Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble, a chamber orchestra of 24 musicians, that we introduced readers to in an earlier post (Nu Deco Ensemble tests the boundaries of classical music with reggaeton, Daft Punk suite, more) performs music by a range of artists from Aaron Copland to Daft Punk. This week, they plan to debut a new suite based on the music of Radiohead.
Speaking via phone, conductor Jacomo Bairos and composer Sam Hyken admit the music of the British alt-rock band is something they have wanted to present from the beginning. However, they had to be careful with their approach for fear of placing their own ground-breaking group in the shadow of another more famous one.
“Radiohead has been on our minds for a long time,” says Bairos, who speaks from San Diego, just ahead of a collaboration with pianist Ben Folds. “We wanted to do it. We just didn’t want to start there because Radiohead is one of those groups that other classical groups have adapted and mashed up, and we wanted to establish ourselves with original content, done and made and performed before we dive into stuff like that, that other people have also listened to.”
“We talked about Radiohead for a while, but we knew we didn’t want to do it for our first concert, as our first artist,” adds Hyken, who is speaking from his home base in Miami, where he is still working on the arrangements (we spoke a few weeks ago, now). “But, as Radiohead fans, we knew it would be a phenomenal group to cover.”
He won’t reveal what songs they are adapting, but admits that they are skipping the first two albums, Pablo Honey and The Bends. Hyken says of the tracks they are considering, “I’m going to keep it a surprise because we haven’t picked out all of them, and I’d like to keep that under wraps.”
As he is in the works of adapting some of the music, he talks freely about some of the challenges in Radiohead’s music compared with adapting Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem, another alternative dance/rock band they have adapted. “Radiohead is very sonically based,” says Hyken. “Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem, even though it’s electronic, the grooves are very straight ahead. Radiohead, so much if its sound is electronic. We’re trying to figure out how deep we want to go with that, at this point. Do we want to go with electronic drums? Do we want to make it the exact same percussion? We’re just kind of diving into that a little bit deeper. A lot of sounds that Radiohead have are methodically manipulated by so many different factors. It’s not as straight forward. With Daft Punk you can take the lines that they created and you can put them right into the orchestra, and it really works. With Radiohead, you have to get more creative in terms of color and orchestration.”
As with previous shows, the ensemble will also explore classical music by contemporary composers during the performances at the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, including Ricardo Romaneiro and Nicolas Omiccioli. Hyken describes Omiccioli’s piece, “[fuse],” as “very current and very digestible” and the Romaneiro piece as “very beautiful and exciting and vast, in terms of soundscape. It’s going to be an amazing auditory experience. It’s gonna be almost like surround sound because of the way we do it with the speakers and because of the way he’s written the piece. It’s going to have an encompassing feel to it because the audience is going to feel like they’re deep into the music.”
In their shows, the Nu Deco Ensemble also tries to work in 20th century composers into their sets. They have touched on some famous ones already, like Copland and Ravel. This pair of nights will feature a piece from a composer whose pieces aren’t routinely performed by orchestras, the German composer Paul Hindemith. His piece “Kammermusik No.1, Op. 24” will also be one of the longest works the Nu Deco Ensemble has ever performed.
Bairos says it’s all about broadening the pallet of the audience. “We really felt it was a great opportunity to interject the great music that doesn’t get to be performed so much by regular orchestras,” he says of the Hindemith piece, “and people are going to get to learn about Hindemith a little bit … and it’s gonna make us a better ensemble, too. The wider our artistic pallet is the better musicianship we’re gonna develop over time, and that’s just gonna help everybody at the end of the day.”
Finally, also as with previous shows, the events will feature a collaboration with another group. Earlier, the orchestra played with local luminaries like Afro Beta and The Spam Allstars. These shows feature a group visiting Miami from Brooklyn: The Project Trio. “They’ve become one of my favorite collaborators of all time because they get it,” offers Bairos. “They understand classical music is amazing, but at the same time they understand that it needs to be freshened up and livened up.”
“People of all ages love their music,” adds Hyken. “The intensity that they bring to the stage is just ridiculous. They just bring this high octane energy that’s just infections and gets the audience really engaged.”
