09 09 07: Faust by Jan Svankmajer - LIVE RESCORE
Our September rescore is another very special night. We say this everytime, but if you've been to one of the previous film rescore nights you'll know what we mean. This month is an extra special night, specially commissioned for Roxy! When Little Boat & Kora turned up last year to play live to a selection of short films as part of the Halloween Short Film Festival, we didn't know what to expect. What we got were three musicians playing violin / guitar and a dulcimer (google it...) and the most exquisite, beautiful cinematic music that blew everyone away. So we asked them back and decided to go with Jan Svankmajer's classic surrealist live action / animation version of the Faust tale. The film itself deserves a viewing if you've never seen it, but with these boys doing the soundtrack, this is another unmissable night. Put the date in your diary and cancel important things. £4 on the door Kora and Little Boat first played at Roxy in January rescoring a set of classic short films as part of the Halloween Short Film Festival. Asked to return with a full-length film, the group picked Svankmajer's dark, dreamlike live action / claymation animated version of the myth of Dr Faustus. This will be the first performance of their rescore. For the rescore, Kora and Little Boat's viola and guitars will be accompanied by a cello, hammer dulcimer, accordion and auto-harp to create a sound that captures the mood of European expressionist cinema and Jan Svankmajer's central European background; that lightly suggests images of strange carnivals, wandering musicians, burlesque, and fairy-tale cities of dark turrets, labyrinthine streets and subterranean absinthe dens. Little Boat and Kora have both been fans of Svankmajer for a long time and recognise the great influence he has on contemporary animators and film-makers including Tim Burton and Brothers Quay, whose "Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer" is a direct homage to their Czech hero. Like much of his work, Svankmajer's Faust is a dark, dream-like but visually brilliant film with no previously accompanying music, to which the rescore artists plan to indulge in the un-tethered freedom and dark, unconscious suggestion of the surrealist tradition. The film's original sound will be playing in tandem with the rescore. ................................................ Kora and Little Boat write music for films (documentaries, experimental shorts, narrative, animation) in the studio and in completely live, semi-improvised performances. Using viola, electric guitar and instruments from around the world through live sampled layers, Little Boat & Kora create a sound that is experimental, soaring, dark, playful, cinematic, modern and antique. The group began writing music together in 2005, when they started working on a collaborative guitar project that brought together West African kora and mbira music played on acoustic guitars with Little Boat's own jazz and electronica-influenced loop-guitar. They went on to rescore films with members of Perico at Fabric last year, as part of Future Cinema's Metropolis project, and this year at Roxy Bar & Screen (Future Shorts) and again with Future Cinema at Latitude and Big Chill Festivals this summer. www.myspace.com/littleboat
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