It’s time again (August 16-24)for Sound Unseen, the really remarkable festival of music, film and musicfilm/filmmusic. Typically features lots of smart work by local filmmakers and/or localmusicians,and special national projects, too. Walker’s copresented a number of events in the past (sadly, not this year), such as Sound Art Cinema with Christian Marclay, the found sound noise of People Like Us, the peerless inimitability of Captain Beefheart with Fast ‘n’ Bulbous, and films like Combinations (about boxing, with music by Matthew Shipp, tracking his andthe sport’srelationship to jazz) and The Harder They Come (starring Jimmy Cliff).
I’ve included an image above from the Danielson Familie doc, which should be interesting. The first record of theirs I ever heard was Fetch the Compass Kids, which was like an old quilt come to life. It boggled the mind and I often fell asleep to it that year, inducing some vivid, disturbing dreams. But, like many things you embrace with complete naive exuberance andoften come to question, I later heard some off-putting remarks attributed to “Brother Danielson” that were a little Falwell-esque. Don’t know if they were true, though. Maybe seeing this doc will help clear it up. And, if you didn’t enjoy the creative output of artists with questionable states of mind (Bob Dylan, Paul Gaugin, DMX), there probably wouldn’t be much left to ponder. Mel Gibson notwithstanding.
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