Formed by the same jazz lineage, Gordon and Wardell also shared a heroin habit. The warm, sustaining culture of the Los Angeles prewar jazz scene had, by the 1950s, become a recurring nightmare of crime and punishment. It was a lost decade for Gordon and many jazz musicians, who were often targeted by the authorities: he was busted for drugs in 1952, paroled in 1954, rearrested in 1956, and paroled again in 1960. Like jazzmen Lee Morgan, Elvin Jones, and Tadd Dameron, Gordon had to undergo the dire detox treatment at the US Narcotic Farm (detailed by William Burroughs in his 1953 novel Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict ). LAPD could jail and hold musicians for nothing more than needle marks on their arms or “signs of the presence of drugs” via a dubious test. As saxophonist Hadley Caliman estimated,
[s]eventy-five percent of the musicians in L.A. were trapped there because of drugs. […] They were on parole and because of the law that allowed them to be busted for tracks and internal possession, they could never get out. It was a crime. Their careers were ruined. Their lives were stopped. For nothing.
Gordon spent his incarceration in Chino prison in San Bernardino, California, reading all day and trying to clean himself up. “[W]hen you see the same shit happening over and over again to your life, you finally say, Wow, man, this gotta stop. Bird and Fats and the other guys, it was continuously downhill. But jail saved my life.”
Los Angeles, the place first of Gordon’s discovery and then of his disintegration as an artist, became the site for his rebirth. On parole from Chino prison and back in Los Angeles, he recorded the aptly titled album The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon (1960).
Last night we had the pleasure and pain of watching this masterful Spanish/French production by director Rodrigo Sorogoyen The Beasts. The Guardian says it well:
It was meant to be a purer, simpler way of life. Former teacher Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and his wife, Olga (Marina Foïs), relocated from their comfortable life in France to a smallholding in the Spanish hill country of Galicia. The aim is to grow organic vegetables and give back to the community by renovating abandoned village houses. But while the land may be fertile, it is drenched in bad blood. And while there’s a melancholy beauty in the verdant, mist-shrouded peaks, the hill people, as their menacing neighbour Xan (Luis Zahera) points out with relish, are an ugly bunch. There’s a simmering, creeping menace to Spanish director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s superb, award-winning thriller, a sense of an inevitable collision between the newcomers and those whose roots – and grudges – run generations deep in the Galician soil.
The modest village bar is Xan’s domain. Face sharpened by the elements, dissatisfaction and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of spite, he uses the gloomy room as a combat arena in which he goads his chosen target – in this case, Antoine. Xan and his brother Lorenzo are already at odds with the French couple over a planning dispute, but it soon becomes clear that Xan plans open warfare, and that Antoine is not one to back away from a fight.
Sorogoyen uses long, single-take scenes to capture the explosive buildup of tension; it’s a breathlessly compelling device that showcases the phenomenal quality of the acting. Ménochet brings a wounded-bear testiness to his performance, in contrast to Zahera’s snapping, attack-dog fury. But it’s the magnificent Foïs who carries the picture to its brutal conclusion.
Wow. Every year I run into a musician who, at least from me, comes out of nowhere and makes a statement that makes me think of the incredible virtuosity that exists in the realm of jazz but as far as I can tell "Edsel Axle" or better yet Rosali Middleman play more rock-styled guitar. Here it has an improvised flavor and really hits the spot. Keep going.
AD: Do you plan on performing these pieces live or is it strictly a recording project? If you do end up playing live, will you bring on other guitar players to help achieve the full sound of the album?
Edsel Axle: Right now, it’s a recording project, but I’m trying to work up the confidence to play solo like this in front of an audience. Because it’s improvisational and I enter into a trance-like state, it’s hard to achieve that when nervous. I feel like it’s the next phase for me though, so someday. But it would be different from the record. I wouldn’t attempt to play these songs as they are recorded anyhow. It’s about their singularity, a cloud floating by.
Since the compositions are centered around base layers and building from there with what is in my head — first thought / best thought — I hadn’t really considered bringing in other players. I feel like that would be fun, but, by nature, a completely different project as it would involve the thought process and style of another player bringing all of their ideas and energy to the table. I love to collaborate and I have projects in the same vein like Monocot (with drummer / percussionist Jayson Gerycz), but it’s not Edsel Axle.
AD: Does the name “Edsel Axel” have a history or significance for you, or is it a distinct creation? Was creating Edesl a way of separating your instrumental mode from your other work as Rosali?
