A few days ago, i had the chance to share a coffee for the first time with the great and very funny Jon Brion in LA. I’m hoping to do a project with him in the next months (a few good and hilarious ideas were exchanged) but it was more of a first encounter talk, talking about everyday likes and dislikes, attitudes and general ideas on the society in between anecdotes. Talking about some of my favorite topics - the rise of the amateur culture and the disappearance of professionals, amongst others. When talking about the music we were listening to those days, i realized that even if i continue to follow and enjoy more or less the everyday buzz of the internet era, made mostly of European and North American indie music, my strongest recent experiences were with people that have something in common: they are often considered as ‘outsiders’, they are not part of ‘it’, not part of any genre, of any music world - i think about the incredible and still very unknown Kazuki Tomokawa (i still have to edit the hour long movie i did with him in Japan last february, and i swear you will be amazed), Lhasa de Sela, Damo Suzuki, Lydia Lunch or the wonderful Havels, to whom i dedicate this week video.
All those people gave me the feeling that their music was part of something way bigger, way more important - themselves, and their other experiences in life. Their music was a simple continuity of their ideas and positions on other matters, and the whole formed something extremely strong, coherent and inspiring. They don’t see themselves as professionals in their field, but much more as everyday creators, work and life being not separated at all.
Tomokawa is probably the most extreme figure - he is mostly known in Japan as a bike-race gambler (he gives advices and tips on TV), but is also a painter, an actor (in some Miike movies, and in a few sex movies as i have heard…), a cooker, an intense alcoholic, before being a folk figure (and to me the most incredible performer i have ever witness). I hope to be able to finalize the movie about him before next october - the movie is named so far ‘La Faute des Fleurs’, and is the second element in a new serie (Musiciens de Notre Temps, created by my friend Antoine Viviani) dedicated to very unique and quite unknown musical creators. But before that, the first movie of the serie, ‘Little Blue Nothing’, a 50min film dedicated to the Havels, should soon be released in conjunction with the Brassland label.
The story behind my relationship with the Havels is pretty strong, and comes back a few years back when Gaspar Claus introduced me to this album named ‘Little Blue Nothing’ that Bryce Dessner gave us as a burned cd. There was not much indication of where it was coming from, and the music haunted us for a while. After some research, it all came back to this story of Bryce’s sister buying their album in the streets of Copenhagen in 1991, where they were playing in pure bohemian style. It took us a few years i guess to finally be in touch with them, and learn they were coming from the region of Prague. Discussing briefly their music with some Czech people and having them categorized in ‘yoga music’ or something like that was obviously a strong reason for us to try to show their music to the world, differently. And so for a few years, we fantasized many movies, to end up with that ‘Little Blue Nothing’, the film, shot a few months ago, a slow portrait in intimacy with a unique musical couple. I can’t wait to show it, and those two videos here today, which are not part of the movie, are i hope a good introduction to their universe.
To end up with those little ideas on such creators and link it to the second part of this text, i would say that to me those artists are extremely inspirational because i don’t see any gap, any border, between their creations, their life, and the backgrounds, the surroundings around them. It’s all tied together, they integrate the world in their way of being and sounding.
In those two videos, shot a warm sunday night in Manhattan, the music isn’t the main element. It is just part of something else, the life of a city at dusk, the interaction between sounds from two Czech musicians and children laughing, a couple kissing, dogs barking, boys skateboarding. New York as the best scenery possible, as usual. This is probably why i am not (yet?) interested in writing any kind of stories - no movies could compete with the improvised movements of such backgrounds. No art forms even could compete with the amazement of such a life theater. Looking at such elements interacting (the first little girl disappearing behind a tree, then reappearing on the slide, the other teenagers talking on the swings for the first video, the couple kissing and all the life passing in front of the Havels in the second video…), there is so much to imagine, to interpret, as a viewer. There’s not a clear meaning to all that, a clear direction or tension - and some spectators will think it’s just boring to wander around. But i hope my work still welcomes the viewers when it comes to such documents on everyday life. There is no desire to integrate any spectacular element, or to tell a story with a clear meaning, a clear ending. The music is then part of something bigger, that words will i hope fail to describe.
A few days ago, i was talking with my new friend Andrew Van Baal in a cafe in LA, waiting for Jon Brion to arrive. He asked me why i started to film music in such a way, how did we come up with the idea of what we called at first the Take Away Shows and which made people think differently about music videos. It always seemed very natural to me, but being asked about it, i just realized something absolutely obvious: my interest have always been in the links between images and sounds, and how they interact together. The hierarchy started to explode a few years ago, when discovering amongst other works Outer Space - the limits of each medium were blurring. Those two art forms (cinema and music) have always been hierarchized. The music industry was just asking for images on pre-recorded songs (what they then called ‘music videos’) to sell records. And even the best documentaries on music (Gimme Shelter, Don’t Look Back…) were following the music. There is not many examples of creations where sounds and images are on the same level, talking face to face - to me, there’s only one important: Step Across the Border, by Werner Penzel and Nicolas Humbert (again, ask me if you wanna see it).
How do we share a moment, how do we interact and influence each other, how do we use our own creative tools to make something together? Is the music first, or is it the images? The images follow some kind of sonic rhythm, but the music maybe wouldn’t be played there if the camera didn’t ask for it. And in return the music is influenced by how the camera look at her, in a very subjective way. Nothing comes first, both elements, images and sounds, are then together. As those ‘outsiders’ of music and their surroundings.
from
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