SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 6 Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (2005).
This CD sees Sonic Youth playing an instrumental background to three silent films from Stan Brakhage. It reminds me of the Jem Cohen DVD in which A Silver Mt Zion play the music for the silent Cohen film.
Now obviously, we don’t see the films on the CD. In fact, as far as I can tell it doesn’t even say which films they are (the credits are in Lithuanian). So, it’s impossible to tell if the pieces are contextually good.
As for the songs themselves, there are three short pieces. The first is about 25 minutes, the second about 14 and the last about 27 (even though the disc itself lists one piece at about 65 minutes). The pieces are leisurely and very abstract. There’s very little in the way of Sonic Youth in evidence: minimal distorted guitars (or much of any guitars). Rather, there are effects, percussion and occasional vocals from Kim. There are no hooks of any kind. But then what would you expect from soundtrack work?
Unlike the other SYR discs which were all about improvisation, this one feels more like a composition: abstract, strange and a little disorienting, but a composition nonetheless. I imagine that the films are dark and mysterious.
This disc falls in line with the style of SYR 4 Goodbye 20th Century. If you’re not really sure about SY, but you like abstract soundscapes, this is a good disc to check out.
[READ: August 30, 2009] The Convalescent
I had read a sample of the book about a month ago and was very intrigued. When the book came in the mail I was pretty excited to read it all.
But how to explain this peculiar book? Rovar Pfliegman is a mute, crippled man who lives in a broken down bus on the side of the road–out of which he sells meat. His meat is the cheapest and freshest in town so even though he sells it out of a bus on the side of the road, he has many clients.
Pfliegman is Hungarian, specifically, he comes from one of the eleven tribes who migrated over the Ural Mountains. (History records only ten tribes, and the word Hungarian stems from the word onogur, which means ten arrows.) This eleventh tribe, the Pliegmans tripped over their own feet, growled at strangers, stole other peoples food and were generally outcasts even amongst outcasts. As an example of the sort of tribe the Pfliegmans are, Rovar’s father after receiving a VCR in 1984 spent four minutes examining the buttons and one minute examining the manual before bashing it in the face. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 