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Brian David Stevens

@briandavidstevens.bsky.social

1.5K followers 560 following 380 posts

Photographer. “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a content provider" Work in National Portrait Gallery, Scottish National Galleries, Martin Parr Foundation https://www.briandavidstevens.com

www.briandavidstevens.com

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Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · Nov 10

A selection of portraits of war veterans photographed on Remembrance Sundays over a ten year period #remembrance #armistice

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Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · 14h

First Rule of Cawl Club… #cawl #cawlclub

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The Ineffable Horror of Joe Muggs @joemuggs.bsky.social · 3d

This is important OK. You should read these conversations.

And where the stuff lives is interesting - there was a point where it felt like some of that stuff was verging into quite dry territory, just for some of those acts the gigs would be in art galleries, concrete spaces, whatever, and therefore it was pulling away from the rave a bit and stuff. But at the same time, people listen to this music for pleasure. And it IS pleasurable to the senses, even hedonistic. It's not just
cerebral, right? Yeah, I do think that people do make that... divide? Just like they distinguish between, I think music for clubs, electronic music for clubs, and electronic music for... well, soundtracks is the other thing that I get a lot like, "Oh, your music would work well as a soundtrack" and you think, hmm, well OK. Or gallery - definitely someone might say
that. But you think, well that's weird, isn't it? Because like you say, it isn't just that. People listen to it to enjoy it. And it's not necessarily doesn't need to be accompanied by film or be in a specific space, like... but I wonder if it's just someone's point of reference, like they haven't quite understood that you could just listen to that, and people really do just listen to that as it is. And maybe that's just the thing that will
happen over time with someone. I don't know. But yeah, I do, I do find that slightly strange. There used to be a comment I got a lot actually at universitiy that, "Well, where's your stuff gonna sit? It's not gonna work in a nightclub like main room, so is it going to be a B room thing? If so, it needs to be more like X, Y and Z. Or actually, is it just a gallery thing thing? What the hell! Like, can I not just make music? So I did, I just did it anyway. And you know, I have played in the Tate which was cool. But also I have played at the 02 Academy in Leeds, which
was also cool. So it's like... it's fine.

Colour portrait of Kayla Painter with BASS, MIDS, TOPS "stickers"

Yeah, I think we just haven't even got the rulesets. Us critics don't have the rules. There's a lot of people very stuck in the second half of the 20th century where it revolved around club music, punk, indie music, you know, these well-defined things that sort of circled around a particular point in time as well. Artists were defined around those poles, and if they weren't one thing then they were "maverick" , whereas obviously, ever since - well, I kind of pinned it down to Napster arriving in 1999, that was the meltdown point - since that, all of that is dissolved into flux because people have access to so much at once, so you can't get everyone making the same choices at the same time. Maybe it's impossible. Maybe we can't come up with
categories again. Maybe everyone is maverick now, heh. Well, yeah, well, that's what Ambient Owl Core I is about, isn't it? It's just like, look, there's no genres or there's five million genres. It doesn't matter. Like, you can't... you can't... there's so much now because of the internet and what we're able to do with accessible production - and music IS accessible, which is great in terms of making it and listening to it. So that kind of idea of rock and pop, classical jazz, whatever, with boundaries, you know, is it's just changed so much, isn't it? And it's... you get these niche, niche, niche genres. And it's like, perhaps we don't have the language for it, so we create it. And then it... I don't know, it is funny that we do need the rest of I guess the rest of the industry to catch up or the rest of the society to catch up with that. But
but it's so fast changing, it's almost impossible.

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The Ineffable Horror of Joe Muggs @joemuggs.bsky.social · 4d

Anyway, here's some weekend reading for you. Fantastic and inspiring story of a great artist operating on her own terms, well outside standard industry and hip scene paths.

No. 40: Kayla Painter

Exploring time, space, seafaring and the solar system with the DIY multimedia explorer

bassmidstopsandtherest.substack.com

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Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · 3d

@philiphoare.bsky.social

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Another Place Press @anotherplacepress.bsky.social · 4d

Our new book, TO BUILD A HOME by Amanda Jackson, is now available to pre-order! 🔥

The work is a long-term study of the people of the Lammas Tir Y Gafel eco village & surrounding community in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

Limited edition, bag one here - anotherplacepress.bigcartel.com/product/to-b...

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The Ineffable Horror of Joe Muggs @joemuggs.bsky.social · 4d

I dug into the Wierd Eighties for @thequietus.com

Compilation of the Week: The Sheer Action Of Fini Tribe – 1982-1987 | The Quietus

Joe Muggs looks back beyond rigid gatekeeping to the mad flux of the 1980s and the Scottish band who were outsider art and proto-rave

thequietus.com

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The Tonearm @thetonearm.com · 4d

"The young trumpeter was highly opinionated and highly quotable, and from the beginning the music press, sniffing a possible feud, gave Marsalis’s venting about Miles—he even critiqued the outlandish outfits Miles had taken to wearing onstage, calling them 'dresses'…"

The Icon and the Upstart:

The Icon and the Upstart: On Miles Davis’s Legendary Feud With Wynton Marsalis

In March 1989, I found myself riding an elevator, heart knocking, to the fourteenth floor of the Essex House on Central Park South to interview Miles Davis. It was an assignment I’d lucked into thr…

lithub.com

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Beau @drbeaubeaumont.bsky.social · 5d

Thinking about Christmas presents for my wife. Does anyone know what it smells like?

