Brooklyn trio Nation of Language are back with a new single, ‘From the Hill’. It will be part of a 7” that’s set for release on December 9 and will include another track, ‘Ground Control’, as a vinyl exclusive. Take a listen below.
“’From the Hill’ is a song reflecting on times when friendships fall apart over romantic entanglement, accompanied by the sensation that you’re somehow watching it happen from above with a more zoomed-out perspective,” singer Ian Devaney explained in a statement. “It can feel at times like certain parts of life are a story with which you’re just following along – the characters enter, they play their role, and then they leave. Often it’ll feel sudden and catch you off guard, and other times you’re able to see that it’s the only way things could have played out despite what you may have wanted.”
The song marks the band’s first new music since their 2021 album A Way Forward. “For us, we’re in a moment right now where it feels good to get this out into the world. It’s one that didn’t really feel like it fit the vibe of A Way Forward, nor is it any real indication of where the next record is likely heading. When that situation arrives we like to use these 7” releases to step outside the larger framework that the albums provide and just release a track that we love, so this is us doing that once again.”
Brooklyn band Foyer Red have released a new song, ‘Pollen City’. It follows their recent single ‘Pickles’, which came out in July, and May’s ‘Flipper’. Check it out below.
“There’s a special kind of buzzy energy in the air when the seasons change and the weather gets warmer; Pollen City is about that inherent impulse to stir things up, sometimes in a wicked sort of way,” lead singer Elana Riordan explained in a statement. “This track is the first song we wrote from scratch collaboratively as a 5-piece late last year, with ‘Flipper’ and ‘Pickles’ being more associated with the Zigzag Wombat era. I like to think of it as a bridge into the new world the five of us have created together, teasing some new sounds and forms, shapes and colors, etc.”
Jobber have released ‘Hell in a Cell’, the title track from their upcoming EP that’s out October 21 on Exploding in Sound. Following lead single ‘Entrance Theme’, it arrives with a music video directed by Steve Marucci. Watch and listen below.
Discussing the new song, vocalist/guitarist Kate Meizner said in a press release:
‘Hell in a Cell’ is basically an allegory. On its surface, it’s a narrative about a fictional wrestler mentally preparing for a match and questioning whether it’s worth it to put her body on the line for the sake of spectacle, which, in this case, is a match set to end with her taking a 30 ft jump off a steel cage a la Undertaker vs Mankind at HIAC 1998. Pulling back the curtain a bit, the lyrics are pretty personal and came out at a time when my job was having an especially negative impact on my health. I wanted to quit so badly, but in the midst of covid-19 related layoffs and economic downturn, everyone was being bludgeoned with anti-labor talking points like…. “why are you complaining about your job? You should feel grateful to even have a job!” The lyrics “Am I ungracious? / Because I won’t turn water into wine / Am I buried forever? / If I start speaking my mind” are from the POV of the wrestler, but also came from a personal place, expressing my anger toward workplaces and their horrendous, exploitative treatment of workers.
Musically I wrote the heavy intro riff of “Hell in a Cell,” when I was listening to the Helmet album “Betty” on repeat. The intro sounded like the perfect entrance theme for a physically huge, hulking wrestler like Kane or Braun Strowman, and I shaped the song ‘around’ the riff to mirror the cinematic ebb and flow of a wrestling match. Mike F (drums) and Justin P (sound engineer) were instrumental in shaping the dynamics of the song – making the big riff parts sound huge in contrast the quieter parts with delicate guitars and melodies.
Shygirl has dropped the final teaser of her upcoming album Nymph ahead of its release on Friday, September 30. ‘Shlut’ follows the previously unveiled singles ‘Firefly’, ‘Come for Me’, ‘Coochie (a bedtime story)’, and ‘Nike’. Check it out below.
Frankie Cosmos have released ‘F.O.O.F.’, the latest single in the lead-up to their new album Inner World Peace – out October 21 via Sub Pop. It follows the previously shared tracks ‘One Year Stand’ and ‘Aftershook’. Check it out below, along with a video by artist Cole Montminy.
“For me, ‘F.O.O.F’ is about creating random boundaries and schedules for yourself in an attempt to feel in control,” the band’s Greta Kline said in a statement. “Feeling time passing at varying speeds and time traveling with music.”
