ACFM

ACFM Trip 59: Hobbies

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:00:03 +0000

After mulling over the problem of boredom in the last Trip episode, the ACFM gang return with a solution: hobbies.

In this episode Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder why hobbies tend to mutate into jobs, which hobbies are appropriate for commoners, whether men and women approach their hobbies differently, and why having a hobby is often framed as uncool.

It’s a weird-left spin on private pastimes with ideas from Engels and Gary Cross and music from Television Personalities and Shonen Knife.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching ‘ACFM’.

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ACFM Trip 58: Boredom

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:00:49 +0000

When was the last time you were bored? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder if ennui is a feeling that belongs in the past – and what a boredom-free life might be missing.

Is compulsive scrolling a modern symptom of boredom? Why are spiritual practices often based around tedious repetition? Do bored workers make better organisers? What about the “stuckness” experienced by migrants, or the drudgery of housework?

The gang offer their theories of Boredism (and Post-Boredism) in a perfectly mind-numbing Trip, with ideas from Lukács, Gramsci, the Pet Shop Boys and loads of 1970s punk.

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ACFM Microdose: The Green Party

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 07:00:13 +0000

[Audio error updated! Please refresh or re-download if correct episode isn’t playing.] Have the Greens got what it takes to become the main political vehicle of the radical left?

Following their Trip episode on Ecology, the ACFM crew take a closer look at Zack Polanski’s party as it nudges past Labour in the polls.

From the ’60s dream of ‘steady state economics’ to the anarcho-green convergence of ’90s rave culture, the Green tendency is mapped out by Nadia, Jem and Keir, with ideas from Playboy, Zack Goldsmith, David Icke and some sensible people too.

Follow our Spotify playlist of all the music discussed on ACFM and subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

Music by Matt Huxley.

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ACFM Trip 57: Ecology

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 08:00:21 +0000

Are humans distinct from nature? Are there natural limits to inequality? Can you have action without effort? Do bacteria have agency?

Jem, Nadia and Keir find themselves dwarfed by the concept of ecology in this planetary-scale episode, which touches on cybernetics, systems thinking, ecofeminism and actor-network theory. Their ACFM guide to ecological thinking includes ideas from Rachel Carson, Peter Kropotkin and Donna Haraway, plus music from Joni Mitchell, Brian Eno and Marvin Gaye.

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ACFM Microdose: The ‘Radical Realists’ of Mainstream, Labour’s New Faction

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 07:00:56 +0000

After a Trip episode about the meaning of mainstream, this time the gang go deeper into ‘Mainstream’ – that is, the new soft-left faction inside Labour. Yes, a festive episode about the inner workings of a political party! Don’t say we don’t spoil you.

Jem, Nadia and Keir explain the emergence of Mainstream’s ‘radical realists’ – who include Andy Burnham and Clive Lewis – by exploring the lesser-known history of political tendencies that have shaped and split the Labour Party since the second world war.

Further reading: Jem’s recent piece in Tribune.

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ACFM Trip 56: The Mainstream

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 07:00:44 +0000

Jem, Nadia and Keir debate the meaning of ‘mainstream’ – something none of them could ever possibly be, of course.

Is ‘woke’ the new mainstream? Can there be a mainstream if we don’t all have access to the same culture? Is Tommy Robinson shifting the Overton Window? Why is nonconformity associated with coolness? And who engineers the ‘typical girl’? The gang answer these questions and more, with ideas from Raymond Williams and Perry Anderson, and music from Pulp and The Slits.

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ACFM Microdose: What’s Going On With Your Party?

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 07:00:40 +0000

After last week’s episode on Parties, this time ACFM exposes the predicament facing Your Party, the new leftwing faction led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn.

What expectations do leftwing voters have for Your Party? Does the Corbyn faction distrust the membership? Is Zarah a politician or a poster? And does ‘Yorp’ stand a chance of overtaking the ascendant Greens? Nadia, Jem and Keir analyse a turbulent few months in British left politics.

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ACFM Trip 55: Parties

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 06:00:25 +0000

Amid the bumpy launch of a new left-wing party and the rise of the Greens and Reform, the ACFM crew turn their attention to parties. Do we still need them? Do parties work by drawing people together, or by excluding the uninvited? And should a political party have anything in common with a dance party?

Nadia, Keir and Jem discuss, with reference to the Paris Commune, Unite the Right, Abigail’s Party and Jem’s own party, Beauty and the Beat, and music from Fred Wesley and The Beastie Boys.

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ACFM Microdose: Sci-Fi

Sun, 28 Sep 2025 07:00:10 +0000

After last week’s ACFM Trip to the Future, Jem and Keir reconvene to talk about science fiction. Is sci-fi a reaction to the “time-space compression” of the present? Is it inherently progressive? How did dystopian and paranoids visions of the future come to dominate sci-fi? Was Arthur C. Clarke an early acid communist?

Find all the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
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ACFM Trip 54: The Future

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 08:30:50 +0000

What if we stopped treating the future like a speculative asset and started trying to actually build and prepare? The ACFM gang look to the horizon in this Trip episode.

Did young people always worry so much about their futures? Has the currency of emergency been devalued? Does conservatism have an idea of the future? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder what’s next with ideas from Max Weber and Kate Raworth, and music from LTJ Bukem and FKA twigs.

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ACFM Microdose: Gardening

Sun, 31 Aug 2025 07:00:39 +0000

Are gardens a sanctuary or an enclosure? The ACFM gang sketch out a weird-left history of gardening, from the walled gardens of paradise to the tarmacked lawns of suburban Britain.

Find the books, music and Dunmore Pineapple mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
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ACFM Trip 53: Growth

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 06:09:02 +0000

Keir Starmer claims that growth is the only cure for a country in decline. But why is it the central obsession of modern capitalist economies? And can we think our way out of it before our planet runs out of resources?

Nadia, Keir and Jem offer their weird-left take on growth, degrowth, radical abundance, ecomodernism and personal productivity, with ideas from Kate Soper and Kohei Saito and music from Minnie Riperton, 7 Samurai and Joanna Newsom.

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ACFM Microdose: Social Reproduction

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 07:00:09 +0000

Following their Trip episode about Cleaning, the ACFM crew take a closer look at the hidden labour that keeps the economy running. Would public canteens solve 80% of our problems?

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
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ACFM Trip 52: Cleaning

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 07:00:02 +0000

In the socialist utopia of our dreams, who exactly is doing the cleaning? Nadia, Jem and Keir confront a tricky topic in this ACFM Trip. With music from X-Ray Spex, The B-52s and more, they offer their weird-left perspective on everything from dirty dishes and bodily secretions to circumcision, pollution and the caste system.

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ACFM Microdose: Superheroes

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 07:00:39 +0000

Following the recent Trip episode on Heroes, Keir and Jem return with a Microdose focusing on the masked, the winged and the mutated. Why are superheroes such a cultural mainstay? What psychological and political desires do they fulfil? Are they inherently reactionary? From Superman to Batman, Wonder Woman to 2000AD, it’s a weird left reading of superheroes and comic book culture.

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ACFM Trip 51: Heroes

Sun, 18 May 2025 06:00:40 +0000

The ACFM crew offer a weird-left perspective on the role of the hero (and heroine) in politics and culture. Nadia, Jem and Keir assess theories of Great Men, the myth of the hero’s journey and the lure of the anti-hero with ideas from Weber and Hegel and music from Tina Turner and Sonic Youth.

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ACFM Microdose: Make Way For Winged Eros!

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 07:00:56 +0000

The ACFM gang gather for a springtime reading of a prototype acid-communist text by Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai.

Download the text and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem get their teeth into Make Way for Winged Eros! A Letter to Working Youth, published in 1923.Check out the AK-47 podcast mentioned in this show: https://kristenghodsee.com/podcast

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ACFM Trip 50: Fifty Shades of Acid

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 07:00:50 +0000

The gang present a milestone 50th Trip all about acid: a drug, a genre, a political concept, a mental tool and a thought corrosive. Looking back on six years of the podcast, Nadia, Keir and Jem decide if ‘acid’ is still a useful way of thinking about left-wing politics.

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ACFM Microdose: Making Art in a World on Fire w/ Amber Massie-Blomfield

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 08:00:52 +0000

What’s the point of the arts when the world is on fire? To follow the pipeline from creativity to activism and back again, Nadia Idle is joined by Amber Massie-Blomfield, former chief of theatre company Complicité and the author of Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create Better World.

They discuss Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell’s Power Station, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, the Gaza Free Circus, Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark, Blood of the Condor (1969), the writer Edouard Louis, Billie Holiday’s ‘Strange Fruit’ and the artist-activist Jay Jordan.

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ACFM Microdose: Making Sense of Sovereign Debt w/ Heidi Chow

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 08:00:09 +0000

After last week’s ACFM on the meaning and morality of personal debt, Keir and Nadia zoom out to the macroeconomics of debt.

Joining them to make sense of concepts like sovereign debt, structural adjustment and international ratings agencies is Heidi Chow, executive director of Debt Justice. She explains how and why countries borrow money, why Global South countries end up mired in debt, and how the climate crisis will affect national borrowing.

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ACFM Trip 49: Debt

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 08:00:25 +0000

The concept of debt is as slippery as it is powerful. In this Trip episode, Keir, Nadia and Jem explain why debt is more like a belief than a calculation, and wonder how to imagine a society without it.

From credit cards to dowries, they discuss the reality and fantasy of debt, with ideas from David Graeber and Deleuze and music from Crass and Gwen Guthrie.

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ACFM Microdose: The Communist Manifesto

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 11:53:05 +0000

The ACFM gang gather for a midwinter reading of one of the most influential political tracts ever written. Download a version online and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem reassess The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

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ACFM Trip 48: Political Commitment

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 07:00:21 +0000

Which side are you on? Keir, Nadia and Jem consider the ebb and flow of political commitment with ideas and music from Jodi Dean, Gramsci, John Coltrane and the Raincoats.

Is cultural production the same as political action? What’s the difference between an ally and a comrade? And why do some communists end up as right-wing turncoats?

