A Body Double

I had a lot of fun watching Brian De Palma's Body Double the other night. It serves as very nice companion piece to his 1981 film Blow Out. (which itself nods knowingly at Antionini's Blow Up amongst other films) Both serve as a love letter of sorts to the very mechanics of film and film making. Whereas Blow Out explores the medium of sound and sound recording as it pertains to the moving picture, Body Double focusses on the jobbing actors, extras and stand-ins working within the B-grade or horror movie genres, while successfully and comfortably occupying both categories itself.

A suitably sleazy soundtrack is provided by Pino Donaggio (A De Palma regular). Its synth arpeggiations, ambient keyboards, airy vocals and reverbed vibroslaps perfectly accompany the seduction and voyeurism taking place on the screen.

What is particularly stiking is its similarity to Felt Mountain era Goldfrapp and how wonderfully these sounds were repurposed by Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp to soundtrack their unique alpine wonderland.

Letters II

To his parents

Rome, 24 June 1831

... I went to Tivoli last Saturday, at two in the afternoon, in the middle of the dusty heat. There were two of us. We got three quarters of the way there but then felt exhausted and hailed a passing carriage. It's fifteen miles from Rome to Tivoli. we arrived at half past eight, and the next morning got up at four and went staight off exploring. I've never seen anything so exquisite: the waterfalls, clouds of powdery spray, the smoking clefts, the fresh cool river, the cave, the innumeral rainbows, the olive groves, the hills, the country houses, the village - the whole thing is enchanting and unique. The people there are very handsome, but they beg even more than they do in Rome; only, their begging hasn't the unpleasantly debased quality of the Romans'. They do it quite brazenly - they name the sum they want and laugh as they do so, as if it were a joke between you. Some young men and women aged between twenty and thirty, who were harvesting and saw us go past, shouted out: "Hey, sir come on, give us half a paolo (five sous), baiocco (one sou), what's it to you?" ...

The evening before last, I felt some emotion for the first time in our convent. There were four or five of us sitting in the moonlight round the fountain on the little staircase which leads to the garden. We drew lots for who would fetch my guitar, and as the audience consisted of the few fellow-students whose company I can bear, I did not need any pressing. As I was beginning an aria from Iphigeneia in Tauris, M. Carle Vernet appeared. After a couple of minutes he began to weep and sob out loud, then he fled into his son's drawing room, crying out in a choked voice: "Horace, come here!" "What is it, what is it?" "We're all in tears". "Why, why, what's happend?" "M. Berloiz us some Gluck. Oh, how right you are (turning to me), it's overwhelming. You know, you're a melancholy man, I understand you, I do, there are people who -". He couldn't finish. But no one laughed. The fact is we were all moved. I was in the mood, it was night, I felt quite free from anxiety beneath that resonant porch, and I let myself go as if I had been alone...

Hector Berlioz

A Selection of his Letters

Selected, editted and translated by Humphrey Searle

Gollancz

1966

Théorie du signal et transmission de l'information

All images:


Vibrations and Waves
AP French
Chapman and Hall
1971

Outer Tumbolia in Richard Haslop's Best of 2009 List

Richard Haslop, he of the insightful record reviews during the 80's in South Africa's only legal girlie magazine, SCOPE, has made his 'Best of 2009' list available. Ok, that's not a fair introduction at all but it was the first time I came across his name and SCOPE did open my eyes, er ... introduced me to a couple of hard to track down muscial gems in an otherwise bleak cultural desert of top 40 80's radio pop.

Richard continued to educate the masses on radio on SAFM's now much missed Roots to Fruits show where all manner of indie, jazz, americana and africana got a rare airing and is also a contributer to online 'zine Perfect Sound Forever where he exposed, to a larger online community, the likes of Not Even the TV  and Kalahari Surfers.

Amongst entries for BLK JKS, Califone amd Tinariwen, here's what he had to say about Outer Tumbolia and Strung Like a Compound Eye coming in at number 34.