“I love Cole’s art, and we were all so excited and grateful they were on board to make this video,” Kline added. “I’ve struggled with feelings of isolation as a result of the pandemic, combined with escalated use of technology. This video embodies that, and the ending provides a sense of relief and freedom from those feelings. We could all stand to smash our computers and go touch some grass.”
Ahead of its release on Friday (September 30), Björk has shared the title track to her new album Fossora. It follows previous offerings ‘Atopos’, ‘Ovule’, and ‘Ancestress’, which we named our Song of the Week. Check out the new single, produced by Björk and featuring Kasimyn, below.
2nd Grade is the Philadelphia power-pop project led by Peter Gill, who has clocked time in bands like Friendship and Free Cake For Every Creature. While working in other groups, Gill started writing and recording songs on his own, drawing inspiration from the bright, hooky songwriting of bands like Guided By Voices, Big Star, and Teenage Fanclub. His first record under the moniker was 2018’s Wish You Were Here Tour, a collection of sweet lo-fi pop songs that were given the full-band studio treatment on a reissue that came out last year on Double Double Whammy. Between the two versions of that record, 2nd Grade put out Hit to Hit, a 24-track LP brimming with ideas that felt both breezy and dynamic, cheeky yet earnest. The band – whose lineup also includes guitarists Catherine Dwyer and Jon Samuels, bassist David Settle, and drummer Francis Lyons – have honed in their approach on Easy Listening, their tightest and most thrilling effort to date, which is out Friday. As it jumps between styles that are skilfully stitched together, the album strikes a balance between rock n’ roll euphoria and teenage ennui, escaping into a world of fantasy that’s worth believing no matter how unattainable it feels.
We caught up with 2nd Grade’s Peter Gill for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about the making of the band’s new album, the inspirations behind it, society’s obsession with youth, and more.
Can you remember what your headspace was like going into the album?
Yeah, I pretty vividly remember my headspace, and that’s because these songs were written during the spring of 2020. Hit to Hit came out at the end of May, and I wrote this record during the very beginning stages of COVID quarantine, leading up to when Hit to Hit came out. It was a weird time, because I was still walking dogs and working during that time, but also, I was just at home a lot because you couldn’t go anywhere. So I was kind of bored in one way, but also, I was so excited because those Hit to Hit singles were coming out and excitement was building for this new record. All day long, you’d be getting social media notifications dinging, which sets off all the dopamine channels in your brain. It was a time of great boredom and great excitement, and I think I channeled both of those feelings and themes into these new songs I was writing. A lot of the songs are about wanting to be a rock star, but then a lot of the songs are also just kind of about feelings of, like, you’re spinning your wheels or you’re not getting anywhere – those rock star fantasies are actually pretty far out of reach for you.
The album is full of characters who are enthralled by rock and roll in some way, but I was wondering how close to those characters you feel, or if there’s a certain ironic distance there for you.
It would be wrong for me to say the songs are about me and about what I’m going through, necessarily, so to use the word “characters” kind of feels right. But also, some of the feelings and themes that the songs touch on do feel really personal to me and what I was going through. I guess in a narrative sense, there is a lot of distance between me and the songs. But more abstractly, they feel pretty personal.
It varies from song to song, too. I’m thinking about ‘Beat of the Drum’, for example, which has a more carefree energy compared to a song like ‘Hung Up’, which includes the line, “I hide behind guitars all the time.”
Yeah, that one’s not so carefree. [laughs]
Were you cautious about how to approach that dynamic?
I didn’t feel too cautious. I’d say my working method is to just throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. When I’m coming up with ideas or writing new songs, I try not to think too much about those sorts of questions like “How personal is this?” or “How will it be perceived in a press release?” or something. I’m mostly just coming up with as many ideas as I can, and preferably good ideas. And then later, it’s sorting through and figuring out what hangs together. I’m a huge fan of bands like Guided by Voices, or really any band or any album where it’s a bunch of wildly different stuff kind of jumbled together. So for me, it just makes a lot of sense to have one song that is about hang-ups or getting down, and then having another song like ‘Beat of the Drum’. Which is like a bubble gum song, so it’s really stupid, but it also has an intellectual component of just wondering, what is it about a drum beat that makes someone want to dance? How does a drumbeat even exist? Why does having snare on two and four sound so good to everyone? There’s some pretty cool neuroscience at work.
