Give Me Take You

Sidney Lumet's new picture, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney, and Marisa Tomei) is a stunning film.  It manages to capture the massive drama (specifically tortuous, anguishing wrongdoing) that a very small period of time can hold within itself, better than nearly any film I've seen before.  Then, it proceeds directly to spin it's plot wildly out of control in a beautiful one-two punch.  The style is strong and artful and it's a film that's certainly going to rank high on my eventual tops of 2007 list.

It finally got me off my seat to check out the new DVD of one of his early masterpieces, Prince of the City.  Also a movie with a very strong visual style (think the machismo of someone like Michael Mann, who I actually like a lot less), this nearly three hour tour-de-force is interesting because of its richly understated character studies, and the fact that the whole thing plays like a mob epic, except it's all about police detectives.  This is great precedent for anyone interested in HBO's The Wire as a brave and accomplished work of cinema.

Mine and many other's first introduction to Dominique Leone will be through his long stint as a writer for Pitchfork Media.  I found my tastes usually aligned most closely to his on that site.  So, for me, a non-musician, non-music maker, hearing his new album on Strømland could have been an uncommonly critical variety of listen.  Until now, my association with him was somewhat easy and personal, I got to know of him through association with lots of other music I heard.  It certainly got me thinking a little about what kind of music I might make and what pitfalls might be created by being a music enthusiast and critic (not that I'm much more than an "off the cuff" critic), then a music maker myself.  Thankfully, within the opening seconds of disc it was brightly clear that I was listening to energetic and personal music. 

"Wow, he's really going for it," is I think the first thought that popped into my head.  The songs do remind me in turns of Fennesz-like electronic warmth and complexity, Boredoms-esque guitar blowouts, and intellectually fused prog-rock anthems a la Magma, but I never feel like the reference points I'm mentioning are very much reference as much as they are Leone's personal takes on the form.  All of it's crafted with a somewhat lo-fi appeal, but most of it has the direct sonic presence and emotional interest that makes pop music actually "pop."  And at the same time, it is music for the music obsessed – just as likely to make the guy with every Pita record jump around gleefully as it is the guy who's just there for the party.  As for me, I like that his singing voice reminds me of Todd Rundgren a lot of the time, and it can be as much of a heady gathering record as it can be an introspectively upbeat one.

Two of the biggest surprises of 2007 for me have turned out to come to me from the shop of Paul Hillier, a figure I've respected highly because of the astounding vocal works of Arvo Pärt which he's directed.  I've also written him off for a long time as probably ultimately an under-imaginative and safe figure.  I've gotten rid of that notion.  While his recordings are unabashedly well produced and slickly nuanced, nuanced they are and they sound glorious. 

Upon first listen his new version of Terry Riley's "In C" came across as rote and overly literal, while still maintaining just enough gimmick to achieve repulsion.  However, that was at the record store, with cheap headphones on and a short patience for anything less than gripping.  When brought home and lived with, the recording is a blessing.  Like I said, I've respected the man's work, so I still recommended the university library purchase a copy, and renewed my belief in libraries providing serious opportunity for growth.  I'd say that this is not only a fine version of "In C", but a superior one, ranking just below the original recording in order of versions worth listening to seriously.  Even the choice to do a version with only voices and percussion ultimately feels like artistic brilliance.  How else to free music from the piece more than it already has been?

Stockhausen's "Stimmung" is the other new recording which I heard, and while the differences stylistically and qualitatively from other performances of the piece (I'm only familiar with the Hyperion edition) are less readily apparent to me, the actual quality of the recording is as excellent as they come and the SACD matering is far superior for immersing yourself in the piece, assuming you have the player (mine's built into the DVD player) providing a more open frequency range and allowing for more volume and less compressed sound.  The piece as a work, I'm less compelled by than Riley's "In C" or even almost any give Arvo Pärt work, but the aesthetic choices and processes of the piece are interesting enough to make it a worthwhile listen several times through, and while it's less compelling, it is a more subtly transporting work than aforementioned pieces, which in my book is a virtue in itself.

You had great art on your website, Radiohead, then you choose THIS as your album cover. I guess I'm not buying it after all.