FiumeNights

Crazy past weeks, travelling and shooting maybe a little bit too much, without much time to post here, trying to find the good balance. But I want to share some recent of those encounters here, as to introduce people i like to each other.
Wanted to develop some ideas on the ‘recording process’ and some (personal?) problems with it, but i’m gonna take the TIME another day - but it all starts with the question which affects me the most these days: are we still watching? And how?

I was in Copenhagen and Aarhus (Spot Festival) last week, a tremendous time, at first going there to shoot something with my friends from Slaraffenland (which ended up as a big musical tour of the city), plus what i called the first ‘official’ (and last minute) Temporary Area - Temporary Copenhagen. I will develop on this another time as we need to work on a website and edit all the images and sounds, but it made me discover many amazing danish bands - and amongst them, this week’s video with Valby Vokalgruppe.
Formed by Anja Jacobsen (also drummer of Kirsten Ketsjer), the female experimental choir was one of the highlights of my danish trip. They don’t have anything on internet, not even a myspace page, how wonderful this is. But Anja describes it like that: “Valby Vokalgruppe was formed in the spring of 2008, with only four members, and in April 2009 the choir formed its present shape with 7 members. The choir started as a curiosity about what it is possible to do with the voice and with voices together, and an intention to explore this through play and experiments. The inspiration for the compositions comes from different sources such as african pygme singing, Morton Feldman, Dirty Projectors, classical choir and what appears during experiments at our rehearsals. In June 2009 Valby Vokalgruppe will make recordings for their first LP.” Can’t wait to see them again.

A few nights ago in Barcelona, i screened some short films for an hour, invited by the Primavera Sounds Festival. On a (very) small screen, people on stage and (short) talk in between movies. Improvised screening as usual, not knowing what to show, until i double click on a file. Interesting ideas to explore for the next years about this sort of ’screening-performance’ (coming straight from the idea ‘when i go to a concert, i dont get the set list before, why would i when i go to cinema?’), but especially good moment to present some little treasures, to share towards some strangers some recent discoveries that most of the people wouldn’t take attention to while on internet. Like Valby Vokalgruppe. Or Holly.

A few months ago, my friends from Black Cabs were in NY shooting lots of sessions there, before heading to Austin, and told me about this fantastic singer named Holly Miranda. So we met and did this little video, 4 songs in a 17 minute shot. She is there accompanied by the wonderful Marques Toliver, whom i am pretty sure we will hear more about in the next years to come. Holly is gonna release her first album (produced by David Sitek, and it sounds incredible) in a few months. I don’t think i did a very good job on that day from a visual point of view, but it sounds absolutely great and again, i wanted to share something about Holly.

I guess this is why i continue to push rec on the button - to be able to share, to act like a conduit for people i can’t meet directly.
Cinema, or any ‘art’ form, as a starting point, not the final destination hopefully.

Yalla, let’s go to New Zealand for winter, such a good idea.