Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Culture: Jim Jarmusch`s SQÜRL Scores Man Ray Films @ Brookfield Place, New York

(Drivebycuriosity) - Jim Jarmusch is one of my favorite movie directors. I love his films, especially "Only Lovers Left Alive", "Broken Flowers", "Dead Man" & "Down by Law". The moviemaker is also an ambitious and talented rock musician. Yesterday I enjoyed a performance of SQÜRL, a 2 man band, consisting of him (guitar & keyboards) and Carter Logan (percussion & keyboards)

SQÜRL scored four silent short films by Man Ray in Wintergarden @ Brookfield Place in South Manhattan (wnyc). The show will be repeated tomorrow 8 pm at the same place. They announced also that they plan to deliver this show at some of the big rock festivals this year.

Man Ray was an experimental artist (1890-1976) and a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, says Wikipedia (wikipedia). You can see this in his movies. SQÜRL selected four short films: Retour a la Raison (1923), Emak Bakia (1926), Les Mysteres Du Chateau Du De (1929,) L’Etoile De Mer (1928) (running time together about 1 hour).

The films are funny and surprising. Ray used the camera like a toy and played with the available technologies, including stop-motions. Many scenes looked like the work of surrealist painters (driveby). The movies are also a praise of female beauty.



The purely instrumental score by SQÜRL fit perfectly to the films and amplified the sentiment. They created an atmospheric blend of grunge, heavy metal and psychedelic rock. The slow but powerful pieces, originally composed for this show, reminded of bands like Mogwai (driveby).

If you enjoy the combination of old movies with contemporary alternative rock you might watch out for the announced SQÜRL gigs this year or attend tomorrow´s show @ Winter Garden.






Enjoy!

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