electronic dance music

Here's a piece - the last bit of pre-lockdown writing I did  - for 4:3 on the Alwin Nikolais radical-dance piece Noumenon - choreographed and debuted in 1953, but here caught in a 1995 retrospective of the works of the avant-dance genius.

I first came across Nikolais's work quite by chance back in the early 2000s, when the East Village apartment block complex over the road from us had its annual stoop sale. Not expecting to find anything of interest in a cardboard box crammed with sad, shabby looking LPs, I stumbled upon an album of Nikolais's "choreosonic music of the new dance theatre", going for $1.  The cover sent an electric shudder of anticipatory excitement through me.

The cross-pollination of avant-classical music and avant-garde ballet has a long tradition, but unusually - possibly uniquely - Nikolais created his own electronic and musique concrete scores for his work. He also devised the startling light design, the costumes and wigs and bizarre head-gear, and every other component of the spectacles he staged -  which as I write in the 4:3 appreciation, "hovered somewhere in-between ballet, kinetic sculpture, avant-garde fashion, and ritual ceremonies from the far future or from some alien civilisation".

Here are some examples Nikolais's work, including this recreation of "Tensile Involvement" for the opening sequence to Robert Altman's twilight-era film The Company (the movie heads sharply downhill after this, let me tell you).


















Update: Andrew Parker points me to this bizarre film, for which Nikolais did the choreography




How are you all doing out there / in there? Slowly going barmy as time turns mushy.

Here's a playlist about Invented Instruments I did for 4:3, the Boiler Room's platform for film and video to do with subculture, sonic extremes and all things oddball and avant.

Here's a few sonic inventions that didn't make the cut.










The Apprehension Engine from Mark Korven on Vimeo.






Pierre-Andre Arcand 1986 from Productions Rhizome on Vimeo.

Here's a playlist  + commentary I did for 4:3 (Boiler Room's platform for underground film + video + docs) on the subject of anti-drug films and commercials. I particularly commend to your eyeballs + eardrums "Curious Alice", "The Maggot", and "Illusions", but the whole thing is worth a peruse, as indeed is the rest of the stuff up at the site.

Here are some extra drug-scare films that didn't make the cut.




[A history of drugs] from I•HATE•THIS•FILM on Vimeo.

"visual music" talk at Tate Modern July 27 ++++ Post Punk events in Italy - Locorotondo (July 21-22), Milan (23), Rome (24)

Presented by 4:3 as part of the Uniqlo Tate Late series, on July 27 I'm giving a YouTube illustrated talk about "visual music" - a subset of 20th Century experimental animation - with particular focus on alliances between film makers and musique concrete composers, and on animators who created their own electronic scores.  

The event is free, but requires a ticket - these can be picked up from 17.00 hrs onwards on  the day of the event at the Level 0 Ticket Desk at the Tate Modern.

UNIQLO TATE LATE
TATE MODERN - FRIDAY 27 JULY 2018
Visual Music
Starr Cinema, Boiler House Level 1
19:10: doors open
19:30 - 21:00 talk + films 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Before arriving in London, I'm participating in the LOCUS FESTIVAL in Locorotondo (near Bari, in the Apulia region of S.E. Italy) and doing events in Milan and Rome based around the minimum fax republication of Postpunk 1978-1984 (aka Rip It Up and Start Again). 

LOCOROTONDO

Saturday July 21
19:00 hrs, Largo Mazzini
POST-PUNK 1978-2018: 40 anni di musiche, cultura e società.

Gli ultimi decenni di musica negli scritti di Simon Reynolds.
Con Simon Reynolds, Vittorio Bongiorno, Nicola Gaeta ed Enzo Mansueto

Sunday July 22

18:00 hrs,  Casa Locus, Locorotondo (Ba)

WRITING MUSIC: scrivere la musica
Workshop con Simon Reynolds. Incontro esclusivo ravvicinato su tecniche e metodi del giornalismo musicale.
Posti limitati, prenotazione gratuita RSVP su http://bit.ly/scriverelamusica

MILAN

July 23

7 pm Post Punk event at Verso libri bookshop

In conversation with Giulia Vavaliere. 

Translator Michele Piumini. 

July 24

11 - 12.30 - playing records on  Radio Raheem

ROME

July 24

8 pm - Post Punk event at Monk 

In conversation with Chiara Colli. 

Translator Michele Piumini

visual music + colour in rhythm

Boiler Room has launched a new platform -  4:3 - dedicated to a wide range of underground film, video art, documentary, and found footage, connected by themes of "performance, identity, youth culture and anti-establishment."

For the launch, I've contributed a playlist of Experimental Animation - ten clips that provide a swift survey of the art from its dawn shortly after World War I through to the waning of the analogue era in the late Nineties. Digital, for various reasons later to be explored, is a whole other zeit I feel, and possibly a geist-less one.

The playlist is the fruit of the unexpected eruption of a long dormant obsession, one that dates back to adolescence, when for a while I fancied the career of cartoonist as a life path. The slant of my selection is less on laughs, though, and more about abstract beauty, geometries-in-motion, macabre whimsy, zany mania, psychotic Pop Art,  and a uniquely East European absurdism.

Do check out the other cool stuff in this debut edition of 4:3,  which includes curation from Ryuichi Sakomoto, Peaches, and Elijah Wood, and playlists devoted to archival rave footage,  legendary concert films, vintage grime, the early days of house club culture. queer video art, UK garage, and more, including original content.  Access is free with registration.

Here's a handful of the scores and scores of animations that easily could have made the cut..