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You can read more about this show in Pure Honey Magazine, which is also out in print, available for you to pick up for free at the hipper indie shops, bars and cafes in South Florida, from Miami north to West Palm Beach. Jump through the publication’s logo below for the article:
The Nu Deco Ensemble performs with Project Trio on Thursday, March 3 and 4, at 8 p.m., at the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse. For tickets, visit www.nu-deco.org. Photo credit: Southern Land Films / Monica McGivern
Nu Deco Ensemble tests the boundaries of classical music with reggaeton, Daft Punk suite, more
January 26, 2016
The house lights the night of The Nu Deco Ensemble’s second performance, earlier this month, in Miami were provided by nature. Not far from the still waters of Biscayne Bay, only disturbed by a small group of passing manatees, at the historic Deering Estate, the musicians of the 24 piece chamber orchestra settled into position, as the sun came down. As night fell and the mosquitoes retired for the night, the large, brightly lit stage exploded with the sounds of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”
But there was something else going on with the piece, too. It has a salsa swing to it, featuring a percussive element that’s far from Bach. After the piece, conductor Jacomo Bairos reveals the piece’s title: “Tocatta Y Fuga en Re Menor,” and it was arranged with a Latin flair by composer Sam Hyken. Bairos and Hyken are the masterminds behind the Nu Deco Ensemble, a 2014 Knight Arts Challenge winner just beginning its first season of performances. As they explained after the show, Hyken and Bairos are not content to recycle the classics. They are here to push against expectations and limitations of classical chamber music on various levels. Besides reinventing classics by Bach and others, their repertoire also includes adapting the electronic dance music of Daft Punk and the disco-rock of LCD Soundsystem. They are also on a mission to support new works by living composers, including the work of Japan’s Andy Akiho, who was represented that night with “Ki’lro,” an angular yet entrancing piece of music.
Hyken and Bairos wear the badge of “Miami’s 21st Century Chamber Orchestra” with pride and an excited pioneering spirit. The two complete each other’s thoughts but also talk over one another to explain the Nu Deco Ensemble’s mission. The two first loosely crossed paths while pursuing undergrad degrees at Julliard. Bairos was senior to Hyken, but he knew of him. They really got to know each other, however, in Singapore while auditioning for the city’s symphony. They were both hired the same day in 2004. Both brass players (Bairos played tuba and Hyken trumpet), they got on famously.
That was also where the idea to make something new happened. “Just two young Americans having a ball over in Asia,” says Bairos, “and we had similar musical tastes. We had similar ideas of what an orchestra’s gonna be in the future and started brainstorming then about everything we wanted to do.”
Both also tapped into personal connections to South Florida. Bairos grew up in Homestead. Though he conducts several city orchestras across the U.S., including San Diego, Atlanta and St. Louis, his attachment to South Florida is indelible. Hyken, meanwhile, was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey, but he moved to Miami 10 years ago. He graduated with a Master’s degree from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. The musicians in the ensemble are all classically trained and hail from the most prestigious organizations in South Florida. Some are New World Symphony fellows, others are professors at UM’s Frost School of Music and some also play in the Florida Grand Opera.
To note what makes the group different from other chamber orchestras begins with the fact that there are only one of each instrument (save for clarinet) as opposed to a formal set up of a chamber orchestra, which has pairs of instruments. There’s also electric bass and guitars and a drum kit. Bairos also conducts the group like a rock star gesticulating to an arena. 
It’s unintentional, he assures. “I don’t know. Sometimes I try not to,” he admits. “Sometimes it gets a little out of control. Tonight I’m a little tired, so my body was probably flailing even more… I feel like the music is coming through, and I just try to feel it and express it. Sometimes it’s funny,” he adds, and Hyken joins him in amused laughter.
Nothing about Nu Deco is traditional, and almost every element is about breaking formal rules. Asked if they are committing a purist sacrilege by giving Bizet a Reggaeton feel (“Refried Farandole”), Hyken says, “I think everyone has their own point of view on that. We can only be true to our own art. That’s how I feel.”
“The funny thing is,” adds Bairos, “I’ve connected to [Hyken’s] music literally all over the world, basically, from San Diego to Charlotte, and you know what? People clap like crazy, so I think we’re on to something. There could be some purists out there who don’t appreciate the fact that we’re taking an old piece of music and reinventing it, but you know what? We’re all about making sure that the future of classical music is alive.”
“Also, some of the greatest composers did the same thing,” chimes in Hyken.
“Brahms with the Hyden variation, Liszt,” says Bairos.
“They made a symphonic metamorphosis, and there’s jazz,” Hyken continues. “There’s different elements of that. And Britten took Purcell and made it into all these crazy variations, so it’s happened in the ‘50s and the ‘40s and the ‘20s. It’s a continuation of a tradition.”
“Looking back informs the future,” notes Bairos. “Why it spawned the way it did informs what we do in the future. The most important thing is we speak to society today and make sure we’re preserving this great classical art, at the same time supporting these musicians but building a culture in Miami that’s savvy, that loves art and understands its value to the community.”
Further in their ethos to push forward while breaking the rules, is Hyken’s work in adapting electronic music for their small orchestra, something that has earned the Nu Deco Ensemble a lot of attention. Hyken says adapting the music is not as complex as one might assume. “When you’re dealing with electronics so much of that is sonic based,” he explains. “You’re trying to create a sonic type of sound that doesn’t exist with the acoustic instruments, so you have to do a version of that, but that kind of contemporary music, LCD, Daft Punk, it all has a beautiful counterpoint. There are lines that go back and forth. It’s almost like a minimalist type sound. It happens to translate very well to acoustic instruments. It gives it a new kind of life.”
Asked if either of these contemporary dance music groups are aware of what the Nu Deco Ensemble has done with its music, Hyken says, “I don’t think Daft Punk is. You never know these days with the Internet, but sources say that LCD may be aware because we had somebody who was at our last concert who has been in touch with them, and he said he shared it, but we don’t know for a fact.”
