Czech Techno

From the author of 19 Knives and My White Planet comes a brilliant suite of stories built around music and travel. Whether it’s a band coming apart at the ruins of Pompeii, or tours through Napoli’s “volcanic dust and volcanic drugs and jackal-headed bedlam” or a nostalgic stroll past the homeless in Victoria’s inner harbour while “gentle Tunisian techno” rides the breeze above addicts as weighted as Shakespearean characters … “lit rock and tiny chalice hidden under his shirt, get it all, draw every wisp of the wreath and heavy is the head that wears the crown, that lights the lighter.” Steppenwolf drifts from a car radio as “an ambulance siren and lights fly our street … a flashing mime show of grief’s rocket.” Or we’re in Iceland, or Denmark, “somewhere seriously lunar and attractive,” and the band is spending wheelbarrows of cash the record execs didn’t give them. Or it’s the Sunset Boulevard, the Viper Room, a bar in Butte, Montana, and Johnny Cash in Tijuana.

The five stories that comprise Czech Techno are replete with the sizzle and jump we have come to expect from a Mark Jarman story. And matters of the heart are never far away, weaving through these tales like a knife blade through sand.