The contemporary scene is pretty well flush with top-flight instrumentalists, but few are as distinctively talented as Pew Fellowship in the Arts recipient Mary Lattimore. Once primarily known for a succession of guest spots, over the last two years the harpist’s own work his stepped authoritatively to the fore, both solo and in partnership with fellow Philadelphian Jeff Zeigler. Having debuted in 2014, the duo returns with Music Inspired by Philippe Garrel’s Le Révélateur; providing the soundtrack to an early film by one of French cinema’s best kept secrets, the music stands tall on its own, and it’s out now on LP and digital via Thrill Jockey.
Noted for his work with Kurt Vile, Chris Forsyth, Purling Hiss, and The War on Drugs, Jeff Zeigler was also the recorder and mixer of Mary Lattimore’s solo debut; initially issued as an untitled cassette in 2012, it emerged as the limited edition LP The Withdrawing Room the following year. From there the most economical narrative leads straight to the duo’s Slant of Light, but before that they had traveled to Texas for the purpose of premiering their score to Philippe Garrel’s 1968 film Le Révélateur at the Ballroom Marfa’s annual silent film program.
The creation of new or alternate soundtracks for silent movies is far from a novel impulse. At its worst the endeavor is little more than shallow attempts at rescuing pre-talkie cinema from the clutches of the Wurlitzer organ, but Lattimore and Zeigler’s choice is uncommonly astute and far from high-profile. Intentionally filmed without sound as it falls between short and feature-length at 62 minutes, Le Révélateur embodies the norms of silent filmmaking while being a thoroughly underground manifestation of its period.
Reportedly intended to be projected at the silent-era standard of 18 frames per second (rather than the post-sound frame rate of 24), the tendency for hommage is considerably tempered by the movie’s experimental nature and its direct ties to the upheaval of May ’68 as part of a group of filmmakers who collaborated under the name Zanzibar.
Anybody passionate over French art cinema will eventually encounter his name, but Garrel is probably best known to heavy-duty music heads through his 10-year relationship with Nico as she starred in three of his ’70s films. Garrel’s early output isn’t particularly easy to see, but Le Révélateur is available from RE:VOIR (on what the company lists as a DVD 5 in the Pal Interzone format); clips of the movie available online corroborate experimentation well-suited to the progressive approach of Lattimore and Zeigler.
While this is their second album as a duo, Lattimore has been increasingly busy of late; her album At the Dam came out in May of this year as part of Ghostly International’s SMM series, which in the words of the label “encompasses enigmatic ambient and experimental music with an emphasis on textural and melodic expanses.”
Recorded while on tour mostly in Joshua Tree, CA with a bit of additional material captured in the mountains of Altadena east of Los Angeles and at a friend’s home in Marta, At the Dam fits Ghostly International’s aims for SMM as Lattimore’s prior solo effort Luciferin Light, issued on cassette in 2015 by Kit Records (sold out, but still available digitally), strengthens the harpist’s interest in the moving image; that release’s “Princess Nicotine (1909)” directly references J. Stuart Blackton’s five minute extravaganza of early special effects “Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy.”
It doesn’t soundtrack the film however, and technically neither does the LP of Music Inspired by Philippe Garrel’s Le Révélateur; at 62 minutes, a full performance of the score, produced for release at Zeigler’s studio Uniform Recording, exceeds the capacity of a single vinyl album, though the record does come with a single track download of the extended version.
The truncated set retains its character as a film score without any perceivable hitches, in large part through a recurring theme, herein established in the second title in the sequence “A Tunnel.” Featuring a pretty yet substantial harp melody enhanced by Zeigler’s melodica and synth, the theme returns in “A Road” and in a slight variation during penultimate section “The Revealer, Alone.”
This is a deeply-ensconced maneuver in the accompaniment of silent images, and the use of it here underlines Lattimore and Zeigler’s initiation of the project carrying an appropriate level of seriousness. Quickly apparent in opening passage “The Glimmering Light” is an avoidance of the conservative, which would’ve been highly questionable applied to this specific auteur, but instead of diving willy-nilly a la headstrong amateurs into a maelstrom of undisciplined clatter, they use form and abstraction to their advantage.
The connection between sound and visuals is perceptible even without firsthand knowledge of how Garrel’s film unspools; rather than a void of content, the pair fill it up by traversing engaging sonic avenues. “Family Portrait” glistens with some of the non-detrimental New Ageist energy familiar from Slant of Light as Zeigler gets a moment to shine on melodica (alongside the aforementioned synth he also brings guitar to the table), while “Hidden in a Cabinet” sees the forcefulness of Lattimore’s plucking increase while she sustains the tuneful.
Providing welcome contrast are the darker, more aggressively alien segments; as it plunges into avant-sci-fi, the brief “A Forest” inspires thoughts of Eduard Artemiev’s soundtracks for Andrei Tarkovsky, and “Running Chased” extends the scenario, but with an element of momentum undeniably deepened by the title. A brief plot synopsis of Le Révélateur adds to this circumstance; succinctly described as depicting the journey of a boy away from his problematic home life into a post-apocalyptic landscape, it can be safely assumed the gorgeous “Laurent and Bernadette” represents the child’s parents.
“Stanislas” is loaded with vivid cascades of Lattimore’s axe mingling with spurts and hovering clouds of synth, while “The Revealer, Alone” combines harp and melodica with an electronic pulse reminiscent of an ocean tide; a technological flurry evocative of a sea-gull at the beginning of album closer “The Sparkling Sea” reinforces the association. Like myriad prior soundtracks this one condenses the music into a more powerful listening experience in the absence of moving images.
Obviously some avant-garde purists will be unpersuaded to partake in Lattimore and Zeigler’s achievement, preferring the truly silent route, but it’s surely worth noting that Garrel, who’s still very much with us (his latest In the Shadow of Women opened in the US early this year), has approved of Le Révélateur’s screening at every subsequent performance of the score; filmmakers can be an understandably prickly bunch regarding their work’s presentation, so his response is quite significant.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