“Unofficially, we think maybe,” Bairos adds.
This week, the Nu Deco Ensemble is more focused on its upcoming collaboration with Miami’s renowned jazz, funk Afro-Cuban fusion group The Spam Allstars. “Spam Allstars is an iconic Miami band with an iconic Miami sound,” says Hyken. “Adding orchestral instruments to this creates a whole new world of possibilities and layer of richness. It’s a unique combination that is exciting, lush and sophisticated.”
Spam Allstars’ founder and turntable maestro, D.J. Le Spam (a.k.a. Andrew Yeomanson) offered a hint of what is in store at the North Beach Bandshell this Thursday night when his seven-piece band joins the 24 piece of Nu Deco on stage. “We are going to play four songs from our catalog, which Sam Hyken has created very exciting arrangements for,” says Yeomanson.
Yeomanson also says audiences should expect to see them perform a new piece called “Ibakan,” a collaboration with Hyken. It debuted at The New World Symphony as part of the orchestra’s annual lightshow/dance party hybrid “Pulse,” in November of last year.
Yeomanson says the rehearsals have been an amazing experience. “It’s thrilling for me to hear our stuff with these added textures and colors,” he says. “It opens up a whole new palette of sounds and range of emotions.”
For now, Nu Deco is only a live experience, but Bairos and Hyken have been hearing about requests for recordings. Though he clearly appreciates the interest, Bairos sighs about the added pressure, “Yeah, we have,” adding that it is indeed something they are considering for the future. “We want to take next summer and really decide what it is we really want to record first, what we want to put out there first. We’ve gotten some requests from some major artists here in town, and we’re just kind of waiting to see where all that falls. But we definitely want to put out an album that not only has living composers but some of [Hyken’s] arrangements, just our signature style.”
Though the future may see the release of a recording, for now the ensemble’s first season is packed with performance dates that include new suites based on the music of Jamiroquai and Radiohead, performances of music that range from the likes of Paul Hindemith to Paul Dooley and collaborations with more guest musicians including Brooklyn’s Project Trio and Japan’s Akiho. For all upcoming dates and tickets, visit, this link: www.nu-deco.org/seasonone.
The Nu Deco Ensemble and Spam Allstars perform this Thursday, Jan. 28, Sunday, Jan. 31 (it was postponed due to weather), at the North Beach Bandshell in North Miami Beach, Fla. The concert is presented in partnership with the Rhythm Foundation. Tickets for the event can be purchased here.
All photos are courtesy Southern Land Films / Monica McGivern. They were taken on the night of “Water Music” at the Deering Estate. Photo of Spam Allstars is courtesy of the band.
Photo by Gil Bitton
One of South Florida’s greatest contemporary solo musicians still criminally treading water down at the end of the United States to not enough global recognition is Jose Ferrer, a.k.a. Boxwood. The 34-year-old multi-instrumentalist and singer has just self-released his second EP, “Moon Garage.” We covered the release of his first one (Boxwood, a one-man wall of sound, releases “Sun Garden City” EP today). The man with the celestial obsession was casually introduced to me by another local musician, Alex Diaz, who also has been down in Miami, evolving as an artist for even longer (read my 1997 profile on that guy in the Miami New Times here and check out his soundcloud).
I had no idea what to expect of Ferrer’s music, but he was introduced to me by someone I trust. Though some will detect similarities in sound to The Cure, My Bloody Valentine or Radiohead, no one makes music like Boxwood. Though he performs solo, he layers parts, including percussion, guitars and vocals via loop pedals to create a lush, dynamic brand of music all his own. He does it live both on stage and in 
the recording studio. Over an open air dinner at the Vagabond Hotel in Miami, the slight-of-frame musician says, “A lot of the stuff that I come up with is because of the loop pedal. I’ll come up with a part to a song, and then I’ll kind of isolate the rest of a song, and I’ll let that part ring out.”
The flow of a Boxwood song’s construction comes across as strong as it does because Ferrer prefers to follow the resulting music in its hazy swirl of hooks and melodies and not force some strict construct. It seems counter-intuitive for a solo artist who has complete control over his work, but he says he prefers to follow the music almost subconsciously as if he was a one-man jam band. In fact, he would prefer it if all his songs came out blended together. “I’m always thinking that it will be cool if this song went into something else,” he says. “Like the last part of this song can go off, and I’ll see if I can write something to that, like a medley, and then I end up coming up with another song.”
Whereas collaborative musicians in a band jam with each other to create music, Boxwood feeds off inspiration from the looping parts he creates. It’s a process of exploring music that the musician finds liberating for his creative process. “I’ve also tried to play like just whatever and just loop it and then try to fill in the gaps to see what comes out of it, and that’s interesting,” he explains. “When you listen to some songs and then all of a sudden the drums come in not where you’d expect it, and the guitars are doing something that’s cool, so I try to do that not to throw you off but just for myself, and then songs come out of that, and then I change them around.”
