The Green Knight - Review

What to say of the Green Knight? It feels both medieval and modern, real and hallucinatory, rendering it entirely unheimlich or uncanny. Dazzling to behold, it renders the chivalric tale in cinematic splendor while twisting it subtly, and usually to great effect. It takes full advantage of its medium to present the cramped castle before sending its hero out into a vast and mythic wilderness. Dev Patel is stunning as the often unwilling and put-upon Gawain, but retains a vulnerability and a hidden core of iron that is only revealed in small flashes. The film manages to evoke both the post-Roman Britain of the supposed “Age of Arthur” as well as the late medieval time when the chivalric Arthurian romances were popularized and recorded.

An entirely haunting film, which I am sure to revisit again and again. I have only one minor quibble, which I shall hide below as it could be a spoiler to those not familiar with the poem.

5/5 Beheadings

  

 

Shipwreck Radio - July 28

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

 

JULY 28 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

Here we are, the final chronological track of Shipwreck Radio—it starts with the opening chimes and welcomings stretched and compressed like taffy. After the opening, we get the low rumble, slowly building in the background, and then a shrieking whistling, that will dominate the track, comes piercing in. Around a minute, a ghostly wavering tone, like a moaning wind joins as well. Sometimes the whistling takes on a more ringing quality, but sometimes it's just piercing and biting as it floats above the ghostly moans and low background rumble.
These sonic structures swirl and dance slowly as the track glides along, both soothing and sharp. At six and a half minutes the moaning wind is turned into a soft, stuttering beat, before it fades away, replaced by a new wind that floats quietly behind the now grinding high pitch. At ten minutes the high tones double, into a buzzing and a ringing as the wind sweeps behind them. The whistling begins to peak at higher and higher tones, piercing into your skull as it dares you to turn off the track, the gentle wind blowing in to provide a comforting layer to retreat to when the shrill tone fades for a second, right up until the 15th minute when the whistle fades quickly ushering in the end of the track.

Shipwreck Radio - July 24

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 24 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME ONE

Another eerily meditative track, July 24 starts with the opening chimes sped up and the opening welcomes given a warbling effect. Then we get the low rumbling, dragging sample, that sounds like a stick being dragged along corrugated metal at the bottom of an abyss. Building on top of that comes another mechanical rumbling, creating an intertwining rhythm that is joined by an more electronic jutter around two minutes. The stuttering fades in and out, and by three minutes, it’s clear that the origin of the stutter is a bit of unrecognizable vocal sample.
As the track continues its ruminative rumbling, higher tinny metallic rings enter, some sounding almost like cymbal crashes as the base rumble chugs along, the juttering carried along with it. The track continues to seethe, daring you to dive into it and stay afloat on its churning sonic surface; the patterns may repeat, but they are just off-sync enough to the aural ocean choppy and unsteady as the various sonic structures fade in and out, some becoming clearer for a moment, almost recognizable before being pulled under into the jostling of the track.
Near the fourteen minute mark, the last ingredient is added, a sound like a metallic cord, being twanged that evokes a kind of noisy , almost rubbery, chewing sound as it echoes, repeats and is processed and put into play with the swirl of the other sounds. Then finally, a metallic crash and the sound of a dropped metal bar closes out this track, the unsettled groove that had carried it along abruptly gone, a bracing finish for a track that dares you to attempt to follow it.

Shipwreck Radio - July 21

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

 

JULY 21 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

In many ways this is a prototypical Shipwreck Radio track, it starts with the greeting and welcoming charms sped up slightly and then repeats them slowed down moves seamlessly into the track as a main. It’s got all the elements we’ve come to expect from Shipwreck Radio songs, the ringing metallic sample, rushing roars and waves that could be vocal samples. The rushing roars, like rough choppy waves, make up the base of the track, sometimes rumbling in the background and sometimes surging to the foreground. The metallic ringing is joined by a low metallic scraping and both those periodically crest above the roar of the background.
Around the five minute mark a tinny metallic reverberation joins which is followed by the more familiar ringing, the track remaining resonant and reminiscent of previous Shipwreck Radio songs, while also remaining distinct, faster in tempo than many of the other tracks that mine the same vein of Sturm und Drang sonic structure of the low rumbling waves and ringing metal. At nine minutes it becomes a cacophony, more insistent and urgent in feel than the earlier tracks, which featured a menace that built slowly, where this track hits you at times like a torrent of water. The pace and insistency are maintained until the 14th minute when, abruptly, the track begins to slowly fade away, the roar waning and deteriorating until it breaks apart into silence.
Here again is another Shipwreck Radio track that successfully walks that uncanny line of familiar samples and complex and interesting structure.

