"The Fountain" dir. Darren Aronofsky

Wow. I really fucked up on this one. I had meant to see this in the theaters months ago and just got too lazy. i feel sorry that i did. I just watched this film tonite and i'm utterly blown away. I think i had goosebumps for more or less the entire film. Every shot was something that my body reacted to in a heart tugging sort of way, like Darren Aronofsky was pushing all of my personal aesthetic pleasure buttons. LEt me get this out of the gate right away, in hopes that i don't repeat (although given to my own kind of hyperbole, i'm sure i will): this film is staggeringly beautiful. It's beyond stunning. I can't believe that this is the product of one person, but in another way, i can. I like Aronofsky a lot-i think he's an amazing director, i will even say an autuer-who goes deep into the feelings behind his films. He pulls his images and his mise-en-scene out of some deep primordial emotion pool inside himself and what he comes out with is always amazing, like a painting spilling onto film, completely alive and dancing with you. In "Pi" it was paranoia rendered in stark black and white; in "Requiem for a Dream" it was total emotional and physical devastation in tense/terse, ultra sharp colour; in "The Fountain" it's love and hope breaking down boundaries of space and time, flying through a world that is beyond heavenly and somewhere far beyond the surreal. There are so many gorgeous images in this film, several times i was near tears (i shit you not.) So as a piece of directorial accomplishment, it's breathtaking. But as a film, whole and complete, i have to think of it as something of a flawed masterpiece. Please don't get me wrong-i am not trying to say this is a bad film-it is not-but there are some missteps. Largely, for me, the problem is dialogue and characterization. What conversation there is is incredibly generic and not much deeper than a wading pool, which is unfortunate given the philosophies that the film itself is working with. I guess it's probably because Aronofsky wrote the screenplay and this time he didn't have a magnificent book as source material as he did with "Requiem." The there's the characters. I had a hard time feeling any attachment to them at all, even though they're going through some pretty heavy shit. In "Requiem", again, i felt like i was right there with everyone and watching their lives turn to shit was almost unbearable. Those people were real to me. What was happening was terrifying. In this film we're gievn mere sketches that are supposed to pass as our emotional beacons and footholds and it just doesn't work. The love is supposed to transcend time and space, and while on an intellectual level i know what Aronofsky was going for, he didn't make me really feel it, aside from the wrenching power of the images. Complaints are now over with. I think the beauty of this film is reason enough alone to see it. I bought it, and i'm glad that i have it because i'm certain i will return to it again and again. The art Aronofsky has created will not diminish despite the flaws. I think you should see this movie, i really do...it's achingly beautiful. I haven't seen anything like it in a long time. Maybe ever.

Video from the Uptown and reviving the dead

Hello, here is a bit of video from the Uptown BUNGE projection show. It did not turn out visually optimal, but you'll get the idea.


Also, there has been a new discovery! Heart cells don't die right away after a heart attack. There is a new science of recitation emerging. Soon, it will be practical to bring folks back to life, hours after clinical "Death".
Read about it at msnbc: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18368186

CULVER "The Witches Ladder" 3" CDR

And here we have the second release i picked up from Small Doses, Culver's "The Witches Ladder." Culver i know a little more about-this is the personal project of one of the guys in ultra death droners Mazuraan, who are simply fucking amazing. Totally misanthropic hateful sludge drone marches to some sort of unpleasant and torturous experience. So i had high hopes for Culver, especially hearing from various sources that this project was even more mean spirited and noisy. While that isn't what this particular recording is, it's fucking awesome. One piece of thick, pulsing unending molasses style drone for a perfect 17 minutes. As with the best drone pieces, if you listen closely and just get washed into the music, you'll hear all sorts of minute changes and little permutations swimming alongside the epoch swath of pulse, and it'll lift you to that nether region of brain activity where you just zone the fuck out. Masterful. Head pounding. Totally crushing, but very relaxing and peaceful in an ultra loud, trance sort of manner. I'm going to track down everything i can from Culver. This reminds me a lot of Growing's finest moments, when the guitars just keep going and going and going, endlessly recycling themselves in a washing machine hum of pure white auditory hypnotism. So damn good.

FENCES "s/t" 3" CDR

I know very very little about this entity, other than the music on the record. I don't know who this is, nor have i heard anything from them beyond this. So we're going in pretty unprepeared. I do know that this comes from a cool label called Small Doses who release, fittingly enough, "small (3") CDR's in very limited quantities (this one was limited to 66, i think.) So what sorta music is it? It's pretty awesome metallized uberdrone, ala the old masters Earth, or maybe the new masters Birchville Cat Motel. This is a massive tower of guitar sludge sculpted into some beautiful silvery shards of sweaty, throbbing feedback. The whole thing twists its shape and contorts in upon itself, only to reemerge anew amdist its own ashes in a globular form of tarry melodocism, like a star bursting apart in some frozen galaxy at negative one billion miles per hour (yep, it's some good slow sludge!). It's stunning stuff and i'm really looking forward to whatever this group (is it more than one person?) puts out next. My only complaint is that it's only 10 minutes long, but a full length might be pretty scary business, as for the 10 minutes that i spent listening to it, my brain pretty much leaked out of my head and oozed away to some primordial oblivion.

BUNGE Exploration video TONIGHT at the Uptown

Live for one night only, I am screening an "Urban Exploration" video of the good old BUNGE.
This evening at the Uptown, I will project beautiful images of the BUNGE TOWER, and the graffiti art within,
onto Minneapolis band "They The Down Low" as they play a live soundtrack.

