So you better-danged-well believe that I listened to Drawing Restraint 9 this morning.
First of all, I know next to nothing about this film. Bjork is in it. The photo stills look 'arty' (Bjork nude in a metal tub full of water, two Geishas behind her, a bunch of either lemons or tennis balls floating in front of her). The music is pure Bjork. Very strange to hear Will Oldham (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy) traversing a typically Bjorkish melody on the opening "Gratitude". The rest of the disc makes use of Bjork's recent fixation with the instrument of the human voice: there's chanting, throat-singing and an amazing (if creepy) solo vocal performance by Shiro Nomura on "Holygraphic Entrypoint". All of this is supported by layers and layers of percussion, harp (hello again Zeena Parkins), orchestration and blurpy noises. Very, very entrancing.
The men who built this inn surely could not have imagined how their world would progress over the centuries that followed their own. The beam above my head, sixteen inches wide and full of axe marks, is a still-solid product of their hard work. It also makes me wonder about the permanence of today's technology. Will any of it be around in the year 2205? Is iTunes the hand-carved wooden peg of our time?
I sort of doubt it.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
fantastic as ever, Sir Saleski. to the best of my knowledge the Bjork flick is directed by the fella who did all that Cremaster malakey, which lasts the guts a six or eight hours, but you can only get half an hour of it on DVD. she's married to him, it seems. who knows what it'll be like? maybe it'll provide an answer to the highly perplexing question regarding why i get so, um, excited by that peculiar image on the cover of Medulla.
2 - Mark Saleski
yea, i know what you mean about that pic.
buy the way, i should have added that if you sit on the edge of a bathtub for 30 minutes, your ass will fall asleep.