Since I wrote that song, this past month, I’ve been reading this book about the physical properties of sound and how our brains process and respond to sound and music. And it turns out that they don’t fully understand the science of it, but studies have shown that when a subject is listening to something with a very steady predictable drumbeat or pulse, there will be corresponding waves of electrical activity in the brain, neurons firing at the same time as those beats. And in fact, there are also waves that subdivide those beats, so like, instead of just going quarter notes, the brain will fill in the half beats in between, too. Which is pretty crazy. [laughs] It’s funny that I just read that and it actually answered a lot of questions I had. That song was about those questions.
I’m curious if there was more sorting through with this album, given its relatively shorter tracklist.
Yeah, there was definitely closer attention paid to the editing side. I purposely wanted it to be more focused than Hit to Hit was, so a shorter tracklist and a shorter runtime. The runtime I think is like 31 minutes or something. I just wanted to really trim the fat this time around. I wrote a lot of songs for this record, and I think I ended up choosing these ones both because they’re some of my favourites of the batch, and also because I thought they thematically hung together in a way that isn’t completely random and abstract. It feels like an album to me.
You’ve said that the perfect length of a song for you is one and a half minutes. Were you less conscious about the songs’ runtime this time around, or has your ideal chaned?
Yeah, I’d say that continues to be my ideal – let’s bump it up to a minute and 45 seconds now, I think that’s the perfect length. [laughs] Which has changed, I once said it was a minute thirty. I think I was very conscious of runtimes this time around. The funny thing is, people asked me about the length of the songs a lot when I talk to people, and honestly, when I started writing songs, I wasn’t aware of how short they were. It just kind of happened that way. By the time I decided the song was done, I would record it and find out how short it was. And now, I’m definitely more conscious of it, and I still want the songs to be short, generally. There’s a couple songs I wanted to be longer, like ‘Strung Out on You’ is two and a half minutes, and ‘Teenage Overpopulation’ is like three and a half, and that was on purpose because I knew I wanted those to be singles. And I guess for playlisting purposes, I felt like if a song was a more conventional length, it might have a better chance of popping up in playlists or getting played maybe on college radio or independent radio.
With ‘Teenage Overpopulation’, which is the longest song on the album, it also makes sense because I feel like it’s kind of intentionally conflicted in its messaging – there’s a lot going on in the song. What got you thinking about that subject matter in the first place?
I think the subject matter generally is stuff that I have been thinking about for a long time, and there’s a lot of angles that you can come at it from. From one angle, you look at the music industry, and a lot of the people that are making it in a big way, getting a lot of attention and have a lot of resources behind them – a lot of them are very young, maybe artists in their early 20s. And there’s just this widespread notion that it’s a young person’s industry, and it’s possible to age out of it and be disqualified because you’re seen as too old. It’s this obsession with youth.
Also, as a power-pop musician, a lot of the genre of power-pop to me is about evoking teenage feelings, and a lot of my favourite music from, you know, like Pet Sounds is very famously an album of teenage feelings and emotions. A lot of Big Star is about the teenage experience that Alex Chilton never got to fully have because he was a touring musician on the road from the age of like 15 onward. It’s a genre that just historically is hyper-focused on that time in a person’s life, for better or worse, so it felt funny to have a power-pop song that is an anthem of protest against teens. [laughs] That’s not the only thing that song is, obviously, but that’s one way to read it.
At the end of the song, you shout out a bunch of famous young people, and you’ve put Malala right next to Butt-head.
[laughs] Yeah, we were in the studio and the band made me do that. It wasn’t on my list originally, and they were like, “You have to say Butt-head after Malala.” Which felt wrong, but it’s funny and it creates like a jumble. Most of those people are supposed to be teenagers, but a few non-teens slipped through the cracks. Ruby Bridges, for example, was not famous for being a teenager. She was famous for being just a little kid, but she’s a little kid who changed the world in a pretty big way. Once she was in the song, it didn’t feel right to take her out of it, so she got to stay. And Beverly Marsh is a Stephen King character, and I think she’s only like 12 or 11 in the book. But I just made a mistake, so she’s in there.