ACFM Trip 47: Disruption

Sun, 17 Nov 2024 06:00:47 +0000

Disruption is a byword for success in the tech industry, but when it affects people’s daily routines – say, when JSO activists are slow-marching down a road – it becomes nothing short of criminal.

On this Trip, Jem, Nadia and Keir unpack the political uses and abuses of disruption and the ‘creative destruction’ inherent to capitalism. Featuring music from Björk, Disrupters and Stormzy and ideas from Joseph Schumpeter, Michał Kalecki and the Communist Manifesto.

ACFM Trip 46: Death

Sun, 13 Oct 2024 07:00:32 +0000

Of all the unseen forces that shape human society, could death be the most powerful? The ACFM crew take a leftwing look at mortality in this Trip, asking how capitalism has altered our approach to the inevitable.

Jem, Nadia and Keir think about how industrialised workers were taught to prepare for death, why powerful men are obsessed with their legacies, why we failed to ritualise or remember the Covid dead, and their fear of being desensitised to killing.

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ACFM Microdose: The Joy Of Fascism

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 09:00:44 +0000

A month after racist riots engulfed the country, the ACFM crew ask what fascism – and antifascism – look like in Britain today. Do the riots and counter-protests mark a return to “street politics”? Why didn’t the Labour party align itself with opponents of the pogroms? And how popular are extreme rightwing views among Britain’s frustrated youth?

Jem, Nadia and Keir take a closer look at the make-up of the rioters and the reaction from the public, the media and politicians.

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Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Trip 45: Holidays

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 07:00:55 +0000

Everybody hates a tourist, as Jarvis Cocker once pointed out, and the ACFM gang are no exception in this ACFM Trip exploring the allure of holidays.

Keir, Jem and Nadia consider all the different ways we avoid work, from holy days and vay-cays to grand tours and gap yahs. Does travel make fools of us all, or is there a smarter, more ethical way to go sightseeing? Is the promise of an annual getaway the only thing keeping the working population docile?

Featuring ideas from John Urry, David Harvey and Arun Saldanha, plus music from Dead Kennedys, Cliff Richard and Madonna.

ACFM Trip 44: Humility

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 07:00:12 +0000

What happens when you lose? In this Trip, the ACFM crew explore the role of humility – and humiliation – in politics.

Should we cultivate humility to cope with political weakness? Is fear of humiliation a product of patriarchy? Can humility help us be better political thinkers and organisers? And who’s the humblest ACFM host of them all?

Nadia, Keir and Jem apply their weird-left lens to the topic with ideas from Nietzsche and Lyotard, and music from Erik Satie, Kendrick Lamar, Ravi Shankar and Joni Mitchell.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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ACFM Microdose: Election ’24 Vibecheck

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 10:01:06 +0000

The ACFM crew offer their first reactions to Labour’s landslide election win. Can Starmer’s government rescue the public sector? Where will the money come from? And can they make it to a second term?

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

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ACFM Microdose: Notes on Camp

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 07:00:38 +0000

After investigating the politics of cool on the last Trip episode, the crew turn their attention to another distinctly modern sensibility: camp.

Digging into Susan Sontag’s formative 1964 essay on the camp aesthetic, Nadia, Keir and Jem think about how elements of the artificial, the theatrical and the sentimental come together in camp objects, from porn movies to Tiffany lamps to risqué radio comedy.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
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Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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ACFM Trip 43: Cool

Sun, 26 May 2024 07:00:17 +0000

What exactly is cool? Well, if it was that easy to describe, it obviously wouldn’t be cool. In this Trip, Keir, Jem and Nadia wonder if cool can ever be politically useful, and what happens when cool is used as a disciplining force.

With ideas from Pierre Bourdieu, Norman Mailer and Paul Gilroy, and music from OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Miles Davis, the gang adopt a blank expression to explore the mysterious rules of this singular modern concept.

Check out all the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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ACFM Microdose: Reactionary Democracy w/ Aaron Winter & Aurelien Mondon

Sun, 05 May 2024 05:00:56 +0000

How do mainstream politicians and pundits contribute to the normalisation of far-right ideas, even as they claim to reject racism and populism? That’s one of many vital questions asked by Aaron Winter and Aurelien Mondon in their book, Reactionary Democracy.

Following ACFM’s recent Trip about Fascism, Keir and Jem speak to Aaron and Aurelien about the making of the “woke conspiracy”, how illiberal politics absorbs liberal rhetoric, and why the left has to stop falling for reactionary narratives – and give up “debating” the far-right.

Follow our Spotify playlist of all the music discussed on ACFM and subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

Produced by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Trip 42: Fascism

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 08:00:09 +0000

A lot of people are saying that fascism is on the rise. But what are we pointing to when we call a system, or a person, fascist? On this Trip, Nadia, Keir and Jem map out a complicated ideology, from its roots in 19th century industrialisation to its resurgence in ethnonationalism and eco-apartheid.

Exploring how different political traditions try to explain fascism, they look for signs of the f-word in contemporary politics and play music from Woody Guthrie, Heaven 17 and Black Sabbath.

ACFM will be recording a live episode at How The Light Gets In, the philosophy and music festival at Hay-On-Wye in Wales, on 27 May. Listeners can get 20% off festival passes over at the How The Light Gets In website by applying the discount code NOVARA20.

See the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

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ACFM Trip 41: Trust Your Gut

Sun, 17 Mar 2024 08:30:27 +0000

From fecal transplants to the yoghurt-industrial complex, we’ve never been more absorbed in the workings of our gut. But can we trust it?

Nadia, Jem and Keir investigate the mysterious connections between mind and body, reason and instinct. How did capitalism separate our minds from our bodies? Is a belief in intuition filling the gap left by religion? And will reclaiming our biomes be a win for anti-capitalism?

They digest their thinking with music from Björk and Olivia Rodrigo and ideas from Max Weber and Daniel Kahneman.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Books and films: Jeanette Winterson – 12 Bytes /  Chinatown  / Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski – The New Spirit of Capitalism / Daniel Kahneman – Thinking Fast and Slow / Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams – Hegemony Now / The Last of Us

Tracklist:  Devo – Gut Feeling / FSOL – Stomach Acid / FSOL – Papua New Guinea / Frenzy – Fire in my Gut / Guts – Voyaging Bird / John Cale – Guts / Björk – Sweet Intuition / Olivia Rodrigo – Love is Embarrassing

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

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ACFM Microdose: Aliens On Screen

Sun, 25 Feb 2024 08:00:32 +0000

Last time on ACFM, the gang explored the impact of UFOs on politics, from deep-state conspiracies to the Posadists.

But to really understand how aliens influence our thought – and what our belief in E.T. says about ourselves – we have to go to the movies.

In this Microdose, Keir, Jem and Nadia sweep through a century of aliens on screen, from Martian invaders to Mulder & Scully to talking heptapods.

Films, TV & Books: H. G. Wells – The War of the Worlds / The Day the Earth Stood Still / Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Quatermass / The Midwich Cuckoos / The Blob / Solaris / Close Encounters of the Third Kind / Alien / The Thing / E.T. / They Live / The X-Files / Men in Black / The Host / Godzilla / Cloverfield / District 9 / Sector Zero / The Expanse / Arrival / Nope

Produced by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Trip 40: UFOs

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 13:25:23 +0000

Should the left care about the existence of aliens? The ACFM gang explore the impact of UFOs on political thought in this Trip.

Keir, Jem and Nadia discuss the connections between UFO conspiracies and right-wing thought, why some communists think aliens will bring about world revolution, and whether Fermi’s paradox means we’re not alone, with music from Sun Ra, The Carpenters and true believers Blink 182.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Books: Mark Pilkington – Mirage Men / Susan Lepselter – The Resonance of Unseen Things / Carl Jung – Flying Saucers / Erich von Däniken – Chariot of the Gods / H. G. Wells – The War of the Worlds / A. M. Gittlitz – I Want to Believe / Kim Stanley Robinson – Aurora

Music:  Blink 182 – Aliens Exist / Sheb Wooley – The Purple People Eater / Sun Ra – Interplanetary Music / The Carpenters – Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Space / Pink Floyd – Interstellar Overdrive / Flying Saucer Attack – The Season is Ours / Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien / The Byrds – Hey Mr. Space Man / Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: Plugged-in Protest w/ Jeremy Gilbert

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 08:00:36 +0000

Music has the uncanny power to stir up big feelings, which makes it an obvious vehicle for political statements of hope, anger, despair, or how to cast your vote. In this Microdose episode to accompany ACFM’s recent Trip on Protest, Jem takes us through 60 years of plugged-in protest music – no strumming folkies or broadside ballads this time.

From hip-hop campaign boosters to new wave takes on British imperialism, from anti-landlord lyrics to a requiem for the post-war dream, it’s a narrated playlist revealing the manifold methods of musical persuasion.

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Music: Marlena Shaw – Woman of the Ghetto (1969) / Iggy and the Stooges – Ballad of Hollis Brown (1973) / Max Romeo – Rent Crisis (1974) / Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster (1978) / Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Oliver’s Army (1979) / Pink Floyd – The Gunner’s Dream (1983) / Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy (1984) / Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel – Jesse (1984) / Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning (1987) / Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy – Television, The Drug of the Nation (1991) / Asian Dub Foundation – Jericho (1995) / Le Tigre – My My Metrocard (1999) / Ms. Dynamite – It Takes More (2002) / Gina Birch – Feminist Song (2021) / The Coup – The Guillotine (2015)

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: A Festive 50 For 2023

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 12:00:31 +0000

The ACFM gang get together for the last time this year to deliver a Festive 50. Keir, Jem and Nadia select the best bits of culture and politics from 2023, from music, films, books to games, strikes and actions.

Unwrap to find sci-fi blaxploitation, comedy history, gobby glam-punk, Judge Dredd analysis, a fresh angle on Silicon Valley billionaires and much more.

Thanks for listening to the show and for all your support this year – we couldn’t do it without you. https://novara.media/support

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 39: Protest

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 08:00:57 +0000

Millions have protested against the bombing of Gaza by taking part in marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other demonstrations. But what difference does it make, either to the world or to ourselves?