Here’s one song he is streaming free on his bandcamp, “Let It.”
But a favorite he won’t give out for free is “Affected,” featuring pummeled drums affected by echo, an incessant buzz of electrified rhythm guitar and a catchy hook that sounds like it was made by an electric slide guitar. In the middle of the song the hook drops and three guitar parts stack up one by one. One is a simple repetitive plucking and the other two are call and response parts with slightly different shimmering effects. Though he speaks a bit low, Ferrer’s singing voice is something else, especially on this number. It’s bold and compliments the range of effects on his instrumentation. He’s not a neat singer, but it comes from a place of potency you will never find while talking to him over dinner. There are whines, growls and slurs that obscure the lyrics, which are sometimes filled with bitterness: “Good morning, here’s another shit storm coming my way, panicking heads, visual shit, audible waste.”
It’s a little scary, but Ferrer is quite an affable fellow in person. He’s also a new dad, having recently had a child with his longtime girlfriend. It’s apt that he plays his music under an abstract moniker because the man is certainly different from the musician.
His exploration of music began at a perfect time: his early teen years. At 14 years old he learned a few chords from a friend and the rest by ear. “I don’t even know the chords I’m playing,” he admits. “I never learned how to play guitar. I just kind of write. I’m not a player.” In fact he adds, “I wouldn’t call myself a painter or a musician or a carpenter. I like to make things.”
He may not call himself any of that, but he studied art at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan, focusing on illustration. So, like any good artist, he contradicts himself a bit. “I did a little bit of everything but mostly oil painting,” he admits.
Like his last release (see images here), he has made the physical version of his new EP a handmade affair. “It’s a wood casing with burlap seams and a random booklet inside taken from school text books,” he explains. “I work with wood at my job all the time. I have access to a shop and liked the idea of having a wooden CD case, with an organic feel and look. Something that was clearly handmade. And also, like the previous EP, no two cd casings are alike. This is probably also the last chance I’ll get to make a CD since they are quickly becoming more and more obsolete.”
Which leads one to think that maybe a vinyl release might be on the horizon. “I would prefer to buy vinyl, if getting music in the physical form,” admits Ferrer, “but Lord knows I can’t afford to press vinyl at the moment. Unique handmade packaging I think makes up for whatever format the music is in.”
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You can read more of my conversation with Boxwood, including more intimate details on how a quiet guy like Ferrer finds such a powerful voice on stage by jumping through the logo of the Broward New Times Music section below. You can also stream another new song off the EP there. The same story that you’ll find after the jump also appears in print in this week’s “Miami New Times” music section:
Boxwood will take the stage in Miami at Will Call this Friday, April 3. Show begins at 10:30 p.m. with special guests Sigh Kicks. There’s no cover charge. Here’s the FB event page. Let us know if you’re going or even if you wish you could go in the comments below.
‘The Master’ harnesses cinema’s power to maximal effect – a film review
September 21, 2012
Before I get into the aesthetic beauty of the Master, including the film’s music, cinematography, editing, mise-en-scène and—most of all— the acting, allow me to present you with a test. Watch these two teaser trailers the film’s director Paul Thomas Anderson put together to build anticipation for the film. The first one, released earlier this year, featured Joaquin Phoenix:
Then there arrived one featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman:
Now, if those two clips excited you about what you will see acting-wise when these two extremely different characters meet in the film, you should love the Master. If you expect anything else, you may be just a tad disappointed.
Though the chatter of buzz surrounding this film has been around Anderson’s take on the birth of Scientology, his preoccupation seems more focused on the two men at the film’s heart. Beyond their dynamic, the cult created by Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd only serves to magnify the intense relationship of these two men. Phoenix’s Freddie Quell is sucked into the world of “The Cause” only by the interest Lancaster shows in Freddie. Freddie, a rapscallion before he meets Lancaster, easily falls in line with calling him Master, as the followers of the Cause do. Anderson stays so in tuned with Freddie and the Master that the film becomes more about the cult of personality than the cult of any pseudo religion.
The film first sets up the rootless Freddie as a sailor in the Pacific during World War II who seems to have missed most of the fighting. 
He and his mates kill time jerking off on the shoreline and making sand sculptures of female figures in the wet sand. As a radio transmission announces VJ Day and the end of combat, Freddie crawls around artillery shells in his ship’s armory, making a drink from whatever chemicals he can find: an alcoholic beyond alcohol.
After the war, he receives a psychological exam via a Rorschach test where all he sees is “pussy” and “cock.” After his discharge, he floats from one job to another. They both end in violent confrontations. Freddie is one lost, primal soul. Phoenix plays him brilliantly, speaking out of only the left side of his mouth. Even his left eye stays wider open than his right. He laughs whenever someone asks him to share what he thinks or feels. He walks hunched over and stands crooked with one arm twisted backward, the heel of his hand resting on his hip. He looks like a 70-year-old man with osteoporosis.
