Field Notes

Late night listening to the new Burial release Untrue on the Hyperdub label, reading the introduction to a book by Dominika Oramus on the slow decline of Western Civilization viewed through the literature of J.G. Ballard. Dominika Oramus is a professor of British Literature at University of Warsaw. The book is entitled Grave New World, The Decline of the West in the Fiction of J.G. Ballard.

Burial’s release Untrue is  a small masterpiece of the ethereal electronic post reggae dub know as DubStep.  It makes an appropriate sound track to the  ideas of Oramus.  Quoting Arnold Toynbee from his book A Study of History, Oramus sets the stage for a  brilliant introduction to the dystopian world view of J.G.Ballard;

The self-inflicted wounds from which civilizations die are not these of a material order. In the past, at any rate, it has been the spiritual wounds that have proved incurable (Toynbee 1949: 135).

You can read the introduction to Oramus’s book at the blog Ballardian. Part one is available now part two will be available next week. Ballard and Burial make for a well matched pair. I recommend Untrue and the writing of Dominika Oramus, maybe have a glass of Calvados as you listen and read.;)

Many thanks to Simon Sellars for giving this work a platform and exposure.