Cobralingus: Language remixed, 6 Jan 2001

I have felt that for some time now, Jeff Noon has been wrestling against the success of his first novel, the cybersurreal cult classic, 'Vurt'. For me, he finally reached escape velocity with the excellent 'Needle In The Groove', a book that received a lukewarm reception from many of the 'Vurties' out there, representing as it did, a departure from his trip-fi roots. Needle is however (in my opinion at least) is twice the book 'Vurt' ever was, sealing Noon's place as one of the most talented and adventurous British writers of the past ten years.

'Cobralingus' takes Needle's experimental text/rhythm structure and pushes it to its limits. Noon plucks samples from classic literature, cuts in filters or 'gates' such as 'overload', 'ghost' and 'add virus', processes which strip the text to it's bare bones, or pump it up to (and often beyond) breaking point. Noon mixes in more samples, the periodic table, the shipping forecast, keeping the words and meaning liquid, always extracting, reducing, focusing, distorting, finding new rhythms in the emerging forms, pushing and cutting the text forward, into the next remix. Cobralingus. A brave and intelligent book.

 Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)