Knight of Cups

Just fresh from the Irish premiere of Terence Malick's latest film Knight of Cups, screened as part of the Cork Film Festival... America's artiest director serves up another visually stunning meditation on life, love and the whole damn thing. Very much cut from the same cloth as Malick's previous films Tree of Life and To the Wonder - all minimal dialogue, whispered narration and Emmanuel Lubezki's exquisite images of water water everywhere. Malick's most puzzling and fragmented film to date with Christian Bale's Hollywood type wandering like an ethereal observer through the memories of his life...perhaps, for Malick offers no clues, but one thing's for sure, the film features one of the most breathtaking visions of Los Angeles in some time, surreal and dreamlike and strangely clean and empty. If there was one point of distraction from the beautiful visuals it was the soundtrack which raids selections from a number of modern composers like Arvo Part and Gorecki as well as contemporary electronic artists like Explosions in the Sky, Burial and significantly Biosphere - stunning, of course but frequently throughout the screening my brain was addled trying to put a name to a familiar piece of music. I must re-acquaint myself with Biosphere's Substrata over the weekend...

The Jonestown Death Tape

“Death is a million times preferable to another 10 days of this life” intones the lisping voice of Jim Jones… I’m listening to the so-called The Jonestown Death Tape before a screening of the two-part television film Guyana Tragedy: The Jim Jones Story starring Powers Boothe (pictured below) as the fanatical cult leader who walked 918 people to their death in November 1978. The 44min tape recorded moments before the Jonestown massacre makes for chilling listening, as Jones is heard pleading with his congregation to commit their act of “revolutionary suicide”, spreading fear among reluctant Temple members about reprisals for the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan, (“If You knew what was ahead of you, you would be glad to be stepping over tonight”). At one point a dissenter questions Jones’ rationale but Jones calmly shrugs off her argument while more zealous members scornfully shout her down, willingly embracing their leader’s final edict (“We are ready to go!”). It’s voyeuristic stuff for sure, but the tape is out there so….

For anyone interested in Jim Jones, it's worth taking a listen to a short recording of the late American televangelist, pastor, faith healer Robert W. Schambach speaking about the Jonestown massacre. I have no details on the date of the recording, but can be heard opening the 1984 track Ram by the great experimental electronic outfit :Zoviet*France: Listen here...

Beyond the final frontier with...

Dan Dare double page spread from 2000AD Prog 1, the spectacular visuals are by Italian artist Massimo Belardinelli… I’m currently in the grip of a 2000AD obsession at the moment, re-reading the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic from its launch into orbit back in 1977. It would take a few years for 2000AD to settle into the comic I loved back in the mid-80’s but the early strips remain a treat - the ultraviolent beat ‘em up Invasion; the time-travelling 23rd century cowboys harvesting dinosaur meat in Flesh; Dan Dare rebooted for the 70’s with a dose of cynicism and Belardinelli’s swirling psychedelic artwork, and of course Judge Dredd who’s been administering justice to Mega-City One since Prog 2, almost 40 years on the beat. I think the fact that we’re inching closer to Christmas is what inspired me to pick up 2000AD again, the Christmas annual was something I eagerly looked forward to every year. I’m glad I had the foresight to hang on to mine…

Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza

Listening to the music of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza and the Italian collective's 1970 album The Feed-Back, a brisk but brilliant 27min suite of improvised avant-rock featuring Ennio Morricone on trumpet. I often see The Group filed alongside improv units like AMM and fellow Italians, Musica Elettronica Viva but the The Feed-Back sounds more at home with Kosmische music - the abrasive textures of early Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, as well as the propulsive motorik of Neu! come to mind. Well worth seeking out. Incidentally, composing credits on the album are assigned to the Group and I wonder if Tim Gane gave the band a nod with Stereolab's 1993 EP The Groop Played "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music"...

Zona

Finished reading Zona: A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room, Geoff Dyer’s 2013 book about Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. Dyer’s book is not a scholarly study of the film but a scene-by-scene commentary on a film that has fascinated and obsessed the author for the past 30 years. It’s a short, breezy read (the book can easily be digested in one sitting), and while Tarkovsky students might feel frustrated that the book reveals little new about the film, Dyer has left me with at least one notion that I will take to my next screening of the film. With tongue firmly in his cheek Dyer imagines the mysterious black dog, possibly abandoned or separated from its owner in the Zone, has in fact ventured into the Room and has had its heart’s desire – of being adopted by a loving family – granted. Hence his reappearance in the final act of the film, back in the industrial wasteland of the Stalker’s home, happily lapping milk and finding a gentle companion in the Stalker’s daughter. It’s a lovely idea and it’s a measure of the brilliance of Dyer’s short book that it has increased my love of the film even more. Highly recommended reading.

