Las Hurdes or Land Without Bread is a 27 minute long surrealist documentary film by Luis Bunuel focusing on the mountainous region of Las Hurdes in Spain, the extreme poverty its inhabitants faced on a daily basis and their struggle to find meaning, humanity and identity against such conditions. During the filming, Bunuel ordered an injured mountain goat to be shot so he could cover it in honey and film it being stung to death by bees.
Dark Was The Night, the charity compilation put together by Red Hot and members of The National and featuring contributions from artists such as Bon Iver, Anthony and the Johnsons and Beirut, has been doing the rounds and doing very well for a good minute now. The one track that really endures for me is “So Far Around The Bend” by The National. Exquisitely arranged and restrained, the song courts a beautiful and mysterious lady lost in an all-swallowing city and has an incredible resigned romance to it that is impossible to shake off.
The Dying Fall - JG Ballard’s last completed work before his recent death:
Three years have passed since the collapse of the Tower of Pisa, but only now can I accept the crucial role that I played in the destruction of this unique landmark. Over twenty tourists died as the thousands of tons of marble lost their grasp on the air and collapsed to the ground. Among them was my wife Elaine, who had climbed to the topmost tier and was looking down at me when the first visible crack appeared in the tower’s base. Never were tragedy and triumph so intimately joined, as if Elaine’s pride in braving the worn and slippery stairs had been punished by the unseen forces that had sustained this unbalanced mass of masonry for so many centuries.
I realise now that another element - farce - was present on that day. By chance a passing tourist on the steps of the cathedral had taken a photograph of the tower as the crack reached the third floor and a tell-tale section of cornice began its fall to earth. The photograph, endlessly published throughout the world, clearly shows the four startled tourists on the uppermost deck. Three of them are leaning back on their heels, hands raised to grip the sky, aware that the ancient campanile has moved under their feet.
Elaine, alone, has already seized the rail, and is staring at the grass waiting for her nearly two hundred feet below. Using a magnifying glass, one can see that, true to her quirky and mocking character, she shows almost no alarm. Her eyes have noticed the falling cornice, and I like to think that she is already planning to sue the municipality of Pisa for neglecting the safety of its tourists, and is collecting evidence that in due course she will present to her lawyers. Read more at the Guardian.
So, aside from The Great Escape and our own headline show at Queen of Hoxton (more on that to follow soon), one of the Girls shows we’re most anticipating is the White Heat date on the 19th with doom-bringing brooklynite (or bedlamite?) Blank Dogs.
Check out the video for the former’s eerie, wild-eyed zombie-jam ‘Setting Fire To Your House’ complete with occultish clansmen choreography above and then purchase a ticket here.
Blank Dogs’ first record, the double LP “Under And Under” is out later this month through In The Red.
Girls have confirmed shows in the UK in May…go here for full listings….and will release their debut UK single ‘Hellhole Ratrace’ on 6th July on Fantasytrashcan/Turnstile on 10″ vinyl.
“God Is Saying This To You”, the new record by Kurt Vile out on Mexican Summer has been suffering some serious wear and tear on my stereo as of late and I almost feel bad about it because for all Kurt’s ultra-macho, badass moniker and ardent lo-fi sensibility, this record has a real unsinkable heart of gold beating in its chest. “So you want to marry me, well you’ve got my sympathy”, Kurt drawls with the kind of blue bar-stool self-effacement that follows the trail of girlfriends past and rosier time’s hope lost doggedly but always ends up at the bottom of a pint glass. One can only assume Kurt’s seen a fair few of those too, this record is a sometimes slurring, rag-tag affair but is all the better for it, Kurt’s tender wailing carrying a kind of red-cheeked ruddy romance that is impossible to deny as he loses friends and gets lost and chases those ghosts tired.
Perhaps it is he that is the ghost though, the record’s production often means he’s a long way away, a sad, wry voice drifting through the toilet cubicle of your consciousness for a minute or so at a time before dying like a dream again. If Kurt is right and it really is “God That Is Saying This To You”, what he’s saying probably never made the holy scripture and he himself is a far more human, fallible and pained God than you’re likely to encounter in your everyday Church service or burning bush or sacred vegetable cutting. For this I am glad.
The solid copies of the LP are nearly gone but you may be able to get your hands on one through Mexican Summer if you don’t sleep on it.