What we’re talking about made me think of another line from the title track: “My friends don’t seem to mind them in the 1990s all the time.” Is that something you relate to?
I’m not stuck in the past or anything, but something about that line still feels honest to me. I don’t know if I can place it really. I was born in the 90s, too, and I’m forever tied to that period of time. It’s not like I’m living in the 90s or anything, though.
It sounds like it’s more about being drawn to a specific musical era.
I don’t have a nostalgic pull to the 90s, but I do have a very strong pull to the music of the 90s. Not from nostalgia, but just from aesthetic appreciation. Especially someone Guided by Voices, Bob Pollard, I’m just forever amazed that I am alive on this planet at the same time that he is creating this body of work and forever shifting the musical language. It’s pretty extraordinary. It’s how I feel about Bob Dylan, too, I can’t believe I can just sit down and put on any one of his albums at any time. It’s probably how people felt about Picasso when he was alive. It’s an amazing time to be alive as a fan of music, as I’m sure you know.
‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice to Let It Be’ is only two minutes and fifteen seconds, but it still feels like it’s stretching out before it cuts abruptly. It feels like a way of bringing out the dreamlike quality that’s evoked in that line, “I’m just holding the cross section of a dream.”
“Dreamlike” is a great way to describe it. It sort of describes this state of being that is so unattainable, it can only exist in dreams, just to be completely free of care or worry. It’s almost as if you’re having a dream, and the whole time in the dream, you know that you’re dreaming, you’re aware of it. And so you’re kind of existing in two states at once. And then having it end abruptly, it’s like, “Time to wake up.”
And the record ends with you singing “dreaming of dreaming of dreaming a dream.” Is there a personal significance there for you?
Yeah, there is, but again, not narratively or specifically. I don’t have a lot of dreams, or I don’t remember my dreams when I wake up. But more, rather, so much of my experience in this reality is just bubbles inside of bubbles instead of bubbles. Everything that I experience is shaped by my attitude and my expectations that I’m not experiencing some objective reality. “Dreaming and dreaming of dreaming a dream,” when I wrote that line, I was afraid that people would think of Inception, that movie where it’s dreams inside of dreams. That’s not what I’m trying to get at. It’s not some mindfuck, you know, I’m not trying to blow someone’s mind. There’s something about the way those words sound together too, or just any word being repeated a lot, that has a hypnotic effect to it, which, to me, reinforces the meaning of it.
Do you feel like Easy Listening is your most collaborative album?
This one is the most collaborative so far. And that was definitely a big goal of mine, to have the band just take up more space. Part of that is, I stopped playing guitar in this band, I don’t play guitar anymore. I just sing the songs and I write them. So all the guitars you’re hearing are stuff that Jon and Catherine came up with. Also, they helped out more with the arrangements and general decisions. We still kind of got screwed up by COVID. It made it so that we couldn’t like really get super deep into workshopping the songs before they were recorded, we had to be really efficient with how we spent our time. I love the way it turned out, and I think that’s a testament to how much they inspire me as musicians. I’m excited for the collaboration to only become stronger and more in-depth.
Can you share something that inspires you about each of your bandmates?
There’s four other members, and they’re all incredible musicians who have tons of really awesome projects. David, Francis, and Catherine are awesome songwriters in their own right. Catherine has this band called Spring Onion. She has this knack for coming up with melodic ideas that would never in a thousand years have occurred to me, and they’re completely the perfect fit, so it’s always so cool to see what kind of guitar stuff she’s going to come up with and bring to the songs. Francis has this project called ylayali, which is less songwriter-based. It’s really hard to explain what it is that he’s doing with this project, but it’s so unique and inspiring and powerful. And Jon, he doesn’t write songs as far as I know, but he’s an extraordinary guitarist with so much curiosity about all different types of music. Again, it’s really hard to explain what he does, but he has this project that, to me, is similar to someone like Bill Orcutt, where it’s solo guitar music that maybe has aesthetic roots in American primitive guitar, but it has taken those ideas so much further that it is unrecognizable compared to that. It’s music that I put on and my brain is just exploding with activity.
