WALK IN DA PARK

Wrote about our prowl around Peckham and Burgess Park a couple of weekends back - and, as promised, DV and I returned to take photos of the carnivalesque Architectural Rescue and the eerie semi-demolished flat block. We also found Little Sao Paolo in a carpark round the back. See DV's pics here, here 'n' here.


LITTLE SAO PAOLO



REMINISCENT OF DON'T LOOK NOW...


TELETUBBIES & BAGPUSS, WATCHING OVER BURGESS PARK

The same weekend we went to Dulwich, in whose Picture Gallery you could until last week see "raw urban" images painted by kids from Lambeth - all from the comfort of your own Garden Village art gallery! (Sorry, I shouldn't be sarky - their forthcoming Poster Art series looks rather good, especially the Jazz Age London Transport posters)

Speaking of Peckham (or Peck-Nam), all of Giggs'S Walk in da park album has been posted on Youtube. Marcello Carlin reviews it here:

Walk In Da Park is what the real drowning of South London in the credit crunch age sounds like; messy but strict, bloody but governed by its own inaccessible precepts of anti-morality.

The slow, doomy "Intro (B.B.T.)" sets the tone with its epic string swirls, rumbles of frustration and loveless orgasms stabbing and echoing over Giggs's drawled split subjectivity ("Looking at my troubled life, thinking the grass looks greener on the other side, and God knows that my mother tried with me myself Hollow Man and my brother"). Over a stoned, broken gospel track, "Bring a message back" describes the yawning gap between the spectacle of politics and media, and the hidden reality of people living in SE15 / wherever: "They publicise gang crime so much cos there's real crime going on, we're the scapegoats". Marcello, in a moment of genius, dubs "More Maniacs" as "New Gold Nightmare". The whole thing sounds prophetic - but it merely dramatises the hidden side of the British coin, the side which is mercilessly overlooked by our moralising superiors. Its shock lies in its sobriety - for all its violence, this is a story calmly told.


GIGGS, "YOU RAISED ME"

The whole album has been posted on Youtube - have a listen, then buy yourself a copy. Marcello's right you know: "Walk In Da Park is the starkest of documents and must be heard, although listeners would do well to remember Giggs as he appears intermittently on Westwood's show; quiet of voice and demeanour, intense of ambition, flawless in purpose."

UPDATE! Interview with Giggs can be found here.