What could be better than a festschrift? A Wakeschrift, of course!
James Joyce's comic/tragic/epic glossolalic novel Finnegans Wake remains a vast, forbidding edifice in the literary landscape but, for those few who have ventured within, it is an endlessly rewarding experience. It is also, perhaps, the terminal point of Modernist avant garde literature - written in a polyglot language of Joyce's own devising, one consisting of neologisms, puns and portmeanteau words all teeming within a vast panoramic dreamscape; it is a world history, an encyclopedia, a family romance, a musical and a vast shaggy dog story ... it is also, this can’t be stressed enough, very, very funny.
Perhaps because of its sheer difficulty and intransigence, it has been far more influential on thinkers outside literature than within ... music, visual art, theoretical physics, computer science, philosophy, mythography ... its influence continues to spread.
For me, Joyce remains the exemplar of the avant garde artist ... jealously guarding his independence, his career represents an example of courage and commitment ... the Wake took some seventeen years to write in the face of family tragedy, debilitating illness and personal and professional indifference and hostility ... he forged on regardless, an example of artistic fidelity and stubbornness.
Released on Joyce’s birthday, 2nd February (Candlemas, 40th day of Epiphany and also Groundhog Day ... the seim anew, as the Wake has it ... synchronicities abound) this album is both homage to the Wake and an example of how Joyce’s methodology (actually, what am I talking about? Joyce played his cards very close to his chest when it came to discussing artistic creation and methodology) is endlessly creative and applicable to new artistic endeavour ... the multilayered and proliferating planes of meaning contained within the Wake offer a template for anyone bold enough to use them ... the book offers a constantly shifting, highly unstable ground upon which any number of levels may be built up. The three pieces here reflect on the book itself and its utility for artists of all media, layers of sound and meaning being montaged together (Eisenstein, another devout Joycean, and his vertical montage comes to mind), a circus of sounds and sonic constructions ... these pieces were created in the wake of the Wake if you will. All titles are taken from the Wake itself.

In memoriam - James Joyce

Photomontage by Anthony Osborne