The gang confront a contentious topic in this Trip. Do “A to B” marches ever achieve anything? What about joining hands around an RAF base? Digging up roads? Refusing to pay your taxes? Is squatting a form of direct action?

They discuss Irish hunger strikers, Montgomery bus boycotters, Greenham Common women and the people that Suella Braverman calls “hate marchers”, with music from Lowkey, the Plastic Ono Band, Steel Pulse and more.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Music: Rolling Stones – Street Fighting Man / Dylan – Masters of War / Samba extract / Public Enemy – 911 is a Joke / Lowkey – Ghosts of Grenfell / Steel Pulse – Handsworth Revolution / The Plastic Ono Band – Give Peace A Chance / John Lennon – Working Class Hero

Book: Charles Tilly – Social Movements: 1768-2004

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 38: Movement and Stillness

Sun, 05 Nov 2023 08:30:30 +0000

Ever feel like there’s too much change these days? Don’t worry, you’re not (necessarily) becoming more conservative. On this Trip, Nadia, Jem and Keir think about the ebb and flow of political currents, social movements and our inner lives.

What’s the difference between being still and being stuck? When does a campaign turn into a movement? Why do we talk about feminism coming in waves? How can you tell you’re approaching a tipping point? The gang turn such abstract questions into concrete history, with examples from punk to Corbyn, and from Daoism to degrowth.

Find our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching “ACFM”.
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Books: David Easton – A Systems Analysis of Political Life / The Free Association – Moments of Excess / Aristide Zolberg – Moments of Madness / Gilles Deleuze – Difference and Repetition / Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari – Anti-Oedipus; A Thousand Plateaus / Naomi Klein – The Shock Doctrine

Music: Curtis Mayfield – Move on Up / Hiroshi Yoshimura – Urban Snow / Gang of Four – At Home He’s A Tourist / Moor Mother – Meditation Rag / Björk – It’s Oh So Quiet / Tony Scott – Za Zen / The Raincoats – The Dance of Hopping Mad

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481
  

ACFM Trip 36: Festivals

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 07:00:44 +0000

Festivals. The perfect embodiment of the ACFM aesthetic, and even social politics… or are they? As the season comes to a close, Nadia, Jem and Keir ask themselves what festivals are really about. Is it music? Camping? The breakdown of everyday hierachies? Or is it just 20,000 people standing in a field?

With help from Bakhtin’s concept of the “carnivalesque” and Bataille’s “excess”, the gang discuss hippies and punks, counterculture and commerce, and the role of Glastonbury in the national imagination. Music under discussion comes from Banco De Gaia, Hawkwind, The Magic Mushroom Band and more patchouli-scented wanderers.

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Music: David Bowie – ‘Memory of a Free Festival’ / Pulp – ‘Sorted For E’s and Wizz’ / Seize The Day – ‘With My Hammer I Break The Chains’ / Hawkwind – ‘Silver Machine’ / The Magic Mushroom Band – ‘Revolution’ / Ozric Tentacles – ‘Dissolution (The Clouds Disperse)’ / Culture Shock – ‘Stonehenge’ / Autechre – ‘Flutter’ / Banco De Gaia – Excerpt from Deep Live

TV: Festivals Britannia (BBC)

Books & articles: Mikhail Bakhtin – Rabelais and His World / Jeremy Gilbert & Ewan Pearson – Discographies: Dance Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound / Georges Bataille – The Accursed Share / Frederic Jameson – Archaeologies of the Future / Penny Rimbaud / The Last of the Hippies

ACFM Trip 35: The Internet

Sun, 06 Aug 2023 09:00:44 +0000

In this bumper Trip, the gang survey the totalising modern phenomenon that is The Internet. Nadia, Keir and Jem dredge up their early interactions with a primitive web and explain how the dream of free and open communication was displaced by closed networks of e-commerce and data harvesting.

Following Keir’s recent Microdose episode with Malcolm Harris, they discuss the connections between self-optimising techies and the pseudo-science of eugenics.

They also talk about digital hygiene, the “Californian ideology”, why the Soviets didn’t invent the internet, and whether psychedelic drugs were the driver of Silicon Valley’s dominance.

Music comes from The Fall, Le Tigre and the very online Lil Pump and Macintosh Plus.

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Music: Knife Party – ‘Internet Friends’ / Le Tigre – ‘Get Off The Internet’ / The Fall – ‘Telephone Thing’ / The Penguin Cafe Orchestra – ‘Telephone and Rubber Band’ / Wiley – ‘Eskimo’ / Hannah Diamond – ‘Hi’ / Grimes – ‘Oblivion’ / Macintosh Plus – ‘リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー’ / Lil Pump – ‘Elementary’ / FKA twigs – ‘Ride The Dragon’

Books and articles: Daniel Levitin – The Organised Mind / Alison Winch & Ben Little – The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism / Benjamin Peters – How Not to Network a Nation / Richard Barbrook & Andy Cameron – ‘The Californian Ideology’ / Malcolm Harris – Palo Alto / Jeremy Gilbert & Alex Williams – Hegemony Now / Nick Couldry & Ulises Ali Mejias – The Cost of Connection

ACFM Microdose: Californian Capitalism w/ Malcolm Harris

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 11:39:08 +0000

Ahead of an ACFM Trip about the internet, Keir Milburn is joined by Malcolm Harris to talk about the unique political history of his hometown of Palo Alto, the intellectual laboratory for a century of American hegemony.

The Kids These Days author tells a story that connects the founding of California, the violent removal of its native population, Stanford University’s eugenicist agenda and the parallel emergence of Silicon Valley and the military-industrial complex.

Is the entire project of personal computing and the internet tainted by this brutal history?

Malcolm’s book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, is out now.

ACFM Trip 34: The Outdoors

Sun, 25 Jun 2023 08:00:03 +0000

As the longest day arrives in the northern hemisphere, Jeremy, Nadia and Keir ponder our obsession with the great outdoors. How did parks become political? Why do we seek out the strenuous discomforts of hiking, camping and cold water? And what does Jem have against music festivals?

They look back on a century of changing attitudes to the outdoors, from radical Edwardian cyclists and the woo-woo ways of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift to the modern obsession with lidos and wild swimming. Plus, pastoral music from Peter Gabriel, Arthur Russell and Bow Wow Wow.

Books: Robert Blatchford – Merrie England / Richard King – The Lark Ascending

Music: Shonen Knife – ‘Cycling Is Fun’ / Ewan McColl – ‘The Manchester Rambler’ / Peter Gabriel – ‘Solsbury Hill’ / Kate Bush – ‘Running Up That Hill’ / Vaughan Williams – ‘The Lark Ascending’ / Muckers – ‘Out Of County’ / Bow Wow Wow – ‘Wild In The Country’ / Blur – ‘Parklife’ / The Small Faces – ‘Itchycoo Park’ / Pink Floyd – ‘Grantchester Meadows’ / Arthur Russell – ‘Let’s Go Swimming’ / Mark Stewart & Maffia – ‘Jerusalem’

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: Sitcoms At Work

Thu, 18 May 2023 16:30:41 +0000

After last week’s look at the politics of comedy, this time the gang turn to the gogglebox for a Microdose about sitcoms. Specifically, we’re watching comedy shows set in the workplace – from shoddy B&Bs to big-box superstores, from Wernham Hogg to Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

What lies beyond the double entendres and cheap sexism of the ’70s? Where did workplace humour go in the ’90s? How did TV cops reckon with Black Lives Matter in the 2020s? And which sitcom is a favourite of both Nadia Idle and Mrs Thatcher? Only ACFM has the answer.

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TV shows: The Dick Van Dyke Show / Steptoe and Son / On The Buses / Are You Being Served / Fawlty Towers / Taxi / Yes Minister / The Simpsons / The Office / The IT Crowd / 30 Rock / Parks & Recreation / Party Down / Brooklyn Nine-Nine / Silicon Valley / Superstore / Atlanta / Corporate / Severance

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. Music by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Trip 33: Comedy

Sun, 14 May 2023 08:00:06 +0000

What’s the point of comedy? Stand-ups were at the forefront of the cultural backlash against Thatcherism, but today’s meme-driven lols are rarely in the service of left-wing politics. Meanwhile, the world’s most powerful people seem intent on having a laugh, from podcasting politicians to presidential comedians.

In this Trip, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn put together an ACFM theory of humour. Does satire make us more cynical? Is there such a thing as a national sense of humour? Are men funnier than women? Where did all the comedy songs go?

The gang consider theories of laughter from Lauren Berlant, Freud and Bergson and the efforts of jokemongers like Phyllis Diller, Larry David and Alexei Sayle. Brace yourself for musical humour from The Wurzels, Afroman and Half Man Half Biscuit.

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Books & articles: Juvenal – The Satires / Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai – Comedy Has Issues / Christopher Hitchens – Why Women Aren’t Funny / Henri Bergson – Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic / Sigmund Freud – Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious / Thomas Hobbes – Human Nature / Alenka Zupančič – The Odd One In: On Comedy / Todd McGowan – Only a Joke Can Save Us

Music: Benny Hill – Ernie / The Wurzels – The Combine Harvester (Brand New Key) / The Commentators – N-N-Nineteen Not Out / The Tiger Lillies – Gin / Spinal Tap – Big Bottom / Calimar White – Never Do S#!t At Work / Chumbawamba – Bigmouth Strikes Again / Half Man Half Biscuit – Joy Division Oven Gloves / Bob Dylan – Lenny Bruce Is Dead / Afroman – Because I Got High / The Beat – Tears of a Clown / Monty Python – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

TV & film: The Thick of It / Brass Eye / Have I Got News For You / Spinal Tap / 30 Rock / Curb Your Enthusiasm

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 32: Myth

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 09:21:12 +0000

From the epic of Gilgamesh to the archetypes of Carl Jung, the mysterious power of myth is at hand. Is Genesis as mythical as Oedipus? How did the fantasy of Brexit become a reality? And what stories underpin the emerging theory of Gilbertism?

