:::: FILMS OF 2011 ::::

TOP FILMS OF 2011 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
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Raúl Ruiz "Mysteries of Lisbon" (Portugal)
Terrence Malick "The Tree of Life" (United States)
Pedro Almodóvar "The Skin I Live In" (Spain)
Lars Von Trier "Melancholia" (Sweden)
Takashi Miike "13 Assassins" (Japan)
Hiromasa Yonebayashi "Arrietty: The Borrower" (Japan)
Andrew Ross "Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times" (United States)
Göran Hugo Olsson "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975" (Sweden)
Tomas Alfredson "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (Sweden/United Kingdom)
Werner Herzog "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (Germany/France)
Michel Hazanavicius "The Artist" (France)
David Cronenberg "A Dangerous Method" (Canada)
Patricio Guzmán "Nostalgia for the Light" (Chile)
Michael Madsen "Into Eternity" (Finland)
Sion Sono "Cold Fish" (Japan)
Martin Scorsese "Hugo" (United States)
Rafi Pitts "The Hunter" (Iran)

The past 12 months again yielded great discoveries outside the expected sources and return artists creating works outside their established form, a year of finding new record labels and film distributors, authors of choice returning with some of their finest writing to-date, making connections between screenplay, director and soundtrack that were previously inconceivable; 2011 was a good one. Some of these combinations generated exciting, unexpected new hybrids of styles, genres, sensorial vocabulary and narrative voice. Malick returned from his usual hiatus of many years with one of his greatest visual and sonic narratives ever constructed, though highly imbalanced in it's chapter-content, "Tree of Life" still stood as a work of moving-pictures storytelling of a nature that just about nobody in american cinema even attempts. Lars Von Trier returned with a stunning, cosmic, spectacle of nihilistic wish fulfillment in the form of "Melancholia" and Raul Ruiz' final film, a labyrinth of timelines, characters, intrigue, history, class struggle and the world imbued with magical possibility as seen by a child in the 19th Century period piece that was the masterwork "Mysteries of Lisbon" ...and Takashi Miike reigned in some of his more absurd indulgences and delivered what is easily one of the most powerful, visually precise, yet traditional of Samurai films of the past couple decades in "13 Assassins". More unexpected in 2011, that a black and white, silent, period piece would be one of the best-acted, emotionally moving experiences on the big screen thanks to Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist". And lastly, who could have predicted that Scorsese would make not only a children's fantasy in the form of the adaptation of the young-adult novel "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" but that it would be a holiday hit ranking in attendance alongside the glut of CG-fart jokes, cynicism and video game tie-ins flooding the market as the standard in offerings for the younger set. So thank him and the consistently artful, richly complex moral/emotional beauty of Studio Ghibli and their "Arrietty" for offering genuine stories about the world in which we live, as the fantastic.

This year's Seattle International Film Festival hosted only one or two of the films listed above, as opposed to previous years, where SIFF dominated the field by screening most of the best films of the year during the course of the festival. By contrast, SIFF's offerings were their weakest this year of many a decade, so good thing for the independent cinemas here picking up the slack. With indie cinemas closing around the nation, it was that much more important to support the local theater opportunities such as the (newly expanded to four screens!) SIFF Cinema the Landmark Theatre chain, the Grand Illusion Cinema and what's proven itself to be the paramount indie screen in Seattle, Northwest Film Forum. Many of the best films seen this year, when they did come to the theater, had runs that lasted no more than a week. Others were never to return to the cinema again or as a domestic DVD/Blu-Ray release or even online in any digital context, official, bootleg or otherwise. Again proving the wisdom of getting out there, seeing the city and prioritizing the art/music/film that we're fortunate to have in our urban cultural crossroads.

