Ben Lewis - Baader-Meinhof: In Love with Terror (2002)
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
BAADER-MEINHOF: IN LOVE WITH TERROR
How do you start a revolution in one of the world's richest, modern democracies? The Baader-Meinhof group, aka the Red Army Faction attempted to in 1970s West Germany with bombings, kidnaps and murders.
Ben Lewis' stylish film provides a unique insight into the notorious terrorist group and includes interviews with former RAF members and leaders of the West German government.
DIRECTOR INTERVIEW
BBC Four: What was the attraction of the Baader-Meinhof Gang at the time?
Ben Lewis: Guilt. I think young Germans were very guilty about the past and Baader-Meinhof offered them an attractive and very simple way to absolve themselves of that guilt. When we say attractive, we don't mean they had a lot of supporters, we mean there were a lot of people who were quite attracted by them.
There were only a very small number of people doing these attacks and sheltering them. But a lot of school children thought they were cool. They wore leather jackets and were full of sexy girls and were run by a sexy guy. This was the German answer to the Rolling Stones. Typically, Germans couldn't come up with the Rolling Stones because they have to be very serious about things; so they came up with a terrorist group rather than a rock group.
BBC Four: Where did the Baader-Meinhof Gang get their influences from?
Ben Lewis: Mao and a few South American guerrilla leaders. In a way the most important thing about the Baader-Meinhof Gang is that they read the guerrilla theories of Che Guevara and Carlos Marighella and decided to translate it to Western Germany. Let's translate a manual for warfare in one of the world's poorest countries to a manual warfare in one of the world's richest. And a lot got lost in the translation.
BBC Four: Did you detect any remorse or regret in any of the surviving members you interviewed?
Ben Lewis: Not really. One guy, Horst Mahler, is now a lawyer for the German NPD, which is a far-right, latter-day Nazi Party. So he obviously thinks it was a bit of a cock-up. But the rest of them, they're against violence now. Not because they think it isn't justified against the imperial-capitalist conspiracy of America against the rest of the world, but that the forces of imperialism are too strong to be overcome. They have recanted. The trouble is, once you ask them about their political beliefs it's quite clear that logically most would support violence. The theoretical framework is still there for most of the people I talked to.
BBC Four: Do you think they've had lasting impact on Germany?
Ben Lewis: I don't. I think it was a total dead end. The German Left in the 1960s was a big, heterogeneous and colourful force. Out of that you got the Greens and the anti-nuclear movement. These things had a tremendous impact on German society. The Baader-Meinhof Gang was a sideshow really. I think they did an enormous amount of damage to the Left.
Horst Mahler - contemporary fascist and ex RAF founder.
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at 11:15 PM
Amon Tobin - Foley Room Bonus DVD (2007)
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Summary
Genius of noise manipulation and uncompromising musical auteur, Amon Tobin has made, “Foley Room,” his most conceptually satisfying and beautiful album to date. Created using found sounds from tigers roaring to cats eating rats, from wasps to falling chickpeas, kitchen utensils to motorbikes to water dripping from a tap. Added to this were the sounds of musicians like the Kronos Quartet, Stefan Schneider and Sarah Pagé. He then took this wealth of source material and twisted it round into the haunting, muscular music you can hear throughout this remarkable album. Unique and compelling, “Foley Room” is set to stand out even amongst the consistently high quality of Tobin’s other output.
Biography
Somewhere back in the mid-90's a fresh faced Brazilian ex-pat living in the UK decided he was going to put down his harmonica, pick up a sampler, and name himself after a Stephen King novel. The resulting album, Cujo's 'Adventures In Foam' (released on Ninebar records, later reissued on Ninja Tune) signaled Amon Tobin's entry into the world of music. Well actually there's a pre-Cujo project also, but everybody knows not to talk about it... but if you get Amon really drunk... actually no, even then he won't play it for you.
Immediately upon hearing this record, the powers that be at Ninja Tune signed him up to record as Amon Tobin, and he quickly went to work on his debut 'Bricolage'. If you'll recall, these were the 'trip-hop' years for electronic music, where any clown with a sampler and a collection of Blue Note records could knock off some half-baked boutique hotel background music. But 'Bricolage' shone above all that. Although employing a
marriage of jazz and beats, it stretched it further by bringing in elements of bossa-nova, batucada, and jungle, and combining it with a sense of song-writing that elevated it above the standards of that aforementioned scene. I mean hell, it has a song on it which was inspired by Amon taking a piss on his neighbors bike after some domestic living dispute (‘A Day In My Garden’)...this was clearly no good vibes jazzy beats guy Ninja had signed.
