For his solo exhibition opening September 7 at Boesky East on the Lower East Side, Adam Helms says he’s making work inspired by found imagery and film stills that “explores psychology, identity, male positions of power, powerlessness, and perhaps self-portraiture.” Here, the artist — known for stark, conceptual drawings and silkscreens that pull from shadowy histories, pop culture, newspaper archives, even sports iconography — shares his not-for-the-faint-of-heart playlist.
“Post Collapse,” Demdike Stare
“This is one of three self-released cassettes this Manchester duo has put out that is really something akin to their own version of a mixtape. Seventy minutes of a mix of noise, electronic jams, post-punk, and even a sampling of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five.’ Listening reminds me of when I used to make mixtapes back in the days of yore: high school and early college. Maybe I was a little ADD back then, and liked to let the jams have some arcs, ramping up and down. Could be that I still am that way, but now I can let these guys take the reins, letting the hauntological mania grip my work in the studio.”
“Abaxial Masks With Sockets Closed to Hide the Face When the Destoryer Comes Alive,” Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement
“This sounds like the soundtrack to ‘The Heart of Darkness,’ or what Charon would listen to as he leisurely navigates the trip down the River Styx. There is something deadly yet primordial and sublime within the electronic sounds. As I look around the walls of my studio and see the images from ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead,’ this track makes sense.”
“Not the Son of Desert Storm But the Child of Chechnya,” Vatican Shadow
“Pounding and relentless, this builds in intensity and then abruptly ends, like a sonic bomb eviscerating its target. It’s the final track on a four-song EP remixed by Juan Mendez (who records as Silent Servant), so this track is even more snarling than Dominick Fernow can be in his other Vatican Shadow recordings. His subjects on all his releases are American military adventurism and the ethos of terrorism and war in the Middle East.”
“I Know Myself,” Amen Dunes
“It’s not always heaviness for me. At times, the air needs to clear and some levity is in order. If Syd Barrett and the 13th Floor Elevators had a musical child, that lad would be a l’enfant terrible named Amen Dunes.”
Soundtrack to “Big Trouble in Little China,” John Carpenter and Alan Howarth
“Carpenter’s films have always helped to focus the prism through which I understand the world. And Carpenter made the music himself for the majority of them. This version also has Howarth’s unreleased score for a film call “Backstabbed” and a previously unreleased outtake track from “Escape from New York”! What else can I say? A day without hearing this is like a day without sunshine.”