Edsel Axle: It’s a long running joke in my family that my Dad was going to name my brother “Edsel Axle.” I’m one of seven kids, six girls and my brother is the youngest. All the girls have somewhat unique and unusual names and my Dad always said he wanted to give my brother that name, before settling on Michael. My Dad is into cars and we’re from Michigan (where the Edsel was made), and he’s a real punster so that’s where it came from. He’s also a killer guitarist and musician so, in that respect, the name is a little tribute to him.
And yes, I wanted an alter ego for my experimental work. It allows me to shape-shift a little. I have a good friend who told me she heard the album and didn’t know it was me. She wanted to know more about who “this Edsel Axle person is,” and discovering it was me blew her mind. That really made my day.
You’re probably familiar with the work of North Carolina singer-songwriter Rosali Middleman for her work under her first name. Most recent album, the excellent No Medium released via SPINSTER in 2021, was a deeply personal collection of what we called “raw folk rock ballads that display a triumphant vulnerability.”
Later this summer Middleman returns with a new record, this time under the moniker Edsel Axle. Titled Variable Happiness, the album will be released by Worried Songs and proves something of a change of pace. Forgoing vocals in favour of wandering, cosmic-minded instrumental compositions, Edsel Axle is an outlet for solo guitar work, recorded at home straight to a four-track cassette rig. “[Middleman’s] voice takes a winter hibernation,” as the label put it, “to showcase the prodigious slow burn thump of her solo electric guitar playing.”
You can now listen to the title track and lead single to hear this in action, a warm and patient slice of meditative Americana which bubbles forth from a deceptively simple cyclical guitar line, trembling with psychedelic energy as it unfurls like the scented smoke from an incense stick. It’s proof that lyrics are not required to conjure tangible, lingering feelings, that sometimes music can strike right at the heart of things we otherwise find difficult to describe.
Middleman’s gently tenacious riffs, made bristly with distortion and cushioned by generous layers of reverb, wander and wonder with a drifting ease. But despite the loose nature of the setup and the focus on immediacy, there is a sort of pattern to these trips. Middleman feeds a background riff, usually elongated and slightly bent, almost always full of sustain and whorls of feedback, through a looper pedal, and then plays shorter, more inquisitive, often knotty phrases over it. The pace is unhurried – the average track clocks in at around eight minutes, and the tempo and texture are slow, dreamy, with plenty of time for dwelling on ideas and plotting next moves. The result is vaguely cyclical without being rigid or confining, and free without being untethered or chaotic.
From this simple template comes a surprising variety of moods and expressions. Opener “Some Answer” is a bleary mélange of hazy, ringing distress calls and woozy warning signals, sweetly acrid, pulverized melodies mixing like sheets of humid air in front of an approaching whirlwind. The name, like the music on this album, is mysterious and ambivalent. Is it providing a partial explanation of something, or is the tone sarcastic – some answer meaning no answer at all? And what was the question, anyway? “Her Wind Horse” is an even darker, though perhaps less cryptic meditation on mental and physical weather, with whistling dissonance and Ditch-era Neil Young noodling, full of keening, bummer notes that sound like uncoiled springs. But there are also more pointillist, concrete numbers, such as “Present Moment,” which has a swaying momentum driven by firmly strummed chords, twinkling, chiming notes and even, for a minute or so, something resembling a conventional lead guitar line, mussed up and deconstructed though it may be. The title track is the centerpiece of the album, and though it drifts and winds with shrewd abandon, it also has a central consonance that makes it feel less elusive and flickering – more forthrightly present than many of the other songs, in spite of the wavering tremolo of these brambly meditations.
But through the noise-strewn forest of passing thoughts, complex reveries and expectant forebodings, there’s a distinct through line. Even at her most densely overdriven (check the massed storm of “Come Down from the Tree Now” that segues directly into the arid plain of “Her Wind Horse”), Middleman’s playing has a fierce serenity, a “Singular Grace,” to borrow the name of the shimmering transcendental fugue that ends the album. Variable Happiness, in all its mercurial variations, assuredly captures another side of an emerging artist hitting her stride, shedding (and shredding) new light on her past albums and suggesting a wealth of possibilities and surprises to come.
Those who know me and our immediate family are aware of Puff. This canine of 17 years on earth has been authoring his own Instagram account under Breton9Dogtails where he has written about his battle with Dr Virus and the sycophantic Republican party. But Puff has been also an integral part of our life being there to enjoy life in his own relaxed fashion. After 17 years his body was falling apart. He had amassed various tumors and recently had a growth in his mouth that was impeding his ability to chew on food. He had lost his ability to go up and down the stairs gracefully and had to be carried outdoors. Then there was his arthritis. But like a good trooper he took each day at a time and usually had a very good night of sleep without interruptions.