In this Trip, Jeremy, Nadia and Keir explore the alternate realities created by psychoanalysts and professional wrestlers, and discuss how theorists of myth have fed into both left and right-wing ideologies. Along the way they explore ideas from Barthes, De Beauvoir and Jordan Peterson, and music from Okkervil River, Bob Dylan, This Mortal Coil and Sun Ra.

Join the mailing list: novara.media/ACFMnewsletter

Books: The Epic of Gilgamesh / George Eliot – Middlemarch / Sigmund Freud – Totem and Taboo / Carl Jung – Man and His Symbols; The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious / Claude Levi Strauss – The Structural Study of Myth / Shakespeare – Hamlet / George Lakoff – Metaphors We Live By / Roland Barthes – Mythologies / Simone de Beauvoir – The Second Sex / Ernesto Laclau – New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time / Joseph Campbell – The Hero with A Thousand Faces / Georges Sorel – Reflections on Violence / Leo Strauss – The City and Man; Natural Right and History / Yves Citton – Mythocratie: Storytelling et Imaginaire de Gauche / Greil Marcus – Lipstick Traces / Greil Marcus – Mystery Train / Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism / Jordan Peterson – Maps of Meaning

Films: You May Be Pretty, But I Am Beautiful: The Adrian Street Story / Generation Zero

Music: Okkervil River – ‘We Need A Myth’ / Cocteau Twins – ‘Persephone’ / This Mortal Coil – ‘Song to the Siren’ / Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra – ‘Realm of Lightning’ / The Doors – ‘Hyacinth House’ / Brian Eno – ‘Apollo’ / Bob Dylan – ‘Isis’ / Siouxsie and the Banshees – ‘Mirage’ / Lloyd Price – ‘Stagger Lee’

ACFM Microdose: Strikes On Screen

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 08:30:25 +0000

The ACFM groupmind went into overdrive on last week’s Trip, a wide-ranging conversation about the long and violent history of strikes. This time, Nadia, Jem and Keir take a closer look at cultural representations of worker organisation – that is to say, they sat themselves down with a huge stack of old movies and an extra-large bucket of opinions.

From blacklisted Hollywood dramas to bawdy British comedies, the gang survey nearly 100 years of strikes on screen – courtesy of directors like Danny DeVito, Sergei Eisenstein, Barbara Kopple and Boots Riley – and consider the changing public attitudes to labour and capital.

This episode contains some spoilers, so if you’re not sure what happens to Billy Elliott in the end, proceed with caution…

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Films: Strike / The Man in a White Suit / Salt of the Earth / I’m Alright Jack / The Working Class Goes To Heaven / Carry On At Your Convenience / The Rank and File / Tout Va Bien / Norma Rae / Matewan / Riff Raff / Hoffa / Billy Elliott / Made In Dagenham / The Full Monty / Pride / Sorry To Bother You

ACFM Trip 31: Strikes

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 10:23:15 +0000

In the midst of Britain’s biggest wave of industrial action in years, the gang turn their attention to the long and bloodied history of strikes. Who do we find on the picket line? Nadia, Keir and Jeremy explore a lineage that stretches back hundreds of years, from matchgirls to miners, from 1840s century Chartists to 2020s university lecturers, and from smoggy cities to leafy suburbs.

Along the way they ask whether 18th century sailors were the original tech workers, why Britain’s only general strike was a failure, and if civilisation itself might have started with a sex strike. Plus, the gang discuss their favourite pro-union hits from Paul Robeson, Judy Collins, The Flying Pickets and more.

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Find our complete Spotify playlist – just search ACFM.

Music: Strawbs – ‘Part of the Union’ / Florence Reece – ‘Which Side Are You On?’ / Judy Collins – ‘Bread and Roses’ / Bev Grant – ‘We Were There’ / The Flying Pickets – ‘Only You’ / Paul Robeson – ‘Joe Hill’

Books and pamphlets: William Benbow – Grand National Holiday, and Congress of the Productive Classes / E. P. Thompson – The Making of the English Working Class

Films: Pride / Made in Dagenham

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: A Ghost Story For Christmas

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 12:52:24 +0000

Ghosts have already got their own festival: Halloween. So why do they spook us at Christmas too? Do they represent forces of goodness and charity, or some nameless demonic evil? And what gifts have they brought?

Jeremy Gilbert shields his eyes from the ghostly apparitions of Jacques Derrida, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and M.R. James as he explores the connections between festive cheer and spectral fear in this Microdose, which accompanies the recent Trip episode on Gifts.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM.

Books & articles: M.R. James – Collected Ghost Stories / Jacques Derrida – Specters of Marx / Plato – Phaedrus / Francis Fukuyama – The End of History and the Last Man / Mark Fisher – Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures / Raymond Williams – Border Country / Jeffrey Sconce – Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television / Steven Connor – ‘Angels in the architecture: the economy of the supernatural’ / David Toop – Haunted Weather: Music, Silence and Memory / Derek Johnston – Haunted Seasons: Television Ghost Stories for Christmas and Horror for Halloween / Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol

Music: Pierre Schaeffer – ‘Etude aux chemins de fer’ / Brian Eno and David Byrne – ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ / Lee Perry (The Upsetters) – ‘Black Board Jungle’ / Burial – ‘Archangel’ / Rufige Kru – ‘Ghosts of My Life’ / The Sabres of Paradise – ‘Haunted Dancehall’

ACFM Trip 30: Gifts

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 08:00:03 +0000

Adam Smith claimed that “the propensity to truck, barter and exchange… is common to all men”, but anthropologists know that this isn’t the case. In fact, humans tend towards the opposite. So why do we feel compelled to give away our wealth?

Nadia, Jem and Keir unwrap the cultural and economic pressures on doing pressies in a loosely festive edition of ACFM. Talking about Santa’s workshop, energy price controls and the lavish tradition of potlatch, they bring in the works of Marcel Mauss and David Graeber plus music from The Velvet Underground and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM.
Sign up to the ACFM mailing list via the shownotes on the Novara Media website.
Looking for a gift for the ACFM fan in your life? Head to shop.novaramedia.com

Books: Emmanuel Levinas – Totality and Infinity / E.P. Thompson – The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century / Bronislaw Malinowski – Argonauts of the Western Pacific / Georges Bataille – The Accursed Share / David Graeber – On Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit / Marcel Mauss – The Gift / Jacques Derrida – The Gift of Death

Music: The Velvet Underground – ‘The Gift’ / Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – ‘Merry Christmas (Happy New Year)’ / El Vez – ‘Feliz Navidad’ / El Vez – ‘Feliz Navi-Nada’ / Fox The Fox – ‘Precious Little Diamond’ (Shep Pettibone Remix) / Patti Smith – ‘Free Money’ / Double Exposure – ‘My Love Is Free’ / The Dickies – ‘Silent Night’

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 29: Sleep

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 08:30:32 +0000

We don’t get enough of it. We take drugs all day to fend it off. We’ll do it when we’re dead. And it’s our last line of defence against 24/7 capitalism.

Sleep, the main course in life’s feast! The ACFM crew rouse themselves from slumber to wokeness in this month’s Trip, exploring the political and cultural aspects of shut-eye. How has a biological necessity been manipulated by everything from mechanical clocks, electric lighting, screen addiction and the insatiable needs of capitalism?

Nadia Idle lives up to her name and argues we should all be spending more time in bed, Keir Milburn worries about an insomniac culture obsessed with productivity, and – despite his sideline as a party organiser and DJ – Jeremy Gilbert rails against the culture of all-night dancing.

Remember you can find the exciting multimedia version of this podcast on Novara Media’s SoundCloud. An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM.

Music: The Beatles – I’m Only Sleeping / Nirvana – Where Did You Sleep Last Night / Chumbawamba – I With That They’d Sack Me / John Coltrane – Russian Lullaby / Alex De Grassi – Luther’s Lullaby / Faithless – Insomnia / The Beatles – I’m So Tired / Flowered Up – Weekender / The Fall – Rowche Rumble

Books & articles: E. P. Thompson – ‘Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism’ / Paul Lafargue – The Right to Be Lazy / Jonathan Crary – 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 28: Horror

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 08:00:03 +0000

ACFM reunite for spooky season with one thing on their minds: the horror, the horror!

Nadia, Jeremy and Keir embark on a historical, literary and cinematic exploration of scary stuff. Why do (some) humans love to be terrified? What can horror teach us about the nature of the universe? What do the latest crop of scary movies say about the fears plaguing our society?

From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’, from H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror to Sigmund Freud’s idea of the uncanny, the gang discuss books and ideas spanning several centuries – along with music from Bauhaus, Gravediggaz and Metallica.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM. Remember you can find the version of this show on Novara Media’s SoundCloud.

Books: Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness / Sigmund Freud – The Uncanny / Susan Hill – The Woman in Black / Stephen King – On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft / H.P. Lovecraft – Various / Paul Santilli – ‘Culture, Evil, and Horror’ / Mary Shelley – Frankenstein / Bram Stoker – Dracula / Horace Walpole – The Castle of Otranto / H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds

Films: Everything Everywhere All At Once / Get Out / Halloween / Invasion of the Bodysnatchers / Night of the Living Dead / Poltergeist / Rosemary’s Baby / White Zombie

Music: Dave Matthews Band – ‘Halloween’ / Bauhaus – ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ / Warren Zevon – ‘Werewolves of London’ / Jegsy Dodd – ‘A Scouse Werewolf in London’ / Metallica – ‘Enter Sandman’ / Ray Parker Jr – ‘Ghostbusters’ / Gravediggaz – ‘Diary of a Madman’ / Insane Clown Posse – ‘Hocus Pocus’ / Black Sabbath – ‘Paranoid’

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Trip 27: Magic

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 08:00:18 +0000

We live in irrational times. From the resurgence of interest in astrology, tarot and occultism to the deepening influence of conspiracy theories and positive thinking, culture is experiencing a turn towards the magical. What does that mean for those of us on the “weird left”?

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn gather round the cauldron for an episode that will challenge believers and rationalists alike, with music from Siouxsie, Queen and The KLF. Up for discussion: Sigmund Freud, the I Ching, modern macroeconomics, the Pendle Witches, the fake religion of Discordianism and much more.

A playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify.

Music: The KLF – ‘Justified & Ancient (Stand By The Jams)’ / The KLF – ‘3AM Eternal’ / A Guy Called Gerald – ‘Voodoo Ray’ / Miles Davis – ‘Miles Runs The Voodoo Down’ / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – ‘I Put A Spell On You’ / Queen – ‘It’s A Kind of Magic’ / Siouxsie & The Banshees – ‘Spellbound’ / MC 900ft Jesus – ‘Truth Is Out Of Style’ / Lisa King – ‘You’ve Got Magic’

Books and films: Sigmund Freud – The Unconscious / John Higgs – The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned A Million Pounds / The KLF – The Manual: How to Have A Number 1 The Easy Way / K Foundation Burn a Million Quid / Ben Myers – The Perfect Golden Circle / Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: Fantasy and Conspiracy With Wu Ming 1

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 11:01:33 +0000

In 1999, an anonymous Italian collective published a novel called Q. Imagined by its left-wing authors as an “operation manual for cultural disruption,” the book has had a bewildering political afterlife, with its story arc and the collective’s media pranks around Satanic ritual and paedophilia seemingly providing the basis for alt-right conspiracy theory QAnon. Did a ’90s literary prank foment an American insurrection?

In a Microdose to accompany an ACFM Trip episode about magic, Keir Milburn speaks to Wu Ming 1, one of Q’s co-authors and a founding member of the Wu Ming collective, about the universal appeal of conspiracies.

Books: Q – Luther Blissett / La Q di Qomplotto – Wu Ming 1 / The Tyranny of Algorithms – Miguel Benasayag / The Critique of Judgement – Immanuel Kant

The stage magician mentioned by Wu Ming 1 is Mariano Tomatis and the walking tour of Leeds mentioned by Keir is a NovaraFM episode called Riots and the Red Flag.

ACFM Trip 26: Care

Sat, 20 Aug 2022 08:30:42 +0000

How can we care for each other within a system that doesn’t care about us? In this episode, Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn get to grips with birth, death and all the social reproduction in between.

When did we start putting our elders in care homes instead of our own homes? What happens when childcare is socialised instead of privatised? And why do we seem to be talking about “self-care” more than caring for others?

The gang consider these questions and more in a suitably extended episode, with help from Foucault, feminist theory and caring tunes by Kate Bush, Bill Withers and Rihanna. A reminder that the SoundCloud version of this podcast has extra music and surprises – head to Novara Media’s SoundCloud to find it.

Music: Vashti Bunyan – ‘Lately’ / Bill Withers – ‘Lean On Me’ / Kate Bush – ‘The Man With the Child In His Eyes’ / George McRae – ‘Rock Your Baby’ / The Beatles – ‘When I’m 64’ / Sam and Dave – ‘Hold On I’m Coming’ / Rihanna – ‘Umbrella’

Books, podcasts & videos: Joan Tronto – Caring Democracy / Michel Foucault – The Care of the Self / The Care Collective – The Care Manifesto / David Graeber on Novara FM, February 2019 / Plan C – WTF is Social Reproduction? / Christine Berry – Challenging the Asset Economy: Ownership in the Care Sector

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: Tabletop Role-Playing Games

Sun, 17 Jul 2022 08:00:19 +0000

In a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), a group of people take a trip into an imaginary world, guided by an MC or ‘dungeon master’. Not limited to the Tolkien-esque themes of the famous Dungeons & Dragons, TTRPGs range from gritty sci-fi scenarios to steampunk heist fantasies, and from everyday life to magic, monsters and vampires.

In this Microdose, Nadia, Keir and Jeremy gather round the table to talk about how role-playing games have evolved over half a century and what different game-playing styles might say about other societal battles – from feminism and reactionary masculinism to the revenge of the nerds.

Discussing games like Call of Cthulu and Vampire: The Masquerade, as well as TV shows like Game of Thrones and The Expanse, the gang look at the huge cultural impact of TTRPGs. How has the rise of Silicon Valley changed the reception of geek culture? How might a players’ politics turn up in their gameplay? How have women navigated these subcultural spaces so long dominated by men? Shake those polyhedral dice and find out.

Books and podcasts: The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity – Jon Peterson / The Grognard Files / One Shot / Not DnD/ What Would the Smart Party Do? / What Am I Rolling?

ACFM Trip 25: Games

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 11:37:01 +0000

Games are all around us. They let us escape from drudgery and experiment with other worlds and ways of being. But they can be traps too: apps designed to be addictive, producing only the most hollow sense of achievement.

In this Trip, Nadia, Jeremy and Keir throw their polyhedral dice to explore how games shape our inner and outer lives. How has game theory been used to explain human behaviour? How can we make play emancipatory in a gamified world? Is there such a thing as a left-wing game? And how has the figure of the ‘gamer’ become synonymous with introversion, misogyny and reactionary politics?

The gang discuss games both ancient and modern – from chess to Super Mario, Go to Dungeons & Dragons – with music from Koji Kondo, The Who, Tinie Tempah and more. An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify – just search ACFM.

Look out for a Microdose episode on Dungeons & Dragons coming soon.

Books & articles: Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations / Roger Caillois – Man, Play and Games / Johan Huizinga – Homo Ludens / Patrick Jagoda – Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification / James Carse – Finite and Infinite Games / Alex Williams & Jeremy Gilbert – Hegemony Now: How Big Tech and Wall Street Won the World (And How We Win it Back)

Music: Koji Kondo – Super Mario Bros. Theme Song / Masato Nakamura – Sonic Theme Song / The Clash – ‘The Card Cheat’ / Joe South – ‘Games People Play’ / Tinie Tempah – ‘Passout’ / Janet Kay – ‘Silly Games’ / Business Man AKA Trentemøller – ‘Dubby Games’ / The Who – ‘Pinball Wizard’ / Amy Winehouse – ‘Love is a Losing Game’ / Koji Kondo – The Legend of Zelda Theme Song

Games: Apocalypse World / Chess / Comrades / Disco Elysium / Dixit / Dungeons & Dragons / Go / Microscope / Sonic The Hedgehog / Super Mario Bros / Red Plenty Games / Tomb Raider

ACFM Trip 24: Technology

Sun, 22 May 2022 07:00:34 +0000

What defines each era? Historians often lean on terms that point to technology: bronze, steam, carbon, silicon. So is technology a fundamental aspect of being human? On this wide-ranging Trip, the gang take on one of their biggest topics yet.

Starting from the basis that technology is an application of knowledge for a practical purpose, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn propose the washing machine as the most important invention of the 20th century, theorize a fully automated luxury Keynesianism, and consider what motivates the left’s apparent technophobia.

They also discuss techno-adjacent political formations, from Luddites to Accelerationists to cyborg feminists, and return to a classic ACFM conversation about technologies of the self.

Expect techno music, obviously, plus songs from Kraftwerk, Phuture and Laurie Anderson. An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify.

Books & articles: Katrine Marçal – Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men / JM Keynes – The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren / EP Thompson – The Making of the English Working Class / Joseph Schumpter/ Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy / Donna Haraway – A Cyborg Manifesto / Helen Hester – Xenofeminism / Foucault – Technologies of the Self / Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams – Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work / David Stubbs – Future Days / Andy Beckett – Promised You a Miracle

Music: Pink Floyd – ‘Welcome to the Machine’ / Kraftwerk – ‘The Robots’ / Model 500 – ‘No UFO’s’ / Horrible Histories – ‘The Luddites Song’ / Phuture – ‘Acid Trax’ / Laurie Anderson – ‘O Superman’ / Disco Inferno – ‘Even The Sea Sides Against Us’ / The Houghton Weavers – ‘The Song of the Weavers’

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

ACFM Microdose: Women and Technology w/ Katrine Marçal

Thu, 19 May 2022 15:33:27 +0000

Throughout history, countless good ideas have been side-lined or dismissed because they were put forward by women. That’s the frustration which motivates historian Katrine Marçal, who delves into her myth-busting research for a Microdose all about technology’s missed turnings.

With ACFM host Nadia Idle, the author of Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men lays out some of the questions and frustrations she’s encountered in her studies. Why did it take 5,000 years to put wheels on a suitcase? Why was the electric car rejected as too feminine when it was first conceived, a century ago? And how come all the early computer programmers and coders were women?

Look out for the next ACFM Trip on technology with Nadia, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn, landing soon.

ACFM Trip 23: War

Sat, 16 Apr 2022 11:53:14 +0000

Just what is it good for?

This time on ACFM, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn respond to the Ukraine invasion with a conversation about war. Is it an aberration, or an unavoidable product of human power struggles? Are conflicts between nations better understood as a reflection of domestic divisions? And how is war used to divert the working class from progressive politics at home?

The gang think through these questions and more as they relate to global politics and the UK left, with music from Stiff Little Fingers, Rage Against The Machine, Robert Wyatt, Digital Mystikz and more. An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify.

Books & articles: Deleuze & Guattari – A Thousand Plateaus / Naomi Klein – The Shock Doctrine / Michel Foucault – Society Must be Defended / Jeremy Gilbert – The Bennites’ revenge: how Jeremy Corbyn and his allies survived political exile / Keir Milburn – The August riots, shock and the prohibition of thought / Why war? A letter from Freud to Einstein

Music: Rage Against The Machine – ‘Killing in the Name Of’ / Mala – ‘Anti-War Dub’ / Bob Dylan – ‘With God on Our Side’ / Jimmy Cliff – ‘Vietnam’ / Stiff Little Fingers – ‘Tin Soldier’ / Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army / Robert Wyatt – ‘Shipbuilding’

#ACFM Trip 22: Democracy

Sun, 13 Mar 2022 15:36:37 +0000

Has democracy broken down? Is it even an idea worth fixing? Trip 22 is a three-horse race as Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn consider the anti-democratic shifts happening across the political spectrum and ask what it really means to be ruled by the people.

The gang discuss whether democracy is necessary to tackle climate breakdown, how democratic relationships can spawn creativity and joy, and what happens when left politics abandons mass movements – as well as selecting some suitably egalitarian music from Crass, Shonen Knife and more.

