A nice little action comedy piece with a lot of famous faces. Nothing ground­brea­king or unpre­dic­ta­ble here but it’s worth watching for some cheap gig­gles or Josh Hart­nett in a towel for most of the film, if you like that sort of thing.

An hour later and I am finally able to make this post. Some weird corrup­tion as a result of Fire­fox 2.0s cache when switching bet­ween proxy’s led to all goo­gle ser­vi­ces and spe­ci­fi­cally their login pro­ce­du­res from fai­ling to load, thus I could not login to Blog­ger. Era­sing my pri­vate data from Fire­fox and star­ting over fixed the pro­blem until it occurs again.

Any­way, Man­der­lay is Lars von Trier’s sequel to Dog­vi­lle, a per­so­nal favou­rite. It sees Grace and her father, on their trip home from Dog­vi­lle pass Man­der­lay where a black woman pleads for help as a slave is about to be bea­ten. Grace steps in and libe­ra­tes all, enfor­ces democ­racy and sets about impro­ving the Man­der­lay com­mu­nity. The film con­se­quen­tially follows the events that occur the­reaf­ter and the route the small com­mu­nity takes. I don’t want to delve into the poli­ti­cal dis­cus­sions that arise from this film’s conc­lu­sions, I merely wish to urge you towards watching this monu­ment so that you may approach the table of debate with some inter­pre­ta­tions of your own.

Man­der­lay is mas­ter­ful and bri­lliant. It also stars the delight­ful Bryce Dallas Howard and Willem Dafoe:

Grace and her father

The ori­gi­nal and bare­bo­nes set

Grace Mar­ga­ret Mulli­gan: Dam­mit Wilhelm, they’re not free. That’s what mat­ters.
Wilhelm: I’d call that a phi­lo­sophi­cal argument.

Much like in the dis­co­very of the deca­ying Victorian-life films of Mitchell and Ken­yon, came the unearthing of a series of expe­ri­men­tal sounds by Halim El-Dabh recor­ded through 1944 to 1959. The par­ti­cu­lar elec­tro­nic con­coc­tion res­pon­si­ble for my wide eyed grin is the “Wire Recor­der Piece” (1944), a two minute para­nor­mal head-fuck (to be frank) that pre­da­tes the first known ‘techno’ track by two years, this is the track avai­la­ble above. A sur­mise of the ghostly atmosphere seems futile; it is the sound­track of an asy­lum; echoes of lost voi­ces rebound from cold ste­rile sur­fa­ces as if evo­ked by the dead. Indiana Jones has unvei­led the holy grail of noise; it is ghastly and awe-inspiring.

A collec­tion of these old tapes were relea­sed under the mis­gui­ding upbeat moni­ker of “Cros­sing into the Mag­ne­tic Elec­tro­nic”. The first nine tracks con­ti­nue in the same vein as the recor­der piece – an explo­ra­tion of the ins­ti­tute if you will. “Michael and the dra­gon” pas­ses an ope­ra­ting thea­tre tes­ting a new electro-shock-therapy pro­ce­dure – a deathly wail is detai­ned by the rever­be­ra­tions of alter­na­ting current that char­ges and con­demns; “Medi­ta­tion in White Sound” sees a pad­ded cell and straight jac­ket, a drug­ged out inva­lid ree­ling from wha­te­ver it is he is ree­ling from. “Pirouette” sees a rus­ted whee­led bed pass us com­plete with res­trai­ning cuffs and stai­ned sheets. The tall murky win­dows, high cei­lings and smell of disin­fec­tant are all too appa­rent in “Ele­ment, Being and Pri­me­val”. To say that I am pain­ting a pic­ture too bleak is to say that medi­cal holes in the trenches of The Great War lac­ked hygiene. “Elec­tro­nics and the word” is our final the­rapy ses­sion with the doc­tor before “Venice” sees our brief epiphany.

Volume 4 is the latest in the Antho­logy of Noise com­pi­la­tions, a series that reveals and narra­tes the hid­den tale of an ambi­guous Noise genre. This time it boasts a his­tory of noise that can be tra­ced back as far as 1937, a cer­tain track by Oli­vier Mes­siaen, a haun­ting seven minute Orai­son per­for­med by the Ensem­ble d’Ondes Mar­te­not de Montréal. This collec­tion is sig­ni­fi­cant for this track alone; to lis­ten to the sounds of a magi­cal long lost expe­ri­ment is hum­bling; for it would be deca­des before Messiaen’s piece found itself a home along­side the Basinski-like elec­tro­nic sounds­cape com­po­si­tions of what is now the 21st cen­tury. The usual com­ment “ahead of its time” would not do it jus­tice, this is motor cars in the time of cha­riots, this is the Wizard of Oz in full motion pic­ture colour before the advent of film.

You can find this track on the “Early Gurus of Elec­tro­nic Music” com­pi­la­tion that I also recommend.

Joanna Newsom’s latest album “Ys” is currently doing the rounds on my foo­bar whilst being widely prai­sed throughout the indie and alter­na­tive music scene. At the moment “Emily” is my favou­rite but that will likely change with time. To cele­brate here’s a live per­for­mance of my favou­rite track from her debut, “Milk Eyed Men­der” and it’s called “Clam Crab Coc­kle Cow­rie”. This was per­for­med in Japan in Octo­ber of last year.