After being chased off a farm at his last job, Freddie stows on to a cruise ship departing a harbor. He springs over the railing just as the vessel pulls away with a zest unseen until that moment. Again at sea, Freddie seems to have rediscovered his verve. This is where he meets the Master.
There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson’s previous film, featured no dialogue for the first half-hour. In the Master, a similar thing occurs, as Freddie never seems to connect with anyone in a true give and take conversation until he meets Lancaster. During their first conversation, it is revealed they had met on board sometime off-screen on the night the ship had set sail. However, Freddie seems to have been too drunk to remember. “I don’t have any problems,” Freddie says and squeezes out a laugh/sigh. “I don’t know what I told you.”
“You’re aberrated,” the Master tells him, and Freddie laughs again with his crooked uncomfortable smile. 
This marks the first dynamic conversation on-screen— a true exchange— and the start of bonding between these two men. These two may have not only met earlier but may have met in another life. It will soon turn out past lives are a part of Dodd’s doctrine.
But Lancaster is not the only one with power here. Just as the Master has created his own culture, history and rules of living, Freddie too is an inventor. He has brewed up a drink of household chemicals that can possibly kill. “You have to know how to drink it,” he tells the Master. Lancaster is charmed and fascinated by this concoction. The only reason he seems to allow Freddie aboard the chartered cruise ship wedding of his daughter seems to be for the stowaway’s ability to concoct this cocktail. But Freddie also offers honesty unparalleled by any of the followers of the Master’s Cause. While everyone else, including Lancaster’s wife (Amy Adams playing cold and distant), 
seem like sycophants who follow the Master in order to be like him, Freddie offers something better. He is Lancaster’s best friend, and I mean best friend with the devotion of a dog. Freddie enjoys the teachings for what they are: games to play for the Master’s love.
One of the more intense moments of the film occurs early in Freddie and Lancaster’s relationship, on board the ship, when Lancaster offers Freddie “processing” (a reference to Scientology). This indoctrination involves a ritual in the form on an interview that is recorded. The Master asks Freddie a series of yes or no questions about his personality. When the Master asks Freddie whether he is unpredictable, Freddie responds with a fart. “Silly animal,” the Master tells him.
When Lancaster declares Freddie has finished his first round of processing, Freddie asks for more like an eager child. The Master agrees, but only if Freddie promises not to blink during the next series of questions. If he does blink, he will have to start over from the first question. During this second level of processing, the questions and answers prove stomach-churning, probing even deeper into Freddie’s personal life (“Have you ever had sex with a member of your family?”). 
Not only does Freddie not blink, but he sheds tears from holding his eyes open. For what some will consider trauma, to Freddie it’s about complying to the rules of a game. The fact that he “cries” as part of the game and not the trauma, heightens the character. It’s a powerful moment for Phoenix. I have only seen that done once before: in one of Andy Warhol’s screen tests when Ann Buchanan, a Bohemian follower of the art scene that thrived among the Beat generation, resists blinking for the entire 4-and-a-half-minutes of the reel of 16mm film that comprised these series of “screen tests.” It offers an interesting dichotomy with response to a true-life figure with the cult of personality.
Freddie’s primal mannerisms are further highlighted later in the film when he sits in the corner of a home where Lancaster has paid a visit in order to share his teachings. As the room erupts in song, Freddie sits there like a resting beast… staring. If one thinks Freddie has seriously bought into the Master’s preaching, watch as all the women suddenly appear naked as the singing and dancing continues. They do not react to their own nudity, as this clearly represents what Freddie is “seeing.”
When police take Lancaster away from the home in handcuffs on a warrant for malpractice, the Master yells about the preposterous idea that police of this city would dare think they have jurisdiction over his body (his belief is that his soul has lived trillions of years, after all). Freddie lashes out to defend the Master, and the police need four to five men to hold him down and cuff him. Meanwhile, the Master yells, “Freddie, stop!”
The paradox of these two men is further on display when they are thrown into two neighboring jail cells. Freddie continues his rampage at the cell’s furnishings while the Master leans against one cot with one arm. “Your fear of capture and imprisonment is an implant from millions of years ago,” he yells at Freddie, “implanted with a push-pull mechanism.”
There is no belief system going on with a devout follower. This is a scary representation of programmed fundamentalism, one of the scariest aspects of our society. There are Christian movements whose members will murder abortion doctors to save theoretical lives, as there are Muslims who blow themselves up for their own cause. But these are news stories, things on paper or things that pass in 20-second soundbites. What more powerful way to shake up the film-going, escapism-searching audience than through two intense character sketches on the big screen?
The director achieves this masterfully, if you will pardon the pun. Not only is The Master about a love affair between these two but a third man: the director himself. Everything he does in the film serves to magnify these two great actors’ performances. He did the same for Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights, Tom Cruise in Magnolia (1999), Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love (2002) and Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. All of those films and performances served to enhance their careers as actors.
