Jan Tumlir - The Magic Circle: On The Beatles, Pop Art, Art-Rock and Records BOOK

232 pages, 5 ounces. 4.4 x 0.8 x 6.3 inches.

Pivoting off The Beatles Sgt. Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), LA art writer Jan Tumlir's latest book is a meditation of the ecstatic kind - think whirling dervish - on this concept album as the birth of art-rock. Citing sources as varied as Theodore Adorno, Thomas Edison, Walter Benjamin, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Charles Manson and Marshall McLuhan, Tumlir charts a first-person present-tense path of historical analysis and speculative association through the grooves of this openly commercial yet self-reflexive cultural artifact. Conflating methodologies from each field, Tumlir describes the concept album as a point of convergence between the previously distinct worlds of rock and art. This compact volume bursts with a dense bold text interleaved with color and black-and-white illustrations, equally varied, that further blend these worlds. As an erstwhile DJ and inveterate collector of cultural artifacts, Tumlir's imperative in all forms of production is to select, sequence and mix.