KSE passed the 12 year mark on March 1, 2018, so we’re now in our 13th year of operation! Many thanks to the poets, composers and musicians, artists, customers (especially the customers!), reviewers, bloggers, pod-casters, radio programmers, and well-wishers who have helped us stay afloat through nearly 400 poetry and music releases (we’ll hit 400 this summer, and I’ve already saved that number for the new album from Alfred 23 Harth!).
APRIL 2018 will bring the first two new music releases of the new year. First is a solo tenor saxophone album from MASSIMO MAGEE, “Tenor Tales” (KSE #396)–new investigations of rarely traveled tenor territories with a master guide.
The second new release for April is a solo percussion album from San Antonio’s own DANE ROUSAY. Dane has been very active in the last year or two with live performances and collaborations across the Midwest and the south, but took the time while in St. Louis to document this beautifully recorded solo percussion album, an album which like Massimo Magee’s, investigates fascinating territories in a way that’s both playful and methodical. If you’ve seen any of Dane’s solo percussion performances in the last 8 months (such as the four-hour “Endurance” set down by the San Antonio River), you’ll appreciate the documentation of this phase of their work.
In Feb/March, we issued a new collection of ten poems by JOHN SWEET, “Heathen Tongue” (KSE #392), a poet with an original voice that cuts like a knife and also a great sense of understatement and craft. His poems are disquieting and the perfect mirror of this sorry age in which we live. Response has been excellent on this one–get your copy now.
Prior to that, we finished off the Winter 2017/2018 releases a bit later than planned, with the final three coming out in January. These have been getting airplay and reviews both in North America and in Europe, and I’ve received a number of enthusiastic e-mails from folks who have been playing them day and night. They are
KSE #387 (CDR), ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE, “The Lovers Escape/Los Amantes Escapan”
KSE #383 (CDR), MORE EAZE, “Staring At A Statue of Paint”
KSE #394 (CDR) XTERIP , “The Frisbee Sessions”
You can find write-ups on all those albums here on the blog….just enter them into the search box.
On the poetry front, there are probably 8 or 9 of my own chapbooks available presently, including the seven volumes of the Natchez Poems and other pieces such as LEFT-HANDED CHERUBS and TRIMMINGS…
In the second half of May, I will be taking my annual “writing vacation” for two weeks, this year in Oklahoma City. I’ve got notes and image patterns and structural plans for seven more of my six-page open-field poetry creations, so I’m looking forward to that precious time…and in my second home, the great state of Oklahoma! KSE will be closed for business the second half of May.
And then in the second half of June, Mary Anne and I will be back East, in Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York, and Western Massachusetts, and I’m proud to announce that I’ll be doing a poetry reading with MICHAEL CASEY at WHITE SQUARE BOOKS in Easthampton, MA, on Friday night 22 JUNE at 7 p.m. My last reading in that area (also with Mr. Casey!) was in 2011 at Flying Object Books. In addition, there will be a joint Casey-Shute poetry book coming out from a local press from the area (can’t announce the specifics on this yet, alas), done in the old “69” format with half the book Casey and half the book Shute. VERY excited about that. KSE will be closed for business the second half of June also. Here’s the lovely space where we’ll be reading:
KSE will be back with two rounds of new music releases in the Summer and Fall of 2018, with the first wave coming in July-August. There will be a number of artists new to the label releasing albums in 2018, as well as a solo album from an artist who’s only been part of a duo here before. Experience has taught me to not announce the specifics of such future projects until all the details are worked out and the master is in my hand, but trust me, there will be a lot of exciting music coming from a number of up-and-coming artists working out of North America, Europe, and Asia. Stay tuned…..
I have not been writing much here on the blog outside of the release announcements—-there are a number of half-completed pieces on music and literature and film and the like, but I have not had time to finish them. Of course, my job keeps ramping up the workload, which requires me to take home a significant amount of work each night, and also I’ve been writing and publishing very regularly in other places: I’ve been averaging 6 or 7 reviews in each issue of Ugly Things, and I pretty much have a weekly piece coming out at Blog To Comm. The latter tend to be film and comic book and/or comic strip reviews, though some of the comic book reviews have a significant “faux memoir” angle to them, which allows me to find new ways to investigate questions of narrative point-of-view and persona and also work in the world of fiction without really working in the world of fiction. You can read one of those hybrid pieces here: http://black2com.blogspot.com/2018/03/comic-book-review-by-bill-shute-danger.html#links
I have been contributing to both UT and BTC since the 1980’s, and while it’s a very different kind of writing than my poetry (or the pieces I do on film or music here at the KSE blog), it allows me to reach a much larger (and quite different) audience and to champion and educate people about work which is important to me. UT does not give away content free online (neither does KSE–we are hard copy people), but you can always purchase the latest issue at http://ugly-things.com/
And of course there is always a small notebook in my back pocket for poetry notes, and those notes get organized and edited and incorporated into a larger notebook kept at home, and those notes eventually become the poems you read (or listen to on a spoken-word CDR or at a reading).
In addition, my poetry is featured….both in written form and in spoken form….on the exciting new album CAMPANULA by ALFRED 23 HARTH and JOHN BELL, on the Moloko Plus label from Germany. I also wrote the liner notes for this AND all track titles are taken from lines of my poems! You can read about the album and order it here: http://www.molokoplusrecords.de/finder.php?folder=Label&content=63
People sometimes ask me, “what have you learned from this KSE venture,” and my answer to that is THE FUTURE IS NOW! Grab it, and channel that energy that is all around you into what you desire to make exist in your chosen area of creative work, bend and shape that energy the way a glass-blower bends and shapes their creation. Life is short.
Check back in a few weeks for the new April KSE releases from Massimo Magee and Dane Rousay….and if you are in Western Massachusetts or in the NY Hudson Valley, consider stopping by the Casey-Shute reading on June 22 in Easthampton, MA (not far from Amherst).
Remember, there is ALWAYS a pinned post at the top of the front page here with a listing of what albums and chapbooks are presently available, along with convenient ordering instructions. It gets updated at least once a month….if it’s on there, it’s available….if it’s not on there, it’s out of print.
Hoping 2018 is a satisfying and productive year for all of you….
Kendra Steiner Editions (Bill Shute) 