Well he is now in his long sleep. See you very soon, Puff.
Powerful and emotive solo guitar music unlike other guitar music. It's uniqueness gives it a foreign flavor but with a distinct familiarity that grips your soul. Well worth getting a copy via Bandcamp. A musician who should be known accross the musical world.
Raphael Rogiński was supposed to be a sculptor, but his guitar got in the way. He practiced more than he slept; blood “was pouring” from his fingers, he told the Polish publication Polityka in 2015. He tore at his instrument “like wild meat, shamelessly and greedily.” These days, there’s not a trace of aggression in the Polish guitarist’s music. His playing is considered, graceful, meditative. Every effortless run is followed by a contemplative pause; his rubato sensibility suggests someone treading on uneven ground, deliberating over their next footstep. If you were him, you might pause too, because there is a numinous power in his instrumental songs—enchanted, uncanny, swarming with ghosts. His music is a dark forest inhabited by shadows and sprites and unseen forces. His playing feels like a spell designed to keep a forager safe while honoring the wild unknown.
Before he ever picked up the guitar, a pre-teen Rogiński, who grew up on the wooded outskirts of Warsaw, played an Uzbek kemenche, a three-stringed lyre, given to him by his grandmother. He played it without the bow, pulling and plucking as though it were a banjo. You can detect traces of that initiation in his playing still; he often sounds like he is manipulating some other, stranger instrument than his Gibson ES-335. Maybe his grandmother’s kemenche unlocked something in him. She was Tatar, a Turkic ethnic group with roots around Lake Baikal that is today found across Central Asia and Eastern Europe, all the way to the Black Sea. Rogiński once recalled of his grandmother: “As we ate raw meat, I timidly looked into her eyes, and saw the Scythian steppes and beyond. It was my first experience of meditation.”
Much of Rogiński’s music has concerned itself with channeling spirits from the past. His group Shofar—named after the ritual horn blown on Rosh Hashanah, and associated with the resurrection of the dead—is dedicated to the excavation of traditional Jewish music, particularly the Hasidic mystical songs called nigunim. His finest album until now, Raphael Rogiński Plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes. African Mystic Music, distilled its inspirations into an ethereal and otherworldly form, a kind of anti-gravity blues. His new album Talàn picks up the spare, beguiling style of that recording and extends it. The record is dedicated to the Black Sea; many of its songs were written in Odesa, a Ukrainian port city defined by its historical mixture of cultures, and the gateway from Asia to Europe for some of Rogiński’s own ancestors. Across Talàn, that history of exchange plays out in eerie runs, folk melodies that feel like ancient wisdom, textures of dusty pages and worn stone.
Polish guitarist Raphael Roginski discusses creativity with the same type of idiosyncratic, poetic aesthetic informs his stunning music.
“I recognized that playing an instrument should be like playing on veins or your hair,” he said. “It must be part of your body. Most of my guitar sounds are like an instrument made from ribs and veins.”
Through the use of different tuning systems and a largely self-taught practice that privileges scrabbling tangles of notes over familiar melodic flow, Roginski indisputably makes his guitar sound like something other than a conventional instrument.
When he was a young boy, his grandmother gave him a traditional spike fiddle, known as a kemenche.
“It was to make my dreams come true,” he said, referring to his grandmother’s gift and his childhood desire to own a guitar. “This gesture is still the basis for my music, how to create culture.”
Before eventually picking up an actual guitar, Roginski approached the kemenche like it was a guitar, eschewing the traditional bow and developing a singular style wherein melodies where shaped in gnarled clusters.
He first started reaching fans outside of Poland through his work in jazz-related ensembles, such as Hera, a wide-ranging internationally flavored ensemble led by clarinetist Waclaw Zimpel, and Shofar, a wildly careening trio with fire-breathing saxophonist Mikolaj Trzaska that brought a free-jazz intensity to traditional Jewish music, particularly nigunim.
But his music reaches much further, whether he’s playing art-rock in Wovoka, instrumental surf music in Alte Zachen or moody, richly atmospheric post-klezmer with the wonderful Cunfukt. In each context his playing stands out, just as it did in more jazz-related settings. In Hera he injected a brooding intensity that articulated melodies in a bizarrely non-linear fashion that made each solo an adventure.
