James Hoff | Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands

James Hoff is a Brooklyn based artist and musician, and the co-founder and director of Primary Information. Today he announced a new project on Instagram: 

"Out today! My new record “Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands,” published by @shelter_press is now available on LP and on all streaming platforms. Many who know me, know I’ve been working on this record for the last several years (and that I began the foundations of it many many years ago at @issueprojectroom).

While many think of my music as overly conceptual, this record was very personal and autobiographical. It was created from snippets of a few pop songs (by Blondie, Madonna, Lou Reed, David Bowie) that got disturbingly stuck in my head in the last few years as well as the tinnitus frequencies I’ve experienced for many decades—both of which have been exacerbated by long-term mental health issues, which were particularly acute in the last few years. While the tracks underscore and illuminate the relationship between the larger social, political, and economic conditions we live in and the sounds we experience between our ears, this album is largely a self portrait that aims to work inside the sonic conditions of our times to create something new that is personal, emotional, and yes, critical. I hope you all enjoy!

Pick it up via bandcamp (link in bio). If in Brooklyn grab it at @recordgrouch and if in Manhattan grab it at @ergotrecords If in Europe, order a copy from @shelter_press or via @boomkatonline Shops should be carrying it everywhere in a 1-2 weeks.

Special thanks to Bartolomé and Felicia at Shelter, @joshbonati for the expert mastering, @marisollimonmartinez for her piano work on “Half-After Life”, and the Jack Whitten Estate (@hauserwirth) for allowing me to use one of my favorite paintings for the cover.

Special thanks to the friends who gave me ears and critical support through the process: @glennligon, @ryandais , @matthew_w_walker__ , @dennysellson , @mashinkahakopian, and Børre Sæthre.

Lastly, thanks to the venues and curators that have given me the space and stage to play this music live over the last few years: @kamran_sadeghi_official, @pioneerworks, @29speedway, @____page_not_found____ , and @publicsfi

More shows coming in the fall. European bookers, get in touch!”

Artists' Notebooks

"The publication of archival facsimiles as mass-media art books raises issues of privacy and audience, in terms not just of making private sketches and notes public but also of wide access to materials that would otherwise remain behind closed doors, available only to researchers and institutions. When a sketchbook is more preparatory and less private, access to it is still often limited to visiting an exhibition or an archive, a very different experience from reading a facsimile. Even archives that offer online access still remain somewhat exclusive, resources only for those in the know, or even only those with institutional affiliations. In a 2008 interview, Whitney admitted to not formally exhibiting his sketchbooks: “I have a sketchbook that I draw in all the time. But I don’t really show them.”3 In 2017, though, to accompany an exhibition of his drawings at Lisson Gallery, New York, Whitney published a facsimile sketchbook, a slim, 120-page paperback.4 According to the gallery, a priority of this publication was affordability: it was priced at $30 so that students could buy it. Making the unique available and affordable, this sketchbook circumvents issues of access, functioning instead in the spirit and ethos of artists’ books as a democratic multiple for the masses."

[...]

"Lee Lozano was an artist well-known for playing with notions of public and private. Published as a facsimile by Primary Information in 2010, her “Laboratory Notebooks” span 1967–70. Early on in the book, Lozano writes, “I have started to document everything because I cannot give up my love of ideas.”15 To read through its pages is to engage with both work in progress, diary entries, and finished works. According to James Hoff, a cofounder of Primary Information, while Lozano was still living she and her assistant unbound this notebook (as Haring did his), xeroxed its pages for her records, and then began selling them off individually. She treated these pages, then, as finished works, and this was certainly the case in her series of “language pieces,” which she made directly in her notebooks before removing them for sale. Yet each book is labeled “private” on the cover."

- Megan N Liberty

Flora Yin-Wong | Liturgy

Flora Yin-Wong

Liturgy

New York City, USA: Primary Information/PAN, 2021

120 pp., 4.31 x 7.12", softcover

Edition of 2200

Flora Yin-Wong is a young Chinese-Malaysian multidisciplinary producer and DJ who was born in London and has also lived in Hong Kong, Berlin, and Paris. Pitchfork described her music as "gorgeous ambient tones and textures that feel more composed than found." 

