Gareth Thompson visits Thurston Moore and co’s Ecstatic Peace Library pop-up to immerse himself in the John Fahey exhibition

Back in 1998, the artist and writer Edwin Pouncey trekked from London to Oregon for an interview with guitarist John Fahey (1939-2001). In the jumbled motel room where Fahey was residing stood a large box, holding dozens of the musician’s latest paintings. Pouncey purchased a few, but was also given a further stack to take home in the hope of finding an exhibitor. He never managed this during Fahey’s lifetime, but since Thurston Moore opened a north London music shop with Pouncey and Pete Flanagan – the Ecstatic Peace Library – these items have finally found a gallery space. Framed and astutely displayed, the twenty three works make for a spirited parade of energy, colour and contemplation.

Fahey was a visionary of the American Primitive guitar scene, using a plethora of open drop-tunings and drones to create mesmeric fingerpicked melodies. But just as he was expert in controlling streams of guitar notes, so Fahey was equally adept at manipulating liquids. He employed anything from anti-freeze to acrylic, to spray paint and magic marker, often using found materials for a canvas.

All the paintings Pouncey amassed are presented in pin-sharp beauty within a limited edition catalogue, curated by himself and Eva Prinz. Under the title John Fahey: Days Have Gone By, it also features four pieces not on general display. Such is the quality of reproduction that owning the brochure is akin to having a private viewing room.

Without any central motifs to anchor them, Fahey’s visuals invite a full panoramic study. Scanning the images for clues to the man’s life and music is fun but probably futile. As with any abstract art, if the work meant something to its creator at the time then surely that’s enough. Being bold, however, you might glean hints of the abuse Fahey suffered during childhood in the darksome tones of “After Buickfield” with its black forkings and brooding browns. Or maybe from “Incubus” where a canvas of menacing shapes is drowning in a psychedelic swamp. More playful by half is the wondrous “Tree Ogre” figure lurking in a scrum of vegetation, with one enquiring eye peeking out. (It’s a reminder that Fahey left Berkeley for Los Angeles in 1964, to study folklore at UCLA). Not too dissimilar is the jazzy autumnal foliage splashed across “Marie”.

“Green Hell” might be the gates of Hades seen in a fit of delirium tremens, whilst “The Kiss” shows a blue-black mouth with a storm cloud core. Certain pieces give a sense of zooming into something nature-based, such as the pixelated “Milkweed” or the microscoped view on “Days Have Gone By”. The animal kingdom has its own realm too via several curious offerings. They include “Coelacanth Bat” with its rough square of inky squidge; “Dispatched Leatherback Sea Turtle” where sandy and funereal tones meet; plus “Coelacanth Reclining” – a clear homage to the primitive-looking fish, once thought extinct. Could it be that Fahey was making his own cryptic eco statements here?

There’s more, much more, especially the vivid pop art of “Red Sails and the Apocalypse” and “Petals of Nightmare, Roses of Death”. Amid orange lava bursts and explosions of royal blue, they might be fragments from any number of 60s album sleeves.

Fahey’s whole creative life seemed geared towards seeking emotional echoes within the listener or viewer. So whilst this exhibition is still running, get to Stoke Newington if possible and make your own interpretations or connections. Hopefully any unsold items from the present batch will find a permanent home, or at least be presented online at some stage.

An intense collector of music himself, Fahey would surely have enjoyed the Ecstatic Peace Library. On any given day you might find Moore himself in situ, greeting someone who interviewed him in Ohio twenty years back. Get chatting with Pouncey and he’ll recall cross-examining a youthful Marillion for Sounds, after which they gave him a bulky sleeveless tour jacket with his name on the back. Pouncey remembers it as being more suitable for lagging a boiler with than wearing in public, but he appreciated the band’s gesture. His famed Fahey interview is out there online and is a masterclass in allowing an artist, with a few pointed prompts, to reveal their mindset and methods.

Elsewhere in the shop you’ll find an album section tagged That Which Cannot Be Named; a shrine to Black Metal, complete with skull and pentacle drapes; vintage concert  posters from Hawkwind, Hendrix and Black Sabbath among others; half-price vinyl rarities; numerous vintage mags such as Teenset, Crawdaddy, Zigzag and Creem, alongside a folder of signed set lists. The centre will soon give way to a hairdresser-café combo, as if the area isn’t tediously laden with both already. But a new location in the vicinity is being sought, so fingers crossed… the pop-up might yet become a bastion.

Ecstatic Peace Library: 96 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0AP. Open daily from 11am-6pm.

Call 07951 611669 for exhibition details. Closes 9 March.

Gareth Thompson
Latest posts by Gareth Thompson (see all)