Lastly, the unseen films by a few directors of note that never made it over here distributed stateside (at least not 'yet') or even made a less-desirable appearance as an online release. I suspect a number of these would have made the list, if I had an opportunity to see them:

Sion Sono "Himizu" (Japan)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" (Turkey)
Jafar Panahi "This is Not a Film" (Iran)
Pema Tseden "Old Dog" (Tibet)
Béla Tarr "The Turin Horse" (Hungary)
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne "The Kid with a Bike" (France)
Steve McQueen "Shame" (United Kingdom)
Guy Maddin "Keyhole" (Canada)
Masahiro Kobayashi "Haru's Journey" (Japan)
Huang Weikei "Disorder" (China)
Alexander Sokurov "Faust" (Russia)
Asghar Farhadi "A Separation" (Iran)
Gerardo Naranjo "Miss Bala" (Mexico)
Julia Loktev "The Loneliest Planet" (United States)

:::: ALBUMS OF 2011 ::::

TOP ALBUMS OF 2011 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
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Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto "Summvs" (Raster-Noton)
V/A "The Tree of Life - Soundtrack" (Lakeshore)
Elaine Radigue "Transamorem - Transmortem (1973)" (Important)
Deaf Center "Owl Splinters" (Type)
Jacaszek "Glimmer" (Ghostly Intl.)
Tim Hecker "Ravedeath, 1972" (Kranky)
Ben Frost & Daniel Bjarnason "Solaris" (Bedroom Community)
V/A "Music for Merce Cunningham (1952-2009)" - Box Set (New World)
Nils Frahm "Felt" (Erased Tapes)
HTRK "Work (Work, Work) (Ghostly Intl.)
Richard Skelton "The Complete Landings" (Sustain-Release)
Mountains "Air Museum" (Thrill Jockey)
Leyland Kirby "Eager To Tear Apart The Stars" (HAFTW)
NHK "YX aka 1CH aka SOLO" (Skam)
Boris "Attention Please" (Sargent House)
Boris "Heavy Rocks" (Sargent House)
Liturgy "Aesthethica" (Thrill Jockey)
Vladislav Delay "Vantaa" (Raster-Noton)
Cyclo "ID" Book/CD-Rom Edition (Raster-Noton)

A curious thing has transpired in the past two years, and in-particular this past year in my listening habits; I've dramatically decreased my listening of music on the go, though headphones and on the ipod and have more and more, made dedicated home listening on the Hi Fi just about my singular source context of sonic input. Interesting in the age of seemingly most-everyone doing the inverse, and the home hi fidelity dedicated stereo being a thing of the past in most music consumers lives. Even at 320kps and above, the MP3 doesn't deliver on the level of the old 16bit 44mhz CD, and yes, lossless FLAC and WAV can bring you some real listening benefits... assuming you have a quality digital-to-analog converter and a very high end pair of headphones to compliment. Otherwise, even the 'outmoded' CD format (not to mention the LP and a quality turntable combination) is still kicking fidelity ass over all of the laptop/ipad/iphone/pod listening that has consumed more and more listeners. And even then, with a quality DA and a multiple hundreds of dollars headphones and headphone amp... you don't have true stereo reproduction and stereo image in as extension of the more abstract, intangibles of your listening experience. Even then, with quality gear and tech, your largely hearing a detailed, finely tuned, precise representation of the 'surface' of the work... and that's where my shift in listening has become most pronounced. I'm less interested than ever in the 'surface' of the experience... but more the overall space, ambiance, physicality, abstraction and intangibles that come of sound-in-space. Good thing then that the music that I've most occupied myself with these past few decades is largely concerned with replicating, molding, defining and manipulating those intangibles!

Continuing from the films list above... in the year of sounds there were many works that took the ears to exciting places, and that did so in distinct, expressive and adventurous ways. Particularly at the strange crossroads where modern classical, lo-fi folk, musique concrete, improv, metal, ambient, 'noise' and avant jazz traditions are all meeting as hypermodern, as-yet unnamed genre mutations. The bizarre math-rock, hardcore, avant-noise meets metal rumblings of the new Liturgy stands as a good example, as does the disorienting fusion of hip-hop, noise and electronic minimalism that was Kouhei Matsunaga's NHK release. To these ears Keohei's unquestionably the one of the more adventurous visionary torchbearers for the post-Warp era of beat-oriented electronic music of this past decade. His works have almost consistently been on par with the most advanced of the late-90's/early-00's Warp visionaries - it's no wonder he's found a home on labels like Skam and Raster-Noton and last year saw him in collaboration with both Autechre's Sean Booth and Mika Vainio of Pan(a)Sonic.