On African Mystic Music, Rogiński reworks eight Coltrane compositions and offers up two of his own as accompaniment for text by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (sung by Natalia Przybysz). But “covers” would certainly be the wrong word here. Rogiński’s interpretations of Coltrane, compared for instance to Mary Halvorson’s new Meltframe, are at times quite abstracted from their source material. While the purists may be disappointed, though, the rest of us will marvel at Rogiński’s musical alchemy.
The opening rendition of “Blue Train” sets a very high bar for the tracks to follow. Eschewing the self-possession of the original, Rogiński builds his take from starts and feints, gaining momentum with gorgeously elastic and permutating finger-picked arpeggios that dig down, rise up, and then resolve into perfect gifts of sound. The balance Rogiński cultivates is expert—the music manages to be light but not delicate, dense but not muddled, intense but not frenzied. And because of the intimacy of the recording itself, the friction of the guitarist’s fingers on the strings and the sounds of his breath become complicit in the devastating beauty of the playing. The ultimate result is more head-nodding than foot-tapping as we find a center in the nest of rapidly woven notes.
Track by track Rogiński redeploys variations of this same basic strategy, but the effect across the album is unity, not repetitiveness. After versions of “Equinox” and “Lonnie’s Lament” (appropriately plaintive), “Walkers of the Dawn” introduces a new element as Przybysz delivers Hughes’s poem over an almost mbira-like guitar. Again, rather than any performative extroversion, it’s the closeness of Przybysz’s singing, as if we were overhearing a prayer, that lends intensity to the performance. Together with the darkly manic “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Przybysz’s contributions offer a worthy complement to the Coltrane interpretations and qualify among African Mystic Music’s several highlights—two of which round the album out. “Seraphic Light” matches the agitation of the original, the guitar somehow capturing the blistery, stuttering quality of Rashied Ali’s drums. And “Naima” closes the album, sublime melody intact, a dynamic meditation full of bent notes and pregnant hesitations. It’s obvious that Rogiński knows just where to stop, but as the final notes fade it’s hard not to start the whole thing over.
The utter astonishment at Hamas’ brutal attack, and the refusal to understand it in the context of decades of oppression, reflect an Israeli position that genuinely wonders why the Palestinians did not cling to their status as prisoners in Gaza, say thank you for Israel’s generosity in allowing a few thousand people to work for minimal wages on the lands from which their families were expelled, and bring their occupiers flowers.
Indeed, how many Israelis care about the situation in Gaza so long as Palestinians are not firing rockets or breaching the fence to enter our communities? Who bothered to ask what “calm” looks like in the besieged enclave? As far as most Israeli Jews are concerned, the more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza should have kept their mouths shut and embraced their starvation. But today, even this option is no longer satisfactory, leaving Israelis to rally behind a new ultimatum for Gaza: emigration or annihilation.
In the current discourse, emigration is often presented as a humanitarian consideration, generously allowing Palestinian civilians to leave the area of hostilities. In reality, around three-quarters of Gaza’s population have been forcibly displaced since October 7, mainly from the north, and the Israeli army continues to bomb them in all parts of the Strip.
Alternatively, emigration is proposed in the form of plans for mass transfer of Palestinians out of the Strip, which are being seriously considered by senior Israeli officials and policymakers. For significant parts of the Israeli public, Palestinians are easier to move than furniture in a living room.
Given that expelling Gaza’s population makes perfect sense to most Israelis, the Palestinians’ refusal to submit to the might of the Israeli regime is perceived as an existential threat and a sufficient reason for their annihilation. It is true that Hamas’ horrific October 7 massacres in civilian communities violated what ought to be the scope of legitimate resistance to oppression, but the vast majority of Israelis were totally fine with snipers killing and maiming Palestinians who demonstrated en masse at the Gaza fence during the Great March of Return. In their eyes, no form of protest against the occupation is legitimate.
It is not only Smotrich’s logic that has settled in the public’s heart since October 7, but also his rhetoric. In his introduction to the Decisive Plan, Smotrich writes: “The statement that ‘terrorism derives from despair’ is a lie. Terrorism derives from hope — a hope to weaken us.” The Israeli public has similarly embraced the severing of the link between terrorism on the one hand and despair and struggle on the other; in the current climate, any attempt to even mention this connection is immediately denounced as justifying Hamas’ crimes.
The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost.
