Sometime in mid-2023, I was listening to the Journal For Plague Lovers remix album while driving home from work, and I got the idea to do a collage for each song, trying to convey visually the ways in which each remix both changes and enhances the song. I’ve done projects like this before, like my … More Journal For Plague Lovers Remixes Collage Project
[This was initially included in my review of Withdrawn Traces, but I cut it out because it strayed too far from the topic of the actual book. This is the only multi-paragraph segment I cut from the review. I wanted to post it up, though, because I think it is interesting that Richey read and … More Ernest Becker and R.D. Laing – a segment that was cut from the Withdrawn Traces writeup
Rachel’s Search Efforts The final chapter details the efforts of the police and Rachel Edwards’ own efforts to locate Richey. Rachel has always been determined to keep the search for Richey ongoing, even if “the passage of time has cast its mist over certain events and decisions taken in the immediate aftermath of his vanishing.”1 … More A Critical Analysis and Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 6
More Theories! More Literature! More Clues! Chapter 12 begins with a quote from The Denial Of Death by cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, describing the human desire for immortality, to live on and “stand out, be a hero, make the biggest possible contribution to world life, show that he counts more than anything or anyone else”1 … More A Critical Analysis and Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 5
The Second Leg Of The Holy Bible Tour Now we move along to the second leg of the European tour, which started on 7 November 1994 in Frankfurt, Germany. This segment opens with anecdotes from the the Suede biography Love & Poison by David Barnett, in which members of the band remember Richey’s aloofness and … More A Critical Analysis and Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 4
The Holy Bible and ‘Secret Meanings’ Just like the previous chapter, chapter 9 is subtitled by an excerpt attributed to “Richey’s archive, autumn 1994”. No original sources have been given for the selection, which reads, “Greetings from a dead man. Don’t get off the boat. I will not be sacrificed to barbarians. Imitate February, then. … More A Critical Analysis And Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 3
Gold Against The Soul (And the Genesis of The Holy Bible) Chapter 7 moves on to Gold Against The Soul and the change in the band’s musical style. Generation Terrorists wasn’t the explosive hit the Manics expected, and with Gold Against The Soul they jumped on the growing grunge bandwagon. Gold Against The Soul was … More A Critical Analysis and Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 2
Parts 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Between the announcement of Withdrawn Traces in 2016 and the time proceeding its release in March 2019, there was a fair amount of discussion about its content, and after seeing various posts and discussions on its intent as well as comments and videos … More A Critical Analysis and Review of Withdrawn Traces Part 1
Citations 1. Forever Delayed Facebook Page. “New Book Withdrawn Traces…,” November 10, 2016. https://www.facebook.com/ForeverDelayed/photos/a.1167619083261948/1332002870156901/?type=3. 2. Forever Delayed [@FDForum]. “Tweet: ’New Book ‘Withdrawn Traces: Searching For…’” Twitter, November 10, 2016. https://twitter.com/FDForum/status/796833652915240961. 3. Roberts, Sara Hawys, and Leon Noakes. Withdrawn Traces: Searching for the Truth about Richey Manic. (Virgin Random House, 2019), Jacket copy. 4. Roberts, Sara … More A Critical Analysis of Withdrawn Traces – Citations
First Group of Inserts [Chapters 1-5] Second Group of Inserts [Chapters 6-9] Third Group of Inserts [Chapters 10-13] Scans in the appendix – Letters from Richey Other Images Not Included In The Book, Provided By Me For Context Photos will be credited if it can be found. If you know the origin of an uncredited … More Supplement: Scans of the photo inserts in Withdrawn Traces + other images for context
The first time I ever heard this Patrick Wolf remix version of This Joke Sport Severed, I didn’t like it very much because as remixes go it’s pretty wild. It’s not like the Chemical Brothers dance remixes of Faster or La Tristessa, or the funk remix of Roses In The Hospital. But the more I … More A thought on the Patrick Wolf remix of This Joke Sport Severed
Squash Writes 