Nino Rota is legendary in terms of composing soundtrack music, but I have to thank my friend Miguel Douglas on Facebook for turning me on to this gem.
Film
[Film] Alan Rickman dead at 69: Stars react to ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Harry Potter’ actor’s passing
This has bad week for the arts. Well, two if you count the departure of Lemmy. Now, on top of Ziggy Stardust, we lose Severus Snape, or better yet, Hans Grüber, super-villain. Rest in peace, Alan Rickman.
[Music] Jan 22-24: Nervous Magic Lantern Festival 2016
A note from our friends at diNMachine (check Facebook for further):
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST CINEMA:
KEN JACOBS / NERVOUS MAGIC LANTERN FESTIVAL
THREE DAYS / TWELVE BANDS / 8PM FRI-SUN
JANUARY 22-24
The Anthology Film Archives
Curated by diNMachine
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Projections by KEN JACOBS with live music by:
Fri, Jan 22 8PM
diNMachine (release)
Flux (Tom Chiu)
The Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood
Pad tech
Sat, Jan 23 8PM
Robert Poss
Adrian Knight / David Lackner / Max Zuckerman
Sarah Bernstein / Stuart Popejoy
Patrick Todd
Sun, Jan 24 8PM
JG Thirlwell
Collapsible Shoulder
Victoria Keddie
Rick Reed / Tara Bhattacharya
RE: ENACT by Ron Amstutz (featuring music by Michael Schumacher)
Light Installation by Ursula Scherrer
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ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST CINEMA: KEN JACOBS / NERVOUS MAGIC LANTERN FESTIVAL
January 22-24
Ken Jacobs has long been a restless innovator, and his rebellious projection performance apparatus known as the Nervous Magic Lantern is a development that would not have been out of place in the pre-cinematic era of prestidigitation and exotic attractions. Working without film or electronics, the Nervous Magic Lantern uses lightweight fans and an exterior spinning shutter – along with the hands and creative mind of an active projectionist – to fill the screen with moving 3D forms that can be seen from every possible angle, no special glasses required. A breathtaking and all-around mystifying head/body experience, Jacobs surmises that, “It’s the cinema that should’ve happened following live shadow play.” After years of committed research and development, it is clearer than ever before that Jacobs’s Nervous Magic Lantern is a direct outgrowth from his early training in the 1950s with abstraction pioneer Hans Hofmann. In a sense, this latest body of work is as much a return to painting as it is another step deeper than ever before into the depths of the moving image.
This January, as the first installment in what will be a once-a-calendar tribute to Ken Jacobs throughout 2016, Anthology hosts an expansive Nervous Magic Lantern Festival, curated by the ensemble diNMachine. The series will feature an incredible array of live performances from some of the most daring musicians working in New York today. In addition to diNMachine (whose forthcoming full length album “The Opposites of Unity” is out January 22 via Greedy Dilettante Records), performers will include guitar genius and drone meister Robert Poss; renowned composer/producer/performer JG Thirlwell (Foetus); fearless new music ensemble Flux Quartet; Swedish composer/performer Adrian Knight with David Lackner and Max Zuckerman (Blue Jazz TV, Synthetic Love Dream); Victoria Keddie, Co-Director of E.S.P. TV; experimental audio composers Rick Reed & Tara Bhattacharya; new-wave proto-punk voice and violin duo Sarah Bernstein & Stuart Popejoy; melodic explorers Collapsible Shoulder; champions of structured and improvised rhythm, drone, and noise Padtech; unique sound-exploration trio The Ghosts of the Holy Spermic Brotherhood; and textural electronic noise composer Patrick Todd.
The festival will take place over three evenings, with four artists/groups performing each night. Each artist/group will take the stage for a 20-minute set, during which Jacobs will project live with the Nervous Magic Lantern system. Each evening will also feature an immersive video installation created by artist Ursula Scherrer, as well as the film RE: ENACT by Ron Amstutz (featuring music by Michael Schumacher), which will be screened following the intermission.
For details on each night’s lineup, and for Ken Jacobs’s extended discussion of the Nervous Magic Lantern system, visit anthologyfilmarchives.org.
Fri, Jan 22 through Sun, Jan 24 at 8:00 each night.
[Music/Film] Giving A Baby A Chainsaw – An Art Apart: The Hafler Trio
Giving a baby a chainsaw – An art apart: The Hafler Trio from Carl Abrahamsson on Vimeo.
More amazing news from Carl Abrahamsson:
Andrew McKenzie is a highly renowned British artist frequently associated with sound art and experimental music. With great perseverance and integrity, McKenzie has, since the late 1970s, produced a large body of work, predominantly in performances, records and writings under the name The Hafler Trio. Recently, he has developed a concept called complementary education, also known as “complemation”, which is presented in workshops where the participants work together in making a piece of music based on the previous workshops’ finished piece. In a way, this could be seen as a potentially endless work of art that doesn’t only touch upon the dynamics of sound and music in themselves, but to an equal degree the very process of creation and self development. This perspective of regarding creation as a learning process has become one of McKenzie’s trademarks.
A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2015. 58 mins. trapartfilm.com
[Music/Film] SUB UMBRA ALARUM LUNA by Carl Abrahamsson
Carl Abrahamsson has been a founder or member of so many projects in so many genres of art that his name is ubiquitous in the experimental/occult music world. He’s preparing a new music project influenced by cult director Derek Jarman’s film, In The Shadow Of The Sun. The music will be performed by Cotton Ferox, yet another amazing band Carl has founded.
For more on the project, visit his Kickstarter page and marvel at the tranquil beauty of both the music and the images.
[Film] A Christmas Carol (1984)
Featuring the talents of actor George C. Scott, this is by far my favorite secular Christmas film.
[Music] Zbigniew Preisner – Reqeuiem For My Friend
Zbigniew Preisner is one of Europe’s leading film composers. Hollywood would do well to bring him over for more work.
[Technology] 9 Rare Works Of Art Internet Pirates Are Obsessed With
Stephen Witt of Buzzfeed contributes an article of 9 masterpieces, including this Godspeed You! Black Emperor (alleged) rarity and the Norman Thomas di Giovanni translations (shamefully not made public) of Jorge Luis Borges’ work. His translations are superior to all over English versions.
[Film] ‘Kwaidan’ and ‘House of Bamboo’: Visions of, and From, the Rising Sun
The New York Times’ J. Hoberman reviews Masaki Kobayashi’s classic interpretation of Kwaidan. The collection comes from Irish-Greek author Lafcadio Hearn’s anthology of the same name.
[Music] Madredeus – Alfama
Portugal’s gift to the world, Madredeus collaborated with Jürgen Kniepper in making the soundtrack to his film Lisbon Story. This track is featured on their soundtrack, available here.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 