Theres no cover. Drop on by.
3018 Hennepin Ave South
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Tel: 612.823.4719
Please also see the GLORIOUS and shocking photos of it's demolished state here.

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ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE/MAMMATUS @ Triple Rock 5/6/07.

Ben and i took in a massive slab of psychedelic indulgence last night courtesy of two of the best acts in the genre, the esteemed Acid Mothers Temple and newcomers (although they have two awesome records to their name) Mammatus. Twas Ben's first time bearing witness to the onslaught that is the AMT and my fourth time, so i was pretty excited by the time concert time rolled around. I'm not a huge concert goer anymore-i think this is the first show i've been to in many many months-but i'm glad i got out for this one as both bands turned in unrepentant, if aesthetically opposed, sets. Mammatus took the stage and immediately busted into a faster psych rocker that was completely unlike the doom influenced Melvins worship they fell into about five minutes later. The riffs became slower and more rock/cliche oriented, all while swirls of fuzz clouds and ultra loud whooses of wah noise filled the room. The drummer was a Dale Crover clone for sure, which is never bad in my eyes, especially when done well, and really the whole thing smacked of Melvins worship, right down to the dresses the members wore on stage and the onstage moves/vocals that their lead guitarist involved himself in. I remember when i was really into the idea of Melvins worship as well (still am to a degree!); i think i might even have the dress i fashioned for myself after seeing them on the Crybaby tour. The other influence that really stuck out at me, besides Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, was Sleep-so Mammatus wasn't really bringing anything new, but they do what they do very well, they write some awesome syrupy sludge riffs and wrap the whole thing in a bag of pysch demolition and guitar extravagance. I liked it a lot-enought to buy a shirt (didn't hurt that it had a wizard on it) and realize that they pretty much blew both of their studio records out of the water on the stage.

And then came the main event, the true heirs to the modern psych throne, the mighty AMT out of JApan. Those who know me know of my devotion to this band-they take up more space on my cd shelves than any other group (i think i have over 100 of their cds/records in my possession, and that's not even th half of their output)-and they have been a huge influence on my guitar playing and generally one of my fave "mind expanders" when i'm "getting into the shit." Their set began with a shriek of Guitar feedback from the mighty Speed Guru and after that it was right into a little 5 minute excesso rock rave up to set the mood. So far so good-and then the set took a strange and unexpected turn. The next track was a plodding, droning piece of crust metal that was one chord for about 10 minutes, along with the folk rock mountain songs of Japan that their bassist can pull out at any time. it was AMT doing doom metal most certainly and it was fucking right on, people, right fucking on! totally awesome. heads were nodding across the 80 people that had gathered and the drone beat us all into compliance. Things followed that route for the rest of the night-the set, while filled to the brim with crazy ass space synth and wailing banshee guitar leads, alongside equally crazed vocals from Cotton Casino's heir apparent-walked a fairly mellow, subdued path (for the AMT, at least.) Things segued into a 30 minute or so three part version of " Pink Lady Lemonade" that broke hearts and reached into the clouds and the night was brought out to a close with a 40 minute (it HAD to have been) version of one of my fave AMT pieces, the mighty folk ballad "La Novia." This was waaaaay different than the last time i saw them, which was an all out rock fest that ripped the jugular right out and left no faces unshorn from heads-definetely crazy compared to this almost mantra-esque performance. it seemed more in line with some sort of Buddhist Temple ritual than a rock show, which is fine with me, and it was cool to see this weirder more complacent side of the AMT juggernaut. Things ended abruptly after "La Novia" finally supernova-ed into the blistering piece of psch insanity that it is and the AMT disappeared from the stage to sell the 30 or so cd's they had brought with them. I snagged a few things that i didn't have, including their newest record, but i was bummed that they didn;t have their upcoming record on Important with them (even though the people at Important swore that they would have the record with them on tour.) Oh well. You can't get everything all the time, and when what i got was this amazing headfuck of guitar armaggedon for three hours straight, i'm not gonna complain.

HOTOTOGISU "Spooked Summer" CDR

Just got this in the mail a couple days ago, listened to it last night as i was drifting off to the nether realms of consciousness. Hototogisu are one of my favorite psych/noise bands going right now, and i've been lucky enough to have caught them pretty much right at the beginning of their career several years ago, so every record is like i'm evolving right along with them. HG is a duo consisting of Matthew Bower (the legend, the genius, the person responsible for the head churining devastation of Skullflower, Total, Sunroof! and Marcia Bassett (of the equally amazing Double Leopards and her own amazing amp destruction project, Zaimph) so of course you know that anything produced by such a union is going to be nothing short of totally brilliant. This new one another dense slab of skree and guitar extremism but it doesn't have the violence that has characterized the majority of HG work (i won't say all, because their have been a couple records that get into some seriously sweet bliss out moments.) "Spooked Summer" tightropes somewhere between the two styles-the feedback and whirring never let up, and there's all sorts of noised up trance shit going every which way, but the overall feel is one of sweet melodicism and dare i say almost a "mellow" vibe. Don't read too much into that-this record seriously destroys, especially if played at the requisitie crushing volumes, but it seems to reference a minimalism practiced by the likes of Conrad or Young, a desire to lift the listener to another realm of mental experience via volume, repetition and an intense layering of overlapping noises. It's like getting your head lost in some thick, choking cloud, but what you're choking on is some sweet sweet oversaturated piece of humming melodic guitar cake...so suffice to say i love this shit, alongside this album i got Marcia's new record as well and i may do another review to see if i can find a division between the two. Highly recommended, as is everything from these two!!