Live sonic adventures were heard around the Northwest, and all across the continent in it's major cities. And good thing for the travel too, as this year (for the first time in two decades) I didn't attend Earshot Jazz Festival due to the serious dearth of compelling Avant performers. Also, with Decibel Festival not really looking to challenge as much in their exploration of the 'fringe' and non-dancefloor oriented sounds, good thing Substrata Festival had the foresight to see the void not filled and choose to be even more conceptually exacting and theory/aesthetics oriented in their hosting and curation. Between Substrata and New York City's increasingly adventurous Unsound Festival, I was wanting for nothing in exceptional, dynamic, powerful live realizations of neoclassical, ambient, instrumental, electronic, sensorial experiences in fitting, complimentary, sometimes almost dreamlike, settings. Special note to Morton Subotnick's surround sound audio-visual "Silver Apples of the Moon" with Lillevan and Ben Frost, Daniel Bjarnason and Sinfonietta Cracovia performing "Solaris" both at Lincoln Center during Unsound. As well as the Decibel highlight of Simon Scott's brilliantly abstract guitar work in collaboration with the deep, gorgeous, vague immensity of his perfectly complimenting visual artist Tana Sprague. Oren Ambarchi bringing the heavy and resonant (as usual) for Substrata along with Nils Frahm delivering some of the most, nimble, dynamic, emotionally crushing works for prepared piano that I've heard in my life. Deaf Center in a cathedral at Midnight and Olafur Arnalds at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco were easily worth the travel as well. Metal brought it this year too, with Wolves in the Throne Room descending deeper and deeper into crepuscular Doom sounds beyond category and Boris, returning (again!) to bless us with the joyous insanity of their hyperfrenetic Psych-Metal-Shoegaze whirlwind.

Richard Skelton's 'new' album "The Complete Landings"

This far into the game, I think it's safe to say this one's going to make my 'albums of the year' list for 2011. The story of "Landings" is an unusual one, as it originally came out in 2009, was then rereleased on the Type label as a LP with bonus CD of expanded material, and then in late 2011 released again as a further expanded edition titled "The Complete Landings", along with a Print edition, a Poetry series by Richard Skelton and lastly, a Muitimedia Edition for gallery. Building a cycle of works creating a larger, interlocking, unfolding narrative; what the Germans would call a 'Gesamtkunstwerk' collectively in it's execution. What originally struck me, and even put me off a bit initially, was that the plucked and bowed guitar and string technique of Skelton, didn't jibe with any improvisational 'Avant-Garde' sense I was really accustomed to. Instead I perceived allusions to Folk, Western, Americana... (and ahem), even a hint of New Age stylings in the approach. The latter soon faded into the abyss on further listens (what was I thinking?). Now what I hear is a heady drone and timbre focused concoction of ambiance, textural 'scapes' and fluid structures that are as much composerly as improvised in their loose, natural subtlety. His work, in-particular this one, is inspired by, or influenced by the rolling, open landscape of the northern UK where he lives in rural near-isolation. A avid naturalist and daily trekker of the landscape of Standish, just north of Wigan, his work draws on a vivid feel for location, where the music’s origins are tied to a physical sense of place as well as an emotional state. As he described it in the in-depth article in the April issue of The Wire; “Rediscovering the places I’d known where I grew up - connecting with landscapes that at once seemed ancient and intransient, and yet also ravaged by change - played a big part in my recovery.” His sounds are seemingly less 'about' the place and more 'of' the place, the relationship with landscape being the internal dialog that his work then relates to the listener. As well as being a Naturalist and lover of the 15th Century Unkoku-Rin school of Japanese landscape painting and poetry, he's done readings of his own work and is a follower of the Northern English and Welsh poets. It's no real conceptual leap then, but for all the references cropping up in modern visual/sonic art to W.G. Sebald's "The Rings of Saturn" which is a meditation on history through a walking tour of the open, austere, uninhabited expanses of Suffolk as though it were a haunted or dreamlike 'zone' (not dissimilar to those found in the filmography of Andrei Tarkovsky) that have manifest as recent works for Film, as Soundtracks and as Albums - that it's Skelton who I envision wandering that landscape, recounting the history/fiction/memory/ghosts of the land as the protagonist when I consider the novel now ...and his music that has become the soundtrack to my memory of the book. Somehow, I think Sebald would approve.