This process will not stop and cannot be stopped at the Gaza fence. Smotrich’s logic is already seeping into the state’s approach toward its own Palestinian citizens, who have been facing levels of persecution and repression that recall the military regime of 1949-66. It is no coincidence that this community’s voices are almost completely absent from the public sphere these days; they are subject to arrests and indictments for simply asserting their national identity.
Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points. The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.
For many months now, we have been living in a world of self-delusion, rich with imagined possibilities. Maybe it will be Ron DeSantis, or maybe Nikki Haley. Maybe the myriad indictments of Trump will doom him with Republican suburbanites. Such hopeful speculation has allowed us to drift along passively, conducting business as usual, taking no dramatic action to change course, in the hope and expectation that something will happen. Like people on a riverboat, we have long known there is a waterfall ahead but assume we will somehow find our way to shore before we go over the edge. But now the actions required to get us to shore are looking harder and harder, if not downright impossible.
The magical-thinking phase is ending. Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president. When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor. Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present. Donors who find Trump distasteful have been free to spread their money around to help his competitors. Establishment Republicans have made no secret of their hope that Trump will be convicted and thus removed from the equation without their having to take a stand against him.
Pensive and brooding with a touch of Tyner on a Fender Rhodes this music is something to wake up to, or perhaps while one reads their favorite novel during a mid-morning interlude. A welcome addition to the tranquil, yet turbulent music of your soul.
It was the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who first coined the phrase “music is the food of the soul”. And listening to this latest release from the LA-based jazz quartet Phi-Psonics, rarely has that phrase been so appropriate. Led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums, their beautiful music draws on jazz and classical influences together with Ford-Young’s own musical experiences, relationships, and his introduction to spirituality, yoga and philosophy at a young age. Their unique brand of fully immersive, meditative jazz can’t help but soothe the soul and lift the spirits.
Originally from the Washington DC area, Ford-Young moved to California in the early 90s and fell in love with the sounds of the upright bass and the music of Charles Mingus, John and Alice Coltrane, and Duke Ellington along with Bach, Chopin, Pärt, and Satie. These influences can clearly be heard throughout “Octava”, with the group’s combined expression soaring in a quietly contemplative way. Their music glides effortlessly like a beautiful bird spreading its wings and catching the sunlight as it drifts from one gentle slipstream to another.
“Octava” is the group’s second album and like their debut “The Cradle” and its somewhat introspective approach to meditative jazz offers a welcoming space for uplifting contemplation. The warm melodies and thoughtful musical exploration take the listener on a lovely journey, one which offers a deep reward. Ford-Young shares a few thoughts on the recording: “This album is about change and evolution to a higher version of ourselves. Understanding this journey through the idea of ascending a musical scale and arriving at a new, higher octave is natural, especially for a musician. We move, struggle, and work through the various steps or tones and arrive at the octave a new version of ourselves, still the same person, but vibrating at a higher frequency.”
Cast your minds back to 2022 and in the same Pharoanic slipstream The Cradle that maxed out on the sheer feeling of space engendered on 'First Step' pivoting between the bass playing of Seth Ford-Young of US West Coast outfit Phi-Psonics to the floaty flute-playing of Sylvain Carton who also plays tenor saxophone on the album.
On the upcoming Octava clearly the balladic 'Green Dreams' dedicated to Ford-Young's wife is the best track with the slow tick of drummer Josh Collazo a human metronome that has somehow ceased being an inanimate object to deftly choreograph the dance that develops. But most tracks work in terms of a long play listen. Carton is all over the record and the tasteful Wurly playing is the work of Mitchell Yoshida.
Even more relevant since the passing of Pharoah Sanders last September. And even long before. Again the sax titan was at the heart of the awakening. What goes around coming around all the years on since his classic Karma all the way up to his last great statement, the incredible Promises. It is a circle that remains unbroken and the solar ripples span ever outerwards.
Maybe it says in its best expression a poetic commentary on the malaise of Western society more than any news cycle can even make a motion towards. Manchester label Gondwana is the original spiritual jazz label for the 21st century in the UK and while others may dabble at the style and frequently do, there is always a deep sense of exploration with the Halsalls & Mackness heads at the label even when they change tack.