"One of the few givens in any South African music year, other than the fact that, by and large, it’s likely to disappoint most people listening outside a fairly narrow box (it’s a lack of opportunity to hear what’s worth hearing, unless you know someone who knows where to find it on the Net, and who to find, that causes this, rather than an absence of anything worth hearing), is that pretty much anything Cape Town experimental guitarist Righard Kapp releases, on whichever is the latest of his impossibly obscure imprints and no matter how limited the edition, will be worth getting, and getting into.

2009 was no exception – Kapp’s own ‘Strung Like A Compound Eye’ makes a terrific fist of what are broadly the three strings to his musical bow, namely the fine acoustic guitar instrumentalist, the ever inquisitive sonic investigator and the affecting songwriter, none of which ever quite ends up where you expect it to.

Ramon Galvan is a likeminded soul who used to be in the excellent Blackmilk; his refusal to be pinned down stylistically, his unwillingness to treat his wonderful voice as a conventional rock instrument and his lively musical imagination have led to a kind of quietly compelling, meticulously wrought, unexpectedly addictive folk/jazz/chamberpop artsong hybrid that keeps serving up surprises."

http://kaganof.com/kagablog/2010/05/09/richard-haslops-albums-of-the-year-2009-3/

This is expected to be published in print over the next two issues of Audio Video Magazine.

Speaking of 'Africana' it was particularly thrilling to see Pieter Hugo's photographs of Konono No.1 in the April 2010 edition of Wire Magazine.

A more fitting marriage of photographer and subject I cannot imagine!

Letters

To the Publisher Pleyel

La Côte-Saint-André, 6 April 1819

Sir,

I have several pieces of music of my composition which I wish to have engraved. I am therefore writing to you in the hope that you will be able to realise my ambition. I would like you to take on the publication, with full rights, of a medley for six solo intruments on selected airs, the instruments being flute, horn, two violins, viola and cello. Please be good enough to see wether youc an do it, and how many copies you can let me have. I would be greatful if you would be so kind as to reply as soon as possible telling me how long it will take you to engrave it, and whether it is necessary to register the parcel. I have the honour to be your obedient servant.

Hector Berlioz

Pleyel replied with a refusal on 10 April: Berlioz had already written in similar terms on 25 March to the publishers Janet and Cotelle, with the same result.

Hector Berlioz 

A Selection of his Letters

Selected, editted and translated by Humphrey Searle

Gollancz

1966

A Coat of Arms

A Coat of Arms
A sea of snakes
A crown of knives
One for each mistake

This eagle is a buzzard
so run and tell your mother
This lion is a Griffin
Stabbing through the ribbons
I hear the souls descending
Coat of Arms is neverending

A Coat of Arms
A sea of snakes
A crown of knives
One for each mistake

The Viola in My Life - Morton Feldman

Feldman often spoke of his intention to create in music the sonorous equivalent of the 'flat surface' present in the contemporary American painters whom he admired and knew so well; in particular Mark Rothko and Philip Guston. Throughout his music, there is an awareness instrumentally  and texturally of composite sound. The role of instruments is to contribute unique timbres for the sake of unity. Seldom is Schoenberg's concern for 'hauptstimmer/nebenstumme' (primary voice/ secondary voice) evident. For this reason the viola's relief against other instruments in The Viola in My Life is remarkable.

The search for a musical flat surface led Feldman to explore very subtle differentiations in speech and the interactions of intruments. This is one reason why his music is quite soft; it is only at low dynamics that seemingly contradictory timbres (as in False Relationships and the Extended Ending) can achieve a union. He was fond of the expression "room noise" which are the ambient sounds made by and during music performance, when describing his orchestration. Feldman's percussion writing in particlar, like the drum and timpani sounds in The Viola in My Life 1, is a form of room noise not unlike Ive's concept of 'shadow counterpoint'

Nils Vigeland

Excerpt from Liner Notes to Morten Feldman's The Viola in My Life

New World Records