Category Archives: MUSIC

AFI FEST 2020 — SOUND OF METAL

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SOUND OF METAL—the story of a heavy metal drummer whose sense of hearing suddenly disappears, and one of the highlights of this year’s AFI Fest—is distinguished by writer-director Darius Marder‘s deep affection for his characters and the sensitivity with which these characters are brought to life.

Riz Ahmed stars as Ruben, the drummer for a band fronted by his partner, singer-guitarist Lou (played by Olivia Cooke). Paul Raci co-stars as the director of a sober living house for the deaf.

The film was co-written by Abraham Marder, from a story by Derek Cianfrance. See link below for streaming details.

SOUND OF METAL

AFI Fest Presented by Audi.

Streaming through October 22.

Following the film, Variety’s editor Clayton Davis leads a conversation with filmmaker Darius Marder, Riz Ahmed, Paul Raci, Chelsea Lee, and Shaheem Sanchez.

Darius Marder, Sound of Metal (2019), from top: Riz Ahmed; Ahmed at post-streaming Q & A; film cast, director, and interpreters at post-streaming Q & A; Ahmed in film. Images courtesy and © the filmmaker, the actors and interpreters, AFI Fest, and Amazon.


ELECTRONIC — FROM KRAFTWERK TO THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS

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Evoking the experience of being in a club, the exhibition ELECTRONIC—FROM KRAFTWERK TO THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS will transport you through the people, art, design, technology, and photography that have been shaping the electronic music landscape.*

See link below for details.

ELECTRONIC—FROM KRAFTWERK TO THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS

Through February 14, by appointment.

Design Museum

224–238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, London.

Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers, Design Museum, London, July 31, 2020–February 14, 2021, from top: Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall’s sensory experience for the Chemical Brothers’ track “Got to Keep On,” photograph by Guy Bell / Rex / Shutterstock; Kraftwerk, photograph by Guy Bell / Rex / Shutterstock; installation view, photograph by Felix Speller; Yuri Suzuki and Jeff Mills, The Visitor; masks from the Aphex Twin video Windowlicker (1999), photograph by Speller; Smith and Nyall’s “Got to Keep On” installation; Haçienda club designs by Ben Kelly and Peter Saville; Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers exhibition catalog; Jean-Michel Jarre’s imaginary studio, photograph by Speller; Weirdcore, Aphex Twin’s Collapse; 1024 Architecture, Core; Bruno Peinado, Untitled (The Endless Summer), 2007, photograph by Speller. Images courtesy and © the artists, the photographers, and the Design Museum.

DORIAN WOOD — ARDOR

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In March [2020, when everything was] shut down, knowing that I wouldn’t be going anywhere for a very long time, I took a month off to be sad and frustrated. When the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor set off a series of massive nationwide actions led by Black Lives Matter, I turned my feelings of anger and helplessness into motivation, which inspired me to work simultaneously on ARDOR and REACTOR. I created these two works to serve as love letters to activists, medical workers, and service workers everywhere—music to encourage acts of resistance, and to soothe at the end of the day…

[In June 2020] I was generously offered a week-long residency at Human Resources Los Angeles to do whatever I wanted. After months of being at home [in quarantine], I was so happy to have the opportunity to let loose inside a big, empty space, and one that has hosted so many of my past performances. I invited my dear friend and longtime guitarist Michael Corwin to come down and record a mix of original and cover songs we’d performed together over the years. We were masked and distant throughout the recording session. After the first hour of setting gear up, we immediately fell into our own special chemistry. Thus, most of the songs you hear on ARDOR are single recorded takes. — Dorian Wood

ARDOR—the first of two upcoming albums by Dorian Wood—will be released on Friday, September 4. The album includes three original compositions by Wood, as well as songs by Prince, Juan Gabriel, Malvina Reynolds, Violeta Parra, and Chavela Vargas.

On the weekend of ARDOR’s launch, the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles presents a livestream album release concert.

See links below for details.

DORIAN WOOD—ARDOR

Pre-order now.

DORIAN WOOD—ARDOR LIVESTREAM CONCERT

ICA / LA

Sunday, September 6.

Noon on the West Coast; 3 pm East Coast; 8 pm London; 9 pm Paris.

Dorian Wood, photographs by Gonzo Bojorquez (2); Wood, photograph by Max Fleury; Dorian Wood, Ardor (2020) cover; Wood, photograph by Fleury; Wood, photograph by Bojorquez. Images courtesy and © the artist and the photographers.

JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY

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Yes, as Richard Brody and others have pointed out, JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY—photographer Bert Stern’s indelible documentary of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival—could have been a different kind of film. Sonny Rollins, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, and Miles Davis—with John Coltrane in his sextet—were also in Newport that year, but their performances didn’t make the final cut.

Yet the film remains one of the greatest jazz documentaries ever made, a picture of the art form at its peak just as rock and roll was about to replace it as the country’s most popular musical genre.

The performances of Dinah Washington and Anita O’Day alone are worth the price of admission, and Stern’s camera also captures the playing of Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Guiffre, and Chuck Berry. The great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson closes the film.

JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY is screening now on Kino Lorber’s Kino Marquee. See link below for details.

JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY

Laemmle, Los Angeles

Bert Stern, Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959), from top: Dinah Washington singing “All of Me”; Anita O’Day; Jack Teagarden (left) and Louis Armstrong; Thelonious Monk; Ralph Ellison (left), Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival; poster courtesy and © Kino Lorber; program from the first Newport Jazz Festival, 1954; Miles Davis at the 1958 festival.

FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE

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In 1999 Mark Leckey released his video-montage FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE, a dreamscape vignette that communes with the rapturous promises of youth. Putting archive material to uncanny use, Leckey entwined purloined footage of underground dance and street culture in Britain with sampled and recorded audio. Completed on the eve of mass online file-sharing, FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE is ingrained with memories of subcultures, fleeting, rare, and precious.

In his print study of the work—a recent publication in the Afterall Books: One Work series—Mitch Speed “argues that by interweaving personal and collective memory, FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE gives voice to class and cultural transformation during the Thatcherite era. Oscillating between local and expansive resonances, it manifests as an homage, a love letter and an incantation.”

MITCH SPEED—MARK LECKEY: FIORUCCI MADE ME HARDCORE

Mark Leckey, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore (1999), stills (3), courtesy and © the artist and Cabinet Gallery, London. Mitch Speed, Mark Leckey: Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, image courtesy and © Afterall Books.