All Posts by

Mark Lager

Mark Lager has been writing music reviews for Julian Cope's Head Heritage website since 2007. His music writing also appears in PopMatters. His film writing is featured in CineAction, Cinema Retro, and Film International. His poetry has been published in Chiron Review and Opossum. His translations of the French poet Raoul Ponchon have been published in Circumference, Columbia Journal, and Denver Quarterly. He has also written a Southern Gothic screenplay (To Death With You) and a novella about the crisis in Syria that takes place during 24 hours in Aleppo (The Dust Shall Sing like a Bird).

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Mark Lager Music Spiritualized

Spiritualized – Lazer Guided Melodies (1992)

Happy Birthday, Jason Pierce! Jason Pierce (a.k.a. the Spaceman) is an alchemist of the best sort – summoning sounds disparate yet similar in their scope and intensity, whether blues & gospel, psychedelic or electronic, the focus is on the core, the seed, beneath these layers of music: a cosmic drone which clears the mind and …

Mary Lattimore Portrait
Interview Mark Lager Mary Lattimore Music

Oceanic Consciousness: An Interview with Mary Lattimore

Mary Lattimore is a harpist originally from Philadelphia but currently based in Los Angeles, California who played with The Valerie Project (an alternate soundtrack to the 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders), has released solo albums At the Dam (2016) and Hundreds of Days (2018), and has collaborated with Meg Baird on the …

Alice Coltrane Journey in Satchidananda Gatefold
Alice Coltrane Mark Lager Music

Alice Coltrane and Her Cosmic Healing – On the 50th Anniversary of “Journey in Satchidananda”

I remember. I remember that hot July day when you died. It was the summer of love for everyone else. It was the summer when I lost my love. It was a sad summer. I could not eat because I missed you. I could not sleep because I missed you. In the autumn, I felt …

Curtis Mayfield Mark Lager Music Politics & People

Politics, Race, Society, Speaking the Truth – 50th Anniversary of Curtis Mayfield’s Debut

Born in 1942 (the same year of birth as guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who was influenced lyrically by Mayfield), Curtis Mayfield began his career with the R&B group The Impressions. Curtis Mayfield was one of the first African American artists to address the Civil Rights Movement in his lyrics in “Keep On Pushing” (released in 1964, …

Mark Lager Music Playlist

Halloween Playlist Vol. 2 – Nightmares & Death Trips

Legend of Hell House (Delia Derbyshire & Brian Hodgson)One of the most haunting horror movie soundtracks because of the experimental genius Delia Derbyshire (born May 5, 1937). Cobwebbed organs, rhythmic synthesizers, and an array of erotic, goosebump-inducing, hair-raising electronically altered ghost voices that get under your skin. “Seven Bowls” (Aphrodite’s Child)Although only one minute and …

Mark Lager Music Playlist

Halloween Playlist Vol. 1 – Witchcraft & Bad Trips

“Dark Shadows Theme” (Robert Cobert)This is the perfect introductory track for any and every Halloween playlist. Robert Cobert (appropriately born on October 26, 1924), composed this ghostly, iconic, shivering score with trembling theremin for the Gothic TV show Dark Shadows in 1966. It conjures images of the clammy Collinwood mansion and stormy, windswept seashores. “It …

Dylan Thomas Mark Lager Music

Dylan Thomas’ Caedmon Readings: Childhood, Death, and the Welsh Wild Wonder

On June 10, 1914, the same month that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, leading later that summer to the “Great War” (World War I) in Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic, in a tiny town named Engelberg, Arkansas, Ida Layton was born. On October 27, 1914, back across the Atlantic in Swansea, Dylan …

Interview Mark Lager Meg Baird Music

Landscapes and Soundscapes: An Interview with Meg Baird

Meg Baird’s most recent solo album Don’t Weigh Down The Light was released in 2015. She also plays drums, sings, and writes lyrics for the band Heron Oblivion who released their debut in 2016. Meg collaborated with harpist Mary Lattimore on Ghost Forests released in 2018. Meg Baird’s music has been acclaimed as “celestial” (NPR), …