Not since The Wicker Man has a soundtrack occupied my mind like Valerie and her Week of Wonders. It was like a door had been opened in my subconscious and fragments of memories and dreams rejoiced right there in my living room. I became very possessive over my copied version, a VHS to cassette copy which hissed like it had been captured from another world. I would surprise friends with snippets of the theme, it never failed to get a curious “Who’s this?” I was continually asked to make a copies but I had no intentions of making copies for anyone. The ritual chanting, the sections of catholic mass, the czech hymns were mine, the cogs sequence, the acoustic love song, the room of cogs all mine. – Trish Keenan (Broadcast)
During the dark days behind the iron curtain, Czech director Jaromil Jires turned to fairytale surrealism and Freudian symbolism for a study of burgeoning youth. The childlike but chilling tale is accentuated by the eerie chamber music of Lubos Fiser. This finely crafted piece of psychological horror carries the young central character of Valerie through dreamlike states with themes of death, resurrection, retribution and redemption. Fiser’s score carries a pastoralism which gives weight to the folky dreamscape in which Valerie freely interacts with the characters of her dreams. As a whole, the style of film us undoubtedly eccentric and experimental but always exquisitely shot.
She fell into immoral ways and broke the sixth commandment.
From the lilting folk melodies which greet the opening scenes of the film, we know that this coming-of-age story has aspirations beyond the B-movie eroticism of contemporaneous exploitation horror cinema from the likes of Lucio Fulci. A masked demonic priest conducts communion and Mass while eerie choral music mixed with psalm-like prayer denotes the church as being far from pure. A seductive waltz plays between Valerie’s grandmother and the monster as he corrupts her will and seals a devil’s pact with her so that she can regain her youth.
You are the touch of an alabaster hand.
The “cog sequence” as mentioned by Keenan above is a musical highlight of the film. Mechanical elements sound like drum machines or the early electronic experiments of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The plot takes a turn for dark, Grimm territory when Valerie walks near the mechanism of the town clock. The soundtrack is as subtle as the way the film is shot, reminding the viewer of Fellini at his best as the frontier between dreams and reality becomes little more than an illusion.
He wants you to love him... How could I when I'm afraid of him? For that very reason.
The album is probably not for faint hearted pop lovers, but those with a penchant for gothic ambience, grandmothers music box, steam driven fairground organs and the incantations of catholic schoolgirls will be delighted by film and score alike. The various motifs, from chiming magical earrings to malevolent carnival tunes illuminate the mind of it’s heroine, depicting a girl’s awakening from innocent child to a young woman’s wider, more abstruse world of experience.
Beware the weasel.
The film has gone on to influence and inspire ‘freak’ folk act The Valerie Project who perform their own original compositions in unison with the film. The band Broadcast (with the late Trish Keenan) took inspiration from the film for the album Haha Sound, the song Valerie being the most obvious example (seen below). This chilling Czech tale of terror and it’s accompanying soundtrack from the other side of the iron curtain are not to be missed. You can purchase the soundtrack direct from a favourite label of the We Love office, Finders Keepers, here.
By the end of the tale Valerie has achieved a kind of detached enlightenment; though appiritions call to her, Valerie refuses to interact with them anymore. And so at the end, in that Autumnal landscape, as her dreams dance around her, she climbs into her bed one last time. “Sleep well my sweet brunette / When you wake keep your secret,” goes the lullaby, “Fear is only a dream / so dream little one, dream.”
We love music. We also love throwing parties at Folk, and those long, lazy days sat in the sun with a cold drink and lots of like minded people with nothing much else on their minds other than a forgotten melody drifting on the breeze…Our parties are relaxed affairs, although we do like dancing.
There’s no pressure at our parties. You don’t have to be fashionable or part of a scene. There’s no pressure on the DJs, they have the freedom to play whatever they want, when they want. We believe in a spirit of independence and individuality. We still believe in love.
Holding these values above the desire to make money has allowed us to experience some very special moments. If you share these values, let’s come together to create a magical experience at the very source of the original Balearic vibe. See you on the beach…
Folk up on the wrong side of the bed?
If the Manchester contingent of party starters and music lovers can keep the Balearic spirit alive in the grey north of England then surely in their spiritual home of Ibiza things will be proper buzzin’. The term Balearic is bandied around as all things to all men, carrying a sense of an eclectic but refined taste. The team from Folk have chosen a selection of locations around the island to host a mini-festival of sorts. Running from Thursday 22nd to Monday 26th of July in a diverse but kindred set of venues such as Boutique Hostal Salinas and Sunset Ashram. The folk from Folk will also be making appearance on our hallowed roof terrace, the Premier Etage on Sunday the 25th of July.
Folk me!
The night in question promises to be maybe just a little bit special, with Detroit natives Jeff Mills and Derrick May keeping things rolling in the Discoteca while the European contingent of Miss Kittin and Steve Lawler promise an epic back to back 5 hour set of deep and beautiful house music on La Terraza. There’s also “digital disco” vibes in El Salon from Matty J and his crew from Tirk Records. As for that roof terrace expect the likes of Balearic Mike, Lexx, Be and Naive Melody to be spinning bizarre things that aren’t getting played on the radio. You can check out some mixes they have kindly provided to us here, including a session by Phil Mison at the Cafe Del Mar way back in 1993 during his residency at the original sunset bar. We’ll leave you with this little video which seems to encapsulate crossing the Balearic spirit with something quintessentially English.
