…play on! The importance of sustenance at home, rations on the road and the dreaded promoters dinner. Culinary memories of Kraft macaroni and slaughtering your own meal with Ivan Smagghe, Simian Mobile Disco, Deepgroove, Shaun Reeves, Bones and Heidi.
Featuring performances from 2020Soundsystem live at We Love – Ministry of Sound London, Ivan Smagghe in the Discoteca for We Love Space and DJ Hell in London also.
Cosmic disco doyen Prins Thomas discusses the vagaries of process versus result in making music. New kid in the Discoteca jozif on the importance of crafting a sound. Philosophical Swedes Minilogue profess artistic inspiration comes from being a human being and someone has to play Joris Voorn’s records.
Featuring performances from Prins Thomas, Joris Voorn and Jeff Mills.
Our theme of soundtrack reviews continues with a film perhaps as equally well known for it’s soundtrack as it is for it’s alluring cinematography and quirky direction. Amélie is a French film from 2001, which brought largely unknown actress Audrey Tatou to the world’s attention. It depicts a whimsical Parisian lifestyle which is underlined by it’s score. So give it a listen, and read our review below…
Blossoming love
La jeune Amélie
Regard!
Effronté
Répertoire
Yann Tiersen – Official Website
Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain – IMDB
The sheer awesomeness of this short film speaks for itself. But incase you need any persuasion to give it a look, it depicts an invasion of New York city by old-school video games. Fittingly, Pac-Man haunts the subway, Frogger plays in traffic and in a post 9/11 gesture, Space Invaders destroy sky-scrapers. Unfortunately this is exactly the kind of thing which will be ripped off by some “inspiring” Sony Brevia commercial. Thankfully, at the moment we can view it simply as a refreshing, 8-bit spin on the old New York apocalypse scenario.
You can find more info about Patrick Jean and his fellow Parisian creatives over at French production house Onemoreproduction.
Eerie, elegant, eclectic
...and now I'm in this dream place. Well, you can imagine how I feel.
It'll be just like in the movies. Pretending to be somebody else.
So since you agree, you must be someone who does not care about the good life.
The rest of the cast can stay, that's up to you. But that lead girl is not up to you. Now you will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me, two more times, if you do bad.
So give it a listen and see if it can elevate you towards the fantastical mental energy of Betty herself (or is that Diane). Angelo Badalamenti plays the espresso-drinking movie executive at the beginning of the film, incidentally.
David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive – Discogs
We’ll let the Motherfucker himself explain his life and expertise in doing the right thing at the right time. He is an internet sensation (widely known as Epic Beard Man) for being tasered by police at a baseball game and knocking the shit out of an obnoxious bus passenger. Parts 1 and 2 below. He’s obviously crazy but clearly a man who has experienced extreme hate, love, fun times, sad times and war. Thanks to Fortuna, That Vicious Slut for the heads-up. His real name is Tom Bruso, you can buy t-shirts here.
Plainview: I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.
Plainview: Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!
Eli Sunday: Don't bully me, Daniel!
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!
Plainview: Do you? I drink your water, Eli. I drink it up. Everyday. I drink the blood of lamb from Bandy's tract.
Listen and Buy at Nonesuch Records
Jonny Greenwood – There Will Be Blood on Discogs
From the beginning of film, music has been involved in its presentation. In the early 20th century, live music was used to indicate certain narrative and emotional cues for silent moving pictures. If the animated actor sensed danger, the music would speed up and if that same actor fell in love with the heroine, a ballad could be heard throughout the theater. A good soundtrack is inexorably attached to a movie and will, for good or bad, remind you of that film, just as the images are now married to your favourite songs. What is becoming a regular feature on the blog, we look at great films through their soundtracks – find the rest here.
Knockin' on Kristoffersons door
Bob Dylan survived a near-fatal motorcycle crash in 1965, but his artistic persona of the day did not. The drug-fueled wild-haired rock poet who could churn out a million songs a minute was gone forever. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for if he had continued along that course, he probably wouldn’t have survived to the present. Instead, he calmed down a little, and for the next decade took a kind of whimsical, laid-back approach to his music. There’s some really interesting material from this period – anyone not familiarized with Self Portrait or New Morning should grab it yesterday – but the most unexpected project he undertook was a collaboration with famed director Sam Peckinpah on Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
How's Jesus look to you now, Bob?
Director Peckinpah uses two regular themes in most of his work, the death of the West, and men living past their time and deciding whether or not to accept change. The cinematography is beautiful and haunting at the same time and matches the mood and characterization in the film. Pat Garret knew he had a job to do, but just could not handle the fact it was a friend he had to kill. The myth and actual facts of the last days of Billy the Kid play out the doomed friendship between the title characters – but the film is really about the death of an American way of life. The best and saddest moments in the film involve characters who know they are going to die and accept it. Using Bob Dylan’s score could have been intrusive to this subtle film, and made it feel tacky in a trying-to-be-hip kind of way. Instead the score works well and gives the film a soulful feel. It’s testament to the director’s skill that he chose to make a work about the end of the myth of “Billy the Kid” instead of glorifying it further. Neither Garrett nor the Kid are very admirable in this film, they feel distant because there is no moral centre to the film – as there was little or none to real 19th century West – an empty space, scenery and some misfits of various backgrounds trying to make a living in an inhospitable domain.
Hell, that was a year ago. I shot him straight up.
As an extra incentive, Dylan also acted in the film, playing the role of a knife-throwing outlaw. His character plays an important part, representing the storyteller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. If you’ve ever wanted to see Bob Dylan slay someone with a knife, now’s your chance. If you’re planning to watch it, go for the full 122 minute director’s cut, which is immeasurably superior. Download the soundtrack here.
Download – Bob Dylan – Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Official Soundtrack
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid – IMDB
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid – Discogs
A musical event took place in New York yesterday, 8 hours of solid sound – a live accompaniment from Hanno Leichtmann, Andrew Pekler and Jan Jelenik to Andy Warhol’s Empire – a film notorious for its one, unchanging shot of the Empire State Building. The eight-hour, five-minute film, which is typically shown in a theater, lacks a traditional narrative or characters. The passage from daylight to darkness becomes the film’s narrative, while the protagonist is the iconic building that was (and is again) the tallest in New York City. Warhol lengthened Empire’s running time by projecting the film at a speed of sixteen frames per second, slower than its shooting speed of twenty-four frames per second, thus making the progression to darkness almost imperceptible. Non-events such as a blinking light at the top of a neighboring building mark the passage of time. According to Warhol, the point of this film – perhaps his most famous and influential cinematic work – is to “see time go by.”
Angry dragon
The live soundtrack / concert / event kicked off the Unsound festival. Krakow’s Unsound festival is working with local cultural institutes, organizers, curators and venues in New York to produce Unsound Festival New York. This 12-day event involves concerts, club nights, specially commissioned work, panel discussions, workshops, exhibitions and video screening. It will take place across Manhattan and Brooklyn, revealing connections between music genres and audiences, ranging from experimental to club orientated music. Later this week We Love… favourite Carl Craig will be performing a live electronic soundtrack to Warhol’s 1964, Factory shot, 35 minute long silent film Blowjob which depicts the face of an unaccredited man as he receives fellatio from an unseen partner.
Other acts appearing at various venues during the festival are Untold, Petre Inspirescu, Newworldaquarium, Moritz von Oswald and Vladislav Delay.