The dialogue in the Master (Anderson also wrote the original script) is never more efficient than in that “processing” session described earlier. Phoenix does much when he spits out one-word answers to the Master’s terse, biting questions. The film may sound long at two hours and 15 minutes, but I can appreciate a film that earns a long runtime, and the Master does this, even if it is only about the dynamic of two men in a relationship. The film has a hypnotic quality. The camera is allowed to linger in order to activate the viewer’s own imagination and knowledge of history of the times, as the film is filled with subtle postwar trauma. 
Anderson does wonders not only in these moments that linger, recalling Kubrick and Malick, but he does something miraculous and rare with placement of a camera and the scenery it captures. He catches almost tactile moments of the time. The viewer will notice transporting details when the camera pans over part of a car, allowing a moment for the viewer to notice the gap between the door and the quarter panel, the dust on the paint, the sheen on the glass, the design of the side-view mirror. Early in the film, as sailors back from the war climb a circular staircase, the grime in the corner of the stairwell and the echo of footsteps says more about the era than the uniforms alone. It’s a refined moment of attention to detail unparalleled in any earlier film by Anderson. He has attained another level of mastery of mise-en-scène.
Clearly tempting the director and his cinematographer, Mihai Malaimare Jr., in some indulgence in imagery is the fact they shot on 65mm film stock. This makes the film perfect for the big screen, especially if you can find a theater screening the movie in 70mm. However, as an intimate drama, it sounds counter-intuitive to have bothered with such film for such a presentation. It is not. These are some large personalities that inform the film, and what better testament to such grandiose figures than large format film. Their occasional juxtaposition to the open sea and vast desert landscapes translate to not only breathtaking imagery but as a metaphor for these people who indeed believe they have souls older than the earth.
Another grand element of the film is its score by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, who also worked with Anderson on There Will Be Blood. The clunk in the music’s soundtrack that introduces Freddie and his fellow seaman is the same sound of Freddie squeezing the lost drops of his drink from a flask later in the film. From the creepy clarinet that provides the score to Freddie’s “mixology” in the photo lab at the store where he is first seen working to the sweeping strings that augment the open sea, Anderson does not waste a single note of the score. Meanwhile, Greenwood seems to channel Ligeti in the mix of beauty and cacophony of the ever-shifting music.
The director also uses popular music of the era with enthralling results. Just as Anderson used Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” to ominous effect in Boogie Nights (1997), he re-contextualizes Ella Fitzgerald singing “Get Thee Behind Me Satan,” early in the Master. Though it does not feel nearly as stressful as the botched drug deal in Boogie Nights, the song is just as effectively utilized, as the placement of the lyrics and images are not left to haphazard atmospherics. Anderson’s framing flows as musically as Fitzgerald’s patient, silky voice. Edits are placed at the right moments as the camera glides along, always watching Freddie, as he flirts with a female co-worker.
But the real love affair is that between Freddie and the Master, and it is an epic thing to watch unfold. Like any fiery love affair, it does burn itself out by film’s end. When it does, Anderson presents a pair of enlightening moments that seem to reveal an unseen depth to Freddie, best served for the audience to discover. The Master will beguile those starved for a powerful character drama, and, once again, Anderson does not let down, as he continues to grow into one of the handful of great original directors who can maintain a vision and pull it off within the high-profile world of the Hollywood system.
One more trailer:
The Master is Rated R and runs 137 min. It opens in wide release today. If you want to know where to catch the Master in 70mm, jump over to this great Paul Thomas Anderson fan site. Annapurna Pictures hosted a preview screening for the purpose of this review.
New season of ‘Austin City Limits’ to feature Radiohead, Bon Iver
September 1, 2012
This year, amazing live shows for this writer in South Florida have been sporadic at best (discounting the almost holy experience of watching a band re-create Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway live with near time machine precision). But a pair of stand outs included a couple of sublime affairs by today’s most reputable independent artists: Radiohead and Bon Iver. As it turns out “Austin City Limits” will kick off its 38th season on PBS with these two bands, beginning Oct. 6. See the full announcement by jumping through the logo below:
These two bands will certainly offer for great, interesting television as far as live bands go. Their music is both complex and subtle, and the amount of musicians to reproduce their tunes live should offer for an exciting sight as well as sound.
I have already written breathlessly enough about Radiohead live on this blog. The first time I saw them live was as opening act to Belly in the early 90s, and the memory has stayed firm. There is also, of course, my rushed and messy but passionate Radiohead live review from earlier this year, which I have allowed to stand as testament to the horrors of the rush to get news out to the Internet, as much as I would like to revise and re-write it. This one of the best songs I caught live, “Separator,” off the new album:
Radiohead kicked off the US leg of its world-wide tour in Miami supporting the King of Limbs, it’s highly undervalued new album (It’s too short, it’s too mellow, protested many). The band cherry-picked some choice songs from its catalog for a mood befitting the delicate beauty of their new album. They played the best show I ever saw in the monstrosity of the AmericanAirlines Arena that night (see above, entrancing 6-minute song). The post went viral (by this blog’s standards) due to the fact that I was one of the first few who recorded the new song “Identikit” live and “Rolling Stone” featured the video on its website. Here’s that video featuring that song, which is sure to have evolved in its form since its debut live:
More recently I caught Bon Iver at the lovely, intimate Fillmore Miami Beach/Jackie Gleason Theater. I never wrote a review here, as the next morning saw me rushing out of the city to catch an early flight. I regret that.