Next up came 'Permutation'. Although stylistically a logical follow up to 'Bricolage', it was also on this album where things starting taking a noticeable turn to a much darker output. In fact you can actually trace Amon’s career based on coffee shop & dinner party accessibility...and let's just say that this record signaled the end of anyone being able to use Amon records as background music.
Call it end of millennium tension, but while the rest of us were out stockpiling food for the 2000 apocalypse, Amon was channeling all that into his third release 'Supermodified'. Treating it like if this was the end of the human race as we knew it and computers would never
work again (or god forbid, if we were to be ruled by apes), than damn if he wasn't going make this banger before the lights went out. The record was an experiment in sound. Marking the point where Amon become more and more obsessed with unheard but felt bass frequencies, and where he allowed
a few collaborators into the mix (mainly Chris Morris of Brass Eye & Blue Jam fame, and Montreal beatboxer Quadraceptor). The record where the bossa-nova/jazz Amon Tobin was for the most part laid to rest and the dark/electronic/soundtrack Amon Tobin came into form.
In 2002, Amon decided to relocate to Montreal. As Ninja Tune's North American headquarters is based there he'd spent a lot of time soaking in the culture and summer sunshine of the city, never once thinking that he'd never actually visited during the winter... So somewhere around the time he felt the sensation of his nose hairs freezing for the first time, he settled into his new studio armed with a fresh set-up and an A La Carte Express menu by his side (Montreal's bible of food for shut-ins) to put the finishing touches on 'Out From Out Where'. This was the logical conclusion of what the previous records had hinted at. It was a cohesive and banging record, but one with no obvious reference points. It just sounded like Amon Tobin, and Amon (more so than a lot of artists) can actually say his sound is very much recognizable as his own. The accompanying tour for this album also resulted in Amon's entry into the Solid Steel mix series, with a tough ass Final Scratch DJ set captured in Australia released in June 04.
In 2004 video game developers Ubisoft decided to approach Amon to compose all the music for the 3rd installment of their enormously popular Splinter Cell series. Seeing as he wasn’t able to get past the second level of Splinter Cell 1, he thought that making the soundtrack would clearly be an easier way to interact with this game. This was a chance for Amon to experiment with different ways of composing and to finally realize a teenage ambition (although the soundtrack in no way reflected his love for Galaga…even though that was a hot game). Also composing a proper soundtrack allowed him to be a little more progressively excessive, with the inclusion of extended string arrangements and over the top Hammond organ solos woven into his sounds. Like Italian prog sensation Goblin composing for a Bond film would be an apt comparison for this work. A love of soundtracks has always been a key influence in his work, and it clearly showed here. The game was released in March 05. An accompanying soundtrack on Ninja Tune was released soon after on CD/LP/ and 5.1 DVD-Audio. The surround element was pushed even further on the handful of live dates he did for this release. The thing about an Amon show is that you could always escape the immense volume by going to the back of the room... in surround there is no escape folks.
After his foray into the video game world Amon stepped back and took a hard look at what the next record would be comprised off. Having made several albums from reconstructed vinyl sources it was time to look at what else could be pulled apart and reassembled. The focus now has shifted from the source material altogether and placed squarely on the manipulation of sound regardless of it's origin. Armed with a sound engineer (Vid Cousins) and a collection of microphones he set out to find source material in pretty much everyplace possible. Robotics, animals, insects, musicians, utensils, motorbikes, and about a thousand other things that made interesting noises were all mic'ed and fashioned into the tracks that make up his new album 'Foley Room'. It should be noted that although the process was quite experimental that the record isn't an exercise in avant-garde music. Rather the end result is still pure Amon Tobin but pushed miles forward in sonics and melody due to the depth of source material. Also Amon isn't claiming to have invented the wheel here but rather is paying a certain hommage to a long history of musique-concrete composition, at the same time satisfying his love for pushing the envelope of his output and knowledge of the recording process. The process itself is documented on a short film/documentary that will be included with the CD & LP release of this record. Watch for an early single "Bloodstone" to be released on 12" and digital formats as a lead up early in 07, and the full album 'Foley Room' to drop in March 07.
Cover
Screen Shots
Amon Tobin has written a few words about the fact that Foley Room has been leaked, read it here.
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File Info
G-Spot - Export:
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at 2:16 PM
Alec Crichton, works from 2003 to 2005
Alec Crichton is a Köln based freelance designer, artist and writer. This torrent contains eight work's;
Lichtdifferenz(2005)
Schattenschieber(2005)
Frequenzfluss(2004)
Mauenheim(2004)
Widerholung(2004)
Wohnschimmer(2003)
Zaunsein(2003)
Zeitfluss(2003)
Since i don't how to make multitracker torrents in azureus, you will have to share this via demonoid(now it works..)!
at 2:00 PM
Anthony Discenza
Saturday, February 10, 2007
I received a little brown package, all the way from California, with two of Anthony Discenza's works yesterday. Moving Image and Object 8242600.