Laraaji

Listening to the music of Laraaji this morning, courtesy of the recently released triple cassette collection All In One Peace which gathers together various recordings from the late 70's/early 80's. Laraaji was my big discovery of 2013. I had previously known him for his contribution to Eno's Ambient series, the excellent Ambient 3: Day of Radiance album, but in 2013 All Saints re-issued the luminous 1987 drone work Essence/Universe and two fine compilations of recordings. One thing I like about Laraaji's music is how it's challenged my notions of New Age music, a whole swathe of music I would have instantly dismissed before I delved into Laraaji's back catalogue - his music played on electronically treated zither and hammered dulcimer is a little too hectic to be classed as ambient wallpaper but it's a world away from dreary pan-pipe albums seen propping up counters at health shops. Another revelatory album worth checking out is the excellent and beautifully packaged I Am The Center - Private Issue New Age Music In America, 1950-1990...

Entering The West Wing

Sky Atlantic have started showing The West Wing from scratch this week, fitting nicely into the 5pm slot. Having missed previous opportunities to follow the White House drama, I'm quite excited to finally catch it, and am eager to jump into another political drama after the superb David Simon series Show Me A Hero. I don't know if Martin Sheen's Jed Bartlet will turn out to be a good president but he surely can't be any worse than presidential candidate Greg Stillson...

Magma

I’ve been spending the morning immersing myself in the music of Magma… It’s taken me a while to reach this point, in less enlightened times, I would often dismiss Magma with the usual prog rock prejudice (always at one’s peril I’ve come to believe) but my interest has been piqued by their association with Jodorowsky’s ill-fated Dune film. I’ve amassed quite an extensive chunk of Magma back catalogue on mp3 (call it a try n’ buy) and am journeying thru the first salvo of albums from the early 70’s. This is not easy music to absorb in a few initial fly-bys - the jazz-rock fusion is formidable, the arrangements knotty and complex with ever shifting time changes and tempos, and the vocals, sung in Magma’s own devised language often sound like they’ve strayed from a bombastic symphonic opera. But perseverance yields rewards and I'm particularly enjoying Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh, perhaps the first of Magma’s signature albums. The evolutionary leap from Kobaïa and 1001° Centigrades is apparent, the jazz-rock workouts abandoned in favor of what might be described as inter-galactic gospel music backed by pounding martial rhythms. The extraordinary vocals which range from operatic to freak-out wailing and shrieking sound to my ear like people swearing in Polish. Truly incredible stuff. Listening to this album, I can better appreciate Alejandro Jodorowsky’s idea of using Magma’s music in Dune to represent the brutal forces of the House Harkonnen...

Speaking of Dune... Unmade movies are the opium dreams of film junkies, and with so much pre-production done on Jodorowsky's Dune there's always that threat that one of the major studios will shoehorn it into a hollow effects extravaganza, diluting Jodorowsky and Moebius' more outrageous inventions (the anal staircase entrance into the Emperor's throne room comes to mind!). My dream of Dune is to see it realized as a huge animated film and looking around at some of the Dune art on the web, the potential for such a film seems limitless. I'm particularly fond of concept artist/illustrator Mark Molnar's Dune artwork at his Project Dune page

Revisiting The Element of Crime

Michael Elphick wades thru a drowned world in The Element of Crime… I watched Lars Von Trier's 1984 debut yesterday evening, my third viewing of the film over the years and it remains as frustrating and dazzling as ever. The Red Dragon-style plot never quite works for me and I find myself too easily slipping in and out of the narrative, but the film’s extraordinary visuals always win me over, with Northern Europe re-imagined as a water-logged terminal rubbish dump, everything cast in a sickly rust sepia. Nick James wrote about the film in last month’s Sight & Sound examining the film’s Tarkovskian elements, most notably the influence of Stalker, both films sharing exhausted leading men and tracking shots of submerged flotsam, but watching The Element of Crime again, Eraserhead and Hard to Be A God came to mind - two other films set in a completely immersive environment. And oddly enough I found myself thinking of Derek Jarman’s The Last of England as well…

The Pied Piper

I've been listening to Donovan these past few weeks, and while I normally don't like my music so saccharine there are always exceptions. And so this afternoon, with an hour and a half to spare I sat down with The Pied Piper, Jacques Demy's 1972 film starring Donovan as the mysterious minstrel with the power of enchantment. Not exactly Horror fare for Halloween weekend but the film has much to enjoy - the stellar cast of British players, Demy's fluid direction, some terrific sets and costumes and a few interesting parallels with The Seventh Seal and more significantly, The Devils, which must have influenced the look of the film if nothing else. I thought it was interesting that the most sinister element of the tale - of the children being spirited away by a vengeful stranger was given a subtle benevolent twist by suggesting the piper was taking the children out of harm's way of the Black Death and John Hurt's character's plan to conscript Hamelin's children as soldiers to fight a war brewing in Italy. Interesting too was the final shot of the piper and the children effectively evaporating into the ether as dawn breaks over a pastoral meadow - a piper at the gates of dawn as it were...