By the time they arrived in Miami Beach, Bon Iver was long and deep into its tour for its brilliant 2011 self-titled album. There live shows had become old news on the Internet, as had its album. However, they still enthralled this mostly virginal Bon Iver-live crowd (It was the first time the band visited the area). Man, could this band perform. Though the music is subtle and mostly tranquil, it also has a majesty and grandiosity unmatched by many other bands. It takes nine guys on stage to re-create the music with justice to the studio recordings, and each one of these musicians are always doing something interesting to watch. Throw in an ingenious screen that looks like a giant cobweb hanging off the ceiling and project some images as a kaleidoscope of lights shift and shimmer over the stage, and the show becomes quite a dynamic experience.
I only bothered to record one video (my first in HD!) that night because I was too mesmerized by the rest of the show. It was the last song of the night, “For Emma:”
But click on over to the “Austin City Limits” website. They have already put up two videos featuring two songs from the Radiohead set that are not hard to find.
Radiohead kick off US tour in Miami: a live review
February 28, 2012
Radiohead kicked off its US tour in support of its latest album, the King of Limbs, Monday night with a sold out show at the AmericanAirlines Arena. It marked the first time the alt-rock legends performed a show in Miami since they opened for REM in support of the Bends in the mid-nineties. Much has changed in those 20 years since Radiohead’s sophomore release. Fans of REM have faded, as that band has broken up while Radiohead has now (as of this post, at least) eclipsed REM as far as relevance in the independent rock world.
Radiohead are probably a rarity among independent music scene, in order to sell out an arena all by itself without the help of endorsements, heavy commercial radio play and a major label. Add to that the notion that the band has re-invented its sound so many times since its last Miami arena show as an opening act (kids, I’ve been there from the beginning, as this post documents: Radiohead tribute show in Miami, allow me a few words on said band), while still maintaining its line-up all these years (though this show saw the addition of a sixth member), they rendered any music from the Bends, not to mention, its predecessor Pablo Honey, the album that spawned “Creep,” irrelevant. In fact, Monday night saw no selections of those albums in Radiohead’s set list. A couple of dips into OK Computer sounded like nostalgia, in fact, and set a new tone to the show during the first encore. Really, like its new album, Radiohead felt mellowed out. But below burbled a surface of subtle complexity: a moody but mellow show, punctuated by lyrics of grumbling ambivalence to man’s place in existence. It’s almost a fluke miracle that this band has achieved a popular following so strong that it can sell out an arena on the strength of its name alone.
From my view, way far off in the lower level stands, people mostly sat or stood. Some ate nachos and pretzels and drank beer. The King of Limbs could indeed be the group’s most low-key album to date, and I think it’s a grand, if short work. The quieter and slower the record sounded, the better. A highlight moment has to be the coupling of “Codex” and “Giving Up the Ghost.” The latter being the stronger of the two. Its pastoral gorgeousness threw me back to Pink Floyd, in the use of acoustic guitar and tweeting birds. It’s probably the album’s slowest song, at that, but, man, when Radiohead ratchets down the mood, they know how to do it.
Though I posted about what was then the surprise announcement of the new album (Radiohead’s new full-length out this Saturday), I never offered later opinions on it. For the record, my views on the King of Limbs has wavered over these months. I have spun the biodegradablely packaged “newspaper” 10–inch vinyl edition only once. I was quite annoyed by the interruption of the track flow between “Codex” and “Giving Up the Ghost,” and feel so strong about it, I might just get the 12-inch version for home listening. In the end, King lacks the dynamism of In Rainbows, but it still has the intelligent and distinctive songcraft one might expect from Radiohead, and they play mellow so well, even if the beats get hyper.
So how did the album translate live? Radiohead even performed every song from the album except “Little By Little,” probably the weakest and most annoying track on the album, anyhow. I will jump ahead to their keen live version of the album’s closer, “Separator,” which closed the band’s first set:
By now you will have noticed the visual side of this show. Like the In Rainbows Tour (the only Radiohead show I have caught since I saw them open up for Belly in support of Pablo Honey in Miami Beach) video screens were a key element. That show happened two counties to the north, in West Palm Beach, at the Cruzan Amphitheater. But the drive was certainly worth it. That show featured a light show that trumped the venue’s jumbotrons, which were shut off for the duration of the performance. The set came alive with varying close-up images of the band members, as they performed, which pulsed in an array of colors. I made my own videos, way off from the front of the lawn, and it still looked cool. Here’s one of those, which though cut, highlights their use of screens during that tour, four years earlier:
This one is a particular favorite due to the fact that even a plane flying overhead did not do anything to break the mood:
More videos I recorded that night can be found on YouTube that show it was one of the few performances that still paid off from a distance. The show last night also worked thanks to the screen use. During last night’s show, as many as 12 different angles of the band members shifted and floated into an array of positions on the square screens, flashing in various color templates for each song. It made for a dynamic experience and helped highlight the subtleties between the songs. The only time all the screens folded away came during the presentation of one of two new songs, “Cut a Hole,” hinting at its work-in-progress state. Radiohead fans in the presence of its debut in a live setting may have wet themselves, but I found the track rather uneventful. I would have to hear it a few more times to pass solid judgement, and, who knows the band might change it up. Luckily, someone standing up front recorded it for yourselves to judge:
I did happen to record the other new song of the night, “Identikit,” which had a nice building, dynamic quality:
The screens on stage did not always focus on the band. Besides abstract images, frontman Thom Yorke’s face filled them up during “You and Whose Army?”
