swimming in the Genepool, with its simple yet effective 8-bit counter-melodies.  It Is A New Day marries pulsing bass to delicate guitar lines, programmed drums and haunting vocals to great effect on Evensong, and Tim Courtney makes tasteful use of pitch-shifted singing to complement the sequenced electro rhythms of Lose Your Shit.  The final track of the album is Kitchen Cynics' Dancefloor Filler, which threatens repeatedly to segue into full-on drum and bass before unleashing a couple of serpentine guitar solos, bringing the record to a rocking climax.

Taken together, these two mini-albums showcase the sheer diversity of the Not A Teepee project, and the creative merits of refusing to be bound by any notion of genre.  The benefit of having a whole collective of musicians composing and recording music based around a single theme is in hearing the myriad different approaches that they will adopt to tackle that theme, and always makes for fascinating listening.  This is why the collective's work is worthy indeed of your attention.

All of Not A Teepee's releases can be streamed and downloaded for free from here.          

BATMAN: BLACK MIRROR by Scott Snyder, Jock & Francesco Francavilla

As well as being an epic feat of wildly imaginative storytelling, Grant Morrison's post-millennial run on Batman (and short-lived sister title Batman & Robin) accomplished two things that would shape the future of the caped crusader's adventures in print.  First, there was no longer any limitation on where story lines could be drawn from; any obscure, surreal subplot from the comic's dark and distant past was fair game once Morrison had established a continuity which took account of all the dark knight's past adventures, no matter how bizarre.  Second, Dick Grayson was established as a credible (and extremely likable) Batman.  Speaking as someone who had a strong dislike of the character during his time as Robin and Nightwing, I personally feel that Morrison (with a little help from Tony Daniel's surprisingly good Battle for the Cowl mini-arc) utterly succeeded in recreating Grayson as a sympathetic and compelling character, and the perfect fit for Bruce Wayne's successor as Batman.  What might have felt like sacrilege to many fans actually turned out to be a much-needed shot in the arm which rejuvenated the comic and opened the door to a whole new range of story-telling possibilities.

One such possible story is told by American Vampire scribe Scott Snyder in the Batman: The Black Mirror story arc. Eschewing the more supernatural elements in which his predecessor delighted, Snyder's tale is - at its heart - hard-boiled crime fiction, albeit with a deeply disturbing edge.  The story finds Dick Grayson, still new to his role as Batman, investigating several apparently unrelated crimes in Gotham city, each of which turns out to have some sort of link to his - or his mentor's - past.  The return of James Jnr, Commissioner Gordon's estranged and possibly disturbed son, to Gotham causes further complications for the dark knight, and as the myriad threads draw together the real evil at the heart of the story is revealed; an evil which may be part of the very fabric of Gotham itself.  Snyder's immaculate plotting ensures that the connections between multiple story lines never feel forced or jarring, and as the tale reaches its dramatic conclusion the reader becomes entangled in a web of madness and horror which mirrors the cracked mind of the book's ultimate villain.

The richness of the story would be compromised without characters that engage the reader, but fortunately this is an area in which Snyder also excels.  In his hands, Dick Grayson emerges as a rounded, flawed and believable hero who puts his own stamp on the Batman legacy.  He looks and moves like Batman, but he quips like Spider-Man, and his motives are not quite the same as his predecessor's; his lack of a pathological drive to fight crime becomes both a weakness and a strength over the course of the book.  His is a different kind of Batman, one who can allow some light to persist in a world of shadow, no matter how hard Gotham tries to drag him into its murky depths and snuff him out.  The Gordons, too, are fully realised emotional beings, rather than just the two-dimensional supporting characters that they might have been.  The Commissioner's weary perseverance in the face of overwhelming darkness has never been more quietly powerful, and Barbara's bravery in the face of danger and her unspoken, tenderly implied feelings for Dick are both deeply affecting.  James - the damaged, long lost son - is an enigma, and Snyder keeps us guessing at his true nature right up until the story's climactic confrontation.

As for the villains of the piece, Batman's traditional rogues' gallery is somewhat conspicuous by its absence, the one exception being the Joker, who plays only a small role in the story.  Snyder's Joker closely follows Morrison's masterful reinvention of the character, and again reminds us that he is the only one who truly understands the dark knight, recognising immediately that Grayson is not "his" Batman.  This aside, Snyder's villains consist primarily of gangsters, arms dealers and a group of wealthy Gotham socialites who attend a mysterious and sinister auction at "Mirror House".  But even these seemingly mundane foes are given an unearthly aura by the ever-present and corrupting influence of Gotham city - cast by Snyder almost as a villain in its own right.  The malign and shadowy presence of Gotham is present in almost every panel, creating an atmosphere so palpable you can almost taste it.  The city is the titular Black Mirror, throwing up warped reflections of all it encounters, bubbling far beneath Batman's penthouse as an uninviting and ever-shifting sea of madness and corruption.  Snyder's masterstroke in Black Mirror is to give Gotham a mind of its own.

Special mention must of course go to the artists, namely Jock and Francesco Francavilla, for visualising and maintaining the dense atmosphere of the book.  Jock's rugged lines convey beautifully the gritty environments and fluid action sequences that Snyder's story demands, and Francavilla's art, while more cartoonish, bathes the characters in a haunting, ethereal glow and weaves wonderful tapestries of flashbacks and inner thoughts.  Both prove themselves worthy successors to the likes of Frank Quitely and Frazer Irving in portraying the glamorous grime of Gotham and its inhabitants.

In short, Black Mirror is a fantastic Batman story.  By combining elements of crime, horror and emotional drama, Scott Snyder had created a gripping tale that can stand by itself as an excellent example of what Batman as a comic can achieve, as well as acting as a worthy addition to the ongoing saga of Dick Grayson's Batman.  Although Grant Morrison's shadow still hangs over the book, Snyder demonstrates that he's a strong writer with a unique voice and his own approach to characterisation, while still embracing key parts of the Morrison legacy.

MIDNIGHT SNACKS by Not A Teepee

I know I've been remiss of late with these blog updates, but other commitments must unfortunately take precedence for the time being.  That said, I can't help but make an exception when the good folks over at the Not A Teepee collective produce another of their bi-monthly gems.  Midnight Snacks is the longest album they've put together for some time, clocking in at over 45 minutes, but as we've come to expect with these compilations there's not a minute of filler to be found among the 12 tracks gathered here.  It'll also come as no surprise to hear that this record features the same eclectic mix of styles and consistent high quality that has characterised all of Teepee's releases thus far, and it's good to see (and hear) that the collective is still going strong, 18 months after its debut release.

Highlights on this particular collection include How Deep Is The Valley's U Got 2 Feed My Love, which channels Prince and '80s King Crimson whilst mashing up grimey synths and choppy guitars; the slow-burning ethereality of tracks like No Rest At Midnight by It Is A New Day and Nervosa by Debutant; the unsetting clatter and gurgling of Matricarians' Boxing Day Leftovers; and the plaintive yet pointed acoustic offerings of Kitchen Cynics and John Hekert.  But cliched though it may sound, every track on this collection has something to offer, as its jagged musical journey unfolds from barely-whispered ballads to pulsing electronica.  Not A Teepee have. once again, proven themselves worthy of your attention.

As always, streaming and free downloads can be found at their bandcamp page here.