Lars Von Trier's new film "Melancholia" at Landmark Theatres: Nov 11 - Jan 20

Finally, finally being distributed stateside! It needs to be said though, with delays between the premier of films of this caliber in international festivals (Cannes in May, Venice in Sept) and the three, four, six months between then and hitting the screen, it does nothing but fuel the already distribution-compromising online bootlegging/torrent culture. To cite an example that contrasts this trend, Terrance Malick's "Tree of Life" was premiered at Cannes, and prints already made and in a complete edit, prepared before it's premier, were being distributed and the film was on-screen within a month. That said, very excited for the new Von Trier. For all his ill-conceived misbehaving at Cannes this year (that sadly overshadowed the press on his film), the reviews of "Melancholia" have made it out to look his best in a very, very long time.



Check J. Hoberman's review from Cannes for the Village Voice with the headline of 'Wow' along with Nicolas Rapold's review from the NYFF in the most recent Film Comment which depicts it to be the mapping of one persons life-destroying personal depression projected on a global scale as world-destroying inevitable cataclysm - successfully! A grand Von Trier style melodrama that hits all the right notes and delivers again on the blending of dark miserablism, immense scale and the absurd that Lars has been missing from much of his recent work. Lastly, but not least-lauded, Amy Taubin rated it the best drama seen at all of Cannes for Film Comment, for her, even surpassing the aforementioned Palme d'Or winning "Tree of Life". So where the Malick was a grandiose existential inquiry into the Cosmos' cyclical designs of Light, Time, Beauty, Rebirth and Destruction - the Von Trier is more a gorgeous, fatalist, Cosmic melodrama about wish-fulfillment, Moon-bathing, Lunacy (literally) and Doom. Curious to see some of the most notable names in film criticism finding their passions more stoked by the latter. Can't wait!

Link to official Magnolia Pictures "Melancholia" site

Link to Landmark Theatres "Melancholia" site

New Films by Pedro Almodovar, Goran Hugo Olsson, Sean Durkin & Jeff Nichols at Landmark Theatres: Oct 14 - Nov 24

After a particularly dry summer, the Fall/Winter sees a season of exceptional cinema coming to the Landmark Theatres again! The newest Pedro Almodovar is apparently his foray of sorts into genre film, in having (yeah!) Antionio Banderas play the 'mad scientist'/antagonist role in a variation on something between "Eyes Without A Face" and his own "Frankenstein" story. No surprise that "The Skin I Live In" involves feminine beauty and (extreme) pathology between the sexes, this is Almodovar after all. And that gender ambiguity he loves? Expect that to be taken to it's most profound, literal, conclusion. Speaking of pathology, two of the highlights from Film Comment's coverage of the Venice Film Fest and Sundance included these two explorations of extreme trauma's effect on domestic life, both pieces of homegrown independent cinema. The reviews cited them as being largely influenced by the Malick/Kubrick schools of American cinema, so I'm intrigued. From the director of "Shotgun Stories" we follow the life of abstract threat and unease at the hand of a looming disaster that shadows the protagonist in "Take Shelter" and the life of recovering from the traumas of Cult-induction and identity obfuscation in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" which has been described in reviews as a unnerving and subjective narrative, fraught with a tensely disconcerting dreamlike tone.