David has a bunch of bands, including this one called Psychic Flowers that’s power-poppy.David, from all of them, is probably the most on my same wavelength. It feels like he can read my mind sometimes when I’m trying to explain what I want from a song. He just seems to have completely the exact same rolodex of influences that he can just draw upon at will. And also, for the live show, he brings the real rock and roll energy that I crave. I’ll be singing and then if I turn around, he’s in full power stance with this really cool denim jacket, just completely selling the rock and roll idea. Which is hard to do – a lot of times it can come across as half hearted, and he’s out there convincingly bringing it across. And that inspires me too, because I’m always thinking about the visual side of what we do.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Do you dread having long and tiring conversations about good financial skills and quality money management with your teenager? Do you fear that these conversations can’t go smoothly or efficiently? If any of these worry you, this is the article for you.
Not exactly a fan-favorite topic, conversations about finances often get the best of us. And as important as this matter is, it is not exactly what your teen is looking forward to on a Tuesday afternoon when they might rather be hanging out with friends from school.
And yet, there is no running away from this crucial talk, as good money skills from an early age can help set up your teenager for success in the long run. So, what can you do to teach teens about money and do it without any arguments or headaches? We’ve got you covered.
Should parents talk about money with kids?
As nerve-wracking as this can be, it is advised that parents have constructive conversations about finances with their children. Research shows that it is never too early to start introducing kids to the basic concepts of money and finance management.
This not only relates to your teens’ allowances but also their savings, part-time jobs, as well as the next grocery list and its impact on the overall family budget.
To put it simply – there are better and worse ways to go around this. What you do want to make sure of is that you are not inciting any fear, anxiety, or stress when discussing it. This will only produce negative feelings and an aversion to understanding money management.
Fear not, science is on your side. Science says to go for it and involve your children in money matters even before the age of seven. However, it is not too late to start breaking the topic down in their teenage years, all the while providing good examples and patience.
Encourage your teen to save money
Knowing how to save money is just as important as knowing how to make money. There is no point in telling kids to study, be committed, and take on a job if they are not going to know how to properly manage their income once it arrives.
The advice is to start small. Start involving your kids with savings. You can do it old style with a cute piggy bank safely stashed away at the top shelf or you can opt for a modern solution like BusyKid that will have your kids saving, spending, and doing their chores all in one go.
Involve your teen in family finances
Just to clarify, this particular piece of advice does not mean that your teens should be aware of your entire financial situation. Whether you are doing great or you have temporarily hit a bad spot, the length to which you will involve your teens entirely depends on you.
However, you do want them to know that there is a limited amount of money available each month. You will be clarifying that it is good management that ensures that things keep going smoothly as you plan your family’s necessities, wants and needs out. Have them join when you are drafting your next grocery list or have them do the shopping with you.
Make finances fun, not scary
This cannot be emphasized enough. Having quality conversations and practices relies on the fact that you ensure a stress-free environment. If your children become terrified of money or managing their small amounts, it is safe to say that we have not achieved our goal here.
Some practical experience in a safe and fun environment won’t hurt and it will give your teen some financial freedom to practice the things you previously only talked about.
Leave room for mistakes
You must leave some room for mistakes. After all, they are bound to happen. Do not be quick to react badly when some mistakes occur, but rather try to keep to your idea of promoting financial responsibility, reaffirming the benefits of good money management.
If at all possible, provide a safe environment for any future mistakes and tell your teen not to hide it from you when this happens. This is crucial.
Conclusion
As we’ve said, teaching good financial habits to your teens is not the easiest task, but it doesn’t have to be the most tricky either. Remember – make talking about finances a conversation in which your teens can approach you freely for confessions and advice.
Randy Duke (aka. Lewis) is a one-of-a-kind enigma. After his 1983 album L’Amour was discovered some twenty-five years later in a flea market, a generation of internet sleuths took up his case. L’Amour features ten tracks of soft synths, gentle acoustic strumming, and quiet crooning. Each song trembles with palpable romance, hinging on the earnestness and vulnerability of Lewis’ voice. The album’s aura of mystery catapulted it into the ranks of outsider art classics. Little was none of its creator: a handsome, Canadian, white-suited quasi-cryptid. An internet investigation into Lewis’ history brought an avalanche of stories, fact largely indistinguishable from fiction. The end result is a modern mythos built around the footsteps of an enigmatic, larger-than-life artist content on staying vanished from the public eye.
