Valerie Project released last year, and although breaking no new
ground, definately has it all: lysergic guitars, 60s feeling, cinematic
approach (of course), tension, psychedelia and enough dark folk to
satisfy even the most hungry of us.I will not tell you much aboutJaromil Jires' "Valerie and Her Week of
Wonders" movie and Czech New Wave, because you can find a
lot in the web, if you're interested. It was released in 1970 and it's
a dreamy-surreal-gothic story about a girl named Valerie, who lives
with her grandmother in a central European village, in 19th (?)
century. There are vampires, rotten priests, teenagers in love, the
battle of good and evil and very obvious references to the classic
horror/gothic films. Having
watched A LOT of movies from Eastern Europe countries - especially
Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (those names seem so old now)- I
can tell you that cinema in those countries was much more adventurous
than you could imagine. I'll just drop the names of the mighty Ducan
MakavejevSzabo, and just mention that 'Closely Watched
Trains' (the title of Glorious Din LP from 1985) was in fact the title
of a famous czech movie by Jiri Menzel from 1967. Anyway,
Valerie is a rather unusual film, because it plays with reality and
dream and, essentialy, tries to show a dreamlike story.Jaroslava
Schallerova, the 14-year old girl who plays the role of
Valerie is just perfect, the filming is superb (and talented Istvan Jires was
already an experienced director) and it's a must-see movie, if you're
looking for something different.
I listened to theLubos
Fiser'soriginal score for the movie "Valerie and Her Week
of Wonders" after the Valerie Project. It sounded strangely familiar
and the reason is that it reminds me a lot of Manos
Chatzidakis' score for Makaveyev's "Sweet Movie" of about
the same era. It was proffessionaly written and performed by a
symphonic orchestra. Fiser was not a soundtrack composer, although he has an impressive filmography
-especially in the 60s and the 70s- his work varies from compositions
for classical orchestra, concertos, operas, chamber music etc. As for
this soundtrack, I must say that sounds to me more renaissance
inspired, than gothic or psychedelic or anything that would ring a bell
to a rock listener. It's based on a central theme with several
variations, as 99% of movie scores are (excluding music films) and it's
certainly tied with the image, because it was written by someone who
knew what he wanted and how to create it - i.e a professional composer.
In addition to these, it's not at all academic but has beautiful, fresh
melodies, romantic and innocent and I think that was the combined
result of the image and music that attracted the musicians involved
with Valerie's Project, 26 years later.
But now
it's time to ramble about Valerie Project.
Valerie Project includes Greg Weeks, Brooke
Sietinsons and Helena Espvall (of Espers),
Mary
Lattimore, Tara Burke (Fursaxa), Jesse
Sparhawk (Timesbold), Jessica Weeks (Woodwose,
Grass), Charles Cohen, Margie Wienk and Jim
Ayre (Fern Knight), and, as they say in VP site, this is
just the first part of the consept "of recontextualising the filmic
meaning and impact of a particular work through the substitution of a
newly composed soundtrack". They started performing this music at the
end of 2006 and this record released in 2007 (you can listen a few
songs from a 2006 performance here,
although I prefer the darker sound of the record).
There are two sides in Valerie Project: the 'electric side' which is
heavily fuzzed acid guitar sounds, slowly climbing up and up,
White-Rabbit-rhythms that makes you expecting for Grace Slick to appear
in the middle of the haunting arrangement of distorted guitars, cello,
harp and synthesizers and the 'Ethereal/folk' side, which is more close
to the original soundtrack and the guitars are held back, to show a
more conventional folk/70s-pop-psyche approach (although the use of
cello and the voice of Fursaxa makes it sound strange enough).
Valerie's Project is a commend on a movie and its
soundrack. This last phrase may be not entirely true though, because
Valerie's Project musicians wanted it to 'replace' the original
soundrtack, but you can't deny that if an artist is working on both the
OST and the movie scenes, has a totally new perspective than the
original composer's. That's why I'm thinking of Valerie's Project more
as a comment and less as a soundrtack, or to put it better more as
music about a movie. Gregg Weeks and his team were
losely based on Fiser's music when they create their music on the films
scenes. They used some of his ideas and his melodies and they
introduced their views and the "different time and distance" element.
You understand immediately that this music was not made in the 70s or
in the 80s, although it's surely emerges from this era, and that was
not made in continental Europe.
The Valerie Project team are musicians
with very strong personalities to keep them hidden. In many reviews
Greg Weeks appears as the head of the project, although -as a big
Fursaxa fan- I'll tell you that I can easily spot many of her
trademarks here.
The movie length is 1:13 and that's excactly the running time of the
CD. There are 30 tracks, perfectly timed, so if you start the movie and
the music simultaneously, each scene will have the appropriate
soundtrack. But in Valerie Project's
site you can read that "The new soundtrack is meant to be
performed live to a sound film, with the original soundtrack turned off
or the original music removed". Well, this is absolutely
true. I didn't had the chance to see a live show of the Valerie
Project, but I did saw the movie with its sound turned off, while
listening to the new soundtrack. I realised that Valerie Project was
not created to replace the original soundtrack. If you watch the film
as I did, you'll see that the music 'covers' the image and makes the
movie just a background for it. It's too loud for a soundtrack, it's
continuous (that means that although it's perfectly timed, it plays
over the actors voices) and it's not so flexible as a soundtrack : the
themes have the form of a song rather, than a composition, and this
shows clearly when it replaces the original soundrack. Valerie Project
was created not to back up the image, as soundtracks do, but to be
listened to while the film is playing in the background. The movie is
used to back up the music and not the opposite.
So, go and see the Valerie Project live and tell me: if I'm right, it
would be a tremendous experience, as the music itself is among the very
best of last year and the movie has several very strong scenes and is
full of tension and beauty. If you can't see them, get the CD, take a
good look at the pictures of this post (or find some clips in youtube),
close your eyes while listening and I'm sure you can make your own
dream of Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.
Just a little teaser
You
can find the movie in dvd,
the Lubos Fiser
soundtrack (released in 2006) and of course the Valerie Project
CD.
Category: Music | Added by: RainyDaySponge (02 May 2008)
| Author: Rainy Day Sponge