Tuxedomoon’s Pink Narcissus

Currently listening to Tuxedomoon’s alternative score for James Bidgood’s underground gay classic Pink Narcissus... The 53min suite of instrumental music was written and performed at the French film festival L'Etrange Festival in 2011 (the group performing in front of a projection of the film) and it ranks as one of Tuxedomoon’s finest efforts, no small thing for a band in its 34th year. The music itself is best appreciated at a late hour, with its spectral piano chimes, mournful violin, laptop electronics, and smokey jazz courtesy of some Badalamentiesque horns - in fact portions of the score would fit quite nicely into another color-coded film, Blue Velvet. Some nice angular post-punk rhythms as well recalling Tuxedomoon’s early days. I’d like to sync this soundtrack up with my BFI copy of Pink Narcissus but sadly the score falls about 10 minutes short of the actual film, but still it might be an interesting experiment… In the meantime, I was searching for a good still from Pink Narcissus and I found this pic of Bobby Kendall, which I assume is an on-set photograph taken by James Bidgood. It's remarkable what an extraordinary psychedelic wonderland he was able to create within his cramped Hell’s Kitchen apartment…