Moving Image stills
Object 8242600 stills
A few words Anthony wrote about he's practice back in June 2003:
Between the relentless spread of consumerism and the rapid advancement of technology, we find ourselves exposed to ever-greater amounts of visual stimuli. From television, movies, and the internet, to an endless sea of magazines and other print media, a steady stream of highly mediated imagery assaults us. In the constant battle for viewer attention, more and more of our information, regardless of its content or context, arrives in the form of elaborately manipulated visual sequences formally and structurally indistinguishable from mass entertainment. The result is a profound level of alienation, a gradual poisoning of our own experience as the logic of the spectacle colonizes our own internal narratives.
As a visual artist complicit in the production and consumption of images, I find this situation both fascinating and deeply problematic. I'm particularly concerned with the violence which informs our media over-exposure. By this, I'm not necessarily referring to specific violent images or content, but rather to the dissociative effects produced by the speed, quantity, and extreme disparity of the imagery we consume. My work attempts to expose this violence while acknowledging its seductive, anaesthetizing force.
I work mainly with visual material appropriated from commercial film and television. Using re-recording, compression, and signal degradation to break down the original information, I look for ways to collapse media imagery into itself, to arrest it within a moment of simultaneous destruction and reification. Through this collapse, I'm trying to uncover layers of meaning not apparent in the original context. At the same time, I'm interested in revealing the world of images around us as a very "real" space--one which shapes our world view in all sorts of potent but invisible ways. Finally, my goal is to destabilize the act of viewing itself, in the hopes of revitalizing the ways we engage with this both ubiquitous and unseen world of images.
Anthony Discenza
June 2003
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at 4:15 PM
Guy Debord
Misc films of and/or with Guy Debord.
Self-proclaimed leader of the Situationist International, Guy Debord was certainly responsible for the longevity and high profile of Situationist ideas, although the equation of the SI with Guy Debord would be misleading. Brilliant but autocratic, Debord helped both unify situationist praxis and destroy its expansion into areas not explicitly in line with his own ideas. His text The Society of the Spectacle remains today one of the great theoretical works on modern-day capital, cultural imperialism, and the role of mediation in social relationships.
After the dissolution of the Situationist International, Debord was tangentially implicated in the assassination of his friend and publisher Gérard Lebovici. The accusations infuriated Debord, and he consequently prohibited the showing of his films in France during his lifetime. Debord continued writing, and in 1989 he published his Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle, arguing that everything he wrote in 1967 was still true, with one major exeception: the society of the spectacle had reached a new form, that of the integrated spectacle. The prospect of overturning the society of the spectacle seemed more unlikely than ever. In December of 1994, at the age of 62, Debord killed himself. The French press, who had always repudiated the significance of the Situationist International, suddenly made him a celebrity.
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at 1:04 AM
The Tiger Lillies & Alexander Hacke - The Mountains of Madness [+Extras] (2006)
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Synopsis
H.P. Lovecraft, born on the 20th of August 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, was hardly known as an author during his lifetime. After his death his reputation as master of the macabre was immortalized and his work is considered a classic of horror-literature. On the 18th of August 2005 the World premiere “Mountains of Madness” was dedicated to this master by the artists Alexander Hacke (known as bassist of Einstürzende Neubauten), Berlin Icon Danielle de Picciotto and the legendary English group The Tiger Lillies. This humorous and darkly melancholic production combines an unusual combination of varieté, opera and gypsy- music with sinister industrial sounds and clashes - the brilliant falsetto-voice of Martyn Jaques, the singing saw, the accordion as well as the upright bass are entwined by Alexander Hackes electronic soundscapes- a new experience for the Tiger Lillies, who have never been accompanied by electronic instruments before. The beautiful illustrations of Danielle de Picciotto influenced by Italian and Dutch renaissance “Natura Morta” still-lives and modern toy-catalogues make up most of the stage-set together with the light-design by Lutz John, usually known for his expressive work with the German pop group “Wir Sind Helden”.
Extras
* Interview with directors Alexander Hacke and Danielle De Picciotto
* Short documentary "Tiger Lillies visit H.P. Lovecraft's grave"
Notes
Should be standalone-compatible
Not my rip, thanks to the original uploader.
As this is mainly a concert, he didn't touch the audio, 448kbit/s 5.1Channel AC3 sound.
