October 3, 2024

Record Reviews (02/10/24)

Hannah Holland - The Visitor OST [Spotlight]

Hannah Holland’s OST for Bruce LaBruce’s latest film The Visitor (trailer) is an amalgam of already existing club tracks, unreleased sketches from the archive and new compositions, including Hannah’s take on the theme for Pasolini’s Teorema, on which LaBruce’s film is based. That original soundtrack was scored by Ennio Morricone, and his dissonant strings and hollow percussion are all over ‘The Visitor Theme’, though Hannah substitutes in distortion and delays for Morricone’s customary haunted choir.

In the film, this opening theme forms an eerie backdrop to the arrival of the titular Visitor, who washes up on the banks of the Thames in a sodden suitcase while, in voiceover, a Mosley-esque (or Farage-esque) politician decries the supposed plague of immigration on British soil. The Visitor arrives at the front door of a wealthy family’s Kensington mansion and is welcomed in unquestioningly by The Maid, who ceremonially proceeds to serve the Visitor’s piss, blood and shit to her employers for lunch. Each member of the family initially recoils at the smell of the Visitor’s shit, but soon enough we see them trying to outdo each other as they vie for his attention, making a show of eating his shit and enjoying it. Their repressed desire for the ‘other’, combined with their need to deny their revulsion and perform acceptance, is stronger than the revulsion itself. There are many satirical bullseyes in this film — from the Mother shagging The Visitor inside a giant shopping bag, to the spoilt son discovering he’s an ‘artist’, to the periodic blaring intertitles (“Open borders, open legs” / “Eat out the rich” / “Keep it in the family”) — but this opening dining room scene remains unsurpassed for both squirm value and bite.

Appropriately, the musical accompaniment to this scene is an ‘Oh Yeah’-like romp titled ‘Eat It’, all growling slap bass and hilariously lusty vocal samples. That levity is matched on ‘Mother’, its oohs and aahs mimicking the mother character’s less than subtle overtures to the Visitor in the garden. Hannah’s bass guitar is a striking presence on several of the club-ready tunes that soundtrack the fucking, giving a highly playable punk-industrial vibe to ‘Licking Wounds’, ‘Glass Lin’ and lead single ‘The Screamer’. The remaining dance numbers are heavy on Chicago drums, acid lines and vocals and at times they come off a bit too streamlined, though the wild screaming and squalling guitar on ‘Animal’ make it a notable exception.

Elsewhere, Hannah gives full rein to cinematic flourishes on the individual family member vignettes: ‘Maid’, a plucked string and church bell fantasy that ends with a crucifix up the ass; ‘Mother’, a bossa-nova dalliance; ‘Daughter & Visitor’ suitably red-lit for the imagery used in the film and LP’s promo material (see above); and ‘Father’s Feet’, a sacred chorus for a super-basement baptism. The final track on the soundtrack, ‘Levitation’, returns to Morricone dissonance and disembodied wails, as the threads of the family’s now-shattered bourgeois universe unravel into primal screams.

I listened to this soundtrack in full before going to see the film here in Lisbon and, although it certainly stands alone, it only truly comes into its own in the context of LaBruce’s precisely deranged vision. Try and catch it in the cinema if you can.

(Read an interview with Hannah about the process of making this soundtrack on Metal Magazine.)

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Sami.Moe - Crash And Build EP [1432 R]

I’d classify this as one of the year’s most slippery records, by which I mean that, after months of playing it, I still can’t quite place the mood or energy of any of the tracks. The first time I listened to ‘Let It Go’ I thought it was a classic piece of mnml revivalism, its slinky bass and ping pong percussion straight out of the Heartthrob playbook. But then I played it at Globus in May and it slapped, hard, way more than I was expecting it to. The same happened with ‘Crash The Benz’ when I played it in Manila: what I thought was a slightly angular party popper turned out to be darker and more twisted than I intended, so much so that I felt the need to course correct with the next tune.

Even ‘Redeem’, which has all the hallmarks of an end of the night dreamy house moment, turns out to have a midsection with a decidedly psychedelic bent. And although I have included ‘Can’t Get Over It’ in pretty much every gig playlist I’ve put together since April, I’ve yet to find the right context (or the courage) to drop it. Something about that extended beatless intro, the almost indie sung-spoken vocals (“switch it up/get lost in time/I can’t get over”) and the acid digressions make this track a full statement in itself, and therefore a puzzle for finding the right moment. But it’s such an opus that I know, one day, I’ll find a way to do it justice.

(1432 R is having a stellar year. Check out Alien D’s ‘Swamp Thing’ and Mzss’s ‘Galaxy Express’ for two other favs around here.)

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Cosmo - Jin 09 [JIN]

Another difficult to classify EP, Cosmo’s debut has been dividing opinion within my own head ever since I first heard it. My reaction to the tracks on it seems to vary from day to day and mood to mood. The trippy rolling clockwork vibe of both tracks on the A-side gives me strong Floresta vibes, not far removed from Stephen Howe’s ‘Venise Celeste’ on WLTD008, though on ‘Gentle Night’ there’s a harmonic development in the second half of the track that I just can’t get on board with. There’s a feeling of stasis to both that and ‘Misty Memories’ that I don’t find unpleasant, but can also come off as a little aimless.

The mood is more decisive on the B-side. I have further (minor) reservations regarding the harmonies on ‘Her’, though a bit of dissonance is definitely at home within an electro framework like this. On some days, I find myself thinking I’d like the track better with a more clipped electro style rather than its splashy breaks; on other days I find the breaks-y boldness compelling. ‘Kintamani’ is I think the most straightforward track, fitting in well with the Kalahari Oyster Cult Cinematic Universe we’ve all found ourselves in for the past few years.