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Khrzhanovsky’s ‘Glass Harmonica’: Subversive surrealist late-‘60s Russian animation
04.26.2011
06:09 pm
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In the opening titles of his 1968 animated short Glass Harmonica, Russian director Andrei Khrzhanovsky claims to present a cautionary against “boundless greed, police terror, [and] the isolation and brutalization of humans in modern bourgeois society.” Of course, it was more complex than that.

At the time Khrzhanovsky made the film, Russian animation had experienced a creative renaissance that spanned most of the ‘60s, fuelled by the Soviet Union’s post-Stalinist liberalization policy best known as the Krushchev Thaw. Although that period yielded cutesy and colorful satires like Fyodor Khitruk’s 1962 short Story of a Crime, Glass Harmonica—which posits music to symbolize beauty repressed by avarice—stands apart.

Amid desolate modern landscapes, Khyrzhanovsky and his dozen animators tell the tale with some industrial age and Renaissance visual elements, along with some zany zoomorphic caricatures of paranoia and envy. Buoyed sonically by Alfred Schnittke’s Quasi una sonata and drawing from Breugel, Dali and George Dunning (the director of Yellow Submarine), Glass Harmonica reaches even proto-Python-esque heights towards the end.

Despite its semi-socialist utopian resolution, Glass Harmonica comes off as surprisingly quaint and archaic, even as an indirect product of Kruschev’s less ideologically rigid era.
 

 
After the jump: check out part 2 of Glass Harmonica

READ ON
Posted by Ron Nachmann
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04.26.2011
06:09 pm
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‘Phone Sex Grandma’ - a short film
04.26.2011
05:56 pm
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Phone Sex Grandma is a short film by Jack Truman about an older female telephone sex worker that follows her routine for a day as she goes about her business. While it could be argued that this film has a lot to say about the socio-economic place of gender and the role of the elderly in declining late-capitalist society, you should probably just forget all that and admit that it’s really funny.

Old people having sex (or in this case talking sexy) is one of the oldest tropes in the comedy handbook - but you’ve gotta hand it to this woman, when it comes to sexy talk she is a pro. And I mean a professional. Check out 3:10 where she is taking a piss AND talking sexy AND pretending to be East Asian! Or 5:20 when she is taking a bath, reading Darwin, talking sexy AND pretending to be black! That is some epic multitasking right there. Phone Sex Grandma is my new (NSFW) hero:

EDIT: from the Phone Sex Grandma IMDB page (which states that the film is a “mockumentary”):

Director Jack Truman and star Opal Dockery are a real-life Mother/Son filmmaking team

WTF?!?

 

 
Thanks to Tickle for the link.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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04.26.2011
05:56 pm
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New Helado Negro LP - Canta Lechuza
04.26.2011
04:54 pm
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Helado Negro is the nom du song of versatile and uncompromising producer Roberto Lange. I’ve blogged previously about his ingenious collaborations with visual artist David Ellis. He’s also a frequent contributor to Guillermo Scott Herren’s brilliant Prefuse 73 and Savath and Savalas projects. This new LP is a solid pleasure; dubbed out, noisy and stream of consciousness following but timelessly tuneful and dare I say, rather pleasant indeed.
 
Have a listen to Regresa from Canta Lechuza out May 10 on Asthmatic Kitty

 
And here’s how it goes down live…

 
Stream the whole album at NPR

Posted by Brad Laner
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04.26.2011
04:54 pm
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Sean Connery: The Musical
04.26.2011
04:46 pm
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Though the impersonation is rather dreadful, it doesn’t really detract from this delightful gem of Scotland’s Greatest Export singing “S With an H” from Sean Connery: The Musical by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan, the talents behind Predator - The Musical, Conan the Barbarian: The Musical and Silence: The Musical.

In Scotland, impersonating Shir Shean Connery is a national tic, one need only watch Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show to see what I mean. Indeed, when the “best wee country in the world” ™ eventually becomes independent, The Ancient Art of Shir Shean Connery Impersonating will no doubt be incorporated into the traditional Highland Games.

As for Sean Connery: The Musical, well it isn’t such a bad idea, afterall Mr Connery did have a successful though brief singing career starring in the London stage production of South Pacific and then as Michael McBride in Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
 

 
Previously on DM

Predator: The Musical


 
Bonus clip of Sean Connery singing in ‘Darby O’Gill’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Tara McGinley
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.26.2011
04:46 pm
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X Ray Spex performing a killer version of ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’ in London, 2008
04.26.2011
04:05 pm
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Oh this is lovely. X Ray Spex do a rousing version of “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” at London’s Roundhouse on September 6, 2008.

X Ray Spex redux: Paul Dean on bass, Sid Truelove (Rubella Ballet and Flux of Pink Indians) on drums, guitarist Gt. Saxby and sax player David Wright (Rip Rig & Panic, Jah Wobble, Don Cherry and The Slits).

