[sksc]

PERFECT PARTNER US DEBUT
A film by Kim Gordon, Tony Oursler and Phil Morrison, starring Michael Pitt and Jamie Bochert with a live soundtrack featuring: Tim Barnes, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Ikue Mori, Jim O'Rourke and DJ Olive
Alexander Kasser Theatre, Montclair, New Jersey
27th and 28th October 2006, 7.30pm

http://www.electra-productions.com/
http://www.peakperfs.org/performances/perfect_partner

[Inhuman]

DJ olive ius just like a olive, jsut tasty and cool. I like his stuff with str four. you haver been repped too. Thanks@!

[createsounds]

im there ... for the 27th but .. 35 buck is taxin but it ought to be worth it ...
for the new yorkers ..... the L magazine has a 5$ off coupon .....

but as for the 28th .... ill be to poor and seein christian Marclay in manhattan !!!!

[Moshe]

thanks sksc

[pao-lino]

oh cool they'll tour it in the us! I had the luck last year to see it in rome (ita).
probably in the us will be more "efficient" cos the movie is about USA in the end...plus you'll have thurston moore-we europeans didnt!
by the way, robert rauschenberg did a car advertisment for magazines:

 

cool isnt'it?
I love rauschenberg...
kim's work is cool, some parts of the movie are awesome (the end) but others mmmh... the cowboy to me sounded like an exploited symbol.
you know what I mean? I have communication difficulties today,,,

 

[BushIsAPsycho]

kim got tim barnes to do the soundtrack? what kind of score could it possibly be, whirling, and tweaked hi hat noises during the heavy scenes?

[toxic johnny]

Woooooo you guys are lucky bunnies... I saw the performance in London... (with one Thurston Moore) and it was fantastic... I'd love to see it again.

 

[tesla69]

Ouch! $38.50 + another $10 for the train - Friday only cuz NJ Transit dowsn't run to Montclair on weekends (OUTSIDERS NOT WANTED!) I know this cuz there's a couple very good used bookstores there I can never get to. I think there is a way to take the buses on Sat but $50 goes over my limit. I wasn't that crazy about the recordings I heard from the European showings.

I am into the Original Silence show from Rome, thats wild shit and I don't really care for Gufstasson's stuff.

[Moshe]

Originally Posted by tesla69

I am into the Original Silence show from Rome, thats wild shit and I don't really care for Gufstasson's stuff.

Smalltown Superjazzz are going to release 3 recordings from that tour next year.

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by Moshe

Smalltown Superjazzz are going to release 3 recordings from that tour next year.

farout! hopefully one of them will be a vinyl release!

[guitarpro]

KICK ASS

[top 40 squeeze]

Originally Posted by tesla69

I am into the Original Silence show from Rome, thats wild shit and I don't really care for Gufstasson's stuff.

You ever hear his record Xylephonen Virtuosin with Jim O'rourke? Its a fucking fantastic record.

[createsounds]

i got a ticket for friday but am trying to got to the lee ranaldo drift performance instead ....
hopefully someone will give me a ride ... i dont know it the train will take me there ....

[pokkeherrie]

so, did anyone go?

[mucster]

had the great fortune to attend perfect partner last night in montclair. vaya! a tour de force indeed. a total assault on the senses. over the years, i have had the opportunity to see several sy film/music performances but nothing compared to what i saw last night. absolutely brilliant. rarely have i witnessed such a union of sound/light/thought. when it ended, the crowd was dumbfounded and responded w/lame applause. reminded me of the ayler greenwich village recordings when yr catharsis is shat on w/the sound of glasses, chatter and lame applause. nonetheless, amazing. when this comes around again, go.

www.myspace.com/mucster

[Moshe]

