Seahorses - Improvised Soundtrack with Eric Gallipo - May 28, 2012

Last week Eric Gallipo and I performed a live soundtrack to Jean Painleve`s film Seahorses as part of The Olio Cooperative`s Sound and Vision night.  Sound and Vision is an evening of silent film shorts with live soundtracks performed by local Victoria musicians and artists.
I had become fascinated with the films of Painleve after seeing an excerpt at the surrealist show that was mounted at The Vancouver Art Gallery; having participated in past editions of  Sound and Vision I vowed to do one of them.  Little did I know at that time that Yo Le Tengo has scored at least eight of Painleve`s most popular  films!

I have always done this project solo, but on this occasion I invited Eric Gallipo to join me. Eric is an attentive, empathetic improviser and one of the most eclectic, original, and talented musicians I know.  Whether it`s the harsh noise of CSTL, the classic bebop stylings of the Eric Gallipo Ensemble, or whatever the fuck you ask him to do in whatever situation, he brings a fresh creative perspective, humour (sometimes twisted), and musical chops to spare.

A few nights after the show, we set up with my crappy laptop webcam filming a DVD on the TV That`s what you call postmodern image degeneration, don`t you know.   We did one take and here it is

If you are interested in Jean Painleve, I would suggest racing down to Pic A Flic (located in scenic Cook Street Village) and renting the 3 DVD Science Is Fiction compilation of his work issued by Criterion.  Sadly, Criterion has had a lot the Jean Painleve stuff taken off youtube, including most of the Yo Le Tengo tracked films

Check out some noise!