In his achingly tender short film I Thought the World of You, which played this month at TIFF, Kurt Walker plunges into Lewis’ mythology, sidestepping the trappings of conventional musician biopics. He embraces Lewis’ impenetrable mystery, telling his story through speculative (and dialogue-free) recreation, a narrative of Lewis’ contemporary reception, online discourse citations, and even an interpolation of F.W. Murnau’s Faust. Throughout the movie, Lewis remains an ambiguous figure, filmed from behind, his face always obscured. Yet the film’s romance and affinity for the unknowability of its subject is undeniable. I Thought the World of You conducts a séance with a world lost to time, finding beauty in uncertainty. It’s a haunting and bold work from a rising voice in the Canadian experimental film scene.
I spoke to Kurt Walker about I Thought the World of You, the trappings of the biographic genre, his eclectic influences, and the endless mysteries of Lewis.
What interests you about Lewis?
I guess I have to go back to 2014, when I first discovered the music amidst “the big summer of Lewis”, and when it was this international news story. At that time, there was this online search effort for him and for more music as well, which I loosely was a part of via the online message board Hipinion. I was just immediately beguiled by the music and its ethereal, impressionistic, elusive nature that was seemingly completely echoed by the man himself, who was similarly this kind of diaphanous, elliptical figure. It’s a beautiful mirroring between the artist and his art. And really, his image, whether intended or not, and his persona (or personae) and mythology is all part of the art. It’s an artwork in itself in a way that’s probably not consciously authored.
I also just fell in love with the music, plain and simple. Its romantic, ethereal nature immediately grasped me. It appeared after that phase of augmented reality games like Cloverfield and that Nine Inch Nails album or Lost. But this was the real thing. It wasn’t designed by a corporation or something. It was like: who is this man? What is this? Is he related to Doris Duke? Is he a stockbroker? Did he date Christie Brinkley? Is he a Canadian? Is there more music? When Lights in the Attic finds him and offers him the $20,000 cheque, he turns it down and walks away and has zero interest. And meanwhile, a significant number of people were fawning over him! It was just a very special internet moment too, you know? It was purely positive. It was just a Lightning in a Bottle moment of an audience unifying to unfurl the uncanny. Everything has a paper trail now. Everything is clearly tracked via internet archives and whatnot. And here is this thing that wasn’t and felt like one of the online world’s remaining mysteries. And still is, from my perspective, in that this film doesn’t really resolve anything. If anything, my ambition was to deepen or complicate the mystery further. And there is more music out there too. Some of which I got to hear in the making of this film, but also apparently there’s a third album made in 1989 that’s floating around Europe somewhere that no one’s found yet.
What was some of the music you got to hear that hasn’t been released?
I wanted the film to be as true to place as possible. I wanted to shoot in locations where Randy may have been or concretely had been. And so, we shot at the Fiasco Bros. recording studio in New Westminster, B.C., where he recorded basically a quadruple album of material from roughly 2001 to 2006. Somewhere around there. For many years, he would come in and work with the engineer, Len Osanic, who makes a small cameo in the film. Randy (Lewis) would come in every few months and rent the studio for a whole day and just record primarily working on one track just all day. And he had a very methodical approach that was really apart from the clientele there. It took a while for Len to adjust and acclimate to working with him. Naturally, we had to shoot there to concretize its ghosts and history on 16mm. The recording studio in the film is intended to be LA’s Music Lab circa 1982, but it’s actually where he recorded his music circa the 2000s. Back to your original question: I researched this film for years before going to Vancouver for four months, where I spent some time with Len at Fiasco Bros., and he kindly indulged me and shared with me some of the demos that Randy recorded there. They’re obviously quite beautiful and I hope one day they’ll see the light of day. I’m afraid I can’t say much more.
Your past movies, Hit 2 Pass and s01e03, both zero in on the dynamics of very specific social communities. This one’s no different: Lewis’ story is framed with tidbits of discourse from online fans speculating about his life. Was that internet community perspective an entry point into Lewis’ story for you from the very start, or was it an angle you found yourself adopting as you further developed the movie?