In modern days and times, when it comes to the pure and unadulterated genre of Jazz music, although it doesn't seem so, there are a plethora of recording artist's and musical ensembles who exemplify the pure and genetic coding of the roots of the genre of Jazz (in all of its classic sub-genres). Whether it be Bebop, Hard Bop, Post Bop, Soul Jazz, Modal, Vocal Jazz, Jazz Funk, and even up to the mid-'70s incarnation of Jazz Fusion, respectable homages to those varied styles of classic traditional jazz music are alive and very present, today. Phi-Psonics, having recently entered this realm with their debut album The Cradle (2020)—which we hope to review in the near future—have resurfaced in 2023 with their sophomore album, Octava, given to us via the very notable and respectable avant-garde and eclectic UK record label, Gondwana Records. Aside from the Phi-Psonics, Gondwana's artist roster includes other phenomenal and note-worthy acts such as Chip Wickham, Allysha Joy, and Caoilfhionn Rose, to name a few; and the Phi-Psonics are right at home, fitting right in the musical mentality of the record label. Headed by the incredible writer, composer, producer and bassist, Seth Ford-Young, and completed with his line up of exceptional musicians: Sylvain Carton (saxophones and flutes), Mitchell Yoshida (Wurlitzer and electric piano), and Josh Collazo (drums), Phi-Psonics are a quartet of modern ethereal post bop and modal jazz, that has no choice but to garner respect from even the most discerning of Jazz music aficionados. And all of this, out of Los Angeles, the 'music capital of the world', where Rock, HipHop, Pop, Soul/R&B, Punk, and even Smooth Jazz reign supreme ... come Phi-Psonics.
Octava is a brilliant sophomore effort if there ever was one. And although I do not own their debut release, I have sampled it online, and I will say that, even as incredibly impressive as their breakthrough album The Cradle is, their sophomore release stands out even if just a hair more, than their debut does. Boy, does the opening track, "Invocation," immediately stir up mid-'60s post bop offerings from some of my most notable favorites. It immediately threw me back to some of my favorite Eric Dolphy, Ron Carter, Charles Mingus and John Coltrane recordings. Moving through the track-listing to "We Walk in the Gardens of Our Ancestors," I came to a place of the meditative Jazz ethers, where the minimalistic infusion of brilliant musicianship and composition met the sonic fingerprint of psychedelia, which was lead specifically by flute and Rhodes piano, and carried me through a pure Jazz dream state, reminiscent of circa ealy-'70s CTI label Hubert Laws. "Green Dreams," is yet another 'beyond reality' work of art that invokes feelings of supernatural peace and subconscious self-reflection, yet in the midst of contemplation, all in a slightly more than five minute composition, which ends much to soon.
Like the shadows blocking out key areas of the frame in a Val Lewton film, or the requisite locked attic door in a haunted-house story, the narrative ellipses that open Claire Denis’s murky, rain-soaked, profoundly upsetting film noir could be concealing anything—but it’s hard to imagine they’re hiding anything you’d want to see for yourself. Bastards is Denis’s tightest narrative in decades, but that’s not immediately apparent from the film’s opening series of shard-like vignettes: a well-dressed man straightens his tie in a dark, deserted office; a woman is led slowly away from a crime scene; a teenage girl stumbles home through the lamp-lit streets of Paris wearing only a pair of five-inch heels.
As the film continues, little details, shreds of context, facts, clues, and connections start to accumulate at painfully spaced-out intervals. The story, when it eventually emerges, concerns ship’s captain Marco (Vincent Lindon), who goes AWOL and rushes home following his brother-in-law’s suicide and the hospitalization of his young niece Justine (Lola Créton, she of the high heels), only to get caught up in the machinations of a depraved, sunken-eyed financier (Michel Subor). It’s not totally obvious what makes Denis’s trail of bread crumbs so thrilling to follow. Certainly there’s an element of morbid curiosity, but there’s also the urge not to leave any shadows unexplored or any doors unopened.
More to the point: is there, as a handful of critics have suggested, something questionable about Denis’s choice to make a film about victimhood that refrains from exploring the psychology of the victims? For all Créton’s natural, almond-eyed soulfulness, Justine remains an opaque enigma, while Chiara Mastroianni, playing Subor’s mistress, radiates loneliness and desperation but rarely seems to have a will of her own (that is, until she finally lashes out in a last-ditch act). Marco is our entry point into their sufferings, and he’s as much an outsider as we are: a passive, world-weary onlooker who’d rather be floating out at sea; the quintessential noir protagonist in over his own head. But all this, I think, serves to justify the supposed lack of empathy in Bastards. It suggests the extent to which the film’s shadowy corporate Paris is of a piece with Chinatown’s rotten-to-the-core Los Angeles, or the Chicago that told Tony Camonte in Scarface that the world was his: within a thoroughly amoral universe in which women are bought and bartered by men of absolute power, victimhood consists precisely in being commodified, flattened out, reduced to a cipher.