A relatively spontaneous trip to South America for two months should provide enough pig feed for the mouths of most bloggers, unfortunately such an escapade instead led to a sudden interuption of normal service for Soundtracksforthem. All transmission problems will now be shortly resolved as we return to a steady broadcasting stream.

In coming days we will feature an exclusive inteview with Alec Empire, former lead screecher with techno punk darlings Atari Teenage Riot. Empire, set to crash land for a Kaboogie session on December 29th, gives us his insights on the conservatism of the current music scene as a pathological reaction to turn of the milenimum global governance. He also details how ATR emerged from the mileu surrounding a combatative anti-fascist movement after the Berlin wall fell.

In a related focussing of the mind we'll follow up the Empire interview with a review of Katsiaficas' The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. The South American experience will not escape us lightly as we re-adjust to normal service via the presentation of an exclusive Flickr set of recent street art from the cities of Buenos Aires, Santiago, Mendoza, Arica, Lima and some isolated incidents from the banks of the Urubamba river accompanied by brief commentaries. Returning to the political we'll carry an interview exploring the gaps between Western proclamations of social movement strenght with an assembly member's own experience of weakness and decline in the heart of Argentina's autonomous struggle.

Our momentary South American obsession will be closed with a buttressing review of recent books on the social movements tenuously threading the space between autonomous organisation and statist paths to social revolution. Jumping to the global north for an instance, the street dynamics of a protest against police brutality in New York city will be set up in the theatre of the city's refoundation along police state lines in a post 9-11 world.

Labels: Blogging, Personal