Music Films - January 2026

This will be intriguing. I’m not sure how this will go. I was excited to get back into writing about music film and using this space to do so. I still am. Kind of. It’s just that the first film I’m reflecting on here was an underwhelming watch and has lessened even from that assessment since I watched it a week or so ago. So, this will be me, I guess, reflecting more on the music film form as opposed to the specifics of the film itself. Though there will be some of that.

Desire: The Carl Craig Story

Talking through the film with someone at work who knows Carl Craig even initial enthusiasms dissipated and I’m left now feeling like this is a pretty shallow hagiography with not a lot of formal or contextual depth, at least for me. There were some elements of the film that I felt were lacking in terms of what I [thought I] knew about Carl Craig’s life and career as well as the context of Detroit Techno that he emerged from.

Reading online after, which was maybe a mistake, it became clear that despite being listed as both a Black innovator and an LGBTQ+ icon, in a scene that has spent a lot of time defending its Blackness and its Queerness having been whitewashed and straightened out, Craig has increasingly distanced hinmself from those aspects of the legacy of Detroit Techno. While also standing with people, socially and creatively, that have further muddied historical and culturally political waters.

The film also struggles to assert Craig’s position in music history, either formally through archive and live footage, or through contextual interviews. Craig’s sense of himself rarely aligns with the sense of his importance from peers and those who followed his lead. In the latter case, the most convincing and interesting example of this is hearing from UK Drum n Bass figures such as Fabio and Roni Size regarding how, in detail, Craig’s music was foundational to their conception of DnB.

Elsewhere, I appreciated how the film placed Craig in a lineage of future-facing Black music, the Afrofuturist tradition if you will, and his relationship to Jazz, and in particular Sun Ra. I always want though, and this is purely selfish, music films to engage in dialogue with other music films - this is something that Sini Anderson’s 2013 film The Punk Singer does beautifully and you’ll find out soon if you continue reading why that comes to mind - as it would have been fantastic to see this film bring in John Akomfrah’s The Last Angel of History, where many of these ideas around Blackness, technology, science fiction and sonic exploration are so deftly rendered. Maybe this is just the academic in me.

I also appreciated the flow and rhythm of the film. It didn’t succumb to the common and oft expected pacing of films about dance music, content instead to feel more ambient and textural and running at a lower bpm. It felt formally like a novel way into exploring Craig’s position within club culture and the connections between that and electronic music, but by the end I was yearning for something that felt in its form more emotionally driven and less cerebrally-driven, particular as, as mentioned before, the film failed to deliver a convincing argument for its own relevance by pursuing Craig as a subject. The film is available to rent, or to stream via BFI Player (UK).

Dirty Girls

A film I watched this month for the first time and loved was Michael Lucid’s short documentary Dirty Girls, which I learned about via Ben Lee and Ione Skye’s newsletter, Weirder Together. Shot in 1996 (from what I can tell) while Lucid was a high school senior and completed in 2000 (from what I can tell) while Lucid was on the doc programme at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, the film is a series of talking heads discussing a group of girls in a high school, who are known as the titular ‘Dirty Girls’.

It’s revelatory in so many ways. There’s the honesty and openness of talking to camera, particularly for a project that at the time of shooting was assumed and most likely to never have gone anywhere or been seen. It was just a classmate asking questions. There is also the brazen meanness of high school captured in the raw. Girls are mean to girls. It’s not a revelation per se, but being captured so naively has a power all the same. It stands as a pre-internet/social media document of feeling towards peer groups and those considered outsiders, and the VHS-ness adds a fuzzy nostalgic tone to proceeedings. Yet, the sentiments and sense of fear of the other are not bound by time or technology as the continued waves of online and messaging-based hate, violence and bullying attests.

What does this have to do with music film? Much of the conversation from the girls under class scrutiny centres around Riot Grrrl and its impact on them and their growing understanding of their place in the world and society, and by extension the microcosm that is high school. The song that plays throughout is by Liz Phair, the girls write their own songs and lyrics having been inspired by Kathleen Hanna et al (that’s why I was thinking of The Punk Singer this month!) and have their own zine where they collect their art and fomenting rage. It’s a beautiful film about the role music can play in a person’s life, particularly at key moments of adolescence where emotions are heightened, vulnerabilities exposed, the maelstrom of growing up. A reminder of the power of music to build confidence, a sense of self and a sense of community and solidarity. The film is available to view on YouTube here.

Events, Gigs & Travels in February

February 4, The Cornish Bank, Falmouth - The Orielles

February 10, Newlyn Filmhouse, Newlyn - Performance (Roeg & Cammell, 1970) - I will be screening this classic British film with my friend Mark Jenkin, for the first of planned semi-regular screenings that continue the tradition established by our screenings of Big Wednesday (Milius, 1978), The Doors (Stone, 1991) and Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997) for tapings of The Cinematologists across 2024-2025.

February 25 to March 1, London - I am visiting my friend Dario Llinares and we plan to watch some films in cinemas. Get in touch if you want to join or meet up. I arrive Wednesday afternoon (25th) and leave Sunday morning (1st)

Events & Travels Further Afield in Time & Space

London - May 22-24

Sydney, New York, Los Angeles - June [Dates TBC]

Berlin - November [Dates TBC]