An ever-expanding playlist of all the music discussed on the show can be found on Spotify.

Music: Crass – ‘Punk is Dead’ (Use Knife Remix) / Cornelius Cardew & the Scratch Orchestra – ‘The Great Learning’ / Shonen Knife – ‘Riding on the Rocket’ / Persimfans Orchestra – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony / Weather Report – ‘Milky Way’

Books & articles: Robert D. Putnam – Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community / Andreas Malm – How to Blow Up a Pipeline / Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright – Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future / Paul Hirst – Associative Democracy / Francesca Polletta – Freedom is an Endless Meeting / Sean Smith – Crass Goes Disco

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Acid Camping

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 15:51:10 +0000

When he’s not working on #ACFM, show producer Matt Huxley is a musician. His recent EP under the name Muckers is the inspiration for this Microdose – a short audio essay about land, family, trespass and belonging.

Recorded while out walking, Acid Camping considers who owns the landscape, the methods by which people have been driven off the land, and how we can dissolve the boundaries within ourselves. Matt draws on ideas from Nick Hayes, Richard King, Jodi Dean and, of course, #ACFM. All the music has been repurposed and rearranged from the Dingly Dell EP by Muckers, released on Circle Dance Recordings.

Thanks to Amber Husain and Thom Andrewes for editorial advice on the text. Written, produced and mixed by Matt Huxley. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux. Design by Joe Nava.

#ACFM Trip: Unity and Difference

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 13:51:59 +0000

In the first #ACFM Trip of the year, Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn look at the conflicting desires and demands that make up a political movement. Is unity possible? Is coalition desirable? Do we need to agree in order to win?

The gang discuss the difference between liberal and radical conceptions of identity and gaze out towards the communist horizon with help from Gilles Deleuze and Jodi Dean and musical selections from Desmond Dekker, Roy Ayers and Fela Kuti.

Look out for the accompanying Microdose interview with actor and activist Norah Lopez Holden on the women who fought in the Spanish Civil War and the feminist dynamics of the Popular Front.

Music: Desmond Dekker – ‘Unity’ / Blue Mink – ‘Melting Pot’ / Byron Morris & Unity – ‘Reunion’ / Graham Reynolds – ‘The Difference Engine’ (Demián Gálvez Remix) / Roy Ayers & Fela Kuti – ‘2000 Blacks Got To Be Free’

Books and articles: Katrina Forrester – ‘By Leaps or by Federation: Two Paths to Left Unity’ / Paulo Gerbaudo – The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy / Jodi Dean – The Communist Horizon / Gilles Deleuze – Difference and Repetition

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Unity on the Frontline w/ Norah Lopez Holden

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:38:44 +0000

What can we learn from the women of the Popular Front? Ahead of an #ACFM Trip on Unity and Difference, Nadia Idle talks to actor and activist Norah Lopez Holden about the milicianas who fought in the Spanish Civil War. What brought these women together – and what pushed them apart?

Lopez Holden has worked at theatres around the UK, including the Young Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe and The Royal Exchange Manchester, and performed as a voice artist for the BBC Radio Drama Company. She is an organiser of the Good Night Out Reading group of socialist theatre workers and is also involved with advocacy and organising at the Crossroads Women’s Centre in London.

Please note: this conversation was recorded in October 2020. We also apologise for the diminished sound quality of this recording. Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Books: No Turning Back – Lidia Falcón (edited) / Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell / Fighting Women – Isabella Lorusso / Doves of War – Paul Preston

Films: Land and Freedom (1995) dir. Ken Loach

#ACFM Microdose: Organising for Revolution with Rodrigo Nunes

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:19:25 +0000

What should political organisation in the 21st century look like? Wiggly? Lumpy? Diagonal? Something rather like that, suggests political theorist and author Rodrigo Nunes, who joins Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert on this additional revolutionary Microdose.

Focusing on the last few decades of radical left politics, the trio reflect on on their own experiences in movement building and thrash out alternatives to the old opposition between “vertical” and “horizontal” organising.

Surveying the shifting sands of revolutionary potential, they also discuss how our ideas of organisation can break free of the party to be understood as a diverse ecology of initiatives and forms.

Don’t miss the other recent Microdose, Revolution from Cromwell to Castro, a brief history of several centuries of political upheaval which sets the scene for Trip #20 on Revolution.

Nunes’ book, Neither Vertical nor Horizontal, is available now from Verso.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 20: Revolution

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 13:54:03 +0000

The #ACFM gang square up a suitably momentous topic for their milestone 20th Trip: revolution!

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn wonder how the idea of political revolution ever became thinkable, and if it’s still thinkable today. Was the sexual revolution a real revolution? How did disillusionment with Soviet communism affect our political imagination? And who is the revolutionary subject?

The gang of three discuss all that and more with reference to Gramsci, the Black Panthers and the Arab Spring, plus righteous music from Public Enemy, Manu Chao, the MC5 and more.

Don’t miss the accompanying Microdose episode, Revolution from Cromwell to Castro, which sets the scene for this Trip via a brief history of several centuries of political upheaval.

Music: Public Enemy – ‘Revolution Generation’ / 4 Non Blondes – ‘What’s Up’ / MC5 – ‘Kick Out the Jams’ / Billy Bragg – ‘The Internationale’ / Manu Chao – ‘Clandestino’

Books & articles: Rodrigo Nunes – Neither Vertical nor Horizontal / Erik Olin Wright – How To Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty First Century

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Revolution from Cromwell to Castro

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 10:24:35 +0000

In anticipation of the next Trip, the ACFM trio deliver a condensed but essential history of revolution from Oliver Cromwell to Fidel Castro, with stop-offs in France, America, Haiti, China, Spain and Russia.

What does it take to cook up a revolution? Is the French Revolution still relevant to our idea of radical social upheaval? Can we have unlimited political reforms without eventually triggering a revolution?

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn speed through several centuries of unrest in a collective Microdose which sets the scene for the main event: Revolution, the 20th Trip in the series. Look out for the full Trip this Sunday, followed by an extra Microdose with Rodrigo Nunes, author of Neither Vertical Nor Horizontal.

Texts: Reinhart Koselleck – Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time / James C. Davis – ‘Toward a Theory of Revolution’

Music: Excerpt from a Rara procession from Haiti / Los Zafiros – ‘Cuando Yo La Conocí’ / ‘La Marseillaise’ / The national anthem of the USSR / A rendition of Spanish civil war song ‘A las Barricadas’

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Space Forces with Fred Scharmen

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 18:09:41 +0000

In this #ACFM Microdose to accompany the gang’s recent Trip into space, Keir is joined by Fred Scharmen, author of Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space.

Drawing on his background in architecture and spatial design, Scharmen unpacks the human desire to go into space and create new worlds from scratch. How do the rocket-powered endeavours of oligarchs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk differ from the visions of a communist space utopia set out by Soviet sci-fi writer Alexander Bogdanov? And do we need to settle on Mars and mine asteroids to achieve a post-scarcity society – or is that an impossible dream?

They also discuss afrofuturist visions of the cosmos, ethnic separatism beyond geographical borders, and why colonising space is the same as colonising the future.

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

#ACFM Trip 19: Space

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 12:25:47 +0000

Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn explore the politics of space. What even is space, and why does it so often seem to be the domain of the political right? How does the built environment have the power to discipline or liberate us? And why do all the billionaires want to get off the planet and into outer space?

With reference to Reclaim The Night, public-common partnerships, Jeff Bezos’ phallic rocket and ’90s free party culture, the gang work it all out with some suitably spacey music to match.

Music: Sun Ra – ‘Space is the Place’ / Babylon Zoo – ‘Spaceman’ / DJ Noisekick – ‘Army of Speedcore’ / Hawkwind – ‘You Shouldn’t Do That’ / Roy Rogers – ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ / Gil Scott-Heron – ‘Whitey on the Moon’

Books & articles: Doreen Massey – For Space / Henri Lefebvre – The Production of Space / Gaston Bachelard – The Poetics of Space / Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt – Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire / Alexander Bogdanov – Red Star / Keir Milburn & Bertie Russell – Public-Common Partnerships: Building New Circuits of Collective Ownership

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Spatial Equality with Pooja Agrawal

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 13:07:20 +0000

What could our towns and streets become after the pandemic? Ahead of the next #ACFM on space, Nadia Idle goes down to street level to discuss spatial equality with architect and planner Pooja Agrawal.

As the co-founder of Public Practice, a social enterprise bringing good design into local government, Agrawal spends a lot time thinking about how public space is used and shared. She talks to Nadia about how councils can take back control from developers, what high streets might be used for in a post-retail world, and the work that she’s doing with Sound Advice, a platform exploring spatial inequality through music.

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

#ACFM Trip 18: Therapy

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 11:37:08 +0000

Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert get on the couch to talk about therapy. Wrangling with how to square their collectivist politics with the introspective work of therapy, they wonder if people on the left are more inclined to seek such treatment, and what role physical exercise plays in their mental wellbeing.

Analysing their own very different experiences of the therapist’s couch, the gang also consider the shortcomings of CBT and the twisted logic of positive thinking.

Go to Novara Media’s SoundCloud for the extended musical version of this podcast.

Music: Prince Paul – ‘Outroduction to Diagnosis’ / The Raincoats – ‘Fairytale in the Supermarket’ / Gil Scott-Heron – ‘The Bottle’ / Burial – ‘Endorphin’ / Bongwater – ‘Folk Song’
Books: Kate Pickett & Richard G. Wilkinson – The Spirit Level / Richard Layard – Happiness: Lessons from a New Science

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Microdose: Psychodrama with Nada Sabet

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:37:21 +0000

The point of psychodrama is not to create beautiful theatre, laughs practitioner Nada Sabet. To accompany the next #ACFM Trip on the topic of therapy, host Nadia Idle finds out about an unusual therapeutic technique which borrows elements of theatre, psychiatry and psychotherapy to gain insight into different facets of our identity.

Nada explains how psychodrama can be used to deal with trauma, abuse and family dynamics, and how the method can shift focus from the personal to the political.