But the highlight is indeed the music, which proves to be something beyond pop music and trendy hipster rock. Radiohead is among a very few group of bands that still holds my attention, since I first heard them in the early nineties. There is a classic quality to its music that harkens to British rock’s early forays in redefining pop music with experimentation popularized by the likes of the Beatles and carried on by King Crimson and David Bowie. The seriousness of the musicians’ awareness of this was on full display in Miami last night, and it only left me looking forward to more. Here are the other videos I captured that night:
I was surprised to see a sell out show at the AAA in Miami because of the largely low-key experience that is King of Limbs, which did not receive close to as much critical praise and hype as In Rainbows. If the focus on the new album, minus “Little By Little,” did not establish a tone for this show, I do not know what did.
This was a show for diehard Radiohead fans. 
There was even the inclusion of OK Computer B-side “Meeting in the Aisle,” a mellow, mood-setting instrumental that fit cozily among the King of Limbs tracks. Though I was surrounded by what indeed seemed locals, I had noticed many commenting on Radiohead boards before the show that they were coming from out of town for this show, seeing as it was the kick-off to the band’s US tour in support of the King of Limbs. The coverage was swift and even saw YouTube videos and set list recordings as the show unfolded at the fansite At Ease. Though my wife (she’s the photographer here) and I kept track of the songs during the show, here is the set list courtesy of At Ease, which I verified based on my notes for accuracy. This is correct:
01. Bloom
02. The Daily Mail
03. Morning Mr. Magpie
04. Staircase
05. The National Anthem
06. Meeting In The Aisle
07. Kid A
08. The Gloaming
09. Codex
10. You And Whose Army?
11. Nude
12. Identikit
13. Lotus Flower
14. There There
15. Feral
16. Idioteque
17. Separator
———
18. Airbag
19. Bodysnatchers
20. Cut A Hole (new song debut)
21. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
———
22. Give Up The Ghost (with a false start)
23. Reckoner
24. Karma Police
My only complaint would be the cavernous sound of the arena, adding an echo that felt annoying. Play any video I captured in 2008 at the open-air Cruzan and compare it to these to hear for yourself.
The show went on for nearly two hours, following the enchanting support act Other Lives, from Oklahoma. Be sure to arrive on time in order to not miss this chamber rock ensemble, who employ effective use of glockenspiel, cello and violin as well as more traditional rock instruments like guitars and piano. It all swells and rides along nicely and seems to fit in well with today’s folk/psyche/dream-pop indie rock scene. Here are two videos I recorded from their brief, shamefully ignored set (apologies for the chatter around these recordings):
Other Lives found another good fit as the warm up act to Bon Iver prior to taking on the task as opener for Radiohead. They were excellent and the complexity of the band set up did justice to the recordings. The band has offered both of the songs I captured above as free live streams on the band’s website.
You can see the remaining Radiohead tour dates here.
I just received an email from the distributors of the new Radiohead album, the King of Limbs, with the official release date of the physical format of the album— in stores (no, you cannot order these other formats direct from the site where you can pre-order the digital format or “newspaper album”). During the haste of announcing the availability of the digital format and the artsy newspaper album, there was no mention of when the album would be available on old fashioned CD and older fashioned 12-inch record at shops (on-line or brick and mortar). It seems the answer is March 28, a Monday, meaning a UK release date. Those in the US should therefore expect the CD and LP on Tuesday, March 29. So, in a little less than a month after the digital release, the physical format will follow at your favorite indie record shop or nearest Best Buy. Here’s the specific line from the email from Sandbag UK:
“For the next few weeks, The King Of Limbs will be exclusively available from our website,
but from March 28th it will be on general release on CD, 12″ vinyl and digital download in all good record stores.”
So it seems the double 10-inch format for the newspaper album is a design thing, as the album does fit on one 12-inch record, a concern expressed in an earlier post. Hopefully the spreading out of tracks does improve the album’s sound quality. 
Although, if they really wanted to give it higher quality vinyl sound, they would have manufactured it on two 45 rpm 12-inch records, as In Rainbows‘ limited edition featured. Still, it should not make that much difference, seeing as Radiohead is not necessarily about analog instrumentation and have been known to make music with lots of digital affectations. But who knows, maybe we will be in for another surprise…
Independent Ethos 