ESOPUS MAGAZINE ::: Archive

ESOPUS CD #12: BLACK AND WHITE

“The composition of the film image is striking chiefly because only black, white and grey masses, black lines on a white ground, or white lines on a black ground, provide the raw material. A comparison can be made with music, in which articulate statements are possible only because definite pitches of sounds have been arranged in scales, and only these sounds are used in a composition.” —Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art, 1957

There has always been something magical—even essential—about the melding together of music and black-and-white moving images, starting with the use of a piano to accompany the first public screenings of the Lumière Brothers’ films in 1895. For the 12th Esopus CD, we took a cue from film theorist Rudolf Arnheim’s musings on the similarity of means between the two forms and asked 11 musical acts to select a black-and-white film to use as inspiration for a song. Some contributors took a more literal approach, reflecting on, or expanding upon, the film’s narrative; others created what are essentially postfacto soundtracks. They all prove to be fascinating complements to their source material.

Track List
(lyrics and credits available here)

1. “Blue Eyes in Black and White” by SAND PEBBLES
This irresistable foot-tapper takes its inspiration from Martin Ritt’s 1963 film Hud, in which Paul Newman plays an arrogant, immoral, and self-centered young cowboy at odds with his honor-bound father, Homer (Melvyn Douglas). The track, which presents itself as an instrumental until the arrival of a transcendent chorus in its last 30 seconds, is a pitch perfect paean to the star, the film, and the era.
FILM CLIP

2. “The Ballad of Blaze Tracy” by THE CALEDONIA MISSION
Charles Swickard’s 1916 silent western Hell’s Hinges tells the story of Rev. Bob Henley (Jack Standing), who moves with his sister Faith (Clara Williams) to lawless Placer Centre, where the ruling locals hire gunman Blaze Tracy (William S. Hart) to run the corrupt Henley out of town. As the Reverend falls from grace, Faith rehabilitates Blaze, who turns against his employers with devastating consequences. This achingly beautiful ballad from Caledonia Mission tells the story from Blaze’s point of view (“God, I ain’t been knowing you real well. But if you mean what you say, I want her....”), creating a haunting evocation of the film’s balancing act between piety and passion.

3. “Eine Symphonie des Grauens” by ME SUCCEEDS
Referencing F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 film, Nosferatu, Hamburg-based electro-pop outfit Me Succeeds slips into the minds of two of the film’s characters, the vampire Count Orlok (Max Schreck) and one of his potential victims, Ellen Hutter (Greta Schroeder). Driven by pulsing electronic beats, the song’s overlapping male and female vocals convey the thoughts of both characters: Orlok (Lorin Strohm) reveals a guilty conscience about his need to kill in order to live, while Ellen (Mona Steinwidder) decides to save the town from the plague’s culprit by sacrificing her own life.
FILM CLIP

4. “The Saddest Music in the World” by TWO DARK BIRDS
Brooklyn-based band Two Dark Birds explores the twisted narrative of director Guy Maddin’s highly regarded 2003 film The Saddest Music in the World: Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini), a legless beer magnate, sponsors a contest to find the saddest song in the world. This ballad beautifully relates the tragic story of the family at the center of the film. With its wistful atmospherics, it would easily have won the contest.
FILM CLIP

5. “Ciao Manhattan (First Draft)” by MILES BENJAMIN ANTHONY ROBINSON
Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life follows the deeply depressed George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) as his guardian angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), shows him how the small town of Bedford Falls depends on him in ways he never imagined. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson happened to be watching the film at his family’s house in Portland as he made the decision to leave New York after 10 years of living and working in the city. This soaring, anguished track conveys the conflicted nostalgia with which both Robinson and Stewart’s character are wrestling.
FILM CLIP

6. “Vance” by SAM AMIDON
In Anthony Mann’s Western melodrama The Furies (1950), Walter Huston and Barbara Stanwyck face off as the Machiavellian widowed rancher T.C. Jeffords and his ambitious daughter Vance. Sam Amidon finds a way into the film via an unlikely source: a traditional Appalachian fiddle song called “Vance No More.” With the help of Icelandic producer/ composer Valgeir Sigur•sson, Amidon’s song gradually metamorphosizes into a somber, layered meditation on this highly charged, ultimately tragic father-daughter relationship.
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7. “El Verdugo” by DJ/RUPTURE
The business of death is the central framework of El Verdugo (1963), the pitch-black comedic tale of José Luis Rodríguez, in which a young undertaker (Nino Manfredi) agrees to take on the job of a retiring executioner in order to marry his daughter Carmen (Emma Penella). Through his characteristically brilliant use of samples (including the evocative creaking of a cemetary gate he recorded in Lodes, Spain), DJ/rupture holds a sonic mirror up to the dark, fractured world of this cult classic.
FILM CLIP

8. “Scout Meets Boo” by LISA CERBONE
Based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, director Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer who agrees to defend a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in Depression-era Alabama. As the trial unfolds, the lives of Finch, his two children Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Phillip Alford), and their mentally disabled neighbor, Boo (Robert Duvall, in his film debut), are changed forever. Lisa Cerbone’s compelling folk-flavored song charts Scout’s dawning realization that the world in general—and her neighbor, Boo, specifically—are more complex than they initially appear.