It was the primary perspective from the very start because I was a part of that community, or at least was a lurker. The internet search for him, particularly on the Hipinion side of things, was my entry into the music and the story. And thus this framework was just a natural extrapolation upon s01e03, where I have characters communicating almost exclusively to each other through messaging expressed via what are essentially silent film intertitles. And so for I Thought the World of You, it was about evolving that device: where could I take it further? It was also an attempt to modify or complicate the scenes that surround them, as the comments are filled with speculation, mythologizing, and potential facts.
So you first found out about Lewis in 2014 when the internet did. But when did the idea to turn it into a movie arise?
Honestly, right then in the Summer of 2014. I was finishing my first film Hit 2 Pass at the time and I was immediately attracted to the idea. But it also felt like… look, this was covered in The Guardian and The New York Times and the LA Review of Books. Meanwhile, I had heard rumors that all these filmmakers are descending on Vancouver and trying to do a Searching For Sugar Man-kind of thing with Lewis. I’d spoken with Len Osanic back then too and he made it sound like his phone was ringing off the hook with producers and filmmakers reaching out. For the longest time it felt like it was out of my reach as a 23-year-old, no-budget, largely experimental filmmaker. I moved on and started working on s01e03, which proved to be a five or six-year project. Upon finishing and releasing that film, I started my Master’s at York. And I was like, “Okay, no one’s done this yet. I think it’s time.” And I knew at that point, through making s01e03 in particular, I had arrived at an approach of how to execute it. That film’s narrative ellipses, intertitles, and online community really paved the way for both the fragmentary storytelling and shape of this film.
We have an onslaught of musician biopics these days—the Freddie Mercury one, the Elton John, Aretha Franklin—we could be here all day. But they’re all movies that are essentially the opposite of I Thought the World of You. They’re trying to move beyond mythology into straight biography. Did I Thought the World of You’s relationship to this broader musician biopic genre cross your mind while you were working on it?
Totally. It was partly an academic project. I certainly didn’t want to make an academic movie, but it was made during my time at York. I actually did a specified directed reading which involved diving into a lot of particular music artist’s biopics, which cumulatively helped affirm and solidify for me that I needed to take an alternative approach. Because you just can’t do that format with Lewis. And I also couldn’t from a budget-financing-practical perspective either. There was no long-winded, traditional movie in this material. Plus, no one wanted to fund this project anyways. It just made sense philosophically and practically to pivot this in another direction–towards myth and enigma. Hardly anyone close to the story wants to talk about Lewis. And the people who might know something are practically unreachable. Every time I got a little closer, learning something more, a door would close. It quickly became about following the closed doors and embracing what I didn’t know. And taking this route towards the unknown.
I couldn’t help but think of Straub–Huillet’s The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach while watching your movie.
You called it. I definitely looked at that film a lot.
They’re both portraits of artists largely framed from behind, de-emphasizing their faces and the words in the movies are, mostly, transcripts of written texts instead of dialogue. Both also share a fascination with the artists’ hands. Was that an inspiration for I Thought the World of You?
Absolutely. I mean, my dream was to make this actually performance-oriented in the way that film is. That approach didn’t work out but I still embraced that film for its ellipses and its remove. Bach frequently is deep in a crowded frame, surrounded by individuals–one isn’t given easy access to a narrativization of the artist. It’s mediated from Anna Magdalena’s perspective, giving further space to think about the art in ways biopics typically fail, simply because you’re in such close proximity to their personal lives and not the art itself. I think that’s something that’s often lost. Even though there will be ten needle drops by the subjected musician in a biopic, it doesn’t really give aesthetic space to truly experience the art. Not in the way that the approach of Huillet/Straub does where you just see process in this really clear, unfettered way. Not that my film entirely accomplishes that, but it was certainly a guiding light.
Even beyond the “musician genre”, were there specific filmmakers on your mind while you were working on the film?