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledg...340.xml&coll=1


'Perfect Partner' is messy mix of movie and soundtrack


Monday, October 30, 2006 BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff
Conceived as a bold step forward for music and film, but resembling, in actuality, an MTV video gone haywire, "Perfect Partner" had its U.S. premiere Friday night at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University.
This hour-long multimedia project, combining film with live music by a sextet led by Kim Gordon (of the influential alternative-rock band Sonic Youth), was genuinely new and different. Give Gordon credit for taking it on, and having the guts to present it outside her usual stomping grounds (downtown New York).
But "Perfect Partner," which also was presented at the theater on Saturday, was a disappointing mess, unsatisfying on every level (musical, cinematic, theatrical). It was mildly absorbing at best, annoyingly pretentious at worst.
Gordon was backed by five other musicians, including her husband and Sonic Youth co-leader Thurston Moore, and former Sonic Youth member Jim O'Rourke. All three played guitar and Gordon also sang. Percussionist Tim Barnes pounded out rock beats, but also created eerie sounds by rubbing a bow against his drums and cymbals. Ikue Mori and DJ Olive -- credited in the program as playing "laptop" and "decks," respectively -- added to the often rich sonic blend.
They musicians spent the entire evening behind a translucent screen, on which a film was projected. At times, you could make them out clearly; at others, you could hardly see them.
If the point of the project was to blur the line separating movie and soundtrack, it succeeded. The focus kept shifting between the images and the sounds. Sometimes, the film stopped entirely and the music took over. Sometimes, the music faded into the background. For much of the evening, the emphasis was equal, as it is in a music video.
The film, co-written and co-directed by Gordon in collaboration with Tony Oursler and Phil Morrison, starred Michael Pitt (who has had major roles in movies like "Last Days," "The Dreamers" and "Bully") and newcomer Jamie Bochert as pretty, blank-faced lovers Dori and Polly. There were a few other actors, but little in the way of storyline, characterization or atmosphere.
Dori and Polly meet and connect -- a miracle, since they both project an air of near-catatonic confusion. They go for a drive. They confront inner demons. They survive a violent attack. They end up at the ocean. They remain mysteries.
Surreally, much of the script was devoted to bland, interrogatory phrases like "What type of sports do you like to play?" and "What is the TV show you relate to the most?"
Even when the music got loud, the dialogue could be understood, via the help of subtitles. In one of the film's typically odd and wry touches, deadpan sentences ("They are tired of driving") flashed on the screen, helping to tell the story.
Often, two films would be shown at once -- one following Dori and Polly, the other projecting unrelated or abstract images. In one of the most effective juxtapositions, Dori and Polly sat in their car, talking, as dancers twirled around them, suggesting motion.
Throughout the movie, the scenes had a musical quality, repeating and playing with motifs rather than moving forward in a more standard fashion. And the music was cinematic in its scope.
Sometimes, the live soundtrack was a gorgeously swelling sound collage, but at other times, it would stop floating and coalesce into an explosion of grating noise -- or a rock song. When Gordon sang, she often echoed the painfully slow phrasing of the movies' characters.
A handful of attendees lost patience and walked out before the project was over, but most stayed to the event's awkward conclusion. There were no closing credits to indicate that the film had ended. The screen just went blank and the musicians walked offstage, in darkness, without taking a bow. There was applause, but no encore.
Jay Lustig writes about popular music for The Star-Ledger. He may be reached at jlustig@starledger.com or (973) 392-5850.

[mucster]

damn. what the shit is that? who the hell is jay lestig? mark my words, it was brilliant...

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by mucster

who the hell is jay lestig?

Someone who didn't have to pay admission.

[tscaw]

thanks for the link to the brief glimpse.

[Moshe]

http://soundsandtexts.blogspot.com/2...ew-of-kim.html

Repeat performance... review of Kim Gordon's 'Perfect Partner' at the Barbican, 2nd October, 2005...

 

I have only just discovered that some more of my older reviews went missing due to snarl-ups on the Plexus site a while back... here's a repeat of my take on the Kim Gordon show at the Barbican last October, 2005 - which has just seen its American debut a couple of weeks back on October 27/28 at Montclair State University. Here's one review of that performance... which wasn't as enthusiastic as mine... offered in the cause of balance...


So... more adventures in the American Sublime... onwards...

I had a seat in the front row of the balcony which offered a panoramic view... appropriate for a performance which attempts such a wide, sweeping mix of image and music. Which is Kim Gordon's film 'Perfect Partner,' made in collaboration with video artist Tony Oursler and filmmaker Phil Morrison. Starring Michael Pitt and Jamie Bochert with a live, improvised soundtrack from a star band comprising Gordon on bass and vocals, Jim O' Rourke, Tim Barnes on percussion, Ikue Mori on laptop, DJ Olive laptop and turntables and tonight only, Thurston Moore. Some pit band... DJ Olive set it rolling with swooshing samples overlaid with muted trumpet and flute, culminating in a cutting up of a recorded voice... I missed the exact beginning when the full band arrived on stage as I had a quick run to the toilets and just squeaked back in as they started (a coupleof hours in the 'Rising Sun' down the road and an ageing bladder...)


