Genesis P-Orridge, Dave Ball

The first ever release of the soundtrack to the rarely-seen Derek Jarman 1984 short film "Imagining October", with music recorded by Derek's friend and collaborator Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic Tv / Throbbing Gristle), and Dave Ball (Soft Cell / The Grid). Recorded at DJM recording studios in Theobalds Road, London. Limited Edition 12" vinyl featuring a beautiful etched B-Side. Features liner notes by James Mackay (Jarman's producer, collaborator and archivist).

Derek Jarman put together a programme of films for the London Film Festival, reflecting the cutting edge of the London avant-garde of the time. Recorded at the same time as The Angelic Conversation, Imagining October was filmed in the Eisenstein Museum in Moscow, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s grave at Novodevichy Cemetery, the GUM department store facing red square, and the fire temples of Baku in Azerbaijan. The painting sequences with a group of soldiers (Angus Cook, Stephen Thrower, Peter Doig and Keir Wahid) was filmed in London. Jarman considered it one of the best, if not the best, of his shorter works. It was intended as an agit-prop work and the combination of music and imagery remains powerful to this day.

"The heroism of revolution through the queered lens... It was not just the Soviet Union censoring books, Jarman points out here, but Thatcher’s government and its homophobia was no greater friend to gays than the regime on the other side of the Iron Curtain. A moral hysteria surrounding AIDs was sweeping Britain, the miner’s strike was in full swing (an action supported by gay activists, as it was brutally broken up by police): back home, society seemed on a knife edge." - ArtReview.