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

#ACFM Trip 17: Solidarity

Sun, 20 Jun 2021 08:00:14 +0000

What do we mean by solidarity? Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert consider the meaning of a much-used word in this unusual Trip, recorded live as part of HKW’s online festival, Acid Communism: Spectres of the Counterculture.

With music from Nina Simone, The Youngbloods and The Special AKA, the gang consider the legacy of the counterculture in creating solidarity between liberation campaigns, what happened to solidarity with the emergence of identity politics in the 1980s, and how the flourishing of mutual aid during the pandemic might have a lasting impact on culture.

Music: The Youngbloods – ‘Get Together’ / The Specials AKA – ‘Nelson Mandela’ / Nina Simone – ‘Revolution’
Books: Emma Dabiri – What White People Can Do Next / Jeremy Gilbert – Notes Towards a Theory of Solidarity / Rodrigo Nunes – Neither Vertical nor Horizontal: A Theory of Political Organization / Asad Haider – Mistaken Identity

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS Licence Number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 16: The Long ’90s

Sun, 23 May 2021 08:00:55 +0000

In this extended Trip, Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert wrestle with the idea of “the long ‘90s”: a set of cultural, political and affective assumptions that have outlasted the 20th century, and from which a certain cohort of today’s politicians, commentators and columnists cannot seem to escape.

With music from Roni Size, Stereolab and Kula Shaker, the gang discuss to what extent the long ’90s were shaped by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and the Chinese Communist Party, how “new laddism” emerged as a riposte to cultural pluralism, and what people really meant when they declared “the end of history”. Finally, they agree to disagree on the musical and social value of Britpop.

Music: Roni Size – ‘Brown Paper Bag’ / M-Beat ft. General Levy – ‘Incredible’ / Kula Shaker – ‘303’ / Spice Girls – ‘Wannabe’ / Stereolab – ‘Ping Pong’ / Asian Dub Foundation – ‘Fortress Europe’
Books and articles: Eric Hobsbawm – The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 / Gavin Mueller – ‘Stereolab’s Revolutionary Horizon’ / Francis Fukuyama – The End of History and the Last Man

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley.

#ACFM Microdose: Kill The Bill

Sat, 15 May 2021 08:30:51 +0000

The proposed new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is an obvious assault on the right to protest, threatening penalties of up to 10 years in prison for “causing public nuisance”. With the bill on its way to becoming law, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn draw on their own experiences to discuss the recent #KillTheBill protests. How is the bill a reaction to movements like Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion? What might it reveal about the social coalition backing up the current Tory government? And just how effective are street protests anyway?

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

#ACFM Microdose: Jeremy Gilbert on Folk Music

Sat, 08 May 2021 08:30:25 +0000

Jeremy Gilbert hits the road for a musical microdose accompanying the #ACFM Trip on Folk. Connecting different strands of folk music with their various political tendencies, Jeremy looks at the communism of Woody Guthrie and the singers of the Dust Bowl era, the Vietnam protest music of Bob Dylan and the Greenwich Village scene, and the folk psychedelia of the Incredible String Band and Vashti Bunyan.

This episode includes over 40 musical examples spanning a period of around 100 years, which we’ve also compiled in a Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OH9nNxqlmcpTSgMCqXRDz

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 15: Folk

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 01:00:50 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert go back to the land to dig into the politics of folk. With music from The Pogues, Steeleye Span and Enigma, the gang discuss island cults, progressive patriotism, Communist folkies and the pitfalls of accelerationism. Turn on, tune in, muck out!

Music: Woodie Guthrie – You Gotta Join That One Big Union / Steeleye Span – Hard Times of Old England / The Pogues – The Irish Rover / The Incredible String Band – The Hedgehog’s Song / Ewan MacColl and The Pogues – Dirty Old Town / Billy Bragg – A New England / Enigma – Return To Innocence

Books: Alex Niven – Folk Opposition / Simon Reynolds & Joy Press – The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock ‘n’ Roll / Raymond Williams – Culture and Society; The Country and the City / Fred Turner – From Counterculture to Cyberculture / Alex Williams & Nick Srnicek – Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work / Simon L. Lewis & Mark A. Maslin – The Human Planet

Film and TV: The Wicker Man / Blood on Satan’s Claw / Straw Dogs / Deliverance / The Owl Service / The Good Life

Other: My Albion podcast

Produced and edited by Chal Ravens and Matt Huxley.

#ACFM Trip 14: Desire

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 08:46:58 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert explore the political power of desire from the storming of the Capitol to the millenarian strands of Corbynism, with music from Portishead and the Au Pairs.

Music: Portishead – Glory Box / Tricky – Makes Me Wanna Die / Alton McClain & Destiny – Crazy Love / Alternative TV – Love Lies Limp / The Au Pairs – It’s Obvious

Books: Deleuze & Guattari – Anti-Oedipus / Freud – The Interpretation of Dreams / Spinoza – Theologico-Political Treatise / Wilhelm Reich – The Mass Psychology of Fascism / Nick Hornby – High Fidelity / Herbert Marcuse – One-Dimensional Man / Adkins, Konings & Cooper – The Asset Economy / Alex Williams – On Negative Solidarity and Post-Fordist Plasticity

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

#ACFM Microdose: Tabitha Bast on Dating and Desire

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 15:12:23 +0000

Nadia Idle speaks to psychosexual therapist and writer Tabitha Bast about dating and desire. They discuss the changing dynamics of dating, how to build romantic resilience, the politics of swiping right and more.

Tabitha is a qualified psychosexual therapist who works privately and through a charity, currently conducting her sessions online. She was also involved in ecological and social justice activism for over 20 years.

Look out for the next episode of #ACFM on 14 February, with Nadia, Jeremy and Keir exploring the concept of Desire.

Books: Emily Nagoski – Come As You Are

Podcasts: Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel / Tabitha on the Bella Ciao podcast

#ACFM Trip 13: Crowds

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 10:36:05 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert return to talk about the power and potential of crowds – from mobs and marches to mesmeric leaders and terrace anthems, with music from the Joubert Singers, Sham 69 and more.

Music: The Polyphonic Spree – Light and Day / The Joubert Singers – Stand On The Word / Pink Floyd – Fearless / Sham 69 – The Kids are United / The Proclaimers – Sunshine on Leith (as sung by Hibernian F.C. fans)

Books: Jeremy Gilbert – Common Ground / Nadia Idle & Alex Nunns – Tweets from Tahrir / / Elias Canetti – Crowds and Power / JS McClelland – The Crowd and the Mob / Gustav Le Bon – The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind / Freud – Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego /
Sartre – Critique of Dialectical Reason / Dan Hancox – The Power of Crowds (article)

Look out for the accompanying Microdose interview with Turkish journalist and author Ece Temelkuran, who talks to Nadia Idle about the joy inherent in a protest and why raves are more infantilising than inspiring.

#ACFM Microdose: Ece Temelkuran on Crowds

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 12:32:47 +0000

Nadia Idle speaks to Turkish journalist and author Ece Temelkuran about the potency of crowds. Reflecting on their experiences in Tahrir Square and Gezi Park, they talk about feeling powerful in political demonstrations, why raves might be infantilising rather than inspiring, and how Covid-19 has put an end to free assembly.

Ece, twice named Turkey’s “most read political columnist”, has published several novels as well as 2019’s How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, chronicling the rise of right-wing populism in Turkey and the west. She was awarded the Human Rights Association of Turkey’s Ayşe Zarakolu Freedom of Thought Award in 2008.

Books: Ece Temelkuran – How to Lose a Country: The 7 steps from Democracy to Dictatorship / Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns – Tweets from Tahrir / Elias Canetti – Crowds and Power

You can read more of Ece’s work on her website: https://ecetemelkuran.com

Produced by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens.

Welcome to #ACFM!

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 12:31:44 +0000

#ACFM is a podcast about left-wing politics, culture, music and experiences of collective joy, brought to you by Novara Media.

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn present a new Trip just about once a month, as well as Microdose interviews with special guests.

Search for “ACFM Music” on Spotify to find a playlist of music discussed on the show and join the mailing list to keep up with everything #ACFM: http://novara.media/acfmlist

#ACFM Trip 12: The Cosmic Right

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 11:14:01 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert are back to discuss the recent rise of conspiratorial thinking within New Age, spiritual and ‘wellness’ communities, and what implications this has for the Left, with music by David Bowie, Mark Stewart and Coki.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys and Matt Huxley.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Music: Black Sabbath – Paranoid / Mark Stewart + Maffia – None Dare Call It Conspiracy / David Bowie – Moonage Daydream / The Stooges – TV Eye / Coki – Mood Dub / David Bowie – Rock’n’Roll Suicide.

Books: Frederic Jameson – The Postmodern Condition / Jean-Francois Lyotard – The Condition of Postmodernity / Thomas Pynchon – The Crying of Lot 49 / Dan Hind – The Return of the Public: Democracy, Power and the Case for Media Reform / Clare Birchall – Knowledge Goes Pop: From Conspiracy Theory to Gossip / Jack Bratich – Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture / Alan Piper – Strange Drugs Makes For Strange Bedfellows: Ernst Junger, Albert Hofmann and the Politics of Psychedelics.

Listen to our Microdose with Erik Davis here. Erik is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape, Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica, and High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. You can also sign up for his excellent Substack.

Psymposia are an organisation making sense of the complex connections between drugs, science, capitalism, policy and culture.

You can also read an interview with the Zizek Stardust.

We’ve compiled an ever-expanding playlist of all the music heard across #ACFM so you can tune in and drop out at your leisure. Find it on Spotify.