Screenshots
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at 11:04 AM
Angela Schanelec - Marseille (2004)
Monday, January 22, 2007
The first movie of the "Berliner Schule" ("La Nouvelle Vague Allemande" Cahiers Du Cinema) that gained international recognition with it being screened in the "Un certain regard"-section of Cannes Film Festival 2004.
After the very sparse white on black of the opening credits we see the back of Sophie's head. She's in a car, she speaks awkward French, the woman who drives gets out, gets her a map, of Marseille. We learn, very soon, that they are exchanging apartments, the other woman, her name, we learn later, is Zelda, will go to Berlin and Sophie will stay, for a few weeks, in Marseille. Zelda says: Guten Tag, Auf Wiedersehen, Mein Freund, der Baum, ist tot - the latter phrase being a German song by a German singer who died young. Zelda disappears, Sophie stays. Zelda very literally disappears because there won't be a trace of her when Sophie will return to Berlin. The Marseille apartment, empty, unlived in as it is, will have been a gift, something inexplicably given in a film that ends with something - almost a life - taken.
Sophie, for the first third of the film, is in Marseille. She walks around, she takes pictures. She looks at the pictures, she moves without a direction, the camera is with her, sometimes distant, sometimes following her closely. Sophie is a stranger in a strange world, she sometimes seems cut off from her surroundings. We hear sounds, we see her face but the background is blurred. She does not seem unhappy, she does not seem happy. She does not talk much and she always thinks for a long time when she is asked. In the end she will be asked what it is she photographs. She will think for half a minute (or perhaps she does not think, but simply refuses to answer, to herself, to the policeman who asks) and then she says: The streets.
We do not know much of her and we do not learn much of her in these minutes we spend in Marseille, walking around with her. She meets a young man from a garage, who lends her his car, she drives around, which we don't see. There is a lot we don't see - although it takes some time to realize how much. She meets the young man in a bar, they drink, a friend arrives who insults Sophie, for no reason. Sophie and Pierre, the young man, walk up in a street that is lit in brownish golden light and they sleep with each other, which we don't see (and, really, don't know). The next night they dance.
One very sharp cut later Sophie is back in Berlin, she is approached by a young woman who returns a cap to her, a cap she has left in a McDonald's restaurant before she went to Marseille. There is more she has left, or rather: she has run away from. (At least this is what can - but does not have to be - inferred.) There is Ivan, a photographer she might be in love with. There is Hanna, an actress, Ivan's girl friend, their son Anton. We learn more about Ivan, we learn more about Hanna. We see Ivan taking pictures of women workers in a factory, without an explanation. We just see and watch. We watch the women from a sidewards angle, then we watch Ivan taking the pictures, then we watch the woman from Ivan's perspective. They talk, but not much. We just hear and see and watch. There is a lot we see - although it takes some time to realize how much. We are left with these images. They remain unexplained and they don't explain what we see. "Marseille" has a bewildering structure, switching from the elliptical cut (shocking, really) to the insistent gaze (frustrating first, but amazing after all).
For ten minutes, at least, we watch a rehearsal. Hanna plays a minor role in a Strindberg play. The same scene is rehearsed three times. We watch the man talking to the woman in an aggressive Strindberg way and we see Hanna entering the stage. Then the camera moves to the left and we watch the woman answering to the man in an aggressive Strindberg way. This time we don't see Hanna entering the stage. When leaving she makes a mistake, she adds a word that does not belong in her line. We see her then off stage, cowering. Hanna is not happy. She is not happy with David, she suffers from unexplainable pain. We do not learn much more about her. Sophie is out of sight for quite some time. We start doubting if this is really her story we are told. Oh yes, it is, but Schanelec refuses to follow her and her story in linear fashion. Ivan's taking of pictures, Hanna's rehearsal become important, not so much as explanations for their behaviour, just as the parts of their lives Schanelec has decided to follow.
Sophie then returns to Marseille and after the most daring ellipsis we see her at a police station, in a yellow dress. She sits, then she talks, then she does not talk for half a minute. She is asked what it is she photographs. The streets, she says after what seems a very long time. She cries. We see her on a sidewalk, the camera moving parallel to her. She crosses the street, the camera remains on the sidewalk, Sophie is moving away from it. Then she stops and the camera stops. She enters the German consulate. In Schanelec's (and cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider's) films you see the most intelligent and subtle travellings imaginable - and even mor effective as they starkly contrast with a lot of very long, very static takes that just make you watch and see.
"Marseille" ends with a series of takes on the beach. It is getting dark, the streetlamps are switched on. We see Sophie in her yellow dress, distant, moving, we see the sea and there is a strange kind of consolation in this image of the dress, Sophie, the sea.
Language: French/German Subtitles: English
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at 11:59 AM
