Low Culture Essay
Illuminating treasured cultural artefacts
Low Culture Essay
Low Culture Essay: Stephanie Phillips On Reeling With PJ Harvey
The 1994 documentary Reeling With PJ Harvey is not a household name outside of fan communities but to Stephanie Phillips, the Maria Mochnacz directed film remains a fitting example of an artist’s need to curate their image
Low Culture Essay
The Full Ponty: How Satellite City Nailed The Spirit Of The Welsh Valleys
Boyd Clack’s late 90s BBC Wales sitcom might be confined to the grey zone of YouTube fan uploads, but it remains a vital document of the dark humour and grim reality of Valleys life, writes Emma Garland in this month's Low Culture subscriber essay
Low Culture Essay
Breed Is Good: What Crusader Kings 3 Taught Me About Human Nature
The hours Eliza Clark lost manipulating intricate interactions between learned and inherited traits in Paradox's medieval grand strategy RPG are amply repaid in pope-seducing narratives, mad map-making and a new appreciation of why inbreeding is a bad thing
Low Culture Essay
Here Hair Here: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall And River Cottage
In this month's subscriber only Low Culture essay, Tom Howells reappraises the first three series of River Cottage and finds a Dorset of esoteric rites, ecstatic natural beauty, eldritch haunting, racist gentry and brutal rural pathos, plus a little bit of food
Low Culture Essay
Do Ya Wanna Funk? Paul Flynn On Hi-NRG
In our monthly subscriber-only essay, writer Paul Flynn describes being handed a flyer for an unusual literary event which acts as a madeleine, casting him back to the 1980s, and a sexual and sonic awakening. Detail from the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt photographed by the author
Low Culture Essay
Death, Angels & Magic: Daniel Spicer On Elvis Presley’s Way Down
In our monthly subscriber-only essay Daniel Spicer has a Proustian rush listening to Elvis Presley's career concluding single Way Down, is reminded of the fragility of existence and is catapulted back into a childhood of ageing teds, biker gangs and wyrd Cornish magic...
Low Culture Essay
A Kind Of Music: Kat Lister On The Olivetti Typewriter
In our monthly subscribers only essay, Kat Lister discusses how finishing her first book and a year of being locked down alone steered her towards buying a typewriter, only to discover these machines are going through something of a reversal of fortunes. Homepage photograph: the author's portrait of her own Olivetti Valentine
Low Culture Essay
In Praise Of John Cale, The Superior Velvet, By Daniel Dylan Wray
It seems odd to argue that a member of one of the most celebrated rock bands of all time, the Velvet Underground, is under-appreciated, says Daniel Dylan Wray in this subscriber only essay, until you consider just how absent he is from conversations about popular music
Low Culture Essay
Gumph! Viz As Left Wing Satirical Magazine By Noel Gardner
Viz is more than just a very funny comic to long time fan Noel Gardner. But the extent to which it's a vehicle for incisive, leftwing satirical commentary, he says in this subscriber only essay, is something that's open to debate...
Low Culture Essay
Low Culture 17: The Last Of Us & The Unprecedented Dramatisation Of Violence
Back in the days when terrifying viral pandemics were still confined to the fiction section, says Ross McIndo, The Last Of Us found a way to tug at our heartstrings while it clawed at our insides. **Contains spoilers** Screengrabs courtesy of Naughty Dog
Low Culture Essay
Low Culture 15: Lucio Battisti’s Anima Latina
Lucio Battisti was a huge star at home in Italy but he tended to be regarded as a teenybopper abroad (despite once being David Bowie's favourite singer). It is time this view is questioned, says David McKenna, so we can start celebrating him as the godfather of Italian spiritual cosmic fusion
Low Culture Essay
Low Culture 14: Wu-Tang Clan, William Blake, The Fall & The Hidden City
Trudging through the inverted worlds of Staten Island, Putney and Prestwich come a crew of rappers, a poet/ engraver and a dyspetic singer, says Tom Ellen. They steel themselves against the disappointment of the surface world - the feeling of 'Is this it?' - by doodling on the maps of their cities, adding monsters and demons, gods and angels, hidden passageways and secret portals.