In less pathological of-the-mind and instead real-world concerns... "Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975" is nearly a perfect documentary in every sense, seriously, see it while it's still playing. You owe it at least to your own sense of the disparate contrast between what it meant to explore civil liberties in public during those decades vs. our current nationwide movement. By 'nearly perfect' I mean just that, this film isn't the absolutely flawless document in tone and content it could have been, yet the core material it presents is as relevant and important now as it was in it's time. This 'core' being the original documentary footage and editorial objectives of the Swedish news crew, material which in the decades since, has since been left largely untouched in a Swedish TV station’s vault. Spanning the years 1967-1975 and largely consisting of just everyday scenes of urban life, in the streets, in small business, in neighborhoods, in people homes, throughout black Americans are pictures socializing, going about their business, often in mixed-race company, primarily in urban settings all across the US. Vibrant color scenes of 70's Harlem, black & white footage of 60's Chicago to the neighborhoods and community centers the Bay Area and the 'Panthers community-building in Oakland. Had it just been this footage, edited together by director Goran Hugo Olsson from what he calls "20 hours of really good material", these original interviews, street scenes, and observations, with no need to ad contemporary commentary and 'contextualizing' by the current pop and cultural players contributing voice-over, it would have been a totally flawless work of documentary filmmaking. Two personal highlights; Young, articulate, deeply troubled black youth expressing their concern about the evident purging of the progressive elements of American that were the same-year assassinations of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, who at the time, was lying in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral a block away. The interviewees attending the viewing and ensuing public wake. Second highlight; The brilliant, true, treasure trove that was both the person and establishment of Lewis Michaux and his African Memorial National Bookshop. Powerful, intimate, moving, revealing interviews and personable moments with founders of the movement Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Martin Luther and Corretta Scott King and Eldrich Cleaver, among others. Together with the footage of the everyday, it rounds out the image of the time and the nationwide movement in this docu's depiction of both the above-ground manifestation and the core of the movement from behind-the-scenes, all set within the larger cultural questioning and public 'awakening' of those decades.
Also at Landmark in the coming months! The two most notable films of the Cannes and Venice film fests we've not yet had the privilege to see (due to the achingly slow theatrical distribution of) David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" with Fassbender and Mortensen as Sigmund Freud vs. Carl Jung in the birth of modern Psychotherapy and what looks to be a directorial highlight, among his many, in the form of Lars Von Trier's gorgeous, fatalist, Cosmic melodrama "Melancholia".

Boris US Tour: Oct 8 - Nov 12 & Earshot Jazz Festival: Oct 14 - Nov 6

By contrast to previous years, not a lot going on in the Northwest as far as live music this Fall. Indicative of this is that, for the first time in nearly two decades, I'll not be purchasing a single ticket for any performance in Earshot Jazz Festival. As this year, there's simply nothing of the caliber or international scope that they've traditionally hosted. Previous years have seen fringe loosely-defined-as-Jazz avant luminaries and improv adventurers like Peter Brotzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Nels Cline, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Paul D. Miller, the Chicago Thrill Jockey improv label-scene, Ikue Mori with Zeena Parkins, the electrified Congo in the form of the ensemble Konono No.1 - to name a few personal highlights of the past half-decade. No such things going on in this year's curation. Much less any of the more classic standard names we've come to expect; no Cecil Taylor, no William Parker, no Ornette Coleman - none of that stuff. So correspondingly, no attendance from me... this sounds unduly critical, but that's just where it's at this year. Wish it were otherwise.
Good thing for Boris live then!! Unlike Earshot this year, Japan's Heavy Rockers are another story. Essential attendance for the promise of their blasting of-the-sun rock brilliance and cynicism-crushing intensity. Every time I've seen them live they've delivered the next variation on their own particular ever-mutating mix of Doom Metal, Heavy Psych, warped J-Pop, dysfunctional Bro-Rock and more recently, their own thrilling new form of Shoegaze. Yeah, the latter we first glimpsed on their Japanese Heavy Rock Hits 7" series and more recently refined on the near-perfect "Attention Please" which I had a abundance of words to say on the subject specifically the tri-album recording/release blur that was the barrage of this past summer. Anticipation is stoked for what will no doubt be some serious HEAVY ROCKING next week!