Want to up your dose? Join the mailing list to find out first about new developments from the #ACFM crew.

https://novaramedia.com/?p=24304

#ACFM Microdose: Erik Davis on the Cosmic Right

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 09:07:33 +0000

Jeremy Gilbert talks to Erik Davis, scholar of weird culture, mysticism, and the fertile crossover between esoterica and politics. From gnostic revivals to conspiracy theories, the JFK assassination to QAnon – why does there seem to be a sudden resurgence in conspiracy theories, sometimes in the most unexpected corners? Is there a connection between conspiracy theory and the ‘California Ideology’? And does rationalism always triumph in politics? Erik’s latest book, High Weirdness, is out now. https://novaramedia.com/?p=24214

#ACFM Trip 11: Friendship

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 13:30:39 +0000

Keir Milburn, Nadia Idle and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the history and theory of friendship, from Aristotle to Elland Road, while reflecting on how the podcast has impacted their relationship as a group, with music by Minutemen and Carole King.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Music: Babylon Circus – My Friend / Christopher Martin – Mi Friend Dem / Carole King – You Gotta Friend / Joe Cocker – With A Little Help From My Friends / Henri Garat – Avoir Un Bon Copain / Minutemen – History Lessons Part 2 / Dinosaur L – Go Bang (original and François K mixes) / The Jungle Book – That’s What Friends Are For.

Texts: Jacques Derrida – The Politics of Friendship / Jodi Dean – Comrade / Ben Morea – Black Mask & Up Against The Wall Motherfucker / Andrew Cornell – Oppose and Propose: Lessons from the Movement for a New Society

We’ve compiled an ever-expanding playlist of all the music heard across #ACFM so you can tune in and drop out at your leisure. Find it on Spotify.

Special thanks to Ilyanna Kerr for the beautiful new visuals for the show. View more of her work at her website.

We want to be your friend. Join our mailing list to find out first about new developments from the #ACFM crew.

https://novaramedia.com/?p=22727

#ACFM Trip 10: How It Feels to Be Free

Sun, 10 May 2020 17:34:45 +0000

Nadia, Jeremy and Keir search for the feeling of freedom, moving from Nina Simone to Buddhist House via Jeremy Clarkson.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

Texts: Isaiah Berlin – Two Concepts of Liberty / Simone de Beauvoir – Second Sex / Wendy Brown – Undoing the Demos / Adam Kotsko – Why We Love Sociopaths / Richard Sennett – The Corrosion of Character.

To celebrate our 10th Trip, we’ve compiled a playlist of all the music heard across #ACFM so you can tune in and drop out at your leisure. Find it on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Wv61PS6qItwCBUluNcSFx

#ACFM Trip 10: How It Feels to Be Free

#ACFM Trip 9: Utopia

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 10:05:19 +0000

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn discuss Utopias, including the Paris Commune, analogue dreamlands and kettle logic.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracklist: Goldfrapp – Utopia / John Lennon – Imagine / Nairobi Sisters – Promised Land / Harry McClintock – Big Rock Candy Mountain / Joe Meek – I Hear A New World / Noel Brass Jr – Cortex Overflow / Liverpool Cathedral Ringers and Cleo Evans – Imagine.

Texts: George Orwell – Homage to Catalonia / P.M. – Bolo Bolo / Thomas More – Utopia / Fredric Jameson – Archaeologies of the Future / Kristin Ross – Communal Luxury / Jodi Dean – The Communist Horizon / Raymond Willians – Marxism and Literature.

#ACFM Trip 9: Utopia

#ACFM Microdose: Acid Lockdown

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 15:05:52 +0000

The #ACFM crew discuss life in lockdown including cheese care packs, the moral economy, and the crisis of liberalism.

Texts:

Nadia Idle- This Too Shall Pass https://notaloneintheworld.com/2020/03/22/this-too-shall-pass/ / Craig Gent – When Logistics Run Out Of Time https://novaramedia.com/2020/03/23/when-logistics-run-out-of-time / / Jonathan Corum and Carl Zimmer – How Corona Virus Hijacks Your Cells https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/11/science/how-coronavirus-hijacks-your-cells.html / Kropotkin – Mutual Aid / Hobbes – Leviathan / E.P. Thompson – The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century.

#ACFM Microdose: Acid Lockdown

#ACFM Trip 8: Acid Urbanism

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 16:13:54 +0000

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn discuss Acid Urbanism, including, The Right to the City, Communist Follies and Reclaiming the Streets.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracklist: D-Shake – Techno Trance/ The Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer in the City/ David Bowie – London Bye, Ta-Ta/ The Specials – Ghost Town/ Pete Seeger – O What a Beautiful City Texts: Henri Lefebrvre – The Right to the City /Naomi Klein – No Logo/ Ivan Chtcheglov – Formulary for a New Urbanism / Greil Marcus – Lipstick Trace/ Ashley Dawson – Extreme Cities / Common Wealth – ‘Green New Deal City‘

https://novaramedia.com/2020/02/16/acfm-acid-urbanism/

#ACFM Microdose: The Comedown

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 14:24:34 +0000

The #ACFM crew take stock in the wake of Labour’s defeat and the dawning of a new year. https://novaramedia.com/?p=16785

#ACFM Trip 7: Be Here Now

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 09:01:35 +0000

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn ask why now for acid corbynism? They discuss historical conjunctures, farcical repetitions, and left melancholy.

https://novaramedia.com/2019/10/27/acfm-trip-7-be-here-now/

#ACFM Microdose: Election Special

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 16:33:39 +0000

‘You can’t say it’s boring’: the #ACFM crew bring you an election special – on organising, energy and political polarisation. Plus, a special campaigning song. https://novaramedia.com/?p=15970

#ACFM Microdose: Extinction Rebellion

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 09:00:18 +0000

The #ACFM crew discuss some of the issues and ideas raised by the ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests in London (and around the world).

Links to some of the talks and texts discussed in the show:

https://rebellion.earth

Gail Bradbrook video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wUJFrvnGk

Why Civil Resistance Works: https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/IS3301_pp007-044_Stephan_Chenoweth.pdf

Graham Jones – Shock Doctrine of the Left: http://politybooks.com/jones10052018/

Roger Hallam Interview: https://soundcloud.com/poltheoryother/49-roger-hallam-on-extinction-rebellion

Global Justice Rebellion: https://www.facebook.com/events/489014714988220/

#ACFM Trip 6: Intoxication and Sobriety

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 17:21:58 +0000

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn talk intoxication and sobriety: from capitalist prohibition to weekend trippers, from drunk workers to Romantic escapes from bourgeois subjectivity, to straightedge and tech-world microdosers.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 5: Consciousness Raising

Sat, 05 Oct 2019 16:52:21 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss consciousness raising.
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.
PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracks featured: Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised / Johnny Osbourne – Truth and Rights / Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – This Land is Your Land / Arrested Development – Give a Man a Fish / Childish Gambino – This is America / Gregory Porter – 1960 What? / Bernie Sanders – This Land is Your Land

Texts referred to: Mark Fisher — Acid Communism (unfinished introduction) / Mark Fisher – Capitalist Realism / Mark Fisher and Jeremy Gilbert – Capitalist Realism and Neoliberal Hegemony: A Dialogue / William H. Hinton – Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village / Keir Milburn – Generation Left

Other links:
Nadia Idle and Keir Milburn – Building Acid Communism – transmediale.de/content/building-acid-communism
A description of the Acid Communism Consciousness Raising groups we have been running.

Kathie Sarachild – Consciousness-Raising: A Radical Weapon. – womenwhatistobedone.files.wordpress.com/2013/…s.pdf
The classic early text on Consciousness Raising from the Women’s Liberation Movement.

Institute for Precarious Consciousness – We Are All Very Anxious www.weareplanc.org/blog/we-are-all-very-anxious/
An influential text that proposes anti-precarity consciousness raising groups as the precondition for political action under contemporary conditions.

#ACFM Microdose: Mica Nava on Feminist Consciousness Raising

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 16:08:57 +0000

ACFM’s Jeremy Gilbert interviews Professor Mica Nava on her experience of women’s liberation and consciousness raising in London in the 1970s.

Mica is the author books such as Changing Cultures; Feminism, Youth and Consumerism and Visceral Cosmopolitanism

Here are some texts by some of the people we mention:

Sheila Rowbotham Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World

Juliet Mitchell Women’s Estate

Shulamith Firestone The Dialectic of Sex

Christine Delphy Close to Home: A Materialist Analysis of Women’s Oppression

Lisa Adkins & Diana Leonard (eds) Sex in Question: French materialist feminism

There’s a useful article on social reproduction theory, by Susan Ferguson, here: https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/social-reproduction-theory-ferguson/

#ACFM Microdose: Theories of Consciousness

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 15:31:11 +0000

The #ACFM crew discuss the history of theories of ideology and consciousness in the radical tradition.

Texts referred to include:

Karl Marx The German Ideology

György Lukacs History and Class Consciousness

Vladimir Leinin What is to be Done

Antonio Gramsci Selections From the Prison Notebooks

Stuart Hall et. al Policing the Crisis

Paolo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Félix Guattari & Suely Rolnick Molecular Revolution in Brazil

#ACFM Trip 5: Consciousness Raising

Sun, 08 Sep 2019 13:31:30 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss consciousness raising, with bonus excerpts from an interview with Mica Nava, one of the pioneers of feminist consciousness-raising in the UK. Listen to the full show, with music and archival material, on the Novara Media website or on Soundcloud.

#ACFM Trip 4: Love and Hate

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 18:22:49 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss love and hate. Listen to the full version of the show, including music and archive material on the Novara Media website: http://novaramedia.com/2019/07/16/acfm-trip-4-love-and-hate/

#ACFM Trip 3: The Weird Left

Fri, 14 Jun 2019 14:09:02 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the weird left. FULL SHOW: http://novaramedia.com/2019/06/12/acfm-3-the-weird-left/

#ACFM Trip 2: Collective Joy

Tue, 07 May 2019 13:39:02 +0000

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the politics of collective joy.
FULL SHOW: http://novaramedia.com/2019/05/07/acfm-collective-joy/

#ACFM Trip 1: Out of the Box

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 10:30:50 +0000

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn bring you #ACFM, a new show examining the links between left-wing politics and culture, music and experiences of collective joy. In this episode: what is – or was – the counterculture? What is ‘Acid Corbynism’? And is expanding consciousness anti-political? You can find the Acid Corbynism project on Facebook. PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

#ACFM Trip 1: Out of the Box