A sign at the Westfield shopping centre. Reading “Please use the escalator by Prada”.

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Nick J. Brown @northernmailman.bsky.social · 5d

"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

Citizen Smith and girlfriend at Antifa HQ

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Bertis Downs @bertisdowns.bsky.social · 7d

Kind of a unique take on a“lyric video”

🎸🎙️📡

Footage from the earliest days of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with sounds from 1981 and 2025!

youtu.be/f_rshoUeixk?...

R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe 2025 (Jacknife Lee Remix) RFE/RL Dispatch

YouTube video by remhq

youtu.be

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RK Photographic / Rob Knight @rkphotographic.bsky.social · 7d

The good, the bad and the beautiful: how the great photographer Richard Avedon captured ageing

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

The good, the bad and the beautiful: how the great photographer Richard Avedon captured ageing

From a joyful Gloria Swanson to the Windsors looking scared, Avedon spent much of his career shooting the old, the wizened and the wise – uncovering the contradictions of the heart

www.theguardian.com

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Marc Wilson @marcwilson.co.uk · 7d

Wonderful weekend at @orielcolwyn.bsky.social for Northern Eye festival. Lovely to get to know Peter Caton & his long term work in South Sudan, and Kyle McDougall. My highlight though was the talk and work of Margaret Mitchel, including An Ordinary Eden.
margaretmitchell.co.uk/an-ordinary-...

An Ordinary Eden

margaretmitchell.co.uk

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Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · 7d

I nearly got hit by one of these at an Earl Brutus show

Sounds Clips @soundsclips.bsky.social · 7d

The Wasp, the synth we can afford reviewed in Sounds 7th, October 1978 by Tony Mitchell and Pic by Ross Halfin.

Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · 8d

Nothing really new there, more of a little ‘greatest hits’ show, but it’s lovely to see the prints

Brian David Stevens @briandavidstevens.bsky.social · 8d

Nice small exhibition in Tate Modern if you’re in town www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-m...

Josef Koudelka – Display at Tate Modern | Tate

www.tate.org.uk

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The Ineffable Horror of Joe Muggs @joemuggs.bsky.social · 9d

Also like me she is obsessed with solar system exploration. Can’t wait to share this one - and of course @briandavidstevens.bsky.social’s regal photos!

Do consider subscribing, it’ll help us do more of these. As ever low income or in education just DM me for free access no questions asked.

Europa in Focus, by Kayla Painter

from the album Fractures

kaylapainter.bandcamp.com

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Hans Holbein the Younger @hansholbein.bsky.social · 9d

Portrait of Bishop John Fisher https://www.wikiart.org/en/hans-holbein-the-younger/portrait-of-bishop-john-fisher

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 10d

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

Defend Democracy @defenddemocracy.bsky.social · 10d

President Macron: “Europeans, let's wake up!

We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.”

defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

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Laura Cumming @lauracummingart.bsky.social · 10d

My bit on Lee Miller - so much better when she gets away from the leering Surrealists!

Photojournalism News @pjournalismnews.bsky.social · 12d

THE OBSERVER: ‪ The making of Lee Miller observer.co.uk/culture/art/... @theobserveruk.bsky.social‬ @lauracummingart.bsky.social #photojournalism #journalism #photography‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

The making of Lee Miller | The Observer

Her early work is nothing special, but the American photographer’s response to war and its aftermath stun at Tate Britain

observer.co.uk

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Nigel Bishop @ashroplad.bsky.social · 9d

Beautiful, powerful emotional! The work of Scottish documentary photographer Margaret Mitchell - chronicling the lives of people with unequal starting points... #Photography

Photographer Margaret Mitchell sits on a chair in a theatre in front of a projector screen showing one of her portraits

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Gregory Norminton @gregorynorminton.bsky.social · 10d

Blustery day, isn't it? Here's the National Grid: Live generation data. Wind and solar are generating 74.2% of our electricity. Gas is generating 13.1%. And yet our household electricity prices are pegged to... the volatile price of gas. Which is the basis on which the right attacks... renewables.

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Marc Wilson @marcwilson.co.uk · 12d

Preparing this print for a client today.

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Madeleine Brettingham @littlemaddles.bsky.social · 12d

"The wallpaper was busier maybe, the world was browner, but essentially it was the same world, where telephones were answered with a string of digits and time flowed begrudgingly forwards like gravy."

I wrote about my favourite sitcom of all time.

madeleinebrettingham.substack.com/p/that-is-wh...

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 13d

australian street style, 1973

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Sarah Dempster @dempster2000.bsky.social · 13d

I’ve written about Waldemar Januszczak’s new documentary, “Art’s Most Erotic”

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 14d

Art’s Most Erotic review – unequivocally filthy TV

Art critic Waldemar Januszczak’s Sky documentary is a blisteringly explicit look at the depiction of sex from the giant penises of Pompeii to Shunga porn and Indian love temples. Avert your eyes, prudes!

www.theguardian.com

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