Joining Poly Styrene on vocals are her daughter Celeste Bell-Dos Santos and Zillah Minx from Rubella Ballet.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.26.2011
04:05 pm
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Cassette fetish part 2 : Reynols - Blank Tapes (2000)
04.26.2011
01:51 pm
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My post yesterday about the disposable inserts from blank cassette tapes got me thinking about this interesting album from 2000. It’s by the now defunct Argentine band Reynols and it’s called Blank Tapes. Starting with a solid three minutes of truly blank tape it then moves through a monochromatic rainbow of different processes with blank cassette ness as the root source. Hear it in its entirety right here:
 

 
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The band Reynols itself is fascinating. Consisting of a few special education teachers and one of their star pupils, Miguel Tomasin, who happens to have Down’s Syndrome, Reynols released tons of records to much acclaim within the experimental music community and even did a few collaborative recordings with the great composer Pauline Oliveros. Legend has it the name Reynols was arrived at by allowing a pet Chihuahua to step on a TV remote which randomly brought up an image of Burt Reynolds. Can you make things like that up ? I suppose so, but I’m still buying it.
 
Reynols - 10,000 Chicken Symphony 7” also from 2000

 
What’s that, a new album? Guess I spoke too soon!

 

 

Posted by Brad Laner
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04.26.2011
01:51 pm
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Man absolutely TERRIFIED by elephant
04.26.2011
12:53 pm
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Here’s 8 seconds of raw elephant phobia. Cue the Wilhelm scream.

(via BuzzFeed)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.26.2011
12:53 pm
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Listen to Beastie Boys’ ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ in full
04.26.2011
10:13 am
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So the Beastie Boys are back, with their new album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.

There’s an interesting/confusing story about this release - the first Hot Sauce Committee record was due to drop in 2009. At the same time as HSCPt1 was being recorded, the ever-prolific band recorded a bunch of extra material for NSCPt2, and scheduled the release of the sequel for early 2011. Unfortunately the release of HSCPt1 was delayed when MCA discovered he had cancer (which he thankfully pulled through), but HSCPt2 remained on track for a spring 2011 release. And so here it is - but now with the track list swapped for that of HSCPt1. The real HSCPt1 is scheduled for release later this year, presumably featuring the material that was recorded for HSCPt2. Those Beasties, they so crazy.

So what does it sound like? Well, listen for yourself:
 

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two by Beastie Boys
 
Hot Sauce Committee Part Two will not be available to buy until May 3rd, but you can order it in advance on Amazon.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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04.26.2011
10:13 am
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Poly Styrene R.I.P.
04.26.2011
05:00 am
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Poly Styrene (Marian Joan Elliott-Said) has died at the young age of 53 on the eve of the release of her new album Generation Indigo. She had been battling cancer and, unlike other battles she took on, she lost it.

After an afternoon and evening of reading rumors that Poly had died, and hoping they weren’t true, the sad news that she did indeed pass away was just confirmed on several news sites and I’m having a difficult time writing this right now.

There will be more from me and DM contributors on the death of the beloved Poly later today. There’s not a single one of us that haven’t been enthralled by her magic.

I saw X Ray Spex perform at CBGB in March of 1978. It was among the most exciting rock and roll shows I’ve ever experienced. Poly was 21 years old at the time but with braces on her teeth and bows in her hair she looked 13, as did the other Spex. The remarkable thing about her and the group was just how fucking good they were. They played with a ferocious intensity that was raw, undisciplined, and yet totally confident and glorious. And as good as the band was, it was Poly that demanded your attention, got it, and rewarded it. She was a powerhouse. I was overwhelmed.

Poly upended every stereotype of the female rock and roll front person. She looked like an innocent school girl but when she opened her mouth she had a soul searing wail that made John Lydon sound like a squealing mama’s boy with his dick stuck in a zipper. Poly had one of the greatest punk rock voices in all of rock and roll. From banshee to wounded vulnerability, Styrene emoted with a range far beyond her worldly years. Within this woman was a fierce siren drawing liars and fools to crash upon the rocks of her uncompromising feminine power. Feminist? I don’t think so. That’s a label that Poly would find too limiting. Poly could, like Walt Whitman, claim “I am large, I contain multitudes.”  

“Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” is one of the great “fuck off” anthems in the history of rock and roll, an unequivocal declaration that no one was going to restrain the power and glory that was Poly Styrene.
 

 
From the documentary The Punk Years:

 
X Ray Spex live at CBGB, March 17, 1978 (audio). Crank it the fuck up:

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.26.2011
05:00 am
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The ‘Star Trek’ uprising of 1968: The gathering of the geeks
04.26.2011
02:28 am
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In January of 1968, a couple hundred Caltech students gathered in front of NBC Studios in Burbank to protest the impending cancellation of the “Star Trek” TV series.

While a war was raging in Vietnam, these proto-hipsters (check out the fashions, man) felt compelled to deal with more pressing matters, a shitty TV show.

The uprising to save “Star Trek” worked. NBC picked up the series for the 1968-69 season.

In Vietnam, two months after the “Star Trek” protests, Charlie Company entered the village of My Lai and the slaughter began. This time, the trekkies stayed home and watched TV, contented as cows on Venusian plains.
 
Thanks, Nerdcore

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.26.2011
02:28 am
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