You know, I’ve never been to LA and obviously missed the 1980s. So I was looking at Michael Mann’s Manhunter a lot for its description and feeling of LA. I also connected with its plot of an obsessed detective in a way the online detectives, myself included, in my film likely echo. I also looked at William Friedkin’s Cruising plenty, which maybe seems like a stretch at first, but I just find that film to be singularly enigmatic. Despite fulfilling a genre, it doesn’t reduce itself to any answers: I still don’t really know who the killer is in that film, I don’t think it can be known. By its end, it describes this kind of diaphanous figure that can’t be resolved. Additionally, the French filmmaker Jean-Claude Rousseau’s short film Faux depart. It’s a really precise, cryptic piece of portraiture in which there’s a subjected person but there isn’t psychology or characterization. These films just can’t be resolved–they really stir and stick with you. In a way, I’m really interested in that affect of making work that’s hard to shake. And then on the other hand, I’m probably something of a romanticist. One of my favorite filmmakers is the great old Hollywood auteur Frank Borzage. I love his so-called sense for transcendental romance. That was certainly another affect I was looking for in this film. This isn’t a common interpretation thus far but, for me, I was trying to tell a love story between Lewis and Karen. All the songs, particularly on L’Amour, are love songs. It’s more than likely some of those tracks are inspired by their time together, which I know practically nothing about. So, I merely theorized and speculated and tried to tell this in the space of a 17-minute short film: a love story that spans time and is documented in this forgotten work of art and later unfurled by an online community susceptible to mythologizing. Anyways, that’s my weird, and probably disparate, list of influences.
I can definitely see Frank Borzage in there. The way the images just kind of like dissolve into each other.
Totally.
How much did Lewis’s music itself influence your approach?
Yeah, that’s the number one influence in the end. I mean, I’ve long been obsessed with L’Amour in particular. Leading up to the shoot, I was pretty much listening to L’Amour on loop most days and just trying to let its texture guide my pre-visualization process. At points, I was even listening to the music on set. Before telling a story or doing a speculative biography, I was trying to adapt the music’s aural texture into cinema, you know? The emotions, the quietude, the impressionism. So that’s why, from day one, it was going to be 16mm. Thankfully, I got to work with the very talented Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora: the foremost landscape filmmakers in the country. They have a new film this year, Anyox, which should have been at TIFF, if you ask me… It’s a beautiful work that unfurls a complex history of labour in a remote mining town in B.C. It’s about to play at VIFF and Festival du nouveau cinema. Anyways, to return to your question, the music was always there. It was the thing I had to honour above all.
Your past movies, I’d say, have extremely digital aesthetics. Did you find it was a challenge transitioning into 16mm?
The challenges were mostly practical. Foremost, I was alongside and supported by the aforementioned collaborators. Otherwise, the answer to that is probably a boring one: it’s just a lot more cumbersome and slow to work with. And this was a very small, shoestring production with a lot of locations. It was a lot slower to move and shoot. But otherwise, it was thrilling and ignited new processes and approaches.
With this film, I also wanted to take a conscious break from this kind of video game cinema that I was hitherto developing/working in. I also tried to do something entirely different. I tried to pre-visualize and map and design the film before going to camera. I really matured as a director, and I think shooting on 16mm was a part of that in that it necessitated growth on my part to be more precise.
Was there a challenge of how to preserve Lewis’ elusiveness while simultaneously telling a version of his story?
Frankly, I don’t know if it was a challenge because after a year of research and turning everything over, and reaching out to everyone I possibly could, I don’t know that much more than I did in 2014. You know, I learned some stuff that’s not in the public realm. But for the most part, Lewis remains pretty much a mystery to me. He’s far from demystified. And if he was, this film may not have taken shape.
One more question: as one of the comments that you cite in the movie suggests, should we accept the mystery?
Yeah, definitely. Mystery, and particularly this mystery, is just intoxicating, you know? It’s a rabbit hole with no end. I think we need more enigma again. In both cinema and in life. So if this film can provide a little bit of that, then I’m pleased. And likewise, if we can introduce people to Lewis, not only the rabbit hole of myth but also the music, then I’m fulfilled.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Kurt Walker’s I Thought the World of You played in TIFF’s Wavelengths 2: Crisis of Contact programme. It will screen in the VIFF Short Forum: Program 1 on October 1st and 3rd and the Festival de nouveau cinema’s The New Alchemists 3 competition on October 9th and 13th.