Yin-Wong's sonic art was introduced to a larger audience when it appeared on the influential ambient collection Mono No Aware, put out by the PAN label, founded by Bill Kouligas. 

PAN's stated goal is to release music by both "established pioneers like Rashad Becker, Trevor Wishart and Florian Hecker" and "emerging talents such as Pan Daijing, M.E.S.H. and Yves Tumor." In addition to experimental musicians, the label is also home to conceptual artists, such as Mark Leckey. 

This mandate of publishing both emerging and established artists - as well as cross-disciplinary works - is akin to what James Hoff does with Primary Information. Hoff also releases his own recordings on PAN, making this project a collaboration between three interconnected artists, two of whom are also publishers. 

Liturgy is Yin-Wong's first book, released in between reissues of classic works by Dan Graham and Dara Birnbaum (which just arrived in the mail the other day). The slim volume is divided into eight chapters: Rituals & Fire; Omens; Hexagrams / Oracles; Curses; Gods & Creatures; Places Doors to Hell / Ghost Cities; Paradoxes; Sound Phenomena; and Reality. These provide a deceptive structure for a title that functions more like a fragmented constellation. 

Folklore and superstition intermingle with their contemporary counterparts, such as conspiracy theories and urban legends. There are stories of voodoo dolls, meditation, parallel universes, and paranormal phenomenon (including the artist's own form of second sight, which she discovered as a young child).  Historical information is often recounted second or third-hand, with the artist exploring the blurred lines between fact and fiction, memory and truth. 

Originally intended as a companion of sorts to her 2020 album Holy Palm (with track titles and concepts from the LP references throughout the text), Liturgy functions as a stand alone artist book for those unfamiliar with her music. 

The book is available from Primary Information, here, for $16.00 US. 

MARIANA BEREZOVSKA: And what about the book, I read you were releasing it with PAN?  

FLORA YIN-WONG: Yeah, the book is already done. Primary Information will publish it. They are based in NY. James Hoff runs it, and he also releases on PAN, which will be the collaboration between all of us. We’ve got some really interesting graphic designers who are working on the project so it will be really nice. 

MARIANA BEREZOVSKA: Is it a diaristic book? Is it kind of a diary the way the album is as well — the memories, some reflections? 

FLORA YIN-WONG: I try to explore the links between reality and unreality and what that means, so it’s like memories, then memories of memories and false memories, stories and fake mythologies. It merges all these layered topics, and I guess they all seem based around things like spirituality to mental illness even, psychology. I have some very personal stories, also traumatic experiences that were released right in the book. 

MARIANA BEREZOVSKA: That’s cool because music can be much more abstract in this way. And the book is a big statement. It’s a big confession. 

FLORA YIN-WONG: Yeah, it is going to be very personal. Again I feel weird with it being written down, but I think it’s good to do that. 

MARIANA BEREZOVSKA: Were you also writing it when you were travelling or after you came back?

FLORA YIN-WONG: Both. But some of the things are really from my whole life. I’ve always collected and written down some things. I just thought I wouldn’t do anything with them. 

- En Tight Media

Primary Information

The previous post concludes a week of Primary Information titles. Fourteen posts are, of course, not enough to do justice to the publisher, and there are several glaring omissions: 

Fantastic Architecture and An Anthology of Concrete Poetry, which I never bought as I have the original Something Else Press titles. Both are essential. 

James Hoff’s TopTen, which I was also lucky enough to get the original, pre-PI version. 

The box set of Great Bear Pamphlets, which deserve a full week themselves. I’ll try to get to them next month. 

Women in Concrete Poetry, which deserves a deeper dive than I can accommodate right now. 

Tony Conrad’s Writings, which I need to finish reading. 

Avalanche, which I missed out on and which is now sold-out. 

Visit Primary Information here.