9. “I’d Like to Go Swimming,” by THE RUBY SUNS
The silent classic Metropolis (1927)—which set records at the time as the most expensive film ever made—takes place in a futuristic urban dystopia where the subterranean “working” class are determined to rebel against the ruling “thinking” class, even if it means the destruction of their city. It serves as a worthy subject for The Ruby Suns, whose reverb-rich piece of propulsive psychedelia offers a perfect contemporary soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s masterpiece.
FILM CLIP

10. “Darker Numbers” by NAT BALDWIN
Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980) stars Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta, the real-life middleweight boxer whose personal demons ultimately destroyed both his professional and personal lives. Nat Baldwin, whose hypnotic work with bass cello brings to mind the late Arthur Russell, contributes a brooding track inspired by the film that posits LaMotta’s realization of his loss as he regards himself in a mirror.
FILM CLIP

11. “Repulsion” by NINA NASTASIA
In Roman Polanski’s first English-language film, Repulsion (1965), Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol, a young manicurist driven insane by her dichotomous attraction to and fear/hatred of sex. Singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia’s stripped-down take on the film is characteristically concise, strikingly intimate, and driven, as always, by her extraordinary voice.
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Musicians' Bios

Sam Amidon was born and raised in Brattleboro, VT, and began performing music with his parents, folksingers Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, in his teens. His albums include But This Chicken Proved False-hearted (Plug Research, 2007) and last year’s All Is Well (Bedroom Community). Based in New York, Amidon has collaborated with the group Stars Like Fleas, composer Nico Muhly, and musician Doveman.

Nat Baldwin has played bass for Tigersaw and the Dirty Projectors. His solo efforts include Lights Out (2005), Enter the Winter (2006), and Most Valuable Player (2008), all released on Broken Sparrow Records. He lives and works in Portsmouth, NH.

Brothers Anthony and Angelo LaMarca are Caledonia Mission. The Brooklyn-based duo, whose first album, The Name of the Horse, was released in 2008, tours with a revolving group of fellow musicians. Anthony LaMarca also moonlights as the drummer for Dean and Britta.

Singer-songwriter Lisa Cerbone’s albums include Close Your Eyes (1995) and 2003’s Ordinary Days (Wishing Tree), produced by Mark Kozelek. Her latest effort, We Were All Together, was released last year. Cerbone, who has won two Wammie awards for Best Alternative Female Vocalist in the Washington, D.C., area, lives in rural Maryland with her husband and two children.

New York–based DJ and producer Jace Clayton is DJ/rupture. His mixtapes include Minesweeper Suite (Tigerbeat6, 2002), Special Gunpowder (Tigerbeat6, 2004), and Uproot (The Agriculture, 2008). Clayton, who appeared twice on John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show, is also a member of the band Nettle. He writes frequently for The Wire, deejays the WFMU radio show “Mudd Up!” and runs Soot Records.

Formed in 2002 in Hamburg, Germany, Me Succeeds is Lorin Strohm, Sebastian Kokus, and Mona Steinwidder. The group has released a number of albums, including The Rooms We Left Behind (2005), Mountains Fighting Submarines (I Saw Music, 2006), and Riemerling (Sunday Service, 2007).

In 2000, Nina Nastasia self-released her acclaimed debut, Dogs, in an edition of 1,500 hand-packaged copies. Four albums have followed, all recorded by Steve Albin: The Blackened Air (2002) and Run to Ruin (2003) on Touch and Go (which also rereleased Dogs in 2004), and On Leaving (2006) and her 2007 collaboration with drummer Jim White, You Follow Me, on Fat Cat Records. Nastasia also recorded six sessions for John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show. She lives in Manhattan with her partner and collaborator, Kennan Gudjonsson.

Say Hey Records released the self-titled debut album of Brooklyn-based Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson last year. Recorded with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor and Chris Bear, it also features TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone. Malone will produce Robinson’s sophomore effort, Summer of Fear, due later this year.

California expatriate Ryan McPhun formed New Zealand–based The Ruby Suns in 2004. The band initially featured a revolving cast of local musicians but eventually coalesced into the core trio of McPhun, Amee Robinson, and Imogen Taylor. Its latest album, Sea Lion, was released by Sub Pop in 2008.

Drummer Piet Collins, bassist Christmas Hollow, and guitarist Ben Michael X of the Sydney-based band Sand Pebbles met while writing for the Australian soap opera Neighbours. Eventually joined by singer-guitarists Andrew Tanner and Tor Larsen and keyboardist Murray Ono, they have since released several albums, including this year’s A Thousand Wild Flowers (Double Feature).

Steve Koester (previously of Punchdrunk and Maplewood) recruited Jason Mills, Jude Webre, Don Piper, and Ben Wildenhaus to form Two Dark Birds in 2007. The Brooklyn-based group’s eponymous debut was released last year by Vfib Recordings.