Foreward

So why is LSD so long? It’s a question that has popped up again and again, not leastbecause attention spans when reading a screen are vastly shorter than they are withhard copy. There are in fact myriad reasons, some practical and some profound thattie directly into our concept of this entire project. For starters, all the art that weinclude in our galleries is shot in its brief, transient lifespan over the 3 months or sobetween issues, and since the very essence of graffiti and wider street art is in itsfleeting, ethereal glimpse of the sublime, it is critical to document the moment beforecircumstance has its wicked way. So there’s the practical.But it runs far deeper. One of the fundamental flaws within any subculture, be itpolitical, artistic or musical in nature is intrinsic insularity. The revolutionary natureof building a movement based on one particular strain of thought or one particularexpression of the creative arts rarely feeds back into a sustained flourishing of ideas,but rather rides the initial wave of originality and iconoclastic power before settling intoa safe and often blinkered rhythm. We lock ourselves into certain genres, certain stylesand certain headspaces with a sour view of those outside our chosen field and an all toohuman sense of self satisfaction with what we have so tirelessly built. We’ve all beenthere, all done it. But as we refine the power of subculture and work the unprecedentedscale of global interconnectivity to our advantage, it becomes ever more important tolook beyond the frontiers of our own reality and push hard for the next spark, the nextepiphany, the next voice and the next explosion of conscious experience.Sounds pretty grand, but in our own chaotic and humble way, that’s what we’re pushingfor within these pages. We saw a post on some forum somewhere that read ‘is this astreet art mag or a music mag?’. Which just blissfully misses the entire point. It’s noteven both, it’s neither. In our view, restricting oneself to a particular dimension of themodern underground actively serves to undermine its wider evolution. Of course we allhave our tribal loyalties and our comfort zones but it is for precisely that reason that wehave to explore and expand our horizons and open ourselves to external currents thatwill crystallise in our own perceptions and our own flashes of creativity. We have learnt aphenomenal amount in simply trying to put these issues together about styles we neverknew, ideas we never considered and beauty we may never have had the opportunity toexperience and it’s the sheer range and diversity of what the underground throws up tothe world that makes it such a dynamic, throbbing, unstable, dazzling force.In this issue we explore extraordinary art of all persuasions, colours, conceptions andangles and music that is steamrolling the cutting edge ever further into possibility. And it’s deeply tempting to dismiss the grubby realities of the outside world andgorge ourselves on the underground kaleidoscope that we feel truly represents us asindividuals and as a wider connected whole. But within our wholly undefined and fluidscope, we also discuss the nature and dynamics of power systems with the legendary

Noam Chomsky, open a window onto the nature of censorship and its subversion inthe internet age, hitch an astral ride to the healing mysteries of Amazonian shamans,explore the nature of the repressive Iranian regime, open the floor to our wildly eclecticblend of lunatic columnists and discuss the quantum theories of inner space and outerspace before plunging back into the crucible of conscious creativity with our featuredartists and musicians.The graffiti / street art divide can go elsewhere for the confirmation of existingprejudices and people who religiously move their bodies to one rigorously definedstyle of music can equally go and polish their copies of DJ Magazine elsewhere. Wehope to unify and open channels of communication and offer each of our intervieweesa forum for a lengthy, unedited, profound expression of what they’re about, rather thansimply write up our own feature, sprinkle it with quotes and label it an interview. Soyes, the pieces our long but bulging with artistic and conceptual insight. Yes there’s alot of them, but it’s by hoisting the big tent that we may be able to open a forum for thecross fertilisation of ideas and possibly bring the spectrum of experience each issueorganically creates for itself to a new and wider audience. This isn’t about art, it’s notabout music – it’s about visceral creativity, subversive perception, buried truth, purebeauty and the exploration of a wider consciousness. Long story short.... It’s about theunderground...And there’s a LOT of it!On that note – let’s crack on with some seriously wikkid creativity

Wayne Anthony (Class of 88) and Sirius 23