Labels: Future Noise
Review by: Captain Fidanza
When I first moved to London, I used to go to the National Film Theatre on the south bank about once a week. Probably the only thing which kept me here through what turned out to be an incredibly stressful first few months, was the BFI Werner Herzog retrospective which offered a much needed haven from the insane clamourings of the Prozac addicted lunatic I had ended up living with.
Since those dark days of autumn 2001, the National Film Theatre has been rebranded, refurbished and remarketed to the point where it is unrecognisable from the tatty shithole with filthy toilets which insulated me against the horrors of metropolitan living ten years ago. One thing however which has not changed, is the vast number of pseudo-intellectual twats who habitually loiter in its corridors talking in loud voices about what they think about films. I remember once standing outside what used to be screen 3 and overhearing the following conversation between two middle-aged buffoons with copies of the Guardian’s Culture section rolled up under their arms:
1st Twat – “I watched Final Destination Two in the week; utter trash.”
2nd Twat – “Really? I like it.”
1st Twat – “Really?”
2nd Twat – “Yes. I thought it was brilliant in a Grand Guignol sense.”
At the time I had no idea what “Grand Guignol” meant but the very fact some knob had used a French phrase to describe a film about horrible American teenagers being horribly massacred made me shake my head like a disappointed zookeeper who has just witnessed a gibbon apparently smiling after flinging semen onto a small child’s ice-cream.
Together with “Grand Guignol” I also learnt the phrase “Mise-en-scène” whilst waiting patiently in the corridors of The National Film Theatre. “Mise-en-scène” refers to the positioning or arrangement of everything within a scene from the actors and props to the sound effects and musical score and it is a term which quite adequately describes large portions of this album.
Track one begins like this:
Footsteps.
Woman sobbing.
Swarm of bees.
Piano.
Violin.
All of which gives you the impression that you are listening in on something taking place somewhere probably dark and damp which in all likelihood has not been sanctioned by the local council.
After a while the sobbing fades and someone playing the triangle quickly segues into some violin music which sounds very familiar to the music played in The Shining which transforms an otherwise benign shot of an empty corridor into the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen.
The arrangement of the five tracks on this album is brilliant, each managing to switch and shift between seemingly unrelated forms of sound whilst somehow remaining part of a cohesive whole.
Incidentally, at the end of one of the five tracks, after the sound of a wolf pack howling in a distant forest has gradually died away, we are treated to a live recording from that abandoned train car of the final grisly moments of Laura Palmer.
How’s that for Grand Guignol ?