Better In My Day Mix

 

in honor of the upcoming anniversary of my birth, a selection of songs that is equal parts tongue in cheek memento mori, peculiar birthday allusions & references with a few aspirational touches to complete the mix.

 Ich gehe jetzt

Das Biest ist noch nicht richtig wach
aber auch noch lange nicht hinueber
Grad hat es sich hin und her gewaelzt
und im Schlaf mit den Zähnen geknirscht

Ich gehe jetzt

Nach mir die Flut
nach mir Tornados
nach mir Tsunamis & Säuberungen
nach mir die Härte
die Kälte die Dürre die Glut
mehr als je zuvor seitdem der Mensch denkt
Es wird Zeit
das die Erde sich endlich verspinnt
sich verwandelt aus der Hülle sprengt
Ich gehe jetzt

#	Artist	Track
1	Gazelle Twin	Better In My Day
2	Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld	Still Smiling
3	The Fall	50 Year Old Man
4	The Damage Manual	Top Ten Severed
5	The Birthday Party	Happy Birthday
6	The The	I’ve Been Waitin’ For Tomorrow (All Of My Life)
7	Nurse With Wound	July 21
8	Shallow Gravy	Jacket (Live At Timmy’s Birthday)
9	Chris Connelly & William Tucker	July
10	Foetus	Time Marches On
11	The Young Gods, Dälek	About Time
12	Current 93	Black Ships Ate The Sky
13	Einstürzende Neubauten	Ich gehe jetzt

Shipwreck Radio - July 18

It’s that time of year when a (no longer) young man’s thoughts turn naturally to the Sonic Structures and Enigmatic Episodes of Shipwreck Radio. Read the introduction to this series here.

JULY 18 - SHIPWRECK RADIO VOLUME TWO

The opening welcoming and chimes flow in like waves, then the track launches into a melancholic and haunting melody that sounds like ghostly voices. The undulate and shift slightly, several choruses folding in on top of each other, forming a constantly changing pattern of haunting moans. Behind the chorus float brassy samples, echoing the voices as they dance around each other. There’s a pause near the halfway point, with a few seconds of silence, before the chorus begins again, the peaks and valleys of the flowing melody growing more pronounced. While the track never grows complex, it also avoids the issue that July 13 had, of being too simplistic and expected; instead the swirling and pensive choruses of moans and brassy samples remain dynamic, never settling into a tedium.

Mittwoch Mix - Covered Platter - Tasting Menu Mix

Continuing my Tasting Menu Mixes, the Covered Platter mix, like the previous mixes, features twenty of my favorite bands & musical artists, either covering another artist or traditional song or being covered, combining this Tasting Menu project and my perverse love of cover songs.

#	Artist	Track	Original Artist
1	Gazelle Twin	Heartbeat	Wire
2	Sunn O)))	Che	Suicide
3	Chris Connelly, Wiliam Tucker	Search and Destroy	The Stooges
4	Cold Specks	We No Who U R	Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
5	The Soundcarriers	The Seventh Seal	Scott Walker
6	Boris	Fundamental Error	Gudon
7	Justin Broadrick	Harvey	Earth
8	Pig Orchestra	Are ‘Friends’ Electric?	Tubeway Army
9	The Young Gods	Speak Low	Kurt Weill
10	Nurse with Wound	Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair	Traditional
11	Foetus	Shrunken Man	The The
12	Einstürzende Neubauten	On Patrol In No Man’s Land	James Reese Europe
13	Los Bitchos	Trapdoor	King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
14	The Legendary Pink Dots	Super	Neu!
15	Crime and the City Solution	Motherless Child	Traditional
16	Elysian Fields	The Indifference of Heaven	Warren Zevon
17	Blixa Bargeld	Soul Desert	Can
18	Andrew Liles	Unnatural Thing	UFO
19	Coil	Going Up	Ronnie Hazlehurst
20	Current 93	Idumæa (feat. Shirley Collins)	Charles Wesley