Decibel Festival of Electronic Music: Sept 28 - Oct 2

It's that time of the year again! From September 28 to October 2 our little urban center of Seattle will host the second-largest electronic music festival in the United States; the Decibel Festival of Electronic Music and Visual Media taking place in venues all over the city. Decibel's whole raison d'etre is about being the global showcase for all things electronic, in the most progressive, all-inclusive sense, regardless of genre or style, whether on the dance floor or in the seated auditorium. And with being just two weeks away (!) it seemed it was time to put one of these together! In exploring the finalized lineup, it must be said though, there's distinctly less going on this year for me on the 'essential' end of the spectrum. Decibel's need to host larger showcases that have sold-out nights, therefore paying the bills and keeping them from being too far in the red this year, has meant bigger names, and less of the sprawling 'fringe' that has made the festival as expansive as they have been in past years. That said, there's still an abundance of quality to be found over the (now 5 days) of the fest. WEDNESDAY Decibel Opening Party featuring the post-Dubstep ambiance and rhythmic complexities of the UK's Zomby who's most recent on 4AD (of all labels) needs to be heard for a sense of where this genre is going, future/pastism for sure. Atom TM put in a smart set of hardware ultra-funk with Ascii visuals in New York for Unsound earlier this year, expecting more of that, Seattle Jon McMillion has been ultra chameleonic this past year, fusing warped house with some gloomy psychedelia. THURSDAY For all the corporate sponsor name, the Red Bull Music Academy Presents is going to warp/destroy minds. What Amon Tobin plans to unleash on the audience in the form of his audio-visual installation of "Isam" is going to be as memorable as if you were at 'Devil's Peak' when a certain gathering of UFOs happened. Trily. Opening act Baths play a fuzzed-out garage rock informed blend of psychedelia, lo-fi hip hop and downtempo beats and electronic textures that are organic and fluid. FRIDAY Optical 1 hosted again this year at Benaroya Hall, home to Seattle Symphony, is the ideal setting for the post-Shoegaze ambiance, melodicism and audio-visual work that is Ulrich Schnauss along with legendary Shoegaze band Slowdive's drummer and composer Simon Scott. Also on the bill, the face of new Ambient Americana; Mountains who are currently making the most languid, pastoral, perfect fusions of longform Indian Raga, acoustic guitar plucking and electronic soundscapes. Warm Oscillations showcase at the Crocodile featuring the mutant-hybrid sounds of Ghostly Intl. artist Mux Mool's hiphop and fractured downtempo beats along with Italo-Disco influenced, lo-fi, retro hardware sounds of oOoOO and the Blurring the Lines showcase later that night featuring the Dubstep, Ambient Techno and Deep House sounds of genre innovator Martyn. SATURDAY Optical 2 right off, gotta say, this was going to be the most anticipated highlight of the whole festival for me, that is, until the one-of-a-kind audio-visual innovations of Ryoichi Kurokawa was dropped from the lineup. Nonethless, there's still what will likely be unmissable new sensorial work of Markus Popp as Oval and the electric guitar and electronics pointilist/expressionist work that is the gorgeous sounds of Christopher Willits. Later at the Crocodile, Community Bass Session will basically be acting as a Planet MU label showcase, featuring the hiphop informed hyperprogramming of Machinedrum and the smooth gliding synth and Dubstep-influenced beats of Ital Tek. SUNDAY Bit Pop showcase on the exceptional in-house soundsystem of the Triple Door , notable for the debut of the new collaborative work between Kranky recording artist, Benoit Pioulard and and the ambient post-Shoegaze of Rafael Anton Irisarri together as Orcas. Sunday also features one of the finer longstanding traditions in Decibel, the Decibel in Dub showcase this year hosting the return of studio/hardware wizard Mad Professor and longtime On-U Sound mixing board maestro Twilight Dub Circus. Between these, and the bounty of showcases I'm putting in an appearance, to check out, (let's not forget Decibel in the Park if the weather's nice, just cuz), see what's going down, hopefully find some surprises along the way, Decibel will be a long, diverse 5 days. As with every year though, I'm sure it will seem premature by the time it's conclusion comes, there I will be, yearning for more. Ushering in the end of Summer as it does every year since 2004.