Fringecore

Years active: 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000

Related: cyber - fringe - magazine - underground - subcultures

Similar magazines (at the time): Wired magazine - Mondo 2000 magazine

Profile

Fringecore is a cyber/subculture/underground magazine that first came out in 1997. The editor is someone called Dee. Its publishing address was Berchem, Antwerp, Europe. They are very well connected and feature interviews with Hakim Bey, Bart Plantenga, Nick Zedd, Michael Gira, Simon Vinkenoog, Jack Sargeant, Nat Muller, Sadie Plant and many others. In their early days they carried the subtitle "Beyond Transgression". The managing editor is Jeannine Lafèbre. Their website is here. and a page that gives an overview of all of their activities here. And here is their Discogs entry.

On the publishing side, they are similar to and have worked with Creation Books in the United Kingdom and Headpress in the United States.

In their own words:

Fringecore 1 - The Spoken Weird Issue
Fringecore 2 - The Chaos Cookin' Issue
Fringecore 3 - The Pleasure Trippin' Issue
Fringecore 4 - The Techtropolis Issue
Fringecore 5 - The Spoken Weird Issue
Fringecore 6 - The Chaos Cookin' Issue
Fringecore 7 - The Pleasure Trippin' Issue
Fringecore 8 - The Techtropolis Issue
Fringecore 9 - The Spoken Weird Issue
Fringecore 10 - The Chaos Cookin' Issue
Fringecore 11 - The Pleasure Trippin' Issue

What is it about?
Fringecore is the first truly Transcontinental magazine dealing with the cultural fringe and some of the more weird stuff that goes on out there and helps to make society that much more stimulating. The magazine deals with progressive cultural influences that today have a fringe following, but could help to shape our future.

Who is it aimed at?
Although it covers a wide spectrum of subjects, it is very focused in terms of tone of voice and integrity of information, with a unique personality that will therefore appeal to a progressive-thinking, free-spirited community of people who seek to gain a deeper and broader based insight into alternative cultural and social trends, such as students, artists, writers, researchers, occultists, film-makers, photographers, literary and spoken word followers, cyberpunks, progressive and avant-garde music lovers, trend followers and forecasters, sociologists and all others with an inquisitive mind. --http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/index.html [Nov 2006]

What does it contain? Articles, interviews and reviews are presented in-depth under different easy-to-locate themes such as Spoken Weird, Techtropolis, Chaos Cookin' and Pleasure Trippin'. dealing with such topics as emerging trends between humans and machines, art terrorism, alternative spoken word, robotics, performance art, media manipulation, auto-eroticism, cloning thought parties, infobotics, fringe lifestyles, esoteric happenings, non-mainstream music, art, film, books, zines, hangouts and performance reviews as well as regular features such as Netbummer, Fleshmeets and Bastard Bunny.

Kodwo Eshun in a Fringecore Interview

Over a lunch of bangers and mustard mash splattered with a juicy insight into the importance of Lee "Scratch" Perry, DJ Spooky, Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Underground Resistance, Dr Octagon, A Guy Called Gerald and other Afrofuturist auditionaries, I discussed with Kodwo Eshun his recent book More Brilliant than the Sun : Adventures in Sonic Fiction.

Hailed as a revolutionary approach to music theory, the book breaks brand new ground in terms of the concepts Kodwo remixes, and the necessary new terminology and definitions he creates, to enable us to better understand the reconfiguration of sonic architecture on the threshold of the 21st C.

Dee: What was the key message in your book which came out in May 1998, More Brilliant than the Sun? What inspired you to write it?

Kodwo Eshun: There were a number of messages, but probably the simplest was based on my irritation with the simplification that is applied to most music. I talked about music being like future shock absorbers that absorb the future shock that most music is subjected to and I wanted to write a book that intensifies and ignites the shock of music rather than dampen it down. I wanted to write a book that was on the side of the machines rather than on the side of the listeners. I wanted to add to the complexity of music writing. There are four or five critics that I really admire, but I felt I was in this field that was really either cynical or sycophantic and I wanted to break with both those logics and to introduce a complexity particularly into dance music, black electronic dance music, machine music, computer music, - I think of these as all the same. I wanted to introduce a massive complexity so that in the future in say two or three years time, the book would be considered a turning point and that you would no longer be able to go back to the old ways of talking about the subject. Maybe you would, but you'd always be aware that this book exists and that music writing had reached a point and then suddenly accelerated. I wanted this book to raise a whole series of new concepts. [...] -- DEE in an interview with K Eshun for http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/m7-2.html

Tom De Weerdt interviewed by Fringecore's Dee in 1998

Tom's Pleasure Trippin' Tips

1. Wakhevitch Box - You are sometimes jolted from thinking you know everything - buy a flash out the blue. This was thunderbolts.

2. Dick Raaimakers Box - Until recently an unknown Dutch guy who produced ads for Philips.

3. Ghedalia Tazartes (Folk, electronic, avant garde) Just couldn't place this stuff, no references - stimulates my inquisitive mind.

4. Four Tet - an electronic thing integrated classical instruments from the label that puts out Fridge.

5. Tim `Love' Lee - Brought sex back into music

6. Kretek - Collage dance music from the guy that made New Beat what it was. --http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/m7-3.html [Nov 2006]

Stewart Home interviewed by Fringecore's Dee

Dee: Obviously your work covers a very broad scope of activities from spoken word, installations, punk bands in the past, art strikes, pranks and of course your many books - written and edited - and magazine articles, plus your "Sabotage Edition" pamphlets, your zine "Re:Action", etc. all of which provide a platform for your social revolutionary activities. What is your main driver?

Stewart Home: I don't like to explain, let's leave it open. I like the fact that you can create this huge labyrinth of things and that every time you add something, it affects everything else in the system, so the meaning of it seems to be constantly changing, which makes it a little more difficult to pin down. --http://www.fringecore.com/magazine/m6-2.html [Nov 2006]

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