The idea for the film takes off from Gordon's love of car ads and the idealised life depicted in them – dreams that feed symbiotically off the dreams of movement and escape that underpin what I see as 'the American Sublime...' filtered back through to this English space I belong to and as I run with it from the encapsulation in the Olson phrase: 'I take SPACE to be the defining factor for man born in America.' Or woman, Charles... (My apologies for dragging this in yet again – but it seems apposite... and everyone has their obsessions...) Kim Gordon glosses her work thus:

“I've always been fascinated by that movement to escape history, westward, towards the setting sun." (Kim Gordon quoted from here...).

'To escape history' – And stasis? By movement in dream cars into the SPACE of America... The story is briefly this: a guy who is apparently searching for his mother goes into a car showroom and a girl tries to sell him a car. They go for a test drive – and keep on going. We are back on the old Lost Highway, encountering a couple of noir-ish characters, (a fat, pimp-like figure whom the girl shoots – some back-story hinted at), another maybe being killed (the Shepard-ish cowboy, topped apparently by two men, who turns up again at the end) until they reach the coast and the ocean, where the film ends on images of rippling water abstracted into shimmering shapes on the screen. So it's a road movie of sorts which bounces lightly off Godard, among others... At the beginning, the man (Michael Pitt) is carrying a book with western imagery prominantly displayed on the cover and there are some intercut shots from old Remington-esque paintings, referencing the Old West... (the book was, I think, 'The West that was,' by John E. Eggen, a collection of old photographs from the frontier). Seems a simple enough and familiar story? I suppose so. But it's in the telling is the fascination... Utilising two screens, one behind the band, the other in front, the perspective shifts continually as the music responds in real time. At various points, band members are visually 'sampled' and appear on screen, meshing the performance deeper into the film narrative. By the end of the journey, I felt that I had witnessed a unique spectacle – a performance that rolls and wraps round itself, incorporating all the elements of moving image, figures on a stage whose music comments upon the filmic action even as it incorporates aspects of the performance in the visual sampling. Seamlessly integrating music, the occasional vocal and visuals in a sure-footed dance. And, it was, I thought, brilliant. At the end, as the images of water rippled on the screen, the band hot-footed it off stage as the audience applauded when they realised that it was over. Not for long: no one seemed sure how to respond. Well, this is England, chaps - but it seemed a slightly desultory note to end on – I suppose that the usual live gig rituals had been subverted - after all, when a movie ends, the actors – or the musicians responsible for the soundtrack, rather - don't usually step out of the screen and take a bow – unless you're watching 'Hellzappoppin' or some such... If Gordon and company had come back on, you could figure that people would start shouting for an encore or something – which would have probably screwed and skewed the mood of the previous hour and more... Maybe this was more fun – not knowing what to do...

The music was great, a level of improvised performance pretty much what you would expect from the stellar line up. Couldn't make out the vocals too well, but it didn't matter... the overall sound was integral to the concept. Very much a group performance. And one with the necessary SPACE inside it to expand and match the imagery and myth in the film. Improvisation in this context seems the true musical response... The Barbican did them proud, I thought, a good venue for Gordon and co's creations. Now, I want to see it again – but it's on at places a long way from where I am at present. Maybe I should go on a road trip to track it down. But we don't do that sort of thing very well here. It can be a nightmare (and not an interesting one, usually) to try to cross the UK east-west or the reverse – but you run out of SPACE pretty quickly and end up in the Irish, North Sea or the Channel. The English Sublime is a different bugger – one that is usually more cramped and crabby. Maybe up in the Lakes – but when I went looking for that variant a couple of years back, via the horrors of post-industrial Lancashire – foot and mouth had closed it off. This night, I ended up in the hotel surrounded by drunks singing along with one of the truly awesomely BAD bar bands of all time, running through a grubby selection of Oirish diddley-dee and bizarrely juxtaposed Sixties hits – 'American Pie' slams into 'I'm a Believer' into 'Mustang Sally' back to a couple of outtakes from St Paddy's night, for God's sake, which all da young folk there seemed not only to know by heart but to take to their hearts. It was either totally shite or some bizarre post-modern joke... funny either/both way – but you had to be there to appreciate it, as they say... A couple of Budweisers loosened me but I wisely in the end declined the gambit that this part of the evening offered... went to bed and dreamed of escaping into the Sublime...