New Cinema cofounder (and Hollywood screenwriter) Becky Johnston recently described her little-seen featurette Sleepless Nights as “an East Village reinvention of the Otto Preminger movie Laura” that plays “fast and loose with the noir detective genre.” The film was screened at MoMA along with a short discussion between Johnston and Maripol on the making of the film and it's lasting cultural almost 40 years later. photographs by Annabel Graham
Of all the great unions of underground music, rock and otherwise; Bowie and Eno, Nick Cave and Blixa Bargeld, Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin, John Cale and Terry Riley, Sonny Sharrock and Peter Brotzzman, and so on; the union between No Wave icon, transgressive artist, and spoken word warrior Lydia Lunch and free jazz, noise, and no wave musician Weasel Walter is perhaps the most harmonious and unquestionably the unholiest. When considering their respective biographies, both full of moments of sticking the middle finger in the faces of conventional standards of taste and decency, it’s difficult to believe that these revolutionaries didn’t find each other sooner. Click here to read more.
The video for Soft Ethnic's "Prints," which exclusively debuts on Autre, relies on a simple set and a variety of characters played by Liam Benzvi to visually represent the construction and variation found throughout the song. Influenced by Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis group, the set pieces were designed and colored to add a playful backdrop and lightness to the scene. This, along with the relative sparseness and consistency of the editing creates a strong visual language that lends itself well to Liam Benzvi's melodic musings. Music video co-directed by Alex Rapine and Jarod Taber. Set design by Marki Becker. Click here to read an interview with Liam Benzvi.
Legendary No Wave musician (Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Queen of Siam), writer, spoken word artist, and actress Lydia Lunch makes her return to New York with a new photographic exhibition and installation called "So Real It Hurts" on view for on more week at Howl! Happening in New York. This Friday, to close the exhibition, she will be performing her spoken word piece "Conspiracy on Women." The piece will be also be reissued on Other People.
