outsider art – Alice Louise Wadsworth

The Space Lady in sound, on The Space Lady aka Suzy Soundz – Street-level Superstar, and The Space Lady’s Greatest Hits (2-CD), on Night School Records, is akin to one of J.G. Ballard’s kinder creations. His short story collection Vermilllion Sands shows a timeless world, lethargic but beautiful in indulgence and simplicity – of emotion, storyline – many are like fables.[1] The harpsichord synthed-out tones of The Space Lady suit to a growing, singing, statue, as Ballard’s, mysteriously unseen, Lunora Goalan, creates[2]. All curves and hums, but gleaming, in some unknown, strong and alive, metal.

or maybe the Space Lady, in ‘I had too Much To Dream Last Night’[3], is Emerelda[4], who has eyes of jewelled insects; trapped in her beauty and an inverted fairytale innocence. Had Too Much to Dream Last Night, was on the Songs In The Key of Z album, which hosted other ‘outsider’ musicians, like Captan Beefheart.

Or, most physically apt but maybe less of a personality match; Hope Cunard in “Cry Hope, Cry Fury!”:

“a tall, narrow-hipped woman with blonde hair so pale she immediately reminded me of the Ancient Mariner’s Nightmare Life-in-Death” (Vermilion Sands, 93)

The Space Lady was making video game musical styles = ‘real’ music, long before Grime or Grimes. Her eerie ambient vocals, stretched and autotuned, came along before The Dream, or new wave/no wave, or ambient house, or The Weekend, or others who claim to have ‘invented’ the style[5].

Though the reason I’m drawn to Ballard’s characters, may be what draws me to this dreamy singer who mostly covers others songs.

‘I think my fiction has a lot in common with case histories. Case histories… always seemed to have an enormous sense of mystery about them’ –Ballard

I have seen videos of the Space Lady on Youtube, over the past few years. She wears the same headdress/shield winged crown from the cover of her Greatest Hits. Her hair is a little whiter, her voice a little thinner, and her equipment basic as they come (a Casio keyboard, and mike). The reason I am timid to link it is several friends reactions to the videos. Rather than hearing my goddess the Space Lady, they see an old hippy busking with a high pitched voice. So I’m worried, worried that people can be cruel to old people busking in strange hats. I’m not sure pushing her into the category of ‘outsider art’ really helps. It makes it like one of Jeremy Clarkson’s books – you’ll only buy it if you are certain you’ll like it already. As ‘outsider’ has strange and often negative connotations (and it does for many), like the words ‘Jeremy Clarkson’ can have strange and often negative connotations (like it does for many).

Also, confused, as there were others from that crowd who made jumped from ‘outsider’s to ‘genius’ (ahem, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa) and the Space Lady was doing the same schtick. Why was she crystalised in time[6]?

Sad, too, that many watching (I won’t repeat youtube comments) didn’t know where she came from, what barriers she’d warped and wandered through. The things she’s done since, which I also didn’t know.

The Space Lady has upcoming shows, a website http://www.thespacelady.net/ , and describes herself as an ‘ethereal street musician who plays space music wearing a winged helmet’. She tells some of her story, mainly before recording The Space Lady aka Suzy Soundz – Street-level Superstar, of busking and how her music grew so simply from those roots. I recommend reading it. Then it skips ahead 30 years. The Space Lady is thankful for her career, but released nothing further. Did she prefer to be ‘underground’? The music industry certainly isn’t for everyone, maybe she felt comfortable ‘outside’.

Leonard Cohen’s ‘Popular Problems’ showed wisdom in ageing, and that a voice could really get that gravelly. The Space Lady is singing the same songs. Damon Albarn has blurred into cartoon bands, a monkey musical, The Good The Bad and The Queen, and whatever trillion projects I’ve missed out. The Space Lady is singing the same songs. Phillip Roth, Coetzee, Bukowski, Shakespeare, and T. S. Eliot all wrote old age with honesty, sometimes with mirth, or darkness, and Edward Said’s ‘On Late Style’, discusses ‘the power of subjectivity’ gleaned with age, free from the performative self. Using a cipher to tell ‘death…as allegory’[7]. At least, to look at their ‘ego…in the absolute’[8]. The Space Lady is singing the same songs.

Not alone, I think, in a demanding generation, I want to see a simple narrative and progression. Till then, I worry about one-album wonders[10] and imagine what they’re doing. I hope that they, like The Space Lady, have fans who still love what they do.

If someone is calling you weird, they probably don’t have the creative capacity, or maybe desire[11], to understand you. I’m not sure that should make you an ‘outsider’, but maybe signals that you’re an ‘insider’ to something else. Put on your winged hat, sing the songs you love, and keep people like me guessing about your mythical life and finding you in books.

Or whatever your thing is.

Thanks J.G. Ballard, The Space Lady, Captain Beefheart and all the inside-out-ers.